I had an idea to mix up my character a bit, and I'm wondering how I can maximize this particular combination.
My DM allows Lawful bards, and I'll be taking the Knight Training feat.
Other than that, any suggestions on this?
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I had an idea to mix up my character a bit, and I'm wondering how I can maximize this particular combination.
My DM allows Lawful bards, and I'll be taking the Knight Training feat.
Other than that, any suggestions on this?
Besides the feat from complete adventurer that allows multiclassing between these specific classes with a certain amount of synergy and no penalty?
Diplomacy is your friend. You have the skill points, and access to all the skills, to pick up every bonus to diplomacy in the game.
Given that you'll obviously focus on CHA, I'd say focus on being the party diplomacer who loves turning undead. For added fun, make him sing as he smites evil.
Build a battle bard, pretty much. The difference will be that you will be a little better at it, at least Base Attack wise.
Pick up Arcane Strike from Compete Warrior (I think). Sacrifice arcane spells for more attack bonus and damage.
Probably wouldn't hurt to get a two hander and power attack/leap attack for standard damage. However, if you'd rather sword and board, you should grab yourself a Crystal Echoblade, which deals extra sonic damage when you sing, and is in the Magic Item Compendium.
I highly suggest using Peform (sing) as your performance of choice so you can fight while singing. Get Melodic Casting so you can use perform in place of concentrate (saves skill points) and cast while singing, allowing you to effectively sing all day and night, and cast spells in melee without much problem. Stock up on Arcane and Divine wands and go with it, should work pretty well.
In my opinion, the best way to play a Bard/Paladin would be to take all your levels in Crusader and pick up max Perform ranks.
It would certainly reduce your MAD, which would be, as a Paladin/Bard:
STR- Paladin damage
DEX- Light Armor required for Bard casting
CON- Making up for your d6 hit dice
INT- Bard skillmonkeyness/Bardic Knowledge
WIS- Paladin casting
CHA- Bard casting
Not too sure on build, but you don't have to be Lawful. There's also the Paladin of Freedom (unless you mean that you're already a Lawful paladin and multiclassing to bard?).
Like the idea of taking singing so you can perform while you fight. Also like the diplomacy, the singing while smiting, and the Arcane Strike ideas.
I agree that your stats will be pretty hard to sort out. I'd suggest Charisma as the highest since both classes use it heavily, and Intelligence as the lowest (but not too low because of skills and bardic knowledge). Mid-range wisdom, high physical stats overall.
Everything starts to look like a nail, doesn't it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xefas
I mean, come on. Perform isn't a class skill for Crusaders, and Max Ranks in Perform != Bard. The Crusader can't cast, the Crusader can't Skillmonkey, the Crusader can't sing. We know ToB is great, but telling me to play a warblade when I want to play a wizard is is little over the top. A more reasonable suggestion would be a Crusader/Bard/JPM, but it sounds like to OP already has Paladin levels.
You make good points regarding MAD, but some of that can be reduced. You don't have to be hulking and muscle-bound to be a paladin. Depending on your level layout, skill points may or may not be a huge issue. You don't get Trapfinding regardless, so you are probably not the primary skillmonkey anyway. Also depending on your level progression, you may choose to mostly ignore Paladin casting and let your Wis lag behind a bit.
Now, you could pump dex, weapon finesse, grab the prereqs for Shadow Blade through Martial Study/Stance, and dump Str. Snowflake Wardance also helps with beating people. Arcane Strike has been mentioned. That leaves you needing Dex, Con, and Cha, with Int, Str, and Wis being dumpable.
Just pointing out an alternative way to represent the "Holy knight who happens to travel around singing/playing instruments" concept. An alternative way that happens to be better combat-wise. It's a relatively smaller leap than going from wizard to warblade, I'd say, though I assume you meant that as a hyperbole. Especially if, perhaps, you alter the fluff of some of the White Raven and Devoted Spirit maneuvers as "I'm singing while hitting him, inspiring courage in my allies" which is what bards are iconic for anyway (at least, as I've observed).Quote:
Originally Posted by zaei
I realize you don't have to be musclebound, but Smite Evil only works with melee weapons, barring the Ranged Smite Evil feat, so a good strength always helps. The Shadow Blade work around does work, however, though would require 3 feats. Probably worth it to reduce MAD, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by zaei
Just want the poster to consider all his options. Slightly refluffed Crusader might work if he isn't attached to the spellcasting.
