Help me optimize my gangsta rapping Paladin!

[calighis]

It's my job to design the party leader and I am playing with guys who love over the top munchkin builds. I have to one up them here and show them a character that is min/maxed to the hilt.
This is who I want to play.
I envision playing a battle rapping Warrior Skald type of paladin who can both tank and provide huge buffs for the party. the battle rapping part is not strictly necessary and it might end up being something I just do in character so that I can actually have fun playing a paladin, because without a ridiculous goody two shoes doing gangsta style raps about the importance of being a good Samaritan, I wouldn't have any fun playing a paladin.

I have 11 levels to play with and starting gold 19,363, +1 full plate, +1 heavy steel shield, ring of protection + 1 and +1 melee weapon of my choice.
must worship a forgotten realms god.
The DM is pretty liberal All 3.5 books are open to me and he is willing to bend the rules to make a good character build happen.
One more thing to keep in mind, this campaign is being built around lots of mass combats and large amounts of enemies to slay at once, so mass effects vs large groups would be helpful, and we will be fighting lots of evil stuff so a smite build would obviously rock socks. Buff builds work best here because I am playing in a party of tanks and semi tanks we have a swashbuckling dervish, a half ogre war hulk, a human berserker and a battle cleric of tempest.

[Lord Ruby34]

Well, crusader usually works well as a tier three paladin analog, or if you dislike maneuvers, you could try the Paladin in my signature or any other number of homebrew Paladins.

Or if you like the standard Pally, you could try for a charging build.

[Keld Denar]

Harmonious Knight Pally sub levels are what you want. They are in the Champions of Valor web enhancement here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a).

Basically, you trade Detect Ebil for Inspire Courage. IC is the strongest bardic music, ironically available at level 1.

Other things you want to do...swing your +Cha at people. Battle rapping is very important, so you want to have a big +Cha, and you want to know how to use it. Power Attack + Divine Might gives you something to do with those otherwise worthless Turn Undead uses, and give you +Cha to damage for a round/TU spent. Make sure you diss your foe thoroghly before applying +Cha to damage...lyrically.

Finally, invest in ranks in Perform: Fresh Prince. Keep it clean for the kiddies, but let the world know you mean business!

[Flickerdart]

Harmonious Knight's IC sucks, because it's only +1, ever. Initiate of Milil and Devoted Performer could work - the former stacks Bard and Paladin levels for accessing new songs, the latter stacks Bard and Paladin levels for number of songs per day - so a Bard 1/Paladin 19 would have the full singing abilities of a 20th level Bard would still have unscaled Inspire Courage.

I would second Crusader, especially since Song of the White Raven allows you to stack Crusader and Bard levels for Inspire Courage potency.

[NNescio]

Bardsader (Bard/Crusader) build that uses Song of the White Raven?

You can go Chaotic Good and literally gangsta rap with ranks in Perform: Singing.

Edit: Ah, swordsage'd.

[Herabec]

Finally, invest in ranks in Perform: Fresh Prince. Keep it clean for the kiddies, but let the world know you mean business!

You, sir, win the internet. :smallbiggrin:

[Fouredged Sword]

Could you go Harmonious Knight Paladin 1 / Crusader 19 with song of the white raven to be both full bab and get level - 1 IC power? Your crusader levels stack with your non-existant bard levels.

[Alejandro]

Make sure your holy symbol is a turntable. Zigga zigga what?

[Flickerdart]

Could you go Harmonious Knight Paladin 1 / Crusader 19 with song of the white raven to be both full bab and get level - 1 IC power? Your crusader levels stack with your non-existant bard levels.
Nope. The Harmonious Knight never gets the Bardic Music class feature, because WotC is bad at consistent editing. Initiate of Milil is more open to interpretation: since it doesn't actually require anything Bardic, you can take it as a Paladin 4, then you are granted Bardic Music, then you can take Song of the White Raven, which improves your bonus. In fact, since IC is the only scaling music, the three feats (Devoted Performer, Initiate of Milil and Song of the White Raven) on a Paladin 4/Crusader 16 chassis would give you 4 Bardic Music/day, with a full Inspire Courage bonus.

[calighis]

so according to your interpretation I don't have to take a single level of bard and still get Bardic music? That's a lot to swallow.

[Flickerdart]

It's not especially clear-cut, that much is true, but the interpretation that you can is a valid one. Do note that with just Initiate of Milil, you get no Bardic Music uses, so it's useless to you without Devoted Performer or another way of getting them.

[Dr.Epic]

Paladins don't rap. Only samurais (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYPFwWS9YYo) can do that.:smallwink:

[deuxhero]

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html