Seeking Help, Suggestions, and Feedback for Tank-Style Build

[Doctor Despair]

Spoiler: Build Considerations and Stub

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1. Recently, I was stricken with curiosity: how big and how small can a character get in E6? I tried to research options with a cumulative 3 or fewer LA/RHD tax, and found that you can be huge and fine with fairly accessible options. A monkey Hengeyokai seemed ideal for "normal" play at LA0 and functional human-like hands, while retaining the humanoid subtype to be eligible for Reduce Person.
   
   
2. The options for huge characters were fairly self-explanatory, although I still want to see if there's anything unique I can dig up that hasn't already been well-discussed like the Hulking Pinball Hurler, but I was interested to see what kind of options there were for miniscule characters. Assassin or precision damage seemed fairly self-explanatory, but not very flavorful for that reason, although Mosquito's Bite looked fitting. It was then that I noticed a series of tactical feats designed around being two size categories smaller than your opponent: Giantbane, Underfoot Combat, and and Confound the Big Folk. For the folks at home, the feats read:
   
   
   Spoiler: Giantbane

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   The Giantbane feat enables the use of three tactical maneuvers.
   
   Duck Underneath: To use this maneuver, you must have taken a total defense action, then have been attacked by a foe at least two size categories larger than you. You gain a +4 dodge bonus to your Armor Class, which stacks with the bonus for total defense. If that foe misses you, on your next turn, as a free action, you may make a DC 15 Tumble check. If the check succeeds, you move immediately to any unoccupied square on the opposite side of the foe (having successfully ducked underneath your foe). If there is no unoccupied square on the opposite side of the foe or you fail the Tumble check, you remain in the square you are in and have failed to duck underneath your foe.
   
   Death from Below: To use this maneuver, you must have successfully used the duck underneath maneuver. You may make an immediate single attack against the foe you ducked underneath. That foe is treated as flat-footed, and you gain a +4 bonus on your attack roll.
   
   Climb Aboard: To use this maneuver, you must move adjacent to a foe at least two size categories larger than you. In the following round, you may make a DC 10 Climb check as a free action to clamber onto the creature's back or limbs (you move into one of the squares the creature occupies). The creature you're standing on takes a -4 penalty on attack rolls against you, because it can strike at you only awkwardly. If the creature moves during its action, you move along with it. The creature can try to shake you off by making a grapple check opposed by your Climb check. If the creature succeeds, you wind up in a random adjacent square.
   
   
   
   Spoiler: Underfoot Combat

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   You can move into or through a square occupied by a creature at least two size categories larger than you. You do not provoke attacks of opportunity for doing so. While you are in a square occupied by a creature at least two size categories larger than you, you gain the benefit of soft cover (+4 bonus to AC) against all attacks, including those of the creature whose space you occupy.
   
   
   
   Spoiler: Confound the Big Folk

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   This feat allows you to perform any of the following three maneuvers.
   
   Knee Striker: To use this maneuver, you must first move into a square occupied by a foe at least two size categories larger than you. On the next round, the foe is automatically considered flat-footed against your attacks, and you gain a +4 bonus on any roll you make to confirm a critical hit.
   
   Underfoot Defense: To use this maneuver, you must first move into a square occupied by a foe at least two size categories larger than you. On any succeeding round in which you remain in the foe's square and fight defensively, use total defense, or use Combat Expertise (minimum -1 penalty on attack rolls), any melee or ranged attack made against you has a 50% chance to strike the foe whose square you occupy instead. This chance does not apply to attacks made by the creature whose square you occupy.
   
   Unsteady Footing: To use this maneuver, you must first move into a square occupied by a foe at least two size categories larger than you. On the next round, you can use a standard action to attempt to trip your foe without provoking attacks of opportunity. If your touch attack to initiate the trip attack succeeds, you can attempt a Strength or Dexterity check (your choice) opposed by your foe's Strength or Dexterity check (as normal) to trip your foe. Your foe may not add any bonus on his Strength or Dexterity check to avoid the trip that he would gain from his size. If your trip check fails, your opponent may not attempt to trip you. If you have Improved Trip, you can follow a successful trip attempt with an immediate melee attack.
   
