Okay so I've got a character that I've been developing over the course of a 4-year long campaign. This guy was the first character I EVER made and I made him on a whim after watching Pirates of the Caribbean and the 1940's Three Musketeers movie. The result, 4 years and 9 levels later, is that I have a generically set up swashbuckler made with terrible consideration of feats and skill distribution as I had no clue how the game really worked to begin with...
The purpose of this character is to have a mobile skirmisher of sorts that can dish out a high DPS as it were through martial and arcane means (perhaps blended now...), while managing to hold his own against larger foes thanks to Swashbuckler HP and general hard-to-hit capabilities
What I'm looking at now that my DM has given me amnesty and the chance to reshuffle the character to keep up with the 9th level Wizard, Ninja, and Ork-King-Werebear-Fighter. If you'd like to help me with this, you should know the DM is very much seat-of-the-pants and very loose on what the players have and do (Thus I have Elven Scale Mail with no max dex and a Side Sword with a Flesh to Stone 3/day enchantment and the ability to transform into anything of approximately equal size and weight) so there's not a need to be TOO tough on the RaW. Additionally this means disregard any sort of XP costs and multilevelling penalties, he just says "Level up" when he thinks the party has done enough and it works.
So to the character... Currently I'm sitting at 9th level which up until now consisted of 7 Swashbuckler, 1 Beguiler, and 1 that was undecided but I used Scout as a placeholder. After some digging around in the various dusty tomes of 3.5, I have decided with my DM's approval to re-shuffle the last 2 levels as well as all my feats to make the character make sense. My current goal by 16th level is to be 7 Swashbuckler, 1 Sorcerer, 5 Abjurant Champion, and 3 Duskblade.
From what I see the Swashbuckler gives me a very good Dex-based martial base and makes me rather good at what I do, primarily as a skirmisher and light tank. The 1 level of Sorcerer opens up Abjurant Champion for me, which I will take to be able to cast Dispel spells and Mage Armor (with DM's approval that it makes more sense than the RaW) quickly and efficiently, but also the 5th level ability that allows me to use my BAB as my caster level... Which will turn it from 6 into 15 by the end of this progression. Damned sight useful for the next application, which is the Duskblade levels, which will allow me to channel any touch spell I know (i.e. Combust or Vampiric Touch from the levels of Sorcerer/Abjur Champ) freely through melee attacks at a Caster Level of 15, thus highly increasing my potency in my chosen position.
What I'd like to hear from you guys is your opinions on what feats I should use as I'm reshuffling ALL of them (currently my feats are Run, Quick Draw, Leadership, Spring Attack, and Combat Casting, not exactly a stellar combo) and what spells would you recommend as I build up to this 16th level and what I should take beyond, as I will most likely continue taking Sorcerer levels later as the game progresses. As I understand Dispel Magic currently holds the crown of usefulness in Abjuration, but are there any other Abjuration spells from ANY of the 3.5 books that are worth considering? Along those lines the only other spells I'll likely want aside from defensive (errr anti-offensive?) Abjuration is some blasty spells because my real purpose is as a frontliner with a massive dex (+6 modifier currently) that, thanks to Weapon Finesse, gives me an equally high attack with ranged and melee.
Also note the Leadership feat is STAYING. I'm going to buy that ship. And I'm going to get it enchanted to fly. And I'm going to recruit a crew and be a privateer Robin Hood of the seas with a flying ship. It's going to happen.
First off your build is really weak. By measure of strong classes, moderate classes and simply poor classes, for starters you've used a lot of Swashbuckler. This is a class that's noteworthy as one of the weaker classes in 3.5 and only generally useful as a dip or as a chasis for a Daring Outlaw build. You appear to have attempted to correct that late into progression by adding Beguiler, which if you'd done it earlier may have helped a good deal. The big thing Beguiler/Swashbuckler gets is Int Synergy, you lose that if you go Sorceror.
Suggestion, if you don't want to completely reroll, but can get away with a fairly serious rewrite consider Swashbuckler 3/Wizard 4/Abjurant Champion 2 as a level 9 build. You're still miles behind the Wizard when it comes to casting, and similarly miles behind the Fighter guy (probably) when it comes to melee. You at least however do a bit of both, reasonably well. You might even get 9th level spells if you don't give up any more caster levels, before going to epic!
Regarding your feats, Leadership is about the strongest feat choice you've made to be honest. Consider things like Arcane Strike, and if you've got the Str for it (I hope you do), Power Attack, they'll up your damage significantly. I have to throw this out there, Weapon Finesse is really limited in its usefulness, you can do some neat things with it on a Swordsage that's also grabbed Shadow Blade at level 1, and does Two Weapon Fighting via Shortswords. Otherwise it's counterintuitive, sure you can hit more accurately but your damage will just fail. At the end of the day you're better off having a lower AC and going pure Str instead of ever bothering with Weapon Finesse.
