Making a paladin of Awesome

[Lord.Sorasen]

So, a friend came up with an idea for a paladin character today, and now my goal is to help him figure out how it would work. The build isn't very decided upon at all, but there are a few requirements.

Access to Steed of the Seas (Stormwrack, paladin level 2 spell.)
Access to Winged Mount (Book of Exalted Deeds, paladin level 4 spell.)
Variant Special Mount presented in player's handbook: Large Shark.

Basically we want to make a dude who does awesome things while flying on a shark. Other than this we don't have many ideas at all. We've been considering..

Prestige Paladin, as it theoretically gives access to the paladin spell list: Favored Soul 6/Cleric 1 might work (as favored soul seems better for flavor purposes) though honestly I'd prefer a better way to access it than having to cleric dip... Not sure if that's possible though.

We're not trying to make it water based: most of the awesome factor comes from the fact that he's on land. Also we want him to be able to do an assortment of awesome things.

Another thing is official material only, and no leadership feat. Everything else is fair game pretty much.

Oh, and as for character roll? I'm thinking melee, going in with bite chage flyby attack, but I'm open to suggestions.

[Anxe]

You could just upgrade the mount to a winged shark, then you wouldn't need the spell. The mount loses 2HD though because its better and doesn't receive as many Pally bonuses.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Wait that's a thing?

[Kylarra]

Unless you've got some way of bringing water with it, that aquatic subtype is going to really ruin your day.

[Lord.Sorasen]

Steed of the Seas makes all your special mount amphibious. That is the beauty of air-shark

[Yukitsu]

I prefered my paladin who went around on a flying space crocodile.

[Waker]

The Winged template in Savage Species what Anxe was referring to I believe. Just slap that on a shark.

Bear in mind that the ability to fly also affects your effective paladin level for the mounts special traits according to the DMG.

[Coidzor]

I prefered my paladin who went around on a flying space crocodile.

Mmm, Crocodile Knight! :smallamused:

[Lord.Sorasen]

I prefered my paladin who went around on a flying space crocodile.

To each their own I suppose. But I don't know, I just can't see anything being more awesome than air-shark. Except for maybe two air sharks.

[JaronK]

You could always just do a supermount build, and use the Land Shark as your mount. The basic build is Divine Fey Variant Bard 6/Animal Domain Cleric 1/PrC Paladin of Freedom 2/PrC Ranger 1/Halfling Outrider 10 Divine and Fey Bard are both from UA... one makes Bards divine casters, the other loses most of their music in favor of a Druid's Animal Companion. Now take Devoted Tracker, which combines your Paladin Mount with your Animal Companion for all special abilities. Halfling Outrider stacks with your Paladin, Ranger, and Druid levels for animal purposes, and the Holy Mount feat gives you mount progression on all divine casting levels.

By level 20 you get the mount of a 23 Paladin with the benefits of an animal companion of a 27 Druid. You do have to be a Halfling, but you're riding one heck of a shark. Also, you can Fascinate people with your awesome. Sadly you lack Inspire Courage, but at least you can rock out on a guitar if you want to.

JaronK

[absolmorph]

You could always just do a supermount build, and use the Land Shark as your mount. The basic build is Divine Fey Variant Bard 6/Animal Domain Cleric 1/PrC Paladin of Freedom 2/PrC Ranger 1/Halfling Outrider 10 Divine and Fey Bard are both from UA... one makes Bards divine casters, the other loses most of their music in favor of a Druid's Animal Companion. Now take Devoted Tracker, which combines your Paladin Mount with your Animal Companion for all special abilities. Halfling Outrider stacks with your Paladin, Ranger, and Druid levels for animal purposes, and the Holy Mount feat gives you mount progression on all divine casting levels.

By level 20 you get the mount of a 23 Paladin with the benefits of an animal companion of a 27 Druid. You do have to be a Halfling, but you're riding one heck of a shark. Also, you can Fascinate people with your awesome. Sadly you lack Inspire Courage, but at least you can rock out on a guitar if you want to.

JaronK
http://www.myfacewhen.com/images/176.jpg
That's one heck of a shark.

[LordBlades]

Halfling Outrider stacks with your Paladin, Ranger, and Druid levels for animal purposes, and the Holy Mount feat gives you mount progression on all divine casting levels.

Where is the Holy Mount feat from? Never heard of it before.

[Coidzor]

^: Dragon #325.

Alternatively, add Dragon Steed from Draconomicon on to that and ride a dragon. Taking an 8 HD wyrmling and adding between 18 and 26 Dragon HD to it is nothing to sniff at. Especially with sovereign archetypes. Though that's about as far as I see it going, things can get more amusing...

Depending upon how one reads the way gaining HD on a dragon, it might even go up age categories to go along with those HD, but that's a bit shaky in my book (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=142554).

Disregarding that, there's bestow curse+bestow greater curse(or was it greater bestow curse? curse greater bestow? :smalleek:) which will each give permanent increases of age category by one. Which, while a debilitating curse to a fair number of things is a buff to dragons.

