PHB II: Duskblade too powerful?

[wildstarsreach]

Not really. The BAB will be comparable (maxing out at +16/+11/+6/+1), but that build still faces a 25% arcane spell failure when donning Mithril Full Plate (while the Battle Sorcerer has no ASF in light armor, or medium armor if he takes Battle Caster). And the HD will be 1d10+8d4+1d8+10d6, whereas the Battle Sorcerer has 20d8. And your caster level will be 18, vs. the Battle Sorcerer's 20. OTOH, that build is proficient with all armor, shields and weapons.

I also like the Battle Sorcerer beacuse you can use Heritage feats to customize it.

A DB BA +20/+15/+10/+5. Caster level 20, no arcane failure with Mithril full plate and 20d8. An ave of 90 HP vs 65 with the above build. The Battle Sorcerer doesn't seem worth it to me.

 

[Aus_Snow]

A DB BA +20/+15/+10/+5. Caster level 20, no arcane failure with Mithril full plate and 20d8. An ave of 90 HP vs 65 with the above build. The Battle Sorcerer doesn't seem worth it to me.

The Battle Sorc might not be amazing, but it does get 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th level arcane spells - not a thing to sneeze at.

However, I think the Duskblade has far too many spells per day. That's more a preference of style and integration with core classes, than a sheer power issue, necessarily.

I haven't played one, nor GMed for one, so far. And I'm not likely to either, without modifying it to my tastes.

 

[Sejs]

Regarding the name thing (other than Duckblade, which is still the best typo ever): the way I kind of see it, the 'dusk' part of their name is to indicate how the class sits on the border between martial study and magic use. Dusk or twilight, transitional between two states, bam, duskblade.

That and it's a name distinct enough from the other spellsword/eldritch knight/swordsage/blademage/warmage/magic ensmackifier/arcane beat-thane/etc classes out there such that you're able to instantly recognise which class is being talked about.

 

[Sejs]

A DB BA +20/+15/+10/+5. Caster level 20, no arcane failure with Mithril full plate and 20d8. An ave of 90 HP vs 65 with the above build. The Battle Sorcerer doesn't seem worth it to me.

Not counting the whole time-stopping, shapechanging, meteor-swarming, wish-casting, teleporting, antimagic-fielding goodness the battle sorcerer can do that the duskblade can't.

Duskblade is the better warrior. Battle Sorc is the better mage. Two sides of the same coin.

 

[Pedestrian]

The explanation for the name in the book actually made sense to me. Not because magic and swordplay are opposites, but because they are different states, which the Duskblade bridges - the dusk being a reference to the twilight period of the day, when the world changes over.

 

[Aaron L]

I just recently had the opportunity to play a Dusklade as my new character. I came in at 9th level. He was [/i]definitely fun to play, a grey elven Duskblade in mithral fullplate with a mithral heavy shield (and using the feat Somatic Weaponry to cast spells while my hands were full,) but he was far from too powerful. The straight classed Fighter flat-out outclassed me in damage output. The spells helped make up for that somewhat, but I was in no way no more effective than he was.

But dang, he was fun to play.

(Incidentally, this was my first time to play D&D in over almost 2 years. Boy it's great to have a game again!)


[edited for typos]

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I disagree. Eldritch Knight has a lot going for it vis a vis Duskblade (it doesn't have much vis a vis Abjurant Champion of Phantom Dragoon, but that's a different discussion). While I haven't played a duskblade, I did play an eldritch Knight from levels 1-18 (final level: Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 9/Spellsword 1) in the Living Greyhawk campaign (without dying which is more than most retired LG characters can say), and I don't think I'd trade the abilities that he got for the duskblade abilities.

The duskblade ends up with 3-4 more points of BAB, 20 more hit points (more or less, this depends upon what classes the eldritch knight has other than Fighter 1/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 10) and no need to shop for another full caster level prestige class. The dusskblade also has arcane attunement, arcane casting, armored mage (eventually medium armor+heavy shield), and arcane chanelling. (Of these, quick cast and arcane channeling are obvious points for comparison--armored mage is likely to net the duskblade one point of AC in his mithral fullplate vis a vis a mithral chain shirt of the spellsword/eldritch knight, though it will require less of an investment in dexterity boosters to attain that AC).

On the other hand, his final saves +12/+6/+12 are not quite as good as the eldritch knight (+11/+5/+12 at 17th level plus saves from the last few classes to round it out--the worst case here is probably one level of spellsword and two more levels of wizard for +13/+5/+15; Levels other than wizard would obviously improve this--even three levels of Spellsword would net +14/+6/+15). The Eldritch Knight also ends up with more spells per day, higher level spells, at least 3 bonus feats (stacking the duskblade's combat casting against Scribe Scroll), and access to the Sor/Wiz spell list rather than the duskblade list. The eldritch knight doesn't natively get armored caster, but the expected level of spellsword will enable the use of a mithral chain shirt without spell failure, and a twilight mithral animated shield would also avoid spell failure.

