Sorc / Ftr build (old school adapting to new school)

[Lyle_Vertigo]

After coming back much has changed.

Level cap increased, new (wonderful) new feats like the swapping wisdom bonus with chr bonus, heavy offhand two weapon fighting and cool new enhancements.

Back in the day my main character was building for a meleeing scorc.

The primary focus of the build was to focus on melee DPS backed by self buffing with the option of decent (but not perfect) magic attacking capabilities. Some of you might have seen my article in Ten Ton Hammer way back (still there surprisingly under "battlemage" though is explained up till level 10.

Well, since I started up again I took lesser reincarnation to take advantage of the new feats and enhancements the game now has to offer. I had a lot of rust when I did it though and might have made a couple of "whoopsies" XD but still turned out alright. By now I worked out most of my rust and am almost back to my old self. One new Enhancement I really love is the Iron Defender. I haven't seen anyone yet use it but has come in handy more times than I can remember. Adamantine is a CR12 construct with damage resistance. Apart from the others that only spew grease the Adamantine will breathe fire as well. Aside from crowd control it has great survivability and often seeing it holding a group of monsters without getting heavily damaged. An extra bonus I love watching Dwarf Fighters slip in doggy vomit

Currently I'm level 13 (Sorc 9 / Ftr 4) and plan on making a revision to my article once I hit 20 (considering on Sorc 12 / Ftr 8 but is still subject to change).

Ultimately I want to set up the equipment so that I would be able to wear a cloth body for 0% SFR. It would require me to move around my Deflection Bonus, Chr/Str Bonuses (Dex will be stable in gloves slot as Spectral Gloves) and SP Bonus possibly (currently in trinket as PX). Right now the Head, Rings and goggles slot are open to anything. The way to make body cloth would be to:
1) Swap out the +4 deflection bracers for a +7(or +8 if avail.) armor bracers.
2) Which would mean finding +4 deflection (or better) cloak to replace the
+6 Chr Banner Cloak.
3) Then would have to find a +6 Chr Helm (slot currently open) to replace
the loss of the Banner Cloak.
4) The body then could equip any robe/outfit to ones desire (though for this
build the outfit would be a more visual appropriate choice).

Currently I'm wearing for armor (as 13 9Sor/4Ftr):

• Head: Founder's Helm (I know, but I haven't found anything worthwhile to fill the slot, so heres to +5 HP! ^^;
• Body: +3 Mithril Twilight Fullplate of Axeblock -5/dr *15%SFR, *15 AC w/Dex (If going to be casting more I use +4
  Mithril Chainshirt of Iceguard 1d8 frost *10%SFR, *15 AC w/Dex)
• Wrist: Mantacle Chains (+4 Deflection Bonus)
• Glove: Spectral Gloves (Ethereal, +2 Attack Bonus, +5 Dex)
• Feet: Ash Boots (+30% stride. I swap in Featherfalling boots if I have to jump off a mountain).
• Neck: J. Collar (can't remember full name XD) (+10% attack speed. Subbed in with underwater action, +1 natural
  AC, or Diamond Necklace which has absorb 3 neg. spells)
• Belt: +4 Str
• Trinket: Pearl of Power X (+100 SP but around 170 for Sorc I think. Subbing Fragment of Silver Flame if needed)
• Ring, L: Ring of Spell Resistance 19
• Ring, R: Situational, will use +4 Resistance primarly but will sub in: Greater Acid/Fire Resistance 30/ or Greater
  Force IV

For defensive spells I currently have:

• Shield
• Blur
• Stoneskin
• Haste
• Protection from Energy

I really wished that wiz/sorc could get barkskin, but I make due with +3 potions. It does get costly though when purchasing a full stack of +3 Barkskin potions but not near as bad as a full stack of Granite and Diamond Dust ingredient for Stoneskin (I'm glad that the ingredients last a long time before restocking though). In the future I plan on getting heroism so I can ditch the tower shield and enjoy a longer buff. I'm still learning what the upper levels have to offer and not sure if greater heroism would be avail. to a level 12 sorc. (Highly doubt it and not sure if Sorc can even get it while typing this ><)