Which could have one end up with a Young or Juvenile Gold Dragon. So 14 or 17 Dragon HD with bonus HD from epic animal companion (+18 HD) and special mount piled on top of that... And which can, I believe, take sovereign archetypes, many of which give benefits based entirely on the HD of the given dragon...

Combining the two, as unlikely as it would be... well mature adults have 26 HD, a wyrmling has 8, and the animal companion benefits give +18 HD. So, mature adult + 2 age categories = a very old dragon with 32 HD.

That's ignoring the Paladin levels towards special mount though, because I forget how much having a gold dragon as one's dragon steed lowers one's effective paladin level for such things. If the special mount benefits give +6 HD, then 32 HD = Very Old, so 2 age categories on top of that would be Wyrm, for a total of 38 HD.

[Lord.Sorasen]

You could always just do a supermount build, and use the Land Shark as your mount. The basic build is Divine Fey Variant Bard 6/Animal Domain Cleric 1/PrC Paladin of Freedom 2/PrC Ranger 1/Halfling Outrider 10 Divine and Fey Bard are both from UA... one makes Bards divine casters, the other loses most of their music in favor of a Druid's Animal Companion. Now take Devoted Tracker, which combines your Paladin Mount with your Animal Companion for all special abilities. Halfling Outrider stacks with your Paladin, Ranger, and Druid levels for animal purposes, and the Holy Mount feat gives you mount progression on all divine casting levels.

By level 20 you get the mount of a 23 Paladin with the benefits of an animal companion of a 27 Druid. You do have to be a Halfling, but you're riding one heck of a shark. Also, you can Fascinate people with your awesome. Sadly you lack Inspire Courage, but at least you can rock out on a guitar if you want to.

JaronK

I wonder if I could get away with perform (ride shark). Also the winged template... can you apply it to a paladin mount? Also, can you apply warbeast?

[Coidzor]

I wonder if I could get away with perform (ride shark). Also the winged template... can you apply it to a paladin mount? Also, can you apply warbeast?

I believe the winged template can be, yes. I'm AFB though, so you'll need better confirmation than that.

In regards to Warbeast:
A paladin’s mount is treated as a magical beast (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/paladin.htm#specialMount), not an animal, for the purpose of all effects that depend on its type (though it retains an animal’s HD, base attack bonus, saves, skill points, and feats).

So, I think that's a borked way of saying Magical Beast(Augmented Animal). But if not, it then depends upon whether a template is an effect that depends on its type or not. If, again, it passes on that criteria, then it has to be OK'd by the DM as something you can add on to an existing creature, though as far as I can tell this is assumed to be the default if it's used in the game at all.

[JaronK]

If you go with the dragon route, you'll need it to be a metallic dragon. Cause then, you know, it's pretty freakin' metal.

Ask your DM if he'll allow a Kobold to be a Halfling Outrider. Then be a Dragonwrought Kobold and chose a metallic type as well. Then you're a freaking metal lizard riding a metal dragon. That's just so... metal!

JaronK

[Waker]

The winged template can be added to any animal, giant, humanoid, monstrous humanoid or vermin. Animals and vermin become magical beasts, humanoids become monstrous humanoids.

[The Cat Goddess]

The winged template can be added to any animal, giant, humanoid, monstrous humanoid or vermin. Animals and vermin become magical beasts, humanoids become monstrous humanoids.

Does that mean you can't add the Winged template to Magical Beasts?

[Waker]

Does that mean you can't add the Winged template to Magical Beasts?
Nope. Magical Beasts aren't listed as a creature type the template can be applied to, so it wouldn't work.

[Person_Man]

Take a look at the Waverider PrC from Savage Species. First level grants you an aquatic mount (including the option for a shark). The nifty thing about it is that it improves as you gain character levels (not class levels). So you take 1 level of the class, and 19 levels of anything else you want.

There's also the Ashworm Dragoon, which grants you a Large sandworm which can Burrow while you're riding it. Closest thing to a land-shark you're going to get.

[Darrin]

Nope. Magical Beasts aren't listed as a creature type the template can be applied to, so it wouldn't work.

Half-fey or Half-dragon would work.

First, though, let's address the air breathing issue. Steed of the seas may not do anything for the shark. It grants the aquatic subtype, which allows the shark to breath water (which it can do already), but the subtype doesn't grant air-breathing. To breath air, the shark needs the *amphibious* subtype. However, then the spell description says, "A mount under the effects of this spell is able to breathe water; in fact, it is amphibious and thus subject to no ill effect in or out of the water." By a strict RAW reading... I guess the spell lets the shark can breath air.

But it's a 2nd level paladin spell, which isn't available until ECL 8, and the duration only lasts half the time the mount is available to us.

Necklace of Adaptation (9000 GP, DMG) might work, but may need a bit of handwaving.

Ring of Landwalking (10000 GP, Stormwrack p. 130) only works for humanoids, not to mention the problem of fingers... (although, hey, hand of glory!)

Sea-steed's Bridle (28800 GP, Stormwrack p. 134) can do continuous steed of the sea, but it's a bit pricy.

