Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Finalizing my bladesinger build, but I need a consensus: Dragonslayer or EK?

Dragonslayer is more in line with his RP, but he gets 9th level spells waaaay late in the game. Like, in his last few levels late before 30.

EK gets them much sooner and doesn't require as many levels of wizard, resulting in a higher initial ab prior to epic, but isn't as interesting a class nor has the kind of goodies that the Dragonslayer packs in. That said, it also doesn't require an extra feat to qualify.

exact build would be 3 ranger/7 wizard/10 dragonslayer-EK/10 bladesinger

With that you'll have only a casterlevel of 23. That will be really challenging to play.

True, and I'm open to any suggestions on how to improve it!

Ranger 3/Wizard 7/Eldritch Knight 10/Bladesinger 10, brings caster level of 26. It is not the best, but you can make do with it. Not to mention that Eldritch Knight grants you free Combat Casting feat, so that means you have more feats to pick other goodies. (Sense motive is a class skill for Eldritch Knight.)

Dragon Slayer costs Iron Will, and doesn't really grant anything to your build. You are going to wear light armor and all that. The bonuses it grants are merely fluff.

You can play them mainly unbuffed, instead relying on AC items like any fighter. The light armor and bonus AC make up for it and you can use your spells sparingly to disable opponents or for short term buffs.

If you go for Eldritch Knight, you can grab Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration to be 'level 30 caster' against mob spell resistance. Feats you would otherwise spend on Iron Will and Combat Casting with Dragon Slayer.

Dragonslayer does bring Tumble skill, so I wonder whether you can make Wiz5/DS5/EK10/BS10 and skip Ranger.

That would increase both BAB and CL by 1. Plus it's usable by any Elf without XP Penalty.

Bladesinger offers Tumble too and I imagine the ranger dip is key in his concept .. but otherwise it's indeed better to go with classes offering arcane progression.

Yup, ranger is core to his identity, as is the potential dragonslayer bit. That concept is covered somewhat by bladesinger (Freezing field skill), but I'll just have to sit down and give it a shot both ways in the module.

I'm not aiming for the most powerful build, but I'd like it to be able to function better than average when I start going to the upper levels. Thanks for your help, all!

As Valefort has stated you can be gear dependent as opposed to relying on buffs which has the added benefit of using more spell slots on your bladesinger ability to apply spells to your weapon as on hit ability. I have a level ~22 bladesinger which is SB5/W5/EK10/BS10 (CL24) who does just fine with this play style. I have also built one for a friend which was SB5/D7/W8/BS10 and thus only gets 7th level spells, but has sick AC thanks to Duelist and BS as well as really strong damage.

For your specific request do you really need Ranger, or are you looking for a bit of natural skill? If so, as an example this might be what you're looking for:

http://nwn2db.com/build/?282687
As a W5/BS10/EK10/DS5 it has everything you want except the Ranger class. However, the Track Feat and 16 Survival skill points allows you to RP a bit of the Ranger skill set. I also left a ton of skill points unassigned that you could use for things like Lore: Nature, Lore: Geography, Spot, Search, etc. to help show the RP you're looking for. The benefit of going this route is CL 27 which you will find is fairly good against greater dispel. 1-4 wards might drop when you get hit with one so you still would want to have decent equipment, but your wards should hold up pretty well in most cases. In addition you have a 27 BAB, your AB will end up in the low 40's and with Combat Insight you'll have decent damage and solid AC.

Now, I'm by no means saying you have to go this route. If you absolutely must have the Ranger class I would say you'll be fine most of the time going R3/W7/BS10/DS10. CL23 will be more susceptible to dispels, obviously, but you will have a bit more freedom with your feats. I was just providing an alternative in case that's something that interests you.

I like the build! I might tinker with it to put bladesinger earlier, only because that no arcane spell failure at level 10 is a key ability.

Thanks for everyone's input!

I'm currently playing a F/W/BS/EK build which will end up at 23CL max. It's still INT based using Combat Insight at later levels and so far (lvl 15) I have not run into any AC problems thanks to Dodge, Combat Expertise and the AC Bonus from BS using +2/+3 AC bonuses on my stuff.

All I'm using for buffs is Bull's Strength, Greater Magic Weapon and Spiderskin because I only have +2 nature AC otherwise and I don't really have issues with taking too much damage.