The Right Hand of Mystra - (Cleric 16 / Wizard 24)

Human
Playable 1-40, PvM
Any Alignment

Str 11
Dex 8
Con 12
Wis 16 (18)
Int 17 (34)
Cha 8

1 Cleric 1 - Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration (Animal, Heal domains)
2 Cleric 2
3 Cleric 3 - Extend Spell
4 Cleric 4 - WIS 17
5 Cleric 5
6 Cleric 6 - Empower Spell
7 Cleric 7
8 Cleric 8 - WIS 18
9 Cleric 9 - Spell Focus: Necromancy
10 Cleric 10
11 Cleric 11
12 Cleric 12 - Great Spell Focus: Necromancy, INT 18
13 Cleric 13
14 Cleric 14
15 Cleric 15 - Maximize Spell
16 Cleric 16 - INT 19
17 Wizard 1 (Illusionist)
18 WIzard 2 - Toughness
19 Wizard 3
20 Wizard 4 - INT 20

21 Wizard 5 - Epic Spell Penetration, Great Intelligence I*
22 Wizard 6
23 Wizard 7
24 Wizard 8 - Great Intelligence II, INT 23
25 Wizard 9
26 Wizard 10 - Great Intelligence III*
27 Wizard 11 - Great Intelligence IV
28 Wizard 12 - INT 26
29 Wizard 13
30 Wizard 14 - Great Intelligence V
31 Wizard 15 - Great Intelligence VI*
32 Wizard 16 - INT 29
33 WIzard 17 - Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy
34 Wizard 18
35 Wizard 19
36 Wizard 20 - Great Intelligence VII, Epic Warding*, INT 31
37 Wizard 21
38 Wizard 22
39 WIzard 23 - Great Intelligence VIII, Great Intelligence IX*
40 Wizard 24 - INT 34

AB 25 - [BAB 24 + STR 1]
AC 17 - [Base 10 + Tower Shield 3 + Tumble 4]

buffed (not including UEF)
AB 42 - [25 + Emp Bulls 3 + GMW 5 + Divine Favor 5 + Battletide 2 + Bless 1 + Prayer 1]
AC 42 - [17 + Magic Vestment (x2) 10 + Shield 4 + ShadowShield 4 + Haste 4 + Mage Armor 3*]

HP: 304

Saves: (+8 vs Spells)
Fortitude: 22
Reflex: 15
Will: 27

Skill Points: 319
Spellcraft 43, Concentration 43, Tumble 20, Lore 43
(150 left over for whatever you fancy)

SR that can be overcome (Note: Mord's Disjunction will lower SR by 10)
Wizard: 30
Cleric: 22

Wizard Spell DC:
22 + Spell Level (23 - 31)

Wizard Spell DC (Necromancy)
28 + Spell Level (29 - 37)

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Well, I haven't made a dedicated caster in a while, so I thought I'd try to combine the 2 most overpowered classes. Hopefully I haven't diluted the result too much.

And let me start by saying that this is more of a party caster. The spell DC's are no where as effective as a dedicated caster of either class. So your goal is to provide a lot of backup and generalized spellcasting ability.

I chose the Heal and Animal domains to take advantage of the better summons and earlier Heals. With such low strength and no combat feats, I wanted a good summons to get me through the lower levels. And the Heal domain was to make sure that I had the sixth level slots open for Harm (and metamagic for even more). This also let me have Cat's Grace to help with AC and True Sight much earlier, which is also nice.

The wizard was focused in Illusion School for the extra spells per day, and I focused the Spells in Necromancy for the insta-death spells, but Evocation might be a good choice as well.

Since your caster levels and Wisdom were so low, I didn't bother with the 9th level Cleric spells. If you really wanted them, you could easily take Cleric level 17 and it wouldn't effect the overall build too much.

I didn't bother with the Still Spell - AutoStill line of feats, but if one wanted, you could easily do it. Just trade out a pre-epic metamagic feat for Still Spell and then take Cleric 17 in Epic and trade 2 Great Intelligence's and perhaps Epic Warding to get the AutoStill feats (with a little shuffling, you could get all 3 by level 24). Just beware - that 11 STR makes encumbrance a little tight when wearing Full Plate and a Tower Shield

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With so much dedicated towards spellcasting you wouldn't think it could melee very well. But...