Gilled armor/barding (+6000 GP, MIC p. 11) would probably work best. Bracers of Armor +1, for example (fins = arms, evolutionarily speaking), could be enhanced with Gilled for only 7000 GP. If bracers won't work, Harness of Armor +1 (1500 GP, Lost Empires of Faerun p. 155) does the same thing with a torso slot.

There's also an elemental graft in Magic of Eberron, Breath of the Waves (9000 GP, p. 130), that coats the inside of a creature's mouth with elemental water. While "dehydration" and "air breathing" aren't exactly the same condition by RAW, based on the description I'm not sure how I could say it wouldn't work.

You didn't mention if Dragon material was still considered "official", but in Dragon #306, there's an item called a Talisman of Adaptation (650 GP, p. 61, same article as the Magic-Blooded template). This allows an aquatic water-breather to breathe air for 1 week. And since it's made of coral, which was once alive, we can slap a dose of Unguent of Timelessness on there (about 19 GP), and it will last 1 year + 6 days.

Flying:

The easiest method may be Dragonborn of Bahumat. The shark is intelligent and thus capable of worshiping Bahumat, and there's nothing explicitly in the text that says it doesn't work on magical beasts. The biggest sticking point is probably preparation and duration: the ritual involves 24 hours of meditation followed by 24 hours of sleep. A paladin's special mount can only stay on the prime material plane for 2 hours per paladin level, so unless you have 24 levels of paladin or some way to increase the duration, the ritual would have to be performed on whatever celestial realm the shark normally resides. Fairly cheap and painless, though: only costs 100 GP, and since the shark already starts with 9HD, it immediately gets a 30' (average) fly speed. Con bonus is only +1, so it has to alternate between 1 round of flying/1 round of gliding, but is only 3HD away from tireless flying.

If you can find some way to add the Half-Dragon template, you get a much better fly speed: 120' (average). The Savage Progression Half-Dragon article (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030912a) mentions there may be a magical ritual to add this template, but that pretty much boils down to "begging the DM". If you assume a Half-Dragon Shark already exists (it's one of the most common templates EVAR... apparently dragons will mate with anything), then you can take either the Dragon Cohort or the Dragon Steed feat (Draconomicon) and swap in a Half-Dragon Shark for a dragon with a similar ECL, assuming 9HD + 3 LA (template) = ECL 12, which is about the same ECL as a gold wyrmling. Based on the tables on page 138-139, you'd need to be a 12th level paladin to get an ECL 12 dragon as a mount.

However, if we're working with just the basic shark and Dragonborn of Bahumat won't work... well, the Feathered Wings graft (10000 GP, Fiend Folio) is kinda out the window (unless you're going the Blackguard route), and the draconic graft Buffeting Wings... *wow*, that's expensive (100000 GP, Races of the Dragon)!

As far as magic items, Wings of Flying (54000 GP, DMG) gets the job done, but is still extremely expensive. Winged Mask (13000 GP, Magic of Faerun p. 168) is about as cheap as you can get for at-will flying, but would just look silly on a shark... we want a shark with wings, not a glowing shark that floats around like some Mardi Gras refugee.

Another easy one... have your shark pick up the Animal Devotion feat (for example, when you first get the shark, it goes from 7HD to 9HD and gets a feat). Only works 1/day for 1 minute of overland flight, 40' (average), and unfortunately it can't use your turn undead attempts to get more. But other than Hengeyokai cranes/sparrows, this is the easiest way in the game to get a flight speed at ECL 1.

Share Soulmeld might work (Magic of Incarnum). There are several soulmelds that offer flight: Pegasus Cloak, for example, has the right look, but not a lot of speed, only 10' per essentia. You can get this to work with only two feats: Shape Soulmeld and Open Lesser Chakra (Shoulders), but this last feat isn't available until ECL 12. Airstep Sandals offers flight with Open Least Chakra at ECL 6, and offers better speed/maneuverability: 10' + 10'/essentia. However, you're left with the conundrum of trying to explain how a shark wears a pair of sky-blue sandals... Manticore Belt bound to the waist provides flight *and* Fly-By Attack, but as a greater chakra, wouldn't be available until higher levels... ECL 18 with Open Greater Chakra, or maybe around ECL 11-12 with Ironsoul Forgemaster. There's a 4th soulmeld that offers flight: Astral Vambraces (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20060217a) bound to your arms chakra lets you pick an ability from Astral Construct Menu A, which includes fly 20' (average), but this can't be increased with essentia.

There are other issues with Share Soulmeld, though... First, you can fly just as fast as your mount, so it's not like you're really riding it... more like, in Soviet Russia mount rides y-- ok, yeah, cheap joke. But more importantly, Share Soulmeld only works when your mount is within 5'. If you get separated or fall off your mount... you'd still be flying, but there's a good chance your mount is now several sticky squares of sushi-flavored roadpizza... so make sure it's got a few Feather Fall Talismans handy (50 GP, Sharn: City of Towers p. 170).