General ideas for a gish build

[Jackinthegreen]

That's strange. No D&D book I've ever read uses the term for anything other than githyanki fighter/magic-users.

That's because the books themselves rarely if ever mention that since it's a player term. The player base has taken it very much to heart, however, and it is a mainstay in the 3.X lexicon and will always remain so because it's that deeply rooted and easy to use. GiTP certainly has it going on, and a visit to MinMaxBoards will reveal the optimizers also use the term.

I hope you weren't too attached to its previous definition.

 

[Grunker]

As you can see, @Grunker, this is the wrong board for this kind of enquiry. The Minmax board is indeed much the better place to go.

Thanks! Those are some great suggestions! As for the board, I'm sorry, a mod can feel free to move it.

Let's see:

As far as answering your questions:
I'd go with a Focused Conjurer or Transmuter instead of a normal Wizard. More spell slots = more stuff to channel. Gishes aren't hurt that much by giving up an additional school of magic. Conjurer gets my vote for the Abrupt Jaunt ACF, which is just invaluable for meleers. Transmuter is good because most of your buffs will be transmutation, so you get to cast more of them.

Of course, can't believe I didn't think of it myself. I actually thought of doing a sorcerer, but a couple of choices made me avoid it.

I'd not try and go for raw damage output, as you seem to focus on. You will do plenty damage just with good buffs and PA plus the occasional martial strike. Arcane Wrath and Arcane Strike, if you plan to take it (do! The two stack, and Arcane Strike has no limit on the number of spell slots you sacrifice at once for a really nice damage boost!) will provide extra damage and stuff to do with your unused spell slots.
Channeling spells on top of that seems like a bit of overkill to me. Literally, in that you'll be one-shotting elite mooks anyway, but with channeling you can also chop them up into small bits... If you just soooo crave channeling, look into just getting a Spell Storing weapon: that way, you'll have an alpha strike ready at the start of every combat, which should be enough. Maybe have two or even three weapons enchanted with Spell Storing, so you'll have some diversity to choose from. Channeling as a class ability is hard to get on top of your (already pretty good) build stub. Spellsword loses too many casting levels, but does what you want (channel as a move action), but other than that?

My conclusions as well. I'll be grabbing a couple of Glyph Seals, perhaps a Spell Storing sword. Beyond that, channeling seems impossible.

Are you positive you want to go from a Crusader base? I find it has more synergy with a divine caster. Any particular reason you're not taking Warblade instead? Sure, you'll get fewer maneuvers, but those are more readily available (no funky card drawing), and you'll also get some Int synergy.

Warblade is house-ruled in my campaign. Regaining maneuvers requires to rounds where you do nothing but auto-attack a single time in each.

I'm also not sure you ought to focus this much on JPM. As a melee fighter, it's fairly weak with its d6 HP, on top of your 4d4 from wizard levels (you'll want to cast False Life on a regular basis and/or consider the Minor Shapeshift feat; Con also just became your most important ability score). JPM mostly just progresses initiator level, with few maneuvers gained (and those only from two disciplines!). I'd consider just taking either 3 or 5 levels and taking another Warblade level later on, for better maneuver selection. In fact, for a "might", not "magic" gish, I'd consider dumping more levels into Warblade. I'd also consider getting some Abjurant Champion, because it's just that much sturdier.[/quoe]

I'm worried about losing too many spell slots and not being able to Arcane Wrath. Even more important if I take Arcane Strike as well. I considered Abjurant Champion, but it's not that useful with Runesmith, and the idea of dwarf wizard appeals to me

That's it, some ideas for you to chew on, I've run out now!

Thanks a bunch for your feedback! Definetely useful!