Morph pally into arcane casting and bardic music

[theos911]

Ok I've had a thread over in rpg games, and I've decided that without some real cheese or rebuilding the only way to achieve what my player would like is through some homebrew. Here is original thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154984) The first feat was basically to give him some arcane blasty casting, without him needing to multi into a caster class at lvl 10 pally, for obvious reasons of suckishness. The second was designed to let him get him bardic music in a way that fits his whole pally flavor, it's other purpose is to allow him to enter sublime chord so his casting can increase beyond the level 4 paladin cap. He is a follower of Bahamut, and an adamant good-guy. If you don't read the original thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154984) these may seem weird; so read the original thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154984). They are as follows-

Spark of Bahamut's Grace

Prerequisites- Paladin of Bahamut 5, or a Vassal of Bahamut

Benefit- You can use your paladin spell slots to cast sorcerer spells. You must have a minimum charisma of 10 + the spell's level to cast it, and the save DC of the spell is equal to 10 + your cha modifier. These spells can be taken from the sorcerer spell list. To learn a spell from the sorcerer list, you must train with a cleric or Bahamut in a temple to the Platinum Dragon. You must spend one day in training for each spell you wish to learn. You know sorcerer spells as if your sorcerer level was equal to your caster level. Irregardless of caster level, you may not know any spells higher than level 4 by virtue of this feat. You may continue to use your paladin slots for divine spells as well as arcane spells without penalty. Through your devotion to the platinum dragon, you have learned to cast spells freely in armor, as the dragon himself casts freely in his armor. You do not suffer an arcane spell failure chance when casting sorcerer spells using your paladin slots.

That gets him arcanish-flashy casting from Bahamut using his pally slots...

and

Chorus of the Heavens

Prerequisites: Alignment- Good, Perform(Any)-10, Listen-5, Must be able to cast Zone of truth

Benefit- Some individuals gain the ability to influence others with music through innate talent or study; You have learned to master music by virtue of your divine grace and ability to purify fact from fiction into a beautiful harmony. You are treated as having the bardic music ability; your effective bard level is equal to one-half of your total level in your divine spellcasting class. Example - A 10th. level Paladin has an effective bard level of 5 for measuring all bardic music effects. This paladin could use: Countersong, Fascinate, or Inspire Courage up to a maximum of 5 times per day. Upon reaching Paladin level 11th. the paladin does not gain any new bardic music abilities or uses.Upon reaching Paladin level 12, the Paladin's effective bard level becomes 6. He may now use Suggestion and his uses per day increase from 5 to 6.

grants him bardic music so he can scale his pally casting with sublime chord.

[Tome]

Sword of The Arcane Order (Champions Of Valor) lets Paladins cast arcane spells, which does pretty much what you want. You'd need to change the prerequisites though.

Devoted Performer (Complete Adventurer) allows for Bard and Paladin levels to stack for certain things, which can make a single level dip in Bard a better option for acquiring Bardic Music.

Mind you, if you're homebrewing stuff so he can take levels in Sublime Chord as a Paladin you might as well make your own homebrewed PrC based on Sublime Chord that does exactly what you want instead of kludging things together.

EDIT The Holy Scourge PrC from Complete Mage seems to be exactly what this guy would want to play. It's completely wrong for any character who already has 10 levels of Paladin, but if retraining is an option...

[T.G. Oskar]

There is already a method to enter Sublime Chord and start as a Paladin. While Tome already mentioned some of the options (Sword of the Arcane Order for Wizard spells, which is pretty close to the full suite of arcane spells, and Devoted Performer to stack Bard and Paladin classes), the needed method doesn't exactly require any of them.

However, for some critique towards the class: Bahamut? Hardly seems like a deity that supports the arts: not only does it limits the class to a deity (that can be good or bad depending on the case), it limits it to a class which flavor simply doesn't match.

The original "arcane Paladin" usually implies Mystra or Azuth, both from Forgotten Realms and both offering choices for arcane spellcasting through Paladin spell slots. Sword of the Arcane Order deals with that.

