Hunh, I forgot about minimum caster level. A level of spellthief and a feat fixes that, though.
Main reason I don't want to go wizard/prepared is that I spend far too much time on spell selection/optimization instead of finding ways to use the spells I /do/ have and, y'know, playing the game. And spontaneous kind of makes the whole vancian set of mechanics (ugh) less noticeable and less annoying. I know it's a lot less powerful. I just think that spells in generally, especially properly applied, are so powerful that I can take the power loss and extra level investment of being a spontaneous caster, especially if I leverage a fast casting/dual casting progression or just make more use of melee/casting classes like swiftblade/abjurant/knight phantom.
As for Feral.. it gives -4 int, -2 dex, +4 str, +2 con, and +2 wis. That's fairly sub-par especially considering i'm not leveraging strength properly with my TWF shenanigans. It does give pounce, though, which could save me a level on barbarian, and I might be able to find a way to involve claws in the attack routine - Improved Grab could be nice for a vampire. Not really sure how. Antimagic Field + grab a squishy caster? Dunno, it just seems like it might be useful. I can see what you mean, though, I do get most of it from other sources.
Why is the crusader recovery mechanic good? Isn't it one of the worst mechanics?
I haven't really done much high level play, but from what I understand, if you want to melee, you want a very high to-hit cause some things you fight will have stupid AC. Including NPCs. So it's not something you have all the time, but it's good to have. -5 to hit sounds a bit steep for fast healing 10. I mean, i'm just not sure if combats run long enough at higher levels for that kind of thing to be worthwhile. Shouldn't I just get a contingent Harm or something?
The reroll is nice, but it would be nicer if it wasn't 1/day. :\
A vampiric witch hunter is a vampire that hunts witches. Same way you could have a rakshasa witch hunter, or a new zealandish witch hunter.
Witch Hunter needs Magic Circle Against, BAB, knowledge arcana, and Track. Which I believe I can get from an item, but I could be wrong. First level gets me 1 BAB, 2 good saves, detect evil, and kami's grace, a reflavoured divine grace that stacks with everything.
Akodo Champion needs 2 shitty feats, and at 2nd level gives a reflavoured divine grace that stacks with everything. It also gives leadership, but doesn't offer to replace if you already have it, so pfft. Could DCFS away the vampire lord leadership and instead get this leadership I guess, if I was going to DCFS.
One interesting thing is that one of the feat requirements is one that Iaijutsu Master also requires, which is a little bit of synergy. 5 levels in Iaijutsu master gets me cha to init, int to AC, and up to 9 times my cha mod to damage. Needs flatfooted and quickdraw though.
That's an interesting idea with the fast healing + elusive target + evasion/mettle + spell deflection. Problem is though, you can get good damage on attacks without touching power attack or even precision damage (greater truedeath crystal).. wouldn't it be a better idea to get cha to ac like 2 or 3 times with a crazy cha and then stack persistent buffs on top of that? Greater luminous, scintillating scales etc etc. It's hard to hit someone with a touch ac of like 150.
I get that this build is dipping monk for the feats+cha to AC (although you can get something similar in light armour with swordsage dip, but i'm not complaining about bonus feats especially combat expertise-free imp. trip), just wondering if the invisible fist ACF did anything super exciting I didn't know about.
True seeing reveals original form, short of true mind switch/astral seed shenanigans. Plus i'm willing to pay 1 feat and 1skillpoint/lvl for the fluff of being genuinely a half-orc.
The more I think about it, the more I don't want to be a prepared caster, for personal playability reasons. I'll do it if i'm missing something and it's clearly superior to sorcerer/SC/UM/swiftblade, but i'm definitely leaning towards sorcerer/SC/UM/swiftblade at the moment. Lack of spells known is pretty much the reason I hate playing spontaneous casters... this would give me double normal spells known at most 'mid-range' levels plus a scattering of higher level spells.
I've got 32 levels to play with.
1 sorcerer, 2 abjurant champion, 2 spelldancer, 1 SC, 9 UM, 10 swiftblade = 3+2+1+(10+7)+6=29 spellcasting levels in 25 levels, which is decent. The problem is that i've spent 25 levels, 26 when you count in spellthief for master spellthief, to get what is essentially beefier sorcerer spellcasting and a stupid CL(34+practiced caster).
The downside of course is that leaves me 6 levels to actually get other shit. So what, Feat rogue 2, Ex-monk 2, barbarian 1(if I don't go feral), witch hunter 1?
Alternatively I could just go sorcerer 1/abjurant 3/spelldancer 2/Swiftblade 10/abjurant +2/something +3 to end up with 9th level spells for spending 21 levels that get me other stuff too.
I'm kind of starting to feel like Swiftblade is a trap. It gets me 6 +spellcasting in ten levels, and perpetual options, and a couple of other nice things... but with ten levels and 2 feats I could get cha to saves twice and AC twice and 3 bonus feats.
You've sold me on not entering from bard, by the way. It's annoying because there's some nice low level bard spells, but the hard-hitters (Nixie's Grace, Snowsong) SC grabs cause they're 4th level+. Improvisation is almost good enough to waste a feat on Extra Spell for.
I guess it depends on how heavily I want to fulfill the arcanist role. Because looking at things, I can get pretty decent spellcasting without many levels invested, especially if I don't use swiftblade (although I probably want to, perpetual options is too good to overlook in a gish build that can take the extreme level investment). And things that cha-stack look like a better way to increase my power, especially combined with a defensive combo like the one you outlined... hm. That's one advantage of the swiftblade. It works in an antimagic field due to Haste being Ex when you use it as a swiftblade. Hey, I don't even want level 10 of swiftblade. Score. That frees up a level from both progressions above. I guess I can use that level for spellthief.
I'm really tempted by a urpriest/SC/MT/master spellthief build. There's just so much synergy there. Not going to, though, cause ew, divine spells.
Yeah, I think the key here is blending three disparate types of levels. 'Martial' levels (classes that grant feats, preferably with synergies (like feat rogue 2(spell deflection), and monk (cha to ac)), 'Charisma' levels (that set up cha synergies like witch hunter, blackguard etc), and 'Spellcasting' levels (levels that grant spellcasting, preferably with some kind of melee synergy like swiftblade or abjurant).
Much as I don't like it, I don't think I can really afford to go SC/UM. If I do, it would only be to like 5th in UM, looking something like sorc 1/abjurant 2/spelldancer2/SC1/UM 6/Swift 9 = 21 levels, 10th level SC casting, 15th level sorcerer... that leaves me 11 levels to spend on other stuff. That leaves me a bit... bare... but lets me fit rogue 2/battledancer1/witch hunter 1/monk 2/swordsage 2(or crusader 4 if you prefer)/akodo champion 2/hexblade 3 or some combination thereof.... hm. Level 4 of hexblade gets me dark companion. Hm. Of course I probably want to dip spellthief 1 for master spellthief in all this somewhere.
EDIT: Forgot I need to dip bard to get bardic music to get into SC. So, that costs another level.
