Duskblade which book

Spot — One of the best skills in the game. The Armor Check penalty is high for an armored character as you should be and your strength will help you to swim if you absolutely need to. Tumble — Usable if you can swap Ride class skill for this as a class skill. Use Magic Device — Good skill, no room to put points in it.

Use Rope — Bad skill, no room to put points in it. Too much investment. If you DM insists otherwise, bummer. Extreme Leap — 5 ranks of jump, you can use swift action to get 10 feet bonus on a 10 foot or greater horizontal jump. If you are like me and invest a little in jump, you might want this later to surprise your foes or clear a gap to safety. Situational, though, so not that good. Nimble Charge — 5 ranks of Balance, you can run or charge over difficult terrain without making a Balance check.

If you like to charge, it could be useful, and 5 ranks of balance never hurt anyone. Nimble Stand — 8 ranks of Tumble, you can stand up from prone without provoking AoO. Swift Concentration — If you invested 12 ranks in concentration not a good idea you can maintain concentration on a spell as a swift action. Not really for gishes. Twisted Charge — 5 in balance and 5 in Tumble let you turn 90 degrees during charge movement once. There are generally two kinds of dips for the Duskblade — fighter-type supplements, and spellcasting supplements.

Fighter-type dips get you better melee combat abilities, while the spellcasting dips are usually for increasing your spell list or adding spells to channel.

While a decently balanced class by itself, the Duskblade can potential benefit from some base class dips. Personally, I think these are decent options if you take Practiced Spellcaster to keep your CL high for your spell damage dice scaling. Even if you choose not to do that, the Duskblade is still a good fighter with a full BAB. There some better options for Prestige than dipping base classes, but it may be necessary to take one of these in order to enter some of the best PrCs.

Fighter — The classic Fighter 2 dip. You get 2 feats and 2d10 hit dice. Your saves will suffer, but your BAB is preserved. This dip is best used after level 3, so you can still channel spells and attack. Warblade — The Warblade is a good dip for a quick-witted, tactical, melee fighter. It has access to a great spectrum of maneuvers, gains boosts to Ref saves from INT bonus, the worst Duskblade save , has a d12 hit die, and the potentially cheesy Weapon Aptitude feature.

As a 1-level dip, you get a LOT of things, but investing further gives up more caster levels. A very solid dip, or possibly a main class after 3 levels of Duskblade. To compliment the Brains-Over-Brawn really brains and brain build further, a splash of Factotum can be added. Highly recommended if you want to be a tougher melee opponent with more options. Note that you want to delay entry until after level 4 for best selection of maneuvers Iron Heart Surge ho! Swordsage — Another martial initiator, more fragile than the Crusader or the Warblade but a good option as well, because maneuvers are simply that powerful for melee characters.

The real problem with this dip is that there is a lot of sacrifice for the maneuvers you get. The class does have two good saves though. A 2-level investment nets you 7 different maneuvers, and 2 stances, but any more and the dip becomes pretty inefficient. This class does have access to Desert Wind discipline, but the Warblade gets the Iron Heart discipline. Still, a good dip. Delay entry until post-4 for best results. Crusader — The last martial initiator class. My least favorite dip of the three, but still a decent dip.

The Swordsage and Warblade give better straight-up control over your nova and damage, and the Crusader actually scales really well with more investment in the class. Not a recommended option, but usable. You can use it to get into some PrCs. Swashbuckler — It looks good in theory, take 3 levels to get INT to weapon damage — but that is a huge loss for such small gains. Barbarian — Get pounce in 1 level or in 2 levels various bonuses.

You get a slew of spells and 2 domains that you can swap out for Devotion feats like Knowledge Devotion. If you take Cloistered Cleric before your Duskblade levels, you can swap one of your domains for the Knowledge Devotion feat, and swap another for something like Travel, which gives you your full movement as a swift action, or Animal, which gives a sacred bonus to STR or the ability to Fly.

So you can start the game out with some ridiculous boosts in power and utility for very little loss. You get a bump in saves, but lose a point of BAB as it has worst progression. Also, you can use magic items. Arguably the most versatile dip. No matter what you end up doing with your cleric dip, it will probably be something good. Paladin — Quite simply too MAD.

I may be slightly biased. Anyway, this class synergizes well if you have high INT score. You get Inspiration Points equal to your INT mod, and you can use them to give yourself a competence bonus equal to INT mod on attack rolls, damage rolls, or saving throws. This is basically better Swashbuckler. You also can use inspiration to boost your skill checks including Knowledge Devotion checks.

However, it is a bonus equal to your Factotum level, but there is limited incentive to invest up to 3 levels. Also by level 3, you can cast one spell as if you were a Wizard per day.

That spell can be Haste, or any 1st-level spell you need. Despite all this, it is a heavy investment, so I cannot promote this with any higher than a moderate rating, despite my bias suggesting otherwise.

Spellthief — The limitations of the spellthief inhibit its power a lot, but it is a flavorful option that can be included in a powerful build with just a single level dip. This sort of addresses the problem of the Duskblade spell list, but it slows the class down by a lot in terms of damage per round, and you have to be able to sneak attack in order to steal.

If you dip this, consider Master Spellthief Feat to stay relevant. A 2-level dip gets you 3 soulmelds with 2 essentia to invest. Not recommended, but check it out. Some of the Crown bindings are particularly potent.

Not much synergy. Warlock — A bunch of random utility via invocations. Low synergy. Even as a pure Duskblade, you should enter a Prestige class after level 3. The class features on Duskblade simply suck too much, and via PrCs you can still get your caster levels with new and better features that can help you out. You can also use the Duskblade as a base for a Theurge character, but it is not very efficient. This gives you full BAB and CL progression, which is perfect for Duskblade, has very easy entry requirements you are given the feat you need for Free at Duskblade 2 , and gives class features at every level but 3rd.