Obviously, though, the comparison is going to end up in a comparison of the spell lists and spells known. The duskblade list seems solid and has a number of spells at significantly lower level than the sor/wiz counterparts:

1. Standouts: shocking grasp, swift expeditious retreat, ray of enfeeblement, true strike, resist energy (reduced level).
2. Standouts: Dimension hop, scorching ray, touch of idiocy, swift fly, see invisibility
3. Standouts: Crown of might, crown of protection, dispelling touch, energy aegis, greater magic weapon, vampiric touch
4. Standouts: Dimension door, enervate, fire shield, toxic weapon
5. Bigby's Clenched Fist, Chain Lightning, Polar Ray, Slashing Dispel, Sonic Shield

That's not a bad list and has some really incredible parts--resist energy as a first level spell, vampiric touch and shocking grasp for use with arcane chanelling, bigby's clenched fist and polar ray as 5th level spells.

However, even ignoring the ludicrously overpowered wraithstrike, the list is missing a number of the sor/wiz spells that really shine for fighter/mages.
1. Critical Strike, enlarge person, mage armor, magic missile
2. Whirling Blade, alter self, false life, glitterdust
3. Blink, displacement, fly, heroism, dragonskin, haste, anticipate teleportation
4. greater invisibility, polymorph, solid fog
5. Improved Blink, wall of force, teleport
6. Contingency, fires of purity, brilliant blade, greater dispel magic
7. Bigby's grasping hand, spell turning, limited wish, energy immunity, etc
8. Iron body (primarily for the construct immunities--it's an "I win" card against hordes of greater shadows, dread wraiths, etc, though it's also quite nice against dragons or other creatures that deal out their damage in lots of moderately damaging attacks rather than one big one), mind blank, moment of prescience, polymorph any object
9. shapechange, time stop, etc.

These spells actually give the eldritch knight much more defensive prowess and flexibility than the duskblade (especially the combination of contingency and spells like blink or greater blink) and enable him to give the duskblade a run for his offensive money too. The fact that his spells fill higher level slots than the duskblades also makes Arcane Strike work out better for the Eldritch Knight than it does for the duskblade.

The eldritch knight also has the advantage of a much greater number of spells known/in spellbook which, combined with the larger spell list, enable an eldritch knight to function as a backup or secondary arcane caster in a party. The duskblade is not sufficiently flexible to serve as a party's arcane caster.

Duskblade is much more straightforward than an eldritch knight and fills a more clearly defined role in a party--the tank--than the eldritch knight (who functions best as a pinch hitter, switching to whatever role is needed). However, if you're handing the class to a skilled player and looking for sheer power, Eldritch Knight seems superior to me.

I think we can take EK's out of the running. If the guys who designed the class thought that good BAB and an "upgrade" to d6 hit dice is sufficient to make for an effective warrior-mage, or that it's worth giving up a level or two of caster progression, then they were really kidding themselves. Jump to d8 hit dice and we can talk.

Spellswords always were questionable as well. I think at some point the designers realized that reducing ASF percentages didn't do the trick. Thus was born the armored mage ability. Not that they have an ability very much like arcane channelling, but it's restricted to a handful of uses per day. OTOH, a spellsword gets to toss fireballs...

But forget what they actually do. The real detriment to those PrC's and many other warrior-mage PrC's (like Enlightened Fist) are the prerequisite of 3rd-level arcane casting ability. It's excessive. Five or six levels is just too much time to spend in a class that suffers limitations that the player was trying to avoid in the first place. The proper design would have been to emphasize an entry based on martial requirements like BAB rather than spellcasting ability.

 

[was]

I don't think it's overpowered.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

The Duskblade is, IMO, an extremely well constructed class with a definite niche. Most importantly, though, it provides a way for a player to play a Gish character as a Gish from the start, instead of waiting till 8th+ level to do so.

This much at least is true. A duskblade will play much more consistently from level to level than an eldritch knight. On the other hand, I don't think that the eldritch knight needs to wait until 8th level to start playing the gish. I managed a 3.0 fighter/mage (without the benefit of Eldritch Knight or even 3.5's version of the spellsword) from level 1-10 (after which we switched to 3.5 and he became an eldritch knight) and he was a gish from levels 2-10. (At first level, he couldn't be because he didn't have any spellcasting ability). Duskblade looks like it would be a lot easier to manage, but it's certainly possible with the eldritch knight.

Wraithstrike is borderline ridiculous for its level.

Nothing borderline about it. It's straight-up ludicrous and probably would be at any level. There is very very little that can survive a full attack from an arcane strikeing, wraithstriking, power attacking fighter/mage with a good weapon. 2nd level is a little low for a "I don't care what you are, you are going to die now" spell.

 

[wildstarsreach]

Where is wraithstrike?