[Practical Opt] Eberron Sovereign Crusader

[Nifft]

Preface

This is a concept that I've had in mind for a while. It's not for any specific game -- yet. But some day I might be able to play again, instead of running. This is a build to hedge that happy day.

Sovereign Speaker is a class from Faiths of Eberron which adds 9 Domains over 9 levels, and advances spellcasting by 7 levels. Getting in requires 8 ranks of Knowledge (religion) and one feat: Worldly Focus (from Faiths of Eberron).

Divine Crusader is a class from Complete Divine which gives you 9 levels of spells in 10 class levels, but your spell list is one Domain. Getting in requires BAB +7, 2 ranks of Knowledge (religion), and one feat: Weapon Focus in your patron's weapon.

According to Faiths of Eberron, the Sovereign Host can be treated as a single patron, and as such the Sovereign Host has favored weapon: longsword.

https://image.ibb.co/mn7fCU/SovHost.png (https://imgbb.com/)



Build Skeleton

The character must be Neutral Good to gain and retain Divine Crusader spellcasting, and since this is practical optimization that limits the prefix and postfix classes to choices which are compatible with NG alignment.

(any full-BAB) 7 / Divine Crusader 1 / Sovereign Speaker 9 / (2:3 caster advancing PrC)

Ability scores: Divine Crusader casts from Charisma, so that's going to be important. Mono-dependence on Charisma would be pretty sweet.

The 7-level prefix and 3-level postfix are the main areas where I want input.

Domain selection is another significant area.

Character race may be strongly limited by the postfix (see below).


Prefix Discussion

The obvious choice seems to be Crusader, which is strong in its own right and has Knowledge (religion) as a class skill. Seven levels in Crusader gives one level 4 Maneuver, Cha to Will, an arbitrary Smite 1/day, and access to White Raven Tactics.

Duskblade is interesting. It looks like Arcane Channel, Spell Power, and Quick Casting would also apply to our Divine Crusader spells. The Int casting requirement is a negative, but that's balanced by access to Knowledge (religion) and a generally good skill list. At level 7 we'd be able to cast level 2 Duskblade spells in Medium armor with a Heavy shield. Having a decent Int is nice for skills at all levels, but with a low point-buy this might not be viable. Still, if you can boost Int + Cha + Con, and have enough Dex or Str left over to hit things occasionally, this might be the best of all.

Warblade has some Intelligence perks, but ignoring them isn't a big downside, and if we can get even +2 Int that's not bad. Huge HD, Iron Heart Surge, and White Raven Tactics... not a bad package. Not as good as Crusader's Charisma synergy, but not bad. Possibly better Con(centration) synergy, in fact, since that investment will benefit Diamond Mind early, and benefit casting late-game.

Paladin would have great Charisma synergy, at least for 4 levels, but our NG alignment requirement seems to prohibit its use.

Oddly enough Battle Dancer (from Dragon Compendium) might have been usable, since it has some Charisma synergy and all we actually need is full BAB -- but again our NG alignment requirement seems to prohibit its use.

Ranger is usually a good choice, and with the Education feat (Eberron Campaign Setting) we'd have access to the skills we need. Mystic Ranger might be viable with an Elf, or with a few Crusader levels, for Longsword proficiency -- or if we actually spent a feat on Longsword Proficiency, but that thought hurts my soul.

Barbarian (+Education) is a fun image. With flaws, we could squeeze in Barbarian 4 / Fist of the Forest 3 and be the smelliest wandering prophet.

Swashbuckler 3 (+Education, or +Crusader) might be interesting, if you have enough Dexterity & Intelligence to make use of the bonuses.

Fighter is a class that exists. Yep. We could get some feats. Or, with the Thug + Sneak Attack variants, it's even a decent value for 7 levels, but still demands the Education feat. Still, Sneak Attack +4d6 isn't terrible.

Half-Orc Paragon is full BAB, and so is the follow up Orc Paragon. That's potentially 6 levels of base-class avoidance altogether, and up to +4 Strength, but I don't find them to be particularly compelling. Dwarf Paragon is also full BAB with +2 Con, but I think it's also not particularly compelling. Maybe I'm spoiled by high point-buys.

Anything else viable?

What early-access PrCs could fit in?


Postfix Discussion

At level 17, we take Sovereign Speaker 9. That leaves us with 8/10 advancement of Divine Crusader casting, so we want 2 more levels of spellcasting advancement, plus whatever else we can get. We have access to 10 Domains at this point, and 8th level spells.

I see two different yet compelling choices:

Heir of Siberys (from Eberron Campaign Setting) - One of the most iconic Eberron classes, and a perfect fit. The spell granted keys off your race, so your race choice is severely limited to the so-called "dragonmarked races". Human is generally best, having access to Mark of Making and Mark of Storm -- but Half-Orc, Half-Elf, Elf, and Dwarf are all potentially viable.

These Siberys Dragonmarks are strong in terms of raw power, plus they're politically significant.

Requires one feat (Heroic Spirit) and 15 ranks in any two skills.


Uncanny Trickster (from Complete Scoundrel) - This can advance Sovereign Speaker, which advances spellcasting and bonus Domain access. We would end up with a total of 12 Domains at level 20. Plus, we get 3 bonus skill tricks (yawn), and we can pick 3 skill tricks that work 2/encounter instead of 1/encounter -- this latter ability is solid, since Swift action Concentration is strong for a high-level primary caster.

Domain abilities can be strong, and adding another up to 18 spells to our list is potentially the best use of these 3 levels.

Requires 4 skill tricks, which probably means a decent Int will be rewarded.


Each of these are 3/4 BAB, which leaves us with BAB +16.75 at level 20, which is a nice way to enter Epic.

But those are just two obvious capstone classes. What else could go here?


Domain Choices

So, which Domains to pick?

Sovereign Speaker has an odd requirement that you can't have more than 2 Domains from any specific deity. This means that Domains which are common to several gods are toxic -- for example, if you take the Good domain which is common to 6 gods, you're now limited to at most 1 other Domain from each of those gods.

Luckily, most Domains are exclusive to only one god. The Domains to treat carefully are:
- Good (6 gods: Arwal, Baldorei, Dol Arrah, Dol Dorn, Olidrah, Onatar)
- Law (3 gods: Aureon, Baldorei, Dol Arrah)
- Creation (2 gods: Arwal, Onatar)
- War (2 gods: Dol Arrah, Dol Dorn)

All other Domains are free & clear, and the list is a doozy -- the full list is discussed here: http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=3429


Air
Animal
Artifice
Celerity (SpC)
Chaos
Charm
Commerce (ECS)
Community
Competition (SpC)
Creation -- 2 gods: Arwal, Onatar
Earth
Family (SpC)
Feast (ECS)
Fire
Force (SpC)
Glory
Good -- 6 gods: Arwal, Baldorei, Dol Arrah, Dol Dorn, Olidrah, Onatar
Healing
Knowledge
Law -- 3 gods: Aureon, Baldorei, Dol Arrah
Liberation
Life (ECS)
Luck
Magic
Metal (SpC)
Mind
Oracle (SpC)
Pact (SpC)
Plant
Pride (SpC)
Protection
Retribution (SpC)
Spell (SpC)
Strength
Sun
Trade (SpC)
Travel
War -- 2 gods: Dol Arrah, Dol Dorn
Warforged (FoE)
Wealth (SpC)
Weather


Help me rate them, and pick an order.


Summing Up

This is a character who goes from being a nobody with a dead-end job ("Full BAB? Feh, peasant.") to being an incredibly powerful spellcaster, and possibly a politically significant player in one of the major Dragonmarked Houses.

The major support for the concept is just 10 character levels in the middle of the class build, leaving a lot of room for customization at both ends.

There are a lot of free feat slots, too.


Please help me figure out all the potential specifics.

Thanks!

[Nifft]

Might be helpful -- cross-reference of who offers which Domains:


https://i.imgur.com/N8jkxtk.png

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm going to second using at least some Duskblade to enter. You can get away with low Int if you avoid spells with saves, which is easy enough do, and Arcane Channeling is just so tasty on a fish.

A bit of Hexblade also has potential, maybe? The curse isn't doing much for you, but you get Cha-to-saves-vs-spells at level 2, Mettle at 3, and a familiar (or that snazzy Dark Companion ACF) at 4th, along with some nice spells to pick up via wands and scrolls.

Wild Shape Ranger is another interesting entry, and can help you double down on casting stats if you really want.

[Nifft]

I'm going to second using at least some Duskblade to enter. You can get away with low Int if you avoid spells with saves, which is easy enough do, and Arcane Channeling is just so tasty on a fish. Duskblade is great -- it's a really natural fit.

I'd wish for more skill points, but Int synergy and being a Human can help a lot.


A bit of Hexblade also has potential, maybe? The curse isn't doing much for you, but you get Cha-to-saves-vs-spells at level 2, Mettle at 3, and a familiar (or that snazzy Dark Companion ACF) at 4th, along with some nice spells to pick up via wands and scrolls. I like the class features, but I hate the Alignment conflict (since Hexblade requires "any nongood" and Divine Crusader requires Neutral Good).


Wild Shape Ranger is another interesting entry, and can help you double down on casting stats if you really want. Agreed, Wild Shape Ranger is great.

We'd still need Wis 13 for Natural Spell (but that's a low bar), and there's some useful synergy with Worldly Focus removing one possible hindrance to our Clerical spellcasting in animal-form.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I like the class features, but I hate the Alignment conflict (since Hexblade requires "any nongood" and Divine Crusader requires Neutral Good).
Agh, you're right, my bad. Alignments are stupid and should die in a fire, which is why I never remember these things.

There are also various full-BAB prestige classes that can be entered in the 5-6 range-- a lot of the Dragonmarked PrCs fit that category, I think, if you wanted to go that direction. Paragnostic Initiate, maybe? Feat-less entry, full BAB and lots of skills, and a couple of neat teamwork abilities.

[mastermisha1]

If you are able to adapt it a bit, Ordained Champion might be a good follow up for the last 3 levels. Channel spell might be worth it depending on your spell selection. Plus an extra domain.

[noob]

Take a one level dip in contemplative too.(the soonest possible after getting divine crusader)

[mastermisha1]

For the start of the build, paladin 4/x2 (full bab)/ pious templar 1 nets you full BAB, mettle, Cha to saves (or AC via ACF) and if you holy warrior ACF on paladin I believe you can nab True believer as a bonus feat to qualify for pious templar.

For the remaining 2 levels any full BAB class works, but if you can nab evasion from somewhere its a nice bonus.

[Alea]

I don’t think duskblade really offers much here. Yeah, you can use arcane channeling with divine crusader spells... but that doesn’t really matter much, since you only get the single-attack version of that. Adding one application of weapon damage to your touch spells is really minor.

