Bards and Paladins and rolling them into one (3.5)

[JellyPooga]

Aside from the Devoted Performer Feat and the Paladin of Freedom variant, is there any Prestige Classes, Feats or any other abilities that make for an effective Bard/Paladin?

How about the Paladin Prestige Class (entering via Cleric 1/Divine Bard 4, perhaps)? Any good, or a waste of time?

Thoughts? Opinions?

[Zaq]

I know there's either a feat or an ACF (I don't have my book open) in Champions of Valor called "Initiate of Milil" that lets bard and paladin levels stack for... something. I think advancement of music, but not music per day? Something like that. Worth looking into, I suppose.

[ZeroNumerous]

Paladin 1/Arcane Caster 4/Prestige Bard 2/Whatever Else 13 is a bigger bang for your buck, but that's a given.

[ErrantX]

I made a prestige class for just that actually, having been inspired by that feat the utter lack of their being much to support it.

It's called the Knights of the Righteous Choir (or Choir Knights) and the best build I could think of using that prestige class was Paladin 4 / Bard 2 / Choir Knight 10 / Sublime Chord 2 / Mystic Theurge 2, but YMMV.

-X

[Melamoto]

How will you be getting past the alignment restrictions? That can make a lot of difference.

[kladams707]

As a reply to above, Devoted performer allows a bard to be lawful good and Paladin of freedom is a chatoic good version of the Paladin.


As for other suggestions, I don't know. But maybe Lyric Thaumaturge(sp) from Complete Mage?

It gives you a few extra spells known (taken from the sorc/wizard menu) and a few extra slots. You keep the bard's BAB, saves, hit dice, and spell progression.

Of course, outside of that, I only know of sublime chord if you want a bard/pally w/ high level spells in exchange for low bab and low hit dice.

[JellyPooga]

Hmm, so there's not a lot going for the Bardadin...had a look at your PrC ErrantX and I like the look of it...something didn't quite sit right in my mind about it though so I'm going to pop over to Homebrew myself and take a crack at my own version!

[Tsotha-lanti]

You can't play a bard-paladin without Snowflake Wardance, from Frostburn. Divine Might from Complete Warrior is a given, since all paladins take that anyway.

Then there's some feats, like Initiate of Milil, in Champions of Valor, for stacking your class abilities more.

[ErrantX]

Hmm, so there's not a lot going for the Bardadin...had a look at your PrC ErrantX and I like the look of it...something didn't quite sit right in my mind about it though so I'm going to pop over to Homebrew myself and take a crack at my own version!

What about it did not set right with you? Out of curiousity. Really interested to know :)

-X

[DownwardSpiral]

Well, I don't know if this was really what you were looking for, but there's a feat in ToB that kind of combines crusader with bard (white raven tactics? song of the white raven.)

Anyway, you could probably pick that up somewhere along the line. It's not really crusader specific, but more white raven specific, and paladin/bard is sort of warlord-ish, right? I'm AFB, but I sort of remember it being good. =D

EDIT: Ok, I just found my book and nevermind. Let's you activate your bardic music as a swift action, and lets you stack crusader/warblade on bard levels for inspire courage.

[ErrantX]

No reason why it couldn't be changed to Paladin / Bard, if it says nothing specific about Crusaders in there otherwise. Activating bardic music as a swift action might very well be worth the feat.

-X

[DownwardSpiral]

No reason why it couldn't be changed to Paladin / Bard, if it says nothing specific about Crusaders in there otherwise. Activating bardic music as a swift action might very well be worth the feat.

-X

Oh yeah. You probably could ask your dm to let crusader = paladin. I mean, it's not like it would be overpowered if so.

[JellyPooga]

What about it did not set right with you? Out of curiousity. Really interested to know :)

-X

I'll answer that over in hombrew (seems more appropriate!)

I'll check out the White Raven thing, thanks!