GilesTheCleric
2014-04-07, 10:38 PM
Okay, I'm at the end of my rope. I've been stressing over this build for three days, and can't find a satisfactory resolution. Please help?
I'm making a mounted paladin with Ashworm Dragoon.
Where I'm currently stuck: Builds 1&2: I need a way to cast suggestion and summon monster 3 in order to be accepted into Zhentarim Skymage. I've got invisibility and detect thoughts covered by cloistered/cleric. Build 5: I need RAW clarification.
My requirements for the build: It must contain Ashworm Dragoon 10, Zhentarim Skymage 1, and the paladin's special mount; the mount can't be too underleveled by 20.
The build can't rely on any outside sources at any point (gates, solars, sarrukh, wishes, donor classes, etc). No chaos shuffle, heroics, thought bottle, psychic reformation, etc type stuff: everything in the build must be a permanent part of it. Any race, any alignment, any LA, buyoff allowed, two flaws, 1 trait. Templates allowed in moderation. Any 3.5 (inc. all settings), and un-updated 3.0; no drag mag, Dragonlance, KoK, etc.
Edit: [My most important question: As far as I can tell, the only way to stack animal companion levels is to use devoted tracker. Does devoted tracker require ranger 4, and alternatively, can it work with prestige ranger? Or is there another way to get my companion levels onto the special mount? Also, am I locked into the std pally (LG) with this feat?]
I've come up with some different approaches. This build is not supposed to be optimal; I just want to ride on a wurm that can tunnel under the soft earth, and I want to do it the best I can. This is not an ubermount or Skymage abuse build.
cloistered cleric 2/ranger 4/prestige paladin 2/beastmaster 1/ashworm dragoon 10/zhentarim skymage 1
Required feats: mounted combat, ride-by attack, Skill Focus: HA, combat casting, iron will
Extra feats: Saddleback, cavalry charger, devoted tracker, natural bond, spirited charge, trample, tunnel riding, tunnel fighting
The idea here was to use fiendish heritage, fiendish legacy, and fiendish presence to make up for suggestion and SM3. Unfortunately, p pally is lawful good, and those feats are non-good. If there's a RAW way to have the freedom/tyranny/slaughter variants apply to p pally, then this should work, or maybe there's a way around it with hellbred or ordered chaos or similar. If the variants can apply, I might also be able to use druid or UA 58 bard instead of ranger.
The key thing I cannot figure out here is an alternate way to get those two spells.
Many of these feats can be obtained from items or ranger ACFs, plus of course the flaws. I can probably fit all of them in, but if some need to be cut, then they need to be cut. Saddleback is really the only necessary non-necessary feat.
Cleric grabs lust/trickery and knowledge/mind/truth domains, granting both detect thoughts and invisibility by 2. Baator would be perfect, but it gives them at 3, unfortunately.
cloistered cleric 4/ full BAB class 1/beastmaster 1/vadalis beastkeeper 1/prestige paladin 2/ashworm dragoon 10/zhentarim skymage 1
req'd feats: same
extra feats: same+maybe able learner
This was my original build, which has no problems with any spells, since it hits cleric 5. However, it doesn't get ranger 4, so devoted tracker doesn't work, which is basically what makes the build viable. If devoted tracker will work without ranger 4, then please let me know how. I'd thought initially that I would be able to grab vadalis 3 with this build and thus make the feat reqs easier, but I don't think that's going to happen.
The key problem here is that the mount becomes underleveled.
Leadership/improved cohort/dragon cohort/thrallherd/similar.
Since leadership is a DM call, I'm not keen on this. Also, it can easily lead to the outside help-type situations, or leadership chaining. But besides all that, I'm not sure if I can use it the way I want to -- to grab a scalable magical beast (ashworm, or similar), and also have the freedom to switch to any powerful flying mount I desire. Regardless, resorting to leadership is a last resort.
With the winged creature template, the ashworm could then be all-purpose, but I'm not sure if something like that could work, since it's for animals, giants, humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and vermin.
Even with leadership, I would still need Dragoon 10, or a way to give the wurm and myself earthglide or something, probably with shared spells. This might allow for base variant pally + druid/ranger/ACF bard. I would lose the stamp into the sand ex ability with this approach, which is a little disappointing, but might be necessary.
