Silverborn Crusader (PEACH)

[Fax Celestis]

Silverborn Crusader
Usually LG Medium Monstrous Humanoid (Dragonblood)
Init +0; Senses Darkvision 60'; Listen +1, Spot +1
Languages Draconic, Common
AC 19, touch 10, flat-footed 19
(+4 armor, +2 shield, +3 natural)
HP 28 (4 HD); DR 2/evil
Immune paralysis, fear, disease
Resist Cold 5
Fort +6 Ref +7 Will +8
Speed 30' (6 squares)
Melee longsword +5 (1d8+2, 19-20/x2)
Ranged dart +2 (1d4, 20/x2)
Space 5'; Reach 5'
BAB +2; Grp +4
Atk Options Smite evil 1/day
Combat Gear 5 darts, potion of cure light wounds
Abilities Str 14 Dex 10 Con 14 Int 12 Wis 13 Cha 16
SQ Aura of good, detect evil at will, divine grace, lay on hands (12 points), aura of courage, divine health
Feats Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm
Skills Diplomacy +7, Handle Animal +8, Heal +5, Ride +5, Sense Motive +4
Advancement by character class; Favored Class paladin
Possessions Combat gear plus mithral chain shirt, heavy steel shield, masterwork longsword
CR 4
LA +2 if starting class is paladin; +3 otherwise

The first of Bahamut's responses to the Spawn of Tiamat, Silverborn Crusaders are the front line of Bahamut's soldiers, and have received his divine blessing.

Strategies and Tactics
Silverborn crusaders usually travel in groups of three or four, as they find safety in numbers as well as strength in unity. They move as quietly as possible, but not attracting attention is difficult for the silverborn crusaders.

Silverborn crusaders will never attack without annoucing their presence first, and will make all attempts to avoid combat both before and during the battle (mostly through using Improved Disarm). However, if presented with a chromatic dragon (or chromatic dragonspawn), the silverborn crusaders will attack without warning and without holding back. They will make every effort to slay the beast, but will withdraw if they are hurt critically and will return later in more numbers.

Society
Silverborn crusaders live alongside silver dragons and most other good dragons without problem, though they do find the methods of copper and brass dragons to be coarse and crude in comparison to their own. Despite this, they find no true fault with the brass or copper dragons (or dragonborn) because they get the job done when needed, despite these differences.

Treasure
Silverborn crusaders have no more possessions than they carry on themselves. Advanced silverborn crusaders may have better equipment, but this is due to them claiming it from a fallen dragon's horde rather than purchasing it themselves. Most valuables they find they either give to charity or to a metallic dragon.

Silverborn Crusaders with Class Levels
Despite their favored class being paladin (and many of the paladin abilities being built into them from birth), silverborn crusader clerics are seen almost as often as silverborn paladins. Rarely, one takes up the ranger or druid mantles.

As an associated class, levels of paladin stack with a silverborn crusader's innate powers. Levels of other classes are nonassociated.

Level Adjustment +2 if starting class is paladin; +3 otherwise

[wippit]

LA +3, that givwes this class an ECL of 7

A level 7 paladin has way more than this class:

Paladin gets extra:
+1 in each save
extra smite/day
turn undead
special mount
remove disease 2/week
1/0 divine spells
d10 hit dice (I think you have d8?)
1 more feat

Crusader gets extra:
DR 2/evil
+3 natural AC
Immune: paralysis/cold
Resist: cold 5

Compared to it's HD (4), a 4th level paladin gets a bigger HD, 1st level spell with enough stat, Crusader still gets the above.


Change the LA to +1, i think.

[Fax Celestis]

Done, but you also have to take into account that monstrous humanoids are not affected by spells like charm person, but instead charm monster.

[The White Knight]

@^^: With ability score adjustments of +4 Str, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +6 (unless this is using an ability array other than the standard monster set of 10s and 11s), they warrant above a +1 LA even with 4 racial hit dice to offset. Maybe +2.

This really steps on the toes of the Paladin class. Taking four levels in Paladin will only give you an extra smite attack (and damage), more lay on hands healing, and the ability to turn undead - you've taken away all the other goodies already. I don't think I'd even bother taking Paladin levels with this race, as you can get much more benefit from something else.

