Warrior-Mage Prestige Classes: which are viable & which are not

[hong]

Thats easy....not all warriors have to be melee centered. All those snazzy bow feats work well with your ranged touch spells.

Greatbow (item) - 130' range increment
Accuracy (spell)- 1st level spell, doubles range increment to 260'. You could maybe push this to 390' with the extra range weapon ability, but I am not certain if it stacks. I am thinking it does.
Smiting Spell (feat)- Can imbue an arrow with a touch spell
True Strike (spell)- +20 to hit
= Firing at a guy 2600' away (3900' if stackable) with full attack bonus and blast him with your favorite touch spell to boot. Chance of him noticing where you attacked from - 0%, and thats with no adds to your hide spell and a big fat penalty due to full plate armor.

This is D&D we're talking about. 90% of the time, you'll be in a dungeon room where the bad guys are right in your face.

 

[Machiavelli]

I like how you're thinking about the defense (spells ARE good for that), except that you're pushing this to near-20th-level. If you can't get up a good defense before then, you won't survive that long. Also, any spell you cast is one less spell available for buffing your attacks.

I'm not trying to be a nay-sayer and claim that a warmage can never be a good physical combatant, I'm just pointing out that the lengths one can go to make him good can be applied to make some other "build" absolutely amazing.

Of course, any unusal campaign details can make a particular character stand out. I'm just forming my opinion with a certain "average" campaign type in mind.

 

[Diirk]

i agree that abjurant champion is...excessively...viable. they can make most standard action spells swift spells for a limited number of times per day AND they can sacrifice spell slots for boosts (the most nifty one being energy resistance). suddenly, i no longer need to prepare protection from energy. indeed, i can prepare a crapload of utility spells, thanks to arcane chanelling, which makes those non-combat spells useful for a temporary boost.

Eh, the energy resistance boost is somewhat mediocre. If you're dropping spells of 2nd-6th levels then resist energy will provide roughly the same protection as dropping your highest spell slot, and it will do it for hours rather than 1 round. If you're dropping spells of levels 7th+ for energy resistance, then protection from energy is better, and thats still lower enough to be cast as a swift action by a 5th level abjurant champion (and again, lasts hours if not discharged).

I'm not sure about this 'make most standard action spells swift spells' thing either; how do they do that ? Sudden quicken? The only thing I saw that was inherent to the abjurant champion was that they can quicken abjurations of 1st - 3rd level (most commonly shield, resist energy, protection from energy, and dispel magic I'd assume).