Again, I'm not trying to be a bummer here, just pointing out where your build goes wrong. You can do plenty of flavourful things with a Swashbuckler style character, and even an elegant Gish. The trick is knowing what "suits your flavour" vs what is named the theme you want. A Warblade or Swordsage can make a fantastic Swashbuckling character with the right Feat and Skill choices. A Factotum can as well, and there are many many other options.
So now for some questions:
What is it you want your character to FEEL like?
What is it you want your character to DO?
Like Leadership do you have any other "must have" abilities?
First I should probably lay down some stats and just the basic background to how I've used the character...
My statline is currently Str 15 Dex 20 Con 16 Int 16 Wis 12 Cha 16, although Str and Dex are currently both at 18 and 23 respectively thanks to a big belt and furry pants (Belt of Bull Strength and Greaves of Cat's Grace or something like that, the DM just said they're +3 to Str and Dex each)
Most of my skillpoints I don't care to screw around with but I may, for sake of completion I'll say they're mostly in acrobatic and "pirate-y" skills because for 6 levels I had absolutely no idea how hard min-maxing was going to hit me when we got out of the 'fun' stage, and therefore I'd been planning on going into Dread Pirate because the original idea was just to make a pirate. Due to both the low teir of Dread Pirate and the severe lack of large quantities of saltwater in the campaign, I threw that out entirely (I'd rather use Legendary Captain if it came down to it).
My loadout and current fighting style focuses on a "rapier" as everyone calls it but the DM effectively allows me to use a Longsword with weapon finesse... It's supposed to be a Side Sword or something similar to Raphael's Flambert if you're familiar with Soul Calibur, something with an edge and not just a stabbin' stick. In addition to that I have an offhand silver dagger which, with an optional ability (PHII I think?) gives me a shield bonus for using it. The Rapier is at this point +3 Masterwork/Magic, Cold Iron, has a Flesh to Stone enchantment on it, and can transform as noted above. I also have the equivalent of Scale Mail with no max dex, no movement penalties and only 10% spell failure chance. The DM also gave me "Blitz Boots" so I can teleport 25 feet 5 times/day. All this adds up to is for my character to be able to rapidly move (in conjunction with the Run feat that we kinda just guesstimate on by saying I sprint much faster than my compatriots) around the battlefield and have an alright dps but there's very little I have in the way of feats or abilities as you said allowing me to dish out damage when I get there, thus what I'm looking to do by augmenting my abilities in melee with Abjurant Champion and Duskblade.
Originally the character concept was (and still is, but I have to work for it now) to have a character that has the ability to run around the battlefield in unorthodox ways causing havoc wherever necessary. For the first few levels when none of us thoroughly knew how to play (though I was still the newbie relatively speaking) I enjoyed a merry time jumping from chandeliers, swinging from tapestries, lighting wolves on fire after vaulting over them, and generally raising hell without having to do the old "I swing my sword, I take a hit, I swing my sword, I take..." This is why the feats are screwy, I just took them for flavor early on and had no intentions of combining them. At the time I never looked outside the PH for feats anyways. Aside from Leadership (because every captain needs a crew) I'd be willing to redo all the feats, though I may hesitate on Run because it has been insanely useful with the loose way my GM lets me use it, being recognized as the fastest human sprinter on the continent (because nobody else would take the feat) has a lot of perks. I am just unsure of the 'best' feat tree to go down. I did look at Arcane Strike but Abjurant Champion gives something very similar although not as powerful, I thought I could find a better feat if I'm already pretty much getting half of that one. I did like the idea of Power Attack through to Leap Strike but I'm wanting to make sure there's not something better out there, Whirlwind Attack did look like it could benefit my character.
Additionally, Weapon Finesse is a 1st level Ability for Swashbuckler so no feats wasted there, and with the weapon I have doing 1d8+3 base damage and my Dex usually being +6 it's worked out for me VERY well.
So the FEEL of the character is supposed to have a strain of a sober Captain Jack Sparrow, but I find now that due to the incompetent design I can't effectively benefit the team because swinging from chandeliers and tapestries is all well and good, but I can't DO anything once I get there.
I WANT him to be able to get wherever he's needed quickly no matter what stands in the way and be able to leave a fair path of destruction in the process if I so choose to. In addition it'd be nice (it seems to come up fairly often in the campaign) to be able to stand and fight in his own way against singularly tough enemies if necessary. Despite the lack of usefulness in 3.5 compared to Pathfinder, I do enjoy unorthodox maneuvers in combat such as dirty tricks, use of the environment, and fire. Fire is a shtick of this character as well, but just holding a torch to a plate-mail clad warrior won't do much at this point.
As far as the rewrite goes I didn't want to go THAT far back, I was given permission to screw with feats and the last 2 levels since they were never really cemented but at this point most of my character's renown and mark in the campaign (4 real-time years allows a lot of stuff to happen!) has been due to the identity of him as a swashbuckler. I suppose it just seems a shame to go so far back and change ALL of that. I may consider it though, I'll have to talk to my GM.
