D&D 3E/3.5 How viable is a Elven Fighter Mage in 3.5

[FrankTrollman]

Spellsword has problems.

The biggest problem, of course, is that if your goal is to cast spells in armor and stab people, you're better off just taking a mix of Fighter Wizard levels.

Let's look at a standard Spellsword:

You can take the class after 3 levels of Fighter, and 3 levels of Wizard.

So taking 10 levels of Spellsword:

Your BAB is +11.
Your Caster level is 8, and you can cast 4th level spells in armor.
You have gained 1 bonus fighter feat.
You have a Sword Cache - which is a very fancy way of saying you have Brew Potion.

OR you could take 3 levels of Fighter and 7 levels of Wizard:

Your BAB is +11.
Your Caster level is 10, and you can cast 4th level spells in armor.
You have gained 2 bonus fighter feats.
You have gained 2 bonus Wizard feats, one of which is Brew Potion, and the other is Still Spell (since your caster level is 2 higher, you can just prepare your 4th level spells as 5th level Still spells and have the same number of them and cast them without somatic components).
---

As the "Fighter 6/ Wizard 10" you can wear heavier armor, and cast more powerful spells while using a sword and a shield (the Spell Sword still needs somatic components and thus needs to sheathe his sword or drop his shield to cast). You have the same BAB, a better caster level, and an extra Fighter feat.

Spellsword is a joke. It makes you worse at casting spells while fighting in heavy armor.

Although, as a side note: you do get better saves and more hit points than just multiclassing Wizard/Fighter. That's an artifact of the multiclassing rules - I suggest that you take a Wizard PrC and a Fighter PrC if you want to make up the loss of good saves.

In the whole 10 levels, you get less of spelling and swording than 10 levels split 3/7 of Fighter and Wizard.

If you think the Fighter 6 / Wizard 10 is an overpowered build - maybe the Spellsword is balanced. Otherwise, it stinks.

-Frank

 

[green slime]

One thing to remember as a Fighter/Mage type: you have no staying power. A fighter is only limited by his hit points, and this limitation is easily relieved by access to a good source of healing.

As a Fighter/Mage or Eldritch Knight, you have the ability to really shine in one battle, if you buff up. But you can't do a repeat performance.

Your lack of hp is not quite so drastic if you get the buffs up. Stoneskin, Displacement, are great hp-extenders.

 

[Darklone]

False Life is your friend as Eldritch knight. The duration is good and you can easily recast it at higher levels with a Quicken.

Go for wizard specialist, you'll probably be casting less spells. Necromancy is nice for spells with no save.
Start with a level fighter for the hitpoints. Forget Dex, your con is of uttermost importance next to your Int (sadly, this makes an elf a bad choice for the fighter/wizard). Strength is next if you want to cause damage in melee.
Next are 5 levels of wizard. Sooo, at level6 you'll have:
10+ 5d4 hitpoints
Pure Fighter PF: 10+5d10, on average 15 more. False Life gives you 1d10+CL, e.g. on average 10.5 hitpoints for 5 hours. Not that bad.

Damage: Well, you'll be throwing fireballs and Scorching rays, so your strength is not that important. Get craft wand for a wand of scorching ray, you can use it easier in melee and you'll need it pretty often.
Small shields are your friend if you don't want to cast a shield spell in combat or for travels since you can use potions or scrolls with the shield hand.

If you want to go the elven route... go for high dex, high con, not maxxed Int... With Point buy 32, I'd say
10, 16, 14, 16, 10, 10.
Spell casting Prodigy is a must have. Mind over Body would be nice if your DM is generous and gives extra feats, but you'll have less metamagic feats than a singleclass wizard.

An even better possibility: Start as wildelf barbarian. You'll become literate at level2 when multiclassing and you'll have even more hitpoints (who needs heavy armour proficiency?).

 

[bensei]

Not mentioned yet is True Strike.
For an EK, this spell is very nice in combination with Power Attack. At 12th level, you have BAB 9. If your character (Str 14) is wielding a suitable weapon two handed, you get an attack modifier of at least +22, and a damage bonus of at least +20, which is not that bad. Together with buffing (Bull's Strength, Enlarge, etc.), this can become quite interesting. With the (widely discussed) fact, that if the target drops, and you have (Great) Cleave, the True Strike bonus also applies, the EK can be quite efficient in combat with his sword. Also note that True Strike does not have any somatic components, so it can be cast without trouble even when wearing full plate. And preparing a quickened True Strike could be worth a thought, too.

