Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mltryman May 19, 2009 23:07:21	War Bred Sorcerer Human Battle Sorcerer Variant Lvl Class BaB Fort Ref Will Feats Special Ability 1 B. Sorc +0 +0 +0 +2 Comb Cast, Quick Spell Sum Familiar 2 B. Sorc +1 +0 +0 +3 3 B. Sorc +2 +1 +1 +3 P. Attack 4 B. Sorc +3 +1 +1 +4 5 B. Sorc +3 +1 +1 +4 6 B. Sorc +4 +2 +2 +5 Arc Strike 7 B. Sorc +5 +2 +2 +5 8 A Champ +6 +2 +2 +7 Abj Armor Ext Abj 9 A Champ +7 +2 +2 +8 Rap Meta Swift Abj 10 A Champ +8 +3 +3 +8 11 A Champ +9 +3 +3 +9 Arcane Boost 12 A Champ +10 +3 +3 +9 Leap Att Martial Arcanist Items: Keen Mighty Cleaving Skillful Greatsword Thistledown Mithril Twilight Breastplate OR Greater Mage Armor (+11 armor, 2 hours / level = 24 hours) AND Shield spell (+9 shield, 2 minutes / level = 24 minutes) Spell Combos: Quicken Spell + Arcane Fusion = cast a 1st level spell and one 4th level or lower spell with arcane fusion as a free action. Haste + Wraith Strike + Arcane Boost = main combat options, melee strikes are touch attacks, 1 extra attack per round and +30 ft enhancement bonus to speed. Leap Attack + Quickened True Strike + Arcane Boost + Greatsword = great opener NEED HELP WITH: spell selection, obvious Shield, Arcane Fusion, Greater Mage Armor, Wraith Strike, Haste, and True Strike are givens.* *I need help figuring out the rest of his spell selections WOTC only products (means no 3rd party and no Dragon Magazine Fluff, otherwise all open game) **Edit: please forgive the formatting on the progression, for some reason my copy / paste didn't quite work out.
#2 mister_crowley May 19, 2009 23:31:26	Greater Mage Armor (+11 armor, 2 hours / level = 24 hours) Mage Armor and Greater Mage Armor don't work with Abjurant Champion (check Complete Mage Errata) since those spells are Conjuration Spells and not Abjuration. As for spells get rid of True Strike (Wraithstrike will make you hit often enough) and pick up a defense spell like Protection from Evil (also an Abjuration), a utility spell - Benign Transposition, or another offensive spell - Blade of Blood. 2nd level you have Wraitkstrike, Inivisibilty, Combust, and or Mirror Image. 3rd Haste, Dispel Magic, and maybe Fly. 4th Stoneskin, Orb of Force, Polymorph,. Get rid of Leap Attack too (you already do enough damage with Arcane Strike + Power Attack) and pickup of Versatile Spellcaster.
#3 mltryman May 19, 2009 23:57:09	Hrmm you're right about the Mage armor bit... ** Emailed my DM and he said if i forgo actual armor permanently that he'll change the school to abjuration on the mage armor since it would make more since with it being a protection spell ** The rest makes sense though, but i dunno if i can use quicken spell as a sorcerer unless my rapid metamagic feat works with it. If i can get LA buyoff I can try an aasimar battlesorcerer so i can run around permanently polymorphed into a planetar (via a scroll of Polymorph Any Object), and pretty much WTF PWN everything with Wraithstrike, Arcane Strike, and Power Attack.
#4 rebel7284 May 20, 2009 0:07:13	Heart of Earth > Stoneskin. Greater Mirror Image > Mirror Image. Obviously Alter Self and Polymorph give you great flexibility. Wings of Cover are amazing and Wings of Flurry are great against large groups with low reflex saves.
