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Jul 30, 2010 -- 5:56AM, Imperius wrote:

Awesome build, and a cool concept at that. I loves me some Vader lol. I have a couple questions, not really critiques, just clearing up how they benefit the build.

1. Why take skill focus (arcana)? Is this just for flavor or am I missing something obvious?
2. Why take arcane reserves? (Just plan to expend encounters as quickly as possible for the bonus damage?)

Just curious as to your reasoning as I steal....I mean copy your build :p


Nice job though!

Sorry if my answers aren't terribly thorough, I'm out of town, away from my books and away from my personal build notes.

1. Kilpatds has the right of it.  Sage of Ages' Trick of Knowledge is amazing, and any good Sage will benefit from as high an arcana check as possible.  That's the reason for my choice in foot/ring slot choices, as it gets me an extra 2 arcana.  Skill focus is worth 2(3?) arcana, Iron of Spite is worth 6...I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.  Rerolling improves your odds, but  if you get a high enough result on Trick of Knowledge it's worth +2 to hit AND +3 to all defenses.
2. Arcane reserves is a filler feat.  A good reworking will surely find a better feat for the slot.  I'm actually working on a Vader variant that may find good use for that arcane reserves.  Regardless, it gets trained out later in most of my Vaders. 

Aug 3, 2010 -- 10:48AM, ugotgot wrote:

Just a quick question, as I don't have the CB.  Perhaps someone can do a quick test?

Will the same reasoning apply to Daughter's Promises (D382).  I know the language is a bit different, but The Prerequisite is the same. 

Daughter's Promises has always worked for me in the CB.
Remember, hybrid grants you access to the PACT, but no benefits from that pact.  Why?  Because it meets prerequisites for feats, PPs and riders!  Daughter's Promises requires the Infernal Pact, which is precisely what hybrid grants you.
As an added note on Twofold Pact, it was recently updated to remove the wording that granted you both pact boons/powers...but otherwise left alone.  They passed up the chance to limit its use by hybrids, which seems a clear confirmation that it's working as intended.

Aug 5, 2010 -- 8:00AM, JTD wrote:

Can anyone help.  Im just now getting readjusted to 4thEd character building and it would really help just seeing the build progression of this build from 1-6 or so.

I suppose my main question is which levels are taken up by Warlock (Im assuming level 1 is) and when do I start taking Swordmage levels?  I have a feeling I need to read and figure out exactly what hybrid levels are as well.

Thanks for the help for a super noob.  Good god, Ive been playing for 20 years, one wouldnt think it was so hard to transition to the new system.

Multiclassing in 4e works very differently from previous editions.  "swordmage levels" versus "warlock levels" doesn't really make sense in this system.   Note that here on the forums we've adopted the following notation for MCing:
Class1|Class2 denotes a hybrid.
Class1/Class2 denotes a Class1 multiclassed into Class2.
"/" also denotes your paragon path and epic destiny choices.  Example:
Swordmage|Warlock/Fighter/Avernian Knight/Sage of Ages indicates
Hybrid Swordmage and Warlock, multiclassed Fighter, Avernian Knight paragon path, Sage of Ages epic destiny.

Leaving standard multiclassing aside, here is hybrid in a nutshell:

1.  Gain the abilities listed in the hybrid section of the PHB3 (or compendium) for each of your two classes.  This will usually be less than half of each class's features, but some classes just don't have enough features for that to matter.

2. Add the surges/hp listed under each half together for your total hp/surges.

3. Gain access to implements/weapon proficiencies for BOTH your classes.  For example, a Swordmage|Warlock like Vader gets proficiency with all military blades, simple weapons, rods, and wands.  He can use blades, rods and wands as implements for ALL his powers, whether warlock or swordmage.

4. Lose access to any armor proficiencies not held by BOTH classes.  A Paladin|Warlock only has leather proficiency to start.  Darth Vader has leather, because both swordmage and warlock have leather.

5. Gain one at-will of your choice from each class, pick 3 skills from either class skill list.  Vader has Eldritch Strike from warlock and Frigid Blade from swordmage.

6. Pick your powers from either class, with one requirement: you must have at least one power of each category from both classes.  So if you wanted all warlock powers on your Darth Vader, you would still have to have at least 1 encounter, utility, daily and at-will power from the swordmage class.  All the rest can be from warlock, but you can't go below that minimum.  The only exception is when you only HAVE one encounter power, like in early heroic.  In that case, if you pick a swordmage power as your first encounter power, you MUST choose a warlock power for your next one.

7.  You may take the Hybrid Talent feat once, which grants back one of the class features from one of your halves.  The features that can be taken with hybrid talent are listed and defined under the hybrid description for each class.  Vader took Hybrid Talent: Swordmage Warding to access the Swordmage's wonderful defenses.

So as you can see, you aren't gaining levels in Swordmage or Warlock, you are gaining levels in Swordmage|Warlock.  You can take feats from either class, qualify for Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies from either class, choose powers from either class.  Power choice is the only thing that really comes close, and it's not a matter of "this is my warlock level" and more a matter of "which powers can I take right now."  
If you take a swordmage Encounter power at level 1, a warlock encounter power at level 3 and a warlock encounter power at level 7, you can retrain your level 3 power to be a swordmage power without any trouble, because you still have your level 7 warlock power to meet the hybrid requirements.


Standard Multiclassing is even worse:
1. Take a multiclass feat for your new class.  This gives some(generally minor) benefit, and gives access to feats/PPs/EDs for that class.
2. Take a power-swap feat.  There is one for each type of power (encounter, utility and daily), which you can only take once.  This feat lets you swap one of your class powers for a power of the same level/type from your new class.  At the cost of a feat, most characters don't find this trade worth it, but there are some powers that are worth the swap (like Fighter stances).
3. If you want, you can take the multiclass feat and all three power-swap feats to get the option of Paragon Multiclassing.  This lets you NOT take a paragon path, and instead swap one of your at-will powers for an at-will from your new class.  You then take some powers from your second class to replace the Paragon Path powers you won't be getting, and gives access to feats which grant specific features from your second class.   PMC is very rarely worth it, as you are spending 4 feats and all your Paragon Path features to get some powers that are usually weaker than your Paragon Path powers would have been.  The feat cost is even higher if you take the PMC feats.  Almost all builds I've seen successfully use PMC do it to get Twin Strike from rangers.

Aug 5, 2010 -- 8:58AM, JTD wrote:

Wow, thanks Alpha for the quick and very detailed response.  Im going to digest that, play around with the CB and then come back with some questions for you

Building a character for a 4ed-modified Savage Tides campaign so I wanted a defender/controller thank I can work with from 1-20+

Keep in mind that Vader was only minimally designed with heroic in mind.  A heroic build would have several differences that would be retrained later on.  I did that for my own sanity, as optimizing for each level takes a LOT more time than throwing a level 30 build together.

As soon as I can find the time, I intend to put together an LDB-style progression. 

Aug 5, 2010 -- 10:41AM, Grizley wrote:

I don't think LDB really optimizes for low levels.  Gives the progression yes, makes them playable yes.  But with clever retraining I think you can get a little more bang for your buck sometimes.  Not a huge deal though.

You're right.
I was really referring to his build format, which a lot of folks have adopted lately.

A better example of the actual level-by-level retraining squeeze would be Ytterbium_Dragon...though I suppose examples of builds where he did this are in scarce supply these days.