   
   
3. I was researching ways to use these feats, and came across Person Man's Fine But Deadly character. The use of Knight's Mettle in this way seemed hilarious to me, and the build was definitely very optimized, but it was predicated on the DM waiving the knight's code, which I wasn't enthusiastic about. I also noticed they weren't using Giantbane, which made me a little curious.
   
   Giantbane, to my eyes, seems like a very powerful option. +4AC for the total defense action, -4 to your "mount's" attacks against you, and you automatically follow them when they take any action to move out of the square. As it's not specific to a move-action, it should arguably include other forms of movement, too, which helps make up for the fact that, as a diminutive or fine creature, we will struggle to trip people and force them to stay adjacent to us. It made me wonder: why would they avoid the feat? After rereading the feat and asking on the FAQ to confirm my fears, I realized: there is nothing compelling the enemy to stay adjacent to you in the first place for that critical first round of downtime, and that was a problem we needed to solve.
   
   
4. To my initial assessment, it seemed that there were basically three ways we could try to more reliably activate Giantbane: keep the enemy unaware we are adjacent to them (stealth), make the enemy want to stay adjacent to us (taunt), or force the enemy to stay adjacent to us (tripping). We have Test of Mettle, of course, but then we're trying to tank hits before Confound the Big Folk is active, which isn't ideal. Being a miniscule character, tripping isn't an ideal answer either, particularly as the enemy may well be flat-flooted on that first round (prohibiting us from tripping them). That leaves stealth, which we are uniquely suited for as a tiny character, but which has a lot of problems in 3.5. There are a litany of detection modes that just foil stealth out the gate, and Darkstalker only covers so many of them. Fortunately, blocking line of effect foils most detection modes (except listen and tremorsense, of course), and Mineral Warrior is a very accessible way to get a burrowspeed and block line of effect from those enemies until we can get into that adjacent square. The animal form is the natural form of a Hengeyokai, so we can appear as an untemplated, normal human if need be, too.
   
   
5. With regard to listen, it's 20+move silently to pinpoint a character to whom you don't have line of sight, so even if they break our move silently DC, it's a tall order to know where we are. A Rod of Silence can help with that. Darkstalker could help with Tremorsense, but most enemies don't have it, so we can probably avoid sinking too many resources into this by just leaving that unaddressed.
   
   How will we know where the enemies are? Well, with 5 or more ranks in survival, we can find true north automatically. If we saw the enemy to begin with, we should be able to burrow accurately to their location providing they don't move after we go underground. Taking Scorpion's Sense could help as well, as could an Eternal Wand of Tremorsense, an Antennae Graft, or Boots of Tremorsense if need be.
   
   
6. So now we can spot an enemy, burrow quietly underneath them, then free-action erupt out of the ground, clamber up their limbs, and go into total defense as a standard action. We have +8 to our AC from the defensive action and a 50% chance for enemies to hit our mount instead of us with any attacks. We can use Test of Mettle as a swift action to compel enemies to attack us, and our target can't get away to negate that. This is powerful and all, but... What do we do for the rest of combat?
   
   Alternatively: what do we do to prevent our target from ignoring us if their allies pass their will save, or if our target is alone?
   
