Whats the best 3 man guard team.

[NightsSong]

The campaign starts out with a few missions in which time they gain the respect of the king got their prowess as heroes. Then somehow they find out the the under-dark is in the process of being united under one banner being lead by an avatar of the under-dark. So it falls to the PCs to convince and unite the surface people so that they may mount an effective defense/offense against what will come boiling out from beneath the earth. Their job is to unite as many of the bandit clans with the kingdom as possible. failing that they need to be able to mount an effective defense or be able to wage a war if they should lose their first encounter.

The VIP is a leader of what can only be called an independent city state that she carved out of the country herself. She spends her tine researching the finer parts of necromancy in hopes of one day finding a way to bring her parents back in a non conventional way. As such she has combined the best of her knowledge into 3 beings, that she had created to defend her so that she may better do her research in peace.

So the question is what combination of 3 characters will keep those who would want to kill the leader away but at the same time be able to protect her if she is holding an audience.

[Renen]

Obligatory "3 StP Erudites" answer

[eggynack]

Obligatory "3 StP Erudites" answer
Pretty much. You can't go too far off course with a trio of high tier classes, though varying them a bit could make sense.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Pretty much. You can't go too far off course with a trio of high tier classes, though varying them a bit could make sense.

We'd like to be able to tell you that the answer is something like; Ranger with ACF X and PrC Y for a powerful ranged combatant with Hide in Plain Sight with high ranks in the typical skills of a guard, a Bard/Master Spy to use social skills to spot more subtle threats and a Divine Caster to ward areas, cast divinations, keep delay poison running, and remove other debuffs. We'd like to, but we can't.

[A Tad Insane]

Welcome to gitp's d&d 3.5 subforum, where "what is the best (Insert noun here)?" will be answered by either "A wizard", "a stp erudite", or "how cheesy do you want?" if tippy isn't in earshot

[Red Fel]

I tried to warn you, OP. I really did.

[eggynack]

Welcome to gitp's d&d 3.5 subforum, where "what is the best (Insert noun here)?" will be answered by either "A wizard", "a stp erudite", or "how cheesy do you want?" if tippy isn't in earshot
You do us a disservice, sir. Sometimes the answer is a druid, or if there's some sort of particular character in pop culture that someone's building, a factotum. There's also sometimes ToB involved, if the question particularly pertains to mundane melee.

[Extra Anchovies]

Honestly? Casters. Cleric, Wizard, Psion would probably be best. "Keep those who would want to kill the leader away but at the same time be able to protect her if she is holding an audience" is a vague guideline. Scrying defenses and/or Rope Tricks and/or Magnificent Mansions are the answer for long-term protection, and when she's holding audience she can be protected with... hm. Not sure how to let sound through a Wall of Force.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'm going to second casters...Because it sounds like she is one herself, so it makes sense she'd put her knowledge in casters, particularly intelligence based ones from a thematic stand point.

[geekintheground]

wizard druid cleric seems to be good. wizard to do the immense paranoia feuled prep work theyre known for, cleric for defenses and healing the occasional lucky shot. druid for face ripper and scout.

[deuxhero]

I'm going to say Artificer should be at least one. Making the target hard to kill with bling and other defenses (or if, feeling cheesy, knowing EVERYTHING) is a good option because in 3.5 you can't really stop things from attacking other things short of absolute mind control.

@Hand_of_Vecna
I think any combatant based on hiding is a pretty terrible "guard".

[Extra Anchovies]

wizard druid cleric seems to be good. wizard to do the immense paranoia feuled prep work theyre known for, cleric for defenses and healing the occasional lucky shot. druid for face ripper and scout.

Druid doesn't really fit thematically though. What are they doing guarding some noblewoman?

[eggynack]

Druid doesn't really fit thematically though. What are they doing guarding some noblewoman?
Likes guarding folks. Needs money to protect arbitrary forest creatures. The noblewoman is well known for her works of nature themed charity. Those who seek the noblewoman's death are a threat on a larger scale, and the druid sees this as the best way to defeat them. Directionless boredom. He's part of a party, and this is a job the other two members are interested in, so he's going along with it. She has information on a hidden grove in forest, and will hand out the information for the work. He just got a new level of spells, and really wants to test them out in some combat situations. Same thing, but with a new wild shape form. He's not into it, but his animal companion seems to think this is the thing to do, and the druid trusts his companion's instincts. Lotsa possible reasons.