As far as Swordsage, Warblade, and Factotum go, they don't quite fit the flair of the character nor that of the campaign. It's nothing against the classes and numbers, it'd just be awkward to re-write the character with what I and my group would percieve as such a foreign style that I have absolutely no excuse to have (the continent we're on is the only one we've been to and it's been very fleshed out over the years and is very medieval European and non-foreign, though we know there is an Asian continent somewhere as one character is some sort of half-elf ninja).
There are really only three "shticks" of any kind I hold near and dear with this character: Leadership for the crew, the ability to hold a reputation as a mobile melee fighter, and light pyromania. Thus if I get the Duskblade channeling (which does appeal to me quite a lot, I don't see why not have it if I'm already going to have mage powers) the signature spell will definitely be Combustion.
The most potential power resides in our newest addition, the number-crunching Wizard currently 2 levels away from starting Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. He's a wizard looking to learn every spell ever and is rather neutral about everything he has to do to get there, and he's our biggest munchkin. Of course he's the most powerful, but he isn't much of a combat caster because he has to stock up on Abjuration spells and other things to make up for our lack of a dedicated Rogue.
Then we have ummm... Jhester the Homocidal Maniac, a character maintaining his persona from when this used to be a joke campaign in being a 3/4 Orc with such a low Int he rolls to see when he gets bored and starts smashing the nearest vaguely non-friendly NPC. His Strength and melee prowess are off the charts and he was recently infected with Lycanthropy by a werebear and he did nothing to stop it. Soooooo he's a 3/4 Orc Werebear Fighter with magic plate armor and a towershield wielding a double-waraxe in one hand (his strength and BAB far outweigh the minuses) that has "Flaming" and "Flaming Burst" enchantments on it... The problem is he doesn't make his way around the battlefield much and is EXTREMELY vulnerable to magic. The few times we've had quick enemies I would stand toe to toe with he would be running around in circles trying to smash something and manage to do nothing by the end of it but get pissed off enough to kill the next peasant he saw, and I think it's 4 times now he's ben mind controlled and ordered to kill the party.
After him is Hiro the Ninja, who the player accidentally marked as being 19 years old before remembering that by elf standards he'd look like a small child. So he rolled with it and he's progressed as a ninja would, in that he's a sneaky bastard that can walk through walls and if he gets a chance at an unaware enemy his scythe will slash them to ribbons, but aside from that he doesn't have nearly the mobility, DPS, or survivability that my character does in frontal combat. He's pulled off hiding in Jhester's shadow and hooking an enemy from behind Jhester and getting sneak attack damage though so...
And to complete our usual party there is Victor the Duskblade. He's absolutely generic in every way. He is a 9th level duskblade with medium armor and a shield with a Bastard Sword in one hand who likes channeling Shocking Grasp that he spent a feat to get. He's a reliable fighter but there's absoluetly nothing special to him. When Matt (the player) not around we jokingly insert "Mattbot" into the game and Victor becomes Victorbot the Neutral Good warrior of Neutral Goodness. While it may seem I'm trying to copy his style with the channeling arcane through melee, I mean to have a completely different flair and whereas he went full Duskblade and only has those spells, I hope to have more freedom with the arcane levels and Abjur Champ I pick up.
What books are available to you? As a Gish-type character with insane mobility (and pyromania!) you could do far, FAR worse than Psychic Warrior/Elocator at level 9.
The majority of the "standard" 3.5 books i.e. all the "Complete" books, the racial/flavor supplements like Oriental Adventures/Races of Stone/Stormwrack are all accepted, we generally make every attempt to stay out of 3rd party and homebrew unless it's an extremely GOOD class in a non-op, well-made and cool way.
That being said...
NO PSYCHICS IN OUR DOJO
I'm no mage but when all our mages look at psychic rules and their eyes widen and they close the book and push it away, I don't want to go near it.
It's not that they thought the rules were broken, simply that they were too powerful to use when the only defenses we have are magic, which doesn't do a whole lot from what I understand. This is our only "traditional" fantasy campaign, the other 3 we have are 1. Discworld setting 2. Home-made world created using Dawn of Worlds game rules and thus having a very fleshed out setting and 3. An extremely gritty horror campaign with homebrew Drain system for magic
As for magic having no defense against psionics... Tell them to look at the section on Transparency again. But that's neither here more there, I guess.
Now, on to different things: since you use Int for Swashbuckler anyway, you should choose a casting class that uses Int: Beguiler, Duskblade, Warmage, or Wizard. Don't use sorcerer, and probably don't use the Warmage, either.
It IS possible to use Weapon Finesses and Power Attack on the same weapon. There's the spiked chain, or you can ask your DM to let you use an Elven Courtblade instead of Rapier.
