Gold is for chumps.

Quote Originally Posted by Liam Greve
Liam Greve, The Platinum Beastmaster



NG Dragonborn (Wings aspect) Half-Elf Bard 1 / Warblade 7 / Half-Elf Paragon 1 / Marshall 1 / Beast Heart Adept 10

"Music hath charms to boost a savage beast"

Spoiler: Backstory
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For the third time in as many minutes, the ringmaster glanced over to the entrance of the tent. Where was that blasted lizard-head? These people were getting tired of waiting for the next part of the show to start, and this stalling was only doing so much.

Already, a few of the bolder audience members had begun their heckling. How long before the others stopped slapping them down? How long unt-

There! Movement! A tent flap pushed slightly aside, a familiar face rushing inside. The ringmaster didn't hesitate a second.

"And now, on to the next part of our show, the magnificent LIAM and his... surprise one-man show!"

She rushed off, staring daggers at the dragonborn as she passed him by, and watched the performer advance into the center to raucous applause.

"Thank you! Thank you! I'm happy to announce I have an all-new act for you today! It might seem a bit frightening, but please, remain calm, it's all part of the show!"

Wait, he hadn't told her about anything like this. It sounded concer-

"Now, without further ado, please welcome Gold, Silver, and Bronze!"

An enormous four-armed ape burst through the tent flaps, closely followed by a chimera. A giant eagle closed the ranks, immediately ascending to the higher reaches of the tent, where it began to fly in artful patterns. The ape jumped around eagerly, juggling the strongman's weights like they were toothpicks. The chimera approached Liam, its three heads nuzzling the dragonborn, then leapt back, reared on its hind legs, and unleashed a blast of fire that barely failed to singe the tent sail. The giant eagle emerged from the fireball, no worse for the wear, its talons wreathed in flame, and the crowd went nuts.

It was then that the ringleader realized, to her infinite regret, that 'one-man show' implied nothing about the number of beasts present.

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From a young age, Liam was a faithful servant of Bahamut, raised by a couple of paladins from the same holy order. Like most dragonborn, he underwent the ritual in adolescence, proud to serve Bahamut in body as well as soul. However, even as he embraced parts of his heritage, he rejected others: his parents' rigid mindset, unswerving zeal, and stubborn attachment to appearances never appealed to him as much as their magic, martial might, and commanding prowess. In early adulthood, he ran away and joined a travelling circus as performer and bodyguard, picking up odd skills here and there, waiting for a calling that truly resonated with him.

He found it in the wild monsters that the circus carted along. These magnificent creatures, so elegant, so misunderstood, such potential forces of righteousness! More and more time did he spend at, or even in, their enclosures (which, given how broadly D&D defines 'dungeon', totally count for the prereq), trying to understand their needs and wants. Until at last, an undeniable bond formed, and the beasts would follow him with no need for chains or cages. They became more than sideshows, then, following him into the ring, earning the adoration of the crowd with their might and tricks, jumping and dancing as fire danced around their claws.

The performances brought in enough money for the performers to retire. Liam refused any part of the proceeds, asking only to become the beasts' new master. Now they roam the land, righting wrongs, mauling evil, and spreading the good word of Bahamut.


Spoiler: Ability Scores
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Point-buy: 10/12/11/16/8/17
Post-dragonborn: 10/10/13/16/8/17
All level-up increases go into charisma for a final stat of 22.


