Really Good feats for a Duskblade?

[Juomari Veren]

I have a Grey-Elf Duskblade that serves as the leader of the party we're in.

Right now, he's level 18, and the DM is letting me re-train him. Feats for levels 1-6 are already chosen(Run, Practiced Spellcaster, Battle Caster).

I need selections for the other four feats. What are some good ideas?

 

[Shin Okada]

Arcane Strike (Complete Warrior) .... A must have for a duskblade.

Power Attack .... When you can't make a full-attack in some reason, use True Strike as a swift action and convert all of your BAB into damage (use a two-handed weapon for doubling).

Spell Penetration & Greater Spell Penetration .... Most (all?) of the attack spells in duskblade spell list allows SR. At higher level campaign, you must expect that many of the monsters have SR which is hard to penetrate even with your spell power class feature.

Empower Spell .... Whether if you can apply metamagic feat without increasing required time when using Arcane Channeling is debatable. I say yes. But if your DM says no, also take Rapid Metamagic feat (Complete Mage). Empowered Vampiric Touch delivered through Arcane Channeling is nasty.

Energy Substitution : Acid (Complete Arcane) .... This helps a duskblade to deal with monsters with resistance/immunity. Polar Ray is a strong spell but useless against something immune to cold.

Close-Quarter Fighting (Complete Warrior) .... This feat is good for any melee combatants.

#I do not recommend those 3 feats in your list

Run .... Why you need this feat when your PC can use dimension door?

Practiced Spellcaster .... Doesn't do any good for a single class duskblade who already has CL = his HDs.

Battle Caster .... At level 18, you can simply buy a heavy armor made of mithral. A heavy armor made of mithral is a medium armor.

 

[Empirate]

Right on the money there, Shin Okada. Let me add the following:
Obtain Familiar and Improved Familiar are great for Duskblades with their full BAB and good HP.
Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Chain is almost always worth it, combine with Improved Trip for more niceness. Use a Guisarme instead if you want to save the feat.
You could try and get Whirlwind Attack for full attack channeling, but you would have to sacrifice most of your feat slots for this. Still a powerful trick.

 

[Runestar]

If you want whirlwind, there is a weapon property in MIC which lets you whirlwind 3/day.

If you have decent knowledge scores, consider the knowledge devotion feat from complete champion. At this level, you should be assured of at least +4 to-hit/damage.

Practiced spellcaster is useless unless your caster lv has been lowered for some reason (eg: you also took the mageslayer feat?).

 

[Juomari Veren]

My DM allows for crazy powerful armors that function as light as leather but are actually full plate. That being the case, If I can just cast through it, I can run at 150 feet in Heavy armor and still get all of it's benefits while ignoring the Arcane Spell failure. That's also where Battle Caster comes in. It saves me money, because the functional Full Plate was free, from a raid we did earlier on in the campaign.

Practiced Spellcaster is precautionary for epic level, because I have no intention of trying "Epic Duskblade", I need to find a new gimmick that will allow me to have more options, and that puts a cap on my CL.

That'd also be where things like Fortify Spell and The Spell Penetration Tree come in, also.

Thanks for all of the suggestions, guys.

 

[Shin Okada]

Practiced Spellcaster is precautionary for epic level, because I have no intention of trying "Epic Duskblade", I need to find a new gimmick that will allow me to have more options, and that puts a cap on my CL.

Then check Abjurant Champion prestige class in Complete Mage. It gives you full-spellcasting progressions and various additional spellcasting/combat abilities. As a Duskblade, you can almost automatically qualify for the prestige class (as you are already proficient in martial weapons and given Combat Casting as a bonus feat, all you need is at least one 1st-level Abjuration spell in your spells known list. Resist Energy, maybe?).

 

[Juomari Veren]

Then check Abjurant Champion prestige class in Complete Mage. It gives you full-spellcasting progressions and various additional spellcasting/combat abilities. As a Duskblade, you can almost automatically qualify for the prestige class (as you are already proficient in martial weapons and given Combat Casting as a bonus feat, all you need is at least one 1st-level Abjuration spell in your spells known list).

I will.

Say, while we're talking PrCs, is there a notably good one gearing towards Evocation magic, too?

 

[Shin Okada]

Say, while we're talking PrCs, is there a notably good one gearing towards Evocation magic, too?

At this moment I can't think of any Evocation-specific prestige class which a Duskblade can qualify for.

But Fatespinner in Complete Arcane allows you to control fate (dice) in various ways. The class can be qualified only with some skill ranks and spells known. Which is not hard for a Duskblade.

Thus, say, you can be a 20th-level Duskblade and then take 5 levels of Abjurant Champion and 4 levels of Fatespinner. After hitting epic level, you don't need to worry about BAB progression of the classes. So this combination will cover up to 29th-level and gives you full caster level of 29.

But ...... how far will your campaign will likely to go? Epic level rules for 3.5e is not fully covered. And you must rely largely on SRD and yet must create a lot of rules and data by yourselves.

If your campaign will likely to hit really high level (say, 30+ or 40+ level), I strongly recommend you and your DM to create your own version of Epic progressions for classes and prestige classes not covered by those rules.

 

[rgard]

Arcane Strike (Complete Warrior) .... A must have for a duskblade.

Power Attack .... When you can't make a full-attack in some reason, use True Strike as a swift action and convert all of your BAB into damage (use a two-handed weapon for doubling).

Spell Penetration & Greater Spell Penetration .... Most (all?) of the attack spells in duskblade spell list allows SR. At higher level campaign, you must expect that many of the monsters have SR which is hard to penetrate even with your spell power class feature.

Empower Spell .... Whether if you can apply metamagic feat without increasing required time when using Arcane Channeling is debatable. I say yes. But if your DM says no, also take Rapid Metamagic feat (Complete Mage). Empowered Vampiric Touch delivered through Arcane Channeling is nasty.

Energy Substitution : Acid (Complete Arcane) .... This helps a duskblade to deal with monsters with resistance/immunity. Polar Ray is a strong spell but useless against something immune to cold.

Close-Quarter Fighting (Complete Warrior) .... This feat is good for any melee combatants.

#I do not recommend those 3 feats in your list

Run .... Why you need this feat when your PC can use dimension door?

Practiced Spellcaster .... Doesn't do any good for a single class duskblade who already has CL = his HDs.

Battle Caster .... At level 18, you can simply buy a heavy armor made of mithral. A heavy armor made of mithral is a medium armor.

Shin, good stuff as usual. I tried to give you XPs, but have to spread some around first.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You might find more ideas in Martial Arcanist database in my sig.

Before going there, other feats I'd consider:

Reserve metamagic feats.

Combat Reflexes feat tree coupled with a polearm (if you're not going with a Power Attack build)