She is my strength (Help me find a good class/prc)

[Darksword]

Hello.
Beside dming I am also starting a new campagin as a player. It is a gestal campagin. I am playing a fighter type character.
He is a young stable hand for one of the wealthiest and powerfull familes in the land. Or he was until recently. He is devotted and a hard worker. He is completly devotted to the well being of the family. He has no family that is known. He speaks none about his path. He may be a orphan or a run away or worse. Despite his frail looking frame he is strong. This gained him a speacail postion: Gurdian. A gurdian is a role of a peasant with combat skill to protect the family. Unlike the role of a knight or other high level soldiers a gurdian is only for the peasant social class, tkaing this positon he is for ever bound to that class to serve his master. He is the gurdain to the young princess. He loves her and for that reason he never will show it. He will do anything he can to mkae her happy and safe. He starts adventuring on the request of his master to elimnate a evil threat. He starts questing despite not wanting to leave the princess;he kows me must. (she will later be kidnapped.).
So I am looking for class that would be apporiate for this character.
It is a gestal campagin. I am thinking Warblade or swordsage. The other class proably fighter or Barbarin. I am also looking for prestige classes.
Fighter and warblade/swordsage are self explantory: He is a fighter of some sort. He is self trained; his fighting style is powerful and he strikes with skill but it is simple; he achieved is power through years of nonstop trainging (wich he did ot protect his love).
Barbarin: Although he is discplined I wouldnt say he is completly lawful. And he loves nature. He is a refined high class person he is a basic natural guy. Untop of that theres rage. It would not be used alot; it would be the rage of love. He'll use it when either he is at the edge of defeat and he think of the princess he is reinvigoratedor when she is directly threatend.
I was also thinking about the samuari/master samuari class/prc. The class (CoW) doesnt realy fit mechanicly and both do not fit because of the lawful part but I can deal.
I was also thinking about the knight protector/Kensi.
I am looking for a prc who is a warrior who takes a vow to protect somethingand he gains power from that. Even better is thier is a prc who uses hte power of love. Homebrew would work as well. so if thiers something on this board or others let me know.

[Urpriest]

If you're doing Warblade (or Crusader, for the devotion theme, depending on what you want to do with it) why not consider a caster like Favored Soul for the other? A Favored Soul needs no special training, and is powered by their devotion.

[Darksword]

Thats a good point. But its not really devotion to a deity. Its devotion to a person and a concept. I will keep that in mind though

[marcielle]

Favored soul/Crusader of Love concept... I can see the battle cries already.
Exotic weapon master is nice. My favorites of it's tricks is full PA ratio on Kukris with half the penalty to TWF. Not as powerfull as a combat brute thingy but less feat heavey. Especially if you enter via ranger.

Dervishes. Just because.

Also, it should be noted that the ToB base clases are better than most other book meelee PrCs because of maneuvers. Take this into consideration.

[CyMage]

Crusaders must be devoted to something, be it a god or a concept. There can't be a true neutral crusader. Picking up some spellcasting on one side is a good idea though. Maybe not right away, but eventually once the character realizes that he needs magic to combat magic threats to his charge.

[A_S]

You and she should both take this class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216305).

[dspeyer]

There aren't a ton of mechanics for protecting someone. There's Knight's Test of Mettle and some Devoted Spirit maneuvers. Knight and Crusader are too similar to be a really effective gestalt. Maybe Knight 4 / Crusader 16 // something really different? You could probably get a homebrew feat that let you stack crusader levels for ToM dcs modeled on Song of the White Raven.

On the other side, sorcerer would be the obvious powerful option. Your love is so powerful reality itself bends to accommodate it.

If that doesn't fit the concept, scout maybe? Does the whole nature thing, and useful if your tracking a kidnapper. Martial study a little Tiger Claw so that you can keep moving and get skirmish damage.

[hex0]

Kensai doesn't suck as much in gestalt if you keep a full BAB on one side. Bard/Crusader entry?