More importantly, you’re talking about wildshape ranger here. Natural attacks and unarmed strikes can do “channeling” by default, so I was going to recommend just taking Improved Unarmed Strike, but when you’re wild shaped you don’t even need that. Other options here include an aptitude weapon, maybe, to get the ability to channel a la unarmed strikes on another weapon (that’s veering on optimization beyond practical, though), or a tentacle whip symbiont from Eberron Campaign Setting, which a Daelkyr half-blood could have at 10th or anyone else could have for 8,000 gp-worth of wealth (probably not for sale but for a 20th-level character to have sought out and found one as part of a backstory isn’t much of a stretch). Symbiont Mastery is probably necessary to deal with personality conflicts, though.

Alternatively, some battledancer and Beast Strike from Dragon #355 might be interesting.

As for paladin, the sentinel variant from Dragon #310, pg. 50 is NG, so that eliminates the alignment conflict. Not having divine grace in this build seems like a mistake.

Between crusader and warblade, I would favor crusader for improved recovery. I would only take one level, though, at 6th or 7th. Mountain hammer and setting yourself up to take Martial Stance (thicket of blades) at 9th are the main things to be aiming for there, I think.

[Nifft]

There are also various full-BAB prestige classes that can be entered in the 5-6 range-- a lot of the Dragonmarked PrCs fit that category, I think, if you wanted to go that direction. Paragnostic Initiate, maybe? Feat-less entry, full BAB and lots of skills, and a couple of neat teamwork abilities. Yes! Paragnostic Initiate is a great idea. The skills are fantastic, and the 3 levels slot in perfectly.

The class abilities are a bit 'meh', but +2 to attack rolls vs. 3 types of creature isn't bad, and boosting allied spellcasters is great if you have competent friends.

From a role-play perspective it's kinda optimal -- you're a meat-shield learning all about the wonders of spellcasting, right before you become a T1 spellcaster yourself.

This is a brilliant idea for mechanical and flavor optimization.


If you are able to adapt it a bit, Ordained Champion might be a good follow up for the last 3 levels. Channel spell might be worth it depending on your spell selection. Plus an extra domain. That is interesting. The specific deity focus is not appropriate, of course, but Eberron adapts things from other settings -- though I'm not sure how Eberron would adapt this class -- if it's specific to one of the Sovereign Host, maybe it's valid? Or maybe we need to remain dedicated to all of the Host equally, so it's not?

The abilities aren't perfect, either -- like look at the War Domain-granting ability. We have only Domain slots, and we are not a Cleric. So what do we get from that ability? I can't see an unambiguous answer.

Also, we can't Turn Undead (not without additional investment) so the Smite ability won't do anything.

So the tools are interesting, but not as great as they would be for a real Cleric, and it needs some setting-specific adaptation.


Take a one level dip in contemplative too.(the soonest possible after getting divine crusader) Contemplative is a great idea, really good for one level and decent for up to two levels.

Which Domain would you suggest that isn't offered by Sovereign Speaker?



From the MMF thread:

- Contemplative postfix (also noob; discussed above).

- Seeker of the Misty Isle postfix (assuming it could be adapted and it's not an Elf Ancestor Worship pantheon class; also assuming you're an Elf).

- Divine Oracle postfix (assuming you have everything you want from Aureon, since Oracle is one of his domains). Requires one bad feat (Skill Focus) as a prereq, but we would have spare feat slots.


- Soldier of Light prefix (at levels 6 & 7) -- gets Divine Grace and Turn Undead, and the Alignment fits -- but it's Greyhawk specific and I'm not sure how well it slots into the Sovereign Host, since there is a separate Path of Light religion in Eberron. Theory-craft-wise it's great, but in practical terms I dunno how the adaptation would work.



In combination, Solider of Light could fix some weaknesses of Ordained Champion (like giving us Turn Undead slots), but both demand separate adaptation.

Thanks everyone!

[Nifft]

For the start of the build, paladin 4/x2 (full bab)/ pious templar 1 nets you full BAB, mettle, Cha to saves (or AC via ACF) and if you holy warrior ACF on paladin I believe you can nab True believer as a bonus feat to qualify for pious templar.

For the remaining 2 levels any full BAB class works, but if you can nab evasion from somewhere its a nice bonus. How are you making Paladin into a Neutral Good class?


I don’t think duskblade really offers much here. Yeah, you can use arcane channeling with divine crusader spells... but that doesn’t really matter much, since you only get the single-attack version of that. Adding one application of weapon damage to your touch spells is really minor. Full BAB + longsword proficiency + access to Knowledge (religion) is why Duskblade is so good. It meets our prereqs without any extra expenditure.

Free auto-Quicken 1/day is pretty juicy.

Channeling is nice but whatever.

More spells are good, because spells are always good.


More importantly, you’re talking about wildshape ranger here. Natural attacks and unarmed strikes can do “channeling” by default, so I was going to recommend just taking Improved Unarmed Strike, but when you’re wild shaped you don’t even need that. Other options here include an aptitude weapon, maybe, to get the ability to channel a la unarmed strikes on another weapon (that’s veering on optimization beyond practical, though), or a tentacle whip symbiont from Eberron Campaign Setting, which a Daelkyr half-blood could have at 10th or anyone else could have for 8,000 gp-worth of wealth (probably not for sale but for a 20th-level character to have sought out and found one as part of a backstory isn’t much of a stretch). Symbiont Mastery is probably necessary to deal with personality conflicts, though. Daelkyr Half-Blood is a great suggestion. Very Eberronic. You're right about the Tentacle Whip being great, too.

Also, as a high-BAB Aberration, we've got access to Rapidstrike -- that's potentially interesting when we put it on top of Wild Shape, or (eventually) Shapechange.


Alternatively, some battledancer and Beast Strike from Dragon #355 might be interesting. Dat alignment tho. (I lamented them in the OP, is there a way around the "Any Chaotic" problem?)


As for paladin, the sentinel variant from Dragon #310, pg. 50 is NG, so that eliminates the alignment conflict. Not having divine grace in this build seems like a mistake. Ooooo! That sounds great, let me go look for it.

Nice find, thanks!


Between crusader and warblade, I would favor crusader for improved recovery. I would only take one level, though, at 6th or 7th. Mountain hammer and setting yourself up to take Martial Stance (thicket of blades) at 9th are the main things to be aiming for there, I think. We can afford up to 8 levels of Crusader -- one in the Postfix if we take Contemplative + Divine Oracle (or whatever) instead of Heir of Siberys / Uncanny Trickster. At 8th level, we'd get a new Stance, and with our half-HD boosted Initiator Level, we could pick up one of the juicy high-level Devoted Spirit stances.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I dunno if Dragon stuff counts for PO. I suspect more GMs would allow you to ignore alignment stuff than that

[Nifft]

I dunno if Dragon stuff counts for PO. I suspect more GMs would allow you to ignore alignment stuff than that

It's interesting and I'm going to put it in the guide, but you're right -- it's not as useful as more generally allowable content.

[gkathellar]

Sentinel borders on mandatory if it's allowed. +Cha to saves and Turn Undead are great additions.

I find myself questioning the value of Duskblade. In the long term, the tiny bit of extra damage from channeling your attack doesn't seem to justify the 3 levels you spend buying into it.

[Nifft]

Sentinel borders on mandatory if it's allowed. +Cha to saves and Turn Undead are great additions. Yeah you get a lot from four levels of Sentinel -- or two levels of Soldier of Light -- but both of which are pretty far from core.


I find myself questioning the value of Duskblade. In the long term, the tiny bit of extra damage from channeling your attack doesn't seem to justify the 3 levels you spend buying into it. Did someone say that Arcane Channel was the main reason to take Duskblade?

Could you quote that person, so we can correct that misconception?

[Alea]

Full BAB + longsword proficiency + access to Knowledge (religion) is why Duskblade is so good. It meets our prereqs without any extra expenditure.

Free auto-Quicken 1/day is pretty juicy.

Channeling is nice but whatever.

More spells are good, because spells are always good.
I’m sorry, but no.

Weapon proficiency, full-BAB, and Knowledge (religion) as a class skill are common to a large number of classes; duskblade is far from unique in that regard. Levels are valuable; you should expect to get more out of them than that. For example, the sentinel: also full-BAB, also gets all martial weapons, and also has Knowledge (religion) in-class, but unlike the duskblade, offers divine grace, potentially aura of courage and turn undead on top of those things.

By comparison, duskblade gets you the meh arcane channeling, spells you won’t use, armored mage that you don’t need, a mediocre bonus feat, and, if you take 5 levels (which is more levels than sentinel would ever ask of you here), 1/day spell quickening. I mean, the feature isn’t terrible by any means, but it certainly isn’t worth five levels to get, basically, just that.

Just two levels of sentinel gets you 5 ranks in Knowledge (religion); even if you have to pay cross-class to get the other 3, that is no great hardship. But you don’t, since e.g. crusader is also full-BAB and has Knowledge (religion) in class, and plenty of feats can do that for you too, like Knowledge Devotion (which isn’t a stellar feat on this build but it’s not atrocious either and our feat requirements here are relatively light, so it certainly costs less than levels in duskblade does).

Duskblade is a class that I am constantly thinking is going to be useful, and by the end it always falls out of my builds. It just takes too long to do anything really useful to really be good for much other than a straight duskblade character—and that is only good because it’s simple to build and to play. Otherwise, duskblade ends up being only “okay” at whatever you use it for, which means there’s pretty much always some better option.


Did someone say that Arcane Channel was the main reason to take Duskblade?

Could you quote that person, so we can correct that misconception?
This “misconception” stems from the fact that arcane channeling is the only real reason to even consider duskblade in the first place—it’s the only thing unique about the class. Everything else about it can be gotten elsewhere, while gaining better goodies on the side.

Anyway...

We can afford up to 8 levels of Crusader -- one in the Postfix if we take Contemplative + Divine Oracle (or whatever) instead of Heir of Siberys / Uncanny Trickster. At 8th level, we'd get a new Stance, and with our half-HD boosted Initiator Level, we could pick up one of the juicy high-level Devoted Spirit stances.
8 + 12/2 = 8 + 6 = 14, which is too low to take the 8th-level immortal fortitude stance (requires IL 15th). And the 3rd-level stance, thicket of blades, we can get with a 9th-level feat if we take just one level of crusader. So the only things this gets us are the “aura” stances. Of those, aura of chaos and aura of perfect order are OK... but only OK.

Looking beyond Devoted Spirit, we can’t take strength of stone or swarm tactics any more than we can take immortal fortitude, and again the 1st-level and 3rd-level stances are already available without so many crusader levels. That leaves giant’s stance, which is utter garbage, and press the advantage, which is nice-ish but not really particularly incredible.

Mind you, even if we could get immortal fortitude, I’m not convinced, at all, that it’s worth giving up divine grace for.


I dunno if Dragon stuff counts for PO. I suspect more GMs would allow you to ignore alignment stuff than that
In my experience, when playing with DMs who are actually OK with some optimization, Dragon material tends to be allowed on a case-by-case basis. Is there broken stuff in there? Yeah, definitely. But most of it isn’t—most of it is really underpowered, really. Beast Strike and sentinel, for examples (the only Dragon material suggested in this thread so far as I can tell), are pretty tame.

