Power atack, knowledge devotion, improved sunder, combat brute, improved initiative and arcane strike.
I really dont like combat brute as i havent really used it that much, im thinking of going for elusive target or great cleave instead.
Well, what I would like yo guys to give me advice is, do you think theres a better option than Duskblade 16, being optimized and still being mainly dusblade?
Probably knowledge devotion will be banned from now on.
So... any advice on feats, or any PrC or base class would be greatly appreciated
Pot
:D
main feats: power attack, EWP: spiked chain, WF: spiked chain, arcane strike
Take the flurry stunt for an extra attack with the spiked chain
Standard Arcane Gish would add dispelling, flight, quick teleportation, ally teleportation, stronger buffs, polymorph cheese you should never use, and such to the mix. Also, the prospect of 9th level spells and thus, the ultimate power easily available in D&D pre-epic. Oh, and if you have "Smiting Spell", you'll lose little in terms of channeling (but get much better spells to channel - the "full attack channeling" isn't nearly as good as it seems since it's written to only affect every target you strike once so it's only good against hordes).
So I suggest:
Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight to finish.
or
Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist (or any 3/4th BAB + full casting class) to finish.
Both get the ability to ignore 10% of Arcane Spell Failure (making Mithril Breastplate give you 5%, Twilight or Githcraft Mithril Breastplate (Githcraft is preferable since it's a set cost increase instead of a magical ability) and Mithril Chain Shirt give you none at all, and even Twilight Githcraft Mithril Full-Plate being at 0%), armor proficiencies, weapon proficiencies, etc. Upper one has better BAB, ending at 17 BAB and 18 casting. The lower one ends up with 19 levels of casting, but only BAB 15. Fighter 2/Wizard 4/Eldritch Knight 2/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight to finish would give you BAB 18 and 17 levels of casting, but that point of BAB is practically never worth that level of casting.
Best of all? All those builds only require Combat Casting - all other feats are open! Pick up Practiced Spellcaster along the way and you'll have full caster levels too (which, as usual, kicks all kinds of ass). For feats, you'll want:
-Combat Casting: Prerequisite
-Power Attack: Duh
-Arcane Strike: Duh
-Extend Spell: Duh
-Quicken Spell: Duh - you have the caster levels to actually make use out of this too (swift action teleportation and such is just sweet for an arcanist)
-Spontaneous Divination: Probably (Wizard 5 alternative class feature from Complete Champion)
-Abrupt Jaunt: Probably (Conjurer 1 alternative class feature from PHBII - oh yeah, be a Conjurer and a Martial Wizard to trade your first feat for a Fighter-feat)
-Combat Reflexes+Martial Study: Something+Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades (alternatively, take your first level in Crusader over Fighter and gain some maneuvers out of the deal along with delayed damage pool and all sorts of fun): Quickened Dimension Door in, cast Anti-Magic Field and watch the mighty magicians fall to your attacks of opportunities. Also gives you nice protection. Wield reach weapon like Guisarme obviously (preferably fit your armor with armor spikes to threaten adjacent), and make liberal use of Enlarge Person and similars to also defend your own.
-Combat Expertise/Improved Trip: If you've got the feats to spare. Stand Still is more feat-economic method of keeping the targets you want in the AMF. This one has other uses too though. And really, we're talking about spellcasters - your Str modifiers should be enough to trip them, so this may not even be necessary.
-Improved Bull Rush/Shock Trooper: Sure, why not.
-Smiting Spell: If you like channeling (channel Vampiric Touch - that's fun)
-Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain: If you've got excess feats, it's slightly more convenient than a Guisarme+Spikes
-Whatever else suits your fancy.
If you're just rebuilding the feats, those suggestions stay pretty much intact (minus the alternative class features of course), but obviously you'd do well to ignore the class suggestions given and take the others given instead. Personally, I'd do:
Specialize in Conjuration banning Evocation and Enchantment (although a case can be made for banning Necromancy (I like Vampiric Touch with Smiting Spell though, and False Life and such) or Illusion (but I really adore Illusion's defensive magic like Displacement, Greater Mirror Image and company, especially for a Gish).