That said, I like the concept, because I'm a sucker for Knights dedicated to Bahamut's cause (Paladins in particular). I think you could do good things with this if you chose not to step on the Paladin's toes quite so much. Here's my recommendations:

>If possible, reduce the ability adjustments and racial hit dice to make this more playable at a lower level. The more hit dice/LA you're packing, the harder it is to find a comfortable balance. Maybe use the Planetouched as a reference, and go for a +1 LA?

>Try not to have so many of the trademark Paladin abilities included as part of the base package - this makes their "favored class" not so favorable, because you effectively get wasted levels early on (which is a huge deterrant). Maybe keep the ones that can stack with Paladin levels (like smite and lay on hands), and maybe one or two other lesser abilities (aura of good, detect evil?), but keep the big ones (divine grace, aura of courage, divine health) for the Paladin levels to take care of.

What about something like this:

>+2 Str, +2 Cha
>Type: Monstrous Humanoid (Dragonblood)
>Aura of Good, Detect Evil
>Lay on Hands - Can heal an amount of damage equal to Charisma modifier (if positive). If there are Paladin levels, treat Paladin level as 1 higher for the purposes of determining the amount of daily healing.
>Special Attacks: Smite Evil 1/day - Can make one melee attack a smite, receiving a bonus to hit equal to Charisma modifier and +1 to damage. If there are Paladin levels, treat Paladin level as 1 higher for the purposes of determining the amount of damage.
>Resist Cold 5, Immunity to Paralysis
>LA +1, no racial HD

Just a quick thought. I used the Aasimar as a guideline. I know it doesn't quite have all the things you were going for, but it could be tinkered from there. I'm not familiar with "Dragonborn", so perhaps I'm way off on this (In which case I apologize for wasting our time. Continue)

[Fax Celestis]

@^^: With ability score adjustments of +4 Str, Con +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +6 (unless this is using an ability array other than the standard monster set of 10s and 11s), they warrant above a +1 LA even with 4 racial hit dice to offset. Maybe +2.

This really steps on the toes of the Paladin class. Taking four levels in Paladin will only give you an extra smite attack (and damage), more lay on hands healing, and the ability to turn undead - you've taken away all the other goodies already. I don't think I'd even bother taking Paladin levels with this race, as you can get much more benefit from something else.

That said, I like the concept, because I'm a sucker for Knights dedicated to Bahamut's cause (Paladins in particular). I think you could do good things with this if you chose not to step on the Paladin's toes quite so much. Here's my recommendations:

>If possible, reduce the ability adjustments and racial hit dice to make this more playable at a lower level. The more hit dice/LA you're packing, the harder it is to find a comfortable balance. Maybe use the Planetouched as a reference, and go for a +1 LA?

>Try not to have so many of the trademark Paladin abilities included as part of the base package - this makes their "favored class" not so favorable, because you effectively get wasted levels early on (which is a huge deterrant). Maybe keep the ones that can stack with Paladin levels (like smite and lay on hands), and maybe one or two other lesser abilities (aura of good, detect evil?), but keep the big ones (divine grace, aura of courage, divine health) for the Paladin levels to take care of.

What about something like this:

>+2 Str, +2 Cha
>Type: Monstrous Humanoid (Dragonblood)
>Aura of Good, Detect Evil
>Lay on Hands - Can heal an amount of damage equal to Charisma modifier (if positive). If there are Paladin levels, treat Paladin level as 1 higher for the purposes of determining the amount of daily healing.
>Special Attacks: Smite Evil 1/day - Can make one melee attack a smite, receiving a bonus to hit equal to Charisma modifier and +1 to damage. If there are Paladin levels, treat Paladin level as 1 higher for the purposes of determining the amount of damage.
>Resist Cold 5, Immunity to Paralysis
>LA +1, no racial HD

Just a quick thought. I used the Aasimar as a guideline. I know it doesn't quite have all the things you were going for, but it could be tinkered from there. I'm not familiar with "Dragonborn", so perhaps I'm way off on this (In which case I apologize for wasting our time. Continue)
Actually, I don't know if you noticed the little tag under Silverborn Crusaders with Class Levels: their HD stack with Paladin levels, so one of these guys entering the Paladin class would come in at level 5, while any other class he'd start at 1.

No, I'm not making it up. The Redspawn Arcaniss out of the MM-IV does it with Sorceror.

The Dragonborn are sort of my answer to the Dragonspawn in the MM-IV too. There's a bunch of monstrous humanoids and magical beasts that are supposedly born of evil dragons dedicated to Tiamat. Frustrated that they didn't give any that are for good dragons, I made this one, and the Goldenborn Colossia and the Silverborn Whisperthief.

