Does anyone know of a class like this?

[Inane-Fedaykin]

*I'm posting this on a few forums so I'm just c/ping, if some grammar seems off bleh*
I'm looking for 3.5 D&D class or prestige class for one of my characters to take at levels 7 and 8. Your suggestion is basically competing against simply taking levels of paladin. Please note that there is no spell casting in this campaign from the party (classes with casting abilities are allowed but you can't cast the spells) but we're likely to come up against quite a bit of it. The ultimate point is to take the Cavalier class at level 9.

This class requires:
Full Bab
It would be nice if the class had:
Good reflex and will saves
Good skill points
Ride as a class skill
Gives bonuses to ride
Something that stacks with pally levels or has a similar effect to a paladin's special mount

The character vital stats:
Level 6 Changeling (MM3) Paladin (Lawful Good)
str:16 dex: 10 con: 15 int: 14 wis: 10 cha: 18
Mounted Combat
Ride By Attack
Spirited Charge
Improved Init
Quick Draw
About every language you can think of

Main skills are diplomacy and ride with minors in handle animal, sense motive and knowledge nobility/royalty. Specifics available upon request.

[Gralamin]

*I'm posting this on a few forums so I'm just c/ping, if some grammar seems off bleh*
I'm looking for 3.5 D&D class or prestige class for one of my characters to take at levels 7 and 8. Your suggestion is basically competing against simply taking levels of paladin. Please note that there is no spell casting in this campaign from the party (classes with casting abilities are allowed but you can't cast the spells) but we're likely to come up against quite a bit of it. The ultimate point is to take the Cavalier class at level 9.

This class requires:
Full Bab
It would be nice if the class had:
Good reflex and will saves
Good skill points
Ride as a class skill
Gives bonuses to ride
Something that stacks with pally levels or has a similar effect to a paladin's special mount

The character vital stats:
Level 6 Changeling (MM3) Paladin (Lawful Good)
str:16 dex: 10 con: 15 int: 14 wis: 10 cha: 18
Mounted Combat
Ride By Attack
Spirited Charge
Improved Init
Quick Draw
About every language you can think of

Main skills are diplomacy and ride with minors in handle animal, sense motive and knowledge nobility/royalty. Specifics available upon request.

Cavalier from Complete Warrior fits most of them I believe.

Edit: It requires level 8 though, and a feat you don't have. As well as Poor Reflex, its got bad Skill points.

[Damionte]

What books do you have availuable to you?

I'm not guessing you have too many options otherwise you wouldn't be playing a spell less Palladin.

[Inane-Fedaykin]

Every book is available to me but I decided against a variant that exchanges spells for random crap because the DM said the char would no longer be eligable for some in game stuff (if you'll notice there are two extra feats and the char has a number of SU abilities I didn't list).

@gramlin if you'll notice I put in the first post that the ultimate destination was a cavalier from the cwar.

[Damionte]

Just take a couple levels of fighter then. DM is a nit wit. The palladin already is a below par class. Take away thier spells or thier ability to substitue thier spell casting abaility for somethign else and well.. that's just cruel. Did he offer any reasoning or balance to nerfing so many classes in this way? Did he balance out the classes that were not effected by his no magic rule?

With those restrictions there wasn't much need for you to actually play a Palladin. You could have played a Knight instead and got the same thing done without losing half of your useful class abilities.

IIn your case though since you're already lvl 6, take two levels of fighter then work into Cavalier.

[Gralamin]

That would probably be the best idea. And sorry I missed that somehow.

[Fax Celestis]

Algarondan Griffinrider from Unapproachable East. Wild Plains Outrider from Complete Adventurer.

[Inane-Fedaykin]

Just take a couple levels of fighter then. DM is a nit wit. The palladin already is a below par class. Take away thier spells or thier ability to substitue thier spell casting abaility for somethign else and well.. that's just cruel. Did he offer any reasoning or balance to nerfing so many classes in this way? Did he balance out the classes that were not effected by his no magic rule?

With those restrictions there wasn't much need for you to actually play a Palladin. You could have played a Knight instead and got the same thing done without losing half of your useful class abilities.

IIn your case though since you're already lvl 6, take two levels of fighter then work into Cavalier.

Everyone still has class abilities so I can smite and so on. I decided on a paladin because I enjoy them and since the char is keeping up with the 2-handed 22 str orc barbarian in terms of usefullness I don't think I've been gimped.