Spoiler: Build Table
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Spoken languages: Common, Elven, Undercommon, Orc, Giant, Draconic

Level Class Base Attack Bonus Fort Save Ref Save Will Save Skills Feats Class Features
1st Healing Hymn Half-Elf Bard 1 +0 +0 +2 +2 Balance 4, Craft (Alchemy) 4, Diplomacy 4, Handle Animal 2 {CC}, Knowledge (Arcana) 4, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) 4, Perform (Dance) 4, Tumble 4, Use Magic Device 4 Animal Affinity Bardic Music, Bardic Knowledge, Healing Hymn, Inspire Courage +1, Soothing Voice
2nd Warblade 1 +1 +2 +2 +2 Balance +1 (5), Craft (Alchemy) +1 (5), Diplomacy +1 (5), Intimidate 3, Tumble +1 (5) - Battle Clarity (Reflex Saves), Weapon Aptitude, Maneuvers
3rd Half-Elf Paragon 1 +1 +2 +4 +2 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (6), Diplomacy +1 (6), Profession (Entertainer) 3, Perform (Dance) +2 (6) Snowflake Wardance, Extra MusicB Bonus Feat, Divided Ancestry, Elven Vision
4th Warblade 2 +2 +3 +4 +2 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (7) Diplomacy +2 (7), Intimidate +2 (5) Tumble +2 (7) - Uncanny Dodge
5th Marshall 1 +2 +5 +4 +4 Diplomacy +1 (8), Handle Animal +6 (8) Skill Focus (Diplomacy)B Minor Aura (Master of Tactics)
6th Beast Heart Adept 1 +3 +7 +4 +6 Diplomacy +1 (9), Handle Animal +1 (9), Ride +5 (5) Dragonfire Inspiration Monstrous Companion, Monster Empathy, Monster Handler
7th Warblade 3 +4 +7 +5 +7 Diplomacy +1 (10), Intimidate +3 (8) Tumble +3 (10) - Battle Ardor (Critical Confirmation)
8th Beast Heart Adept 2 +5 +8 +5 +8 Craft (Alchemy) +2 (9), Diplomacy +1 (11), Handle Animal +2 (11), Ride +2 (7) - Monster Lore
9th Beast Heart Adept 3 +6/+1 +8 +6 +8 Craft (Alchemy) +2 (11), Diplomacy +1 (12), Handle Animal +1 (12), Ride +3 (10) Extra Music Alternative Monstrous Companion (they had some gall listing this one as a class feature)
10th Warblade 4 +7/+2 +9 +6 +8 Craft (Alchemy) +2 (13), Diplomacy +1 (13), Intimidate +3 (11), Tumble +1 (11) - -
11th Beast Heart Adept 4 +8/+3 +10 +6 +9 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (14), Diplomacy +1 (14), Handle Animal +2 (14), Ride +3 (13) - Monstrous Flank
12th Beast Heart Adept 5 +9/+4 +10 +6 +9 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (15), Diplomacy +1 (15), Handle Animal +1 (15), Knowledge (Arcana) +2 (6), Ride +2 (15) Song of the White Raven Extra Monstrous Companion
13th Warblade 5 +10/+5 +10 +6 +9 Diplomacy +1 (16), Intimidate +3 (14), Tumble +3 (14) White Raven DefenseB Bonus Feat
14th Beast Heart Adept 6 +11/+6/+1 +11 +7 +10 Craft (Alchemy) +2 (17), Diplomacy +1 (17), Handle Animal +2 (17), Ride +2 (17) - -
15th Beast Heart Adept 7 +12/+7/+2 +11 +7 +10 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (18), Diplomacy +1 (18), Handle Animal +1 (18), Knowledge (Arcana) +3 (9), Ride +1 (18) Words of Creation Monstrous Tactics
16th Warblade 6 +13/+8/+3 +12 +8 +11 Diplomacy +1 (19), Intimidate +3 (17), Tumble +3 (17) - Improved Uncanny Dodge
17th Beast Heart Adept 8 +14/+9/+4 +13 +8 +12 Craft (Alchemy) +2 (20), Diplomacy +1 (20), Handle Animal +2 (20), Knowledge (Arcana) +2 (11) - -
18th Beast Heart Adept 9 +15/+10/+5 +13 +9 +12 Craft (Alchemy) +1 (21), Diplomacy +1 (21), Handle Animal +1 (21), Knowledge (Arcana) +4 (15) Clarion Commander Extra Monstrous Companion
19th Warblade 7 +16/+11/+6/+1 +13 +9 +12 Diplomacy +1 (22), Intimidate +3 (20), Tumble +3 (20) - Battle Cunning (Damage), Inspire Courage +2
20th Beast Heart Adept 10 +17/+12/+7/+2 +14 +9 +13 Craft (Alchemy) +2 (23), Diplomacy +1 (23), Handle Animal +2 (23), Knowledge (Arcana) +2 (17) - Monstrous Team-Up


