You wield it as if it was a scimitar, so feats that could apply to a scimitar would apply to Flame Blade. Since the blade is weightless and you can't add Strength to the damage, any feats/traits/items that apply extra fire damage to spells are your friend. Weapon Finesse>Slashing Grace would let you add your Dexterity modifier to the damage. Demonic Smith's Gloves (Inner Sea Combat) and Deliquescent Gloves (Ultimate Equipment)allow you to do an additional 1d6 fire or 1d6 acid on all melee touch attacks and grant unarmed strikes or wielded weapons the flaming or corrosive quality. So those are also a good idea. They are pretty darn cheap too (8,000 gp each)
By the way, if you are going to stick with weapon-like spells, you might want to look at ones like Moonblade (3.5) Icicle Dagger (PRPG) Prismatic Bow (3.5) Wreath of Blades (PRPG) Cloud of Knives (3.5) Ring of Blades (3.5) Shadow Blade (3.5) and Umbral Touch (3.5)
Moonblade is a particular favorite of mine and Umbral touch is a 3rd level Conjuration that does 1 min/lv, 5d6 per touch and they must fort save or be slowed everytime you hit them.
I would say, since you can't get strength to damage with it you probably shouldn't be able to get dex to damage with it either. Slashing Grace says you can replace strength to damage with dex to damage. But since the spell doesn't allow strength to damage, there is nothing to replace.
Also, please note that weapon finesse on it's own doesn't allow scimitars to be finesse-able. They are not light weapons and do not qualify for weapon finesse. You need a level of swashbuckler or daring champion cavalier, weapon focus scimitar, and slashing grace to make it so you can use weapon finesse and dex to damage with a (normal) scimitar. You can also alternatively take the feat Dervish Dance, which does something similar.
It's just fire in the shape of a sword. For the purposes of wielding it counts as a scimitar. If you somehow had weapon focus and weapon specialization for a scimitar they should add to your attack bonus and damage bonus respectively as they would with an actual scimitar.
Weapon Finesse does not require a specific weapon selection.
It allows you to finesse any weapon that is light or specifically listed as being finesse-able.
Or are you saying you don't need to choose the weapon finesse feat because it is granted by the level of swashbuckler? Because that's true, you count as having weapon finesse from the class feature.
Otherwise, I'm not sure what you were trying to say.
Edit: Unless you were trying to say that "if you don't take a level in swashbuckler that weapon finesse is basically wasted"?
Which is true because the scimitar cannot be finessed without a special ability, and the only place to gain that ability is from swashbuckler or daring champion cavalier. Without that class feature you can get dex to damage with the scimitar, but you cannot use dex for you to hit.
yup that is what i was saying , just waste the feat as a prereq
I mean, you could just waste it, but if your going to focus on dex you might as well commit and take the level dip.
Otherwise it's probably better to just focus on strength since it will give you both damage and to hit.
Or just buy agile finesse-able weapons. But those mean a much slower start to the character, doing low damage early on.
Why pick slashing grace for a scimitar? you could just go dervish dance if you are not planning to use anything in the off-hand.
Why pick slashing grace for a scimitar? you could just go dervish dance if you are not planning to use anything in the off-hand.
Right, which I suggested earlier as well.
Of course, a reason you might not want to do that is because Dervish Dance is a religion feat with strong ties to Sarenrae.