The other thing would be getting Bardic Music as a Paladin, and for that, Milil (also from the Forgotten Realms) would be the most appropriate, since Milil is a deity that allows Paladins. Harmonious Knight (Paladin substitution levels) and Initiate of Milil are the two main methods to enter Sublime Chord, though the latter has a reading that may or may not benefit you. In either case, you'd still need around 11 levels of Paladin to qualify, which can be reduced to 10 with judicious application of Knight of the Weave or Suel Arcanamach.

Just in case: Harmonious Knight (substitution levels), Initiate of Milil (initiate feat), Sword of the Arcane Order (general feat) and Knight of the Weave (Prestige Class) are on Champions of Valor. Devoted Performer is in Complete Adventurer, and Suel Arcanamach is on Complete Arcane, right after the Sublime Chord.

Now, if you want to homebrew a more reasonable method of entry to Sublime Chord (which seems to be your main gist, you could do as follows):

1) Make Harmonious Knight levels act as if you got a general pool of Bardic Music. Normally, the "Bardic Music" abilities you get are separate from each other and don't constitute actual Bardic Music.

2) Make Initiate of Milil less ambiguous. Add something to the list that says "if the character has no Bard levels, treat his cleric or paladin levels as effective Bard levels for purposes of determining bardic music abilities gained by level, daily bardic music uses, and access to bardic music for feats and prestige classes that require so." If you want, you can make half of your levels qualify instead, or class level -3 in the case of Paladins to make it less exploitable.

3) Allow entry to other deities followers in case of Sword of the Arcane Order. Say: allow Milil to gain access to this class.

4) Use Core/other non-core alternatives. Chaav (from Book of Exalted Deeds is pretty much a good Olidammara, so the "Initiate of Chaav" can easily get the same abilities as the Initiate of Milil (although BoED can be a bit obscure). Core-wise, things might be a bit harder: Olidammara is the clear choice but he's a CN deity. The closest thing would be Yondalla, but she's not a bard deity (she's more of a protector deity, which fits well with Paladins). If core doesn't help, you can transplant Milil or make a new deity that has the same Initiate ability as Milil but that exists in your world. As for SotAO, you can easily claim Wee Jas for that: her domains may not be that apparent, but her alignment allows the entry to Paladins and her domains also include Magic, so she can sponsor "arcane Paladins" in cases where people are evading death through undeath (something that she promotes: one can escape death to learn from it, but once everything has been learned, one has to return to the grave).

Also: supporting the suggestion of Tome that you'd be better homebrewing a PrC to allow Paladins to cast arcane spells of higher level. Some people tend to make odd choices (Nar Demonbinder comes to mind), but they are limited in scope.

[theos911]

Ok, Im not sure you read the original thread....
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In the original thread sword of the arcane order is mentioned, but since he is a follower of bahamut does not work. That's why I made spark of Bahamut, and I thinks it's awesome, you know dragon bloods makes sorcerers and what-not. Well I think a dragon deity granting sorcerer spells to his paladins is a good idea. As for chorus of the heavens, it's a general feat not Bahamut specific. I've already looked into and commented on most of the things you suggested(minus devoted performer) in the original thread. He has Bahamut as a deity and I have to work with that.

The idea was to make his 10 levels of Paladin of Bahamut, not of Mystra, Azuth, or Milli, some how synergize with an arcane casting of some sort. Spark of Bahamut blends the two almost seamlessly. The next hurdle was to somehow get higher than Level 4 spells. Sublime chord does this nicely for a bard, so why not have it do it nicely for a Paladin with some perform ranks. He started worshiping Bahamut as the the dragon in the stars, so the whole astrology thing fits anyway and he has Servant of the Heavens(BoED), so the whole Chorus of the Heavens fits nicely as well.

[T.G. Oskar]

Ok, Im not sure you read the original thread....
...
...
...
In the original thread sword of the arcane order is mentioned, but since he is a follower of bahamut does not work. That's why I made spark of Bahamut, and I thinks it's awesome, you know dragon bloods makes sorcerers and what-not. Well I think a dragon deity granting sorcerer spells to his paladins is a good idea. As for chorus of the heavens, it's a general feat not Bahamut specific. I've already looked into and commented on most of the things you suggested(minus devoted performer) in the original thread. He has Bahamut as a deity and I have to work with that.

