Feats for a Fighter-Mage
- Thread starter lacunae
- Start date
Storminator
First Post
If you're going for a primary spellcaster with some melee power, don't forget about metamagic feats. It'll be a couple levels until its worthwhile, but get Empower. If you're meleeing someone, its very nice to hit them with an Empowered Ray of Enfeeblement first.
Silent spell is also nice once you get inviso, as you can cast spells without giving your position away.
And see if you can get a Lesser Quicken Rod. Those things rock for fighter/mages. Quickened True Strike --->whack!
PS
Silent spell is also nice once you get inviso, as you can cast spells without giving your position away.
And see if you can get a Lesser Quicken Rod. Those things rock for fighter/mages. Quickened True Strike --->whack!
PS
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Limper said:
Given that the character seems to primarily use one weapon (bastard sword), I don't see Quickdraw as an essential feat for this character. In most situations where he'd want to take AoOs, he'll already have his weapon out. It would help him to draw and attack or charge in surprise rounds and draw and full attack in normal combat but, in many campaigns, he'd already have his sword out there so it's a marginal benefit.
It's nifty but I don't think it's as good as you're making it out to be. If you find yourself with spells you can't use (such as a wizard who packed Feeblemind and found himself facing undead or fireball and scorching ray and is now facing Thoqqua), it's a good way to make the best of a bad situation. It is also useful for the one round wonder smackdowns (I already cast true strike so I cast a quickened magic missile, charge, wield my bastard sword two handed and power attack for max, convert Feeblemind to Arcane Strike for +5/+5d4 and when I hit, I use Spellsword channel to discharge a scorching ray).
However, in general, I think trading a magic missile for +1 to hit and 1d4 points of damage or trading a fireball for +3 and 3d4 is a bad deal.
Limper
First Post
It effects your attacks for the whole round.
Have haste on you for the extra swing burn a 5th level slot for +5 and +5d4 per hit... with 3 swings (4 with haste) thats an extra 20d4 in addition to the normal damage, with the extra +5 to hit you could power attack for 5 (or 10 damage with a bastard sword) at no cost... thats another +40 for the round. Unless they have put out errata already the way its written its a right potent feat.
Now if you have your weapon shealthed its much more likely they will try and rush the spell caster or rush by the spell caster... I stand by Quick Draw. Unless the DM isn't fair about things then it wont be much use.
Add in Hold the Line to increase the instances of AoO.
Have haste on you for the extra swing burn a 5th level slot for +5 and +5d4 per hit... with 3 swings (4 with haste) thats an extra 20d4 in addition to the normal damage, with the extra +5 to hit you could power attack for 5 (or 10 damage with a bastard sword) at no cost... thats another +40 for the round. Unless they have put out errata already the way its written its a right potent feat.
Now if you have your weapon shealthed its much more likely they will try and rush the spell caster or rush by the spell caster... I stand by Quick Draw. Unless the DM isn't fair about things then it wont be much use.
Add in Hold the Line to increase the instances of AoO.
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Limper said:
Well, if that effects every attack in a round, that's much much better. Definitely a must-have. Definitely get it by 9th level.
That seems like a lot of work for little payoff (and arguable rules--technically, an AoO is not an action so the DM would be within his rights to deny an attempt to take a free action (quickdraw) during the AoO). Hold the Line is a much better way to pick up AoOs than Quickdraw (sword in hand or not, most NPCs don't expect to take an AoO for charging). And a reach weapon combined with good positioning skills is better than either. Just because foes know they'll provoke an AoO doesn't mean they can do anything about it. (And if you've Gr Invis, they might not even be able to tell where your threatened area is and should therefore provoke more AoOs).
lacunae
First Post
Elder-Basilisk said:
I was looking at the description of the Arcane Strike feat in Dragon 310 and it specifies "As a free action once per round you may sacrifice one of your arcane spells to add the following benifit to your NEXT ATTACK."
I don't see how this applies to every attack in a round - but then, I haven't read the Complete Warrior version - perhaps it is different.
Nevertheless - this feat is cool - powerful or not, it suits the character, so I will ask my DM to allow it.
Last edited:
Li Shenron
Legend
If I were playing such a character, I would definitely look around for feats which decrease to 0% the arcane spell failure for wearing armor. I don't think there is any of such feats on WotC products, but IIRC Quintessential Wizard has a feat chain to do that (but it's possible that it doesn't reduce ASF below a minimum). You could do the same with special equipment - such as Mithril armors - but it may depend on the campaign whether that's easy to get or not, and in any case you could be able to combine both.
lacunae
First Post
The character currently owns a +1 Mithral Chain Shirt, which has an arcane sepll failure chance of 10%. I checked the Quint. Wiz and the minimum the feats there can grant is 5%. I don't think my DM would allow these to combine to produce a 0%. So it really isn't worth the feat, IMHO.Li Shenron said:
To change the topic slightly - I am currently having an extended email debate about the un/broken-ness of the Arcane Strike feat. It seems to me that getting +3d6 to one target with a substantial chance to miss but no save is a fair trade-off for a 5-10d6 area-affect Fireball (or any other 3rd level spell.)
What do people think?
woolybearundertaker
First Post
lacunae said:
I think you should stop yer yakkin, and go forge Arbaal a suit of mithril full plate!!!
More seriously, i dont think fireball is a good example, simply b/c its THE quintessential damage dealing spell. Assuming the miss chance vs reflex save variables are roughly balanced, 3d6 against one guy cant compare to 5d6 plus against multiple opponents.
As someone previously noted, the advantage is the flexibility. Being able to prepare invisibility, knowing that you can always trade it for more damage means that you can pick a more diverse spell list.
Gaining that flexibility seems valuable,and d6 per spell level doesnt sound over-powered.
Also, it sounds like it would be fun to be able to unleash tons o damage when you need to. Combined with a truestrike and power attack, pretty nasty stuff.