I tested this build (Novice to Epic) at various levels and was pleasantly surprised by the results. Just for the sake of testing I tried melee-ing a fighter of the same level starting at 3 and up to 40. With all buffs running (except for Undeath's Eternal Foe), I was able to easily overcome Fighters up to (and including) level 35. And I was equipped only with mundane robes, a mundane Tower Shield and a mundane mace. I was quite surprised. I think if I had Undeath's Eternal Foe or perhaps Mestil's Acid sheath running, I could easily have taken the level 40 fighter.

Against high-AC opponents (ie. high level Rogues), there wasn't much hope for straight combat. But with their low-ish fort saves, Finger of Death worked just fine. But, once again, this wasn't designed with melee in mind, per se.

Oh, also, if you don't mind a lower Strength, a Gnome might not be a bad choice as race, as you would get a bonus to your Con, and you would be immune to your Evard's Black Tentacles. I just prefer Human.

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One of the problems with this build, is that your spell DC's aren't all that great until you get to the end of the build; and even then, it's nothing spectacular. However, with both Cleric and Wizard spells available, I had entirely too much fun finding new and exciting ways to dispatch my enemies.

Harm and a Bigby hand was a favorite. (TS+Harm+Bigby's Grasping=mmmm...)

Or use TS-IGMS-IGMS-TS-etc.

Or if you feel like melee-ing, drop a Negative Energy Burst to lower their strength by 6 (-3 AB) and hit them with a Bigby's Interposing hand and throw on Battletide to effectively drop their AB by 15. Then bash them for 43 damage per hit. (1d6 mace + 1d6+8 Darkfire + 1d4 +10 Flame weapon + 5 GMW + 5 Divine Favor + 4 buffed STR + 2 Battletide)

The choices are endless.
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All-in-all, it seemed a pretty decent, albiet labor intensive, build.

Pros:
- Spells, baby. Spells!
- Cleric and Wizard buffs.
- Did I mention spells?
- Endless tactics and strategies
- Lots skill points.

Cons:
- you might need to drop a Mords Disjunction on enemies with a high-SR.
- quickslots...... not nearly enough quickslots .....
- Wizard spells mature late.
- Bring a mule for loot.

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Oh, I shouldn't neglect to mention other builds of the same type.
There is the Mystic Theurge by Agifem
Click Here

and the Red Mage by Tengudor_t
Click Here

But the Red Mage is dedicated towards melee and the Mystic Theurge goes for more Spell Focus' and leaves the casting stats around the 20's. Plus the leveling order is very different (Wiz first).

The search engine revealed many other Wiz/Cleric builds that had around 17 levels each, but they all had third classes to add melee abilities and such.

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Anyway, hopefully I haven't forgotten anything; and any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers.

Edited By dmuzzy on 10/24/06 15:18

This is similar in concept to my Bless Sorceress build (26 sorc/13 cleric/1 monk), except using wizard instead of sorcerer. Wizard is arguably a better overall choice because of the bonus feats and extra int-driven skillpoints; my build was an experiment in making sorcerers more versatile while preserving their spontaneous metamagic driven firepower.

For more raw power in this build I'd do what I would do to my build - I'd trade off spell DCs for automatic still spell 1-3, the basic melee feats (EWF/prowess/armor skin/etc), and a higher constitution score. But for making a caster, it works as is.

I'd strongly consider going 13 cleric/26 wizard/1 rogue (or 1 bard) with this character. Or 15/24/1. I don't think the 16th cleric level (or level 8 cleric spells in general) add that much to a character like this, and it's a shame to get all those skillpoints and not have a skilldumping class to use them with. 26 wizard levels will get you a second wizard epic bonus feat, too.

If you want to stick with the robe-wearing caster focus, then pick monk as your skilldumper class and you'll add your wisdom to your AC - pretty worthwhile in itself.
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Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Quote: Posted 10/24/06 21:25 (GMT) -- Xylophone

This is similar in concept to my Bless Sorceress build (26 sorc/13 cleric/1 monk), except using wizard instead of sorcerer. Wizard is arguably a better overall choice because of the bonus feats and extra int-driven skillpoints; my build was an experiment in making sorcerers more versatile while preserving their spontaneous metamagic driven firepower.

For more raw power in this build I'd do what I would do to my build - I'd trade off spell DCs for automatic still spell 1-3, the basic melee feats (EWF/prowess/armor skin/etc), and a higher constitution score. But for making a caster, it works as is.