[Elkad]

Remember to pick guards who don't spend a third of the day sleeping instead of doing their jobs.

[deuxhero]

If you rule a city state, I hope you can spare 7500 GP one time.

[Coidzor]

I'd go with a Necropolitan Bard/Warblade or Bard/Crusader with the Requiem Feat and plenty of White Raven Tactics that Undead minions can benefit from, a Lich primary arcane spellcaster, and Mummified(rather than Mummy) divine spellcaster.

The Bardsader/Bardblade has perception and sense motive skills and can lead other undead servitors in battle between their Inspire Courage optimization and their White Raven maneuvers. Edit: This is, of course, dependent upon the Requiem feat as pointed out by Seerow.

The Lich both doubles as a research assistant and is a notable caster in his own right, focusing on debuffing enemies and using BFC to deny them the ability to target their master and then to break up opponents so that they can be chewed up piece by piece.

The Mummified creature also has useful insights as an assistant and extra pair of eyes and can hulk up to become a giant distracting melee threat by being a CoDzilla.

And best of all, she's had a hand in each one of them becoming undead, either directly making them or helping them become undead when they sought it out. So there's a combination of personal loyalty and built-in loyalty from her mucking with their souls during the undeadification process.

Give one of them mindsight with a Mindbender dip for extra fun.

Edit: From another angle, a Warforged might be fun as a counterpoint to the undead servitors to show she's not *only* investigating necromantic means or at least not purely necromantic ones.


I'm going to say Artificer should be at least one. Making the target hard to kill with bling and other defenses (or if, feeling cheesy, knowing EVERYTHING) is a good option because in 3.5 you can't really stop things from attacking other things short of absolute mind control.

You don't need the artificer to be a personal bodyguard, though, to do that.

And, y'know, any NPC is already precisely as well equipped as the DM needs or wants them to be.

[NightsSong]

Thank you Coidzar for providing the first real answer of the thread. I will definitely base my finale decision on your answer.

[Seerow]

The Bardsader/Bardblade has perception and sense motive skills and can lead other undead servitors in battle between their Inspire Courage optimization and their White Raven maneuvers.


Inspire Courage is a mind-affecting ability. Which undead are immune to. Unless there's some special thing somewhere I'm not aware of that makes your Undead Horde able to be affected by Inspire Courage...?

[Extra Anchovies]

Thank you Coidzar for providing the first real answer of the thread. I will definitely base my finale decision on your answer.

That's a little dismissive. My answer was a real answer; you didn't ask for any particular level of detail, so I gave you a general overview of what I thought. The "three erudites" answer may've been joking but I was giving what I seriously thought was the "best 3 man guard team".

[geekintheground]

Thank you Coidzar for providing the first real answer of the thread. I will definitely base my finale decision on your answer.

while my answer was on point with the "all tier 1" theme of the thread, it was an honest real answer that i would have suggested anyway because those classes are fun, can work in this scenario rather well and cover a wide range of optimization levels.

[Coidzor]

Inspire Courage is a mind-affecting ability. Which undead are immune to. Unless there's some special thing somewhere I'm not aware of that makes your Undead Horde able to be affected by Inspire Courage...?

Oh, sorry, left out the Requiem feat there. It's found in Libris Mortis, the book of bad Latin.

Edit: It's a little bit wonky, since what is half the duration of "as long as the bard is performing + 10 rounds," at the end of the day? Though I find that most people treat it like that flaw which means that how long it lasts after the bard stops performing is halved, much like the Bardic Sage variant class. I think there might also be a flaw that does the same thing too, come to think of it.

Mostly useful for letting Inspire Courage work on undead minions(like, say, Zombie Hydra! :smallbiggrin:), but some of the other bardic music bypassing the mind-effecting immunity of undead can also be useful.

[WeaselGuy]

That's a little dismissive. My answer was a real answer; you didn't ask for any particular level of detail, so I gave you a general overview of what I thought. The "three erudites" answer may've been joking but I was giving what I seriously thought was the "best 3 man guard team".