And, ya know, the actual published books don’t really offer a much better standard. I can’t think of anything in Dragon that’s as eminently abusable as aptitude weapons from Tome of Battle, for example. And Tome of Battle is a good book, with really tight balance in general—Dragon looks downright superb when compared to the likes of Serpent Kingdoms (and not only manipulate form, either; that book is ridiculous).

[Grod_The_Giant]

In my experience, when playing with DMs who are actually OK with some optimization, Dragon material tends to be allowed on a case-by-case basis. Is there broken stuff in there? Yeah, definitely. But most of it isn’t—most of it is really underpowered, really. Beast Strike and sentinel, for examples (the only Dragon material suggested in this thread so far as I can tell), are pretty tame.

And, ya know, the actual published books don’t really offer a much better standard. I can’t think of anything in Dragon that’s as eminently abusable as aptitude weapons from Tome of Battle, for example. And Tome of Battle is a good book, with really tight balance in general—Dragon looks downright superb when compared to the likes of Serpent Kingdoms (and not only manipulate form, either; that book is ridiculous).
Perception and access are both important too-- Dragon stuff tends to be seen as unbalanced in a way that most other books aren't. And most of it is wildly obscure. In all the 3.5 games I've looked at or did join, I can only think of one that allowed it.

[gkathellar]

Anyway, I think what you can safely say is that a 1-level Crusader dip is great here, and the value of Duskblade is pretty questionable. Soldier of Light, alas, has its own deity requirement, so you can't take it with Sovereign Speaker.

In the absence of Sentinel, Wild Shape Ranger is pretty attractive, and Warblade looks much better.

Sentinel/Crusader is the really natural fit, though, and leaves you two levels to do whatever with.

[Nifft]

I’m sorry, but no.

Weapon proficiency, full-BAB, and Knowledge (religion) as a class skill are common to a large number of classes; duskblade is far from unique in that regard. Levels are valuable; you should expect to get more out of them than that. For example, the sentinel: also full-BAB, also gets all martial weapons, and also has Knowledge (religion) in-class, but unlike the duskblade, offers divine grace, potentially aura of courage and turn undead on top of those things.

By comparison, duskblade gets you the meh arcane channeling, spells you won’t use, armored mage that you don’t need, a mediocre bonus feat, and, if you take 5 levels (which is more levels than sentinel would ever ask of you here), 1/day spell quickening. I mean, the feature isn’t terrible by any means, but it certainly isn’t worth five levels to get, basically, just that.

Just two levels of sentinel gets you 5 ranks in Knowledge (religion); even if you have to pay cross-class to get the other 3, that is no great hardship. But you don’t, since e.g. crusader is also full-BAB and has Knowledge (religion) in class, and plenty of feats can do that for you too, like Knowledge Devotion (which isn’t a stellar feat on this build but it’s not atrocious either and our feat requirements here are relatively light, so it certainly costs less than levels in duskblade does).

Duskblade is a class that I am constantly thinking is going to be useful, and by the end it always falls out of my builds. It just takes too long to do anything really useful to really be good for much other than a straight duskblade character—and that is only good because it’s simple to build and to play. Otherwise, duskblade ends up being only “okay” at whatever you use it for, which means there’s pretty much always some better option.


This “misconception” stems from the fact that arcane channeling is the only real reason to even consider duskblade in the first place—it’s the only thing unique about the class. Everything else about it can be gotten elsewhere, while gaining better goodies on the side.

Anyway...

8 + 12/2 = 8 + 6 = 14, which is too low to take the 8th-level immortal fortitude stance (requires IL 15th). And the 3rd-level stance, thicket of blades, we can get with a 9th-level feat if we take just one level of crusader. So the only things this gets us are the “aura” stances. Of those, aura of chaos and aura of perfect order are OK... but only OK.

Looking beyond Devoted Spirit, we can’t take strength of stone or swarm tactics any more than we can take immortal fortitude, and again the 1st-level and 3rd-level stances are already available without so many crusader levels. That leaves giant’s stance, which is utter garbage, and press the advantage, which is nice-ish but not really particularly incredible.

Mind you, even if we could get immortal fortitude, I’m not convinced, at all, that it’s worth giving up divine grace for.


In my experience, when playing with DMs who are actually OK with some optimization, Dragon material tends to be allowed on a case-by-case basis. Is there broken stuff in there? Yeah, definitely. But most of it isn’t—most of it is really underpowered, really. Beast Strike and sentinel, for examples (the only Dragon material suggested in this thread so far as I can tell), are pretty tame.

And, ya know, the actual published books don’t really offer a much better standard. I can’t think of anything in Dragon that’s as eminently abusable as aptitude weapons from Tome of Battle, for example. And Tome of Battle is a good book, with really tight balance in general—Dragon looks downright superb when compared to the likes of Serpent Kingdoms (and not only manipulate form, either; that book is ridiculous).

Duskblade is in PHB2, which means it's much more accessible than Dragon Magazine content. The Dragon content was a good find -- and thank you for that -- but Dragon content is not equally valid. You cannot treat the class variant Sentinel as if it were equally likely to be allowed in a real game. That's a dishonest debate tactic.


But I guess I need to explain why Duskblade is good? Sure, let's try that.

Duskblade gives Arcane spellcasting, which can be used for several nice things:

Thing #1: Access to Obtain Familiar. Is it better to cast shapechange on one character you control, or to cast shapechange on two characters you control? You should be able to solve this. For two feats, you can have a Blink Dog familiar from level 5, or a Hippogriff from level 7.

Thing #2: Cantrips. It's nice to have access to read magic and detect magic without having to expend valuable Divine Crusader slots. Plus those other utility spells.

Thing #3: Arcane spell slots. Want to cast mage armor (perhaps on someone's animal companion), blur, and ancient knowledge? Plug a spellwurm into your armpit. Want to cast up to four arbitrary Arcane spells of levels 1 & 2 from any list? Find or buy a drake helm. Got a DM who loves Dragon Magazine? Find or buy some knowstones.

Thing #4: Duskblade Spell List. The list has some g--

spells you won’t use Color Spray.
Resist Energy.
Stand.
Swift Expeditious Retreat.
Obscuring Mist.
Dimension Hop.
Swift Invisibility.
See Invisibility.

--er, some good spells which will see quite a lot of use.

This includes a modest selection of "NO"-buttons, which are one of the things that sets Arcane casters above mere mortals, plus access to spell-trigger and spell-completion items (like a wand of enervation or a scroll of dispel magic). Arcane spellcasting is not often considered a weak thing.

Anyway, that's some of the benefits of one Duskblade class feature.

Duskblade also gets all Knowledge skills, plus Sense Motive, Spellcraft, and Concentration.

Duskblade also gets Sudden Quicken 1/day.

Duskblade also gets a meh bonus feat (meh). But hey, bigger number.

Duskblade also gets Arcane Channeling (meh).



Now, let's look at the Sentinel:

- Divine Grace, surely a good thing. Except you're supposed to be a T1 spellcaster -- if you're making a lot of saving throws, you have already lost. You ought to be able to make yourself immune to enemy actions. I think you're over-rating this ability. It's not a bad thing, of course -- bigger numbers are nice to have -- but it's not as good as you are trying to make it out to be.

What's better? For one thing, Warblade maneuvers (specifically the Diamond Mind counters) are better than Divine Grace. Why? Because Diamond Mind counters don't fail on a natural 1. You gain the ability to say "NO" to a fundamental lose-condition. Often imposing a miss chance on your enemies is better, which you can get from Duskblade spells (even the humble obscuring mist can impose a 50% miss chance, not to mention the great and powerful swift invisibility).

- Turn Outsider is not a bad ability, but it's not Turn Undead. You'll need a houserule to get this to fuel DMM:Persist shenanigans, if your DM allows those shenanigans in the first place. And if you need a houserule anyway, why not just ask for a Domain power like Air / Earth / Fire / Water Turn & Rebuke to count?

- Spellcasting, again it's good to have an extra level 1 slot and access to the Sentinel spell list for items -- but the Sentinel spell list isn't as good as even the Paladin spell list due to lack of splatbook support.

... and that's if you can even get that Dragon Magazine content into your game. Even if you can vault that hurdle, you're only assured of getting Divine Grace. The Sentinel is not as good as you're trying to sell it -- it's not as good as real Paladin levels, and that's before we factor in Paladin support splats (e.g. no Battle Blessing for you).


The Duskblade's casting is great at low levels, and it retains some value at higher levels.


Anyway, I think what you can safely say is that a 1-level Crusader dip is great here, and the value of Duskblade is pretty questionable. Soldier of Light, alas, has its own deity requirement, so you can't take it with Sovereign Speaker.

In the absence of Sentinel, Wild Shape Ranger is pretty attractive, and Warblade looks much better.

Sentinel/Crusader is the really natural fit, though, and leaves you two levels to do whatever with.

Don't over-rate Sentinel. Divine Grace is good, but it's their only good feature. A real Paladin is significantly better than a Sentinel.

Crusader has some of the best long-term value -- hardness and DR only get more common & more difficult to penetrate as you go up in levels; extra standard actions for your allies only get more powerful. Crusader 7 might be the strongest entry, capping off with Crusader 8 after finishing spellcaster progression (because let's be honest -- maneuvers are nice, but high-level spellcasting is better).

Warblade costs us a feat for Education, but gives a bonus feat from a not-that-bad list.

Wild Shape Ranger is usually great, and it's great here. Spell access from a reasonably well-supported list, utility shape-shifting, and enough skill points to mostly ignore Intelligence. It'd cost you some feats, but this build isn't that tight on feats. Still, it's a variant (albeit one of the more popular variants), so you'd need special permission to use it.



Moving forward...

I'm a little surprised nobody mentioned Warshaper yet. This is a build for Eberron, so the Changeling race is viable.

_____ 4 / Warshaper 3 would be a strong prefix, with Stun immunity, Crit immunity, morphic weapons (sadly limited by practical optimization), and Reach.

[ATHATH]

Could the Ordered Chaos feat allow you to qualify for Divine Crusader and Battle Dancer simultaneously?

It kind of fits default-RP wise, as well, since you serve several deities with potentially conflicting interests. It fits even more nicely if you're a daelkyr half-blood as well.

[Nifft]

Could the Ordered Chaos feat allow you to qualify for Divine Crusader and Battle Dancer simultaneously?

It kind of fits default-RP wise, as well, since you serve several deities with potentially conflicting interests. It fits even more nicely if you're a daelkyr half-blood as well.

That's awesome.



Prerequisite
Nonchaotic alignment, base Will save +4

Benefit
Your alignment is not affected by the Abyssal heritor feats you possess. Spells and effects that are keyed to alignment affect you as if you were chaotic, as well as your actual alignment. For example, you become immune to spells such as chaos hammer and word of chaos, you could wield an anarchic weapon without fear of gaining a negative level, and you could take the Primordial Scion feat despite its chaotic alignment prerequisite


If feat choice count as an "effect", then I guess so does class level choice.