Crusader 1: Power Attack, Stand Still/Combat Expertise (going into Improved Trip)/Improved Bull Rush (going into Shock Trooper) - if you go with Bull Rush, you'll rely on your Str-score to stop people from moving
Wizard 1: Abrupt Jaunt ACF (instead of familiar), Combat Reflexes (Martial Wizard - replaces Scribe Scroll)
Wizard 2: Smiting Spell
Wizard 3:
Wizard 4:
Wizard 5: Spontaneous Divination ACF (replaces Wizard Bonus Feat), Combat Casting
Wizard 6:
Spellsword 1:
Abjurant Champion 1: Arcane Strike
Abjurant Champion 2:
Abjurant Champion 3:
Abjurant Champion 4: Quicken Spell
Abjurant Champion 5:
Eldritch Knight 1: Martial Stance: Thicket of Blades
Eldritch Knight 2: Practiced Spellcaster (if you're expected to have to dispel things, for example)/Extend Spell/whatever
Eldritch Knight 3:
That puts you casting at level 14 with BAB 13, and gives you a decent lockdown set with magic to back up Power Attack, along with spontaneous divinations (e.g. True Strike, True Seeing and See Invisibility at will). Quite good overall. Sure, you'd rather not deal with a barbarian in the AMF, but you can beat up straight casters.
EDIT: Oh yeah, one feat to consider is Quick Draw. No, seriously! It allows you to use metamagic rods (assuming you need them in hands to use them) for real by drawing them as free actions, casting whatever you need metamagicked, then resume a two-handed grip on your weapon (all of this as a free action, except casting the spell, which is either a swift action or a standard action) and hit your opponent or whatever.
As for maneuvers, I'd consider:
-Douse the Flames (actually possibly useful in some sitiuation!)
-Leading the Attack
-Charging Minotaur
-Vanguard Strike
-Crusader's Strike (I guess you can hit somebody upside the head with this if you know the opponent is dead in one hit and someone might use healing)
Stance: Leading the Charge - it isn't even close, you may actually use this one while the others...not so much.
If you actually plan on using your maneuvers, Extra Granted Maneuver may be worth it (combining it with items like Crown of White Raven (teaching you White Raven Tactics, for example) and Amulet of Devoted Spirit for some of the Charges for example - you could actually use those as they're free bonuses for your Lion's Charged initial attack. Overall, you can make some use out of this side with just one Crusader-level and while it isn't your primary focus, it may be something worth keeping in mind.
Don't forget that the spell "Heroics" can learn any Fighter-feat including Martial Study which gives you access to nice higher level maneuvers too. It also allows for many other handy feats (especially if you've taken prerequisite feats like Combat Expertise, Power Attack and company), all depending on the sitiuation. All in all, a great spell and only second level!
EDIT#2: Checked up the saves of the build I gave you. They're pretty close to what your straight Duskblade would get if going by standard saves (slightly worse if going by fractionals):
Crusader 1: 2/0/0
Wizard 1: 2/0/2
Wizard 2: 2/0/3
Wizard 3: 3/1/3
Wizard 4: 3/1/4
Wizard 5: 3/1/4
Wizard 6: 4/2/5
SS 1: 6/2/7
AC 1: 6/2/9
AC 2: 6/2/10
AC 3: 7/3/10
AC 4: 7/3/11
AC 5: 7/3/11
Eldritch 1: 9/3/11
Eldritch 2: 10/3/11
Eldritch 3: 10/4/12
Eldritch 4: 11/4/12
Eldritch 5: 11/4/12
Eldritch 6: 12/5/13
Eldritch 7: 12/5/13
By comparison, Duskblade of equal level has 9/5/9. So your Ref is worse while your Fort and Will are slightly better, and they'll end in about the same values as that of a straight Duskblade. So I wouldn't worry about that part, especially with Abjurant Champion's ability to sacrifice spell slots to improve your saves if need be.
Your HD size will drop ever-so-slightly: The average for Duskblade 16 with max on first level is 75.5, while the Gish has 67.5 (Wizard and Eldritch Knight have lower HD, while Spellsword has the same and Crusader and Abjurant Champion have higher). Of course, you'll have Delayed Damage Pool of 5 points, so you can really take 72.5 points of punishment as is (and easily cast False Life for 14-16 extra points) You'll lose one extra point per level from now on, making the difference 12 points on level 20 (or 7 factoring in the Delayed Damage Pool). Again though, that shouldn't relevantly affect much (and if you fear it does, you can afford Improved Toughness with all the feats you get - that would put the Gish ahead by 8).