Key problem: DM fiat, and whether I can grab a monster as a cohort.
Sword of the Arcane Order. This gets into wizard territory, which is a place I know little to nothing about. My realm of experience is limited to clerics and rogues.
If someone knowledgeable about wizards and how this works could fill me in on whether this is viable, and if so, maybe how it would work, I would appreciate that. However, I would prefer to not spread this paladin (a class I already know little about) even farther into unknown territory, so hopefully options 1 or 2 will work out.
Key problem: I don't know anything about arcane casting or wizards.
variant pally 5/UA 58 druid 1/prestige ranger 1/beastmaster 1/ashworm dragoon 10/zhentarim skymage 1/x 1
pal 3/drd 1/x 1/p rgr 1/bm 1/pal 2/dragoon 10/zhent 1 seems like the best ordering, so I can grab spell-less pally for an extra feat (spirited charge or trample), since by then I can buy items for mounted combat/ride-by attack.
This is the only build that can reasonably work that I've found so far. It assumes that p ranger counts for the purpose of devoted tracker, and that I don't need an LG alignment. Variant pally allows for the fiendish heritage feats, which cover almost all of skymage. Invisibility is covered by race.
I do have a single class level left over. It's probably going to go into pally (for warded mount ACF), unless I find something better that can help ease up my feat requirements.
This totals to 15 pally mount levels + 9 druid companion levels, which is decent.
Key problem: It's not water-tight enough for my liking. Devoted Tracker isn't as clear a feat as I would like, and this build doesn't match what I think it might require.
If anyone can get this build to work, you will have saved me many headaches. If you can get it to work and squeeze in the knight to lolth and vermin trainer feats as well, you'll have my thanks and my internet cookie. It's a very tasty internet cookie.
If anything here is unclear or you need the sources, let me know. I figure this is a pretty simple build for most of the playground, so I didn't put in a ton of distracting book references.
Edit: Okay, Curmudgeon clarified Devoted Tracker. Mount+companion stack without rgr or pal. So, my build now works, and I was able to remove p rgr, which let me pick up knight of lolth ^^. If anyone has ways to improve this, though, I'm probably going to make a second version that focuses more on Skymage.
I'm making a mounted paladin with Ashworm Dragoon.
Where I'm currently stuck: Builds 1&2: I need a way to cast suggestion and summon monster 3 in order to be accepted into Zhentarim Skymage. I've got invisibility and detect thoughts covered by cloistered/cleric. Build 5: I need RAW clarification.
My requirements for the build: It must contain Ashworm Dragoon 10, Zhentarim Skymage 1, and the paladin's special mount; the mount can't be too underleveled by 20.
The build can't rely on any outside sources at any point (gates, solars, sarrukh, wishes, donor classes, etc). No chaos shuffle, heroics, thought bottle, psychic reformation, etc type stuff: everything in the build must be a permanent part of it. Any race, any alignment, any LA, buyoff allowed, two flaws, 1 trait. Templates allowed in moderation. Any 3.5 (inc. all settings), and un-updated 3.0; no drag mag, Dragonlance, KoK, etc.
Edit: [My most important question: As far as I can tell, the only way to stack animal companion levels is to use devoted tracker. Does devoted tracker require ranger 4, and alternatively, can it work with prestige ranger? Or is there another way to get my companion levels onto the special mount? Also, am I locked into the std pally (LG) with this feat?]
I've come up with some different approaches. This build is not supposed to be optimal; I just want to ride on a wurm that can tunnel under the soft earth, and I want to do it the best I can. This is not an ubermount or Skymage abuse build.
cloistered cleric 2/ranger 4/prestige paladin 2/beastmaster 1/ashworm dragoon 10/zhentarim skymage 1
Required feats: mounted combat, ride-by attack, Skill Focus: HA, combat casting, iron will
Extra feats: Saddleback, cavalry charger, devoted tracker, natural bond, spirited charge, trample, tunnel riding, tunnel fighting
The idea here was to use fiendish heritage, fiendish legacy, and fiendish presence to make up for suggestion and SM3. Unfortunately, p pally is lawful good, and those feats are non-good. If there's a RAW way to have the freedom/tyranny/slaughter variants apply to p pally, then this should work, or maybe there's a way around it with hellbred or ordered chaos or similar. If the variants can apply, I might also be able to use druid or UA 58 bard instead of ranger.