Shield is pretty much THE go-to abjuration spell for the Abjurant Champion.
Oh, and... Don't use two different casting classes.
Regarding Asian flare and the classes I mentioned, Factotum really has none unless you explicitly build it to. Warblade and Swordsage are designed that they can accomodate such a flare easily, however they also fit very well into clasic european based fantasy as well. Consider this when you think about it Martial Arts isn't exclusively Asian for one thing, it never has been. Europe, Africa, the Americas and Austrialia all had their own Martial Arts before ever being exposed to Asian Martial Arts. It's just a question of what we think of as Martial Arts. Boxing, Fencing, Bowmanship, Jousting, Wrestling and many other European combat styles fall under the general definition of Martial Arts.
That all being said, there's nothing Asian about The Storm Knight (which is really very much the flavour you're working on), The Inevitable Nightmare is another Warblade Heavy Build without any real Asian inspiration, Captain Constitution and The Feral Druid both use Warblade for a lot of the same reasons. The Dream Blade was designed to be a potent Kalishtar warrior, and plays with the theme of Psionic focus feuled melee without any Psionic Powers. Heavy Weapons Elf is just a rapid fire based Elvin Archer with zero Yumi use or anyhting like that. These are just some of the builds my group has made publicly available using mostly Warblade in interesting ways, Swordsage has gotten plenty of use as well but has moreoften turned out to have a bit of an Asian inspired flare, but that's by no means necissarry.
What I'm trying to encourage here is that the flavour and style of a character comes much more from Skill and Feat choices, and even more from Roleplay than it does from the base Class. With enough work a Swordsage can be a "Ninja" or even more easily an Arabian Nights inspired "Assassin". Likewise a Warblade can be a chasis for a "Ranger" or "Swashbuckler". Similarly you can build a Swashbuckler, Ranger or Fighter into a variant on "Samurai".
However, there's so much stuff that Psionics simply can't do that it often struggles to compare with magic. There's no Psionic Invisibility power, say, and only in CPsi did they add a Psionic See Invisibility. Instead there's Cloud Mind, which is basically a vs-one-target, allows-a-Will-save version of Invisibility.
Add to that most of Psionic's offense is either the energy/ray/blast sort of stuff, or allows-a-Will-save Telepathy and similar. It's like they have Evocation, Illusion/Enchantment, and as far as offense goes, that's more or less it. They get very few buffs they can use on others, and much less "battlefield control" than magic.
NO PSYCHICS IN OUR DOJO
I'm no mage but when all our mages look at psychic rules and their eyes widen and they close the book and push it away, I don't want to go near it.
It's not that they thought the rules were broken, simply that they were too powerful to use when the only defenses we have are magic, which doesn't do a whole lot from what I understand. This is our only "traditional" fantasy campaign, the other 3 we have are 1. Discworld setting 2. Home-made world created using Dawn of Worlds game rules and thus having a very fleshed out setting and 3. An extremely gritty horror campaign with homebrew Drain system for magic
You're totally misreading it. Just as a magic defense will block a spell whether it comes from someone throwing a pinch of bat guano at you while reading Klatu Verata Nikto out of an ancient book, or whether it comes from a cultist souting out an invocation for their dark gods to intervene and smite the infidel, that same defense will also block a psychic telepathically attempting to control your mind.
Here's the rules on transparency. The exact same logic works for every other form of magic ever printed (arcane spells, divine spells, psionic powers, pact magic, shadow magic, incarnum, freaking everything is transparent.)
Here's the FAQ on psionics I put together a while back. You can literally explain all the rules of psionics to someone familiar with magic in sixty seconds. The FAQ will help you avoid making missteps like this in the future.
And as for this specific misstep, psionics are actually less powerful than spells, largely because spells are beefier in design and don't have to pay for their scaling. There's a reason that, among the top five strongest classes in the game (the Tier One "Big Five" classes), none are psionic - they're the artificer, archivist, cleric, druid, and wizard.
And as for "out there", flavor's mutable, dude. The same logic applies to the Tome of Battle, which Andarious described earlier with links to lots of our own internal work.
EDIT: I missed the discworld as well. Of course, considering how it shows magic:
-Wizards have to charge up their staves to cast spells, which are otherwise cast spontaneously (either from memory or from a spellbook) with gestures.
-Witch magic is basically undetectable and despite its reputation has no components. There may be an odd ritual or two that involves a number of witches and a specific location, but by and large it's just force of will over the world.
-Sourcery is hard to pin down; it's basically given Wish as a spell-like ability. Mercifully they're rare.
-Death's magic and those related to other anthropomorphic personifications are entirely driven by the narrative connected to their role.
Oddly enough, psionics work perfectly for Disc witches. Except for some of the flashier bits of psychometabolism (I can't think of any dramatic transformation effects except for when they turned Greebo into a human briefly - although Granny's sword-catching tricks and possibly even her fading into the foreground are probably psychometabolic) or psychokinesis (leave that to the wizards).
