Fighter-Magey, Gish, builds?

[Gilbetron]

Any suggestions for some sort of melee/magic builds?  I'm trying to figure out something fun (might just go with Runeknight) for my wife, the limitation is that she already a level of Soldier, which must be kept, although the GM ok'ed changing whether that level is the 1st or 2nd level for the character.   The builds shouldn't focus on more than 6 levels or so, as I don't think we'll get much higher than that.  The hard part is that "dipping" into mage is rather punishing other than getting the Spellcasting skill.  The character is an Elf, and in the world we're playing in, Elves also get a bonus Spellcasting feat at first level.

Thanks!

[Coyote0273]

Does she want to be more Wizard or more Soldier? That is the biggest question I have, because that determines the focus of how a build should be done, and what class should be considered 1st.

[Gilbetron]

More of a Soldier, definitely.

[Gilbetron]

Oh, and this campaign uses the faster feat campaign option, so a feat at 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, etc, in place of the usual career-level based feat progression.

[Coyote0273]

I would start off with the Fighter Specialty, or one of the more combat driven ones depending what style of fighter (Fencer, Archer, Cavalier, etc). From pure mechanics, Fighter is my favorite for this as it gives you the extra Prof slots and Melee Combat expert lets you use your parries and shield blocks more often. Not to mention Armor Basics negates some of the drawbacks to armor. Though, the other specialties all are good for their focus.

Soldier at level 1 for the Accurate AD bonus to attacks. You want at least 2 levels of Soldier to get the DR bonus, and 3 levels of Mage so you can cast level 1 spells by 6th.

So one possible build would be a Soldier 2/Mage 3/Rune Knight 1 at 6th. Then mixing and matching as needed beyond that.

[Bill Whitmore]

I have a interesting character in one of my games who is a fighter/mage.  He is supposed to be a chosen warrior of a storm god.  I don't have the full build but I remember some of the basics.

Started with Elemental Heritage (lightning) and went into Elemental Legacy, choosing the option to embrace his heritage and gaining the elemental type.

I would recommend going fighter at first level.  The core ability for mage (4 bonus spells and ability to get more spell points) isn't so useful for a character who won't be seeing higher than level 2 spells and will rarely need to cast a given spell more than once in a given scene anyways.

SOLDIER:
For soldier, he went with the Spear combat line, which gives him a long reach.  I picture him fighting with a lot of circular motions, spinning a lot like a whirlwind himself; however, different combat styles can be easily layered on the mage.

The 1 feat I would generally recommend is Quick Draw.  While not strictly necessary for level 0 spells, you will still want, and eventually need, a Mage Pouch to cast the spells.  As this uses 2 hands, Quick Draw will allow you to stow the pouch and draw a weapon without interfering with your ability to fight.  Alternatively, if it is available in your game world, get a weapon with the Drake craftsmanship.

MAGE:
His Mage spells tend to be a combination of protective and weather based spells.  Control Weather, Entropic Shield (think a mini-cyclone around the character), Shield, Magic Vestment, Mage Armour, Whispers, Conjure Elemental, etc.  His spell list will be updated when Spellbound comes out to reflect the character's nature.

Avoid attack spells.  As a half-mage you will be splitting feats between combat and spellcasting and you will have a hard time keeping your save DCs high enough to do much to your enemies.  As a bonus, this also means you don't have to fret about having a high Charisma score.

Consider Double Cast.  Being able to throw out 2 spells in 1 round will cut in half the time you need to buff up before a fight.

Since you will be focusing spell selection to the lower level spells, you don't need a high Wisdom.  Likewise with Intelligence, since you won't need to be hitting incredibly high DCs for spell casting.  This means that a fighter/mage can generally favor higher physical attributes than mental attributes.



Hopefully this is helpful.  Let us know how it goes.

[Gilbetron]

I would start off with the Fighter Specialty, or one of the more combat driven ones depending what style of fighter (Fencer, Archer, Cavalier, etc). From pure mechanics, Fighter is my favorite for this as it gives you the extra Prof slots and Melee Combat expert lets you use your parries and shield blocks more often. Not to mention Armor Basics negates some of the drawbacks to armor. Though, the other specialties all are good for their focus.

Soldier at level 1 for the Accurate AD bonus to attacks. You want at least 2 levels of Soldier to get the DR bonus, and 3 levels of Mage so you can cast level 1 spells by 6th.

Thanks for the pointer to the Fighter specialty - that's a good one.  I'm actually thinking of giving her Mage as her first level (for skill points, and the bonus spells) but the fact that Mages only get 2 profs was killing me.  The +4 profs from Fighter helps that a ton.  Of course, I can't help but look at those yummy bonus profs on top of the 6 a soldier would get   But I think she'd actually like the versatility of more spells over the attack check bonus (I'm playing a Sage with a bunch of Fortune skills, so if needed I can give her a super action die!)

