Optimization questions for a Bard/Paladin/Gray Guard/Virtuoso

[the Blue Morpho]

A buddy of mine is starting up the second chapter of an epic 3.5 campaign designed by himself and he has allowed everyone to retool and tweak their characters. (Mostly to eliminate some grievous errors such as homebrew classes and some silly house. Overall bringing the game to be more "by the books")
We will be approx. level 15. We are allowed most books accept campaign setting books such as Forgotten Realms.

My character is coming back from the dead, from hell, so I have a little more freedom than most with my retraining. However, one thing that cannot be altered is the race, Halfling.

Don't hit the back button! Although Halfling isnt the best for this kind of thing, it is mitigated by a feat that the DM has allowed from a 3.0 book, Lanky, which removes the Halfling's strength penalty (and AC bonus) by making the character a medium sized creature.

I'm not to sure on the level spread of each class, for that matter I am not sure if I want Virtuoso, given it would be a 1 level dip to recover fascinate if I take Healing Hymn. So it's either:

Bard?/Paladin5-8/Gray Guard?
or
Bard ?/Virtuoso1/Paladin5-8/Gray Guard?

I have feats pretty much planned to 18, and am sure on some variant features, so I'll show you what I have so far and point out what I am unsure of. Constructive suggestions and recomendations are highly welcomed and appreciated.

Feats:

1st level) Lanky [Halflings without the downside!]
3rd level) Good Devotion or Draconic Aura:Vigor [DR/evil and Good aligned weapons or a decent fast heal for between fights]
4 Holy Warrior) Improved Smite [smites are Good aligned and deal1d6 extra damage]
6th level) Words of Creation [a couple dice of subdual damage to double inspire courage's base bonus]
8 Holy Warrior*) Divine Censure [Devil's will fear my holy symbol]
9th level) Devoted Performer [I smite as often and as hard as a full level paladin! I sing as often as a full level bard!]
12th level) Initiate of Milil [I have all my bard songs despite paladin levels!]
15th level) Arcane Strike [Who needs to be a Duskblade? I can channel arcanna into my smites!]
18th level) Lyric Spell [Oops, arcane strike made me run out of spells... Guess I'll just have to emulate them with a song.]

*Dependant on taking Paladin to level 8

Definite Variants:

Paladin
Harmonious Knight (Champions of Valor) [Definitely level 1, I dont need detect evil with another paladin in the party and it boosts inspire courage another point.]
Holy Warrior (Complete Champion) [Definitely level 4 for improved smite. Supplementing a couple paladin spells with Bard spellcasting works better for me]
Rebuke Dragons (Dragon Magic) [We fight lots of dragons and have two others that Turn Undead]
Charging Smite (PHBII) [I <3 charging and mounts are a logistical nightmare]

Bard
Spellbreaker song (Complete Mage) [Exactly what Countersong should be]


Possible Variants:
Healing Hymn (Complete Champion) [Lose fascinate to be able to Improve healing spells in area and make resting more beneficial. Can easily regain fascinate with 1 level of virtuoso]
Harmonious Knight (Champions of Valor) [level 6 replaces the Paladin's Remove Disease with Inspire Competence.Obviously, Inspire competence from two classes does not stack, so if this were taken we would also have to take...]
...Hymn of Fortification (Complete Champion) [Replace the bard's inspire competence, since we have it from HK, with a song of protection from evil! Weee!]

That's about it. I havent put anythought into itemization (Accept for a Songblade Heavypick) or spell list (Though I would prefer to have up to at least 4th level bard spells)

Thanks for reading and for your comments!

[eggs]

Grey Guards are like Paladins, but with the semi-useful class features sacrificed in order not to risk class features by falling. On a Paladin build, I'd rather take Grey Guard than just over half of the NPC class options... that's really the best thing I can say about it.

Arcane Strike and Lyric Spell suck massive proportions of your daily resources (you don't have a lot of spells, or a lot of music) for very little yield. Investing those feats into either improving Bardic Music/casting (via Song of the Heart, Melodic Casting, Dragonfire Inspiration, Practiced Spellcaster, etc.) or combat (via Knowledge Devotion, Law Devotion, Power Attack, Shock Trooper, etc.) would have much better results.

On a level 8 Paladin, Improved Smite is +1d6 damage 2 times per day. Rhino's Rush is +40ish damage 2 times a day. You might want to rethink Holy Warrior.

The Lanky feat sounds like it's trading the main advantage of Halfling (medium mounted combat), and attaching a cost. If you weren't ruling out mounted combat, I'd say it wasn't worth a feat. In this case it's probably worth it for the reach.

Is Song of the Heart available? It's in Ebberon Campaign Setting; it can be selected as an alternative to Inspire Competence for Bards who already have it (Harmonious Knight could make this one such case).

As far as Virtuoso, it's not a bad class in general, but it doesn't help in melee, which looks like where you plan on being.

Using the components of your proposed build, I'd just go Bard 13/Paladin 2. This would maximize the returns on Devoted Performer, have the same number of attacks per round as a straightclassed Paladin at its level, maintain 5th level spells, have excellent skills and still milk Bard-level-dependent abilities (like Bardic Knack and a Crystal Echoblade) pretty efficiently.

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With this concept and this high of a starting level, my take would be something like Divine Bard 6/Knight of the Raven 6/Ordained Champion 3 for 5th level Bard spells, 13 BA, lots of daily Turning/Smites and abilities that meaningfully improve combat capabilities (more flexible spell channeling than the Duskblade, the ability to prevent free 5ft steps, some bonus feats, reasonable inspire courage).