Still, fun times doing a game on the Disc I'm sure. Always a risk though that it devolves into silliness, and I'd hate to see that happen to any game.
In general, Yipyioh (the OP) was right in saying we allow most books, but he forgot to mention the books we don't allow basically because no one wants to take the efforts to learn the new systems involved (and also because no one wants to start even MORE rules arguments). Namely, these include Magic of Incarnum and Unearthed Arcana (No one has actually read it yet).
As for psionics... the DM of this campaign really just doesn't like them, and two of our group (one being the DM) refuse to believe that psionics are weaker than casters. They think that the ability to trade out more points in order to have more burst damage per action than normal spells is overpowered in itself. That's just probably a prejudice that will stay there, and there isn't much we can do to change it. As for learning the Psionics rules, which someone claimed can be done in a minute if you're familiar with the magic system... Most of the players aren't too familiar with how magic works, and we all forget things pretty often (this is the #1 cause of our rules disputes).
Looking through this thread (as the OP asked me to), I want to point out a few things:
Even though you say he should take an Int-based casting class (being a swashbuckler in the first place), his Charisma is the same as his Int; 16.
The No-psionics thing is really only an issue in this campaign, and it's unlikely to change. So no psionic-based classes will probably be allowed.
Tome of Battle might not actually be out... yet. But until then, let's ignore the whole reflavor thing... It's not the OP that needs convincing here.
The character doesn't need to be "perfectly" optimized. No one else in the party is even close. Not even the "munchkin" wizard is (I mean, seriously, who takes that many levels of wizard anyway? Or takes Recyprocal Gyre as a spell?)
The discworld campaign A) Has already devolved to silliness sadly and B) Isn't the thing being considered right now.
Otherwise, the OP is just looking at how to make his character more viable in the given circumstances.
(He asked me to sort through this and help him work it all out. I'm the only person in the group who is really familiar with most of the books at all.)
Sorry for long post >.>
Oh, and Supernoobian sorry, I get the ADD thing going sometimes and get distracted by some odd point. Regarding Psi being OP due to being able to burn for extra damage, don't worry about more damage. Damage isn't what makes casters good, damage is how melee tries to keep up with casters. A charger, or just a well tweeked Barbarian does way more damage than a caster ever will.
Casters win by control, and by buffing allies to avoid control from enemies. Battlefield control, and action control will be what swing a fight from an apparantly inevitable curb stomp one way, to a total curbstomp the other way.
So... to the topic at hand the OP's character.
If we can get your DM to recon a bit and drop you down to Swashy 3/Wizard 1/Rogue 1/Unseen Seer 4 you'll be a fairly effective caster with BAB 6, 5d6 SA (comperable to a Rogue 9) and Int to damage. That's the big reason we've suggested Int caster over Cha, the fact you can boost Int for better melee and better casting. Feats would look like Able Learner (1), Run (3), Daring Outlaw (6) and Leadership (9). You're going to want Practiced Spellcaster at 12 if possible, I'd have it at 9 but you've got your heart set on Leadership which as I've already said is a good feat if you're going to use it.
I'd also reccomend going Focused Diviner as you give up VERY little to gain 2 spell slots of each level per day. Give up Evocation and just use Conjuration for Blasting and Illusion to fake any other Evocation you might want.
And Re:Abjurant Champion, you can start as early as 9th level taking levels in Abjurant Champion if you get Combat Casting online by 6. You're giving up 2d6 SA to do that though, which of course you'll get later when you get around to taking Daring Outlaw.
The news on this is with enough poking and prodding from multiple players the DM is letting the Tome of Battle be opened, while on the offhand we ARE taking multiclass penalties. Good thing I'm human!
So now I'm dropping back to a "Starting" Level 5 Swashbuckler. Assuming my equipment and Attributes are the same, I get to rebuild up to level 9 and start with that character before continuing forth. I was thinking 3 levels of Desert Wind Swordsage to get that "Melee Magic" blend that I was trying to work so hard to squeeze out of Duskblade, and then 2 levels of wizard and from there alternate levels of Swordsage, Wizard, and Abjurant Champion.
I chose wizard because after enough thought with Swordsage I really won't need so much blasting, and therefore I could focus on having more abjuration and other kinds of spells... The kind that our other Wizard, Supernoobian, already has. With how much downtime we *technically* have (we don't often have anything to do during said downtime except mundane stuff) and gold (after just killing the mind-controlling God Emperor of Mankind and stopping an Orc WAAAAGH!!!!!) we could probably share our entire spellbooks within a session or two.
The two feats I'd like to keep then after all this are Run and Leadership, and with this character I'm not looking much at Sneak Attack damage since I won't have the 7 levels of Swashbuckler and dipping into Rogue means I'll be unbalanced for the sake of multiclassing, and that WILL hurt me.