Saw the original thread, but my point still stands.

Look at all the suggestions. There are already options that exist within the game that work as you want, except that the main gist is that they are campaign and deity specific. I reckon you're the DM, so you can just waive the requirements in favor of the character. If Sword of the Arcane Order isn't Bahamut-specific, in your campaign it does. If Harmonious Knight isn't a choice for your player's character, homebrew it so that it does. It's mostly taking the easier path to fixing things: take things that exist and just waive one or two requirements.

The largest problem I see, in any case, is Bahamut as a deity. Is there any particular reason why it has to be Bahamut, which doesn't exactly fit with the idea of a singing Paladin? Hlal and Aasterinian fit a bit better in any case.

However, the crucial thing is as follows: the suggested feats make the concept far more complex than it may seem. Your player is requesting far too specific abilities: it has to be Bahamut, it has to be Sorcerer spellcasting, it has to specialize in blasting. However, the reasons why your player is requesting those are unknown; as far as I can see, your player is going for the "flavorful yet unoptimized path", and it's forcing you to bend the rules out of that same flavor.

The complexity is as follows: having Charisma-based spellcasting is good, but the biggest gist is that Paladin spellcasting is prepared, not spontaneous. In that case, Wizard will fit 100% times better. One method is to turn Paladin spellcasting into spontaneous, Cha-based spellcasting; the other is to take Sword of the Arcane Order and refluff it into being Bahamut-specific (or Bahamut-allowing: remember, you're homebrewing, so you can conflict with the official rules). Forcing spontaneous spellcasting into prepared spellcasting will be a hassle for your player, which as far as I can see isn't very keen on how to do proper book-keeping.

Sublime Chord is one way you can get more spells for the Paladin, but you can also work with making your own homebrewed, Bahamut-specific class that deals with all of those problems specifically. That's the beauty of homebrewed PrCs; it makes things far much easier. So, instead of mostly forcing a character to take a difficult path (Sublime Chord has a brutal skill requirement in case you haven't noticed, so your player end up with a character that must devote his feat slots and skill points into something far too focused), you can make a PrC for your player that sums everything you want. You can use Sublime Chord, Holy Scourge, Lyric Thaumaturge and others as a basis for your target: evocation-specific (and further, blaster specific), devotee of Bahamut, uses Cha-based spellcasting and an altered spellcasting ability, better smites, etc.

If it helps: if it already exists on the official books, it's related to what you (or in this case, your player) wants and it works, minor refluffing is sufficient. If it doesn't exist, homebrew it. If it exists and it works for your character (or in this case, your player) but it doesn't fit your character, refluff it and make it fit. If it exists and it fits your character but it doesn't work, make a homebrewed fix so that it works. And all in all, make it simple, which is why I find the feats a bit too far off. Bahamut is not the best deity for bards, so the simplest method is to tweak Sublime Chord into something less skill-intensive and less themed towards bards. Hence, the simplest method is fully homebrewed PrC, where you can control all of the factors into something that makes sense (Bahamut is empowering his holy champions with arcane spellcasting) and make it reasonable for what you seek (make your player contribute to the game constantly).

Oh, and in case you believe Sorcerer spellcasting is the only way for dragon deities: Wyrm Wizard. That's a prepared spellcaster (a Wizard, to boot) that gains more power from dragons. You can take that precedent as a basis for Paladins using a spellbook and Wizard spells (and thus, refluff Sword of the Arcane Order) as part of a dragon deity empowering his champion with arcane spellcasting (specifically blasting, something that prepared spellcasters and specifically Wizards can work with).

[theos911]

Ok. I know he will go spark of Bahamut, chorus of the heavens was just a way for him to enter sublime chord if that is how he chooses to advance his casting above level 4. There are other ways, but I haven't gotten to speak to him yet.

