Power Overwhelming: A power build (sorcerer/paladin/rogue, sorcerer/blackguard/assassin)

The following templates are for a super power build. There's a "good" version and an "evil" version.

If any of you are familiar with my drow witch, Aurora, you are familiar with what this build is capable of. With a few minor differences, Aurora's overall build is the "Evil" blackguard/assassin version.

For the template, we'll use human. Alignment will have to be lawful good for the "good" version. For the "evil" version, any evil will do.

For the good version, you will need Dalix as a patron deity to qualify for Paladin levels. For evil, you may start off with any deity. When you take your first blackguard level however, your deity will be changed to either Ragnor or Sorgath depending on your alignment. Although Harcoth is the third "evil god" of Aenea, Harcorth does not have any blackguard followers, so it's either Ragnor or Sorgath.

Stats: You will need at least 13 strength. The rest should ideally go into charisma. A moderate intelligence (14) is good to have. Between constitution and dexterity, constitution is more important.

You'll want the 13 strength to open up the power attack feat, which allows you to get the "Divine Might" and "Divine Shield" feats with your blackguard/paladin levels. The intelligence will help you get more skill points, which you will want a moderate amount of to max out spell craft, concentration, tumble, as well as gain a few miscellaneous skills such as UMD, lore, ect.

Gear: You'll ideally want armor of some kind. In-game you can purchase "mithril chain shirts", which are chain shirts with no arcane spell failure. You could also find a crafter character who can make a "chitin plate" armor for you, which is full plate (AC8) also with no spell failure. A good investment too would be making a custom armor with time-played reward vouchers.

So, the levelling progression, assuming 13 starting strength, no tomes used, no warhulk, ect.

Level 1 Sorcerer1 - Power Attack, Courteous Magocracy.
Level 2 Sorcerer2
Level 3 Sorcerer3 - Spell Penetration
Level 4 Sorcerer4
Level 5 Sorcerer5
Level 6 Sorcerer6 - Extend Spell
Level 7 Sorcerer7
Level 8 Sorcerer8
Level 9 Sorcerer9 - Empower Spell (or cleave if evil. Must have "power attack" to qualify for cleave)
Level 10 Sorcerer10
Level 11 Sorcerer11
Level 12 Sorcerer12 - Combat Casting
Level 13 Blackguard1/Paladin1 (For blackguard, you will need 5 hide skill, and the "cleave" feat.)
Level 14 Blackguard1/Paladin1
Level 15 Blackguard1/Paladin1 - Divine Shield (must have power attack to qualify for this feat)
Level 16 Sorcerer13
Level 17 Sorcerer14
Level 18 Blackguard1/Paladin1 - Divine Might (must have power attack to qualify for this feat)
Level 19 Sorcerer15
Level 20 Sorcerer16
Level 21 Sorcerer17 - Spell Focus 1
Level 22 Sorcerer18
Level 23 Sorcerer19
Level 24 Sorcerer20 - Spell Focus 2
Level 25 Sorcerer21
Level 26 Sorcerer22
Level 27 Sorcerer23 - Spell Penetration, * Improved Combat Casting (You will need 25 base concentration to take imp. combat casting)
Level 28 Sorcerer24
Level 29 Sorcerer25
Level 30 Sorcerer26 - Epic Skill focus:Spellcraft (you will need minimum 20 spellcraft for this feat), * Greater Spell Focus 1
Level 31 Sorcerer27
Level 32 Sorcerer28
Level 33 Sorcerer29 - Greater Focus 2, * Greater Spell Penetration
Level 34 Sorcerer30
Level 35 Sorcerer31
Level 36 Sorcerer32 - Mystical Insight (requires epic skill focus spellcraft), * Epic Spell Penetration
Level 37 Rogue1/Assassin1 (Must have 8 hide, 8 move silently for assassin. Max tumble, gain some UMD and other misc. rogue/assassin skills)
Level 38 Sorcerer33
Level 39 Sorcerer34 - Epic Spell Focus 1
Level 40 Sorcerer35 - * Epic Spell Focus 2 (Max spellcraft and concentration)

(feats prefixed with * are sorcerer bonus feats, and must be feats from the sorcerer epic bonus feat list)

Ability Increases:

Charisma, Charisma, Charisma. You will need at least 19 charisma to have access to level 9 sorcerer spells. But you will want more. Not only will more charisma grant you better save DCs on your spells, and more spell slots, but higher charisma will also mean a better bonus from your Divine Might/Divine Shield abilities.

Higher charisma will also boost your saves through the paladin/blackguard saves bonus (Divine Grace, Dark Blessing feats, gained for free with their respective class)

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Notes on the level progression and what can easily be changed:

The "Good" version will not take a "multiclass XP penalty" if you choose human, or if you choose halfling, but will for any other race. The "Evil" version will not have any multiclass XP penalty due to the blackguard and assasinn classes being "prestige" classes and exempt from the multiclass penalty rule.