For offensive spells:

• Magic Missile
• Ray of Cold
• Web
• Ray of Fire
• Chain Missile
• Phantasmal Killer

A pure class Sorc can boost damage through feats and enhancements easily for all types of magic damage. When multiclassing, however, makes it much more challenging when trying to select which feats/enhancements that will benefit both sides of the multiclass. Sorcerers are more geared to raw power than utility of Wizards and when multiclassing they are forced to become even more specialized. Since most of my feats went towards the melee side I was not able to select any metamagic feats (for the moment anyway at level 13). This is ok, since most of the time my damage comes from melee. I decided to focus on force spells (will take force missile next level) since none of them lose their effectiveness even at the highest levels and few instances are they resisted / immune (shield will block Magic Missile but not Chain/Force Missile). Using force crit and damage + enhancements along with kinetic and potency items really makes force spells shine and with all the bonuses makes Chain Missile outshine Fireball (no resistance or saves). Even as an effective 13 character, Phantasmal Killer works just as well on my level 9 Sorcerer side and it comes in handy with those beholders (I HATE Beholders! ><) Web works fine too but not as well as I'd like to sometimes. With equipment my SP currently sits at 1015 and even though it might seem low for a Sorcerer for what I do I almost never run out (if I find myself in a long run I carry some Mnemonic(sp?) potions just in case)

The melee aspect is working out much better now than what it used to be. My hit bonuses are much higher than what they used to be (so I think). Sure feels that way XD I guess mainly in part of all the new, wonderful, bonuses they have added to equipment now. Mine usually stays around 18 -20 with a BAB of +8 (while fully bufffed it jumps up to around 30). This isn't great but isn't bad either, though I rarely find myself in the position of missing a lot. This will improve when I start leveling up my Fighter side again. To help me compensate I carry a huge collection of weapons for specific instances of a specific monster type. Here is what I have currently.

• +5 Shock Scimitar of Maiming / +5 Shock Scimitar of Maiming (for general fights and trash monsters)
• +2 Holyburst Scimitar of Righteousness / +2 Holyburst Scimitar of Maiming (vs.
  Evil that are not undead or save vs. desruption too often)
• +2 Improved Cursespewing Scimitar / +2 Paralyzing, +1 Smiting, +1 Disruption
  Scimitar of Crippling (for fun, undead, construct respectively)
• Superior Potency III Dagger / Major Kinetic III Dagger (for Missile slinging)
• Muckbane / Muckbane (obvious :P)
• +5 Flamingburst Longsword / +1 Flamingburst Longsword of Greater
  Humanbane (for weak vs. fire, looking for something better for latter)
• +3 Icyburst Falchion (for weak vs. cold. looking for good +4/5 Icyburst Scimitars)
• +2 Cursespweing throwing axe of slowburst (for fun mostly)
• +4 throwing axe (for picking off blocked targets from afar, though rarely have
  the chance D

I'm falling in love with my character all over again, it is so much fun than playing a pureclass (if I get bored I just swap from melee to spell-slinging or vice-versa) though it is much more challanging (and expensive) than going pureclass. The hardest obstacle is dealing with Ogres and Reavers as they cleave right through me (even with slashing/bludgeon -5/dr + stoneskin) so I ten to lay back and cast casual with them (unless we have a very good tank or a dedicated healer for me lol XD) Some people don't understand my build, and I can understand this as I rarely see any multiclasses nowadays and it doesn't help that the symbol shows Scorcerer for me even though I mostly melee >< but my kills are always one of the highest and that is what I go for :3 HP sits at 114 which is low but not as bad as it could be. This is what gets me killed more than anything and I have to keep reminding myself to let the clerics know so that they don't overcure (it looks like I take lots of damage but my max is just low, so I often get cured double than what I should XD)

When I level this guy up to 20 I'll revision my article in great detail on Ten Ton Hammer and will update my post here with my final results ^^

Edit 1: Forgot to add HP, Armor, and Misc.