#5 mister_crowley May 20, 2009 0:39:03	Hrmm you're right about the Mage armor bit... ** Emailed my DM and he said if i forgo actual armor permanently that he'll change the school to abjuration on the mage armor since it would make more since with it being a protection spell ** The rest makes sense though, but i dunno if i can use quicken spell as a sorcerer unless my rapid metamagic feat works with it. If i can get LA buyoff I can try an aasimar battlesorcerer so i can run around permanently polymorphed into a planetar (via a scroll of Polymorph Any Object), and pretty much WTF PWN everything with Wraithstrike, Arcane Strike, and Power Attack. I'd get rid of rapid metamagic and take Spell Shield out of Dungeonscape. My gish has it and it's saved his butt many a time. There's a lesser aasimar version in player's guide to faerun which is LA +0, has all the same stats just considered both an outsider and a humonoid. I thought that battle sorcerer's could cast in light armor, if not you could always take greater mage armor for the +6 and shield for the +9, heck that's 15 to AC right there in one round.
#6 mister_crowley May 20, 2009 1:32:42	duplicate post srry
#7 nickresonance May 20, 2009 1:40:51	To clarify the lesser aasimar variant, you count as either an outsider or a humanoid, whichever is WORSE for the given situation. Your DM may interpret that to mean that you don't count as an outsider when using alter self. Just an FYI.
#8 mister_crowley May 20, 2009 5:01:26	To clarify the lesser aasimar variant, you count as either an outsider or a humanoid, whichever is WORSE for the given situation. Your DM may interpret that to mean that you don't count as an outsider when using alter self. Just an FYI. I believe Lesser Aasimar's are humaniod with the outsider subtype. So yes they would get the worst of both worlds so to speak. They wouldn't count as an outsider for the purposed of alter self, but would if they were to be Banished or Dismissed. Also I checked the Battle Sorc, good news is they can cast in light armor with no penalty. The bad news is they are only proficient in a light or one handed weapon, that means you'd have to burn a feat if you wanted to use a two handed weapon.
#9 muertog May 20, 2009 11:30:56	I believe Lesser Aasimar's are humaniod with the outsider subtype. So yes they would get the worst of both worlds so to speak. They wouldn't count as an outsider for the purposed of alter self, but would if they were to be Banished or Dismissed. Also I checked the Battle Sorc, good news is they can cast in light armor with no penalty. The bad news is they are only proficient in a light or one handed weapon, that means you'd have to burn a feat if you wanted to use a two handed weapon. Just use a longsword (one-handed weapon) with two hands. Not strictly optimal damage, but saves you that dang feat.
#10 mltryman May 20, 2009 20:52:10	Couple things... there will be no lesser variants of races. Dm approved LA buyoff so a regular aasimar is good to go as well as the whole casting in armor thing is mute since he deemed both the mage armor, greater mage armor, and shield spells to be abjuration instead of conjuration. Therefore i get a +11 armor bonus and +9 shield bonus. Woot, both force effects, works against corporeal and i THINK touch attacks. Spell Shield might work better then the Rapid Metamagic.... Although i believe the rapid metamagic is what allows my quicken spell idea to work but who knows. Pretty sure i can drop quicken spell, pick up martial proficiency and trade in the RM for Spell Shield. Yippy!!
#11 mister_crowley May 20, 2009 21:34:33	Couple things... there will be no lesser variants of races. Dm approved LA buyoff so a regular aasimar is good to go as well as the whole casting in armor thing is mute since he deemed both the mage armor, greater mage armor, and shield spells to be abjuration instead of conjuration. Therefore i get a +11 armor bonus and +9 shield bonus. Woot, both force effects, works against corporeal and i THINK touch attacks. Spell Shield might work better then the Rapid Metamagic.... Although i believe the rapid metamagic is what allows my quicken spell idea to work but who knows. Pretty sure i can drop quicken spell, pick up martial proficiency and trade in the RM for Spell Shield. Yippy!! Mage Armor and Shield do not work against touch attacks. Shield works against touch attacks by incorporeal creatures only.