Edit: Factotum/Knight 5, then Knight/Kensai. Take a bit stop for exemplar to boost your Concentration skill. Trip people that mess with you. Knight/Factotums are good with that. Possibly dip for Thicket of Blades

[A_S]

On the "protect others" theme, I was just reminded of this build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9208735&postcount=95) from an old Iron Chef Optimization Contest. The basic mechanic that's relevant here is the Good Karma feat, which lets you burn a luck reroll to have an attack that targets someone target you instead. You can then use other Luck feats and classes like Mythic Exemplar (the Secret Ingredient from that IC contest) to get lots of luck rerolls, and use whatever means you want to make yourself hard to hit, and then soak all the attacks meant for everybody else.

Another example build:


Human (32 point buy)
Str: 12
Dex: 10
Con: 14
Int: 12
Wis: 6
Cha: 18

Flaws: Shaky, Pathetic (Wis)

1 - Favored Soul 1 - Knowledge Devotion, Good Karma, Heighten Spell, Extend Spell
2 - Favored Soul 2
3 - Favored Soul 3 - Improved Counterspell
4 - Favored Soul 4 - Cha 19
5 - Church Inquisitor 1
6 - Fortune's Friend 1 - Persistent Spell, Lucky Start
7 - Fortune's Friend 2
8 - Sacred Exorcist 1 - Cha 20
9 - Mythic Exemplar 1 - Divine Defiance
10 - Mythic Exemplar 2
11 - Mythic Exemplar 3
12 - Mythic Exemplar 4 - DMM (persist), Cha 21
13 - Mythic Exemplar 5
14 - Mythic Exemplar 6
15 - Mythic Exemplar 7 - Extra Turning
16 - Mythic Exemplar 8 - Cha 22
17 - Church Inquisitor 2
18 - Church Inquisitor 3 - Extra Turning
19 - Church Inquisitor 4
20 - Sacred Exorcist 2 - Cha 23

-Casts and fights as a level 18 Favored Soul.
-Counterspells as an immediate action (no readying needed) via Divine Defiance (and can always counter any spell 8th level or lower with a higher level spell slot, due to Heighten Spell + Improved Counterspell).
-Uses luck rerolls to redirect attacks meant for party members to herself.

Basically a giant no-button to melee, ranged, and caster alike, while also being a (slightly toned down) CoDzilla.

[jiriku]

A protector class would probably be the best place to start. Crusader is hands down the best and easiest to use for this purpose. Crusader also has some "I'm really angry and I'm going to do something heroic now" maneuvers, which you can save for special occasions. Warblade or barbarian would be alright choices, but those classes typically make poor guardians, so they're second-best.

For the other side of the gestalt, a Charisma-based caster makes the most sense, both because crusaders get special benefits from high Charisma, and because your character sounds more like a confident guy with a forceful personality, and not so much like a bookish guy with an Einstein brain. And he's clearly not got Wisdom, or he'd have told her how he feels and never let circumstances pull them apart, right? :smalltongue: Favored Soul or sorcerer would indeed be good choices. If you have access to the Book of Exalted Deeds, look at the sanctified spells in that book - many of them are themed around the protection of loved ones, and they can be learned by either of those two classes.

If you're looking at homebrewed alternative to the crusader, you might consider my knight-paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187700) class, or my remixed fighter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194834) with the watchful fighting style alternate class feature. Both are strong defenders with abilities that can be used to protect allies. If you're looking for something more unusual, my soulcrafter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215075) class is a strong martial character who makes his own magic items on the fly. It has a lot of versatility, but you'll need to have access to the Magic Item Compendium in order to really take advantage of it.

For homebrewed alternatives to a favored soul or sorcerer, I highly recommend Benly's divine soul (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=192302) class. It lets you pick a bunch of different domains - whatever you want, really, so you can select domains that suit your theme, or that contain spells that suit your theme.

[dgnslyr]

I think clerics are allowed to, in place of a deity, put their faith into an ideal. I don't see why your cleric can't find his faith in a person. Perhaps an onlooking deity sees his noble plight and grants him some divine casting, in hopes that he succeeds and doesn't make a fool out of himself? I made a Ruby Knight Windicator whose source of divine casting was something like that.

[darkdragoon]

Maquar Crusader (Shining South) has similar motifs to the Crusader but a lot of it overlaps with Devoted Spirit.

[jaybird]

Just as a note, the Pathfinder Oracle is pretty much that - a spontaneous version of the Cleric who doesn't get his powers from single gods, but rather from broad ideals.