Considering Armor, give the EK the still spell feat, and he can wear even full plate, which together with magical enhancements and a shield spell can give an AC, which any other caster just dreams of. Of course, learing all spells with somatic component stilled, makes your spell selection efficiently equal to that of a 8th level Wiz (instead of 10th level), but interesting self-only spells as True Strike, Blink, Shield, etc. are of low enough level anyway (and off combat, you are still a 10th level Wizard).

Apart from that Permancy is interesting, too, with spells that can only applied to the caster himself. E.g., a permanent Enlarge can be nice. And Contingency (at level 13+) can be nicely used, too.

 

[Darklone]

What bensei said. Power Attack & Cleave are a nice feat chain for you because you don't have many feats. Twohanded weapons are nice because you're pretty likely to use shield spells.

 

[two]

bard

You could also just play a... drull roll please...

Straight bard. You know, the guy that can fight and cast spells.

The 3.5 bard is a lot stronger, particularly with the upgraded inspire courage bonuses. No ASF in light armor, reasonable spell list, good saves, etc. Have fun.

 

[drnuncheon]

Or an Arcana Unearthed Mageblade, if your DM is willing to use it.

Anyway, you absolutely don't need 3 levels of fighter to get into spellsword - I have no idea where Frank got that idea. Ftr2/Wiz4 gets you into the class equally quickly and is probably better for the caster, while Ftr1/Wiz6 does the job 1 level later, and with the additional benefit of not slowing down your spellcasting as much.

Spellsword and Eldritch Knight also work well when taken in conjunction - the requirements overlap, so once you're in Spellsword you're going to be able to take Eldritch Knight, and after that there's not much reason to go back to the base classes.

 

[bensei]

The 3.5 bard is a lot stronger.

Almost completely true. He has lost weapon enhancement and similar spells. If one wants to rely on GMW, etc., the 3.5 bard is not the best choice anymore. Hence, in 3.5 the difference between EK and Bard are much stronger than in 3.0, which is nice IMHO. I really like the 3.5 bard.

But as the cohort idea has been brought up with a buffing caster cohort. Do it the other way around. Play a bard, and take a fighter cohort. Then the bard buffs the cohort. Seems weird at first sight, having the cohort killing the foes and the actual character just standing behind, but it does make sense, esp. with the bard (insp. greatness, etc.).

 

[Silverglass]

Spellsword has problems.

The biggest problem, of course, is that if your goal is to cast spells in armor and stab people, you're better off just taking a mix of Fighter Wizard levels.

Let's look at a standard Spellsword:

You can take the class after 3 levels of Fighter, and 3 levels of Wizard.

So taking 10 levels of Spellsword:

Your BAB is +11.
Your Caster level is 8, and you can cast 4th level spells in armor.
You have gained 1 bonus fighter feat.
You have a Sword Cache - which is a very fancy way of saying you have Brew Potion.

OR you could take 3 levels of Fighter and 7 levels of Wizard:

Your BAB is +11.
Your Caster level is 10, and you can cast 4th level spells in armor.
You have gained 2 bonus fighter feats.
You have gained 2 bonus Wizard feats, one of which is Brew Potion, and the other is Still Spell (since your caster level is 2 higher, you can just prepare your 4th level spells as 5th level Still spells and have the same number of them and cast them without somatic components).
---

-Frank

Trollman is missing the major point here which is that a Spellsword can mitigate the Arcane Failure from wearing that heavy armour, from memory I think it tops out at 25% so a spellsword 10 could wear mithril Full Plate and have no spell failure chance while Franks Fighter/Wizard has a 25% arcane failure chance, that is one quarter of your spells (and actions) wasted.

For a Fighter Wizard Spellsword is an excellent choice as long as you accept that you will never be a top notch offensive spellcaster but a Wiz 8, Fighter 2, Spellsword 10 still gets 7th level spells, has a reasonable BAB (when you consider that he can easily buff himself up and then cast Tensers Transformation.

 

[FrankTrollman]

Trollman is missing the major point here which is that a Spellsword can mitigate the Arcane Failure from wearing that heavy armour, from memory I think it tops out at 25% so a spellsword 10 could wear mithril Full Plate and have no spell failure chance while Franks Fighter/Wizard has a 25% arcane failure chance, that is one quarter of your spells (and actions) wasted.

No. You are missing the point.

The point is that by just taking 3 warrior levels and 7 wizard levels you have higher level spells and Still Spell as a bonus feat.

Spells without Somatic Components have no Arcane Spell Failure, so you can just prepare all of your spells as Still Spells and come out ahead over the Spellsword.

I'll take zero arcane spell failure and a higher caster level over reduced arcane spell failure and a lower caster level any day.

-Frank