Different Builds...still the same Archetype?

[Krazzman]

Hello again Playground,

I ran into some some sort of "problem" with my current gaming group. The Group itself is not the problem, we are still the same bunch of people trying to have fun. TL;DR version at the end.

Bragging how it came to the situation I'm in:
In this current group I play a Warblade/Fighter mix and we are level 5 right now.
As I might've said earlier we have a TWF Rogue/Ranger, that has no defense or offense Feats (except for Weapon Finesse and TWF), a Druid that neither uses her AC nor her spells effectively (to a point where even my GF thinks this is odd) and a Favoured soul of a Watergoddess that has some sort of water/swimming addiction and some delusions/moments of... well weird phases where he calls the others after some sort of fish stuff.
My GF plays a Bard/Warlock mix that she begins to dislike because we messed up a bit.
I want to stress it again the group is FUN. I really contribute the most in a encounter and thanks to lucky dice rolls am hitting like a moving truck (for them). My normal Attack routine is either Trip attack or Powerattacking(using Steel Wind or Mountain Hammer, next level with Emerald Razor) with my spiked chain or going to switch to Towershield+Longsword mix and use Combat Expertise. So far I deal 2d4+17 dmg as I can't afford to stay in Punishing Stance. (Enemies drop hard enough anyway and the 2 ac saved my life quite a few times this dungeon).
Anyway the Favoured Soul Player offered to be the DM for another campaign, when we play at his home. The thing is... the Warblade is already too strong for him. He thinks fumbles are cool, isn't that rules savvy while having played it quite long (because of houserules I assume) and well told me he never saw a good "Thief" (Rogue) or Bard in play. He said he knows Casters get powerful later on and that fighting classes excell in Melee but I don't know what I should prepare for it as I feel challenged. So far I thought my next Character to either be a Changeling Crusader or a Crusader with a dash of paladin (the detect evil stuff) and well might have to decide otherwise.


This bring me to my problem:
How do you think the Archetypical roles like Bard, Crusader, Knight, Paladin correlate with the classes itself?

As an example I asked my GF (who is more savvy with Barbarians and can follow my thoughts with this class easier) how much Barbarian Class levels she has to have to still be a member of the Barbarian Class.
In this sense I asked her if a Level 10 Character with 4 Levels of Barbarian and 2 Fighter, and 4 Levels in a Prestige Class that doesn't advance Rage or any other of the selling points of the Barbarian Class (a Hulking Hurler or a Warshaper) would that still be a barbarian? Of course it would for me since the fluffside would still be a Barbarian. But on the side my GF sees it... it doesn't make sense for her to be a barbarian without certain levels in the barbarian class. If she were to play a Barbarian/Frenzied Berserker, the character would've been a berserker all along.

The this is... how much bard do I have to take to be a bard? How much Paladin I have to take to be a Paladin? Both in the sense of class.
Of course I could take the Bard class and fluff him to a Paladin of Freedom and Dancing. But when someone says they never saw a "strong"/OP/mechanically sound [CLASS] should you show them a build where that class is just the starting point (the first class in a line of dips) or where that class as Class20 is viable throughout all levels?

Another example for this:
A Swordsage 1/Rogue 4 would that be a Rogue or a Swordsage? In terms of class power?
Would a Fighter5/Paladin1 not be a Paladin due to the strong mechanically enforced fluff of the latter class? (This is an example of the thing that happened in the PF group we play in, The Tiefling Fighter got to a point where he became a paladin and was always called paladin from that on.)
Is my Warblade2/Fighter2/Warblade1 a Fighter or a Warblade? Would it be different if it were Fighter4/Warblade1?

The main question I ask this is:
I have a Build for a Swordsage Rogue in mind that needs some refining but would actually have good combat options.
I actually have a "paladin"-charconcept scratching in the back of my head that wants out (This is more of how the character is not what classes he has) but I'm too afraid to mess up due to bad mechanical choices. (Bard/Crusader would fit it, Paladin or Crusader could fit it or maybe a Paladin/Crusader but I don't like the paladins MAD-ness).

So this is gnashing at me at the moment and I am really unsure what to do about. As I know Bards, Rogues and Paladins are Splatbooklovers and I don't know which books will be available and character generating methods also aren't defined will taking this "Challenge" on be a bad idea? What books/feats/ACF's/dips are necessary for a Rogue or Bard to shine?

TL;DR: Player in current camapign wants to DM a group and found my Warblade to be too strong. Said he never really saw a strong Rogue or Bard in play. What books/feats/ACF's/dips are necessary for a Rogue or Bard to shine?

I hope you can help me get this straightened out, to just show him the build and explain it to him so I can just play the char I want. I fear that when I really do this stuff I'm still on the top of the "party-food-chain" as I am in the current campaign. If you have questions I'll try to answer them as fast as I can.

[HunterOfJello]

You're still at level 5, which is a low level. This means that the power of a character taking a level or two in a class that is largely regarded as weak becomes highly variable due to the nature of the practice called 'Dipping'. Taking 15 levels in the Rogue class will put you at a lower melee damage + effectiveness power level than taking 15 levels in Swordsage. However, if you take 1 to 3 levels in Rogue, your power and effectiveness will still be very high. This is highly variable depending on what alternate features,feats, and choices you make mechanically for your character.