Yeah, I have to agree... even though I didn't catch this in time to chime in, my answer would have been pretty much in line with what everyone else has said, namely Clericzilla for buffs and beatstick action, Wizard for paranoid BFC/Batman shenanigans, and I would probably put in a Bard for my 3rd pick, as an advisor/spy/general know it all, with DFI and Snowflake Wardance for good measure. And like Coidzor said, Mindbender + Mindsight, 'cause, you know... mindsight.

[Coidzor]

Mummies are great in general, but I tend to associate them with divine casters, I think partially because of the fluff of Mummy Lords. Mummified Template is always better than making them into Mummies first though, unless you just give them the Mummy RHD on top of their class levels because they're NPCs and don't have to worry about leveling, but it's still a bit meh for their CR to casting contribution ratio.

Vampires can be neat, especially Vampire Lords, but sleeping all day kinda puts a damper on the whole bodyguarding thing.

Huecuvas are a lot like Liches but Divine caster only. I think they help bolster other undead to resist turn undead, though, so that could be quite useful.

Dread Warriors are, well, thick as rocks and have a clause about them having a chance to misinterpret orders based on length even if they have a positive intelligence modifier from having been geniuses prior to being killed. Much more of a mook/minion sort of thing than a bodyguard sort of template.

Death Knights are a bit wonky due to originally being published in MM2, but work nicely for a beatsticky type of character, as does Swordwraith.

Bone and Corpse Creatures would take a bit of updating from their 3.0/3.25 forms in Book of Vile Darkness, but they're basically Awakened Skeleton and Awakened Fast Zombie in condensed form.

Necropolitans are great and can basically fill any role due to being a template that doesn't do much other than make a character undead.

Gravetouched Ghouls are in a similar boat as Necropolitans being a template rather than a base race, so there's more continuity with a character's living state and not so much RHD to muck about with.

A Ghost can be quite interesting, and Ghostwalk style ghosts may be worth checking out, especially for the purposes of this NPC's research and as a potential means of bringing back PCs without resurrection magic being available.

Don't forget the potential benefits of Corpsecrafter and the like being applied to these guys, by the by.

Construct-wise... Other than Warforged and Maugs and Inevitables, I suppose there's Awakened or Rudimentary Intelligence'd golems or Shield/Runic Guardians. Maybe a Nimble-Wright that can advance by class level?

Pathfinder has some Robots and Clockwork constructs which might be of interest there as well.

[sideswipe]

no love for the archivist :smallfrown:

[Flickerdart]

Remember to pick guards who don't spend a third of the day sleeping instead of doing their jobs.
Ever heard of shifts?

Druid would actually work great (since they don't need to sleep to prepare spells, and their pets can have Scent). You can totally have an undead druid.

Clerics with Planar Ally or wizards with Planar Binding to park some powerful outsiders around the client would also work great. A leader of a city-state would have more than enough cash to retain them on fair terms without the whole "boo hoo the angel will have ouchies and come back for revenge" thing cropping up.

[Coidzor]

no love for the archivist :smallfrown:

The way I see it, an Archivist could either sub in for the arcane caster for the Lich or for the divine caster for the Mummy monster in my initial presentation. They're versatile like that.

I suppose an archivist might fit in better for a research necromancer assistant/bodyguard, though.

Unless you're talking about some obscure form of undead or something that I've forgotten about that's also called an Archivist.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

@Hand_of_Vecna
I think any combatant based on hiding is a pretty terrible "guard".

I may have obscured this by referring to game mechanics by name, but everything I said was highly focused on a game with very different mechanics.

A stealthy guard may not work well as a deterrent, but someone standing behind a potential attacker without the attackers knowledge is going to stop a lot of attacks. Once they've done so a few times their reputation will serve as a better deterrent than a conventional guard. Any time you can't see them they could be anywhere.

[Invader]

Likes guarding folks. Needs money to protect arbitrary forest creatures. The noblewoman is well known for her works of nature themed charity. Those who seek the noblewoman's death are a threat on a larger scale, and the druid sees this as the best way to defeat them. Directionless boredom. He's part of a party, and this is a job the other two members are interested in, so he's going along with it. She has information on a hidden grove in forest, and will hand out the information for the work. He just got a new level of spells, and really wants to test them out in some combat situations. Same thing, but with a new wild shape form. He's not into it, but his animal companion seems to think this is the thing to do, and the druid trusts his companion's instincts. Lotsa possible reasons.

Yeah but give me five more... :smalltongue: