Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 tomada_dup Feb 08, 2009 9:47:59	Hi people, it's been some years I don't post around, but still lurk from time to time. I am currently playing a campaign going into epic levels (we are 19th right now) and I am dissatisfied at my current character. It is a Necromancer 5 / Divine Oracle 2 / Archmage 3 / Loremaster 9. It's a very powerful character and since it came to the table the DM was forced to up the CR of our encounters a bit. We are currently fighting creatures 10 CRs higher than ourselves. We have a Cleric, which does not go into melee often, but otherwise is a very efficient buffer, a Frenzied Beserker which is very strong, as you all know and a 2WF ranger stacking FE bonuses, but almost useless against anything but his FE. I control the battlefield, buff the hell out of then and usually score some kills and debuff. As a Spell-like from Arch mage I have a Divide Ray Chained Enervation, which is very powerfull, but is being useless, since there is being quite some time that we don't fight anything but undead and constructs. And there is where the problem lies, I can battlefield control the constructs using grease and freezzing fog, for example, and buff my allies with chained empowered Greater Magic Weapons and Arcane Armors, through arcane reach. The cleric is currently doing the same with magic vestment, so everyone has +7 to armor/shield bonuses, to weapons and have arcane armors, so ACs aer High and attack/damage is nice. I usually cast some protection from evil and chained freedom of movement to further buff the party, and everyone loves me. BUT I don't like the character. I like to KILL things from time to time, being through some empowered Orbs, level drain or ability damage, I don't CARE, but I do want to kill something and with our current enemies I simply can't. Enough with the story, to what is significant, A NEW CHARACTER. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For a new character I would like to be able to buff the party, possibly to the same extent I did earlier, and to be able to fo into melee. I need a build. I have access to: PHB, DMG, Complete: Arcane, Adventurer, Warrior and Divine. ONLY. I was thinking along the lines of: Human Bard 8/ HexBlade 2 / Sublime chord 1/Eldritch knight 9. I gives me 17 BAB, 10th level Sublime casting, 17th level caster (unless practiced spell caster, which I may not have a feat slot for), some music and such. For feats I was thinking going dex+2WF+arcane strikeArcher gish road. Unless you have better options, since it would be atribute AND feat heavy. Our stats are flexible, and we use STRAIGHT BUY, not point buy. So 18 in a score costs 18 points, as 10 costs 10 points. We have 82 to distribute, so I was thinking: STR 14, DEX 18, CON 14, INT 10, WIS 8, CHA 18. I would 1 atribute point to CHA to cast 9th level spells, and the other 4 to dex, to achieve perfect two weapon fighting better archery attacks some day. Feats: Human: Point Blank Shot Bard 1: Precise shot Bard 3: Empower Spell Bard 6: Extra music Fighter 1: Rapid Shot Character 9: Melodic casting EK1: ??? Ek2 (char 12): Chain Spell Ek5 (chat 15): Improved Precise Shot Ek8 (char 18): ??? I would be EPIC Ready and would be able to cast some metamagicked up spells though melodic casting and extra music. Don't know if it is any good, though. Comments and critics accepted! EDIT: Forgot about weapon Finesse! Arcane Strike is a fighter bonus feat, right? Away from book right now, but will see later. To reflect changes mabe in my last post, now it's an archer build.....
#2 ninjarabbit Feb 08, 2009 10:10:25	I'd avoid the twf feats, it's too feat intensive and you don't have the secondary damage necessary to make it effective. You'd be better off with power attack and a two handed weapon. I'd also drop the dex down to 14 and bump your int to 14. I would also consider going bard8/paladin2/sublimechord2/sacredexoricst4/EK4, the boosts to your save are well worth it and you'd get turn undead to fuel divine feats like divine might and divine vigor.
#3 unundindur Feb 08, 2009 10:36:31	I can say from experience that twf works very well with a (normal) gish. That said, it is extremely feat intensive, so its a fine line. What I would recommend is to go wizard instead of bard. This is mostly due to the limited spells known to bards/sublimes, which becomes more and more important at high levels. Also, I recommend wizard because they can get Abrupt Jaunt and Spontaneous Divination, and at the same time be a (focused conjurer) netting so much spellpower and versatility its a little scary. If you are lucky you can even trade scribe scroll for a fighter feat (Unearthed Arcana). And when a campaign closes to epic, am I not right wizards are better prepared for epic rules that prc-based spellcasting? I suggest conjurer5/eldritch knight2/abjurant champion5/eldritch knight8. You need either the Otherworldly or Militia feat to quality, but the first is a great feat none the less. Considder adding a levle of monk and take Carmendine monk for awesome synergy with abjurant champion. As an option, you cna look into warblade1/conjurer5/Jade Phoenix MageX/Abjurant ChampionX. The big trade here is if you want 5 levels of Abjurant Champion or 10 levels of Jade Phoenix Mage. If you go epic anyway it doesn't matter to much.