So now, what are your opinions with this new info?
Something like this would work:
1) Swashbuckler 1 (Run, Leadership*, Weapon Finesse*)
2) Swashbuckler 2
3) Wizard 1 (Practiced Spellcaster, Scribe Scroll*)
4) Swashbuckler 3
5) Swashbuckler 4
6) Swashbuckler 5 (Combat Casting)
7) Swordsage 1
8) Swordsage 2
9) Abjurant Champion (Shadow Blade)
Depending on what you want to emphasize, you could even Jade Phoenix Mage.
Now Swashbuckler builds your melee power base, and so does Swordsage, Wizard does not.
Hypathetically...
If you take we'll say 6 Swashbuckler, and 2 Swordsage that's pretty good, you're basically a level 5 Swordsage with some extra abilities from being a Swashbuckler including Higher BAB, Weapon Finesse and Int to damage. With Assassin's Stance you also qualify for Daring Outlaw, and even with only 6 levels of Swashbuckler that's an additional 3d6 SA.
Now you go ahead and add in Wizard 1. What's that adding for you? Well basically you can now act as a level 1 Wizard if you want, or as the warrior on any given round. Any round you spend acting as a level 1 wizard in a level 9 game is basically a wasted round. Very few of your spells are going to last more than a few rounds (or maybe an hour for some) so your spells are basically 1/combat and won't be accomplishing much if anything.
Even at later levels if you start taking Abjurant Champion your casting will never really catch up or become useful.
So rather than compete for precious levels with a class that will provide actions you'll never want to elect to use (or get value out of using) consider the option you brought up yourself, Desert Wind to provide Sword Magic. Also Shadow Hand has some neat options as well.
Sashbuckler 6/Swordsage 3 (continuing as Swordsage indefinately after)
Feats
1) Two Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse, Run
3) Combat Reflexes
6) Leadership
7) School Focus (Weapon Focus)*
9) Daring Outlaw
*I recommend using Shadow Hand weapons and taking Shadow Blade at 12, use Shortswords thus adding a third attribute to damage (Dex), it also lets you be Dex SAD (Single attribute dependant). This will require you to fight with a pair of Shortswords in order to get best effect.
Maneuver wise you'd have accses to up to 3rd level maneuvers, with a focus on Boosts/Counters on early levels because they scale best, looking at some of your better maneuver choices you've got access to the following.
1st) Wolf Fang Strike, Burning Blade, Distracting Ember, Sudden Leap
2nd) Burning Brand, Cloak of Deception, Flashing Sun
3rd) Fan the Flames*
* You seem to like the blast concept, and it can come in handy vs low flyers or swarms. Not a lot of other great options anyway
Using the following stance options
Hunter's Sense (Cause Sent's reallly helpful if someone is invisible or the lights go out)
Assassin's Stance (Cause 2d6 SA's pretty good and 5d6 SA is kinda sweet when you've put only a feat and a stance into it)
Get your hands on a pair of Gloves of the Balanced Hand (MIC) as the feat they give is totally worth the price (8000 gp for Improved Two Weapon Fighting if you've got Two Weapon Fighting).
This build will be laying the smack down with 5d6 SA, as many as 5 attacks via Flashing Sun (or 4 with a normal Full Attack), and adding 1d6+5 Fire damage per attack if using Burning Blade. Not at all unimpressive for a level 9 character. Assuming a weapon damage base of 1d6 that's 7d6 (24.5) +5 Flame +Int (3) +Str (or half str on offhand, so 1 or 2 respectively). Total damage on a non-crit Flashing Sun attack looks like about 167. Let's see your Wizard do that~!
~ He doesn't need to of course, he can just cast Black Tentacles and watch 2+ guys get beat up by the anime **** monster of nightmares.
Now you go ahead and add in Wizard 1. What's that adding for you? Well basically you can now act as a level 1 Wizard if you want, or as the warrior on any given round. Any round you spend acting as a level 1 wizard in a level 9 game is basically a wasted round. Very few of your spells are going to last more than a few rounds (or maybe an hour for some) so your spells are basically 1/combat and won't be accomplishing much if anything.
Even at later levels if you start taking Abjurant Champion your casting will never really catch up or become useful.
There are many ways to build characters even if some people only think there is one "right" way to build any character. A level of Wizard to get into Abjurant Champion may not be the worst thing one could ever do. Now your spellcasting will never really be offensive in nature but it does get easy access to the spell completion items of a wizard. AbC5 also helps boost caster level so while saves may be low (if your spells require them) there are still other things that "low" level spells can be used for. If Wizard1/AbC5 is all the spellcasting a character takes he can still get up to 3rd-level spells and at that time cast any Abjurations in the batch with Quicken (and Extend) for free. Throw in a few buff type spells and it should be fine.
