Help me make this character

[0bsolete]

I have an image in my mind-a wizard type character who stays on the edge of the battlefield, occasionally lunging in with a spiked chain to do some melee damage. Quite a bit more to the character of course, but that's mostly RP territory.

Note: I'm fairly possessive of my spell levels. Either way, level 7 game with most any splat book available. Can anybody help me?

 

[EroGaki]

How much are you willing to give up? Believe me, I understand what you mean when you say you are possessive of spell levels, but if you want to actually hit things with a spiked chain, then you're more than likely going to have to lose a caster level or two.

What books are you allowed to use? Just core?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, the Duskblade base class is your best bet if you don't need to literally be a wizard. Beyond that, in Complete Mage there's a prestige class -- Abjurant Champion -- that gives good HD, full BAB, and full casting progression, plus some nice class features. It's only 5 levels, though. If you're willing to lose ore than one point of BAB and more than one caster level, a [any arcanist] / Crusader / Jade Pheonix Mage (Tome of Battle) gives some really cool options. And unless you really want the capstone class feature to immolate yourself for massive damage and then reform in perfect health at level 10, you can safely jump out before losing a second CL from the class.

Now, with a spiked chain, a Shadow Hand-based build with Swordsage insteado f Crusader might be more useful, but is far more feat intensive (two feats to make str obsolete on melee attacks, feat for proficiency to go with your free weapon focus, Adaptive Style's basically a requirement...) and not as powerful. For various reasons, Crusader is the best adept class for any prestige class if possible (since each new maneuver readied = extra granted maneuver), especially for fighter/mage builds, since you don't have to waste an action you could've spent casting to regain maneuvers.

Another alternative may be Druid. They get enough fire and lightning spells, especially with Spell Compendium, and evne some force stuff. Use the UA variant to swap wildshape for more combat prowess, and you're doing pretty well. Yet another alternative could be battle sorcerer. Complete Mage also has a variant feature "Stalwart Sorcerer" that combines well with this. Mix in some Paladin for a BAB boost and some nice class features if you like (and the ability to use wands and scrolls of great Pal combat spells like Rhino's Rush and Find the Gap), most notably cha to all saves. Of course, that will cost you caster levels.

 

[0bsolete]

How much are you willing to give up? Believe me, I understand what you mean when you say you are possessive of spell levels, but if you want to actually hit things with a spiked chain, then you're more than likely going to have to lose a caster level or two.

What books are you allowed to use? Just core?

Pretty much any WotC splat book.

Anyways-I'm really kinda liking the druid idea. Its an undead campaign and the party is low on healing (we don't have a cleric and I don't want to play one because turn undead in an undead campaign would ruin the fun for too many people, including myself) outside of two classes that have quite a few cure light wounds wands.

Also, a favored soul/cleric build (as long as I took some variant that traded out turn undead) that was offensively focused would be nice. Thing is-I don't know of many offensive cleric spells worth their spell level.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Ok, for Cleric, first there's the spell list itself. This thread is kinda disorganized and hard to read, but is a decent resource for a "blasty" cleric. http://forums.gleemax.com/wotc_archive/index.php/t-605481

For losing Turn Undead, there's this variant from UA, which boosts your melee fighting cred a bit thanks to smiting: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#cleric

Check out http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Feats.pdf
Page 70 has the customize domain feat. It lets you swap out spells on one domain's list for other appropriate choices. The example restrictions are kind of dumb (example: the normal Destruction domain has no evocation spells, I think), but that sort of feat is one that should involve heavy DM/player cooperation anyway, so I'm sure you two can work that out. So basically, you could do fire/sun domain to be a fire mage, air for lightning spells, and so on.

If you just want to have lots of arcane spells and don't mind losing a lot of melee punch, there's Arcane Disciple variant, page 23 here: http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Classes-Base.pdf
There's also the Crusader variant class, but it gives one free martial weapon prof., so it kinda falls short of what you want and gives up a lot of nice things.

