Complementary PC builds for a duo or foursome?

[Coidzor]

We're going to do a campaign from 6-9-12, going into the planes from the Material Plane after level 5 or so.

Currently there's 2 players with 2 characters. My friend is currently bringing back two married characters of his, a Bard and a Ranger, with plans to go Swiftblade with the Bard and Horizon Walker for the Ranger, though maybe he'll go Horizon Tripper since he wasn't aware of that when he built their original higher level versions.

I've currently thought of either a Sword of the Arcane Order Mystic Wildshaping Ranger with a dip in MOMF or a Spellhoarding Steel Dragon Loredrake gish type.

But I figured, hey, I have two, why not see what I can do with two given that I have a party buffer and some kind of melee ranger type as the other half of the group.

Edit: Level 6 Start, instead now.

Edit2: Level 9 start.

Edit3: Dragon shot down, along with all non-humanoid-shaped races.

[BowStreetRunner]

Depending on the type of buffing being done, you may consider a Warblade/Warmage/Jade Phoenix Mage caster focusing on spells like Whirling Blade et al. that can benefit from weapon damage buffs.

[Coidzor]

Depending on the type of buffing being done, you may consider a Warblade/Warmage/Jade Phoenix Mage caster focusing on spells like Whirling Blade et al. that can benefit from weapon damage buffs.

Baseline will be Inspire Courage or Dragonfire Inspiration, both for really big stuff, I believe. Not sure what buffing the bard will do besides that.

I have two characters of my own to build, so I could build a second caster to focus on buffing the melee primary, the secondary melee/buffer bard, and this warblade>JPM idea.

[BowStreetRunner]

Baseline will be Inspire Courage or Dragonfire Inspiration, both for really big stuff, I believe. Not sure what buffing the bard will do besides that.

I have two characters of my own to build, so I could build a second caster to focus on buffing the melee primary, the secondary melee/buffer bard, and this warblade>JPM idea.

Imagine a bard using the Dragonfire Inspiration/Words of Creation combo along with a method of polymorph into a half-dragon of a different type (to change energy type of DI), and the rest of the party able to employ the bonus to very good effect. The warblade/warmage/jpm is joined by a multi-attacking thri-kreen warblade, a spiked-chain wielding crusader/ruby knight vindicator tank, a thrower build using bloodstorm blade and some other PrCs to do some wicket thrown weapon attacks, and a ranger archer build that between spells and feats is unleashing a ton of arrows every combat. The DM would need to avoid attempting to go toe-to-toe for damage and instead rely on more creative tactics.

That's the kind of thing I've seen before and the damage amounts can get ridiculously high.

[Coidzor]

Imagine a bard using the Dragonfire Inspiration/Words of Creation combo along with a method of polymorph into a half-dragon of a different type (to change energy type of DI), and the rest of the party able to employ the bonus to very good effect. The warblade/warmage/jpm is joined by a multi-attacking thri-kreen warblade, a spiked-chain wielding crusader/ruby knight vindicator tank, a thrower build using bloodstorm blade and some other PrCs to do some wicket thrown weapon attacks, and a ranger archer build that between spells and feats is unleashing a ton of arrows every combat. The DM would need to avoid attempting to go toe-to-toe for damage and instead rely on more creative tactics.

That's the kind of thing I've seen before and the damage amounts can get ridiculously high.

Interesting, though that count went up to, like, 6 characters, I think, and I don't really want to do a whole lot of damage output racing with the DM or completely eliminate fights as a thing that happen in favor of puzzle fights.

Looking for about middling PO levels, really. No Wish and the Word or Cindy or anything.