The key thing I cannot figure out here is an alternate way to get those two spells.
Many of these feats can be obtained from items or ranger ACFs, plus of course the flaws. I can probably fit all of them in, but if some need to be cut, then they need to be cut. Saddleback is really the only necessary non-necessary feat.
Cleric grabs lust/trickery and knowledge/mind/truth domains, granting both detect thoughts and invisibility by 2. Baator would be perfect, but it gives them at 3, unfortunately.
cloistered cleric 4/ full BAB class 1/beastmaster 1/vadalis beastkeeper 1/prestige paladin 2/ashworm dragoon 10/zhentarim skymage 1
req'd feats: same
extra feats: same+maybe able learner
This was my original build, which has no problems with any spells, since it hits cleric 5. However, it doesn't get ranger 4, so devoted tracker doesn't work, which is basically what makes the build viable. If devoted tracker will work without ranger 4, then please let me know how. I'd thought initially that I would be able to grab vadalis 3 with this build and thus make the feat reqs easier, but I don't think that's going to happen.
The key problem here is that the mount becomes underleveled.
Leadership/improved cohort/dragon cohort/thrallherd/similar.
Since leadership is a DM call, I'm not keen on this. Also, it can easily lead to the outside help-type situations, or leadership chaining. But besides all that, I'm not sure if I can use it the way I want to -- to grab a scalable magical beast (ashworm, or similar), and also have the freedom to switch to any powerful flying mount I desire. Regardless, resorting to leadership is a last resort.
With the winged creature template, the ashworm could then be all-purpose, but I'm not sure if something like that could work, since it's for animals, giants, humanoids, monstrous humanoids, and vermin.
Even with leadership, I would still need Dragoon 10, or a way to give the wurm and myself earthglide or something, probably with shared spells. This might allow for base variant pally + druid/ranger/ACF bard. I would lose the stamp into the sand ex ability with this approach, which is a little disappointing, but might be necessary.
Key problem: DM fiat, and whether I can grab a monster as a cohort.
Sword of the Arcane Order. This gets into wizard territory, which is a place I know little to nothing about. My realm of experience is limited to clerics and rogues.
If someone knowledgeable about wizards and how this works could fill me in on whether this is viable, and if so, maybe how it would work, I would appreciate that. However, I would prefer to not spread this paladin (a class I already know little about) even farther into unknown territory, so hopefully options 1 or 2 will work out.
Key problem: I don't know anything about arcane casting or wizards.
variant pally 5/UA 58 druid 1/prestige ranger 1/beastmaster 1/ashworm dragoon 10/zhentarim skymage 1/x 1
pal 3/drd 1/x 1/p rgr 1/bm 1/pal 2/dragoon 10/zhent 1 seems like the best ordering, so I can grab spell-less pally for an extra feat (spirited charge or trample), since by then I can buy items for mounted combat/ride-by attack.
This is the only build that can reasonably work that I've found so far. It assumes that p ranger counts for the purpose of devoted tracker, and that I don't need an LG alignment. Variant pally allows for the fiendish heritage feats, which cover almost all of skymage. Invisibility is covered by race.
I do have a single class level left over. It's probably going to go into pally (for warded mount ACF), unless I find something better that can help ease up my feat requirements.
This totals to 15 pally mount levels + 9 druid companion levels, which is decent.
Key problem: It's not water-tight enough for my liking. Devoted Tracker isn't as clear a feat as I would like, and this build doesn't match what I think it might require.
If anyone can get this build to work, you will have saved me many headaches. If you can get it to work and squeeze in the knight to lolth and vermin trainer feats as well, you'll have my thanks and my internet cookie. It's a very tasty internet cookie.
If anything here is unclear or you need the sources, let me know. I figure this is a pretty simple build for most of the playground, so I didn't put in a ton of distracting book references.
Edit: Okay, Curmudgeon clarified Devoted Tracker. Mount+companion stack without rgr or pal. So, my build now works, and I was able to remove p rgr, which let me pick up knight of lolth ^^. If anyone has ways to improve this, though, I'm probably going to make a second version that focuses more on Skymage.