Unfortunately, the class is only 5 levels long. Spellsword — Another virtually required Prestige class, the Spellsword. It is even easier than the Abjurant Champion to enter, but is significantly less powerful. See above for the selection of those, because dropping 3 feats is unacceptable when a 1-level dip of Warblade is so crazy good.

You will definitely want to take Practiced Spellcaster if you enter JPM, because in order to get down to the good stuff you have to lose a CL at first level, and another CL for the Warblade or Swordsage dip to get in. This dramatically increases the nova capability of the Duskblade. Also, you continue to get maneuvers from Desert Wind or Devoted Spirit as you progress. But, it gets better still.

You also get a special defensive stance at level 2, which you can burn spell slots to fuel. Take Versatile Spellcaster for this build, because you will need it. I think the overall synergy this class has with Duskblade puts it on par with the Abjurant Champion. However, the class is probably only 5 levels long, as the benefit for 6th level is fairly lackluster compared to the early levels of this PrC.

Warmind — A solid class to bolster melee fighters, but pales in comparison as you lose spellcasting and gain psionic powers. Not recommended as anything more than a short dip. You can follow this up if you decide to go deeper in order to get manifesting powers with Cerebremancer. Dragon Disciple — There are many tools for creating a Draconic-theme Duskblade.

In any case, this class is an option that lets you become more draconic if you are a non-dragon Dragonblooded subtype is allowed in this class. The requirements are lax besides this, but the benefits are lackluster, but can work.

This all scales with level, and you cease to gain caster levels, so there are certainly better options. Not recommended, not even as a dip. If you want to play this class, Duskblades can get in pretty easily, though. Sand Shaper — In order to enter this class, you need 8 ranks in knowledge local in order to take a Touchstone feat.

Enter by level 7 is good, so the awkward requirements are actually not as awkward, but you do have to take essentially a dump feat. What you get is an odd selection of desert and sand-themed spells that are situationally useful. You do get Parching Touch , a touch spell that dehydrates things but does not scale with CL. I think this class is an overrated option for spell list expansion in most all campaign settings, but it does give those spellcasting levels, at the cost of horrible BAB progression.

As a 1-level dip, I could see it, but I think there are better 1-level dips. Bladesinger — Another Swashbuckler-level trap. As a flavor build ONLY is this an option. You have to get a bunch of irrelevant feats and you must be an Elf, one of the worst Duskblade races.

It is easy for the Duskblade to enter, though — she can take Dodge and Expertise, then dip Swordsage to be treated as having Weapon Focus in both longsword and rapier. Very bad, not recommended, but you could do it to show off. It can work, but your CL suffers very badly. However, melee builds are far superior. Wyrm Wizard — A personal favorite. This means you can potentially persist a spell on yourself.

Slightly cheezy, check with your DM. You can swap only a single spell at any given level and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that you gain new spells known for the level. You need not prepare spells in advance. You can cast any spell you know at any time, assuming you have not yet used up your spells per day for that spell level.

These spell-like powers do not count against your total of spells known or spells per day. Armored Mage Ex : Normally, armor of any type interferes with an arcane spellcaster's gestures, which can cause spells to fail if those spells have a somatic component. A duskblade's limited focus and specialized training, however, allows you to avoid arcane spell failure so long as you stick to light armor and light shields.

This training does not extend to medium or heavy armors, nor to heavy shields. This ability does not apply to spells gained from a different spellcasting class. Arcane Channeling Su : Beginning at 3rd level, you can use a standard action to cast any touch spell you know and deliver the spell through your weapon with a melee attack. Casting a spell in this manner does not provoke attacks of opportunity. In this episode, author and the creator of Dragonband, Joel Norden throws the reader headfirst into a story of murder, mayhem, and monsters!

A cocky dark elf that belongs to the legendary Duskblades is contracted to assassinat Take a short adventure into the immersive world of Dragonband! A cocky dark elf that belongs to the legendary Duskblades is contracted to assassinate an elven general. Even with his careful planning and some well-timed luck, things don't turn out quite the way he expects them to.

Get A Copy. Kindle Edition. More Details Dragonband Lost Tales 1. Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Duskblade , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list ». Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Duskblade Dragonband: Season One. Apr 08, Jonathan Destroyerofworlds added it.

Duskblade serves as a great character introduction for Feliz, and scratches to surface of this little corner of the Dragonband Universe. The story unfolds from a seemingly-predictable tale into a sudden explosion of possibilities, giving the impression of an open world ready to be explored through the eyes of this dark elf. Norden is taking tropes not often seen in this kind of fantasy and throwing them in the mix to see what happens.

View 1 comment. May 27, Al Burke rated it liked it. Pretty good. Doesn't seem to be a huge amount going on, but there's enough to warrant a more in-depth look. I'll definitely check the novel out when I see it.

Apr 04, Aaron rated it it was amazing. I was so excited to beta read this story a few weeks before its release. After reading the first couple paragraphs, I felt a very Brandon Sanderson vibe within the prose, making me feel I was right there in the town streets celebrating Moonfall with the elves under the amethyst moonlight. It doesn't mention your two classes by name, but perhaps similar guidelines would apply. Short answer, No. PHB2 was one of the last 3. Originally Posted by Diarmuid.

Last edited by Nebraska Tim; at PM. If you are looking to expand the Beguiler's list, Arcane Disciple is pretty good. From C. Requires you to have good wisdom, though. Originally Posted by Darrin.