Assuming fractional saves, I think the earliest this feat could be taken is level 6, which would allow Battle Dancer 1 as level 7.

Excellent find, thank you!

[Grod_The_Giant]

Moving forward...

I'm a little surprised nobody mentioned Warshaper yet. This is a build for Eberron, so the Changeling race is viable.

_____ 4 / Warshaper 3 would be a strong prefix, with Stun immunity, Crit immunity, morphic weapons (sadly limited by practical optimization), and Reach.
Warshaper only has medium BAB-- you'd need ____ 4/Warshaper 4 to qualify for Divine Crusader.

[Nifft]

Warshaper only has medium BAB-- you'd need ____ 4/Warshaper 4 to qualify for Divine Crusader.

Dang, you're right.

Thanks for the correction.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Dat alignment tho. (I lamented them in the OP, is there a way around the "Any Chaotic" problem?)


There is a feat by the name "Ordered Chaos" in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, He will help you be your alignment and Chaotic at the same time.

Edit:
I have lost it, I wasn't the first
(falling into a pit of fire)

[Nifft]

Could the Ordered Chaos feat allow you to qualify for Divine Crusader and Battle Dancer simultaneously?

It kind of fits default-RP wise, as well, since you serve several deities with potentially conflicting interests. It fits even more nicely if you're a daelkyr half-blood as well.


There is a feat by the name "Ordered Chaos" in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss, He will help you be your alignment and Chaotic at the same time.

So, that feat needs base Will +4 at level 6 -- or earlier if you can arrange for a bonus Feat at level 4 somehow -- maybe Mystic Ranger's Endurance? I dunno.

I'm assuming fractional saves, so I think it's not possible to get a base save of +4 at level 3.

The classes with full BAB and good Will saves (per this guy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=13420895&postcount=6)) are:

- Duskblade (PHB2)
- Hexblade (CW)
- Knight (PHB2)

[Alea]

OK, long post is long. TL;DR:

We only need two of the first six levels to be good-Will in order to take Ordered Chaos and then take battle dancer at 7th. Taking battle dancer that late is painful though, and I’m not sure how good an option it is.
Many prestige classes can help with the Will situation, and some do so better than the available base classes. Best options are abjurant champion and occult slayer, with anointed knight a distant third. Unfortunately, we can’t get two levels in these before 6th without early-entry shenanigans (almost certainly beyond the bounds of practical optimization), and none of the full-BAB, good-Will base classes is worth much as a single-level dip.
Abjurant champion, (adapted) champion of Gwynharwyf, occult slayer, and spell-carved soldier all deserve consideration for postfix, or for a level or two of prefix plus the postfix.
Divine grace is better than warblade maneuvers. Not getting it when we could remains almost-objectively a mistake.
In situations where no NG paladin is available, hexblade and champion of Gwynharwyf can get divine grace or the next best thing. However, most situations that nix paladin nix those, since they require DM adaptation/houserule.
If we can adapt it, Southern Magician offers many of the benefits of duskblade for just a feat, instead of levels. This is probably better for things like abjurant champion or spellwurms than duskblade is.


So Ordered Chaos is interesting, but getting it at 6th seems... too late to do much good. At best, we get a single level of battle dancer at 7th, and that’s it. That gets us Cha-to-AC-while-unarmored, which is nice, and unarmed strike progression, but seems like a lot of effort to go to for just that, plus for our 7th level we could be taking a prestige class. It probably ends up being just barely worth it, only just, where it would look quite a lot better taken earlier. You could conceivably start as CG, and change alignment to NG at 6th once you have Ordered Chaos, but that’s quite a dubious recommendation for practical optimization.

But, for the sake of argument, I did some (a lot of) digging.



SRD

Core—Dwarven defender, oddly enough. Lawful and BAB +7 requirements kill it as an option, and it sucks anyway.
Psionics—Slayer, which we can actually qualify for just by getting Track and one power point. One level grants a favored enemy and enemy sense, allowing you to always be aware of the presence of a certain type of psionic creature. In a campaign with a lot of psionics, that could be really nice, and the costs here are pretty low.
Variants—Looks like none change a good-Will class to have full BAB, or change a full-BAB class to have good Will.

Complete Adventurer—Fochlucan lyrist, weirdly enough. Can’t get in early enough to help.
Complete Arcane—None, unsurprisingly.
Complete Champion—Ordained champion, but it requires worshiping Hextor or Heironeous. The adaptation section mentions Dol Arrah and Dol Dorn as valid in Eberron, but that still probably conflicts with sovereign speaker. Plus there’s the matter of casting magic weapon as a divine spell, which probably takes more effort than this is worth. Grants a bonus domain (specifically War unless you already have that), but gaining one before divine crusader isn’t worth much. And we probably don’t have any domains to swap for fighter bonus feats even if we wanted to.

Also the shadowstriker, which doesn’t list any devotion to Pelor or Heironeous in the requirements, but does in the fluff and appears to be powered by both together. Anyway, its class features are meh so not worth the effort.
Complete Divine—
Consecrated harrier—Requires Track, which kind of sucks, and being lawful, which is a problem.
Pious templar—Weren’t we already considering this? Mettle isn’t awful, anyway, and we already meet the Weapon Focus requirement for divine crusader. True Believer is a crappy feat, but whatever. This isn’t a great option but it’s not a terrible one. The smite it grants at 2nd is sadly fixed at a +4 bonus to attack, not +Cha.
Shining blade of Heironeous—Obvious problem is obvious, and despite the adaptation section, it appears that this is intended to remain LG even when adapted. It’s not very good anyway.

Complete Mage—Abjurant champion! Even just one or two levels of this is nice; its class features apply to any abjurations, not just arcane ones or ones from the class you’re advancing. Gives far greater value to duskblade, since it meets the prerequisites so easily, though if we’re going with duskblade we don’t have to worry about Will anyway. Finishing abjurant champion later is also a nice idea.
Complete Psionic—*shudder* Anyway, storm disciple fits the bill, but it requires us to be chaotic, which means we need to already have Ordered Chaos, which defeats the purpose of taking the level. And the 1st-level class feature is meh. And qualifying means a mantle, which we can’t get without losing BAB.
Complete Scoundrel—Gray guard, but we obviously are never going to qualify.
Complete Warrior—
Bladesinger—we could qualify but it’s painful and for little benefit.
Cavalier—Lawful and BAB +8 requirement. Useless to us.
Dervish—Feat requirements are miserable, but otherwise this is a legitimate option. Dance of death isn’t stellar and we only get it once per day, but movement mastery isn’t terrible.
Justiciar—Lawful requirement and BAB +6 requirement means we can’t take it until after we’ve selected our 6th-level feat.
Knight protector—LN or LG, brutal feat requirements, mediocre class features. Technically an option, but never a good one.
Master of the unseen hand—Need telekinesis somehow, and that’s not likely to happen on full BAB. Interesting that it has full BAB itself, though.
Mindspy—Detect thoughts is slightly more likely than telekinesis but only just. Cha-to-AC at 1st, but limited by class level so that sucks.
Occult slayer—Only requires Improved Initiative of us, which isn’t really asking for all that much since it’s a decent feat. This is actually a really good option if we can fit all five levels in the prefix and postfix; the 5th-level blank thoughts feature is complete and utter mind-affecting immunity as Ex and that’s kind of nuts. The other features aren’t terrible either.
Order of the Bow Initiate—It’s a terrible class with miserable requirements, but it technically would fit the bill for us here.
Spellsword—2nd-level arcane spells are difficult even with duskblade, and the class features are worthless to one of those.

Book of Exalted Deeds—
Anointed knight—basically just needs Ancestral Relic from us, and that’s not a terrible feat. Best taken if we have truly enormous Charisma, to allow us to pick higher “rank” options from the list in our first two levels. Still, stuff like Combat Reflexes, DR 3/–, or +1 Charisma are decent, as is making our weapon permanently good-aligned without having to buy holy. If we can manage Charisma 26 somehow by 7th level, we could also make our weapon an intelligent item, which is interesting.
Champion of Gwynharwyf—Obvious problem is obvious; BoED doesn’t do adaptation sections, either. Even if a DM adapts things, though, alignment, BAB, and skill ranks all force us to not take this until after 6th and Ordered Chaos, defeating the purpose. However, it grants divine grace, along with smite and rage progression, so uh, that’s certainly something; it might actually be worth taking a level for the final part of our prefix and getting some more in the postfix, at least when starting play at high level and when neither sentinel nor waiving paladin alignment requirements is allowed.
Defender of Sealtiel—Another one that requires some other god to worship, no adaptation section. BAB +7 requirement makes it useless to us anyway.
Emissary of Barachiel—Yet again. If allowed to adapt it, probably can enter but it’s meh.
Fist of Raziel—How many of these are there? Even if we adapt and eliminate the LG requirement, it still requires BAB +6, making it useless for Ordered Chaos. Constant magic circle against evil and a 1/day smite isn’t awful for a level dip, though, I guess? Not sure how terrible or not Servant of the Heavens, a required feat, is. Casting divine favor means 4 levels of paladin though, and that sucks.
Sword of Righteousness—Finally, one that’s not deity-specific. NG is valid, too. But BAB +6 means it doesn’t help with Ordered Chaos, and mostly all you get is a bunch of exalted feats, and those mostly suck.