Spoiler: Companions
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The exact order in which companions are acquired and lost is a bit of a mess, but assume that they generally follow the Giant Eagle -> Girallon -> Chimera progression listed here. Blink dogs are an option at early levels, as their teleportation makes them easy to flank with, but this becomes less necessary as the build progresses. The final three companions are:

Gold
Chimera (effective level 6), extra feat is Rapidstrike (Bite), extra skill ranks are 2 in spot, 2 in listen.

Silver
Girallon (effective level 4), extra feat is Improved Natural Attack (Claw), known tricks are Attack (all creatures), Defend, Down, Heel, Perform, Stay, and Work, extra skill ranks are 2 in move silently.

Bronze
Giant Eagle (effective level 2), no change from the base statblock.


Spoiler: Spells
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Throughout his entire career, Liam has 2 level 0 slots and 4 spells known. These are Detect Magic, Mending, Prestidigitation, and Read Magic.


Spoiler: Maneuvers
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Warblade 1 (ECL 2, IL 1): Douse the Flames, Leading the Attack, Steel Wind, Punishing Stance.

Warblade 2 (ECL 4, IL 3): Mountain Hammer

Warblade 3 (ECL 7, IL 5): White Raven Tactics

Warblade 4 (ECL 10, IL 7): Tactics of the Wolf

Warblade 5 (ECL 13, IL 9): Iron Heart Surge

Warblade 6 (ECL 16, IL 11): Replace Douse the Flames with Order Forged From Chaos

Warblade 7 (ECL 19, IL 13): Swarming Assault

Typical readied maneuvers are Order Forged From Chaos, Iron Heart Surge, White Raven Tactics, and Swarming Assault.
Liam is usually in the Tactics of the Wolf stance.


Spoiler: Discussion
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Beast Heart Adept is a Charisma-based class. Its secondary ability score, if it could be said to have one, is Intelligence.

This is plainly true. Half the class skills use intelligence or charisma. To optimally use the class features, you need to make Handle Animal checks and Monstrous Empathy checks, with the occasional Monstrous Knowledge check. Sure, you also need to flank and make attacks, but these aren't as intimately tied to a specific ability score as the aforementioned capacities.

Of course, there's a bit of a tension between charisma-primary characters and melee attacks: that's what the Marshall and Bard levels are for. Fortunately, both are great at buffing the many allies that Beast Heart Adept provides you with. Rounding out the build, and shoring up that oh-so-important melee ability, is Warblade. After adding enough Warblade levels to get +2 Inspire Courage with Song of the White Raven, we have one level left, which would be a waste to not spend on the excellent Half-Elf Paragon (we were already using this race for the Bard substitution level, which is more useful on a build that can't really pump Perform). A little reshuffling later, and we have ourselves a build.


Spoiler: Build Spotlights
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ECL 5
A mess of classes that come together very nicely. Our marshall aura adds our impressive +4 charisma modifier to all damage rolls (both ours and allies') when flanking enemies: setting up those flanks is reasonably easy thanks to our ranks in Tumble. With Snowflake Wardance and Extra Music, we can add the same stat to attack rolls five encounters a day, effectively making us a fully charisma-based melee attacker from level 5 on.

With three warblade maneuvers readied, we can easily remain relevant throughout an encounter, and because a good chunk of our damage is external to our own attacks, warblade maneuver recovery is less of a pain than it'd usually be. We have Douse the Flames to further enable flank setup, Steel Wind for horde battles, Mountain Hammer for objects and constructs, and Punishing Stance to deal a bit more damage when needed.