[Gilbetron]

SOLDIER:
For soldier, he went with the Spear combat line, which gives him a long reach.  I picture him fighting with a lot of circular motions, spinning a lot like a whirlwind himself; however, different combat styles can be easily layered on the mage.

The 1 feat I would generally recommend is Quick Draw.  While not strictly necessary for level 0 spells, you will still want, and eventually need, a Mage Pouch to cast the spells.  As this uses 2 hands, Quick Draw will allow you to stow the pouch and draw a weapon without interfering with your ability to fight.  Alternatively, if it is available in your game world, get a weapon with the Drake craftsmanship.

MAGE:
His Mage spells tend to be a combination of protective and weather based spells.  Control Weather, Entropic Shield (think a mini-cyclone around the character), Shield, Magic Vestment, Mage Armour, Whispers, Conjure Elemental, etc.  His spell list will be updated when Spellbound comes out to reflect the character's nature.

Avoid attack spells.  As a half-mage you will be splitting feats between combat and spellcasting and you will have a hard time keeping your save DCs high enough to do much to your enemies.  As a bonus, this also means you don't have to fret about having a high Charisma score.

Consider Double Cast.  Being able to throw out 2 spells in 1 round will cut in half the time you need to buff up before a fight.

Since you will be focusing spell selection to the lower level spells, you don't need a high Wisdom.  Likewise with Intelligence, since you won't need to be hitting incredibly high DCs for spell casting.  This means that a fighter/mage can generally favor higher physical attributes than mental attributes.

Some very good ideas in there, thanks.  The Drake craftsmanship is a definite, and the Double Cast is a very good idea.  The character has a high wisdom because she's also a good investigator, but only a 10 charisma, so the pointer about avoiding spells with a save is good.

[Krensky]

I would quibble slightly with Bill about Attack spells.

Attack spells with no save (like Magic Missile) are still solid choices, as those with a decent save for half, especially against standards.

One of my characters for a now defunct play by post here was a fightery mage.

http://www.crafty-games.com/forum/index.php?topic=3418.msg56825#msg56825

[Gilbetron]

So we ended up going with Elf Fighter Mage1/Soldier1 - and ended up with a very cool character, thanks for the pointers

As I said before, her character is a bit of an investigator, searching for her brother, and so a lot of her spells are going to be Secrets/Divination.  She really likes the idea of 0-level spells being "free", and as an Elf, she makes a really good mage (her Spellcasting is 9 and she only has an Int of 14!).  Plus she took the Hidden Spells feat, is going with the Spear and Shield combo, has Drake crafted versions of those, and we like the skill points that Mage gives you.  My biggest issue with Soldiers is their lack of skill points - I've always hated that - soldiers should have a lot of skills points, as they are trained a ton in lots of different stuff.  But that's another rant

[ArawnNox]

So we ended up going with Elf Fighter Mage1/Soldier1 - and ended up with a very cool character, thanks for the pointers

As I said before, her character is a bit of an investigator, searching for her brother, and so a lot of her spells are going to be Secrets/Divination.  She really likes the idea of 0-level spells being "free", and as an Elf, she makes a really good mage (her Spellcasting is 9 and she only has an Int of 14!).  Plus she took the Hidden Spells feat, is going with the Spear and Shield combo, has Drake crafted versions of those, and we like the skill points that Mage gives you.  My biggest issue with Soldiers is their lack of skill points - I've always hated that - soldiers should have a lot of skills points, as they are trained a ton in lots of different stuff.  But that's another rant

Well, the counter point to that argument is that their skill list is quite limited to begin with and 4+int is still more than it's DnD counterpart.
Easy way around that limitation is the Skill Mastery feats combined with Talented for more economical skill point usage.

[Krensky]

You could also house rule things to allow the player to choose which Vitality/Skill Point/Class Skill line they want.

[Wolverine]

My biggest issue with Soldiers is their lack of skill points - I've always hated that - soldiers should have a lot of skills points, as they are trained a ton in lots of different stuff.  But that's another rant

That depends how you define a skill. Proficiencies are a good way of balancing out the lack of ranks/level, and not maxing out your Skill ranks is one way to save them.

[Foghorn]

Fighter Specialty + Soldier 1 + using Fight On for 2 proficiencies means that right out of the gate, you are proficient with every weapon in the game. That's a pretty fair way of representing a lot of training

[Psion]

My opinion after a couple of rune knight builds is you should skip Soldier entirely. Those spellcasting levels are too important. At worst, only take 1 level of soldier until you finish Rune Knight.