E6 crusader to lvl 5?

[bot]

Hi
We're playing Epic6 variant where you can't become higher than level 6 - after that you just get a new feat for every 5k XP and nothing else.

Looking at the crusaders lvl 6 it doesn't seem to provide anything useful over lvl 5 really.

Any good suggestions for a lvl 1 dip ?

[Gauntlet]

Bard?

Song of the White Raven is a good ability for buff support. You get a few spells and other tricks, and if you take your Bard level at 1, you also get a bunch of extra skill points.

Inspire Courage is a nice ability which can be amplified through items and feats pretty well rather than through levels.

[bot]

Cool suggestion, I hadn't considered that.

A few 0 lvl spells though isn't much though. We already have a bard in the group for inspire courage

[Crake]

Barbarian for rage wouldn't be a bad pick. Keep the full bab too, so you get your second attack. You can easily solve the "only 1 rage/day" by grabbing the extra rage feat for a pretty sizable 2 extra rages/day, increasing your number of rages by 200%, pretty worth for just 1 feat. If rage doesn't thematically fit, you could easily make it work with crusader by refluffing it as a zealous frenzy too.

Fake edit: Crusader 5 itself doesn't actually give you much either, so you could go crusader 4/X 2 and still end up with the same initiator level as crusader 5/X 1, since non initiator classes give 1/2 an initiator level. You won't get a built in 3rd level maneuver, but you can solve that by simply taking martial study for whatever maneuver you want.

[DeTess]

you could top the build off with a level in warblade, giving you access to another 3 1st and 2nd level maneuvers. you could put your situational counters in the warblade side of things so you always have those ready, keeping your more pro-active tools at the crusader side.

[bot]

Thanks crake, interesting thought about the ½ lvl for non-crusader via 4/XX, I'll need to give that some thought tonight

About warblade, that sounds pretty cool too! However why won't I have access to lvl 3 manoeuvres if I'm lvl 5 crusader and take a lvl 6 in warblade? Supposedly I gain access to lvl 3 when I'm crusader 5?

[Gauntlet]

Thanks crake, interesting thought about the ½ lvl for non-crusader via 4/XX, I'll need to give that some thought tonight

About warblade, that sounds pretty cool too! However why won't I have access to lvl 3 manoeuvres if I'm lvl 5 crusader and take a lvl 6 in warblade? Supposedly I gain access to lvl 3 when I'm crusader 5?

By going Crusader 4 / whatever 2, you get enough IL to access level 3 maneuvers, but you don't get an actual level 3 maneuver known unless you take Crusader 4 as your last (6th) level and swap a previous maneuver for one, because your IL isn't 5 until you take your sixth level.

[bot]

By going Crusader 4 / whatever 2, you get enough IL to access level 3 maneuvers, but you don't get an actual level 3 maneuver known unless you take Crusader 4 as your last (6th) level and swap a previous maneuver for one, because your IL isn't 5 until you take your sixth level.

But doesn't warblade stack on crusader 1:1? Or is that something I just dreamt up in a wet fantasy..

[Gauntlet]

But doesn't warblade stack on crusader 1:1? Or is that something I just dreamt up in a wet fantasy..

No, Initiator level only stacks at half rate between multiple martial classes. See the Crusader/Swordsage example on ToB p39.

Even so, if you went straight Crusader4 first and then finished up with a non-crusader class, you'd need Martial Study to gain any 3rd level maneuvers known regardless of the class you took for your last two levels.

[bot]

No, Initiator level only stacks at half rate between multiple martial classes. See the Crusader/Swordsage example on ToB p39.

Even so, if you went straight Crusader4 first and then finished up with a non-crusader class, you'd need Martial Study to gain any 3rd level maneuvers known regardless of the class you took for your last two levels.

Aww, yes ok I was wrong unfortunately. But it's still cool with warblade coming in from the side with lvl 2 maneuvers on top of my existing ones. I'll try and weigh it vs getting lvl 3 maneuver just strait up

Thanks for the help

[Kayblis]

Initiator level stacks fully for initiator PrCs only. So a Crusader 3 / Warblade 2 / Bloodclaw Master 5 has Crusader IL 9 and Warblade IL 8. This means that, for E6, a Crusader 4 / Warblade 1 / ToB PrC 1 nets you Crusader IL 5 and Warblade IL 4, so while not better than C5/W1, you get one level of PrC class features while keeping the crusader level.

If you're willing to get stuck at +5 BAB, you can get all three base classes from ToB and one PrC level, to get access to all schools and a buttload of maneuvers every encounter from 3 pools(two at IL 3 and one at IL 5), all with different recharging conditions. That's a very strong and versatile character that is an absolute nightmare to play. Can confirm.