Defensively, our saves are excellent, with Battle Clarity shoring up our weak Reflex by two points (set to increase as we take more warblade levels). We have solid HP, Uncanny Dodge, and medium or heavy armor with a shield for defense, giving us paladin-level defensive capabilities.

Outside of combat, we have a plethora of skills (social, knowledge-related, UMD, and crafting) and can make use of the half-elf bard substitute level to leverage our +15 pre-item Diplomacy modifier into a Calm Emotions save DC. We also drop Fascinate (which is mostly redundant with Soothing Voice) to get Healing Hymn (there's going to be a lot of bodies that need healing in our future: if this saves us a few wands of CLW it'll be worth it). We also have some bard cantrips, which might see use if we're ever unarmored during downtime or want to risk the casting failure chance, but mostly deserve mention for qualifying us for craft (alchemy).

Although we're going to get a flying companion later, the dragonborn wings aspect is still useful for tactical movement and flying over enemies to flank them. If you wish you had darkvision, consider that this build is locked into one-handed melee anyway and can afford to swap out the off-hand shield for a (self-crafted?) sunrod or torch.

ECL 10
We've obtained our first monstrous companion, which at these levels is a girallon or giant eagle (the eagle is really nice with our limited wings, allowing for actual flight without any risk of falling to our deaths). We also grabbed Dragonfire Inspiration, plus a copy of Extra Music to fuel it, meaning we now have 9 bardic music attempts a day: enough to use both Snowflake Wardance and Dragonfire Inspiration in four encounters.

We also grab the infamously good White Raven Tactics alongside Tactics of the Wolf. The latter adds half our initiator level to the damage rolls of us or anyone flanking an enemy with us. Given that we want to flank anyway to get charisma to damage (+4 currently, soon to be +5, more with items), the bonus will feel hardly situational.

At this point our strategy becomes clear: accumulate static bonuses, get in a flanking position, and wail on the trapped enemy from both sides. While a girallon isn't the brightest, it has no trouble getting into melee and full attacking for a total of 5 hits. If we're flanking with it and have Inspire Courage on, that's up to 5d6+35 bonus damage it receives from us, before considering our other allies! Next round, we can drop White Raven Tactics and do it all over again, or make a full attack of our own.

The class features we receive in these 5 levels are modest but useful. Monster Empathy and Monster Handler really appreciate how we're charisma-primary, being +4 to +6 higher than most beast heart adepts. Battle Ardor appreciates our secondary intelligence focus (and with full BAB for most of our levels, we're going to have a lot of chances to crit), and Monster Lore similarly benefits from a good base stat (as well as our one level in bard).

ECL 15
Song of the White Raven lets us activate Inspire Courage as a swift action while in Tactics of the Wolf, which we weren't ever not going to be anyway. It goes great with Words of Creation, which doubles the bonus from our bardic music (and thus our fire damage dice) and helps a little when crafting alchemical items. 3d4 subdual damage is a small price to pay for an extra 2d6 fire damage to everyone's attacks: you have good armor and can use healing wands, you'll be fine.

Speaking of armor: White Raven Defense gives us +1 AC when adjacent to allies and extends the same benefit to them: with our companions (there's two now!) on the field in addition to 'normal' PCs we will be able to trigger it very reliably. We partially negate the penalties from clustering together because all our companions have Evasion.

Monstrous Flank boosts our flanking strategy, and Monstrous Tactics increases our attacks per round (and thus the number of times our flat damage bonuses apply). We've been kind of glossing over our own damage, but we have +12 BAB, a +5 modifier on our primary attacking stat, and all the same benefits we grant to our allies: rest assured we can make use of Dragonfire Inspiration ourselves too.

Our sole new maneuver is Iron Heart Surge, but it's a very respectable way to no-sell many crushing debuffs. Ask your DM how exactly it works, because this maneuver is a logical pain, but rest assured that even conservative interpretations are still really really good.

