Alone, out in the woods, burnt a campfire, with a lone figure sitting in front of it.
"See boss, easy pickins, like I said" "Indeed. But does he have anything worth my time?" "I saw him making camp. He laid down one of the plumpest looking coin purses I have ever seen. And the way his pack jingled, there had to be..." a quick mental calculation, "...lots more" "Then we shall liberate his purse, for a small service of course. Tell the others to move into place. Surround him and prepare. He way have a weapon." "Yeah boss. Not killin is a service, right?" "Indeed."
As the highwaymen moved into place, an unnatural quiet settled upon the area. All of the crows in the nearby trees had decided to quiet down. The thieves moved into position, shadows through the foliage. "Arrgh!" A helpless figure hung upside down, his foot caught in a noose. Arcane words, and the campfire was snuffed out. More words, this time the figure, now standing, disappeared from plain sight. More words were heard, as though at once a whisper and a scream. "Find him, kill him, take his things, and be careful! This one is a mage!" screamed the leader. More arcane words drifted on the night air, this time filling the night with powerful energy. The energy collasced around the body of the leader, as if a giant hand were holding him in place. The mage appeared before him. "Mistake one: Attacking." Behind the mage came a thief, pushing his blade into the mages back. The blade bent against the stone-like skin of the mage. In a blur the leader saw the mage turn, producing a razor-sharp blade as we went, and neatly cut off the head of his would-be assassin. Before he could register the amazing blade prowess this simpe mage had just demonstrated, the mage moved again, this time producing a second blade. He quickly made work of the second and third thieves within his reach, slicing their arms in strategic places so that they could no longer attack. The remaining thieves had stopped dead in their tracks once they realized that the mage was looking at each of them in turn, despite the fact that they were well hidden. They wanted to live long enough to spend that gold. Turning back to their leader, the mage continued to speak. "Mistake two: Continuing the attack." With a simple gesture, the supposed mage dismissed the hand holding the higwaymens leader. "If you can leave this campground alive, then you are welcome to go. I should warn you, there are traps. One has already been found. You might make it if you go the exact way you came in. Maybe." With that the mage grabbed his pack, and seemed to merge with the shadows until he was no longer there. The leader of the higwaymen was shaking, standing in a pile of his own filth. He hoped that he could remember the way back out.
The Undecided Spellblade
He is undecided because he is of True Neutral alignment.
playable 1-40, PvM
Got the idea from a number of spellsword builds I was looking through, in particular Mith's Ferromancer and grizz's Professional. Unfortunately I am not as good a story teller, (nor a char builder for that matter ) but I hope the idea is clear. A spellsword with good AB, nice AC, decent selection of spells, and some helpful skills.
Advantages: Large number of spells, with an easily modified list of daily spells thanks to empower and extend. Solid AB, even while dual wielding, which can be increased by going one handed (+4 to AB) or with a number of helpful spells. Nice AC, which can be enhanced with the help of improved expertise and a tower shield to quickly gain at least +13 to AC. Decent selection of rogue like skills, including disarming traps and setting them, using magical equipment and tumbling like a circus clown. Not easily taunted, nor knocked down, disarmed or hit while moving in combat. Slight sneak attack damage. Can quickly disable an opponent with hits to the legs and arms, as well as knocking them over for easying sneaking. Invisible opponents get less advantage. Nice HP for a rogue or wizard.
Disadvantages: XP penalty like you wouldn't believe. Ah well, life is hard. Poor saves, except for reflex. The spellcraft bonus helps a lot (+9 if you get 41 in spellcraft), but something to boost saves is a good idea. Takes a long time to get those spells (Only in epic). Requires patience and skill to get to epic (UMD helps alot here). Damage without spells, special rapiers or against sneak/crit immune creatues is kinda low. But that is why he has spells...unless you run out. Low HP for a warrior. Spells and equipment help out on that.
Str 12 Dex 16 to 30 Con 14 Int 16 to 18 Wis 8 Cha 8
1 Rogue1, Ambidex, TWF 2 Rogue2 3 Rogue3, Weap Finesse 4 Fighter1, Weap Focus: Rapier 5 Fighter2, KD 6 Fighter3, Iron Will 7 Fighter4, Weap Spec: Rapier 8 Fighter5 9 Fighter6, Impr KD, Toughness 10 Fighter7 11 Fighter8, Impr Crit: Rapier 12 Rogue4, Impr TWF 13 Fighter9 14 Fighter10, Expertise 15 Fighter11, Impr Expertise 16 Fighter12, Dodge 17 Fighter13 18 Fighter14, Called Shot 19 Fighter15 20 Rogue5 21 Wizard1, EWF: Rapier 22 Wizard2 23 Wizard3 24 Wizard4, Great Dex I 25 Wizard5, Great Int I 26 Fighter16, EWS: Rapier 27 Wizard6, Great Dex II 28 Wizard7 29 Wizard8 30 Wizard9, Great Dex III 31 Wizard10, Great Int II 32 Rogue6 33 Wizard11, Great Dex IV 34 Fighter17 35 Wizard12 36 Wizard13, Extend Spell 37 Wizard14 38 Wizard15, Empower Spell 39 Fighter18, Armor Skin 40 Rogue7
AB: 38/33/28/23 & 38/33 while dual wielding rapiers, 42/37/32/27 with a single rapier AB when buffed with True Strike and Emp Cat's Grace is 60/55/50/45 & 60/55 or 64/59/54/49 AC: with nothing but his birthday suit is 30, and can be supplemented with Improved Expertise, Empower Cat's Grace, a Tower Shield, Mage Armor to hit 49. Maybe more with Shadow Shield (not sure if the AC stacks fully or not). This is still without some cool equipment like monk equipment or wizard robes. Max HP: 402, and when buffed with Emp Endurance hits 482.
