Help my Suel Arcanamach

Post/Author/DateTimePost
#1

empirate

Sep 09, 2008 6:24:54		I built me a Suel Arcanamach on a Paladin base, to take advantage of Cha synergy and Divine Metamagic, and be a smiting, PAing, Arcane Striking, Dispelling Striking, melee damage dealer (probably charging quite a bit). This character is not immediately needed for play, it is more of an exercise and came out as something I'd probably like to play at some point. What do you think of the following level-by-level breakdown?

Race: Human
AL: LG

1st: Paladin 1 (Skilled City-Dweller Alternate Class Feature) / Combat Casting, Power Attack (Human)
2nd: Paladin 2
3rd: Paladin 3 / Iron Will
4th: Paladin 4
5th: Paladin 5 (Mystic Fire Knight Substitution Level; Charging Smite Alternate Class Feature)
6th: Paladin 6 (Mystic Fire Knight Substitution Level) / Divine Might
7th: Suel Arcanamach 1
8th: Suel Arcanamach 2
9th: Suel Arcanamach 3 / Arcane Strike
10th: Suel Arcanamach 4
11th: Abjurant Champion 1
12th: Abjurant Champion 2 / Quicken Spell
13th: Abjurant Champion 3
14th: Abjurant Champion 4
15th: Abjurant Champion 5 / Divine Metamagic (Quicken)
16th: Spellsword 1
17th: Dragon Disciple 1
18th: Dragon Disciple 2 / Sacred Vitality
19th: Dragon Disciple 3
20th: Dragon Disciple 4

Ends up with BAB 18; base saves +13, +8, +16; 5th level Suel spells (probably 6/day, of which two could be quickened even without Nightsticks or Extra Turning); Greater Dispelling Strike 2/day; all the AC goodies; the ability to wear Mithral Twilight Full Plate without ASF; and lots of Cha synergy.

Abilities: Cha>Str>Con>Int>Wis>Dex.
Cha should be maxed for obvious reasons: saves, smiting, Suel spellcasting, turning attempts. I'm a melee guy, so Str and Con are important. I don't need much Int, but a few extra skillpoints are always welcome. Wis should be at least 11, though, to take advantage of a single Paladin 1 spell. At 12, I'd get another one, and a bonus to my Will saves. This is not required, though. Dex I'll dump entirely.

Reasoning:
Mystic Fire Knight sub levels give Spellcraft as a class skill, so it should be easy to fulfill Suel entry reqs (with some cross-class ranks in jump, admittedly).
I want Divine Feats, so I skip the first MFK sub level - I won't have many Paladin spells, anyway, just enough for Bless Weapon.
Since I replace Ride with Tumble as a class skill (as per the Cityscape Web Enhancement), I have no use for my Special Mount, and replace it with Charging Smite.
Divine Metamagic in a Suel build seems nice, and I'll have a lot of turning attempts to burn. I've always liked DMM(Quicken) better than DMM(Persist), and it takes fewer Feats to obtain (no Extend). Quickening is cheaper and more flexible, as many more spells can be quickened than persisted. Also, my self-buffs will already be extended for free, double-extended if they're Abjurations.
I don't need Practiced Spellcaster, as AC 5 sets my caster level at my BAB.
Dragon Disciple comes in just when the Suel spell progression is finished, so I can take advantage of 3 bonus 5th level spells, plus very nice stat bonuses indeed. Finishing touches, so to speak.

I am not quite content with the order of my Feats, though. Also, I might be persuaded that persistent Polymorph is worth DMM(Persist) (although I can quicken it just fine, too). Sacred Vitality was just my idea of what to do with the feat at 18th level, this is open to debate.
Spellsword is little-needed filler (the 10th spellcasting level of Suel Arcanamach offers almost nothing extra), and could be replaced with any nice 1-level-dip. Probably something with +1 BAB.
Green Star Adept instead of Dragon Disciple? Is that something I should consider?

Books are Core, all FR, all Complete (except Champion), Libris Mortis, PHB II, FF, BoED, LoM, RoD.

And yes: I have read and digested true_shinken's Suel Arcanamach Handbook, and decided not to take Duskblade for entry. I not only like the mechanics, but also the flavor of this character.
#2

empirate

Sep 09, 2008 17:09:01 		Not supposed to be a premature bump, but...

Come on! 150 views, but no reply? Interesting, but not worth commenting on? Help a fellow D&Der out! What do you think, what could be improved, is this build viable, can it be played at all levels?

For instance, a problem I only noticed in hindsight is that when I start taking Suel Arcanamach levels, I can't well wear heavy armor anymore. And it takes a long time before that becomes possible again! It's also a while until Abjurant Champion kicks in and makes pure Mage Armor/Shield viable. What do I do? Luminous Armor perhaps?
#3

Balthanon

Sep 09, 2008 20:24:46
For instance, a problem I only noticed in hindsight is that when I start taking Suel Arcanamach levels, I can't well wear heavy armor anymore. And it takes a long time before that becomes possible again! It's also a while until Abjurant Champion kicks in and makes pure Mage Armor/Shield viable. What do I do? Luminous Armor perhaps?