[theos911]

Alright this is how he/I decided to do it. He took spark of Bahamut's Grace. Now for level 5-10 he is advancing in Evocant Champion. it's loosely based on Adjr Champ.

5/5 BAB progression, One good save-Will(as abjr champ is), 5/5 caster progression
1-Swift Evocation
2-Enhanced Evocation I
3-Arcane Boost
4-Enhanced Evocation II
5- Martial Arcanist

Spellcasting:
Spellcasting: At each level, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level (and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If you had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming an Evocant Champion, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

Swift Evocation
Swift Evocation (Su): Beginning at 1st. level, you can cast evocation spells as a swift action, as if you had applied the Quicken Spell feat to them (but without any change in level). The maximum level of spell you can quicken in this way is equal to 1/2 your class level (rounded up).

Enhanced Evocation
Enhanced Evocation (Su): You depend on your evocation spells be able to get the job done. At level 3 and level 5 you may gain one of these abilities. You may use these abilites a combined number of 3 times per day.

•Enlarged Evocation- You may cast any evocation spell as though it had been enhanced by the Enlarge Spell Feat.

•Widened Evocation- You may cast any evocation spell as though it had been enhanced with the Widen Spell Feat.

Enchanced Evocation (Su): You depend on your evocation spells be able to get the job done. Each ability has a pool of uses each day. Using one enhancement costs one use. Using two enhancements on the same spell uses two uses from one enhancement's pool and one from the other. Using three enhancements on one spell uses three uses from one enhancement and two from the second and one from the last. You may not use more than three enhancements on the same spell. The caster may choose which Enhancment to consider the 1st. 2nd. and 3rd. for purposes of use uses. Enhancing a spell does not alter a spell's casting time.

•Enlarged Evocation- You may cast any evocation spell as though it had been enchanced by the Enlarge Spell Feat.3/day

•Widened Evocation- You may cast any evocation spell as though it had been enchanced with the Widen Spell Feat.3/day

•Empowered Evocation- You may cast any evocation spell as though it had been enchanced with the Empower Spell Feat.3/day

•Maximised Evocation- You may cast any evocation spell as though it had been enchanced with the Maximize Spell Feat.2/day

Uses Used from:
1st. Enhancement 2nd. Enhancment. 3rd. Enhancement

When using 1 Enhancement 1 - -

When using 2 Enhancements 2 1 -

When using 3 Enhancements 3 2 1

Arcane Boost
Arcane Boost (Su): Beginning at 3rd. level, you gain the ability to burn arcane energy to empower your martial or physical abilities. As a swift action, you can spend one of your uncast spells or spell slots to grant yourself one of the following insight bonuses for 1 round.

• Bonus on attack rolls equal to the spell's level.
• Bonus on weapon damage rolls equal to twice the spell's level.
• Bonus to movement speed for 5ft./spell lvl to a maximum of a 20 foot bonus.

As an immediate action you may

•Subtract 10 feet from falling damage per 2 levels of spell used. This bonus expires immediately after use.

Martial Arcanist
Martial Arcanist (Ex): At 5th level, you master the art of combining your militant and mystical training. From this point on, your caster level in a chosen arcane spellcasting class is equal to your base attack bonus (unless it would otherwise be higher). For example, a 7th-level fighter/1st-level wizard/5th-level Evocant Champion has a base attack bonus of +12 (and thus a caster level of 12th). You can apply this benefit to only one arcane class to which you have added spellcasting levels by your advancement as an Evocant champion.

Alright, the spellcasting is untouched. Swift Abjuration became Swift Evocation; Easy conversion. Enhanced Evocation required some thought. Basically Abjurant Armor is **like** using empower on your abjurations, but stronger yet, and it goes on every spell cast. Extended Abjuration is Extend spell for free on every abjuration cast. The two main non-empower/maximize metamagics for evocation are widen and enlarge, so these may be used for free 3 times per day. I think it's rather balanced there. Arcane boost is almost same, removed the protection feel effects and replaced with a speed enhancer and a fall slower. I think it's a good trade off. Martial Arcanist is unchanged. Opinions everyone?