Two levels of fighter don't really add anything THAT usefull. I'm sure I could find a great use for two feats I'd still take 2 more paladin levels over that.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Why? What do the two levels of Paladin give you?

Two points of Smite damage, and maybe a spell/day. Woo.
Actually, to tell the truth, Pal 8 isn't bad for a Mount build, as that gives you the next tier of Mount abilities, including the ability to select a Griffin, the one "core" flying mount choice. See the DMG page...not sure, but it's under class feature explications for somewhere.

If you're looking for skills, you could multiclass to Rogue...but Ride is crossclass for them. Then again, taking the Changeling Rogue substitution levels from Races of Eberron gets you 10 sp/level, so...
This can lead into the Shadowbane Inquisitor (CAdv) or Shadowstriker (CChamp) Prestige classes, which aren't bad dips, though they may be against your flavor.

[Stephen_E]

Ok, Cavilier and Wild Plains Outrider have already been mentioned, but for something a little wacky (and given that we're already talking about houserules) -

Halfling Outrider. (Comp War)
You need Mounted Archery, and as a changling you can always pretend to be a tall halfling!

Beastmaster (Comp Advent)
You need Skill focus - Animal Handling.
Then you need to get Track somehow (magic item) and take Devoted Tracker (comp Advent) and your Animal Companion becomes your Special mount (or visa versa) with bonus of both adding together.

Stephen

[Iku Rex]

Warshaper (CWar) is good for any melee-based changeling, even if it doesn't fit your requirements. +4 Str, +4 Con, immunity to critical hits and the ability to grow natural weapons.

[Tokiko Mima]

Personally, if I was looking to mount specialize I'd try Skylord PrC from Book of Exalted Deeds. You need to be an elf, but they get good Fort and Reflex saves, full base attack bonus, and 5/10 spellcasting levels. It's prerequisite Feats are all the mounted Feats you'll want to take anyway, and the prerequisite skills are Animal Handling and Ride. It's a PrC and you really couldn't take it before level 7, but it also has a fun mage killer ability: A skylord gains the ability to shoot through winds, even hurricane force ones.

[Tor the Fallen]

Fighter dip for the power attack-shocktrooper chain of feats may be wise, and also note that spirited charge doesn't work with the cavalier's charge ability. I don't know if spirited charge is required for the PrC though.

You may want to pick up leadership and get a dragon as your mount, so you can fly around.

[Hadrian_Emrys]

I'm actually thinking that you are best left as is in terms of just sticking with paladin. Otherwise ranger dip for a few levels with Devoted Tracker and Natural Bond feats.

[Iku Rex]

I just noticed the OP asked for classes as well as prestige classes.

If he's not worried about the -20% XP penalty, marshall (MinH) is a good dip for Charisma bonus to charge damage or, if he's really intent on a high ride skill, Charisma bonus to Dex skills.

A couple of levels of warblade (ToB) or crusader (ToB) could also work out well.

[Tor the Fallen]

I just noticed the OP asked for classes as well as prestige classes.

If he's not worried about the -20% XP penalty, marshall (MinH) is a good dip for Charisma bonus to charge damage or, if he's really intent on a high ride skill, Charisma bonus to Dex skills.

A couple of levels of warblade (ToB) or crusader (ToB) could also work out well.

I don't think he'd take any xp penalty, as Changelings' favored class is their highest level one (right?). Marshall doesn't have full BAB, does it?

Two more levels of Paladin would be absolutely useless. Much better to take levels in a class that will increase your damage output, as that charge multiplier is sick. A spirited charge leap attack + power attack + lance = 6 to 1 damage to BAB. Shock troop that all, since you can ride by, and that's 42 damage before rolling any dice or adding any other modifiers. You're going to be forcing massive damage saves on every attack.

Even a weapon spec would be ok.

[Quietus]

Fighter dip for the power attack-shocktrooper chain of feats may be wise, and also note that spirited charge doesn't work with the cavalier's charge ability. I don't know if spirited charge is required for the PrC though.

You may want to pick up leadership and get a dragon as your mount, so you can fly around.

Spirited Charge is part of the Cavalier's requirements, and is built into Deadly Charge (Think that's the name of the ability...) already.

