Revising the Duskblade/Building a Gish

[Aktariel]

So, I was reading through some of the CharOp posts on the Duskblade a while back, and I remember thinking that some of the stuff sounded kind of awesome, flavorwise if not "This is so awesome it will make the wizard cry."

Because as we all know, in 3.5e it's impossible to make a wizard cry.

But things like... arcane full-channelling heal or harm just sounded totally awesome.

And then I read Iameki's revised Eldritch Knight, and got a burn to play a gish on again.

But from what I gather here, and the game playing I've been doing, the whole idea of a gish in 3.5 is well, pretty crappy. Either you're a wizard with lost casting, which is crap, or you're a medium BAB dude with spells, and the Cleric outshines you.

Either way, you're getting the really short end of the stick. Because 3.5 rewards specialization, unless you're playing in a 1-3 man party.

I've also looked at things like the Roland, Bear of the North build, and they kind of sparked my fancy, but I'm not a fan of builds.

I want a 20 level gish class that doesn't suck, and so I turn to you, Denners, in my quest.

Where ought we to start?

[Maxus]

I suppose you could give a Gish school specialization.

Then I'd actually worry about fighting a lot of them, because it could be a situation of, "Oh, shit, how many of these guys can shoot lightning? Are all of these people real? Are they doing an illusion?"

[Harlune]

the battle sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana was probably the closest wotc came to a decent gish base class and even it fails behind the stock cleric.

Perhaps the battle sorcerer as a base combined with the duskblade's class abilities and features and the hex blade's cha bonus to saves ability?


you might also want the Arcane Strike feat and the feat that lets you cast spells even with a weapon and shield in your hands.

[Leress]

the feat that lets you cast spells even with a weapon and shield in your hands.

Somatic Weaponary

[Jerry]

I think that Core Clerics can make good Gish builds, what with Divine Power, Righteous Might, and death spells like Implosion.

Just change it to a non-religious flavor.

A Gish Core Class has existed all along.

[Maxus]

the battle sorcerer from Unearthed Arcana was probably the closest wotc came to a decent gish base class and even it fails behind the stock cleric.

Perhaps the battle sorcerer as a base combined with the duskblade's class abilities and features and the hex blade's cha bonus to saves ability?


you might also want the Arcane Strike feat and the feat that lets you cast spells even with a weapon and shield in your hands.

Hell, just make that a class feature.

One could also give 'em some tricks that're always moderately useful--seriously, one might actually care if he can slap a scaling Bear's Endurance on the party at a swift action and then give himself an Enlarge Person that does indeed give him an actual size upgrade--+8 Str, +4 Con, -2 Dex, +2 Natural Armor.

Try taking a look at the Kantian Paladin's Swift Casting ability. That's a handy ability to have.

[virgil]

Other than using the cleric/druid builds with altered flavour, true gishes don't really exist in a valid fashion in official 3.5, to my knowledge.

Just because I wanted to actually do this at least once, I made my own attempt at a gish awhile back; http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=40950

[JonSetanta]

Yeah take Harlune's suggestion. Mix-matching premade D&D abilities into a new class is much more timesaving than writing a whole new class by yourself.

Talisman has been in that same Gish boat and it's not a pleasant voyage.

[Voss]

I think that Core Clerics can make good Gish builds, what with Divine Power, Righteous Might, and death spells like Implosion.

Just change it to a non-religious flavor.

A Gish Core Class has existed all along.

That isn't a gish, thats just a cleric. A gish is (sadly enough an actual term that rose out of a throwaway line in the githyanki entry in the FF long ago) an actual concept at this point- arcane spellcaster/warrior.

Very little actually beats the abjurant champion prc in Even More Shit for Wizards. There are a lot of PrCs you can dumpster dive for at this point.

[ubernoob]

Umm, gishes take more work, but gishes lay the smack down like nobody else. Of Charop's classic three gishes two are flat out beatsticks and just better than it than almost anybody else:
1) Wizard 6/ Fighter 1/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Eldritch Knight 7

This guy has 4ish free feats, only loses two levels of casting, and 17 bab. Between gish buffs (there are tons) and the surplus feats (for damage boosting things like shock trooper) he can really lay the smackdown.

2) Wizard 6/ Swiftblade 10/ Abjurant Champion or Unseen Seer 4
Please tell me that getting off 24 attacks in one round during a wraithstrike with arcane strike effecting all of them in hydra form doesn't say smack down to you.

3) Paladin 2/ Sorcerer 4/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 8
This guy is way more feat tight and overall not as pretty as a wizard base. Spontaneous casting is fun though.



Gishes are guys that hit really hard. That's all they really do well. Of course, up until around level 10 either of the first two can play wizard with abusive init and no save debuffs (rays primarily) better than lead beatstick.


IMO, clerics don't have as many good buffs as wizards (divine power excepted). Druids IMO make better melee casters than clerics.

[Kaelik]

Yeah, my standard Gish build is Wizard 4/Paragons from UA/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Whatever 9

Gives you BAB 17, CL 18, and some other small goodies. But I always use Gishes as just people that cast a lot of awesome buff spells on themselves and then wail away using things like Wraithstrike and Whirling Blade.

[virgil]

For the first build, the only smackdown I'm seeing is from spellcasting. Getting a BAB 17 isn't special nor is it actually helpful in doing the job of going melee, and those four feats are anything but free. What you give up is NOT worth what you get out of it.