Book of Vile Darkness—Disciple of Dispater, disciple of Mammon, disciple of Mephistopheless, soul eater, thrall of Juiblex, thrall of Orcus, and warrior of darkness. All require evil alignment. Also, what is with Book of Vile Darkness and all-good saves? Several of these prestige classes have that, along with full BAB.
Miniatures Handbook—None, except the marshal base class already mentioned.
Races of Destiny—None.
Races of the Dragon—None.
Races of the Wild—Champion of Corellon Larethian. Requirements are miserable, not sure Dex-to-damage is worth much to us, and that’s even assuming we can adapt (Races of the Wild does suggest this, though it does not have suggestions for Eberron in particular).
Races of Stone—Deepwarden, which gets nothing good in the 1st level.
Drow of the Underdark—Kinslayer, which requires a couple of [Vile] feats. Actually not a completely terrible class, if entry weren’t so painful.
Heroes of Horror—None.
Lords of Madness—Sanctified mind, which actually has a really good class feature at 1st, that allows you to be slowed instead of any mind-affecting effect for level + Cha rounds per day. Not hard to enter, either, mostly just need Iron Will and a power point. Also the topaz guardian, which isn’t hard to enter either and grants, effectively, a partial but constant protection from evil effect. Also quite good.
Dungeonscape—Beast heart adept, which isn’t terribly difficult to enter but also gets us little.
Frostburn—Disciple of Thrym, which obviously worships something other than the Sovereign Host and has pretty meh class features anyway. And also the knight of the iron glacier, which we can’t enter until 7th anyway (requires 9 ranks of Ride).
Sandstorm—Scion of Tem-Et-Nu, which is hilarious. Also incompatible, and not very good.
Stormwrack—Knight of the pearl, which requires LG and turn undead and does little for us.
Planar Handbook—None.
Weapons of Legacy—None.
Dragon Magic—None.
Magic of Incarnum—None.
Tome of Magic—Witch slayer, which is like a really poor version of occult slayer. The 5th-level feature is OK, and it gets mettle at 2nd, but otherwise is meh. Easy to enter though.
Tome of Battle—Ruby knight vindicator, which is obviously awesome but needs adaptation.
Eberron Campaign Setting—Exorcist of the Silver Flame. Obviously not going to work with sovereign speaker, and it’s not that good anyway.
Faiths of Eberron—None.
Magic of Eberron—Deadgrim, which requires 1st-level divine spells and either turn undead or favored enemy (undead). Probably a case where turn outsider should not qualify, even if the DM is generally OK with it. However, a DM may allow a sentinel to use this paladin variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladin) to get favored enemy (undead) instead of lay on hands for this. Unclear if its turn undead stacking would grant us that feature if we don’t have it, but that might be a thing. Anyway, the class isn’t very good, so the point is largely moot.
Races of Eberron—Spellcarved soldier, which is kind of interesting. Requires BAB +6, though, so can’t help with Ordered Chaos. Still, an interesting option I think. Too bad you couldn’t complete it even using the postfix.
Player’s Guide to Eberron—Revenant blade, which kind of revolves around Valenar ancestor worship and so doesn’t really make sense for a sovereign speaker. Also, revolves around Valenar double-scimitars, which aren’t longswords.
Dragonmarked—None.
Five Nations—None.
Secrets of Sarlona—None.
Secrets of Xen’drik—None.
City of Stormreach—None.
Sharn, City of Towers—Citadel elite, which is basically Breland special forces. Requires BAB +7 so it could only ever show up in postfix anyway.
Explorer’s Handbook—None.
Dragons of Eberron—None.
Shadows of the Last War—None.
Player’s Guide to Faerûn—Hammer of Moradin, which doesn’t work for a whole host of reasons including 10 ranks in Craft (weaponsmithing), 2nd-level divine spells, and you know, worshiping Moradin. Not all that good anyway.
Dragon vol. 311—Memory smith. Requires worshiping Moradin, advances bard features we don’t have. Maybe with a lot of adaptation of Faerûn stuff we could use this as well as the harmonic knight from Champions of Valor to get bardic music from sentinel. Probably not though.


This list is probably incomplete, but it definitely covers an enormous amount of material. I’m reasonably sure I’ve gotten everything that isn’t specific to some other campaign setting (and even got some of those).


My top picks here are definitely abjurant champion and occult slayer. Maybe anointed knight takes the bronze, and we can round out the top five with sanctified mind and topaz guardian. If adaptation is available, ruby knight vindicator is also on that list and obviously is awesome. And while they don’t help with Ordered Chaos and/or battle dancer, I want to keep champion of Gwynharwyf and spellcarved soldier in mind for the postfix. I’ll also toss honorable mentions to champion of Corellon Larethian and dervish; both require far too much for what they do, but they are kind of interesting.

Ultimately, though, getting to Will +4 in 6 levels requires only 2 levels of good Will save if we are talking about fractional (actually, per the actual fractional rules in Unearthed Arcana, a level in each of two good-Will classes gets us +5 alone because you do repeat the +2 as written; not getting the repeated +2 is a common houserule but it is a houserule). If we use one of the above prestige classes at 6th (I think they have a lot of merit that way), that means we only need one other class level with good Will.

But none of those base classes is worth anything as a 1-level dip.

I guess duskblade comes closest, since it allows us to have arcane spells for things, but the best use of that is abjurant champion and then the 2nd level of duskblade looks tempting since it gets us the Combat Casting we need. However, it’s worth noting that the Southern Magician feat gets us arcane spells as well, if we can adapt it from Faerûn. That means a lot of the benefits you claim for duskblade (familiar, spellwurm, and I’ll add abjurant champion) could be gotten without it, and that’s probably worth even two feats to take both Southern Magician and Combat Casting. Again, our feat requirements here are relatively light, just Weapon Focus and Worldly Focus.

Still, NG-Paladin-or-Sentinel 2/Duskblade 2/Crusader 1/Abjurant Champion 2/Divine Crusader 1/Sovereign Speaker 9/Abjurant Champion +3 becomes a real stand-out choice here. It doesn’t require much adaptation or DM intervention, it’s a fairly simple progression, etc. Attempting to use battle dancer and Beast Strike here seems awkward, since it means giving up a level of abjurant champion instead of, say, duskblade, and without wildshape ranger I’m not sure where our claw or slam is coming from.

The other options, knight and hexblade, are a little more troublesome. Both require alignments we cannot have (lawful or non-good, respectively), and I do not know of any feat like Ordered Chaos for any other alignment. So these are only options if alignment is being ignored (which it should be but it is a houserule), in which case there’s no reason to take Ordered Chaos in the first place so we no longer care quite so much about our base Will save. But anyway, if that is the case...

Knight 3 and 4 are OK; bulwark of defense is pretty good, and test of mettle would be good but your save DCs will be atrocious with only 4 knight levels. And obviously, to take the 3rd and 4th levels of knight, you have to take the 1st and 2nd, which are basically worthless. Overall, probably not a great choice.

On the other hand, hexblade for two levels would be excellent. It grants Cha-to-all-saves-against-spells, which stacks with divine grace and replaces it if we cannot take it (it is conceivable to imagine a game which waives the hexblade alignment requirement but not the paladin one, mistake though that is). Four levels could get us the dark companion from Player’s Handbook II, which is fantastic.

As for other levels, taking two in some form of NG-compatible paladin, whether that’s the official-but-obscure sentinel or just a houserule allowing NG paladins, remains nearly mandatory if allowed. Which it is doesn’t really matter to us; we would only take two levels of it and the only thing we really care about is divine grace, which sentinels have. The mediocre sentinel spellcasting, turn outsider, etc., wouldn’t be worth more levels even if they were the superior paladin spellcasting and turn undead. The entire point of the comparison between duskblade and sentinel is that we can get a fantastic, extremely-high-value feature for just two levels, rather than a handful of mediocre features for five. Comparing five levels of each is a very different situation but not the comparison I was suggesting.

Also, the warblade counters are fantastic, but they are definitely not better than divine grace in a high-Charisma build. You need three to five levels to get all three, you then dedicate most of your maneuvers readied to having them, and they offer zero protection if you are surprised (no immediate actions while flat-footed), or if multiple saves are demanded in a round (only one immediate action per turn), or if the same save is demanded multiple times between recovery (warbade recovery is not conducive to what you want to be spending your turns doing, which is casting spells). The odds of one of those things happening is much, much higher than the odds of a nat-1, plus you are very likely to have both the Luck domain and the Pride domain on this build since those are some of the best domains offered by sovereign speaker, so 2/day you get to reroll that nat-1 even when it does happen.

Also, I have a character with both divine grace and Diamond Mind maneuvers. She never uses those counters because her Concentration bonus is lower than any of her regular save bonuses. This with maxed Concentration ranks and a high Constitution. Seriously, divine grace is insane.

I maintain, then, that crusader is better here than warblade. The recovery is superior, and Devoted Spirit is more useful to us than Diamond Mind or Iron Heart. With divine grace, we do not need or even particularly want the Diamond Mind counters.

Anyway, if no form of NG paladin is allowed, we should also consider hexblade and champion of Gwynharwyf for it—some DMs may only get picky about paladin alignment specifically, which may make hexblade viable, and others may be willing to adapt champion of Gwynharwyf to something else if playing in, say, Eberron where Gwynharwyf doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, champion of Gwynharwyf only offers divine grace in the postfix, so that solution is only viable if playing at 18th or higher (BAB +6 requirement means we can only take the 1st level in the prefix, but divine grace happens at 2nd).

So if alignment is being held to strictly, Dragon is out, and champion of Gwynharwyf won’t be adapted or the game isn’t being played at 18th or higher, then warblade and its counters become much more valuable. Duskblade doesn’t, really, since there are still many options for doing what it does, but in such a game Southern Magician probably isn’t valid either, which makes duskblade more useful for abjurant champion on top of the other minor benefits it offers.

Also, it is worth keeping in mind that you can take both crusader and warblade. Trying for some ruby knight vindicator as the postfix, assuming a valid adaptation, makes this look even better because of the nice way initiating prestige classes work.

[ATHATH]

Y'know, you could just not use the Fractional BAB optional rules.

[Alea]

Y'know, you could just not use the Fractional BAB optional rules.
That doesn’t help us. The core of the build is divine crusader, and divine crusader requires BAB +7. Not much is worth delaying that.

[Nifft]

OK, long post is long. TL;DR:


This is an amazing compilation of information -- thanks for putting this together.

I'm still going through it.

One quick note though: the specific instance where the 3 Concentration-check-for-a-save Maneuvers are better than Divine Grace is that you don't fail a skill check on a natural 1. So if your Concentration and your Charisma are both high enough that you only fail on a 1, you're better off with the maneuvers.

Of course, you're better off with BOTH because you will probably have to make more than one save per turn on your way through 20 levels, but... the point stands, 5% chance of insta-death is worse than 0% chance of insta-death.

Anyway, thank you!

[Forrestfire]

Taking the Pride domain turns your natural 1s from a 1/20 chance to a 1/400 chance. The reroll isn't 1/day, it happens every time (though only once per save). By the time you're optimizing to cover an edge case that small, there's probably better things to do with an entire level. The diamond mind maneuvers are probably not worth getting all three of if you can manage having divine grace. Wall of blades could be too, however (though if Dragon is on the table, one could take some of the Parry feats and get that defense that way).

[Nifft]

Taking the Pride domain turns your natural 1s from a 1/20 chance to a 1/400 chance. The reroll isn't 1/day, it happens every time (though only once per save). By the time you're optimizing to cover an edge case that small, there's probably better things to do with an entire level. The diamond mind maneuvers are probably not worth getting all three of if you can manage having divine grace. Wall of blades could be too, however (though if Dragon is on the table, one could take some of the Parry feats and get that defense that way).

The Reflex one is certainly ignorable -- Reflex saves don't usually turn you into a statue, nor into a liability. They just make you a little crispy.

But yeah, I'm not advocating Crusader and (to a lesser degree) Warblade purely because of these 2 save-replacement counters. It's good to make your saves, but it's better to end an encounter faster and not need to make as many saves.

It's maneuvers like White Raven Tactics that makes the Crusader so amazingly potent.

I'm mostly just trying to set a reasonable value for Divine Grace, since it is good -- but it's not so good that everything else pales in comparison.

[Alea]

No really, everything does pale in comparison. For a high-Charisma character, which this character definitely should be, it is hands-down the greatest defense in the game, at least for practical optimization. Like I said, I have a character who has both Diamond Mind and divine grace, and those counters would be useless to her. They do not even remotely keep up with what divine grace can do.

