Paladin King Build

[Eita]

Pretty self-explanatory, my adventuring party has decided that the friendly paladin (me) should unite and conquer Fantasy Germany. We're level 5 right now, but the DM is allowing retraining for everything including ability scores and even race using 32 point buy for a bit longer (the exact cut-off was "when you've beaten three dungeons") so it's not as much of an issue.

All books are open, all of them, including the incredibly cheesy unbalanced Quintessential series of books.

Right now I'm looking at Paladin 5/Purple Dragon Knight (CW) 5/Cavalier (CW) X/Sovereign King (QP) Y. Xs and Ys because I can't take Sovereign King until crowned, it's only a 5 level prestige so I intended to fill in the blank space with levels of Cavalier until crowned. Obviously, this is incredibly unoptimized.

Current build is straight human Paladin 5 with the Holy Warrior option from I think Complete Champion.

[HunterOfJello]

Bard / Evangelist


If he's supposed to go into battle them some levels in Legendary Commander (HoB) could be useful.

Crusader fits the Kingly types much better than Paladin does. Paladins are far too obligated to their causes to consider becoming kings.

[Eita]

The Paladin's cause is relieving suffering.

[Thurbane]

I'd look into the Legendary Leader PrC in Heroes of Battle, if you have access. It seems like a pretty good fit for this type of build, and it's only 5 levels long.

P.S. Don't let people talk you out of Paladin if that's what you want to play. The Paladin is a very strong D&D archetype with a long tradition in the game, and even though other classes can fill a similar niche while being mechanically stronger, many people (myself included) believe that they don't truly capture the "essence" of Paladinhood. :smallamused:

[Zonugal]

What books/resources do you have available?

But off the top of my head what about a build like this?

Human Paladin 4/Crusader 1

It'll get you +5 BaB, abilities (Aura of Good, Smite Evil, Lay on Hands, Aura of Courage, Divine Health, Turn Undead and more) as well as 2nd-level maneuvers (which you can have be predominantly White Raven as to provide boosts to allies/troops).

For variants Harmonious Knight (swap Detect Evil for Inspire Courage [like a Bard]) can help in providing bonuses to your allies/troops and Red Falcon (swap Divine Grace & 3 uses of Turn Undead for Brilliant Strategy (increase AC by Cha mod for 1 round), Military Knowledge (x2), Expanded Spell List (augury, deatwatch, status)) allows you to really play up the military-side of being a Paladin. Both variants are out of Champion of Valor. Should you add two more levels of Paladin you gain one more one more boost to your Military Knowledge as well as the ability to train a local militia (which is an awesome ability for any king).

This type of character is a battle-born king who inspires his troops in addition to fighting with them.

Thoughts?

[Piggy Knowles]

Zonugal's suggestions are pretty sound. Paladin 4/Crusader 1 is a nice start. That said...

1. The Harmonious Knight substitution levels are actually found in the Champions of Valor web enhancement, not the main book, so don't feel like you're going crazy if you can't find it in the book. You can download it here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a

2. There is a bit of a flavor clash between the Red Falcon substitution levels and the Harmonious Knight levels. They represent two different knightly orders, the Order of the Red Falcon (dedicated to the Red Knight), and the Harmonious Order (serving Melil). I don't know that there's technically any restriction keeping you from being a member of both orders, but it's a little awkward.

3. On its own, the Harmonious Knight sub levels are cool but don't scale well. The inspire courage effect never increases past +1. However, they DO qualify you for having bardic music, which is quite nice since it allows you to take feats and items that require it.

Even better, though, is the feat From Smite to Song (also from Champions of Valor, also requires you to be part of the Harmonious Order). This lets you trade a smite attempt for inspire courage that scales with your paladin levels. Not THAT useful if you plan on PrCing out as soon as possible, but if not, it's actually a darned good trade - you can pretty easily tweak out inspire courage to provide bonuses close to what smiting would get you, only instead of just working for one attack and being contingent on alignment, it works for the entire party, lasts the whole combat, and even works on enemies that normally couldn't be smote.

If I were to play a paladin king, it would probably look something like this:


Silverbrow Human, Paladin 20
Harmonious Knight substitution levels
Holy Warrior substitution level

Feats:
1- Power Attack, From Smite to Song
3- Dragonfire Inspiration
4- Mounted Combat
6- Song of the Heart
8- Ride-by Attack
9- Leadership
11- Spirited Charge
12- Words of Creation
14- Extra Smiting
15- Lingering Song
18- Sacred Vitality

(If it was a regular paladin rather than a kingly paladin, I'd probably drop the mount for the Divine Spirit sub levels from Dungeonscape, keep my spellcasting instead of taking Holy Warrior, and replace some of the mounted feats and Leadership with Battle Blessing and maybe Divine Might. But I feel like a kingly paladin should ride atop a kingly mount, and should definitely have Leadership....)

[Morithias]

Just out of curiosity, cause I'm also kinda working on a noble, what book is the Sovereign King class in? I don't know what book "QP" is off the top of my head.

Edit: nevermind I found it. Stupid 3rd party books.

[Eita]

These all seem nice, but I was thinking of something that blended the mounted combat abilities with battlefield buffs. That's why I was looking at Purple Dragon Knight, it gives me Inspire Courage, though it doesn't scale. I'm thinking now of just doing a two-level dip into that for Inspire Courage and Rallying Cry.

As for Cavalier, it increases damage on a charge and gives Courtly Knowledge, which I figured was fitting.

I don't physically have access to Champions of Valor yet, but I'll look into it.

[Gavinfoxx]

I'm with the group that says, 'consider something else to do the Paladin thing, other than Paladin'.

I would read these two handbooks first... they talk about leadership in D&D, from two different perspectives:

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3065.0
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8817.0