Also, Inane, I just remembered something - from the Draconomicon, there's the Dragonrider prestige class. If you can get your DM to give you a dragon mount, it's an awesome class. Full BAB, good fort/will (the two important ones), immune to the frightful presence of dragons, all at level one. Over four out of the class's five levels, you'll also pick up a Mounted Spellcasting ability (perhaps convince your DM to replace this with letting the class stack for Paladin Mount advancement), a bonus feat, and the ability to give any dragon you ride the Flyby Attack feat. All in all, a fantastic class if you can get a dragon to ride.

::Edit:: for comparison, I'll bold what it has from your list.

Full Bab
Good reflex and will saves
Good skill points
Ride as a class skill
Gives bonuses to ride (When riding a dragon)
Something that stacks with pally levels or has a similar effect to a paladin's special mount (Try and convince your DM to give this in place of the useless ability)

[Iku Rex]

A changeling's favored class is rogue.

Marshall has cleric BAB (as does the warshaper PrC I mentioned earlier). Looking at the cavalier PrC it has a +8 BAB prerequisite, so he'd have to wait another level.

[JackMage666]

Ashworm Dragoon in Sandstorm... But you have to ride a giant worm, effectively. It's not all that fitting, but it bears mentioning.

[Damionte]

Yeah this wuold have been easier were you not already lvl 6.

Were I you with the intent to go into Cavalier at 9 with 6 levels of Palladin I would take a detour into a related field at lvl 7. Maybe you can convince the Dm of a respec, maybe not. considering what you've already done, I'd just stay Palladin, you're too deep into it now to really do anything else but take 2 levels of fighter. Generally the ability to do something new is usually a lil bit more valuable than doing something you can already do a little bit better.

Had I your character to start over.

1- Palladin (1) Mounted Combat, Aura/Good, Detect Evil, Smite Evil
2- Palladin (2) Devine Grace, Lay On hands
3- Palladin (3) Aura/Courage, Devine Health, Skill Focus (Gather Info)
4- Palladin (4) Turn Undead, Spell Casting
5- Palladin (5) Special Mount
6- Palladin (6) Ride By Attack, Remove Deseas, Quick Draw
7- Ranger (1) Track, Favored Enemy, Wild Empathy
8- Justicar (1) Bring em Back Alive, Nonlethal Strike +1d6
9- Justicar (2) Improved Grapple, Crippling Strike, <Feat>
10- Justicar (3) Exotic Weap (Manicals), Street Savvy
11- Cavalier (1)
12- Cavalier (2)
13- Cavalier (3)
14- Cavalier (4)
15- Cavalier (5)
16- Cavalier (6)
17- Cavalier (7)
18- Cavalier (8)
19- Cavalier (9)
20- Cavalier (10)

You keep your same theme plus the added quirkiness of Justicar to balance out your Palladin side. Justicar let's you play the "Merciful Justice by Force" angle. The level of Ranger is because Justicar requires the Track feat. it also requires a bunch of skills. Rangers extra skill points should help you get there.

With this character Idea I probably woul dhave taken the level of Ranger first and just pretended to be a Palladin in action if not in class abilities. It depends on how the story went.

I am not sure why you chose to hit Cavalier at lvl 9. Not that there's anythign wrong it's just that it leaves one extra level at the end of your progression. I mean you qualify for Cavalier already, so why wait for 9? Anyway I pushed it back to 10 so you could get a coupel more special abilities out of Justicar.

Cavalier is neat but it doesn't give you anything really new that you couldn't already do as a Palladin to a point. So you can afford to push it back a level or two.

[Tor the Fallen]

I am not sure why you chose to hit Cavalier at lvl 9. Not that there's anythign wrong it's just that it leaves one extra level at the end of your progression. I mean you qualify for Cavalier already, so why wait for 9? Anyway I pushed it back to 10 so you could get a coupel more special abilities out of Justicar.

Cavalier is neat but it doesn't give you anything really new that you couldn't already do as a Palladin to a point. So you can afford to push it back a level or two.

Actually, Cavalier is far better than Paladin or Ranger, as every few levels, your damage doubles.

[Inane-Fedaykin]

Ashworm Dragoon in Sandstorm... But you have to ride a giant worm, effectively. It's not all that fitting, but it bears mentioning.

It came up in the game that we'd be going into a desert region so I asked the DM if I could get a sand worm mount. However, he knew all about my love of Dune and showed remarkable forsight in denying my request.

[Ikkitosen]

Assuming a fighter can take Divine Feats as bonus feats go Fighter 2 and get some. I mean, you have a number of turn undead uses going to waste.