Arcane Hierophant help?

[E-mail]

Greetings!

I am building an Arcane Hierophant for a difficult campaign, in which I need to be able to get by without help from my fellow party members, who will often be hard pressed to just survive on their own, as my fellow players are notorious for their lacking optimization skills, and the DM for his challenging yet merciless games. HOWEVER, I also need to be able to sit back and let the rest of the party shine when they can, so that everyone will get as much fun as possible. In the unlikely event that I manage to survive this godmode campaign for long enough, I need to be able to cope with epic level play too.

My build:

Human, vanilla

Str: 8
Dex: 8
Con: 14
Int: 14, bumps at level 8, 12, 16 and 20 goes here.
Wis: 18, bump at level 4 goes here.
Cha: 8

Conjurer 1/Druid 6/Arcane Hierophant 10/Mystic Theurge 3

Feats:
ACF: Augmented Summoning (UA, replaces Scribe Scroll)
1: Precocious Apprentice
1: Improved Initiative
3: Natural Bond*
6: Natural Spell
9: Heroic Surge
12: Quicken Spell
15: Iron Will
18: Reserves of Strength
*Offsets the penalty for choosing a more powerful companion by 3 druid levels.

While I realize that a Conjurer 1/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 6/Arcane Hierophant 10 will have a better arcane caster level progression, I have chosen to go for the above build for the superior wildshape and animal companion progression. I plan to mostly sit back and cast spells, using my wildshape ability to keep me safe while my familiar companion and my summons tears into the bad guys. For my companion, I will find myself a Fleshraker dinosaur, as its poison attack enables me to use the Venomfire spell to deal massive damage.

Epic plan: just more Arcane Hierophant levels for full familiar and animal companion progression, while I go for a few multispell feats, and the complete set of Automatic Quicken Spell feats.

So, can you make my build better?

[BeholderSlayer]

Arcane Heirophants perform the best when they let the animal companion be the one that gets dirty. If you are convinced that you want the better wildshape and animal companion progression, I totally understand. I'd probably pick up Companion Spellbond, as being able to share your spells when your companion is 30 feet away rather than 5 can be a huge benefit for a Heirophant build.

[spacemonkey555]

I ran across this awhile ago in another AH thread iirc

2 feats from Lords of Madness, aberration blood and aberration wild shape, allow you to ws into a willo'wisp, a small aberration with invis and magic immunity as ex qualities. Cast enhance wild shape from the spell compendium, 4th level druid spell, 1hr/level duration, grants the EX abilities of your form. That form would help self reliance quite a bit, and the ability to float invisibly (50 fly, perfect) above the battle, buffing, summoning flankers, debuffing and such as needed is there too. Willo'wisp seems like a good match with AH, hope your game includes LoM and SC.

[Mixster]

Re-look those stats.
Having 16 Wisdom and 16 Int wouldn't really hurt your spellcasting, however, it would give you 2 more points to put into one of your dumb stats, and more skill points. Then you could simply bump wis thrice and int twice for the same end result.

[X-Codes]

Re-look those stats.
Having 16 Wisdom and 16 Int wouldn't really hurt your spellcasting, however, it would give you 2 more points to put into one of your dumb stats, and more skill points. Then you could simply bump wis thrice and int twice for the same end result.

I like this initial setup, but I think all level points should go to Wisdom.  I also think you should find something better than MT to use for those last 3 levels, since you're not going for double 9's anyway.  Pretty much anything that advances Druid casting is fair game.

[Ramaloke]

You might consider Geomancer, its an oft overlooked prestige class but it will let you cast arcane spells in armor and let you use your int stat for your druid spells. Something like:

Conjurer 1/Druid 3/Geomancer 1/Arcane Hierophant 10/Geomancer 2-6.

This gives you 9th Level Druid spells and 7th level Wizard spells. With Acorn of Far Travel your CL is 19/15, and earth node silliness is available to you.

[Sohala]

Conjurer 2/Druid 4/Arcane Hierophant 10/Legacy Champion 4

Have Legacy Champion advance Arcane Hierophant.

[Lunaramblings]

This is something that I played in one of my last games. I enjoyed it and found I was able to contribute a lot. To take it to 20th, I would finish out AH and then have 2 levels left to do whatever, probably MT, but anything you like really.


Strongheart Halfling
Wiz1/Druid3/MT4/AH2
ACF Used: Focused Specialist, Fighter Feats in place of Wizard Feats, Halfling Racial Sub levels for Druid, No Wildshape instead you get Monk AC, including Wis to AC, Fast Movement as Monk, Swift Tracker as Ranger, Track as Ranger, and Favored enemy as ranger.

