Marshal Help.

[King-Strawberry]

A political intrigue game is starting and I want to play a martial, unfortunately, I have no idea where to start.
stats are 16, 14, 14, 13, 12, 9 (lvl 4 boost already included)
starting lvl 5
Race human.
I would really appreciate some build, or just general advice. Goal for the char is good at political intrigue (major game focus) but still able to hold his own in combat.

[Gavinfoxx]

Marshal is kinda known as a somewhat weak class. It's pretty good at Leadership though, but not much else.

What do you want your character to be good at?

What sources do you have?

Presumably as a Marshal, you want to be a Leader of Men?

I would point you to the two leadership handbooks..

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3065.0

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8817.0

And I would perhaps rethink the idea that the Marshal class should be the majority of your concept.

[Socratov]

I'd say, dip for the skillfocus diplo, go into bard next, it is the ultimate baseclass for political intrigue, and when you can, go into master of masks and discuss with your DM if you can refluff the masks a bit, so you can fit the masks more into the theme...

I believe in a certain iron chef competition the master of masks featured as the ingredient...

[gbprime]

Marshall has a very narrow use as a skill monkey build, so you can make it work as long as you're not trying to compete next to a well built cleric or wizard. So put your 16 into Charisma and let's get to work.

Minor Auras - The first two to pick up are Motivate Charisma and Master of Tactics. This adds your CHA bonus to CHA skills (effectively double dipping plus your skill focus) for not just yourself but your allies as well, so if your friends include a Bard or Beguiler, they will adore you. You're also adding your CHA bonus to you and all your friends damage rolls when flanking anyone in combat, and that's the most widely useful combat ability you can get with a minor aura.

Major Auras - these are less useful due to the bonus being so low. Ask your DM if the Draconic Aura feat (Dragon Magic) is available to you, as this would add the Dragon Shaman's auras to the list you can choose from, and those ARE useful despite the small bonus.

If you want to collect more Auras and bump your Major Aura bonus to +2, you stay in the class until at least 7th level. Otherwise you ride Marshall to 4th and then jump to another class to grab some synergy and more abilities.

Rogue and Bard are good choices if your group doesn't have one, Factotum is great for skills and versatility, Urban Ranger is good if you're going to be battling factions in your campaign, even Battle Dancer (Dragon Mag Compendium) is useful for the CHA synergy if you don't mind giving up your armor and shield.

Classes that might look good at first but won't be particularly useful to you... Swashbuckler (while otherwise a good choice, you dont have the stats to support the "INT to Damage" bonus), Sorcerer/Beguiler (you're losing so many levels that it's not worth more than just 1 level of these guys for the access to scrolls and stuff),

Setting specific classes that might help... Noble Adventurer of Cormyr (Dragon Mag 307) and Citadel Elite (Sharn, City of Towers... and try to pretend the errata for the class doesn't exist!!).

[King-Strawberry]

The game is also quite low magic, so many of those dips I wouldn't be able to do anyway, as cool as MoM sounds I'll have to let that sit for some other time probably. :smallannoyed:

Factotem is a possibility, but the party already has both a rogue and a bard, so I don't really want to step on any toes.

[Voyager_I]

Don't forget Motivate Dexterity! It works on Initiative checks, and giving the entire party your Charisma bonus to initiative is a fantastic deal. It's probably the best part of the Marshal class unless you're built around Diplomacy.

[nedz]

So you want to make a two trick pony.
Your group sounds low OP, so I will suggest ideas accordingly.

You will need to make some investment if you want to be useful in melle, but since political intrigue is all about cha and wis based skills - you need these stats at low level, and skill points at all levels.

Sounds like a cocktail of 4 levels of marshal and 4 levels of something martial is what you are looking for. I'm not sure where you would want to go above here - that depends upon the game really.

Maybe you could make a tripper and use the minor aura Art of War to add Cha to your trip chance ? This doesn't take too many feats.

How about alternating levels of Marshal and Paladin ? Reasonably Cha synergy but maybe that doesn't appeal.

Fighter is good for feats, but rubbish for skills - how about Thug Fighter though ? These get 4+ skill points per level plus a few useful class skills - all for the cost of your 1st level feat. You could always add Able Learner or something for the other skills.

Personaly I wouldn't worry about stepping on someone else's toes simply for playing a character of the same class, there are many ways to develop characters which use the same base class but are very different. Especially for Rogues and Bard, most especially Bard.

