Post/Author/DateTime	Post
allyourlocks 03-06-07, 04:38 PM	I'm thinking of rolling up a Spellsword for Greyhawk Ruins, but I'm not sure what the common builds are for the prestige class. I'm looking to be a fighter-that-also-can-cast-spells moreso than my group's main arcanist. It seems like the best way to go about this would be Ftr 2/Wiz 4/Spellsword or Pal 2/Sorc 4/Spellsword, and it seems like they each have their merit. What I don't know is the details - spells to take aside from obvious things like Bladeweave and Critical Strike, armor to wear, important feats, etc - any advice you could give me would be great :)
jstorrie 03-06-07, 04:56 PM	You've got a couple of decisions to make - first being your casting class. Sorceror, Wizard, Diviner, or Beguiler? All have their ups and downs - Sorcerors take longer to develop but are good Arcane Strikers, Beguilers have quick progression and no armor difficulties but a smaller spell list, Wizards have general power but Diviners get more Critical Strikes when you need them. Do you want full Spellsword or Spellsword1/Eldritch Knight? Channel Spell is nice, but Eldritch Knights will get one to three more caster levels depending on how you build and Smiting Spell effectively replaces Channel Spell in most cases. I might consider, for example: Human 1 Rogue: Dodge, Mobility 2 Beguiler 3 Beguiler: Deadly Defense 4 Fighter: Combat Expertise 5 Rogue: Evasion 6 Unseen Seer: Smiting Spell 7 Unseen Seer: Advanced Learning: Critical Strike 8 Beguiler: Advanced Learning: Bladeweave 9 Spellsword: Retributive Spell 10 Spellsword: Elusive Target 11 Spellsword 12 Eldritch Knight: Improved Toughness, Arcane Strike 13 Eldritch Knight 14 Eldritch Knight 15 Eldritch Knight (feat) You can wear light armor with no trouble here even before Spellsword kicks in, which may help you stay alive. Doubling up on Advanced Learnings helps you overcome the Beguiler spell list problems, you deal acceptable damage when you flank and cork, you can trapfind and you have the spell slots to effectively Arcane Strike.
Mommy was an Orc 03-06-07, 04:58 PM	Another one to consider is: Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Spellsword 1/Eldritch Knight 7 and take Still Spell as your Wizard bonus feat. At 11th level(as an example), you're casting 5th level spells, 4th if you use Still Spell on 'em. A Fighter 2/Wizard 4/Spellsword 5 is casting 4th level spells. Except you have no ASF in Fullplate and he does...
jstorrie 03-06-07, 05:03 PM	597 has opened up quite a few interesting options for gishes, so browse through the threads here and you'll find quite a few builds that people are tweaking with. The classic Pal2/Sor4/etc. Spellsword is still competitive, but it's not the only way to fry this egg. For example, Beguilers can Retributive Spell Blinding Colour Surge (from PHBII), so that if something hits them, they turn invisible and blind it. Most other casters can also Retributive Vampiric Touch for pseudo-DR. Smiting Spell practically obsoletes Channel Spell. Complete Scoundrel has a feat where any 4d6-Sneak Attackers can drop 3d6 Sneak Attack to reduce a creature's spell resistance. In general, though, the classic gish advice goes: stay out of combat in the early game, get a good mix of disabling and buffing spells, and always keep in mind that you're slightly fragile.
allyourlocks 03-06-07, 06:09 PM	I'm thinking that instead of Diviner I'll try Illusionist - more castings of Bladeweave / Displacement / Mirror Image / Blinding CS / Invis seems very worthwhile to me. My main's already a paladin, so Fighter seems like a refreshing break form Lawful Good moral dilemmas. :) I really dig the Still Spell idea, it makes perfect sense to me. Provided I wanted to go the Fighter/Wizard/Spellsword/EK route, do you guys recommend starting off as Fighter or Wizard (or alternating between the two?) Also, what is the value of Smiting Spell over just dumping the spell for Arcane Strike?
Mommy was an Orc 03-06-07, 07:30 PM	I really dig the Still Spell idea, it makes perfect sense to me. Provided I wanted to go the Fighter/Wizard/Spellsword/EK route, do you guys recommend starting off as Fighter or Wizard (or alternating between the two?) Also, what is the value of Smiting Spell over just dumping the spell for Arcane Strike? You start off as Fighter 1, then you take Wizard 1-6, then Spellsword 1, then EK 1-7. +12 BAB, 13th level caster. The important thing about this route is that you're trying as much as possible to maintain near full caster.
