Dread Necromancer Gish

[kurashu]

Do Necropolitans gain d12's for HD all the time?  Or do they gain normal class HD?

Anyway, another option for gishness is the Knight Phantom PrC from Five Nations.  It's basically a better version of Eldritch Knight, but requires you to have Still Spell (and then grants no ASF in light armor, which is useless to you).  It gets 9/10 casting, a d8 HD, and some pretty nifty class abilities.

Oh wait... you have to be able to cast Phantom Steed, which isn't on your spell list....

Ignore me... 

There's ways around not having a spell on your list. And Necros get d12 for everything, as the standard for undead. It's one of the few  -- the only? -- types that overrides class HD. Yeah, Knight Phantom > Eldritch Knight.

[SorO_Lost]

If you are allowed to buy dozens of nightsticks and stack them you should be allowed just play a swiftblade instead. And consider going Kobold/sorcerer for some real fun.

Now to tackle the choice of base class. If your wanting DR, be mindful there is nothing to increase that mere 2 and you can simply buy DR 3/bludgeoning for 9k, the missing magic part is ignorable since everything either owns magic weapons or is treated as being magical later on. Sure you'll lack the DR at level 4 for awhile, but you're still a pure caster then so play like one. Or since your reasoning to go clear to level 4 in Dread Necro can be skipped around. For example, Dread Necromancer 2 / Paladin of Tyranny 3 / Crusader 1 / Ruthar 3 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Emerald Jade Phoenix 6 pick up the DR anyway but go for better abilities later on. There is no real reflavoring required. An EJP can be evil, as long as he is willing to defeat some epic BBEG, IE competition in who rules the world.

Spellsword is worthless. Why do people even like it? You flat out have to dip to enter it, and for what? A filler class that takes up 1 level that costs a level, not so smart when you think about it. As for the ASF, flat out ignorable. By the time you'll take spellsword the cost of 10,000 gold to replicate it's effect isn't worth noting. This goes for all non dread necromancers mind you.
+5 Feycraft Twilight Mithral Breastplate = 0% spell failure chance, costs 40,500gp.
+5 Feycraft Mithral Full-Plate with Spellsword = +3 AC, 10% spell failure, 30,800gp, -10 speed, two feats or -1 spellcasting (used to obtain heavy armor proficiency).

Since you're a Dread Necromancer compare this to these.
+5 Mithral Breastplate as a dread necromancer = 0% spell failure, costs 30,500gp.
+5 Feycraft Twilight Mithal Full Plate as a Spellsword = +3 AC, 0% spell failure, -10 speed, 46,800gp, two feats or -1 spellcasting.

[The Lurker]

I don't see where spellsword costs feats.  Heavy armor prof is gotten from either paladin (for sorcadins) or fighter (for real casters).

And losing 4 CLs on a gish right off the bat is retarded.

[Rebel7284]

I don't see where spellsword costs feats.  Heavy armor prof is gotten from either paladin (for sorcadins) or fighter (for real casters).

Those classes interrupt your spellcasting progression without a reasonable return on investment and cost a lot more than a feat.

And losing 4 CLs on a gish right off the bat is retarded.

Ironic how you point something like this out after that previous part....
Really swiftblades are down at least 4 casting levels and do fine, but the more caster levels you give up, the more power you give up.

edit: The best gish is an incantatrix that just persisted Shapechange and Divine Power

[The Lurker]

There are three gishes that don't use divine power:
1) Paladin 2/ Sorcerer 4/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 8
2) Fighter (or any other full bab class with the profs, but really the bonus feat is sexy) 1/ Wizard 6/ SS 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Eldritch Knight 7
2a) Replace fighter with LT barbarian.  Costs more feats, but is acceptable if you can't get pounce by any other means (such as polymorph, druid wands, dorjes).
3) Wizard 6/ Swiftblade 10/ Abjurant Champion OR Unseen Seer 4

Anything else is pretty much inferior to these in play at any level in any game.

So yeah, the only case where spellsword costs feats is where you are GETTING POUNCE.  Pretty snazzy deal, actually.

Final note: Yes, you can trick your way into gish classes with otherworldly and similar tricks, but those cost feats too!

Really swiftblades are down at least 4 casting levels and do fine, but the more caster levels you give up, the more power you give up.

That's because incredible actions and (Ex) defenses are incredibly good.  If the miss chance wasn't (Ex) (making it nonmagical and thus not negated by true seeing or AMF grapplers) then swiftblade wouldn't pay off until level ninth level or character level 15.  That's high enough level that it may never see payoff.  As is, until those levels it barely is worth the CL loss, but is worth it.

Yes, swiftblade is INCREDIBLY sexy.  Bonuses to saves, a piddly minus two to saves (if you're in melee with them already at which point saves don't matter), and first level maneuvers is not.

So yeah, swiftblade is worth 4 CLs because the class features are INSANELY good.  It's actually my favorite non DP gish period.

edit: The best gish is an incantatrix that just persisted Shapechange and Divine Power

This is pretty much true.

[SorO_Lost]

As for pounce, yeah SS may be useful.
Dread Necromancer 4 / Lion Totem Barbarian 1 / Swordsage 1 / Emerald Jade Phoenix 5 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Spellsword 1 / Swordsage +2
Wears +5 Feycraft Twilight Mithal Full Plate which costs 46,800gp. Thanks to Battle Jump and the shadow teleportation maneuvers it can charge twice in a round.

However.
Dread Necromancer 4 / Lion Totem Barbarian 1 / Swordsage 1 / Emerald Jade Phoenix 5 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Swordsage +3
Wears +5 Mithral Breastplate which costs 30,500gp and loses 3 AC and gains +10 to speed from the above example. Notably, it can charge three times in a single round as well making it a hell of a lot more powerful damage wise.

I think I'll go with the bottom example as my final advice on a build. Cheesy, but assuming you have haste you really won't get better than 12 attacks as part of a charge without losing more casting.

[kurashu]

Spellsword is worthless. Why do people even like it? You flat out have to dip to enter it, and for what? A filler class that takes up 1 level that costs a level, not so smart when you think about it.

+1 BAB, +1 Caster Level, d8 HD, +2 Fort, +2 Will; all that looks pretty good to me. If you are going to have Heavy Armor Proficiency anyways, no point in not dipping for 1 level.

And don't forget that Duskblade gets all armor as well as fighters, paladins and crusaders. Duskblade and Crusader offer the best immediate return on losing caster levels: combat casting as a bonus feat (entry to Abjurant Champion) and arcane channeling; maneuvers.