Some good dips for only one or a few levels include:

Cleric 1 (for domains and divine magic)
Rogue 1-3 (sneak attack, trapfinding, evasion, and skill points)
Paladin 2 (divine grace)
Barbarian 1 (increased speed, ACF for Pounce or other benefits)
Monk 1-2 (evasion, flurry, wisdom to AC while unarmored)
Fighter 2 (two bonus feats)

~

Overall, most of the core classes are fine to take a few levels. They may not be as great as taking a pure class or going into a PrC, but they can have great beneifts.

~

As far as deciding whether a single level in a class defines your character or not, that's entirely up to you. If a person is born and raised as a barbarian till the age of 25, are they suddenly not a barbarian because they've learned the way of the iron heart under a Warblade? I think not. Your character is who you choose them to be and who you portray them as.



~~~~~~


There are also numerous examples of this on the OotS comic. One of the main villains, Nale is a Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer IIRC. That makes him pretty much the same thing as a Bard in the end (which angers him to no end since his brother is almost pure Bard). Another character named Miko has classes in Monk and Paladin, but serves her family nobly as a Samurai. She doesn't have any levels in the Samurai class and doesn't need to have any. Her life defines her, not her class levels.

[jaynus006]

How are you doing!

What does your soon to be DM think about what makes a "Rogue" I don't see why a Swordsage 1/Rogue 4 would not be counted as a "Rogue" unless your DM is really trying to enforce RP ideas (wondering why a sword sage turned to the life of the streets). You'll have a few maneuvers to use to increase combat, but your going to have skills and SA and be slinking around like a thief. Though you might start in those rogue levels for better skills to start off.

Also you might ensure understanding of the rules of SA, many times new DMs, or ones not so familiar with the rules might not understand things like adding SA damage on every attack that satisfies the criteria (Flanked or Denied Dex). When you start getting numerous attacks that are denied SA your power level seems quite poor.

It seems liked your building characters to fight while others are either building for RP purposes, or merely because they like the idea of the character. If this is the same group (which you did say was FUN which is the most important thing) then I would think your stock Swordsage/Rogue combo would be strong enough.

If you're still worried look into the complete series (scoundrel and adventurer) for a few options.

As for archetypes, I think its all up to you and how you play it. A Barbarian 3/Fighter 5 can be a youth taken from the wilds and trained in a more disciplined manner, but once he sees his own blood he loses that discipline and enters a rage where only his primal instincts control him. I don't see how that doesn't make him a barbarian anymore.

[supermonkeyjoe]

Whatever it says on your character sheet has little correlation towards what you're character is perceived as in game.

A cleric can call himself a paladin, a rogue can call himself a fighter, a psion can call himself a sorcerer, there is very little reason why you need levels in class X to be called an X because the classes do not exist as a construct in the game world, (unless you're going for a tongue-in-cheek style gameworld like in OotS)

[Krazzman]

Thanks for the responses... I was a bit... distracted.

@HunterOfJello:
I actually read the Practical Guide to Dipping or how it was called (I believe the Guide was on this Forum).
The thing is I have the problem of thinking: "If I want to show what I can do with 'just' a Rogue, is it fair to dip like there is no tomorrow?"
You know is the Rogue strong because of the Maneuvers he uses he got from the Swordsage Dip or is the Swordsage just strong and the Rogue adapts nicely to it.

@jaynus006:
Fluff is changeable. A Fighter can be a Knight or a Guardsmen or anything else. The thing I ask mostly for is his comment about "I never seen a strong Bard or Rogue, that would be interesting". And as such I am a bit torn between Prestigeclassing and Dipping. For a Barde Dipping might be not that important. A SavageBard/Crusader/Sublime Chord... is it still a Bard in terms of a Strong Bard or is it just a Strong Build?
Would a Swordsage/Rogue/Shadowdancer/Shadowsun Ninja be a strong Rogue or just in fluff/ in it's archetypical "role" a Rogue.

@supermonkeyjoe:
Yeah, I know that. So far my "Warblade" is just a Warrior of a Certain sort of "Temple-Martial-Art". Dunno how to describe it. He is "just" a warrior of the Iron Heart. Not a Warblade.

As I said to jaynus before, its not about fluff or the archetypical role, it's about the class itself.

[Kobold Esq]

Going to repeat something I posted in another thread:

Classes are just mechanical building blocks. They don't define who the character is. A pit fighter, a knight, a young squire, and a grizzled war veteran may all be fighters. A suave spymaster, a mafia torturer, and an Indiana Jones-like treasure hunter may all be rogues, but none of them would actually identify themselves as having anything in common with each other.

Similarly, people who have a lot in common (such as the members of a barbarian tribe) might be a mixture of commoners, experts, warriors, rangers, adepts, druids, spirit shamans, and yes, even "barbarian"-classed barbarians. But they are all members of the same tribe, have the same culture, share the same values, etc. They just happen to have different skills.

The problem is past games (1E, 2E) didn't have the flexibility of 3E in terms of building what you wanted, exactly how you wanted. So two people of the same class were nearly mechanically identical. Even adding kits to the mix didn't help, since again you just had a new single class that you couldn't mix with anything else. This created a very DnD-specific trope that "you are your class."