Reylance 03-06-07, 07:54 PM	I love spellswords, and there are several standard builds level-wise. Ftr1/Wiz6/Spe1/EldX has maximum spellcasting. Ftr2/Wiz4/Spe1/EldX has maximum BAB and almost maximum spellcasting. Ftr2/Wiz6/Spe7/EldX allows for casting in mithral full plate at the cost of spellcasting and allows channelling spells. The paladin build is Pal2/Sor4/Spe3/EldX. All allow for arcane strike at 9th level, which is an absolutely required feat for a spellsword. Of course, the best spellsword has 5 levels of abjurant champion, but the evil Circle took away that particular overpowered toy. You then need to choose your armor choice: greater mage armor and mithral chain shirt/mithral buckler or full plate. The full plate build either needs Still Spell or lots of Spellsword and Somatic Weaponry. Most spellsword builds will use a two-handed weapon and Power Attack. A two-weapon fighting build requires stretching feats and ability scores very thin. I don't see any purpose to smiting spell. It looks like you still have to cast it as a standard action. If you want that effect, just take 4 levels of spellsword.
Ancillary 03-06-07, 10:32 PM	Smiting Spell looks tasty, but casting it in combat is almost a complete waste. This means it is useful only if you know the fight is coming in the next one minute. It is also far from making spellswords obsolete, especially since you can do both! Beguiler does look much better for a gish now that alter self is gone.
JBeauMI 03-07-07, 05:20 PM	A couple of questions I'd like clarified: 1. For the wizard - spellsword, do you start with wizard at L1 for the skills, or do you start with fighter and try to catch-up on the skills? 2. For a beguiler, why become a spellsword? You could take one level of Hexblade (spell casting skills) or Ranger (stealth skills) to gain martial weapons proficiency and go straight to Eldritch Knight. Oops: let me make it three questions: What do you think of the Warmage class?
UMiskatonic 03-07-07, 05:25 PM	Start with a melee class. You need the 10 hit points. You'll have enough int (as a wizard, at least) to catch up on skills quickly. With a sorceror base, you don't need spellcraft as much, so just catch up on concentration, and worry about the rest as you can afford to. I don't foresee beguilers having big skill problems
Timlagor 03-07-07, 09:38 PM	Warmages are fine if all you want to do is play artillery. They are no good for anything else at all (and most certainly shouldn't be multiclassed).
dkay807 03-09-07, 02:11 PM	I love spellswords, and there are several standard builds level-wise. Ftr1/Wiz6/Spe1/EldX has maximum spellcasting. Ftr2/Wiz4/Spe1/EldX has maximum BAB and almost maximum spellcasting. Ftr2/Wiz6/Spe7/EldX allows for casting in mithral full plate at the cost of spellcasting and allows channelling spells. The paladin build is Pal2/Sor4/Spe3/EldX. All allow for arcane strike at 9th level, which is an absolutely required feat for a spellsword. Of course, the best spellsword has 5 levels of abjurant champion, but the evil Circle took away that particular overpowered toy. You then need to choose your armor choice: greater mage armor and mithral chain shirt/mithral buckler or full plate. The full plate build either needs Still Spell or lots of Spellsword and Somatic Weaponry. Most spellsword builds will use a two-handed weapon and Power Attack. A two-weapon fighting build requires stretching feats and ability scores very thin. I don't see any purpose to smiting spell. It looks like you still have to cast it as a standard action. If you want that effect, just take 4 levels of spellsword. The feat Mobile Spellcasting enables a spellsword to channel spells extremely easily, since it takes a move action to channel a spell. If you have any intention of taking 4 levels of Spellsword, I would strongly recommend that feat. Besides, Spellsword often have a lot of room for creativity with feats since all they really need is Power Attack, Practiced Spellcaster and Arcane Strike. Weapon Focus is nice and I recommend Craft Wondrous Item as well, but other than that, you have some flexibility.