Honestly, MAD is as bad as you make it. Here's a 32 point buy, just to give you an idea of where I'd ratio it.
STR- 14
DEX- 14
CON- 12
INT- 10
WIS- 12
CHA- 16
Buffing yourself with Bard spells, Paladin spells, Bardic music, arcane strike, and smites will probably make that mediocre Strength somewhat negligible. Wear a Mithril Breastplate to stay kosher regarding spell failure.
Low CON isn't a terrible problem with CHA to saves and access to spells like Blur, as well as two casting progressions that offer healing spells and of course, twice the wands with half the UMD checks.
I've already got a few Bard levels, and I don't want to play a Paladin of Freedom. I like my Lawful bard. And I'm sticking to Paladin.
My stats are pretty good.
No penalties, average Str, Con, Wis and Int (can't recall excat numbers.) 18 Dex and 17 Cha. No overall, pretty decent.
And he's not a "Holy knight who happens to travel around singing/playing instruments", but rather a "travelling performer who has taken up a calling from his god."
Ah, my mistake. I didn't know you already had a character; I figured you meant you had a character concept that you were looking to mix up a bit before using it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flame Master Axel
One of the players in the game I'm currently Dming is thinking about doing this. We're gonna do it "divine mission"-style, meaning he keep gaining levels as a straight Bard until his role in the campaign becomes clear. He will then decide to take responsibility, become more serious (read: switch from NG to LG) and take the Paladin trade.
He has perform: oratory, giving rousing speaches and bolstering the party's moral by shouting about heroes of yore.
Not a very optimised build but a fun one, with a role to play in the party.
Feat-wise, we're playing core-only so no real suggestion.
Ah, in that case you probably wanna take a look in Complete Divine. The Evangelist PrC from there is pretty close to your idea. Evangelist levels stack with Bard levels for bardic music and they get nifty bonuses to diplomacy as well as new class abilities tied to Perform.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flame Master Axel
You may instead want to pick up a few levels in Favored Soul as the cha based spellcasting works better than Paladin Wis based spell casting.
Bard 5/Paladin 6/ Mystic Theurge 9 Worst character Idea ever xD.
I think we can pretty much ignore paladin spells, here. If he's already got "a few" levels in bard, then he's not going to gain any paladin casting at all 4+fewth level, and by that point, a handful of first-level spells really aren't going to make much difference. About all that the paladin levels are going to get him, spell-wise, is access to some wands without needing to roll UMD for them. So I don't think there's any sense worrying about Wis.
That raises another point, incidentally: With both arcane and divine class spell lists, there aren't all that many spells which he'd need UMD for. So that frees up a skill slot.
Make sure you get the Devoted Performer feat. It allows bard and paladin levels to stack for determining smite damage and bardic music uses. It also allows you to multiclass between bard and paladin freely.
There's an excellent, really amazing, and totally awesome trio of Bard/Paladin PrCs over on the Wizards boards.
Here's the link: Harmonious Bard/Paladin.
Out of curiosity, which alignment restriction did they relax? So far as I know, the only RAW way for paladins and bards to be the same alignment is one of the variant paladin versions from Unearthed Arcana, and I doubt that they'd create a new feat just for that case.Quote:
Make sure you get the Devoted Performer feat. It allows bard and paladin levels to stack for determining smite damage and bardic music uses. It also allows you to multiclass between bard and paladin freely.
Except maybe Ranger 8 / Assassin 3 / Mystic Theurge 9.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hario
It's not clear. I'd say the Bard restriction is silly anyway and do away with that, but I think the point of "can multiclass freely" means that the paladin can take levels in bard and continue taking levels in paladin afterward.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chronos
Devoted Performer allows you to take Bard levels even if you are Lawful.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chronos