WF Spellsword build

[FuzzyDuck81]

A build i've started working on levelling, the idea is for a capable 2hander melee damage-dealer that has good self-sufficiency, but I'm not all that concerned about making it the most uber-optimised build. Looks pretty good to me but I thought I'd see what others think.

Spells-wise, I'll be using an assortment of self-heals & buffs including fireshield & blur/displacement for damage mitigation. Weapon-wise, i still havent decided whether to go with greataxe, falchion or greatsword

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Ossuary Spellsword
Level 20 Chaotic Good Warforged Male
(12 Fighter \ 1 Barbarian \ 7 Wizard) 
Hit Points: 342
Spell Points: 537 
BAB: 16\16\21\26\26
Fortitude: 17
Reflex: 9
Will: 8

                  Starting          Feat/Enhancement
Abilities        Base Stats          Modified Stats
(32 Point)       (Level 1)             (Level 20)
Strength             18                    28
Dexterity            14                    16
Constitution         16                    20
Intelligence         12                    14
Wisdom                6                     8
Charisma              6                     8

Tomes Used
+2 Tome of Strength used at level 7
+2 Tome of Dexterity used at level 7
+2 Tome of Constitution used at level 7
+2 Tome of Intelligence used at level 7
+2 Tome of Wisdom used at level 7
+2 Tome of Charisma used at level 7

Level 1 (Wizard)
Feat: (Wizard Bonus) Mental Toughness
Feat: (Selected) Mithral Body


Level 2 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Two Handed Fighting


Level 3 (Fighter)
Feat: (Selected) Toughness
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Weapon Focus: Slashing Weapons


Level 4 (Wizard)
Ability Raise: STR


Level 5 (Wizard)


Level 6 (Wizard)
Feat: (Selected) Power Attack


Level 7 (Wizard)
Feat: (Wizard Bonus) Extend Spell


Level 8 (Fighter)
Ability Raise: STR


Level 9 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Improved Two Handed Fighting
Feat: (Selected) Weapon Specialization: Slashing Weapons


Level 10 (Wizard)


Level 11 (Wizard)


Level 12 (Barbarian)
Ability Raise: STR
Feat: (Selected) Improved Mental Toughness


Level 13 (Fighter)


Level 14 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons


Level 15 (Fighter)
Feat: (Selected) Greater Two Handed Fighting


Level 16 (Fighter)
Ability Raise: STR
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Greater Weapon Focus: Slashing Weapons


Level 17 (Fighter)


Level 18 (Fighter)
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Quick Draw
Feat: (Selected) Quicken Spell


Level 19 (Fighter)


Level 20 (Fighter)
Ability Raise: STR
Feat: (Fighter Bonus) Greater Weapon Specialization: Slashing Weapons
Enhancement: Fighter Attack Boost I
Enhancement: Fighter Attack Boost II
Enhancement: Fighter Attack Boost III
Enhancement: Barbarian Damage Reduction Boost I
Enhancement: Fighter Haste Boost I
Enhancement: Fighter Haste Boost II
Enhancement: Fighter Haste Boost III
Enhancement: Barbarian Power Attack I
Enhancement: Kensei Falchion Mastery I
Enhancement: Kensei Falchion Mastery II
Enhancement: Fighter Armor Mastery I
Enhancement: Fighter Critical Accuracy I
Enhancement: Fighter Critical Accuracy II
Enhancement: Fighter Critical Accuracy III
Enhancement: Fighter Kensei I
Enhancement: Fighter Kensei II
Enhancement: Fighter Falchion Specialization I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness I
Enhancement: Racial Toughness II
Enhancement: Fighter Strength I
Enhancement: Fighter Strength II
Enhancement: Fighter Strength III
Enhancement: Fighter Toughness I
Enhancement: Fighter Toughness II
Enhancement: Wizard Wand Mastery I
Enhancement: Warforged Constitution I
Enhancement: Warforged Constitution II
Enhancement: Warforged Healer's Friend I
Enhancement: Warforged Healer's Friend II
Enhancement: Warforged Inscribed Armor I
Enhancement: Warforged Inscribed Armor II
Enhancement: Warforged Inscribed Armor III
Enhancement: Warforged Power Attack I
Enhancement: Warforged Power Attack II
Enhancement: Warforged Power Attack III
Enhancement: Warforged Great Weapon Aptitude I
Enhancement: Warforged Great Weapon Aptitude II
Enhancement: Warforged Great Weapon Aptitude III

[LAWPRE]

1) you do not put your spell choices down. So, it is tough to see if there are any "holes" there.

2) IF you are going to take Mithral body, you might as well take Adamantite and get the extra perks. Then, using enchancements, reduce the penalty down.

3) Since you are wanting to take displacement and blur as spells, you may want to switch to Elf and take Dragonmark of Shadow. Improved Mental Toughness is of questionable use and depending upon your spell choices, either extend or quicken would not be needed.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Spells are all based around buffs for melee & general utility once i've got all 7 wizard levels the loadout will typically be:

Level 1:
Shield
Jump
Exp. retreat
prot from evil
feather fall

Level 2:
repair moderate damage
resist energy
false life
blur (possibly invisibility for running thru explorer areas with less hassle)

Level 3:
Displacement
Haste
Repair serious damage

Level 4:
Repair critical damage / stoneskin / solid fog / dimension door / wall of fire (whichever 2 depends on quest, though stoneskin at least can come from wands sine wont be any extra benefit to DR provided)


Took WF specifically for the ability to self-heal without having to pump loads into UMD, the improved effectiveness of power attack & extra 2hander proc chance. the 2 mental toughness feats & metamagics are so i can have a nice big pool of mana for casting & repairing even in the middle of heavy combat (plus some of the buffs can be handy for allies), and to make the buffs last longer, as i'm not going to have many caster levels.