#12 thorn-wychkin May 21, 2009 3:22:24	holy crap. wraith strike is so awesome. persistent spell feat and that thing sticks around pretty much forever
#13 wings_of_peace May 21, 2009 3:24:58	Bolded the main points since this is a lengthy post. I personally would recommend looking into taking your remaining levels in the Knight Phantom prc from the book Five Nations. It gives full casting progression if I remember right but more importantly it also give full BaB progression much like abjurant champion. If it's not too late I'd actually see about back tracking and cramming abjurant champion levels into the build sooner so that you can get the full Battle Sorc 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Knight Phantom 10. Knight Phantom requires martial proficiency so take militia feat from Player's Guide to Faerun. It's mixing campaign material but you said all books so try and coax your dm into it. It also required you be a citizen of Aundaire but see if you can talk your dm out of that or if you can coax him into allowing you to become a citizen of some other order. Also, since you're allowed LA buyoff I'd reccomend gaining the mineral warrior template which in addition to other things boosts your natural armor and gives you damage reduction. Swing all that and you'll be looking at around +17 BaB and that's not even counting arcane strike or any weapon enhancements you might get. If you can be good aligned too so that you can take Greater Luminous Armor from Book of Exalted deeds. It'll net you a +8 Armor Bonus which becomes +13 since it's an abjuration. Just make sure you have a way to mitigate the ability damage from casting it.
#14 mister_crowley May 21, 2009 4:04:46	Bolded the main points since this is a lengthy post. I personally would recommend looking into taking your remaining levels in the Knight Phantom prc from the book Five Nations. It gives full casting progression if I remember right but more importantly it also give full BaB progression much like abjurant champion. If it's not too late I'd actually see about back tracking and cramming abjurant champion levels into the build sooner so that you can get the full Battle Sorc 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Knight Phantom 10. Knight Phantom requires martial proficiency so take militia feat from Player's Guide to Faerun. It's mixing campaign material but you said all books so try and coax your dm into it. It also required you be a citizen of Aundaire but see if you can talk your dm out of that or if you can coax him into allowing you to become a citizen of some other order. Also, since you're allowed LA buyoff I'd reccomend gaining the mineral warrior template which in addition to other things boosts your natural armor and gives you damage reduction. Swing all that and you'll be looking at around +17 BaB and that's not even counting arcane strike or any weapon enhancements you might get. If you can be good aligned too so that you can take Greater Luminous Armor from Book of Exalted deeds. It'll net you a +8 Armor Bonus which becomes +13 since it's an abjuration. Just make sure you have a way to mitigate the ability damage from casting it. Knight Phantom gets 9/10's casting and full BAB a la Eldritch Knight. He'd also have to waste one of his precious spells known on Phantom Steed. Greater Luminous Armor is only available to spellcasters who can prepare spells (i.e clerics, wizards, druids, and archivists) so that's a no go for Sorcerers.
#15 thorn-wychkin May 21, 2009 4:19:20	so is there any way to boost a characters Base attack bonus so the battle sorcerer could qualify for the abjurant champion by level 5 or 6. and to the OP, why are you wasting money on twilight armor. it only reduces arcane spell failure which isn't a problem since a mithral breast plate is light armor and a battle sorcerer can cast in light armor without fail
#16 wings_of_peace May 21, 2009 4:49:35	so is there any way to boost a characters Base attack bonus so the battle sorcerer could qualify for the abjurant champion by level 5 or 6 Not that I personally know of but at level six he can learn phantom steed which means he can fulfill all pre-reqs for phantom knight. From there he would just need to start taking PK till his BaB was high enough. End result would be Battle Sorc 6/Phantom Knight 9/Abjurant Champion 5(I prefer full abjurant champion). Final BaB there would end up at 18 (4[BS]+9[PK]+5[AC])
#17 the_shaman May 21, 2009 10:45:02	If templates are ok I think a Dragonic creature is a pretty decent chance - +2 to strength, charisma and constitution. The bonuses to skills, darkvision, and +1 natural armor (not enhancement bonus) as well as counting as dragonblooded can be pretty sweet. Draconic human is pretty stacked for a +1 race. Also, didn't the skillful weapon enhancement give you medium BAB if yours is worse? IIRC it also gives you proficiency with the weapon, but at the cost of the ability (iirc +3) it is not worth it. A battleaxe, trident or longsword can do quite well anyway.
