duskblade-- too powerful?

[Nightfall]

Or that it is unbalanced either.

 

[Malum]

Duskblade, Bladesinger, Arcane Archer or Spellsword are any broken or underpowered in your opinion?

 

[Nightfall]

Just duskblade since I think it wouldn't kill them to grant 0-9th level spellcasting.

 

[Audaxanarchy]

Has anyone looked at the Duskblade enlightened fist combo? The enlightened fist gets an ability called hold ray that allows the pc to cast ranged touch as melee touch. Our group is debating if that works with the Duskblade.

 

[Nightfall]

Uhm it might work...but no idea.

 

[Deset Gled]

The main problem that I have with the Duskblade is that it is much too good of a class to make a one level dip into. The first level or two need to be better spread out across the class.

Also, I don't like the abilities the get to cast spells as a swift action, but that's more of a personal prejudice against the abundance of swift and immediate action spells that have been added to D+D lately.

 

[brehobit]

The main problem that I have with the Duskblade is that it is much too good of a class to make a one level dip into. The first level or two need to be better spread out across the class.

Also, I don't like the abilities the get to cast spells as a swift action, but that's more of a personal prejudice against the abundance of swift and immediate action spells that have been added to D+D lately.

It is nice, but really you'd want 3 levels to get the touch-attack thing. Just one level doesn't get you too much (although it isn't bad with the full BAB). Cleric w/luck and war is still probably the best 1 level dip. You lose the BAB, but free feat and reroll 1/day (plus a bit of healing) is nice.

Mark

 

[wayne62682]

It is nice, but really you'd want 3 levels to get the touch-attack thing. Just one level doesn't get you too much (although it isn't bad with the full BAB). Cleric w/luck and war is still probably the best 1 level dip. You lose the BAB, but free feat and reroll 1/day (plus a bit of healing) is nice.

Mark

I don't know.. being able to get True Strike is pretty nice for any Fighter build.. being able to keep your BAB high and getting two good saves along with it is even better (and remember, True Strike has no Somatic component so isn't affected by ASF at all). Personally I just love the class so much I would keep it all the way to level 20.

 

[BadMojo]

Duskblade, Bladesinger, Arcane Archer or Spellsword are any broken or underpowered in your opinion?

The latest versions of Bladesinger and Arcane Archer are both, IMO, firmly on the side of underpowered. I actually like the Duskblade as far as flavor and balance.

Twenty levels of Duskblade can emulate both the lightly armored Bladesinger character and a spellcasting "tank" like the Spellsword (with the good old Battlecaster feat mentioned below).

 

[Vysirez]

Part of the problem I have found with a lot of discussions like this is that most people compare the duskblade to the fighter. Which is one of the weakest core classes in my opinion. So stating that a duskblade is more powerful then a fighter =! that it's overpowered. If you honestly feel that a duskblade is stronger then a cleric or druid then I can see your POV on overpowered a bit easier.

In my opinion the best "class" to compare a duskblade to is a gish build. Yes, a Gish uses PRCS, but if your talking about a base class from PHB2, I don't see a problem with a build using EK or Spellsword. So, comparing a Duskblade to a fighter/wiz/EK or fighter/wiz/SS/EK is a more useful comparison IMO.

Taking that in mind, and admiting that I havent played one or seen one played in a game, I think a duskblade will be good at the low levels(1-6 or so), start to drop in power up to 13, then the arcane channeling will bump him back up to par, then he will start to fall behind again. In my opinion a lvl 20 duskblade is significantly weaker then even a basic EK gish. Both because of lack of access to higher level spells, and a lack of the really good buffs.