Talk Loudly And Carry A Big Stick ... Azuran(human) Bard 4 / PsyWar 4 Mantled acf / Psychic Theurge 3 / Mind Mage 10 / Psychic Theurge +3 Ask your DM if he thinks 1st level spells with metamagic are too powerful (leading question). Ask your DM if he thinks 1st level spells as not quite at-wills are too powerful. After getting a Yes to both ahead of time ... get a Psi recharge set-up going and get the Cerebremetamagic feat from Dr#349 so every spell is metamagic-ed up to your max spell/power level. You have access to all Bard spells and Psi powers up to level 6, fully metamagic-ed, but mostly out-of-combat. Your nickname is: Tool Belt .
Hush kitty avatar ... there'll be more Younglings soon.
Epic Spellcasting is the ONLY thing that matters at this level. Seriously, the only thing. So, for the sake of the thread, I'll assume you can't have it.
Ignore every suggestion for Swfitblade. It's a weak class, and would give you nothing of value. No, the real build you're going to want is Wizard 5/Mindbender 1/Divine Oracle 3/Incantatrix 10/SCM OR some Circle Magic PrC 5. Take Spontaneous Divination ACF.
Shazam! And now you can do everything most of the above builds can do, but better, and you have Mindsight. Also pick up a minor schema of Favor of the Martyr to Persist with Incantatrix.
Other good options involve Dweomerkeeper, Anima Mage, any number of hilarious Theurge builds, even some rather brutal trip-9s builds, or really anything that doesn't involve such shining examples of mediocrity as Swiftblade, or truly awful classes like the Juggernaut or the GSA. There are plenty of great options. Just not those.
Oh, and DM, it's Cerebremancer. Psychic Theurge is Psionic/Divine.
I am ORCutus of Borg, 3 of 6. Resistance... is futile. Your life as it has been... is over. From this time forward... you will service... us.
So wait, 50% miss chance on any single target effect, freedom of movement and maximized time stop is weak? And here I thought getting an extra standard action each turn was kinda cool.
Epic Spellcasting is the ONLY thing that matters at this level. Seriously, the only thing. So, for the sake of the thread, I'll assume you can't have it.
Ignore every suggestion for Swfitblade. It's a weak class, and would give you nothing of value. No, the real build you're going to want is Wizard 5/Mindbender 1/Divine Oracle 3/Incantatrix 10/SCM OR some Circle Magic PrC 5. Take Spontaneous Divination ACF.
Shazam! And now you can do everything most of the above builds can do, but better, and you have Mindsight. Also pick up a minor schema of Favor of the Martyr to Persist with Incantatrix.
Other good options involve Dweomerkeeper, Anima Mage, any number of hilarious Theurge builds, even some rather brutal trip-9s builds, or really anything that doesn't involve such shining examples of mediocrity as Swiftblade, or truly awful classes like the Juggernaut or the GSA. There are plenty of great options. Just not those.
Oh, and DM, it's Cerebremancer. Psychic Theurge is Psionic/Divine.
Swift Blade is not weak, but despite that your suggestions are good, i'll just complement these suggestions:
Replace Mindbender, Divine Oracle, Circle Magic PrC and some others levels. Reasons:
Wizard 3/Sorcerer 1 (or Beguiler or other spontaneous caster, i don't know)/Spellthief 1/Ultimate Magus 10/Incantatrix 9
You lose some nice abilities, but nothing crucial, and if you take Practiced Spellcaster feats and Master Spellthief feat you get past 40th caster level that is the limit of Circle Magic, not just that but Circle Magic is kind hard of happen. What means that in exchange of secondary abilities you improved your mainly ability.
Now you know spells as a Wizard 20 (the limit of spells know), and can raise all your arcane caster levels to 40, then use the Master Spellthief feat to sum all of them.
Of course you don't need to be Wizard 10, you cant replace some of those levels with a good PrC, the same for Red Wizard (since you don't need Great Circle Leader to go to 40th caster level).
So wait, 50% miss chance on any single target effect, freedom of movement and maximized time stop is weak? And here I thought getting an extra standard action each turn was kinda cool.
If you want extra actions, cast Shapechange. Celerity. The abilities are mediocre, at best.
Epic Spellcasting is the ONLY thing that matters at this level. Seriously, the only thing. So, for the sake of the thread, I'll assume you can't have it.
Ignore every suggestion for Swfitblade. It's a weak class, and would give you nothing of value. No, the real build you're going to want is Wizard 5/Mindbender 1/Divine Oracle 3/Incantatrix 10/SCM OR some Circle Magic PrC 5. Take Spontaneous Divination ACF.
Shazam! And now you can do everything most of the above builds can do, but better, and you have Mindsight. Also pick up a minor schema of Favor of the Martyr to Persist with Incantatrix.
Other good options involve Dweomerkeeper, Anima Mage, any number of hilarious Theurge builds, even some rather brutal trip-9s builds, or really anything that doesn't involve such shining examples of mediocrity as Swiftblade, or truly awful classes like the Juggernaut or the GSA. There are plenty of great options. Just not those.
Oh, and DM, it's Cerebremancer. Psychic Theurge is Psionic/Divine.
