How to get to windwright captain?

[jasin]

There might be a new Eberron campaign starting soon, and I'm thinking
about playing a windwright captain.

Any suggestion on how to get there?

The most obvious ways are bard and artificer. But there's already an
artificer in the party, and the bard misses out too much for my tastes
by going into windwright captain.

Swashbuckler/artificer seems interesting. Definitely fits the general
concept, and gets multiple uses out of Int. But what to do afterwards?
The best features of the swashbuckler beyond level 3 is good skills and
good BAB; the class features are kind of meh, especially if they're
delayed by the artificer and windwright captain levels.

Rogue/duskblade might be nice. Sadly, the duskblade doesn't offer as
many electricity spells as I would like for this character, but a decent
portrayal of the wind/storm/swashbuckler theme could still be done with
shocking grasp, swift fly, swift expeditious retreat...

Beguiler and spellthief both have spellcasting and use magic device,
allowing them to qualify without multiclassing. But a beguiler, like any
primary spellcaster, would suffers quite a bit from losing two
spellcasting levels, and I haven't read spellthief carefully enough to
know much about it.

Thoughts? Which of the above would you play? Suggestions? Any other good
ways to make a windwright captain I missed? Experiences? Have you ever
played a windwright captain, and if so, how did you like it?

 

[FalcWP]

Well, like you said, no primary caster wants to lose those two spellcasting levels. If it was me, I'd probably go for a swashbuckler-type rogue. Depending on your ability scores, either take levels of Sorcerer or Wizard - Sorcerer if you hae a decent Charisma, Wizard if you don't. Season with levels of fighter, swashbuckler, or scout.

For instance, a Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 2/Scout 1/Wizard 1. Take a level of Rogue at 1st and 3rd, to cover Use Magic Device. Alternatively, a level of fighter instead of scout (and getting the DM to allow partial bonus progressions, to get 1.5 BAB from the Rogue and .5 from the Wizard to equal 2), would get you an extra feat and a second attack, in exchange for skirmish damage and skill points. Another alternativge could be a Fighter 4/Rogue 2/Sorcerer 1. Either way, you may end up as a bit more martial than your average windwright captain.