Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zavule Mar 26, 2008 21:42:01	ok. I did a brief look and it doesn't seem like anyone has found this yet. Its nothing big, just a small idea and I haven't bothered crunching numbers. My only question is: Is it worth it? Duskblade 13 gets the ability to channel a spell through every attack of a full attack. Dip one level of warblade at any point after and take the Stormguard warrior feat. Use combat rhythm and channel a spell. now your touch attacks do damage. The next round reap the benefits. I can see potential for two weapon fighting touch attacks channeling spells followed by two weapon fighting channeled spell plus massive damage stacked from the last round's touch attacks.
#2 x-codes Mar 27, 2008 0:02:29	ok. I did a brief look and it doesn't seem like anyone has found this yet. Its nothing big, just a small idea and I haven't bothered crunching numbers. My only question is: Is it worth it? Duskblade 13 gets the ability to channel a spell through every attack of a full attack. Dip one level of warblade at any point after and take the Stormguard warrior feat. Use combat rhythm and channel a spell. now your touch attacks do damage. The next round reap the benefits. I can see potential for two weapon fighting touch attacks channeling spells followed by two weapon fighting channeled spell plus massive damage stacked from the last round's touch attacks. Can be very worthwhile with a spell like Vampiric Touch or even Ghoul Touch. Also, it doesn't require a Warblade dip. You can take Martial Study a couple times and Martial Stance to get a maneuver, a stance, IHS, and then Ironheart Aura and Stormguard Warrior. A couple bonus feats between A and B will get you Power Attack and Arcane Strike that are critical to CO'ed Duskblades.
#3 wolfie-kun Mar 27, 2008 13:39:47	Can be very worthwhile with a spell like Vampiric Touch or even Ghoul Touch. Also, it doesn't require a Warblade dip. You can take Martial Study a couple times and Martial Stance to get a maneuver, a stance, IHS, and then Ironheart Aura and Stormguard Warrior. A couple bonus feats between A and B will get you Power Attack and Arcane Strike that are critical to CO'ed Duskblades. No...a single level of Warblade will definitely cover that better, particularly with the bonus to Ref saves. Maybe two for Uncanny Dodge. Then again...why not just go into JPM after a quick Warblade dip? Most of Duskblade casting isn't really that strong (it's almost all damage-dealing evocation spells), and JPM will let you empower your spells after a strike, too. I like the mix, what with the huge number of spells/day Duskblades get. Lemme look at Duskblade real quick and make sure I'm not missing something important. EDIT: Damn, you never get up to 5th level Duskblade spells if you take 2 Warblade levels...Hm. Perhaps going straight back to Duskblade would be better, but that's up to you.
#4 bluedsteel Mar 27, 2008 14:19:39	I can't doublecheck right now, but I don't think TWF would work, since the spell is channeled through a single weapon. Still, a good idea. My current duskblade is working up to lvl 13, and lvl 14 is spoken for with the lion totem barbarian variant, since my DM ruled that Arcane Channeling (full) works on every attack:D, but I might have to work this into my build somewhere. Hrm...
#5 ChristopherGroves Mar 27, 2008 14:36:43	+1 to what wolfi-kun said. Duskblade 13 ... Lion Totem Barb 1 ... Warblade 1 or maybe 2 ... Bloodclaw Master X ... JPM Y ... would be pretty significant. If you're dipping, commit to the ToB dip. If not, stay Duskblade.
#6 zavule Mar 27, 2008 15:05:13	ok. Here's what I've thrown together as a preliminary build. Its really only hits his stride around 15th level or so. You should put off taking the warblade dip for as long as possible in character creation to grab the best stance and maneuvers you can, but since the build focuses on that dip don't wait too long. I built mine to gain access to the combination as quickly as possible. 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.
#7 zavule Mar 27, 2008 15:19:36	I can't doublecheck right now, but I don't think TWF would work, since the spell is channeled through a single weapon. Still, a good idea. My current duskblade is working up to lvl 13, and lvl 14 is spoken for with the lion totem barbarian variant, since my DM ruled that Arcane Channeling (full) works on every attack:D, but I might have to work this into my build somewhere. Hrm... As a Full Round Attack, a Duskblade may cast a ‘touch attack’ spell and deliver the spell through every attack that is part of a Full Round Attack. This action does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity. The spell’s casting time must be no more than 1 Standard Action. The ‘touch attack’ spell’s duration is reduced down to 1 round when used this way.