Your focus on natural-1s is overstating their relevance, particularly on a character that most likely has both Luck and Pride domains. With those, the odds of a natural-1 actually occurring and not being eliminated by one of domains is absurdly low.

First, the odds of both the initial saving throw and the Pride reroll being a nat-1 is 1/400.

Now, suppose that we make an average of 48 saving throws per day: 4 encounters a day, each 3 rounds long, and making 4 saves a round. The first number comes from the DMG, while the other two are intentionally chosen to be high—preposterously so, in the case of the saves per round. That should more than account for any saves made outside “encounters” if that’s how the DM runs things, though really something that makes you save should be an encounter. Point is, 48 is a really high number, not remotely an actual expectation. I did this intentionally because it shows that even in really save-loaded situations, divine grace with Pride and Luck perform admirably. Notably, the Diamond Mind counters fail miserably in the same situation, because so many saves are being made per round and you only get to counter one each round.

Anyway, point is, the odds of a 1/400 chance occurring never in a day is


48 choose 0 * (1/400)0 * (399/400)48 = (399/400)48 = 88.7%

(the formula here is a binomial distribution). So 88.7% of days go by without even using the Luck domain. The odds of it happening once—and so needing the Luck domain but being OK if we have it—would be


48 choose 1 * (1/400)1 * (399/400)47 = 48 * 0.0025 * 0.889 = 10.7%.

So between the two of them, we get that approximately 99.3% (note that I am reporting rounded values but am doing the work without rounding, hence ~88.7 + ~10.7 = ~99.3 and not ~99.4 as you might expect) of days go by where we either do not need the Luck domain, or else we need the Luck domain, but it’s enough to prevent a nat-1 from causing us to fail a saving throw.

And so that means on only 0.7% of days involve a saving throw failed because of a natural-1. That would mean that we would expect 152 days without failure for every day that has one. A character subjected to such a grueling pace of encounters would gain a lot of XP. The DMG suggests—alongside its 4 encounters per day—that 40/3 (thirteen-and-a-third) level-appropriate encounters should result in a level-up. Each encounter being 3 rounds of 4 saves per round suggests much more difficult encounters than “level-appropriate,” but we’ll ignore that. 40/3 encounters per level-up and 4 encounters per day means (40/3)/4 = 10/3 days per level-up. 152/(10/3) = 45.6.

In other words, we expect to level up 45 times before we expect to actually fail a saving throw due to a natural 1 when we have both Pride and Luck.

The Diamond Mind counters simply have no hope whatsoever of keeping to that standard of protection.

Note that this does not state we actually won’t fail a saving throw at all during that time; only that we won’t fail due to a nat-1. Saving throws that have a high enough DC that we fail on other numbers are still possible. That is where divine grace comes in: it offers an enormous bonus to our saving throws. In my experience, this makes our worst saves comparable to Concentration checks, while our best saves are far superior. As such, that means we are better off rolling the saving throw than we are rolling the Concentration check, except in the case where we roll a nat-1. The above shows that this exception should not worry us much at all.

[gkathellar]

So what do we want in maneuvers? A 1-level dip nets us Mountain Hammer, while 3 gets us WRT (actually, if we want to really obsess over natural 1s on saves, Crusader 3 nets us another reroll with Zealous Surge). I guess Iron Guard's Glare or Leading the Charge are sensible 1st-level stances?

[Nifft]

So what do we want in maneuvers? A 1-level dip nets us Mountain Hammer, while 3 gets us WRT (actually, if we want to really obsess over natural 1s on saves, Crusader 3 nets us another reroll with Zealous Surge). I guess Iron Guard's Glare or Leading the Charge are sensible 1st-level stances?

WRT is a level 3 maneuver so you'd need 5 levels, or IL 5 at ECL 7 -- perhaps 4 levels of another full-BAB class and then 3 levels of a Marital Adept.

Maybe something like...

Warblade 3 / Crusader 2 / Warblade +1 (gains stance; can choose L3 stances) / Crusader +1, that gets both Warblade and Crusader access to L3 maneuvers.

But the simplicity and raw power of Crusader 7 is also quite appealing.


Now, suppose that we make an average of 48 saving throws per day: 4 encounters a day, each 3 rounds long, and making 4 saves a round. The first number comes from the DMG, while the other two are intentionally chosen to be high—preposterously so, in the case of the saves per round. That should more than account for any saves made outside “encounters” if that’s how the DM runs things, though really something that makes you save should be an encounter. Point is, 48 is a really high number, not remotely an actual expectation. I did this intentionally because it shows that even in really save-loaded situations, divine grace with Pride and Luck perform admirably. Notably, the Diamond Mind counters fail miserably in the same situation, because so many saves are being made per round and you only get to counter one each round.

You're saying that if the DM takes all possible out-of-combat saves (at which Diamond Mind excels since they're widely dispersed across time), and sticks them all inside a single combat round instead of letting them occur as they would in a real game, then under those conditions Divine Grace is better?

That's nice, I guess, but it's inapplicable to anything other than really weird theory-games since you set such useless preconditions.


The Diamond Mind counters would help admirably through the mid-game, at times when your character would die mumbling about how the Pride domain would have totally saved you, except you don't have it yet.

This is the problem with white-tower theory-crafting: you need to survive the low levels to get to the high ones. Early access actually matters, and opportunity cost also matters.

You're just looking at level 20 and extrapolating that you could survive 45 levels after that. That's worthless. Epic is a different game, and you'll be failing saves on a 7 even with Divine Grace. You won't re-roll those, you'll just fail. Concentration is a skill, though, and skill enhancers get downright amazing at these levels -- the Diamond Mind maneuvers actually keep up with Epic challenges because skill enhancers scale much faster than save enhancers.

Check here for Concentration skill info: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?333767-3-5-Concentration-Optimization-Guide

Skill boosters are cheap. We can get a +10 bonus to Concentration checks for 10k GP. It's actually practical to get the Concentration check so high that we would only fail on a 1 -- but thanks to the nature of skill checks we don't fail on a 1, so we can't fail period.

Plus, of course, all boosts to Constitution will benefit Concentration. We can assume any boost to Charisma is matched.

Divine Grace lags behind that.


Finally, note that the ToB Crusader does get Charisma to Will saves at level 2, so that's half the value of Divine Grace without going to dubious sources for special rules -- plus you get to be a Crusader, which is generally better than non-initiator martial characters.


Thank you for the info, but what your math does is show that unrealistic situations give rise to results that favor your argument after level 10 or so -- which is nice, I guess, but I'm not really convinced by unrealistic situations, and I am concerned with also surviving the first half of the game.

Also, one small note: your statistical terminology is misleading. If your math were correct, we would expect the failing double-1 outcome to happen once within 45 levels, not after 45 levels. The distribution of outcomes is not weighted towards one end of the time or the other. It's easy enough to mislead with honest statistics -- there ought to be no need for such a blatant falsehood.



All that said, I do think Divine Grace is quite good, and I plan to highlight it in the guide that this thread is threatening to become.

But it's not as good as you seem to think, and I'm not going to present Divine Grace as better than all other options.

It's just one good option, which might (or might not) be available.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Not to mention that, while Divine Grace is nice, a few levels of Paladin doesn't offer that much beyond it. You'll be picking up great divine casting through your PrCs, so that doesn't matter; Smite is bad even if you devote a bunch of resources to it; and full BAB is cheap.

[gkathellar]

Sure, but the main thing is just that the save counters are redundant. Divine Grace + Pride is going to cover the overwhelming majority of saves, and Warblade doesn't really offer anything else of note to us, while missing out on the chance to take Martial Stance for a Devoted Spirit stance later.

I think it's probably more useful to find synergies with our high saves, or defensive stuffs that go well with our future spellcasting.


Not to mention that, while Divine Grace is nice, a few levels of Paladin doesn't offer that much beyond it. You'll be picking up great divine casting through your PrCs, so that doesn't matter; Smite is bad even if you devote a bunch of resources to it; and full BAB is cheap.

Mainly it offers the chance for turning shenanigans. But in general, even if you break it off at Sentinel 2, you should at least go that far.

[Forrestfire]

You're saying that if the DM takes all possible out-of-combat saves (at which Diamond Mind excels since they're widely dispersed across time), and sticks them all inside a single combat round instead of letting them occur as they would in a real game, then under those conditions Divine Grace is better?

That's nice, I guess, but it's inapplicable to anything other than really weird theory-games since you set such useless preconditions.

That's not what they said at all :smallconfused:

They said that it would take a massive amount of saves to make the Diamond Mind counters' immunity to natural 1s relevant. Also, Diamond Mind counters.... very much do not excel at out-of-combat saves. They literally cannot be used on out-of-combat saves, because you're by definition flat-footed against them (and thus unable to use the immediate actions), so no, the counters aren't better there.


The Diamond Mind counters would help admirably through the mid-game, at times when your character would die mumbling about how the Pride domain would have totally saved you, except you don't have it yet.

This is the problem with white-tower theory-crafting: you need to survive the low levels to get to the high ones. Early access actually matters, and opportunity cost also matters.

Assuming you're in combat, and assuming you won initiative or it's not their opening attack (the most important one against dangerous enemies), and assuming you don't expect to make more than one save before recovering, then yes, you can use the counters and they might be slightly more effective. Frankly, it seems like the situations where counters are the better defense are the ones that are white-tower theorycrafting. How often do you think this sort of situation will come up?

If you're banking entirely on the levels between 5 (when you'd get the counters) and 8 (when you'd get the domains), then yes, the defense against natural 1s is more relevant. But the counters fall off heavily the moment you've got domain access, while divine grace starts strong and only gets better.


You're just looking at level 20 and extrapolating that you could survive 45 levels after that. That's worthless. Epic is a different game, and you'll be failing saves on a 7 even with Divine Grace. You won't re-roll those, you'll just fail. Concentration is a skill, though, and skill enhancers get downright amazing at these levels -- the Diamond Mind maneuvers actually keep up with Epic challenges because skill enhancers scale much faster than save enhancers.

Divine grace outpaces the Diamond Mind counters as a reliable defense way before 20 (EDIT: see below for numbers on that), thanks to how many situations the counters are worthless in. And, again, you seem to have misread their post. There was no implying that the game would go to epic; the statement about levels was about putting into perspective just how unlikely it is that the perk on the counters of ignoring natural 1s will be relevant compared to that of the domains.


Check here for Concentration skill info: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?333767-3-5-Concentration-Optimization-Guide

Skill boosters are cheap. We can get a +10 bonus to Concentration checks for 10k GP. It's actually practical to get the Concentration check so high that we would only fail on a 1 -- but thanks to the nature of skill checks we don't fail on a 1, so we can't fail period.

Yes, skill boosters are cheap... at high levels. The point where you can afford the boost to Concentration after all your other purchases, comes around 11-14ish. 10,000gp is a lot at most of the game's levels. If you're optimizing past the skill points, skill boosters, and occasional boosts to Con, you've probably spent resources that really would have been better put elsewhere.


Plus, of course, all boosts to Constitution will benefit Concentration. We can assume any boost to Charisma is matched.

