Juomari Veren
Adventurer
Yes.
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Really Good feats for a Duskblade?
- Thread starter Juomari Veren
- Start date
Yes.
WhiteRaven810
First Post
Versatile Spellcaster from Races of Dragon allows a spontaneous caster to pop two lower level spells to cast one spell of a higher level. It's excellent for a battle caster like a Duskblade.
If you're weilding a two handed weapon (unlikely if your a Grey Elf), take Power Attack. Quick cast True Strike with the Duskblade ability gained at fifth level. Then charge and drop all your BAB into Power Attack to just rape a monster. Casting Blade of Blood the round prior makes the damage dealt all so sexy.
If you're weilding a two handed weapon (unlikely if your a Grey Elf), take Power Attack. Quick cast True Strike with the Duskblade ability gained at fifth level. Then charge and drop all your BAB into Power Attack to just rape a monster. Casting Blade of Blood the round prior makes the damage dealt all so sexy.
Empirate
First Post
Blade of Blood is one of the more useless spells in the game. Deal damage to yourself to deal paltry more damage to an enemy, that you also have to hit to deal said extra damage at all? What were they smoking? Hell, the damage wouldn't even be impressive if a) you incurred no damage yourself, and b) at least dealt the extra damage automatically.
True Strike-->Power Attack is good, but still nothing to drool about, as it's capped by your BAB. Very good in a charge, or with PA enhancers, though (Leap Attack, Battle Jump, Valorous weapon, Headlong Rush, you name it).
With Arcane Strike, you have a way of turning all those low-level spell slots into something useful. It's a free action to use, so no limit to the extra 1d4s of damage you can inflict. Only the highest attack bonus applies, though (similar bonuses don't stack).
Also, I was wondering, what are
If you mean Reserve Feats, those aren't that useful for a Duskblade (Except maybe Minor Shapechange, if you can get it).
Metamagic Feats aren't that useful either, since you don't have high-level spell slots to use them, and you're a spontaneous caster. Maybe if you can use Versatile Spellcaster for it, but it's still not really optimal.
Bottom line: don't pick your feats with regard to enhancing your spellcasting abilities. Pick feats to be good at melee instead. You're a gish, that means you're a melee guy first and foremost, with a little extra versatility thrown in for fun. What you're not is a primary spellcaster.
True Strike-->Power Attack is good, but still nothing to drool about, as it's capped by your BAB. Very good in a charge, or with PA enhancers, though (Leap Attack, Battle Jump, Valorous weapon, Headlong Rush, you name it).
With Arcane Strike, you have a way of turning all those low-level spell slots into something useful. It's a free action to use, so no limit to the extra 1d4s of damage you can inflict. Only the highest attack bonus applies, though (similar bonuses don't stack).
Also, I was wondering, what are
???Dannyalcatraz said:
If you mean Reserve Feats, those aren't that useful for a Duskblade (Except maybe Minor Shapechange, if you can get it).
Metamagic Feats aren't that useful either, since you don't have high-level spell slots to use them, and you're a spontaneous caster. Maybe if you can use Versatile Spellcaster for it, but it's still not really optimal.
Bottom line: don't pick your feats with regard to enhancing your spellcasting abilities. Pick feats to be good at melee instead. You're a gish, that means you're a melee guy first and foremost, with a little extra versatility thrown in for fun. What you're not is a primary spellcaster.
Knowledge Devotion.
Dump *all* your skill points in the various monster-recognition knowledge skills, and laugh at the silly fighters who have to take four feats for half the bonus of your one feat. And, if you don't need the extra hit, you can dump the hit bonus into damage with power attack. At 18th, you're going to have 21 ranks, probably somewhere in the order of 7-8 int mod and maybe some item bonus to the checks I can't remember. With +8 int mod, you get +4 to hit and damage by rolling a 2 on the check. +5 to hit and damage by rolling a 7. Compare that to greater weapon spec which is 4 feats for +2 hit and +4 damage.
Power Attack is really great, as you get tons of hit bonuses that you can afford to dump. Even the lowly Shocking Grasp gives a +3 hit most of the time, during a channel, for free. Being limited by BAB isn't so much a big deal as you can still nearly assure a hit even if you do chuck it all for damage, and a very large amount of damage if you use a 2h weapon and Leap Attack.
Conc and Jump (if you're going for leap attack) might make contenders for some points, but other than that, just dump into Knowledges.
Depending on how much combat you get in any given day, Empower Spell is good, but keep in mind duskblade spell levels are harder to come by than other casters. I tend to prefer things that don't have much of a level adjustment (if any). Spell pen is very good.
Oh, here's a question I had come up - if I use arcane channeling, what is the crit range for the attack? Normal weapon range? Meaning I could crit a Shocking Grasp on 15-20 using a keen falchion?
