[3.5] Finishing up backup character. Running out of ideas

[fortesama]

Things are getting a little out of hand in a gestalt game I've joined and half the group is prepping backups in case things go downhill. Relevant houserules:

*No full caster/martial adept progression on both sides on the same level. (i.e. anything with a spell list, maneuver list, invocation list, power list and similar)
*factotum, binder and incarnum classes are not casters.
*no martial adept and caster on the same level.
*Caster//Paladin or Ranger is fine if using nonspellcasting variants.
*No homebrew
*No Pathfinder
*3rd party/3.0 material (except BoEF) approved on case to case basis
*Dragon mag is allowed
*May not take 2 PrCs on the same level.

I'm might try getting the DM to reword the first one so that we may have a pseudo-caster like spellthief on the other side with a full caster as long as we don't take enough to get spellcasting on those classes.

I've got this planned so far:
Draconic White Dragonspawn Human, Lawful Good
Sorc 5/Swiftblade 10/Abjurant Champion 5//Sorc +4/Fighter 2/Paladin 4/Marshal 1/Battledancer 1/Scout 1/Ninja 1/Rogue 1/???? 5
Feats:
1: (Fighter 1) Expeditious Dodge, Extend Spell, (Human) Improved Initiative?
2:(Fighter 2) Mobility
3: something retrained to Arcane Strike at level 4
6: Arcane Preparation?
9: Divine Might?
12: ?
15: Combat Casting
18: ?
Divine Might, Combat Casting, Arcane Preparation for Greater Luminous Armor, ???? for the other feats at not sure yet levels. Maybe a devotion feat or two?
? = still unsure.

Taking sorc levels on the other side to offset the casting loss and using motivate Dex from Marshal to buff the party's initative. I've considered switching to Illumian with Naenhoon and using the twice betrayer's trick to persist wraithstrike and haste but that might force me to dodge a flying book or two. Ditto for cheesewrought kobold.

Also considered a more incarnum oriented version of this but i've yet to read Magic of Incarnum properly.

Edit: A bit of updating.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

At what level would the character likely be entering play?

If you're going the Greater Luminous Armor route, you may as well grab a level or two of Monk and get Ascetic Mage to get your Cha bonus to AC. Cobra-Strike Monk (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#monkVariantFightingSty les) gets you Dodge and Mobility as bonus feats, so you could retrain more early feat selections for something more useful.

Try to squeeze in two or three levels of Arcane Duelist (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20030224a), to get your Cha bonus to AC (again) as a Dodge bonus. You could use a Runestaff with Haste + Versatile Spellcaster to go Sorcerer 3/ Swiftblade, leaving two open levels later for another prestige class. Ancestral Relic (BoED) or an Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) for a runestaff filled with choice spells would be a good investment since you could pick and choose what it contains. You can stop taking Swiftblade at nine levels to get the third Arcane Duelist if you want to do Dexterous Attack + 2H Power Attack shenanigans.

[fortesama]

At what level would the character likely be entering play?

If you're going the Greater Luminous Armor route, you may as well grab a level or two of Monk and get Ascetic Mage to get your Cha bonus to AC. Cobra-Strike Monk (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#monkVariantFightingSty les) gets you Dodge and Mobility as bonus feats, so you could retrain more early feat selections for something more useful.

Try to squeeze in two or three levels of Arcane Duelist (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20030224a), to get your Cha bonus to AC (again) as a Dodge bonus. You could use a Runestaff with Haste + Versatile Spellcaster to go Sorcerer 3/ Swiftblade, leaving two open levels later for another prestige class. Ancestral Relic (BoED) or an Item Familiar (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/itemFamiliars.htm) for a runestaff filled with choice spells would be a good investment since you could pick and choose what it contains. You can stop taking Swiftblade at nine levels to get the third Arcane Duelist if you want to do Dexterous Attack + 2H Power Attack shenanigans.

Battledancer from dragon compendium (approved) has CHA ->AC already covered, though if i manage to squeeze in both Arcane Duelist and Monk with Ascetic Mage... yeah 3x CHA to AC assuming battledancer's Cha -> AC stacks does it though?.
Fighter 1 and 2 offset the poor BaB and i'm using the fighter feats for Expeditious Dodge and Mobility. Yeah, I neglected to add my 2 feats for human... so 3 feats at level 1. Still, that's a lot of feat slots which i'm unsure on what to take.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Ok I found Battle Dancer, and its AC bonus wouldn't stack with the Monk's, but it would stack with Arcane Duelist's Cha to AC. If you can retrain your feats or buy a Psychic Reformation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicReformation.htm) from NPC services then you could pick Dodge and Mobility with your Fighter bonus feats, start taking Swiftblade, later pick up Cobra-Strike Monk 2 instead of Battle Dancer, and repick those Fighter bonus feats for... Power Attack and Combat Reflexes. You have enough full BAB class levels to go alongside your Sorcerer levels, so I don't see any advantage to using Battle Dancer over Monk.

You'll definitely want Power Attack and probably Persistent Spell. Nothing wrong with persisting your buffs the old fashioned way. Versatile Spellcaster can be used to get access to metamagic versions of spells one level higher, so if you only have up to 7th level spells you could still persist Wraithstrike. You can use Silverbrow Human from Dragon Magic to get the Dragonblood subtype for Practical Metamagic from Races of the Dragon with Persistent Spell, so its cost gets reduced by one. That way you could persist Sound Lance from two 8th level spell slots at level 15 with versatile spellcaster, and be sure to cast Greater Magic Weapon on it.