[Red_Dog]

I actually like Marshal as a class... for maybe 5 lvls.

Marshal has dead levels, med BAB and aura progression that is way to slow for my liking. Be that as it may, by lvl 5, you do get 3 Minor auras, which is rather great.

My suggestion =>

Give up on 1-20. There are just no class features to be gained. Instead consider Marshals base for =>

============================================>
Warchanter hybrid of some kind.
>Few lvls of marshal with few levels perhaps of that singing Paladin ACF that I have been hearing about. This makes you a VERY competent fighter that relies on charisma and has ok skill list. Warchanter himself is actually rather cool PrC that uses a high charisma score well. You would also be able to boost allies well.

Marshal Crusher or Marshal Tripper
>Taking say 6lvls of fighter makes a great dungeon crusher that can use [[I]Art of War minor aura I believe?] to boost bullrushes w/ charisma.
>Taking SOME lvls in fighter makes you an ok tripper using the same idea of applying your charisma to trip attempts.
============================================>

That is really all I can remember = \ I mean you can always hybrid up with a Bard, Sorc, Wilder[psionic sorc-ish full caster] or anyone who has charisma as a stat.

You could put emphasis on some skill use like UMDing or Diplomacy.

You could try PrC into Scarlet Corsair [though at later than lvl6 due to bab] using say a sneak attacking fighter from UA to double your charisma to mass intimidate attempts. Though it would mean that at best you get there at like lvl12... and at this point intimidating might go out of style with a lot of enemies being outright immune to this tactic...

P.S. Don't forget that for social skills your charisma aura essentially doubles your charisma bonus to your skills ^^
P.S.2. You could also take up a wild idea of playing a Medusa Marshal... Because you are starting at lvl5... You might ask for a "scaled down version" or at least to not complete savage species progression that Medusas get. This way you would have a sneaky conniving character who's main attack depends on charisma. Savage species also have a LOT of feats for gaze attacks (ok maybe not a lot, but SOME feats). ^^

Good luck! ^^

[Gavinfoxx]

The game is also quite low magic, so many of those dips I wouldn't be able to do anyway, as cool as MoM sounds I'll have to let that sit for some other time probably. :smallannoyed:

Factotem is a possibility, but the party already has both a rogue and a bard, so I don't really want to step on any toes.

If there is a Bard, the game isn't THAT low magic... Bards are pretty good spellcasters, you know?

And for a skill focused, political intrigue game where all the big casting classes are banned... you are GOING to be stepping on toes. Just suck it up and do it, you know? Play a Crusader, Warblade, Factotum, or if the DM allows it, a Beguiler or something.

[TurtleKing]

If race is mutable may I direct you to a different kind of human? The Illumian from Races of Destiny works quite well for this due to the sigils. Is possible to get a +2 to all skills of upto three stats. Another thing is they interact weirdly to magical script. Such if encountered an Explosive Runes and lower level than the caster level has greater effect on the Illumian. By same token if same or higher than the caster level they are immune. With a political intrigue campaign expect to come across documents, texts, tomes, and letters more often so possibly being immune to an Explosive Runes letter bomb is handy. Another trait is Illumians are always educated even if Barbarian. Add on designed to multi-class freely can help. Example is can multiclass in and out of Monk or Paladin without penalty.

If did get Factotum in there for the general flexi-ability can add Int mod to Str and Dex skill and ability checks. Depending on how much Marshal plays into the build have either a 14 or the 16 in at the start. Factotums are jack or all trades so able to have a few choice SLAs will help.

Look into Races of Destiny as it also as a city theme to it.

[King-Strawberry]

If there is a Bard, the game isn't THAT low magic... Bards are pretty good spellcasters, you know?

And for a skill focused, political intrigue game where all the big casting classes are banned... you are GOING to be stepping on toes. Just suck it up and do it, you know? Play a Crusader, Warblade, Factotum, or if the DM allows it, a Beguiler or something.

He's playing a variant that gets maneuvers instead of spells I believe. VERY low magic.

I definitely wasn't planning on going martial 20, just using it for the base.

[King-Strawberry]

Also, the singing paladin sounds cool, anyone happen to have the link? Seems like that would be a really interesting fun build.

[kardar233]

That would be the Harmonious Knight substitution level, which I believe is in the web enhancement for Champions of Valor.