Swift Blade is not weak, but despite that your suggestions are good, i'll just complement these suggestions:
Replace Mindbender, Divine Oracle, Circle Magic PrC and some others levels. Reasons:
Wizard 3/Sorcerer 1 (or Beguiler or other spontaneous caster, i don't know)/Spellthief 1/Ultimate Magus 10/Incantatrix 9
Uh, no. Hell no.
Look, UM is garbage compared to Circle Magic, and CL is overrated. Mediocre build. Plus, this builld lacks omnicience and mindsight. Both are vastly superior to UM.
You lose some nice abilities, but nothing crucial, and if you take Practiced Spellcaster feats and Master Spellthief feat you get past 40th caster level that is the limit of Circle Magic, not just that but Circle Magic is kind hard of happen. What means that in exchange of secondary abilities you improved your mainly ability.
Now you know spells as a Wizard 20 (the limit of spells know), and can raise all your arcane caster levels to 40, then use the Master Spellthief feat to sum all of them.
Of course you don't need to be Wizard 10, you cant replace some of those levels with a good PrC, the same for Red Wizard (since you don't need Great Circle Leader to go to 40th caster level).
No. Also garbage. The only time you would ever want to focus that much on Circle Magic is on a SCM, or something else to use it well.
Now I really want to know: Why is everyone and their dog so obsessed with such mediocre classes as UM and Swiftblade. Hell, both are strictly inferior to Mystic Theurge, and it has no class features.
Another build to consider: Wizard 3/Ardent 2/Ur-Priest 2/Psychic Theurge 3/MT 4/Cerebremancer 10. Practiced Manifester gives you triple 9s.
I am ORCutus of Borg, 3 of 6. Resistance... is futile. Your life as it has been... is over. From this time forward... you will service... us.
Why is everyone and their dog so obsessed with such mediocre classes
He said his DM wouldn't allow “broken things” without giving any indication of what his DM considers broken. Based on the little information I have, I've guessed that he'll deem all the more powerful abilities to be broken. Dweomerkeeper, epic spellcasting, incantatrix, mindsight, red wizard, and shadowsraft mage are all things I considered but didn't suggest because I assumed they wouldn't be allowed.
In any case, an indication of what the DM considers an appropriate power level would help. So, chaoz, can you tell me how your DM feels about:
Getting 10 turns for every 1 other people get? (Planar Shepeherd)
Gaining an arbitrarily high casting stat? (Tainted scholar)
Removing the xp and gp components of spells? (Dweomerkeeper)
I was going to give more examples, but I'm tired. Can somebody else throw some out?
CJ you're making a lot of arguements that other abilities suck, you're saying what's better. The arguement you're not making is the why. Enlighten those of us stuck in mediocrity. The Shapechange (Choker), and Celerity **** works of course, but Swiftblade can't be dispelled, and nothing stops you from doing all of it if you really want to up your game to casting 5 spells a round (Twin and Repeat spell aside).
Why is everyone and their dog so obsessed with such mediocre classes
He said his DM wouldn't allow “broken things” without giving any indication of what his DM considers broken. Based on the little information I have, I've guessed that he'll deem all the more powerful abilities to be broken. Dweomerkeeper, epic spellcasting, incantatrix, mindsight, red wizard, and shadowsraft mage are all things I considered but didn't suggest because I assumed they wouldn't be allowed.
Mindsight ain't broken, bro. Just a phenominally good ability that you had better have a good reason not to take.
CJ you're making a lot of arguements that other abilities suck, you're saying what's better. The arguement you're not making is the why. Enlighten those of us stuck in mediocrity. The Shapechange (Choker), and Celerity **** works of course, but Swiftblade can't be dispelled, and nothing stops you from doing all of it if you really want to up your game to casting 5 spells a round (Twin and Repeat spell aside).
If you really need that many actions urdoinitwrong. Seriously.
Swiftblade you give up 4 CL(Irrelevant in this particular build, but one of the many reasons it's an objectively bad class) and 10 levels to gain abilities that are easily replicated and give no practical difference between standard spells cast at the level it comes on line, and still dies to the standard buff-remover at this level, disjunction(As you'll note, Fortified Hustle only references dispelling, not disjoining). The practical difference of one extra action a turn compared to a wizard that actually put those ten levels to good use is negligable at best.
It gives you next to nothing and costs a lot. That is the essence of a bad class. It's strictly inferior to a wizard who used those levels on classes that actually do something.
I am ORCutus of Borg, 3 of 6. Resistance... is futile. Your life as it has been... is over. From this time forward... you will service... us.
Actually, it says "the effect becomes extraordinary rather than a continuous spell effect". So no, disjunction and AMF don't work. I'm not saying you need 5 (premetamagic) spells/turn, I'm just saying that it's really sweet to cast a single third level spell (as a swift action), and gain Freeodom of Movement, Greater Blink, Displacement, a bonus to AC, Attacks and Reflex Saves, and an extra standard action each turn. And no, it cannot be dispelled, in fact you can disjunction or AMF with impunity yourself.
Now that said... IF you bother to take the 10th level (and lose the final caster level), which in an EPIC game I would, you can make that first haste a 4 round time stop by using a 9th if you'd like (As per the 10th level ability), and buff like mad, move around a bit, set up a pile of magicala traps, what have you, discern the location of all your enemies.
Also, it has another nice feature, Casting Stat to Init, which also means you probably act first. And I'm sorry but win more spells are not what wins at this power level, it's rocket tag. Going first, and succesfully locating your opponent in time to tag them frist is what wins.