Or Paladin of Freedom 4/Warchanter 5/Warrior Skald 1/Hellreaver 5 for a nice Charisma-heavy build with full BA, impenetrable saves+Mettle, excellent music (all Bard Songs, decent Inspire courage, a Heedless Charge-like song and the ability to combine Bardic Music) as well as Turning for devotion/divine feats and paladin spell access to permit the use of various wands. Would require Harmonious Knight or From Smite to Song to qualify for Warchanter.

[the Blue Morpho]

Couple of things I should have mentioned before. ToB is off the table because of shenanigans from a swordsage player and we are using the spell points variant (with DM altered spellpoint values to make it worth the time).

I can't believe I forgot about Melodic Casting, thanks for the spot! That'll go nicely in place of Lyric Spell.

I was not aware of Rhino's Rush and it looks rather tasty, I'll have to reconsider Holy Warrior, though Improved smiting would be lost. I could use Arcane Disciple in place of Good Devotion/Draconic Aura to gain the Wrath Domain?

Eberron is definitely not available (DM allergies), so Song of the Heart is off the table.

As for Virtuoso, Im' willing to take the hit to BAB if Healing Hymn is worth it. (We have a large 9 player group with only a cumulative healing ability of about two Clerics) If not then Virtuoso is pointless without the need to recover Fascinate.

Im still waiting to hear back from the DM how he will handle Bardic Knowledge. Should I just go with Bardic Knack as a safe bet?

Warrior Skald seems fun just by the sound of it, but, alas, Faerun makes it a no go.
Hellreaver fits perfectly with the theme, however mechanicly it's lacking a kind of synergy.
Warchanter though... Recklessness and Combine songs looks great! It's a shame there is absolutely 0 spell advancement however, even during those dead levels.

I'm thinking start with Bard 10/Harmonious Knight 4/Gray Guard 1 then take it to B12/HK6/GG2

[Red_Dog]

I do apologies in advance for TL-DRing you here... but.

If you character is coming back from the dead... and busting out of 9 Hells..

You could, fully justifiably go Chaotic Good[exact opposite of the environment hat condemned you to endless torture followed by soul theft followed by making you into a Lemur [I am guessing things didn't get past a lovely chaindevil's ball'O'fun ? its a torture machine from Fiendish Codex II]... Now if you do this alignment jump you could go Paladin of Freedom+Barbarian going into Hell Reaver. Hell Reaver comes from Fiendish Codex 2 and its quite flavorful class that gives you fullBAB, and a lot of selfhealing & ally healing gimmicks alogside with some other anti-fiend boons.

But its just a suggestion ^^

P.S. I didn't fully TL-DR you, I have read Gray Guards and while their flavor could potentially be cool [Punisher-esk characters], their ability's don't shine much. You could take some Incarnum feats to augment you smite[Sapphire Smite gradually gives u a LOT more smites] or your Healing Hands[that will also help harming hands].

If you going Gray Guard due to ability to kinda [B]"smite anything", You could perhaps focus on smiting with feats that help it? Sapphire Smite[or Extra Smites if Incarnum is no go] & Awesome Smite might help out in a long run. If you are NOT planning on using a Horse or variation of horse, take charging Smite. The best smiting builds IMO are w/ Killoren because they have there own smite that can be used once per encounter.

P.S.2 and remember, as usual => PA+IBR+Shock-Trooper! ^^

P.S.3. What do you mean, HellReaver lacks synergy?O_o most of the things you can do key of the Charisma. HellReaver's everything keys of the Charisma. This seems like a synergy to me ^^. The one bad thing about Hellreaver is that it doesn't advance turning attempts so you could grab Divine Might and pump Charisma into damage. You could just go thru Nightsticks like thru Doritos, but that will damage you WBL unless you could have a temple supplying them via truckload ^^.

[the Blue Morpho]

I do apologies in advance for TL-DRing you here... but.

If you character is coming back from the dead... and busting out of 9 Hells..

You could, fully justifiably go Chaotic Good[exact opposite of the environment hat condemned you to endless torture followed by soul theft followed by making you into a Lemur [I am guessing things didn't get past a lovely chaindevil's ball'O'fun ? its a torture machine from Fiendish Codex II]... Now if you do this alignment jump you could go Paladin of Freedom+Barbarian going into Hell Reaver. Hell Reaver comes from Fiendish Codex 2 and its quite flavorful class [be it a bit simple] that gives you fullBAB, and a lot of selfhealing & ally healing gimmicks alogside with some other anti-fiend boons.

...

P.S.3. What do you mean, HellReaver lacks synergy?O_o most of the things you can do key of the Charisma. HellReaver's everything keys of the Charisma. This seems like a synergy to me ^^. The one bad thing about Hellreaver is that it doesn't advance turning attempts so you could grab Divine Might and pump Charisma into damage. You could just go thru Nightsticks like thru Doritos, but that will damage you WBL unless you could have a temple supplying them via truckload ^^.

As far as the build you've put forward it still lacks the bardic edge, specificly in the keep allies from harm instead of healing after being harmed.

Hellreaver lacks synergy in that it wouldnt count in the devoted Performer and Initiate of Milil feats. Gray Guard can be considered for that because it is a direct stack with Paladin levels.

With only two levels of GG i'd mostly only be in it for the ability to be a paladin that bend the rules of the code of conduct and for debilitating touch. Sicken is a wicked status affliction.