Now you go ahead and add in Wizard 1. What's that adding for you? Well basically you can now act as a level 1 Wizard if you want, or as the warrior on any given round. Any round you spend acting as a level 1 wizard in a level 9 game is basically a wasted round. Very few of your spells are going to last more than a few rounds (or maybe an hour for some) so your spells are basically 1/combat and won't be accomplishing much if anything.
Even at later levels if you start taking Abjurant Champion your casting will never really catch up or become useful.
There are many ways to build characters even if some people only think there is one "right" way to build any character. A level of Wizard to get into Abjurant Champion may not be the worst thing one could ever do. Now your spellcasting will never really be offensive in nature but it does get easy access to the spell completion items of a wizard. AbC5 also helps boost caster level so while saves may be low (if your spells require them) there are still other things that "low" level spells can be used for. If Wizard1/AbC5 is all the spellcasting a character takes he can still get up to 3rd-level spells and at that time cast any Abjurations in the batch with Quicken (and Extend) for free. Throw in a few buff type spells and it should be fine.
That's mostly what I meant to do, and with the fact that I have so much downtime as I said the party's Wizard and I were going to each look at what spells we want to know and make an attempt to basically bounce spells off each other so we can both have all the spells we want and then some. He's probably got many spells I'd want in Abjuration (since he's going for Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil) and anything else, so then I can help out the party as a whole as well by getting him all those spells he's wanted that he doesn't want to waste time buying/searching for in the world, while anything he happens to pick up that I want to get my hands on I can do so. He's mainly acting as Battlefield Control right now, so if I could get my own self-buff spells off of what he was using and augment my abilities (and his) with some other decent spells he doesn't happen to have, all the better since I won't be casting at very far below him thanks to Abjur Champ's 5th.
...
That's mostly what I meant to do, and with the fact that I have so much downtime as I said the party's Wizard and I were going to each look at what spells we want to know and make an attempt to basically bounce spells off each other so we can both have all the spells we want and then some. He's probably got many spells I'd want in Abjuration (since he's going for Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil) and anything else, so then I can help out the party as a whole as well by getting him all those spells he's wanted that he doesn't want to waste time buying/searching for in the world, while anything he happens to pick up that I want to get my hands on I can do so. He's mainly acting as Battlefield Control right now, so if I could get my own self-buff spells off of what he was using and augment my abilities (and his) with some other decent spells he doesn't happen to have, all the better since I won't be casting at very far below him thanks to Abjur Champ's 5th.
I'm not sure how much good you'd do a real wizard when it comes to "bouncing spells off of each other" as your highest levels spells are likely several spell levels behind his. Sure you could share research which may help him fill out his lower level spells and he really could help your spellbook but you still aren't going to know enough to help him in is really tough spells.
I'll also remind you that the AbC's 5th-level ability just sets your caster level at your BAB. It does NOTHING to get you new spells but may help you cast spells with more power. A Swashbuckler3/Ftr2/Wiz1/AbC4 can cast 3rd level spells at CL5; moving up to Swash3/Ftr2/Wiz1/AbC5 that character is still limited to 3rd-level spells but now uses them at CL 10 which matches its +4 BAB. You don't get much in terms of new spells but you do get more out of what you have.
Seems like there's really no downside to it, it benefits most every aspect that my character would be capitalizing on at that point.
StevenO: Exactly what I was thinking of doing!
I don't need a lot of spells, I'd just like some select very good ones that I can cast almost on par with the other spellcasters, mainly ones to help myself in combat autonomously so I can 1. Function on my own when doing scouting or anything 2. Not have to be another burden on our party's mage so he can buff the other people who'd get more use out of his spells 3. In general imcrease my own combat prowess and also allow me to stand toe-to-toe with some wizards (quickened Dispel b***h!) if I need to, as I seem to get into Mortal Kombat situations more than any other party member.
Good to know I'm finally thinking along lines you guys agree are good ideas
Currently then my progression is looking like Swash 5/Swordsage 2/Wizard 1/Abjur Champ 5/Jade Phoenix Mage/(Insert Final Prestige Here)
The final prestige will probably be Jade Phoenix Mage but I'm also looking at Daggerspell Mage (If I can get my DM to let me use the Rapier/Dagger combo) or Swiftblade. Regardless for all my ToB levels I'll be focusing on Desert Wind but Shadow Hand is in there and I'm looking at Tiger Claw evenly with Diamond Mind, actually. Mostly for flavor, I've actually "reflavortexted" much of the ToB stuff so it's more befitting of my character i.e. Martial Lore skill I turned into "Maritime Lore" because I'll likely be the only guy with any ToB levels so it'd be useless, and Pearl of Black Doubt I made to be less of a supernatural morale crush and more due to my character laughing raciously and jeering whenever he dodges a hit... But I'm going to see if the DM lets me use Charisma instead of Wisdom for the class (I know it seems like that's just trying to cheat at Scrabble but...) because I think with the reflavor it actually makes just as much sense. Basically take all the zen of the Swordsage and replace it with flambouyant bravado, filled with flourishes of the sword, acrobatic footwork in the flavor of the old Three Musketeers (or any Gene Kelly) movie, and gleeful laughter and jests at the enemy while I'm fighting.