allyourlocks 03-09-07, 03:28 PM	Thanks for all the answers to my questions. Here's the build I'm looking at, tell me what you think: Dwarf Str 16, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 6 1: Fighter 1 - Power Attack, Still Spell 2: Illusionist 1 - Scribe Scroll 3: Fighter 2 - Weapon Focus: Falchion, Practiced Spellcaster: Wizard 4: Illusionist 2 - STR 17 5: Illusionist 3 6: Illusionist 4 - Craft Wondrous Item 7: Spellsword 1 8: Eldritch Knight 1 - Close-Quarters Fighting, STR 18 9: Eldritch Knight 2 - Arcane Strike 10: Eldritch Knight 3 - 11: Eldritch Knight 4 - 12: Eldritch Knight 5 - Feat??, STR 19 13: Eldritch Knight 6 - 14: Eldritch Knight 7 - 15: Eldritch Knight 8 - Feat, STR 20 Some spell choices: 1 - Critical Strike, True Strike, Feather Fall (Disguise Self) 2 - Still Enlarge Person, Still Grease, Bladeweave (Blur) 3 - Still False Life, Still Whirling Blades, Still See Invis, (Displacement) 4 - Still Fly, Still Haste (Greater Invis) etc... Uses a Falchion to take advantage of Critical Strike. Hopefully Still Grease and Close-Quarters Fighting will act as a ghetto-Freedom of Movement until I can get 5th level spells. I'm thinking that crafting Int headbands can keep me up to speed casting-wise since my DCs don't need to be high. I like Illusionist for the bonus spells, and the fact that I'm playing a dwarf wizard using the gnome-speciality school and wielding an orc weapon. :) Any thoughts on what feats to take at 12 and 15?
Mommy was an Orc 03-09-07, 03:38 PM	6 Unseen Seer: Smiting Spell 7 Unseen Seer: Advanced Learning: Critical Strike 8 Beguiler: Advanced Learning: Bladeweave 13 Eldritch Knight 14 Eldritch Knight 15 Eldritch Knight (feat) Those last 3 levels look strange to me - you've already paid the BAB cost for Unseen Seer and Beguiler, and Eldritch Knight provides not very much at all after the 1st level. At least kill the 4th level for Beguiler 4, and Unseen Seer 4 gives you another sneak attack die. Also, don't forget, Elusive Target is not a Fighter bonus feat and can't be taken with EK 1... If I were going to build a gish, I'd strongly favor something like this: Rogue 3/Fighter 1/Wizard 2/Unseen Seer 8/Spellsword 1 - yes, Unseen Seer has lousy hit points, but so does Eldritch Knight. False Life is your best friend as are defensive buffs. +11 BAB, casts in light armor, +5d6 Sneak Attack, and has 6th level spells. Practiced Spellcaster to deal with the various caster level losses, but after that, all feats are whatever you want. Not to mention, you're skilled beyond belief compared to the normal Gish.
Timlagor 03-10-07, 06:08 PM	Why take more than one Rogue Level? You are down 5 CL (or more) with most spells: 3 Rogue 1 fighter 1 or more Unseen Seer Admittedly this doesn't force your top tier spells to be Divinations but only because you spellcasting is so far behind.
Mommy was an Orc 03-10-07, 11:44 PM	Why take more than one Rogue Level? You are down 5 CL (or more) with most spells: 3 Rogue 1 fighter 1 or more Unseen Seer Admittedly this doesn't force your top tier spells to be Divinations but only because you spellcasting is so far behind. Why not? Rogue 3/Fighter 1/Wizard 2/Unseen Seer 8/Spellsword 1 is a very playable 1-15 skill monkey gish build. Sure, it isn't quite as powerful at 15th, but only taking 1 rogue level makes the midlevel skill monkey role bumpy.
Timlagor 03-11-07, 01:05 PM	The skills are bumpy for a couple of levels but we have retaining for the important ones now and the high Intelligence will give us more skills than the average Rogue on those levels. Unseen Seer gets decent skills iirc. With 3 Rogue levels you really hurt your spells though. It is less powerful from about level 5 (when spells become a major focus, 2nd level spells if you only take Rogue 1) because those missing spells go all the way down the levels.
Mommy was an Orc 03-11-07, 06:47 PM	The skills are bumpy for a couple of levels but we have retaining for the important ones now and the high Intelligence will give us more skills than the average Rogue on those levels. Unseen Seer gets decent skills iirc. With 3 Rogue levels you really hurt your spells though. It is less powerful from about level 5 (when spells become a major focus, 2nd level spells if you only take Rogue 1) because those missing spells go all the way down the levels. I would strongly disagree. That assumes you're making some sort of major sacrifice for your spells. You're not. You're taking a single level of wizard and you're a decent intelligence rogue. You're a Rogue who happens to be a strong secondary caster and could probably get by without casting a single spell in a mod.