Mithral body is so i can have at least a semi-meaningful AC early on with as little spellcasting failure chance as possible - when i eventually get a DT docent, if i get the spell failure reduction on it ill consider getting a lesser reincarnate to reassign some DEX for CON or WIS, and taking adamantine body instead for the extra DR.

[LAWPRE]

Looks good to me. I would switch Mage Armor for Exp. Retreat but that may be gear dependant.

Also, I would make sure that you do the wilderness areas. This achieves two things:

1) you get 8K XP from JUST Korthos. So, you can level fairly quickly in order to get to the higher loot chests - even by yourself.

2) This will show you how easy it will be for you to solo as you can draw aggro fairly easily in Cerulean Hills and IF you can handle continually getting mobbed. IF you are having trouble, you can switch the wizard early track for more fighter levels.

Personally, I do not like stats under 10 but that is a utility as well as personal choice. Just Make sure that you get gear that increases your Will (or all) save (s).

Next, remember that you need to stay away from medium or heavy armor as it will increase you ASF. Unfortunately, Inscribe Armor only works on the Body line so you have little way of reducing ASF early. Still, +1 = -1 to skill penalty and -5% (10%?) to ASF. So, +5 Medium armor should have little to no ASF - same with Shields.

Early on, you are going to want to have Bull's Strength and Cat's Grace as your second level spells. Same with Magic Missile and Niac's Ice Ray at first level. Before, you get your ftr gear and level up, you are not going to want the mobs to get near to you. When they do, Bull's and Cat's will give you the extra edge.

Finally, I would switch Healer's Friend for Warforged Damage Reduction. You can already heal yourself and the extra DR will mean a little less of it needed.

[ArichValtrahn]

Why wizard over sorcerer? It would seem that if you are only taking 7 arcane levels you want all the SP as you can get.

Also, why not just go Favored Soul with the Lord of the Blades line? No multiclassing that way and you maintain your DCs.

[Roguewiz]

@ Arich

From what I can tell, mainly for level 4 spells and the two bonus feats he gets. Level 7 Favored Soul or Sorcerer won't give any bonus metamagic feats and will only grant level 3 spells.

Since he is a melee based character, having a high charisma won't help him. Of course neither will Int, but with Int, you can at least get some skill points.

[FuzzyDuck81]

I've already got some fairly decent gear for him - started as veteran and twinked him out nicely, he's currently level 5 and using a pretty sweet +1 true chaos greatsword of PG (its pink and pretty!), and has some other weapons stashed away for when he hits 6th. High level gear (14+) is still mostly out of reach as i dont have many characters yet at that level. Thanks for the tips about lowby stuff etc. which are well stated, but though i'm fairly new to the US servers, I've been playing about a year on the European servers before moving here so I'm aware of the ins & outs of basics like that, and am fully capable of soloing a lot of the low-mid level content on hard with little difficulty

Mage armour doesnt stack with mithral/adamantine body or anything above a +2 docent even without the body feats, so its more or less useless for me. Will saves are likely to be an issue - I've got a couple of resistance items lined up for him, and the wizard levels grant some improvement beyond what a pure fighter with those stats will have anyway. Still, lesser reincarnate once at higher level once i've got good gear like some DT with decent ASF reduction will be a distinct possibility to tweak some stuff like moving DEX into WIS & switching to adamantine body.

I decided against the sorcerer levels since i would need 8 to get level 4 spells (fire shield for both resistance & the additional guard effect is a big consideration with the lack of evasion), which would have precluded the barbarian level for some base movement speed, short bursts of improved DR & power attack increase, plus the rage (yes i know i cant cast while its active, its why i'd buff first) when i need to squeeze a little extra dps out of the build. Since the 7 wizard levels effectively grant 2 "free" metamagic feats, i think it works out as a very good number of SP in the end without having to spend extra stat points at creation on charisma, which could instead go into INT and give me some extra skillpoints for something useful to a mele'er (im not intimi, and dont have the points or rogue/bard splash to buff UMD to a meaningful level, therefore no point in it), like balance & maybe a little bit of Jump for getting into the middle of a group.

Favoured Soul would again require charisma, and give me divine spells which wouldnt heal me for as much HP in a single cast mid-combat (admittedly could be nice if i was making a fleshy magic-user fighter i'd consider it, but then it'd be cleric anyways for 3 level 4 spell slots at 7th level... CCW which is fixed plus death ward & freedom of movement would be 2 very good buffs for a kensai. my monk/cleric build Ossanna has this setup) - also i'm not sure if the bonus weapon proficiencies from it would let me qualify for Kensai anyway so they'd be wasted too.

Spells-wise, I'm not taking ANY attack spells, as the build is a melee fighter - with the possible exception of wall of fire to stand in while i beat on enemies - so DC really isnt an issue.