As for the second build, those 24 attacks do not say smack down to me, ESPECIALLY at the loss of 9th level spells. By the time you're able to do that (level 15), you're three caster levels behind; and that tactic doesn't even work if you're fighting something with any kind of DR. Oh, and that tactic says more about the spellcasting than having a BAB.

The third build, I'm not quite as certain, because I don't know what the Sacred Exorcist does. Chances are that nothing good is happening with it, but I can be wrong.

[Kaelik]

For the first build, the only smackdown I'm seeing is from spellcasting. Getting a BAB 17 isn't special nor is it actually helpful in doing the job of going melee, and those four feats are anything but free. What you give up is NOT worth what you get out of it.

As for the second build, those 24 attacks do not say smack down to me, ESPECIALLY at the loss of 9th level spells. By the time you're able to do that (level 15), you're three caster levels behind; and that tactic doesn't even work if you're fighting something with any kind of DR. Oh, and that tactic says more about the spellcasting than having a BAB.

The third build, I'm not quite as certain, because I don't know what the Sacred Exorcist does. Chances are that nothing good is happening with it, but I can be wrong.

Oh don't make that mistake, none of these builds are ever going to be seriously better then straight Wizard. But they can be built to melee better then anyone else, and yes, that comes largely from the Wizard casting, the point being in this case that they are even better then a Wizard who casts the same spells, seeing as they get a couple extra feats, better BAB, and more HP.

The point is that these builds can keep up with real characters, not that they are anything special.

[Psychic Robot]

Personally, I'm fond of fighter 2/wizard 8/eldritch knight 10. But then, I like my builds simple.

[Cielingcat]

Note that you can totally do these things with a normal Wizard, and you can do them both quicker and more often. Divine Power can be learned by a Wizard, and that+polymorph is often enough to make you better than any melee character right then and there.

[Kaelik]

Note that you can totally do these things with a normal Wizard, and you can do them both quicker and more often. Divine Power can be learned by a Wizard, and that+polymorph is often enough to make you better than any melee character right then and there.

But compared to my build you'd be losing tons of HP, swift casting, feats, skill points, a +2 to any score you want, and not having to cast Divine Power (unless the Wizard way of obtaining it allows them to Persist it too).

[Cielingcat]

I'm also getting everything a full 2 levels earlier than you.

[Kaelik]

No, you'll get spells a full one level before me, at the cost of all those things. And if you are using buffs, the fact that I start every combat at full power and you have to cast Divine Power gives me a headstart.

[Cielingcat]

I'm not actually saying that I'd play a Wizard that does these things. I'm saying that all the hoops you jump through to get a good base attack bonus and a high caster level are subpar because a simple Wizard can do it without all the work, and more quickly to boot.

[baduin]

Vancian Magician - An attempt at a class more resembling the magicians in Vance's stories. It is also a wizard-warrior, ie a gish.

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=48760

[Kaelik]

I'm not actually saying that I'd play a Wizard that does these things. I'm saying that all the hoops you jump through to get a good base attack bonus and a high caster level are subpar because a simple Wizard can do it without all the work, and more quickly to boot.

Who's jumping through hoops?
1) A Wizard can't do it any sooner.
2) A Wizard can't do it better.
3) A Wizard has to jump through more hoops to get Divine Power on his list then I would have to in order to take all those classes. And we both have to jump through more hoops to find and cast the spells then either of us has to for anything else.

No one is jumping through hoops here, just building a character that happens to be able to stab things in the face.

[Aktariel]

Ok. Now that I know how to build a gish, I'll try throwing the hexblade, the sorcerer, and the duskblade together and see what I get.

Maybe it was the word "build" that threw people. Really, I started this thread because I didn't want my gish to be "Something Q/Random X/Mildly Useful PrCl W/Dipping Class T."

So... I guess in a way I'm going to start dipping. From classes and prestige classes. Abjurant Champion, Hexblade, Duskblade, Eldritch Knight... the works.

Unless someone happens to have a 20th level class in their back pocket all ready for this...

...Frank...?

[ubernoob]

Note that you can totally do these things with a normal Wizard, and you can do them both quicker and more often. Divine Power can be learned by a Wizard, and that+polymorph is often enough to make you better than any melee character right then and there.

Unless you are an incantatrix (notably the most powerful PrC for the most powerful base class in print to my knowledge) keeping that divine power up is a real bitch. Getting it on your list is even more of a bitch. If you are going to rely on divine power it is easier to use an artificer, cleric, or archivist base.

[virgil]

Keeping divine power up is easy. All the cleric needs to do is take the Divine Metamagic feat and cast it once a day.

[ubernoob]

Keeping divine power up is easy. All the cleric needs to do is take the Divine Metamagic feat and cast it once a day.

Thus the last sentence? Archivists cast divine spells, so can just dip into sacred exorcist for DMM. Artificers have a class feature to break metamagic caps (a direct copy/paste of the class feature of incantatrix I was refering to, but have other features to make it even better). Divine power is a total bitch to get on wizards and keep up. That was my point. Incantatrix is the sole exception (just use a wand).

There are no easy ways to put divine power on the wizard list. If you are going to rely on it, you have to do two things:
1) Buy a custom runestaff crafted by someone with arcane disciple(any domain with divine power on it).
2) Be an incantatrix to persist it.



I was talking about divine power for wizards. It's just way too much of a hassle if we are talking about gishes. Much better ways IMO.