Animal Companion: Raven ... not too useful for much, but an extra set of eyes never hurt. Also True Neutral.
Favored Spells: 1 Prot from Align x 2, Mage Armor, True Strike x 3 2 Flame Weapon x 2, Ghostly Vis x 2, Ext Shield, Ext Exp Retreat 3 Haste x 2, GMW x 2, Prot from Elem, Invis Sphere 4 Emp Cat's Grace, Emp Bull's Str, Emp Endur, Impr Invis x 2, Stoneskin 5 BIH x 2, Lesser Mind Blank x 2, Mestil's Acid Sheath 6 Greater Stoneskin, BFH, True Seeing, Emp Ice Storm 7 Spell Mantle, Shadow Shield, BGH 8 Premonition, Greater Sanc.
Notice that he has 4 spells, which last some time, to protect his mind, and multiples of very useful or needed spells. What I like about this list is that he can get some nice damage spells using empower spell. With an item that grants spell penetration or something similar, he can do some nice arcane damage. With some rogue- or assassin-esque clothing/equipment he can sneak with the best of them, and as a bare naked warrior he just needs a good rapier or two, and maybe a tower shield for backup.
Obviously, for equipment, he would prefer keen rapiers, a tower shield, some wizard and monk robes, monk boots, constitution boosting equipment and saving throw boosting equipment. More AC doesn't hurt either. Trap kits are nice, but can usually be salvaged when he finds them. _________________ "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement."
Got the idea from a number of spellsword builds I was looking through, in particular Mith's Ferromancer and grizz's Professional. Unfortunately I am not as good a story teller, (nor a char builder for that matter ) Don't worry about that. I'm not a good builder either, what matters is if you enjoy doing it. But building SPellswords are like Lays potato chips, you just can't build one. 4 of my last 5 builds have been spellswords. They really are a lot of fun to solo.
Now to the build:
My first recommendation would be to make him Strength-based. With only 7 Rogue levels, there's little point to dexing your way through life. Unless, of course, you want to give up all those fighter levels for about 12 more Rogue levels.
You can also mitigate your XP penalty with some clever level mixing.
You can also start with a 15 Int and give yourself 2 ability points elsewhere and let your Wiz bonus feats take care of the other 3 you need.
There's some more tweaking here, but that's a start, and I'm on the run. Not bad at all for only your 2nd build. _________________ Got Hommlet? World of Greyhawk Action Server (with 1/2 price ales on Mondays!)
Ariel, Ookla, RIDE!
Quote: My first recommendation would be to make him Strength-based. With only 7 Rogue levels, there's little point to dexing your way through life. Unless, of course, you want to give up all those fighter levels for about 12 more Rogue levels.
I was sorely tempted to go the strength route, but I wanted to keep the spells without going to still or automatic still route. But yeah, damage is a sorely missing component. Weap Spec and Epic Weap Spec, coupled with Flame Weap and Emp Bull's Str helps a bit, but damage is still a problem.
Quote: You can also start with a 15 Int and give yourself 2 ability points elsewhere and let your Wiz bonus feats take care of the other 3 you need.
This is true, but I believe that he cannot take any 8th level spells this way. I think that the bump up from the Wizard bonus feat for Great Intelligence only kicks in after I have leveled up, thus I cannot choose Great Sanc or Premonition. Probably not a big loss, since I cam use the slots for Emp IGMS or something, but Ext Spell Mantle or something like that, but I like to have Great Sanc for just an emergency.
Quote: There's some more tweaking here, but that's a start, and I'm on the run. Not bad at all for only your 2nd build.
There is a lot of room for tweeking here. I could minimize the XP penalty, but I think that I would lose some AB in the process. I tried to keep the AB at 18 in pre-epic. Thanks for your input, grizz, I appreciate the different viewpoint. I welcome any additional input.
-C _________________ "You cannot pass!"
It looks to me like you have several non-essential feats in the later pre-epic levels. I'd drop one of them, push other feats down to fill the gap, and take weapon proficiency:exotic early on. That way you can use kukri instead of rapier, gaining +2 ab while dualwielding, and making use of the keen edge spell.
Edited By pulse cap on 07/27/05 21:01
The kukri route is definately a good option here. I choose dual rapiers because I wanted to dual wield something bigger with a dex build, and see if I could still get a decent AB. I did alright. Also, I think that dual longer swords looks pretty cool. Kinda like the character Skillgannon the Damned from David Gemmel's books. Also, called shot, while normally considered an archer feat i think it can be useful against those with high AB, and also to allow you to run away from crippled crowds if low on spells, HPs and cure potions. Good point!
) but I hope the idea is clear. A spellsword with good AB, nice AC, decent selection of spells, and some helpful skills.