I'd strongly consider going 13 cleric/26 wizard/1 rogue (or 1 bard) with this character. Or 15/24/1. I don't think the 16th cleric level (or level 8 cleric spells in general) add that much to a character like this, and it's a shame to get all those skillpoints and not have a skilldumping class to use them with. 26 wizard levels will get you a second wizard epic bonus feat, too.

If you want to stick with the robe-wearing caster focus, then pick monk as your skilldumper class and you'll add your wisdom to your AC - pretty worthwhile in itself.

Good suggestions, thank you.

I've always steered away from taking a 40 level skill dump class, as it seems skew the final results disproportionately to the other 39 levels of the character; plus after 40 I never seemed to play them much. But you are right, there is no reason not to. If you are going to have an Epic build that you bring out for DM run epic events (or nostalgia), it should be as strong as possible. In this regards, I think I will use Bard for the Discipline and Tumble point dumps. I could use Monk, but when melee-ing, I would imagine that I would have my self-enchanted Tower Shield at the ready for an extra 8 AC; and Monk would negate that (or at least I would lose the Monk Wisdom AC bonus when I equipped the shield).

Also, I would agree that the 8th level Cleric spells aren't nearly as important as the proceeding levels. My thinking was that with such low melee stats, I would need a better-than-average meat shield (hence the Animal Domain), and the 8th Cleric spells would give me a 9th level summon to carry me through until my Wizard damage spells would take over. However, I will revise it for a 13 level Cleric and see how it looks.


The Right Hand of Mystra - (Cleric 13 / Wizard 26 / Bard 1)

Human
Playable 1-40, PvM

Str 11
Dex 8
Con 12
Wis 16 (17)
Int 17 (34)
Cha 8

1 Cleric - Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration (Animal, Heal domains)
2 Cleric
3 Cleric - Extend Spell
4 Cleric - WIS 17
5 Cleric
6 Cleric - Empower Spell
7 Cleric
8 Cleric - INT 18
9 Cleric - Skill Focus: Concentration
10 Cleric
11 Cleric
12 Cleric - Craft Wand (Scribe Scroll), INT 19
13 Wizard 1
14 Wizard 2
15 Wizard 3 - Maximize Spell
16 Wizard 4 - INT 20
17 Wizard 5 - Still Spell*
18 WIzard 6 - Toughness
19 Wizard 7
20 Wizard 8 - INT 21

21 Cleric 13 - Epic Spell Penetration*
22 Wizard 9
23 Wizard 10 - Great Intelligence I*
24 Wizard 11 - Great Intelligence II, INT 24
25 Wizard 12
26 Wizard 13
27 Wizard 14 - Great Intelligence III
28 Wizard 15 - INT 26
29 Wizard 16 - Great Intelligence IV*
30 Wizard 17 - Great Intelligence V
31 Wizard 18
32 Wizard 19 - INT 29
33 WIzard 20 - AutoStill I, AutoStill II*
34 Wizard 21
35 Wizard 22
36 Wizard 23 - Great Intelligence VI, AutoStill III*, INT 31
37 Wizard 24
38 Wizard 25
39 WIzard 26 - Great Intelligence VII, Great Intelligence VIII*
40 Bard 1 - INT 34

It keeps the same Intelligence score, but loses Epic Spell Focus and Epic Warding (both questionable feats. Well, not Epic Warding, but it's only once per day and if you can spam timestops, you can achieve similar results (sort of)).

But the changes give a great skill dump for Discipline and Tumble; and perhaps even UMD for Monk Gear (Boots of Sun Soul, perhaps).

Anyway, a good variation. Thanks for the input.

Cheers. Good variant - this sort of build has a lot of potential in my experience, it compares favorably with fighter-mage type spellswords and brings a lot of value to a party via the cleric spells.

My thoughts on using a Monk level was that in a cloth-caster build with no autostill, you wouldn't be equipping a shield anyway. The tower shield has like 40% or 50% arcane failure attached to it (I forget how much exactly, but it's at least as much as a suit of full plate). If you've got autostill however, there's no point in not putting on plate and a shield both (and this is the "cheap and easy" way to getting AC with +5 enchanted gear).

Either way, kudos, builds like this are a lot of fun and can surprise people with their power
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Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.