ANYWAYS I am currently making the character sheet up to level 9 on Mythweavers if you want to take a look at it here...
www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheet...
Some things may not be all the way updated, for instance I haven't added the skill points or class skills for Wizard/Abjur champ, but if you look at the bottom you can see the maneuvers/stances I'm thinking of taking for the first 2 levels of Swordsage as well as the Skill Tricks I chose after perusing Complete Scoundrel . Check the feats there and see what you think, after I discuss spells with our other wizard I'll get back on what spells I'll be taking.
Peace for now guys!
Foolish me... what was I thinking when I said Swash3/Ftr2/Wiz1/Abc? If you really want some more casting thrown in there (and I need to check the skill requirements) that should be Swash3/Ftr1/Wiz1/Spellsword1/AbC as that single level of Fighter will give you the armor proficiencies needed for Spellsword and its +1 BAB and casting at SS1.
But after that I was planning on rushing Abjur Champ and getting the 5th level by level 13, and then I'd be free to do Jade Phoenix, Swiftblade, Daggerspell Mage, or any combo of those 3 as perhaps 3-level dips into 2 of them. Daggerspell and Jade Phoenix may work together, but I am far from having both memorized so I'd have to look at what abilities I value from both of them.
By 15th level our mage will probably be into IotSFV or Incantatrix so he'll be on permanent Crowd Control for the most part, our Big ol' 3/4 Ork (I know I spelled it "Ork" not "Orc") fighter will be dishing out cleaving crits left and right, our ninja will be walking through walls and sneak attacking whenever I or the Ork get someone in the position, and the Duskblade will be doing his "Grey morality paladin" style thing. So I don't think I'm stepping on anyone's toes, and I think I will be able to hold my own finally thanks to the highly increased mobility and damage I get out of all this.
Ah, truth. I wasn't really considering the *order* these went in when I put up the listing of levels, I know I did 1 level of Swordsage first level because that would give me ((6+3)x6)+4 skill points first level as opposed to the ((6+3)x4)+4 of Swashbuckler...
The bolded part is wrong; you never get more than x4 at 1st level. You're better off doing swordsage 1 at level 5+ in order to get 2nd-level maneuvers right off the bat.
Also: Twilight (PHB2) on a mithril chain shirt has no ASF. ;)
Ah, truth. I wasn't really considering the *order* these went in when I put up the listing of levels, I know I did 1 level of Swordsage first level because that would give me ((6+3)x6)+4 skill points first level as opposed to the ((6+3)x4)+4 of Swashbuckler...
The bolded part is wrong; you never get more than x4 at 1st level. You're better off doing swordsage 1 at level 5+ in order to get 2nd-level maneuvers right off the bat.
Also: Twilight (PHB2) on a mithril chain shirt has no ASF. ;)
So is this a typo that has been fixed? Because I thought it was ALWAYS x4 as well until last night when I saw in ToB that it's listed as (6+Int) x 6 first level. I thought it weird but I'm never one to question a good thing :P
And if it IS a typo then definitely, I'll go for the later level ones. I'm getting better but I'm still kinda drowsy from working a bunch the last few days so I'm making a lot of stupid mistakes, thank you for catching them >.<
Well at the time he said that my Dex was 23 so...
With it being masterwork and all we kinda just agreed it was better in every way than standard scale mail so probably 10% less ASF chance, same protection but max Dex +6 and unhindered speed. I imagine getting it Twilight enchanted would let him just waive the ASF.
Ah, truth. I wasn't really considering the *order* these went in when I put up the listing of levels, I know I did 1 level of Swordsage first level because that would give me ((6+3)x6)+4 skill points first level as opposed to the ((6+3)x4)+4 of Swashbuckler...
The bolded part is wrong; you never get more than x4 at 1st level. You're better off doing swordsage 1 at level 5+ in order to get 2nd-level maneuvers right off the bat.
Also: Twilight (PHB2) on a mithril chain shirt has no ASF. ;)
So is this a typo that has been fixed? Because I thought it was ALWAYS x4 as well until last night when I saw in ToB that it's listed as (6+Int) x 6 first level. I thought it weird but I'm never one to question a good thing :P
And if it IS a typo then definitely, I'll go for the later level ones. I'm getting better but I'm still kinda drowsy from working a bunch the last few days so I'm making a lot of stupid mistakes, thank you for catching them >.<
It's a typo that was never fixed. The "Tome of Battle errata" is actually just the second half of the errata for Complete Mage. And, since ToB was the last 3.5 book published, WotC doesnt give a flying **** how badly they screwed up.
