Spellswords

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Basically, has anyone tried a spellcaster with a couple of warrior levels or even a 50/50 warrior/spellcaster?

I suppose many people will have played fullplated, mace-wielding fighter/clerics, RDD combos and the like, but I'm not sure about 50/50 fighter/wizards and such.

Perhaps the fact you can't use your own arms and armour with Tenser's Transformation is a factor here... My IWD2 paladin/wizard would conjure up Mordenkainen's sword before casting Tenser's and it sort of pwned everything... Won't work in NWN. I think NWN spellswords would have to rely on buffs less and offensive magic more (including area-based enchantments).

 

Hmm, well my current OC character is a Fighter/Bard/Weapon Master. He has 2 fighter levels, 7 Bard and 1 Weapon Master at the moment, with the intention of going to 7 with WM, adding 2 more fighter levels for weapon specialisation and going the rest of the way as bard (most likely in other modules). He is an attempt at making a true spellsword type in pre epic levels, meaning that I dont swap in and out of heavy armour after buffing, relying on damage reduction and concealment spells for defense along with a cautious fighting style, working in tandem with Linu. He's in chapter 2 at the moment wearing what I think is called the Armour of the Stars (the 0 Base AC armour with the +3 enchantmant and lightning resistance). It's all going fine so far; a few deaths, but my bard does tonnes of melee damage, has decent survivability and is a good conversationalist to boot.

I suppose Bard is the easiest primary class to make an arcane spellsword with due to decent BAB progression and ready availability of buffs. Wizard would be a fair bit harder, although there are some nice builds featuring high numbers of pale master levels as caster level isnt so important when focusing on buffs.

I suppose its kind of a lot of effort to try and recreate the golden days of BG2 fighter/magi, especially if you arent going to 40th level. They're doable for certain, but the character is never going to be as hard as in days of old. Also, a bard or cleric is going to do pretty much the same thing, just much better. Ahh well...

Ha! Just remembered. The Mighty Stick holds the key to all wisdom in these matters. Last 5 or so frames make the point well:

http://giantitp.com/cgi-bin/GiantITP/ootscript?SK=50

 

Wizard spells are extremely handy for a melee character. So one would expect more of spellswords running around, but i dont. Prime thing what a spellcaster lacks in combat, are HPs and BAB. To go around this, you take levels of arcane class in epic. By then, your fighting ability is already very well developed, so while some buffs help, they're easily dispelled and dont last long.

Also, it's quite inefficient, not to mention redundant, to concentrate on both. While a fighter/arcane might get away with it, feat-wise, no one can do it as far as stats are concerned. Either you go for warrior with buffs and an occasional non-DC spell, or you go for a full time mage with a minor melee presence. Note that for a mage-concentrated character, your warrior levels will have to be lower.


The mainly-warrior spellsword is relatively simple. Warrior-bard preepic, or warrior to 20 and then mage.

But i find spellswords that are more concentrated on magery more interesting. For that, you want sorcerer or a wizard, with as many levels as possible, for buffs duration and such.
Dwarven fighter1/wizard is quite cool. For a long while, buffing and then equipping armor is a fine way to go. But then you soon have too many spells to use them just for buffs and you want to do more... Still spell is there, with Automatic Still spell feat chain in epic. Quite cool, i belive. Plenty of drawbacks, though. You're completely unadaptable. If a Dispell comes along and you dont have Spell Mantle up, you're in big trouble. Same if you get attacked by suprise, though that does apply for all mages.

The second idea would be something like monk1/mage. Be it sorcerer or wizard. Dexterity way would be better, for AC and making good use of Monk's Evasion feat. Weapon finessing Kamas, which are slashing weapons, so Greater Magic Weapon, Keen Edge and most of all Flame weapon. Lower BAB required for more attacks from monk level helps a bunch, as well as Flurry (though you have to think on whether you have enough AB for the -2 penality). You're fighting unarmored, so casting spells other than buffs on the spot is something easily done.
Your HP are still low, your BAB is even further behind, since lvl1 monks do not get any, and when against fire resistant enemies, your main source of damage goes away.

Other than that, though, i think it's a pretty viable idea.


Oh, and another one... Paladin pre epic and Sorcerer afterwards. They make a perfect match. Both focused on Charisma, the Paladin smites will be the main offensive stuff, Sorcerer spells mostly for defensive, with some Isaac's Storms for raw damage. 20 Paladin and then Sorcerer. Champion of Torm would fit in perfectly, but if taken in epic, it'll take from spellcasting, taking it pre-epic, you'll soon run out of useful feats to take.

 

You don't even need an fighter/sorcerer gish. I played an melee sorcerer through SoU and gave him a few DD levels in the end. Worked like a charm.

 

I have I 50/50 sorcerer/fighter and to be honest, he's the worst character I've made in the game, the only reason I use him is because he's an adaptation of who is probably my favorite RP character. However, since I've beaten the game several times, I don't feel the shame of using SetSTAT to make his stats more in line with the character he was adapted from and he works far better. Without a dice roll for stats, the very limited stat construction greatly hampers fighter/sorcerers.