#18 mltryman May 21, 2009 12:26:43	A: skillful weapon enhancement gives the wielder the BaB of a fighter of equal level. B: nope,... there's no way to get into Abj Champ earlier then the listed build with a battle sorc due to the +5 BaB requirement. C: Won't bother waiting money on actual armor, since the dm approved the change of school from conjuration to abjuration for mage armor, greater mage armor etc PROVIDED i never actually use or buy armor. D: the Greater Luminous Armor isn't bad, although i only nets me 2 more point of AC with an armor base which i'm not overly worried about since i can PoA into a planetar or something similar (dwarven ancestor) for +18-19 natural armor. Thus 10 base + 11 armor + 9 shield + 18 natural + 5 dex + 5 ring of protection type thingie = 58 AC at level 12. E: per the errata i don't believe that Wraith Strike can be persisted as it only has a duration of 1 round.
#19 ikildkenny May 21, 2009 13:12:35	A: personally not needed, permanent divine power item is cheaper and better... B: jep, there isnt C: thats ... strange D: do not forget, the luminous armor provides the effect of a daylight spell in addition to a -4 to hit for your enemies ... which is a +6 compared to the +2 AC you mentioned ... meaning: 10+9+13(+4)+19+5+5=62(66) ... i would prefer that ... E: Wraithstrike has a fixed duration ... it is not instantanous, thus persistable
#20 phaedrusxy May 21, 2009 16:11:37	A: skillful weapon enhancement gives the wielder the BaB of a fighter of equal level. I'm pretty sure that's BAB as a cleric, not a fighter.
#21 dandu May 21, 2009 21:13:46	Knight Phantom gets 9/10's casting and full BAB a la Eldritch Knight. He'd also have to waste one of his precious spells known on Phantom Steed. Greater Luminous Armor is only available to spellcasters who can prepare spells (i.e clerics, wizards, druids, and archivists) so that's a no go for Sorcerers. Arcane Preparation.
#22 mister_crowley May 21, 2009 23:48:45	Arcane Preparation. Nope. RAW and RAI disagree with you. Taken verbatim from BoED: Spellcasters prepare sanctified spells just as they do regular spells, and casters who do not prepare spells (including sorcerers and bards) cannot make use of them except from a scroll.
#23 dandu May 22, 2009 0:09:00	Oh, then phooey.
#24 the_shaman May 22, 2009 3:11:05	I'm pretty sure that's BAB as a cleric, not a fighter. Yeah, that's what I remember too.
#25 petalred May 22, 2009 8:10:29	I might actually be doing a somewhat similar build for a game I'm starting soon. The game will probably feature a lot of custom content, and I might even be doing a custom Sorcerer variant instead of Battle Sorcerer (because the lost spells known is killing me), but I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations for other beneficial prestige classes that could be taken starting at level 5 for a build like this. If I do end up taking Battle Sorcerer levels I want to be able to start prestiging after level 4, and do a level or two of something else before I switch into Abjurant Champion. The catch? I'm trying to build this gish so it doesn't lose a single caster level if possible. Are there any obscure prestige classes out there that (hopefully) have full BAB and at least don't cause loss of caster level for the first few levels, that might be accessible after level 4 of Battle Sorcerer, and might help accelerate the move into Abjurant Champion? Also, to the original poster, take the spell Nerveskitter (SpC)! You probably want to be winning initiative with a build like this.
#26 phaedrusxy May 22, 2009 15:39:39	Nope. RAW and RAI disagree with you. Taken verbatim from BoED: Spellcasters prepare sanctified spells just as they do regular spells, and casters who do not prepare spells (including sorcerers and bards) cannot make use of them except from a scroll. A sorcerer or bard with Arcane Preparation (H) does prepare spells, though. If you just change the part you bold, it changes the meaning totally. :P