#4 pithica Feb 08, 2009 10:54:58	Arcane Strike isn't a fighter bonus feat. I've convinced DM's that I could take it with my EK or Spellsword bonus before, but that was a houserule. TWF can be quite effective if you can come up with a good combo. Unfortunately your book limitations put a strong damper on it. Arcane Strike can add significant damage, but remember that you have to spend two spell slots to get it on all your attacks, as for normal weapons, one spell burned only covers a single weapon. I personally, having played/built/DM'd for a number of Gishes (and especially TWF gishes), would recommend going with a 2-hander and PA/Cleave/Great Cleave over TWF tree. You'll honestly get more damage out of it. You can make TWF more effective, though. If you could get Races of the Dragon allowed, (or at least, just one spell), you could take Greater Mighty Wallop and a Quarterstaff's base damage jumps to 4d6 (at CL 20). That would significantly help with TWF attacks, and make it worth it. Even moreso, if in addition to that, you could get Races of Stone allowed (or just the Goliath Greathammer weapon), you could buy two Small sized Goliath Greathammers, and take the oversized TWF feat. Combined with Greater Mighty Wallop, that means each hammer is doing a base of 8d8 damage (at CL 20). That's before Strength, Arcane Strike, Enhancement Bonuses, or anything else.
#5 phaedrusxy Feb 08, 2009 21:27:34	You don't need a new character. Shapechange + Divine Power = insta-gish. Get Divine Power via a Ring of Spellstoring, or ranks of UMD + a staff/wand/etc. Set it up to go off with a Contingency when you say booga-booga, or whatever.
#6 tomada_dup Feb 09, 2009 6:28:10	I'd avoid the twf feats, it's too feat intensive and you don't have the secondary damage necessary to make it effective. You'd be better off with power attack and a two handed weapon. I'd also drop the dex down to 14 and bump your int to 14. I would also consider going bard8/paladin2/sublimechord2/sacredexoricst4/EK4, the boosts to your save are well worth it and you'd get turn undead to fuel divine feats like divine might and divine vigor. I will avoid then, but what should I do instead? I probably won't be able to pull off the aligment shift required to take paladin 2, it would be easier to justify Holy Liberator 4, but then I loose too much spellcasting. But thanks for putting an effort with what I have, because people couldn't read the BOLD area of my text.
#7 pithica Feb 09, 2009 8:50:17	I will avoid then, but what should I do instead? Power Attack, Cleave, and Great Cleave are conveniently the same number of feats as the TWF tree, and in most cases, mathematically superior. With a solid 2-hander and Arcane strike, you will be doing significant damage that way. If your build allows for UMD at all, a wand (or eternal wand) of Lion's Charge is a boon, allowing you to full attack on a charge for extra brutality.
#8 tomada_dup Feb 09, 2009 16:13:36	I was thinking. If instead of a melee guy I use an archer gish? How good are those? I was thinking of using Hexblade 2 to get cha to saves. Then I lose 1 sublime chord casting level, but no too bad. Would be something loke this: Bard 8 / Hexblade 2 / Sublime Chord 1 / Ek 9 I will update the first post with the actual build and feats.
#9 Endarire Feb 09, 2009 18:21:30	From my brief archer experience at high levels, Damage Reduction > archers. Each arrow is probably doing 10-20 damage, but DR greatly hurts. It's much more practical to be a normal melee gish or a full Wizard. I second the shapechange notion: That spell goes a long way toward making you a viable gish. First, cast polymorph any object twice in short succession to become a high INT form then shapechange away! Alternatively, if you can cast abjurations, time stop + maw of chaos + wall of force x2 to trap your foes nearly ensures they don't escape as they're DoTted to death.
#10 pithica Feb 10, 2009 9:05:58	How good are those? I was thinking of using Hexblade 2 to get cha to saves. Then I lose 1 sublime chord casting level, but no too bad. I don't remember if SC get's 9th level spells at CL 9 or 10, but if you're going to lose it, I don't think the two levels of Hexblade are worth it. As Endarire said, shapechange is worth just about anything as a Gish. From my brief archer experience at high levels, Damage Reduction > archers. Each arrow is probably doing 10-20 damage, but DR greatly hurts. It's much more practical to be a normal melee gish or a full Wizard. At high levels, an archer should be at least using a force bow, if not a hank's bow with the splitting enchantment. Paired with Arcane Strike (which goes through DR/ER/and SR) damage shouldn't be an issue as an Archer-Gish. It'll suck a bit in the mid levels, though. If you optimize Inspire Courage a bit, though, and pick your equipment right, you should be able to get around most of it easy enough until you can afford the Force Bow. Luckily, only a handful of mobs in the 7-12 range have hard to overcome DR.
#11 phoenix00 Feb 10, 2009 9:21:45	you can arcane strike with a bow? I thought it was limited to melee weapons
#12 ninjarabbit Feb 10, 2009 9:45:36	You can also use divine might with a bow, useful if you still want to take sacred exorcist levels.
#13 pithica Feb 10, 2009 10:20:57	you can arcane strike with a bow? I thought it was limited to melee weapons You're right, you can't. Someone in my group must have house-ruled it at some point (or nobody ever bothered to check), because a number of people I know have played Archer Gishes with it. Mea Culpa.
#14 tomada_dup Feb 10, 2009 13:08:49	Thanks for the input. I knew Arcane strike was melee only, that's why it was never an option. I won't lose 9th level casting, but it will be poorer. Nonetheless cha to saves is SWEET. Sacred exorcist levels are an option again, I think I can pull it. I won't be playing this weekend, because of the DM's rotation, I will be DM'ing. And bipassing DR with bows is easy, carry a TON of different arrows and you're good! (or evil if needed be)
#15 pithica Feb 10, 2009 13:42:37	It's even easier...buy a Force Bow (+2 Enhancement bonus from MIC), or a Hank's Bow and your weapon damage goes through all forms of DR and ER, is 'ghost touch' and only 3 creatures have any ability to resist it.
#16 Endarire Feb 10, 2009 23:46:17	Hank's Bow: That would've been good to know years ago!