#8 bluedsteel Mar 27, 2008 15:27:09	As a Full Round Attack, a Duskblade may cast a ‘touch attack’ spell and deliver the spell through every attack that is part of a Full Round Attack. This action does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity. The spell’s casting time must be no more than 1 Standard Action. The ‘touch attack’ spell’s duration is reduced down to 1 round when used this way. I'm not sure what you're saying. If it's that TWF would work... maybe so. What you've posted leaves the possibility open, but I'd have to re-read the whole duskblade entry before I could be sure. It's definitely worth asking the Dm, though. On the bright side, if no TWF, your build gets three feats available for shadow hand stuff.
#9 ChristopherGroves Mar 27, 2008 15:33:44	Bloodclaw Master can get you some goodies too ...
#10 zavule Mar 27, 2008 15:54:56	I'm not sure what you're saying. If it's that TWF would work... maybe so. What you've posted leaves the possibility open, but I'd have to re-read the whole duskblade entry before I could be sure. It's definitely worth asking the Dm, though. On the bright side, if no TWF, your build gets three feats available for shadow hand stuff. actually that's pretty much all the book says on the subject. There's the lower level version of the ability that states "As a Standard Attack, a Duskblade may cast a ‘touch attack’ spell and deliver the spell through a melee weapon attack. This action does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity. The spell’s casting time must be no more than 1 Standard Action." but then since its a standard action you can only take one attack anyway. As far as I can tell the higher level version of this ability means exactly what it says. You can channel a spell through every attack in a full round action and fighting with two weapons is a full round action.
#11 bluedsteel Mar 27, 2008 16:02:40	Kewl. If I wasn't already planning to abuse Quick Cast with True Strike to let me Power Attack like crazy with my Spiked Chain, I'd change my build. Oh, well... it'll still benefit from Warblade dipping. And I hadn't thought about Jade Phoenix Mage... Now I'm gonna have to go read that.
#12 wolfie-kun Mar 28, 2008 0:03:09	Bloodclaw Master can get you some goodies too ... Agreed, though I'm not sure whether the Duskblade casting is more important or not here. Not like Duskblades are full casters or anything... Beyond that, the wording on Arcane Channeling has always bothered me. Any rulings anyone know of as to whether the spell will go off on the same target more than once?
#13 ShakaUVM Mar 28, 2008 0:48:03	Agreed, though I'm not sure whether the Duskblade casting is more important or not here. Not like Duskblades are full casters or anything... Beyond that, the wording on Arcane Channeling has always bothered me. Any rulings anyone know of as to whether the spell will go off on the same target more than once? It's ambiguous, I think it should though. I'd read over both rules sections carefully to make sure that the full attack channeling can be used with combat rhythm, though.
#14 Nox_Noctis Mar 28, 2008 1:21:22	It can definitely be used with Combat Rhythm. The spell effect is separate from the damage of the attack and triggers on a hit. I do wonder though with Blade of Blood because that specifically notes it as dealing "extra ... damage." And, yes, the wording is unclear. Taking it literally, it only triggers once per target since "it affects each target you hit in melee combat that round" with no mention of multiple hits. Its intentions are vague though and one could argue that multiple hits imply multiple deliverances of the spell.
#15 bluedsteel Mar 28, 2008 13:06:41	And, yes, the wording is unclear. Taking it literally, it only triggers once per target since "it affects each target you hit in melee combat that round" with no mention of multiple hits. Its intentions are vague though and one could argue that multiple hits imply multiple deliverances of the spell. I think there was also a vaguely successful attempt to show that "target" didn't necessarily mean the whole person... multiple targets could be several spots on the same person. Unfortunately, there's never been any official ruling. The Sage said something about it, but even what he said didn't make much sense, so it continues to be under question. I argued in my gaming group that practically, it depends on the spell - Ghoul Touch won't paralyze them three times, but Shocking Grasp can shock them three times. It mostly comes down to DM ruling.