Help with Duskblades (3.5 ed)

[Jarade]

Currently, I'm DMing for a group of players and i was wondering how to make a Duskblade a decent fight for a group of 6 10th lvl characters. I was thinking of making him level 12-15 or lower, he will be by himself, mostly because the group im DMing for is reletively new and i don't want to make this too hard, more of a gauge to see where they are at.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Hal]

The problem is, Duskblades are good at one thing: Dishing out huge amounts of damage at once. You're quite likely to kill a player if you send in a Duskblade, although he'll probably go down shortly thereafter.

However, if you were willing to make him more of a nuisance, give him a weapon that does non-lethal damage (I think Merciful is the enchantment?) and then have them fight in conditions under his control. Lots of traps or terrain pitfalls. Then have him channel Dimension Hop to make the players zap all over the place.

You can help this by getting him a weapon with the whirling enchantment (give you whirlwind attack 3/day for +1). Spiked chain, perhaps?

Others might give you some more advice for a "boss" build rather than a player build.

[AslanCross]

I've learned from experience that having a single humanoid character against a party of more than 4 is too easy for the players. The number of actions the players have greatly increases their ease. Even if you make the Duskblade too powerful, he may end up simply one-hitting PCs (which is not fun for the players) and then he goes down a turn later because he fails his save against several control spells.

I did this before with a 6th level party of 5 against a Lv 11 Warblade. She almost died---she wouldn't have made it if not for a whole bunch of escape items I equipped her with.

I think it would be better if you put him at around Lv 13 for Full attack channelling, then give him a few minions to slow down the PCs. The 6:1 action ratio is much more powerful than it lets on, and remember that these are 10th-level characters. They will be quite powerful unless they're Commoners.

[Jarade]

Ok, ill keep these in mind. Maybe have the duskblade with a Pale Master or something similar to add some cannon fodder for the fight.

[weenie]

If your group is really new to the game, you can make your Duskblade strike terror into them without much trouble. Spiked chain is probably a good idea for him. Here's what you do:

When it's your turn use a swift dimension door or dimension hop, to get all their casters in reach, and then proceed to full attack channell all within reach(casters first) with a Vampiric touch. They bleed, your Duskblade heals(or gains temporary hitpoints). Using some item that makes him hasted would aslo be a good idea. From here on just use your fantasy, really. You can cast ray of exhaustion on the fighter, trip the wizard, get tons od AoOs with your spiked chain, and heal again when they get through your temp hitpoints. the 6:1 ratio should however, save them from the dreaded TPK.