As far as skills go, you get 8 extras at level 1 (Crusader has 4+Int skills), but it'll be slightly more difficult to place them in order to max out skills (unless you take Able Learner, which is probably waste of feats unless the party needs a face/scout/trapfinder/whatever). I think you end up on top there - the varied skill list and extra points are definitely pure plus. With the PHBII retraining rules, you can easily focus those extra points on the skills you want too. Also, you can get 4 ranks in Balance. Buy one cross-class (it's a class skill like...never, which is why it's awesome to get it from Crusader). That allows you to make liberal use of "Grease" - all affected characters without 5 ranks in Balance are considered Flat-Footed, which allows you to go to town quite easily, especially since you're not affected. Also, any precision damage dealers will love you.
Stats in order of importance:
Dex, int, con, str, wis, cha
Human Duskblade
Duskblade 1 weapon finesse, two weapon fighting
Duskblade 2 combat casting
Duskblade 3 arcane strike
Duskblade 4
Duskblade 5
Duskblade 6 improved two weapon fighting
Duskblade 7
Duskblade 8
Warblade 1 ironheart aura
Duskblade 9
Duskblade 10
Duskblade 11 greater two weapon fighting
Duskblade 12
Duskblade 13
Duskblade 14 Stormguard Warrior
Duskblade 15
Duskblade 16
Duskblade 17 Martial Stance (Blood on the Water)
Duskblade 18
Warblade 2
Stance: Absolute Steel Stance
Manuvers Known:
Iron Heart:
Wall of Blades
Iron Heart Surge
Tiger Claw:
Sudden Leap
Pouncing Charge
Here goes. You're gonna be dexterous. I couldn't really work in shadow hand stuff for the Shadow Blade feat without messing with the feat progression. I'd suggest wielding a rapier and a kukri and working out of blood in the water for most of the fighting. Your fighting will work in two turns. The first turn is using combat rhythm to make a mass of touch attacks. Seven touch attacks combined with the full attack arcane channel. With a first level spell, lets say shocking grasp, each successful poke will do 5d6 points of damage. You can pick nastier spells; I just like the idea of first level spell of death. You can even arcane strike while doing it to increase the odds of hitting and maybe extra damage. I'm not sure on that one. The next round is where this all pays off. Now you full attack. Channel another spell and arcane strike as well. Each hit is now doing channeled spell+arcane strike+weapon damage+str or 1/2 str for off hand+ 5 extra damage per successful touch attack scored last round.
Duskblade 3 arcane strike
sorry to break it to you but you can't take arcane strike untill you get 3rd lvl spells and in the duskblades case they don't get them until 3rd lvl
other wise your build looks alright
Awesome advice.
+1 for that rock and roll gish set up. You will own, hard. I vote for banning necromancy, as Enchantment has a few decent buffs that last a good while, such as Heroics and Heroism. I like using Illumians with Aeshkrau for gishes, but that's up to you. Lose a feat for being non-human, gain a feat by not having to take Practiced Spellcaster, and gain some really cool other bonuses as well. (Though if you can't get up to 19 Int without magic and still have a good strength score....then it's largely moot if you are going to shut your own items off with AMF.)
Duskblade 13 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7 (requires heighten spell) ... full duskblade casting and all the seven veils
Duskblade 13 / Wyrm Wizard 7 ... some spells known AND free metamagics
Duskblade 13 / Sand Shaper 1 / Escalation Mage 6 ... big bonus to spells known and more quickened(s)
Duskblade 13 / Barbarian 1 / Rage Mage 6 ... spellrage 2/day
Duskblade 13 / Impure Prince 6 / something 1 (probably Sandshaper) ... cool and flavorful
Duskblade 13 / Spellthief 1 / Unseen Seer 6 ... not the most optimal, but you can do it
Duskblade 13 / Warmind 5 / Cerebremancer 2 (or just Warmind 7) ... sweeping strike + channel on full attack = giggle
Duskblade 13 / Elemental Savant 1 / Sanctified One of Kord 1 / Whatever 5 ... purge with holy fire channeled through your weapons ...
and so on