This is a false equivalency. Constitution is a tertiary stat at best here. Most characters won't be spending much on Constitution increases, because their WBL is simply better off going to weapons, armor, resistance items, non-stat defenses, primary and secondary stat items (likely Charisma followed by Strength), and so on. What games have you been in where you could afford to boost Constitution at the same rate as the more important stuff?

Given the general unreliability of the counters, the likelihood of needing to make multiple saves per round in many combats past the very early levels, and the opportunity cost of getting them on a build that can already boost its saves much more easily through other methods, I really can't see Diamond Mind counters being the ideal choice of defense, and spending a level just to get them is a waste. Sure, initiator dips can be good and I highly expect them to be used in any given build, but the Diamond Mind counters aren't anywhere comparable to divine grace as a defensive option.

EDIT: Because I was curious as to the actual math involved here, I went and looked at the differences in likely Diamond Mind users vs Divine Grace users (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tczpDL0ELqP2ul9wuliu3TVlsAVdpCqUM-kwV0KIscc/edit?usp=sharing). This is a link to a spreadsheet using what I felt were reasonable level benchmarks to expect for a character boosting Con and getting a +10 Concentration item, and two comparisons involving Alea's build from the previous page (Paladin 2/Duskblade 2/Crusader 1/Abjurant Champion 2/Divine Crusader 1/Sovereign Speaker 9/Abjurant Champion +3), one with fractional saves, and the other with normal saves.

The results are actually quite interesting! These tables assume a 10 in Dexterity and Wisdom, since they aren't super important stats to the build. Boosting them will increase the Reflex and Will saves. Likewise, it assumes a 14 starting Con and boosts when it's affordable, rather than focusing on it; a character using options that allow Con to attacks or damage might end up with higher Concentration skill bonuses.








Fractional Saves
Normal Saves


Level
Concentration Bonus
Fort
Ref
Will
Fort
Ref
Will


1
6 (no counter)
4
0
0
4
0
0


2
7 (no counter)
8
3
3
8
3
3


3
8 (no counter)
10
4
6
10
3
5


4
9 (no counter)
12
5
7
12
4
7


5
10
14
5
8
14
4
7


6
11
15
7
11
15
5
10


7
12
16
7
12
15
5
11


8
14
21
9
16
20
7
15


9
15
22
10
19
20
7
17


10
16
22
10
19
20
7
18


11
17
23
11
21
22
8
19


12
28
25
13
22
23
9
21


13
30
27
14
24
25
10
22


14
31
29
16
26
28
12
25


15
32
30
17
27
28
12
25


16
33
31
18
28
29
13
27


17
34
31
18
29
30
13
27


18
36
35
21
31
34
15
29


19
37
35
21
32
34
15
30


20
38
36
22
33
35
16
31





If we assume that the initiator is dipped at 5th level, then the skill checks remain ahead of Reflex and Will with Dex/Wis 10, and pull slightly ahead of Fort when a +10 skill item comes online. At all levels, though, Divine Grace is keeping pace pretty well, and it applies to all saves, not just ones where you're not flat-footed and haven't already used your immediate or counter. The primary utility of Diamond Mind counters is ignoring some natural 1s during levels 5, 6, and 7; after that, the Pride domain obviates any reason to actively use them for saves other than Reflex. But the big thing is that divine grace provides defensive power as if you were using a Diamond Mind counter on every Fort and Will save you make, without the restrictions on usage or maneuver cost. It's good to the point where if you can get it here, not getting it is a terrible choice.

As a final note, I will say: on builds that plan on going through only one or two classes before entering Divine Crusader, then the Diamond Mind counters will definitely give higher numbers. They still have a lot of drawbacks, but become a more useful defense comparatively, if you would only go Paladin 2/Crusader or Warblade 5, for example (or Warblade 7 or Crusader 7).

(And, of course, in games without Dragon access or alignment restriction stretching, the counters are better as a defense.)

[Nifft]

Not to mention that, while Divine Grace is nice, a few levels of Paladin doesn't offer that much beyond it. You'll be picking up great divine casting through your PrCs, so that doesn't matter; Smite is bad even if you devote a bunch of resources to it; and full BAB is cheap. Agree.

As an aside, with Ordered Chaos and some other source for Turn Undead, it might be possible to take 2 levels of Freedom variant Prestige Paladin as part of the Postfix.

A viable Divine Grace postfix might go like: Sacred Exorcist 1 / Prestige Paladin of Freedom 2. (Or stick those 3 levels somewhere after Divine Crusader 1.)



Mainly it offers the chance for turning shenanigans. You don't get Turn Undead from Sentinel.

As mentioned previously, real Paladin levels are significantly better.



That's not what they said at all :smallconfused:

They said that it would take a massive amount of saves to make the Diamond Mind counters' immunity to natural 1s relevant. Also, Diamond Mind counters.... very much do not excel at out-of-combat saves. They literally cannot be used on out-of-combat saves, because you're by definition flat-footed against them (and thus unable to use the immediate actions), so no, the counters aren't better there. 1) You're not flat-footed by any out-of-combat save. Perhaps you're conflating the surprise round with out-of-combat in general?

2) The expected number of saving throws necessary to generate a natural 1 is twenty. It takes twenty saving throws between levels 2 and 8 (which is the first time you could possibly gain the Pride Domain, if you put it ahead of all other Domains for that specific benefit) to expect you'll see a natural 1 during the time when you can't use Pride to re-roll that natural 1.

Do you honestly think it's unrealistic to see twenty saves between levels 2 and 8?

If you think that saves all patiently wait until level 8, after which they occur 4 per round in-combat only, then I can see why you'd agree with the analysis. But I find that unrealistic.



Assuming you're in combat, and assuming you won initiative or it's not their opening attack (the most important one against dangerous enemies), and assuming (...) No, in combat you use the Counters when there's a save that you can't afford to fail, period. You use it when you want to absolutely negate the chance of failing on a natural 1.

You don't use them on every save. Iron Heart Surge can remove plenty of conditions if you fail a less important save.

Similarly, you use counters like Wall of Blades to negate attacks that you must avoid, like a disintegrate ray.

This gets back to basic optimization advice: it's better to negate a condition than to save against that condition.


If you're banking entirely on the levels between 5 (when you'd get the counters) Incorrect, you get the first of the counters at level 1 -- specifically, you get the Will save replacement, which is probably the best one.


Yes, skill boosters are cheap... at high levels. The point where you can afford the boost to Concentration after all your other purchases, comes around 11-14ish. 10,000gp is a lot at most of the game's levels. Gosh, if only there were a way to craft items yourself for half price... oh, but we'd need a party member who casts spells and also took 10 ranks in Concentration, how likely is that?

What, that's all of them? Practically every single spellcaster has 10 ranks in Concentration at level 7?

So it's just one popular feat and 5k gp away for any normal party?

Golly.


What games have you been in where you could afford to boost Constitution at the same rate as the more important stuff?

(As an aside, what games have you guys been playing in that Dragon isn't a source? :smallconfused:)

Serious question: do you read other threads here on GitP?

I see a lot of people asking for advice, and those people list the sources allowed in their games. It's not uncommon at all to see Dragon content banned. It's also not uncommon to see ToB banned. Your personal experience is very small compared to what can be observed even just on this one site.

However, to answer your questions: I've been playing excellent games.

[Forrestfire]

1) You're not flat-footed by any out-of-combat save. Perhaps you're conflating the surprise round with out-of-combat in general?

Okay, I suppose you're right. There are non-combat environmental effects that can prompt saves, but if a creature is taking an offensive action against you, that's combat. If they're doing it without your awareness, then that, by definition, is a surprise round. If you're worried about saves against effects that aren't coming from a combat-causing entity (such as environmental hazards), then you should probably go for something else. Your group may houserule the combat rules, but that's how they work.


2) The expected number of saving throws necessary to generate a natural 1 is twenty. It takes twenty saving throws between levels 2 and 8 (which is the first time you could possibly gain the Pride Domain, if you put it ahead of all other Domains for that specific benefit) to expect you'll see a natural 1 during the time when you can't use Pride to re-roll that natural 1.

Do you honestly think it's unrealistic to see twenty saves between levels 2 and 8?

No, but I do think that the amount of defensive ability gained by having these counters over divine grace is negligible. I suppose ideally, one would want both of going for a defense-focused build, but given that the argument started with your assertion that the diamond mind counters are better enough compared to divine grace that the latter isn't worth getting over them—an assertion that is patently false outside of some very specific contexts. If you only care about those contexts, then yes, you're right, but when accounting for a broader level range and range of situations, the idea that the divine mind counters can be considered good substitutes for the defensive boost of divine grace is laughable.


If you think that saves all patiently wait until level 8, after which they occur 4 per round in-combat only, then I can see why you'd agree with the analysis. But I find that unrealistic.

How do you keep misreading peoples' posts this hard? It's baffling. :smallconfused:


No, in combat you use the Counters when there's a save that you can't afford to fail, period. You use it when you want to absolutely negate the chance of failing on a natural 1.

You don't use them on every save. Iron Heart Surge can remove plenty of conditions if you fail a less important save.

Similarly, you use counters like Wall of Blades to negate attacks that you must avoid, like a disintegrate ray.

If you can be sure that you will know, 100% of the time, when a save is important, and you can discern whether or not you'll need the counter later against a different effect, then sure. But given the rocket-tag nature of 3.5, it's a lot more realistic to assume that any given hypothetical save might be debilitating.


This gets back to basic optimization advice: it's better to negate a condition than to save against that condition.

When your saving throws are high enough, making a save is tantamount to negating the condition.


Incorrect, you get the first of the counters at level 1 -- specifically, you get the Will save replacement, which is probably the best one.

True. Some builds will get the Will save replacement at 1st level. At that level, you're very unlikely to be running into Will saves dangerous enough to require building around it, instead of making do with decent-enough saves. You could also be having both, if you're that worried about saves.


Gosh, if only there were a way to craft items yourself for half price... oh, but we'd need a party member who casts spells and also took 10 ranks in Concentration, how likely is that?

What, that's all of them? Practically every single spellcaster has 10 ranks in Concentration at level 7?

So it's just one popular feat and 5k gp away for any normal party?

Golly.

Oh good, condescending sarcasm. I'm not sure what I expected :smallsigh:

If you're relying on other party members building specific ways for you, I would call that a significant flaw in your build. Especially when you're relying on something that in many circles is considered problematic enough to be limited or banned. And at the same time, if you have a caster who's crafting gear for you, then you can get other gear crafted. Probably more valuable gear than just the Concentration booster, especially if you've got divine grace.


Serious question: do you read other threads here on GitP?

I see a lot of people asking for advice, and those people list the sources allowed in their games. It's not uncommon at all to see Dragon content banned. It's also not uncommon to see ToB banned. Your personal experience is very small compared to what can be observed even just on this one site.