Wiz 1:Mounted Combat
Flaw1:Precocious Apprentice
1st lvl:Mounted Spellcasting
Druid(Sub out Wildshape/Armor proficiency to get "Monk AC Bonus, including Wis to AC", Fast Movement as Monk, Swift Tracker as Ranger, Track as ranger, Favored Enemy as Ranger)
3rd:Natural Bond(Druid)
6th:Practiced Spellcaster (Wiz)
9th: Something???

With Companion Familiar, that makes your Familiar and your Companion Merge and receive benefits of both. This makes for a hardy companion indeed I think. The halfling sub levels of Druid are great. A lot of benefits and no real drawback. Skills were VERY tight in this build, I really had to push hard to fit everything in. There are a lot of options with this build, and what I have here is the tenth level version as that is the only one I had typed out, and it is where I started playing it. Don't forget that your companion, in this case Companion Familiar, gets feats and such. Use those to your advantage. Also, the Skill Trick Collector of Stories, with Knowledge Devotion, is a really good idea. Perhaps Knowledge Devotion could be the 9th level feat. I left it open because I think I ended up filling it with something weird, can't check because I cant find my character sheet, sorry.

In my build I used a Fleshraker, as they are medium, which is nice.

[AndyJames]

Human (or Stoutheart Halfling or any race with +1 feat at level 1)

Druid 2/Wizard 1/MT 6/AH 10/MT +1 (note the message from Skip that said he was on drugs and that he meant for the AH's prerequisite to be Woodland Stride, not Trackless Step)

Str 8
Dex 10
Con 14
Int 16
Wis 16
Cha 8

Feats:
Human - Heighten Spell
1 - Earth Sense
3 - Earth Spell
6 - Natural Bond
9 - whatever you want
12 - Natural Spell
15 - whatever you want
18 - whatever you want

AC of a 15th level Druid, Familiar of an 11th level Wizard, Wildshape of 12th level Druid, 19 Druid casting, 18 Wizard casting


Alternatively, focussing on the AC:

Druid 7/Wizard 1/Beastmaster 1/Arcane Hierophant 10/Druid +1

Feats
Human - Heighten Spell
1 - Earth Sense
3 - Earth Spell
6 - Skill Focus: Handle Animal
9 - Natural Spell
12 - Natural Bond
15 - whatever you want
18 - whatever you want

AC of a 22nd (or up to 25th if using higher level AC due to NB) level Druid, Familiar of an 11th level Wizard, Wildshape of 18th level Druid, 18 Druid casting, 11 Wizard casting


The best part is that the AC is intelligent, which has a LOT of advantages.

[E-mail]

Nice! I will definately update my build with some of the things you guys suggest.

There is one thing though.. How does your builds actually work, AndyJames?

The first one, your Druid 2/Wizard 1/MT 6/AH 10/MT +1, dosent seem legal. First of all, MT requires 2nd level arcane and divine spells, but you enter it after only two levels of druid, and with one level of wizard, and you cannot have taken the Precocious Apprentice feat as you didn't chose wizard at level 1. Is there something I have missed?

The Druid 7/Wizard 1/Beastmaster 1/Arcane Hierophant 10/Druid +1 build does have acces to 2nd level druid spells, but again you choose your wizard level too late to take Precocious Apprentice, and thus ends up with only first level wizard spells.

[Nunkuruji]

Arcane Heirophants perform the best when they let the animal companion be the one that gets dirty. If you are convinced that you want the better wildshape and animal companion progression, I totally understand. I'd probably pick up Companion Spellbond, as being able to share your spells when your companion is 30 feet away rather than 5 can be a huge benefit for a Heirophant build.

If you can get DR material, switch that to Enspell Familiar for a mile radius.

[InnaBinder]

Nice! I will definately update my build with some of the things you guys suggest.

There is one thing though.. How does your builds actually work, AndyJames?

The first one, your Druid 2/Wizard 1/MT 6/AH 10/MT +1, dosent seem legal. First of all, MT requires 2nd level arcane and divine spells, but you enter it after only two levels of druid, and with one level of wizard, and you cannot have taken the Precocious Apprentice feat as you didn't chose wizard at level 1. Is there something I have missed?

The Druid 7/Wizard 1/Beastmaster 1/Arcane Hierophant 10/Druid +1 build does have acces to 2nd level druid spells, but again you choose your wizard level too late to take Precocious Apprentice, and thus ends up with only first level wizard spells.

It looks like he's using Earth Spell shenanigans to qualify, in both cases.  YMMV with actual DMs.

[Caelic]

Don't forget the Belt of Many Pockets, which will allow you to stuff your companion animal in one of the pockets no matter HOW big it is.

[Lunaramblings]

Nice! I will definately update my build with some of the things you guys suggest.

There is one thing though.. How does your builds actually work, AndyJames?

The first one, your Druid 2/Wizard 1/MT 6/AH 10/MT +1, dosent seem legal. First of all, MT requires 2nd level arcane and divine spells, but you enter it after only two levels of druid, and with one level of wizard, and you cannot have taken the Precocious Apprentice feat as you didn't chose wizard at level 1. Is there something I have missed?