Dump *all* your skill points in the various monster-recognition knowledge skills, and laugh at the silly fighters who have to take four feats for half the bonus of your one feat. And, if you don't need the extra hit, you can dump the hit bonus into damage with power attack. At 18th, you're going to have 21 ranks, probably somewhere in the order of 7-8 int mod and maybe some item bonus to the checks I can't remember. With +8 int mod, you get +4 to hit and damage by rolling a 2 on the check. +5 to hit and damage by rolling a 7. Compare that to greater weapon spec which is 4 feats for +2 hit and +4 damage.
Power Attack is really great, as you get tons of hit bonuses that you can afford to dump. Even the lowly Shocking Grasp gives a +3 hit most of the time, during a channel, for free. Being limited by BAB isn't so much a big deal as you can still nearly assure a hit even if you do chuck it all for damage, and a very large amount of damage if you use a 2h weapon and Leap Attack.
Conc and Jump (if you're going for leap attack) might make contenders for some points, but other than that, just dump into Knowledges.
Depending on how much combat you get in any given day, Empower Spell is good, but keep in mind duskblade spell levels are harder to come by than other casters. I tend to prefer things that don't have much of a level adjustment (if any). Spell pen is very good.
Oh, here's a question I had come up - if I use arcane channeling, what is the crit range for the attack? Normal weapon range? Meaning I could crit a Shocking Grasp on 15-20 using a keen falchion?
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Empirate
First Post
Good advice mostly, although you'll probably want some other skills but knowledges only. Concentration is a must have, as you'll cast in melee quite often. Spellcraft is another important one, and Jump if you want to Battle Jump/Leap Attack. Tumble is important for anything melee, although you might have teleportation options later on. So all skillpoints into knowledge skills is quite an investment. But even only one point per knowledge skill nets a nice +1/+1 bonus, with a chance for more - much better than, say, Weapon Focus. I just think Knowledge Devotion is often overrated compared with e.g. Animal Devotion.
Yes, you use the crit range of the weapon. This is another nice thing about channeling your spells. Spells only deal double damage on a crit, though, so no x4 Vampiric Touch damage with a Scythe.
Yes, you use the crit range of the weapon. This is another nice thing about channeling your spells. Spells only deal double damage on a crit, though, so no x4 Vampiric Touch damage with a Scythe.
IMHO, the Reserve metamagic feats are a decent deal for almost any spellcaster...depending upon their spell selection. Being able to generate a magical effect regardless of any components, being grappled and so forth is nothing to sneeze at. Several give you bonuses to caster levels in addition to their "reserve" power. All of them increase your PC's flexibility.
Juomari Veren
Adventurer
DO NOT even say that. That spell is the greatest spell in the universe.
My Duskblade's chances of missing at this point are amazing as is, he has over 215 HP, and 5d6 every attack for 20+ rounds straight is the greatest thing ever.
Couple that with a 20d4 Arcane Strike and you can take down anything in front of you. Trust me.
Shin Okada
Explorer
I don't say Blade of Blood is a useless spell. But what do you mean "every attack for 20+ rounds"? Blade of blood inflicts +5d6 damage only once/cast. The duration is 1 round/level or until discharged.
That and burning so many slots to fuel arcane strike is way too indulgent for my tastes, since the attack bonus does not stack. So you are better off just using it 1/round, and funneling any excess to power attack. You don't really have that many 5th lv slots to waste either.
Good nova tactic to use as an npc though.
Good nova tactic to use as an npc though.
Eh, I disagree on the importance of the generally-mandatory caster skills for Duskblades. If you're using arcane channeling or quickcasting, you're not taking AoO anyway. How often are you going to be casting a non-channeled, non-quickcast spell in melee? Likewise with Spellcraft - you're not (and shouldn't be) the party's main arcanist, so you don't need to be the one to identify active effects and the like and you're not going to be counterspelling anyone. As far as Tumble goes...it's not a class skill and you have bad Dex, so you're not going to be getting very good checks at it all too quickly so I'm skeptical of how useful it would be as compared to say Jump, which I did say is a good choice for Leap Attack etc.
I really like the idea of building a complete character around Knowledge Devotion, rather than simply as a charop exercise. You're going to be hard pressed to convince me of a character concept where a duskblade taking Animal Devotion makes sense. Knowledge devotion, on the other hand, with the complete knowledge list as class skills, fits the duskblade perfectly as the Big Smart Fighter. And it's amazingly effective to boot.
And yeah, Blade of Blood is terrible. You should never learn it - Shocking Grasp is better in every way against anything that's hurt by lightning and ESPECIALLY better against things made of or wearing metal. As was said before if you're really concerned about the flood of lightning-immune baddies coming from your DM you can always just use another spell on them or go for Energy Sub.
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