ECL 20
We hit two 'capstones' that we were working towards: Warblade 7 gives us Battle Cunning (intelligence to damage while flanking, bringing our secondary stat to bear in melee) and raises our effective bard level to the point where Inspire Courage bumps up to +2 (+4 with Words of Creation; Exalted status seemed attainable for a devout Bahamut-worshipper). Furthermore, Beast Heart Adept 10 gives us Monstrous Team-Up, which lets our allies also benefit from extra flanking bonuses and opportunity attacks (and it might apply to our companions as well? if so, that's even greater). We also get Improved Uncanny Dodge, which is useful because flanking typically opens you up to getting flanked yourself (now it doesn't).

Order Forged From Chaos is great for setting up two melee brutes as a move action. We can begin combat, manually fly into melee, move our two big companions so they're flanking with us, drop a Snowflake Wardance and Inspire Courage, and watch as our companions' turn comes around and they make a total of eleven attacks with an extra +4 to-hit and 4d6+14 to damage across the board (at which point we get to make an opportunity attack with the same bonus). The eagle is mostly a scout and high-speed mount, but it too can get in on the action and make flyby attacks with relatively little risk (if an enemy uses its AoOs to kill it, big deal: you can get a new eagle in a day and don't even have to train it, and that enemy can now be maneuvered around without risk). Also note that the eagle can fly you past enemy lines, at which point you free action dismount, free action fall, tumble to reduce falling damage, and leave you with a set-up flank and a full set of actions left.

Swarming Assault is great fun with the Beast Heart Adept capstone: we hit someone, grant all our allies an attack, monstrous opportunist triggers and gives another round of attacks, with all those hits getting our flanking and dragonfire bonuses. It doesn't bode well for anyone we flank: which unfortunately for them is something we spent considerably resources being good at.

Clarion Commander is a pretty good, multifaceted feat that leverages our heavy social skill investment. Following Up is nice if we ever use a maneuver and find ourselves with a spare move, granting our allies even more attacks. Perpetual Flank is useful in narrow environments, granting flanking bonuses even if we don't occupy a true flanking position (our damage is dependent on flanking, but our to-hit barely is, so we don't really struggle to get the tactic off if we can't flank in the first place). It also works against enemies with All-Around Vision, if I'm reading it correctly (the foe can't be flanked, but you can treat it as flanked), which is otherwise a notable problem for our gameplan.

Again, I want to emphasize that this build is still a normal dragonfire inspiration bard, and all its non-monstrous allies are also getting 4d6 bonus fire damage, with an additional at-least-6 if they're flanking, and another 6 if they're flanking with you specifically (which you should be making really easy to do). Plus you can give them bonus AoOs with Clarion Commander and Monstrous Tactics and whatnot. You're also dealing a lot more damage than most dragonfire inspiration bards can do themselves, typically having charisma to attack and damage, martial maneuvers up to 7th level, and +17 BAB.

Also, if you ever feel like diplomacy... Soothing Voice still works, and forces a Will save with a DC of at least 1d20+32. Once your targets are suitably calmed down, a normal diplomacy check is perfectly capable of turning Hostile foes Friendly, and depending on the available loot perhaps even Helpful. Against magical beasts that don't understand language, Monstrous Empathy has a +18 bonus, and against dim-witted aberrations or animals it still offers +14. Monstrous Lore gives +14 to identify arbitrary monsters, which is enough to be relevant and more than most BHAs will get out of that feature.


Spoiler: Source list
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Half-Elf Bard Substitution Levels - RoD
-Healing Hymn - CChamp
Marshall - MH
Warblade - ToB
Half-Elf Paragon - UA

Dragonborn - RoD

Extra Music - CAdv
Snowflake Wardance - Frostburn
Dragonfire Inspiration - DM
Words of Creation - BoED
Song of the White Raven, White Raven Defense, Clarion Commander - ToB


Presented with mild apology to William Congreve.