By the time you get to Suel Archanamach you should have enough ready cash to purchase a +1 twilight mithril shirt-- go with that until you can pick up more significant armor. You weren't going to be using heavy armor anyway if you were planning on using tumble, so at most, you're a point behind a breastplate. (Mithril fullplate isn't likely for quite awhile.)

If you're exalted, luminous armor is likely to be better than any type of armor. (And it will benefit from your Abjurant Champion levels, unlike mage armor.)
#4

Wyvernhand

Sep 10, 2008 3:13:11 		Um, not to be a debbie downer, but you can only DMM Divine Spells, Suel ARCANAmach casts arcane spells. Therefore, no DMMing them. You could DMM Quicken your Pally spells, if you didn't dump them, but that really doesn't acomplish much, seeing that you'd only get 1st level ones even if you didn't dump em. And the only good 1st level Pally spell, Rhino's Rush, is already swift.

Also, be sure to take Whirling Blade as one of your 2nd level spells. Its a glorious little Transmutation from Spell Compendium that rounds out a melee gish character perfectly with a melee based ranged attack. For extra giggles, empower it to multiply all of the goodies you normally get (3:1 PA, better return on weapon enhancements and Arcane Strike/Divine Might, etc). Also you can use it to make Dispelling Strikes at range, just in case you want that pesky flying mage to come down to a more meleeable distance.

Another thing, if you don't mind waiting for Divine Might and being good, you could jump out of paladin earlier for something like Fighter (for more feats) or like, ex-Hexblade for more resistances and then picking up turn undead from a level of SacredExorcist from Complete Divine. It'll lose you a BAB, but you'll gain some non-useless abilities that Paladin just doesn't provide. At that point, I'd jump out of Paladin at 2. Just a thought.
#5

empirate

Sep 10, 2008 4:35:18 		Thanks for your thoughts so far.

Armor: Good, I'll take lighter armor in between. The point about Tumble is well taken.

Whirling Blade ist excellent! Just looked it up again. Works especially nicely with Divine Might and Smite Evil, if I read it correctly. Also, Dispelling Strike with it is just sick!

I think I'll stick with Paladin over ex-Hexblade or Fighter, though. The Mystic Fire Knight sub levels I'm interested in are Pally 5 and 6, and I like me a second Smite Evil/day. Also, I need to get Pally 5 to take Charging Smite (instead of Mount). I'm not really feat-starved, I believe, and Hexblade doesn't offer anything I want apart from Mettle. That would be 3 levels of Hexblade, though, so I don't believe I can fit it in, especially together with Sacred Exorcist (don't want Dismissal as a Suel spell known, and it would come very late, anyway).

Divine Metamagic: my copy of Complete Divine reads like this:
Divine Metamagic {Divine}
You can channel energy into some of your divine spells to make them more powerful.
Prerequisite: Ability to turn undead or rebuke undead.
Benefit: When you take this feat, choose a metamagic feat. This feat applies only to that metamagic feat. As a free action, you can take the energy from turning or rebuking undead and use it to apply a metamagic feat to spells that you know. You must spend one turn or rebuke attempt, plus an additional attempt for each level increase in the metamagic feat you're using. For example, Jozan the cleric could sacrifice three turn attempts to empower a holy smite he's casting. Because you're using positive or negative energy to augment your spells, the spell slot for the spell doesn't change.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time you take this feat choose a different metamagic feat to which to apply it.
#6

sjiggie

Sep 10, 2008 5:10:08 		DMM got an errata so that it only affects divine spells know now.
#7

xoraxx

Sep 10, 2008 8:13:12 		Yup, it got errata'd into this:

Page 80: Divine Metamagic feat
The boldface text needs to be added to the Benefit
paragraph of the feat description:
When you take this feat, choose a metamagic feat that
you have. This feat applies only to that metamagic feat.
As a free action, you can take the energy from turning
or rebuking undead and use it to apply a metamagic feat
to divine spells that you know. . . .

The rest of the build looks nice though.
#8

empirate

Sep 10, 2008 8:37:45 		Damn. There goes my nice idea. I've never played a DMM monkey before, and I thought in this build it would be great, but not overpowered, either.

So, anybody got good ideas what to do with my feats instead of DMM? More general Divine Feats, or skip them entirely?
#9

xoraxx

Sep 10, 2008 9:56:35 		I don't think you need any Divine feats other then Divine Might...
Knowledge Devotion and Travel Devotion are nice, or maybe get Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar. Or since you have Power Attack, you can take Leap Attack.

