Halp! - Dragon Shaman3/Marshal 4 / ?????

[JoeYounger]

Hey guys, I have a question. I'm currently playing a Dragon Shaman 3 Marshal 4, in a low op campaign. We play a mashup of 3.5 and pathfinder, and my concept so far has been, wear lots of armor, give buffs, and tank **** with a combination of intimidate for demoralize and the Goad feat. I had planned on going pally for the next 13 levels, but it is appearent now that my party wouldn't mesh well with a pally and since they were here first I've decided not to cause a problems.

So my question is, "what do?"

I'm sitting stat wise at a

+4
+1
+4
+1
+1
+5

So I could go crusader from ToB to still take advantage of the tank idea, but I've never played ToB before and don't know that I care to learn and then explain the manuver system to my whole party. I'm also a bit worried they'd cry about me being too OP if I was able to tank, dps and heal myself.

Like I said, I'm playing this toon on account of him being almost completly support. He can tank and buff, but not really contribute dmg wise, so I'd kinda like to find something CHA based to keep with the support line, but I'm thinking that only really leaves Bard, and Favored Soul as real options. I suppose I'd not be too opposed to either of those, but at the same time, I'm a bit worried they might be too sub par.

Thoughts? Advice? I've never seen a FS in action, but I've never been a fan of sorcerors so I cant imagine I'd enjoy it too much, but at the same time, I just played a bard and dont really wanna play another one. I thought about continuing with Dragon Shaman or maybe Dragonfire Adept to work on some breath atks, but even that seems... lacking.

Do any of you know of any class variants that base a class off of CHA?

Thoughts? Opinions? Halp?

[Urpriest]

Have you considered the other types of Pally? Pally of Freedom isn't all that likely to clash with most parties, unless they like being evil rather frequently. With Dragon content you can even go for a neutral Pally.

[Tokuhara]

Dragon Lord from Dragon Magic? Moar Auras, decent class features, Intimidation and Dragon themed, and FULL BAB. Means you can sit in melee for a little while, kick some heads in, and demoralize EVERYTHING

[SamBurke]

Crusader is solid T3, unless you're going to massively over-optimize it, which is hard enough anyway, and I don't think you'd do that to your group. So don't worry about it; just be useful (DS/Marshal ISN'T really...) to your group.

[JoeYounger]

Have you considered the other types of Pally? Pally of Freedom isn't all that likely to clash with most parties, unless they like being evil rather frequently. With Dragon content you can even go for a neutral Pally.

I actually haven't. Lol, I'm considered the power gamer of my group, but I'm extremely ignorant compared to some of the veterans of this board. I haven't ever really looked at the pally variants. All sources allowed as long as we dont go too overboard, so I'll take a look at the pally variants. You'd not happen to know where a few of em are would you?


Dragon Lord from Dragon Magic? Moar Auras, decent class features, Intimidation and Dragon themed, and FULL BAB. Means you can sit in melee for a little while, kick some heads in, and demoralize EVERYTHING

Oooh! I'll go grab my laptop now and take a look at that. It sounds really good!

Thanks for the help guys!


Crusader is solid T3, unless you're going to massively over-optimize it, which is hard enough anyway, and I don't think you'd do that to your group. So don't worry about it; just be useful (DS/Marshal ISN'T really...) to your group.

Haha, I realize that DS/M isn't an awesome build or anything, but it works well for our group. I have called armor so I can sneak around with our scouts and give em +5 to stealth, give everyone +5 init, and fast healing for half their HP since our healer is a druid who has a DPS first mentality.

[Darrin]

Hey guys, I have a question. I'm currently playing a Dragon Shaman 3 Marshal 4, in a low op campaign.


With all those auras... you're just kind of begging to go into Dragon Lord (Dragon Magic). Dragon Shaman 4/Marshal 4/Dragon Lord 10 would work, although I'm a little fuzzy if Dragon Shaman and Dragon Lord's draconic auras would stack. I'm very puzzled why the Dragon Lord write-up doesn't even mention Dragon Shaman at all, unless the designer was specifically trying to rework the Dragon Shaman into something more... uh, "palatable". (I'm trying to be diplomatic here... but there are too many circumstance modifiers stacking up against me.)



We play a mashup of 3.5 and pathfinder, and my concept so far has been, wear lots of armor, give buffs, and tank **** with a combination of intimidate for demoralize and the Goad feat.


The typical intimidate/demoralize builds use Zhentarim Fighter or CWar Samurai, but I think you're a little too far into this build for those to help much at this point.




I had planned on going pally for the next 13 levels, but it is appearent now that my party wouldn't mesh well with a pally and since they were here first I've decided not to cause a problems.


There are a few umpteen-gazillion paladin variants for different alignments. Paladin of Freedom or Paladin of Tyranny won't work?



So I could go crusader from ToB to still take advantage of the tank idea, but I've never played ToB before and don't know that I care to learn and then explain the manuver system to my whole party. I'm also a bit worried they'd cry about me being too OP if I was able to tank, dps and heal myself.


Let them cry. Crusader does everything you want to do, and they're the simplest of the three ToB base classes to run once you get used to their recovery mechanic.



Like I said, I'm playing this toon on account of him being almost completly support. He can tank and buff, but not really contribute dmg wise, so I'd kinda like to find something CHA based to keep with the support line, but I'm thinking that only really leaves Bard, and Favored Soul as real options.


Try Beguiler + Prestige Bard.

[EDIT] Gah! Torrent of Swordsages!

[Urpriest]

I actually haven't. Lol, I'm considered the power gamer of my group, but I'm extremely ignorant compared to some of the veterans of this board. I haven't ever really looked at the pally variants. All sources allowed as long as we dont go too overboard, so I'll take a look at the pally variants. You'd not happen to know where a few of em are would you?


All the non-dragon magazine ones are in Unearthed Arcana. They're also on the online SRD if you don't have access to the book. They've got one for each of the extreme alignments: CG, LE, and CE. Depending on your group, one should fit.

[MesiDoomstalker]

All the non-dragon magazine ones are in Unearthed Arcana. They're also on the online SRD if you don't have access to the book. They've got one for each of the extreme alignments: CG, LE, and CE. Depending on your group, one should fit.

From personal expierence, CG-Freedom is the easiest to get along with in a Good party. Your a slighlty more righteous Good character that won't associate with evil. Gotta love chaos hatting rules. CE-Slaughter and LG-Regular seem also to be the most difficult to play properly and get along with a group. Either uptight, stick-in-the-bum LG Paladin or Chaotic Stupid destroying everything wantonlessly.

[kulosle]

i second the beguiler and prestigious bard. great fun to be had for all. and if you start IC optimizing you can be the best thing to ever happen to your party.

[hex0]

Dragon Shaman and Marshal together seems a bit redundant. Go straight Copper Dragon Shaman. At will spider climb up stuff and breath on people. Take Entangling Exhalation of course.

Edit: If you can get Dragon Devotee to increase your breath weapon damage, it is also a decent choice.