Sure, I've read quite a few threads. But I've seen just as many threads over the years discussing Dragon material as I have ones that specifically ban it, and as you note, it's about as common to see Tome of Battle banned. Generally, though, ToB being banned is seen as a bad sign. I don't see how Dragon being banned is any different.


However, to answer your questions: I've been playing excellent games.

Good for you? As have I. I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. The games I've played in have had their general fun levels increased by including more content (especially since Dragon has a healthier balanced:broken:useless ratio than base 3.5). If your games have been more fun because they didn't allow Dragon Magazine, more power to you. If not, I guess my question then is "why such a pushback against accounting for it?"

But oh well. In the end, my argument is that Divine Grace is a strong enough option for a Cha-focused caster-gish build that it must be accounted for. I think that Diamond Mind counters are simply too unreliable (without the houserules you seem to play with) to be considered a worthwhile primary defense. I don't really know what else I can do to express that.

[Alea]

This is just to say that I think I am going to simply spend my time elsewhere. I hope the suggestions I have offered are useful to you, but I do not feel that I am communicating successfully and I do not feel that there is anything more I can try to do to improve that. I have simply reached a point where my ability to assume good faith is strained too far. I would encourage you to attempt to reread my and forrestfire’s posts, and to try to do so with a more open mind. I do not believe you have done so yet.

[ATHATH]

That doesn’t help us. The core of the build is divine crusader, and divine crusader requires BAB +7. Not much is worth delaying that.
Sorry, I meant the Fractional Save rules, not the Fractional BAB rules.

[Grod_The_Giant]

When doing practical-optimization stuff, a certain amount of weight has to be placed on availability. We can be just about sure something from the PHB will be allowed. Something from a Complete book will probably be allowed. Something from a more obscure book like Fiendish Codex will potentially be allowed, and we should maybe not center everything around it. Something from a "controversial" book like XPH or ToB, or a setting-specific one, will maybe be allowed, and we should have alternatives ready. I'd say that Dragon is the least likely of any 3.5 source to be allowed, both because of its obscurity and because of its bad reputation.

In any case, I think Crusader is still the "optimal" entry for a melee-focused build, with far and away the most raw low-level power of these options. (And the most important third of Divine Grace (Will saves) plus a daily save reroll).

Sentinel 4 would be fun for a ranged build, though, especially if you can be a Killoren and take Charming the Arrow for added Cha synergy. You might need to dip Fighter for feats, though.

[Nifft]

Okay, I suppose you're right. There are non-combat environmental effects that can prompt saves, but if a creature is taking an offensive action against you, that's combat. If they're doing it without your awareness, then that, by definition, is a surprise round. If you're worried about saves against effects that aren't coming from a combat-causing entity (such as environmental hazards), then you should probably go for something else. Your group may houserule the combat rules, but that's how they work. Don't try to change the subject.

Alea said that the analysis was based on compressing non-combat saves into combat, and I responded that out-of-combat the maneuvers were probably better, since saves didn't happen as often.

Whether the source was environment or a different reason to roll a save -- like, I dunno, jumping off an out-of-control wagon at the right moment to avoid some other hazard, or eating poisoned food, or -- there's no reason to assume that out-of-combat = flat-footed.


the argument started with your assertion that the diamond mind counters are better enough compared to divine grace that the latter isn't worth getting over them Incorrect, the argument started because Alea claimed that Divine Grace was better than every other possible feature:

Not having divine grace in this build seems like a mistake.
That was before any mention of the Diamond Mind maneuvers, which I point out are better in the cases where you'd otherwise fail on a natural 1.

Divine Grace can't be strictly better than every other feature when there's an easily-demonstrated scenario under which it performs worse than some other feature.

Please go re-read the context; this was and still is a disagreement about the value of Divine Grace being higher than any other possible feature.

If you're not advocating in favor of Divine Grace being better than any other possible feature, you may want to reconsider your stance.


How do you keep misreading peoples' posts this hard? It's baffling. :smallconfused: I'd really prefer if you scaled back the personal attacks.


If you can be sure that you will know, 100% of the time, when a save is important, and you can discern whether or not you'll need the counter later against a different effect, then sure. But given the rocket-tag nature of 3.5, it's a lot more realistic to assume that any given hypothetical save might be debilitating. Depends how you play, I guess. If the DM just calls for a save, and you have no clue what it is you're saving against, then your argument has merit.

What I usually see is more like:


"Join me as dust", the lich croaks, and a terrifying green ray energy pulsates from its bony finger.

Anybody in the room got Spellcraft? Roll it.

Ser Yukishiro, what's your Touch AC? (rolls)

Ooo, that's a hit. You feel your body disintegrating! Make a Fort save.


In games I run (and play), there are usually a lot of clues about what any particular save is going to mean.


When your saving throws are high enough, making a save is tantamount to negating the condition. Except that every twenty saves you make, you should expect to roll a 1 and fail.

Unless you are not failing on a 1, for example by using a Diamond Mind maneuver.


Oh good, condescending sarcasm. I'm not sure what I expected :smallsigh: You've brought a bunch of misconceptions and some vehemently angry inaccuracies to the discussion.

What you've gotten back so far is mostly polite but increasingly exasperated corrections.

I dunno what you feel entitled to expect, but you've been getting back a lot more than you've put in.


If you're relying on other party members building specific ways for you, I would call that a significant flaw in your build. That's not what I said.


Sure, I've read quite a few threads. But I've seen just as many threads over the years discussing Dragon material as I have ones that specifically ban it, and as you note, it's about as common to see Tome of Battle banned. Generally, though, ToB being banned is seen as a bad sign. I don't see how Dragon being banned is any different. "A bad sign".

It sounds like you're more interested in sniping at other people's gaming choices than trying to help them play within the lines they picked.

That might be the fundamental disagreement here -- I want to figure out what's usable in a variety of games, not just your One True Game, so I'm more interested in balancing different concerns than I am in labeling other people's games as bad.

Also, you're misquoting me -- I did not say that excluding Dragon content was equally common to excluding Tome of Battle.


Good for you? It's been very good for me. If you were here to help, you'd feel great about that.


But oh well. In the end, my argument is that Divine Grace is a strong enough option for a Cha-focused caster-gish build that it must be accounted for. I think that Diamond Mind counters are simply too unreliable (without the houserules you seem to play with) to be considered a worthwhile primary defense. I don't really know what else I can do to express that. See, there you go again. Now you're trying to accuse me of using house-rules so you can dismiss my experience.

I'm getting tired of this.


tl;dr - The competition for levels 1-7 is damn strong, and Divine Grace is not always worth giving up two levels of other class features. It's not strictly better than other class features -- I've demonstrated that it can be exceeded in its only area of merit.



This is just to say that I think I am going to simply spend my time elsewhere. I hope the suggestions I have offered are useful to you, but I do not feel that I am communicating successfully and I do not feel that there is anything more I can try to do to improve that. I have simply reached a point where my ability to assume good faith is strained too far. I would encourage you to attempt to reread my and forrestfire’s posts, and to try to do so with a more open mind. I do not believe you have done so yet.

That's probably a good idea.

You've given me a bunch of useful info -- for which I've already thanked you, but let me again say THANK YOU, one last time.

I don't think you're ever going to convince me that Divine Grace is worth more than every other possible feature, but perhaps you'll be happy to know that I'm going to present it as one of the highly-rated feature choices, because I think that it is a good choice.



When doing practical-optimization stuff, a certain amount of weight has to be placed on availability. We can be just about sure something from the PHB will be allowed. Something from a Complete book will probably be allowed. Something from a more obscure book like Fiendish Codex will potentially be allowed, and we should maybe not center everything around it. Something from a "controversial" book like XPH or ToB, or a setting-specific one, will maybe be allowed, and we should have alternatives ready. I'd say that Dragon is the least likely of any 3.5 source to be allowed, both because of its obscurity and because of its bad reputation.

In any case, I think Crusader is still the "optimal" entry for a melee-focused build, with far and away the most raw low-level power of these options. (And the most important third of Divine Grace (Will saves) plus a daily save reroll).

Sentinel 4 would be fun for a ranged build, though, especially if you can be a Killoren and take Charming the Arrow for added Cha synergy. You might need to dip Fighter for feats, though.

Almost totally agree.

In this case, we must assume at least some Eberron content is available, because Sovereign Speaker depends on Eberron -- and the Complete line is also very likely, since Divine Crusader depends on Complete Divine (though it's possible that Complete Divine is the player's only extra book).

FC books are extra uncertain in Eberron, since the Eberron cosmology is so different -- the whole "pact primeval" thing is clearly inapplicable, for example, and there is no Abyss, so "Abyssal Heritor" might be a flavor problem. Or it might just be a type of taint from one of the imprisoned Overlords, welling up from Khyber.

You're absolutely correct that Dragon Magazine access is especially uncertain.

I have personally seen more games which permitted ToB than XPH, for example, and people seem to pull bits from UA rather than permitting access to the whole thing.



Anyway, I'm going to try editing the write-up to include some of the excellent ideas presented so far.

[gkathellar]

... aaaaactually. What about Witch Hunter, from Oriental Adventures? It has to come post-fixe, but it gives us a +Cha-to-Saves equivalent that stacks with vanilla divine grace for a 1-level dip. All we need to get in is Track.


Sentinel 4 would be fun for a ranged build, though, especially if you can be a Killoren and take Charming the Arrow for added Cha synergy. You might need to dip Fighter for feats, though.

Huh. Never noticed that feat - that's pretty awesome.

[Nifft]

Sentinel 4 would be fun for a ranged build, though, especially if you can be a Killoren and take Charming the Arrow for added Cha synergy. You might need to dip Fighter for feats, though.

What do levels 3 & 4 add for a ranged build?

The feat is good, but I would expect Sentinel 2 / Fighter 2 / ____ 3 as the build stub.


EDIT:

... aaaaactually. What about Witch Hunter, from Oriental Adventures? It has to come post-fixe, but it gives us a +Cha-to-Saves equivalent that stacks with vanilla divine grace for a 1-level dip. All we need to get in is Track. Neat, good find.

That class looks an awful lot like the Prestige Paladin, and it looks like it's from a different setting book -- but it could be adapted to Eberron.

Thanks!

[Grod_The_Giant]

What do levels 3 & 4 add for a ranged build?

The feat is good, but I would expect Sentinel 2 / Fighter 2 / ____ 3 as the build stub.
Turning, mostly. Was kind of thinking it would be a caster/archer thing, with Charming the Arrow. There's not a lot of really good low level archer dips. (Targeteer Fighter, maybe, if you're using Dragon stuff)

[Nifft]

Turning, mostly. Was kind of thinking it would be a caster/archer thing, with Charming the Arrow. There's not a lot of really good low level archer dips. (Targeteer Fighter, maybe, if you're using Dragon stuff)

What does Turn Outsider do for you?

I know how awesome Turn Undead can be, but it's my impression that variants like Turn Elemental (etc.) aren't generally as useful.

[Endarire]

Witch Hunter1 or 2 (Oriental Adventures 54) may be worth it. See the X to Y thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus) for other CHA synergy.