Blackguard/paladin levels 3 and 4 are taken on "general feat" levels, to allow you to take the divine might/divine shield feats.

The rogue/assassin level is good to take at level 37 to allow you to max your tumble skill to 40. Tumble gives +1 AC per 5 base tumble skill points, so if you take it earlier, you'll want to take it on a level which will allow you to raise your tumble skill to a multiple of 5 (5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40).

You will want a moderate amount of intelligence to get the best bang for the buck. 40 skill points for tumble, 15 to 25 Use Magical Devices skill will allow you to use virtually any restricted item in the game (save the ones with the "custom" restrictions.. UMD cannot bypass those with any amount of skill).

The following feats are good for the build, but you can easily change them for whatever you you rather have: Empower spell, extend spell, epic skill focus(spellcraft), Skill focus (spellcraft), The spell penetration line of feats, the spell focus line of feats.

The reason I included those feats are however:

Spell Penetration: Allows you to more reliably penetrate higher spell resistences.

Spell focus feats: I chose two spell focuses because it allows a great deal of versatility with the most benefit. Suggested spell schools to focus in would be evocation, transmutation, necromancy, or illusion. Which you choose depends on what spells you choose to use. Also note, if you choose gnome as your race, gnomes gain spell focus (illusion) for free at level 1.

Empower Spell: It's good to be able to do some better damages, but you could easily do without this one.

Extend spell: Good to have your spells last twice as long, but again, you can easily do without this one as well.

Another suggestion.... you could swap in "Still Spell", and in the epic levels, take "Auto Still Spell I, II, and III. The Auto Still Spell feats do have a spell craft requirement, but you're a sorcerer, so why aren't you keeping your spellcraft maxed out?! What the "Auto Still Spell" feats do is allow you to wear ANY armor without any arcane spell failure. You can skill the chitin armor/chain shirt/dinosaur armor, and use whatever armor you prefer.

Epic Skill Focus (spellcraft), and Mystical Insight: These two feats are to aid your 'epic spell casting'. This build IS an epic sorcerer, after all.

You could swap out some sorcerer levels for more rogue/assassin levels. While it will decrease your overall spellcasting power with the less sorcerer levels, the higher rogue/assassin levels will gain useful feats such as evasion and uncanny dodge.

You could also swap in more paladin/blackguard levels for better AB and more HP. For paladin, you can take it at any point. For the evil Blackguard version though, you won't be able to take your first blackguard level until your base attack bonus is +6 or higher (or if your first levels are all sorcerer, not until you reach level 13).

You could even swap out a vast majority of the sorcerer levels for one of the other two classes. The core focus of this build is high defensive power, so you will want at least 21 sorcerer for access to epic magic (and the three AC epic magic spells). If you choose to do this, simply focus your spell selections more on defensive buffing spells rather than offensive spells. You can still kill stuff with your magic well enough of course... you just will not be able to affect as wide a range of enemies, so your limited sorcerer spell selection may prove more useful if you focus more on buffs in that scenario.

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What does this build offer for all that mumbojumbo?

Superb defences. You have the ability to wear full plate and use a tower shield from the blackguard or paladin levels. You have AC from "Divine Shield", AC granted from tumble skill, and AC from epic spells. That can all add up 90 AC. 95 with a +5 tower shield. You also have access to other defensive spells such as Displacement or Improved Invisibility, which grant 50% concealment, Stormshield, which grants knockdown immunity, damage reduction spells such as stoneskin and premonition, and the "you can see me" end all, Greater Sanctuary. You also have access to the "damage shield" spells such as fire shield, and acid sheath. Even if you ARE hit in combat, your attacker will take damage for landing his or her blow. You also have your charisma modifer added to your saving throws via the paladin "Divine Grace" feat, or the Blackguard "Dark Blessing Feat.

Very Decent Melee Ability. While your primary class is sorcerer, you won't be a weakling in face to face combat. The 4 blackguard or paladin levels, when taken before level 20, will give you enough AB to qualify for 3 attacks per round. Straight sorcerer would only have 2 attacks per round. You also have the ability to use martial weapons. And you have several spells to help you hit decently with those weapons as well. Tensors transformation will boost your attack bonus up by 17 points (although you will not be able to cast spells while tensors is in effect). You also have access to the "True Strike" spell, which can boost your attack bonus by +20 for a few seconds. With divine might, you add divine damage to your weapon damage... and you also have access to the weapon enhancing spells such as Flame weapon and Frost Weapon, which add even more damage to your melee strikes.

And that's all just the "secondary" bonuses. Your primary bonus for this build... your killing spells. With improved combat casting, you can toss out your disintegrates and wails of the banshee's while in the middle of combat without feat of taking any attacks of opportunity. You have enough spellcasting power to blow through all but the highest spell resistances, and you have access to powerful debuffing spells such as mordenkainen's disjunction and spell breaches to strip away the spells of enemy spell casters.