Hope this helps.
#10

surreal

Sep 11, 2008 1:57:14 		How about taking that 4th level paladin sub level, then trade Dragon Disciple for Sacred Exorcist to get your turn attempts back? Assuming you apply SS and SE to your paladin casting, that's enough to get you 3rd level paladin spells with a CL=29 (11 paladin + 18 Suel).
#11

empirate

Sep 11, 2008 2:41:42 		Suel Arcanamach has its own spellcasting, it doesn't progress another class's. Suel can use all Divination, Abjuration, Transmutation and Illusion. Casts a bit like a Sorcerer (Cha-based spontaneous), but with accelerated access to higher levels. Otherwise, taking that 4th sub level would be a good idea, but I don't rely on Paladin casting in this build.
Sacred Exorcist needs Dispel Evil or Dismissal. I'd only get Dismissal via Suel casting, and only at the 8th level of that. That's rather too late for my taste. This build is supposed to be playable at all levels. I thought about dipping Cleric for Turn Undead and Domain goodies, but as I said, I don't really need the 4th Pally sub level in this build.
#12

MenhirRocksolid

Sep 11, 2008 8:23:25 		Perhaps with the feat "southern magician" (or something) from one of the faerun books you can work around this problem of arcane spells not being divine?
#13

surreal

Sep 11, 2008 12:17:01
Suel Arcanamach has its own spellcasting, it doesn't progress another class's.

There's the other ability from the level 4 substitution that stacks your caster level from another arcane class with your paladin casting. So you'd be able to get up to 11th level casting in Paladin, but you add your Suel caster level (which should be 18 with AbjCh) to it. It was just a suggestion, that's all.
#14

empirate

Sep 11, 2008 18:40:57 		Your idea sounds intriguing, but I'm afraid I don't quite get it. Could you spell that out a little more, please? How would I be getting 11th level Paladin casting? If it's possible to cast Pally spells with a CL of 29 this way, that would be cool! Or do I misunderstand completely?
#15

surreal

Sep 12, 2008 17:42:11 		Let's go back to the build of: Paladin 6/Suel 4/Abjurant Champion 5/Spellsword 1/Sacred Exorcist 4

Use AbjCh to advance your Suel casting, this will give you Suel casting with a CL = BAB = 18 (since this is the capstone ability of the Abj Ch)

Use everything else to advance your paladin casting. So that gives you the equivalent of paladin 11 casting (which is 3rd level spells) with a CL of 8 (half your paladin levels (which is 3) plus the PrC advances)

However, the 4th level mystic knight substitution level, "improved spellcasting" treats your paladin CL as 1/2 paladin +2 and also lets you add your CL from a chosen arcane class. Obviously we'll be adding your CL 18 Suel casting.

So your caster level for paladin spells is 3 (pal) + 2 (imp casting) + 1 (SS) + 4 (SE) + 18 (Suel) = 28

So overall you'll be slinging level 5 arcane spells with CL 18, and level 3 divine spells with CL 28. You could always throw some practiced spellcaster into that, but it'd probably be overkill by then.
#16

Wyvernhand

Sep 12, 2008 21:17:01 		Hmmm, intersting concept there Surreal.

If you go with that, definitely look to Spell Compendium for your Paladin spells. 1st level has Rhino's Rush, an utterly amazing spell for any paladin who likes to charge. Swift action cast, doubles all charge damage. Also, for 3rd level Righteous Fury is hands down the best spell there. +4 MORAL bonus to str and 5 temp hp/level, its pretty much amazing, especially with your hyper accelerated CL on pally spells. Man, that would be pretty sweet.
#17

empirate

Sep 15, 2008 2:07:58 		WOW! I'm impressed. Thanks, Surreal, that's a great idea I'll keep in mind. Seems my build is finalized, then...

Thanks to everybody for their thoughts!
#18

likrin

Jan 05, 2009 12:16:11 		hey, is there any way u can post something the stats for the Mystic Fire Knight? i don't have access to the book or anything and i was trying to do the same build with my character
#19

surreal

Jan 05, 2009 13:27:30 		Sorry, posting anything like that is illegal and against forum policy.
#20

rasmus_wagner

Jan 05, 2009 13:48:01
So overall you'll be slinging level 5 arcane spells with CL 18, and level 3 divine spells with CL 28. You could always throw some practiced spellcaster into that, but it'd probably be overkill by then.

And since DMM (Quicken) is out, Battle Blessing is in.
#21

empirate

Jan 07, 2009 15:09:55 		Battle Blessing with 3rd level Pally spells of CL 28. This gets more and more interesting. So my Feats would be:
1: Iron Will, Power Attack
3: Combat Casting
6: Battle Blessing
9: Arcane Strike
12: Open
15: Open
18: Divine Might

Any suggestions for the open Feat slots? Leap Attack "leaps" to mind in a charger build, obviously. What else? Maybe even skip Arcane Strike for Improved Sunder and take Combat Brute? Or for Improved Bull Rush and take Shock Trooper? Other possibilities? Metamagic for the Suel Casting, or maybe a Reserve Feat?
#22

Balthanon

Jan 07, 2009 16:41:32
Any suggestions for the open Feat slots? Leap Attack "leaps" to mind in a charger build, obviously. What else? Maybe even skip Arcane Strike for Improved Sunder and take Combat Brute? Or for Improved Bull Rush and take Shock Trooper? Other possibilities? Metamagic for the Suel Casting, or maybe a Reserve Feat?

Improved Sunder in a paladin? You might as well be asking to have your powers stripped and fall. ;)
#23

surreal

Jan 07, 2009 17:58:21 		It's a prereq.
#24

Balthanon

Jan 07, 2009 18:19:48
It's a prereq.

I know, just joking around given the blackguard prereqs.