If you don't want ot lose domains, the site also lists the PH2 variant to swap spontaneous cure spells for spont. spells from one of your domains, a nice combo w/ Customize Domain. For domains, War Domain is an obvious choice to help out with melee, and the reserve feat from Complete Champion (Holy Warrior, I think) for it is quite broken, if allowed (myself and all DMs I know banned it cause it makes Fighters cry too much). Beyond that, realy just pick an element and go with that domain.

 

[0bsolete]

Thanks for the help! A question here (sorry, my mind is still churning a bit and I'm trying to figure out what is viable and what isn't-trying to capture the feel of the character I have in mind best while still being useful to the party) what would be some ways to gain a limited healing utility that would still be useful at higher levels without going full cleric?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, there's wands of lesser vigor for out of combat healing. Complete Champion has the Touch of Healing reserve feat. As long as you have a 2nd level+ healing spell uncast, you can heal 3*spell level hp as a standard action, but it's limited to the target's half max health. Still a useful option.

 

[blargney the second]

This is what you're looking for:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=307309

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Given what you've said above, and setting aside the spiked chain portion of the concept, you might consider some of the following tweaks to boost your mage's use of force effects. Force effects should be effective against most undead, especially the incorporeal ones.

So...assuming you stick with Wizard as the PC's primary class.

1) Be human, you'll need the extra feats. Also, stick with making him a Wizard, he'll get those useful bonus feats (more on that later)

2) Consider making him a Specialist Evoker or Abjuror with the Focused Specialist ACF (Alternative Class Feature) from CompMage, p34. That will get him nearly as many spells/day as a Sorcerer.

3) Take the Intermediate Magic ACF (PHB2, p68-70) appropriate to the PC's specialization- in exchange for giving up the Familiar, the first gives Shield of Force +2AC and the latter gives the Counterfire force bolt.

4) Use your Human and Wizard bonus feats to take Invisible Needle (gives you an at-will force bolt as long as you've memorized an appropriately powerful force spell) and Blade of Force (sheathes your melee weapon with force energy as long as you've memorized an appropriately powerful force spell). (As reserve feats, they qualify as metamagic feats.)

For overall utility, check out this list of arcane Force spells that I know of in the PHB, CompMage, CompArc, and PHB2 (I'm sure there are more):

Lvl 0 ?

Lvl 1 Bigby's ______, Mage Armor, Shield, Ectoplasmic Armor, Magic Missile, Orb of Force (lesser)

Lvl 2 Bigby's ______, Blast of Force, Force Ladder

Lvl 3 Chain Missile, Mage Armor (Greater), Mage Armor (Mass), Repelling Shield

Lvl 4 Bigby's ______, Force Chest, Force Claw, Force Missiles, Force WArd, Force Wave, Orb of Force

Lvl 5 Bigby's ______,

Lvl 6 Bigby's ______,

Lvl 7 Bigby's ______,

Lvl 8 Bigby's ______,

Lvl 9 Bigby's ______,

5) Take 1-2 levels of fighter in order to get the bonus feats for Spiked chain proficiency and/or the feats you'd need to fire into combat.

6) All that notwithstanding, you might also consider going the WarMage (CompArc) or Battle Sorc (Unearthed Arc) route so you can cast in armor- the latter also gives you proficiency in a single one-handed martial weapon. And of course, being an Elf would get you some martial weapons proficiencies as well, at the cost of that Human bonus feat.

I know, its not the spiked chain, but...

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

If you're going Wizard and losing familiar, instead of those cruddy* Immediate Magics (the best by far is the Conj one, Abrupt Jaunt. Too good, IM[not so humble]O), why not do focused caster variant? It's in the crystalkeep classes list. For evocation, you use a bladed weapon as your focus. With it, you gain some decent abilities at levels 1, 7, and (I think) 15. The first is +1 damage with Evocation spells. The second lets you cut down any enemy's effective energy resistance by 5 (to a min. of zero). The final feature lets you 1/day ignore a creature's energy resistance/immunity. The ACF gives some other cool things like the ability to enhance your focus weapon cheaper.

*Sorry, but they are. Especially the counterfire. It doesn't even do anything till level 3, and at 1d6/3 levels, and not even interrupting the attacker (so you can kill him to stop the attack), it's really not worth it. There are better uses for an immediate action.