The Druid 7/Wizard 1/Beastmaster 1/Arcane Hierophant 10/Druid +1 build does have acces to 2nd level druid spells, but again you choose your wizard level too late to take Precocious Apprentice, and thus ends up with only first level wizard spells.

The build I posted is similar, Wiz1/Druid3/MT4/AH10/XXX2(Probably MT unless you can find better.) I did trade out a bunch of stuff, shuffling a lot of class features in the process. Worked out really well. I had a blast playing this character. Especially when my Fleshraker got to the point where he was actually more intelligent than one of our party members. Hilarity ensued.

[AndyJames]

Nice! I will definately update my build with some of the things you guys suggest.

There is one thing though.. How does your builds actually work, AndyJames?

The first one, your Druid 2/Wizard 1/MT 6/AH 10/MT +1, dosent seem legal. First of all, MT requires 2nd level arcane and divine spells, but you enter it after only two levels of druid, and with one level of wizard, and you cannot have taken the Precocious Apprentice feat as you didn't chose wizard at level 1. Is there something I have missed?

The Druid 7/Wizard 1/Beastmaster 1/Arcane Hierophant 10/Druid +1 build does have acces to 2nd level druid spells, but again you choose your wizard level too late to take Precocious Apprentice, and thus ends up with only first level wizard spells.

Heighten Spell + Earth Spell means you cast a level 0 spell in a 1st level slot as a 2nd level spell. That is where the requirement for 2nd level spells is satisfied. There is no shenannigans. That is RAW.

[AzraeltheFallen]

May i suggest that you take the Rapid Summoning Variant(UA) as well.
Even though it only works on Summon Monster, it should be quite helpfull with the arcane spells;)

[E-mail]

Thanks for the help, guys! I just thought that I would follow up on this thing, now that so many have put effort into the thread. There were many great ideas floating around, and far too many for just one build, so I had to choose, and eventually the lure of the double nines got me. However, I do think that I reached a fair compromise, based on the Precocious Apprentice early entry trick, as Earth Spell got nixed by the DM.

The build:

Conjurer 1/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 2/Arcane Hierophant 10/Mystic Theurge +4

ACF: Immediate Magic, 10 ft. teleport
ACF: Agument Summoning
Human: Precocious Apprentice
1: Spellcasting Prodigy (DLCS version)
3: Natural Bond
6: Obtain Familiar
9: Natural Spell
12: Enspell Familiar (DragMag)
15: Improved Initiative
18: Quicken Spell

Casting and stuff by level 20:

Druid caster level: 19
Wizard caster level: 17
Wildshape level: 13
Familiar Level: 20
Animal Companion Level: 16

I feel comfortable with this build, and I feel that trading a little AC power for better spellcasting is more than weighed up by the higher level spells that I can share with Dino, thanks to the Enspell Familiar feat. Nice find! I cant wait to get this character rolling :-)

[AndyJames]

Thanks for the help, guys! I just thought that I would follow up on this thing, now that so many have put effort into the thread. There were many great ideas floating around, and far too many for just one build, so I had to choose, and eventually the lure of the double nines got me. However, I do think that I reached a fair compromise, based on the Precocious Apprentice early entry trick, as Earth Spell got nixed by the DM.

The build:

Conjurer 1/Druid 3/Mystic Theurge 2/Arcane Hierophant 10/Mystic Theurge +4

ACF: Immediate Magic, 10 ft. teleport
ACF: Agument Summoning
Human: Precocious Apprentice
1: Spellcasting Prodigy (DLCS version)
3: Natural Bond
6: Obtain Familiar
9: Natural Spell
12: Enspell Familiar (DragMag)
15: Improved Initiative
18: Quicken Spell

Casting and stuff by level 20:

Druid caster level: 19
Wizard caster level: 17
Wildshape level: 13
Familiar Level: 20
Animal Companion Level: 16

I feel comfortable with this build, and I feel that trading a little AC power for better spellcasting is more than weighed up by the higher level spells that I can share with Dino, thanks to the Enspell Familiar feat. Nice find! I cant wait to get this character rolling :-)

Can't do that. AH has a +4 BAB pre-requisite. You need another 2 levels of MT before going into AH.

Also you can always share spells with the Dino so long as it is within 5ft of you. Spellbound Familiar (I think that is the feat's name) increases this to 30ft.

[Vistella]

Also you can always share spells with the Dino so long as it is within 5ft of you. Spellbound Familiar (I think that is the feat's name) increases this to 30ft.

Companion Spellbound

[AndyJames]

Also you can always share spells with the Dino so long as it is within 5ft of you. Spellbound Familiar (I think that is the feat's name) increases this to 30ft.

Companion Spellbound

That's the one. Thank you.