GameBanshee Forums

Hello,
I'm trying to come up with a decent "Spellsword" build for the last one of my characters. So far I've thought up 5 characters, which are all fairly standard:
Sorcerer (Bombardier of course
Cleric (Caster oriented, but might tank and hit some monsters)
Cleric/Monk/Pala (Just one level of Monk and Pala for flair and bonuses... combat oriented)
Bard5/Druid (Support character and ranged combat especially in the beginning of the game)
Rogue/Wiz (Second bombardier and support, and also ranged combat in the beginning, when I won't have many wizard spells)

So I thought I wanted some kind of spellsword build to complement. A few levels of a fighting class and the rest goes into a caster, for self buff spells.
However I already have a wizard, and spell scrolls seem to be really hard to come by, so another wizard seems out of question. I also have enough divine magic already, and I like arcane magic much better anyway. Therefore, maybe sorcerer for the caster class? But they have a slow spell progression... so I felt that if I take too many fighter levels, my spell progression will be really far behind and the character may be really lacking in HoF mode.
I don't want to make a Paladin/Sorcerer either, even though I've heard good things about them. So I'm wondering if a single level of fighter will make much of a difference for combat abilities. Just a little bit better BAB, some more HP and a feat I guess.

The thing is: In my HoF party I have 2 sorcerers, and I gave one of them a lot of melee oriented spells like both fire shields, stoneskin, blur and blink, and lastly Iron Body. I cast them all and sent this character in, and it couldn't be harmed but the monsters would kill themselves on the fireshields. In the Info screen it also gave me a huge number for damage resistance, so I thought that it may be a bug. What do you think about Iron Body? It's supposed to give 50 damage resistance, which is already huge I guess, but it said 456346245 or something like that...
Also Mordenkainen's Sword is an awesome spell that basically turns the pure sorcerer into a spellsword like character, literally even. That's why I thought about having as many sorcerer levels as possible, and keeping fighter levels for my character to just one.
Maybe this will give the "feel" of a more combat oriented character and will surely help in the beginning, but does it make a difference in the later game? I might also take one or two more fighter levels later on, but I'm not so keen on weapon specialization (which would be 4). But then... if it comes down to this character flinging spells around and the fighter levels being more or less useless, I might as well make another sorcerer.

What else is there... maybe a Monk with some added Sorcerer or Wizard levels later? I'm not going to do much level squatting, so I'll probably end up around level sixteen in normal and not sure how high in HoF... really not sure about the monk in that regard. If I want to aquire 20 monk levels before multi classing, I won't get to multi in normal at all and only very little in HoF.

Any more ideas?

You could take a ranger level. Dualwielding isn't nearly as damaging as 2-handed weapons on the long run, but you don't need efficiency and you'll gain favored enemy and the same weapon proficiencies as for a fighter level.

I also thought about taking one level of monk to start out, and then switching to sorcerer.
I'm not sure how strong the monk will be with one level, but there will at the very least be the benefit of evasion, for when I use this character as a tank later and bombard with the other sorcerer.

Does a monk have notable bonuses in hand to hand combat at first level, compared to other characters? And if so, do these bonuses carry over to things like Iron Body? The description of Iron Body says, the caster would use their fists to do damage... that basically means hand to hand, just the question is if the game counts it as such. There is a different icon displayed in the weapoon slot for the duration of the spell.
Besides, I think Monk and Sorcerer are two classes that fit together pretty well.

Another idea would be rogue. With 3 levels of rogue, I can sneak attack and flank, right? So can I use a mordenkainens sword to flank from range? I know that it's not possible to do so with bows, but the mordenkainens sword is technically a sword... so maybe? I'd also get evasion.

And lastly, there would be barbarian I guess, so I'd at least get some more HP and a rage and weapon proficiencies. That should help at the start, but I'm not sure if the difference will still be noticeable later.


I just think a fighter with 5 levels of wizard may be a strong build, but it's boring compared to the diversity of a full caster who has access to high levels spells to set up a "kill zone" for example, and generally adapt to situations pretty well, whereas the more melee oriented characters, even the ones with a few caster levels, can just buff up and then charge the enemy.
On the other hand, I'd like to use "touch" attacks some more, like shocking grasp, but I fear that a pure caster won't hit well enough to connect with that attack and will just waste time missing the enemy (and also, even when delivering an attack, they won't do much extra damage from the actual weapon hit).

So I'm looking for a way to combine the best of both worlds, or in other words: An arcane caster with good BAB. =) (Without having to use tenser's, of course...)

Correct me if I'm wrong (someone). If I recall correctly monks in that rule version gain another attack at 4 BAB instead of 6 when unarmed. So 4, 7, 10, 13 and so on.

However multiclassing means that the monk unarmed progression in terms of extra attacks is lost. So a 1 monk Sorceror X is a good character probably one of the most powerful in your party but that is mainly from the sorc levels. It would function best as a nuker. In combat your going to be able to use axes (from monk) and those are going to be better than fists with only 1 monk level. You will have a level of high saves from monk and also evasion. Plus monk only items and 1 stunning fist and wisdom to AC.