I plan on making two for each metallic type.

[Squangos]

Only problem with these creatures you're doing is that there already are Dragonborn. They're a race in Races of the Dragon who are the children of Bahamut who convert from other races to combat Tiamat's horde…
Guessing you already knew this; suggest changing the naming you're using to avoid confusion.

[The White Knight]

You mean "As an associated class, levels of paladin stack with a silverborn crusader's innate powers. Levels of other classes are nonassociated"? I took that to mean "levels of Paladin stack with Silverborn Crusader HD to determine the effects of the powers the two have in common." My bad, but you might want to clarify that in the OP.

It's really hard to guage an appropriate LA when you've got racial HD that stack with favored class levels for all intents and purposes, because it's harder to justify the racial HD granting ability increases over time when they're effectively class levels. On the other hand, it's a specific class, so it might not be seen as such a huge deal. However, in this case, these ARE basically Paladin levels (but with d8s instead) since you're basically getting everything a level 4 Paladin does (so you can pretty much be treated as a 4th level Paladin, with 5 less HP on average). Thus, the fancy stuff above and beyond this all has to be taken care of with LA, more or less. That's a lot of stuff:

>+4 Str/Con, +2 Int/Wis, +6 Cha
>+3 Natural Armor
>Paralysis Immunity
>DR 2/evil
>Cold Resistance 5

+3 LA was probably closer to the mark.

[Fax Celestis]

You mean "As an associated class, levels of paladin stack with a silverborn crusader's innate powers. Levels of other classes are nonassociated"? I took that to mean "levels of Paladin stack with Silverborn Crusader HD to determine the effects of the powers the two have in common." My bad, but you might want to clarify that in the OP.

It's really hard to guage an appropriate LA when you've got racial HD that stack with favored class levels for all intents and purposes, because it's harder to justify the racial HD granting ability increases over time when they're effectively class levels. On the other hand, it's a specific class, so it might not be seen as such a huge deal. However, in this case, these ARE basically Paladin levels (but with d8s instead) since you're basically getting everything a level 4 Paladin does (so you can pretty much be treated as a 4th level Paladin, with 5 less HP on average). Thus, the fancy stuff above and beyond this all has to be taken care of with LA, more or less. That's a lot of stuff:

>+4 Str/Con, +2 Int/Wis, +6 Cha
>+3 Natural Armor
>Paralysis Immunity
>DR 2/evil
>Cold Resistance 5

+3 LA was probably closer to the mark.
That why I originally had it at +3.

I'm not sure how to make it clearer, unfortunately.

And Squangos? No, I didn't know there were Dragonborn. I just made these as a counterpart to the Spawn of Tiamat. Considering I'm not planning on using these in any existing setting (besides my own) I don't believe that's an issue, but perhaps a name change would be a good idea. Ideas?

[wippit]

I forgot to account for stats. Oops.

Can you have a variable +LA? +2 if he take paladin, +3 if he doesn't?

[Fax Celestis]

I forgot to account for stats. Oops.

Can you have a variable +LA? +2 if he take paladin, +3 if he doesn't?
I don't see why not. That's actually a good idea.

[Squangos]

And Squangos? No, I didn't know there were Dragonborn. I just made these as a counterpart to the Spawn of Tiamat. Considering I'm not planning on using these in any existing setting (besides my own) I don't believe that's an issue, but perhaps a name change would be a good idea. Ideas?
Well, first one that sounds good to me is the Dragonsired ("Sire" being chivalric and such).
You can also have Dragonheir, Dragonscion (not a good choice, I feel), Dragonforged (if you want to play on the metallic nature in a misleading way), Dragonbred, Dragonbrood, Dragonformed (if you feel like playing on their appearance)… I'll come up with others if you ask me to. If there are others I can think of…

[Lord Iames Osari]

MitP Vote: Yes.

[Leperflesh]

I commented just now on your Silverborn Whisperthief, and now I've looked at this one - I guess I 'get it' better now that I know where you're coming from.

But, many of my comments on the Whisperthief apply here too. It feels like it ought to be a template or maybe a PrC... the hit point calculations seem to be off... there's no physical description... and I'm not sure we should assume knowledge of Bahamut for users of the MitP book. No vote for MitP without some degree of revision.

Thanks

-Lep