Moon blade-wielding, moon-warded mystic ranger swiftblade!?

[rypta]

So I've been trying to combine Mystic (Moon-Warded) Ranger and Sword of the Arcane Order with Swiftblade and a 1-level dip in the Silverstar prestige class (Faiths & Pantheons) for access to moon domain spells and therefore moon blades.  Note that the campaign uses a custom pantheon, so the deity issues with Silverstar and SotAO can be ignored.  I was also hoping to fit 5 levels of Abjurant Champion in there, but this doesn't seem to be possible without using cheese that I (and my DM) are not comfortable with.  

Silverstar fits rather easily with Swiftblading Mystic Rangers since it requires +4 BAB, Blind Fight, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack and 2nd level divine spells.  Given the fact that I would have Blind Fight, I was thinking about taking some of the Mage Slayer feats along with Arcane Strike (DM is okay with this and SotAO) and Power Attack, all of which seems to synergize well with the moon blades.  Moon-warded just seemed particularly flavorful and is well worth it since I don't really want archery or two-weapon fighting feats.

The only way I can fit in the Abjurant Champion levels is using retraining at level 4 to fit in Spring Attack and SotAO by level 6 (DM is less than thrilled with this).  That gave me the following:
Mystic Ranger 4/Silverstar 1/Mystic Ranger +1(or something else)/Swiftblade 9/Abjurant Champion 5

Anyone have any thoughts on how to put this together more efficiently and without retraining?  Assume flaws are allowed, since I don't this is even remotely possible without them.

[NiteCyper]

So, you're looking for a way to retrain feats without retraining? Dark Chaos Feat Swap?

Tell us your flavour. Screw you autospellchecker! "flavour" "autospellchecker" Well, I never!

[McPoyo]

So, you're looking for a way to retrain feats without retraining? Dark Chaos Feat Swap?

Tell us your flavour. Screw you autospellchecker! "flavour" "autospellchecker" Well, I never!

Silly British spellings

Damnit, now I want a scone.

[Rebel7284]

7400 per complete shuffle from a level 15 char.
as low as 6280 from an Ur Priest.

[KellKheraptis]

7400 per complete shuffle from a level 15 char.
as low as 6280 from an Ur Priest.

Depending on the DM though, might be worth it to spring the extra cash for scrolls...Ur-Priests aren't known for their sense of decency after all.  Just look at mine

[Rebel7284]

7400 per complete shuffle from a level 15 char.
as low as 6280 from an Ur Priest.

Depending on the DM though, might be worth it to spring the extra cash for scrolls...Ur-Priests aren't known for their sense of decency after all.  Just look at mine

Pardon me, but are ANY of your characters known for decency? 

[rypta]

DM is not okay with DCFS.

Flavor-wise, the character would be something akin to a 4e avenger.  A holy assassin and hunter of dissidents of the campaign's god of magic.

I had thought maybe there was some way to get haste without SotAO in order to qualify for Swiftblade before level 6, since the other prerequisites for it can be satisfied at level 4.  If not, lets scrap the Abjurant Champion stuff so that the feats don't require retraining.  I think the fastest way to get Silverstar and Swiftblade would be the following:

Mystic Ranger 4/ABC 2/Swiftblade 1/Silverstar 1/Swiftblade +8/XYZ 4

Is there a faster way? Any suggestions for ABC and/or XYZ?

[McPoyo]

Psychic Reformation might be a possibility for the feat retraining.

[Rebel7284]

Psychic Reformation might be a possibility for the feat retraining.

It's not, it checks if you qualified for the new feat at the time you took the original feat.

[McPoyo]

Psychic Reformation might be a possibility for the feat retraining.

It's not, it checks if you qualified for the new feat at the time you took the original feat.

What feats are you trying to change out that you wouldn't qualify for? Can you swap other feats from higher levels down to those slots, and refill the higher slots you qualify to use? You can get creative, after all.

[Rebel7284]

He needs both Spring Attack and Sword of the Arcane Order in his level 6 slot.

Edit: take a prestige class that gives you bonus feats? you may be able to psy-ref those.  Is kinda DM dependent. 

[rypta]

Psychic Reformation might be a possibility for the feat retraining.

It's not, it checks if you qualified for the new feat at the time you took the original feat.

What feats are you trying to change out that you wouldn't qualify for? Can you swap other feats from higher levels down to those slots, and refill the higher slots you qualify to use? You can get creative, after all.

The issue is that spring attack requires BAB+4 and SotAO requires 4th level ranger.  Unless I give up a CL, I can only get one of those at level 6.  If the level 6 feat is SotAO, then I get spring attack as a bonus feat from swiftblade at level 7 and then enter silverstar at level 8.  However that is considerably slower than if I could retrain a flaw into spring attack at level 4 and therefore get into silverstar at level 5 and swiftblade at 7.  The silverstar level (and the frickin' moon blades!) gets delayed 3 levels.

EDIT: What ninja-rebel said!

[McPoyo]

Yeah, if you retrain any of those feats, however, you lose access to the PrC, and the PrCs abilities, that requires them. I'm failing to see how retraining would actually work with that intended path.

[rypta]

Yeah, if you retrain any of those feats, however, you lose access to the PrC, and the PrCs abilities, that requires them. I'm failing to see how retraining would actually work with that intended path.

Level 1 I have 4 feats (level, human, 2 flaws), say blind-fight, dodge, mobility and improved initiative.  At level 4, I retrain improved initiative to spring attack and take silverstar at level 5.

[McPoyo]

Yeah, most of the "gain a free feat" things tend not to work with you. You can't worship an elder evil to get the free feat at 5th to psychic reform out to something else, dropping the worship afterwards. You probably don't want to use VoP to do it, either. And you don't want to lose a caster level or delay your fighting ability 3 levels by changing your progression (which I honestly don't blame you for).

[skydragonknight]

You get the free feat "Least Legacy" for every legacy weapon you have. For minimum price, "Legacy Arrows".

[Havok4]

You get the free feat "Least Legacy" for every legacy weapon you have. For minimum price, "Legacy Arrows".

I have seen this trick used before. It was on one of the most optimized chuck builds. Combine with a thought bottle for a really silly number of feats.

[rypta]

The DM decided to allow the feat retraining after all.  

I feel a little weird about it, but I figure my character will be using a weapon he can never really upgrade (damage increases slightly with caster level...), so I'm just going to go with the flow here and see what happens.  I have no idea how the build is going to fare since character information isn't shared between players for RP reasons and I've never played under this DM before.  

I have a reasonably high wisdom (22), which gets be some bonus slots, but at our starting level (level 7), it seems like managing what is still a very limited number of spell slots is going to be my biggest issue.  The DM okayed swift haste for triggering swiftblade abilities, which allows me two castings of moon blade as my level 3 spells, but that leaves me with limited options for fueling arcane strike.

EDIT: Also, maybe some of can shed some light on this.  If I hit someone 3 times in a round with a moonblade, say for 6 damage, 10 damage and 8 damage, what is the DC required for them to cast a spell next round?  Is it the highest damage (10), the total damage (24), or would it require three individual checks (6, 10 and 8, respectively) to cast a single spell?