   
   • If we can get 5 feet of reach with a long-arm graft, we can make every square around our target difficult terrain to prevent 5-foot steps or running away.
   • If we take Mage Slayer, we can prevent our target from casting defensively (regardless of whether or not they think we can deal enough damage to actually threaten their spell).
   • If we take Goad, we could use our available move action to force our mount (or someone adjacent to them) to avoid meleeing anyone else, but Goad is such a mixed bag (requires opponent to be able to see, be intelligent, not be immune to mind-affecting, and fail a will save...). Furthermore, the fact that the enemy can just choose to use ranged attacks or spells and be unaffected rankles a little. Still, as a move-action, it allows us to use our standard to maintain Confound the Big Folk with total defense.
   • If we use our level 3 feat and a fighter feat to take Martial Study / Martial Stance, we could get access to Iron Guard's Glare. That affects ranged attacks and ranged touch attacks as well, and is a no-save just-suck ability, so it's a leg up on Goad in that respect. While it can't affect anyone further than 5 feet away (assuming we get reach from the graft), folks further away than that probably had ranged attacks to use anyway, and therefore could ignore Goad. Additionally, it means we can take Crusader's Strike for limited in-combat healing as needed.
   • I've been trying to avoid dragon material lately, so no Master of Mockery for this build, sadly, although it would synergize well.
   • Acheron Flurry seems absolutely perfect for what I want the build to do, but it requires a standard action to use, so it's going to be offline if we are using Confound the Big Folk. That nombo makes me reluctant to use this one. Additionally, it requires that we actually deal unarmed damage to the target, and as a tiny or smaller character, that could be difficult against certain foes if they have any amount of DR at all.
   • Pierce Magical Protection seems like it could be helpful against certain targets too, but like Acheron Flurry, it requires that we deal damage, which could be problematic.
   • Shape Soulmeld can get us a +4 to climb, which is notable, or other minor goodies... I'm not sure if there's anything worth a feat slot for this concept though.
   • Bind Vestige also doesn't, at first glance, seem to offer anything exceptional for us.
   • Combat Reflexes is always an option if we can't find anything better, although we won't be able to use those AOOs very effectively given our reach and size.
   • Weapon Finesse wouldn't be an awful pick if we go Pierce Magical Protection or Acheron Flurry, but I can't imagine where we'd find room for all these.
   
   
   It seems like the best route might be to either go the Iron Guard's Glare route, or go Pierce Magical Protection with either Weapon Finesse or Goad.
   
   That could leave us with a stub a little bit like this:
   
   
   Spoiler: Build Stub

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   32 PB	Magic-Blooded Mineral Warrior Hengeyokai (Monkey)
   LA	+1
   Size	Tiny
   Str	5
   Dex	15
   Con	14
   Int	12
   Wis	12
   Cha	18

   
   Reduce Person, of course, grants -2 strength, +2 dex, and +1 to attack rolls and AC, and makes us diminutive (and therefore able to antagonize small or larger characters, which are most of them).
   
   

   HD	Class	Feats	Notes
   1	Knight	Skill Focus: Diplomacy	May as well take our feat tax now to get it out of the way. We'll probably be party face at this level, even though most of our limited ranks are probably going into Spellcraft and Climb. Knight's Challenge gives us a small buff in combat, and as a stony monkey we have a climb speed and a burrow speed, so we can navigate terrain and out-of-combat puzzles to some effect. As a tiny character, we may be able to squeeze or sneak into areas effectively as well; we do have a +10 to our hide check before our roll, after all.
   2	Knight	-	Shield block makes us just a little more tanky, which is most relevant at these low levels.
   3	Knight	Martial Study (Crusader's Strike)	Here we get some healing for our party if we go for Martial Study, which is nice. Bulwark of Defense is kind of irrelevant until we get a Long Arm graft for +5 reach.
   4	Knight	-	Level 4 is important. If the DM lets you ignore the "1/2 wbl" guideline, you can become diminutive at this level. Additionally, you can ignore the movement penalty of medium armor. Most importantly, Test of Mettle comes online, so you can begin forcing enemies to pay attention to you and deal with your problematic AC.
   5	Fighter	Martial Stance (Iron Guard's Glare)	Iron Guard's Glare serves to increase our "aggro" in battle, although until we get our graft, it really doesn't do anything at all.
   6	Fighter	Giantbane, Mage Slayer	When Giantbane comes online, we reach a spike of sorts in terms of ability, as now we can now end our movement "inside" an enemy's square using Climb Aboard. This lets us threaten enemies for Mage Slayer and Iron Guard's Glare, and piggyback off their movement, whether they try to run, teleport, fly, etc. Speaking of movement, we can afford a Long Arm graft at this level, so every square our steed moves into will be considered threatened and, therefore, difficult terrain. We get a big buff to our AC for total defense, too, but as that means forgoing Mage Slayer, Bulwark of Defense, and Iron Guard's Glare, I think we'll want to fight defensively (or normally) instead in most situations. With that said, this is also the level Acheron's Flurry or Pierce Magical Protection would come online, and there is not a major downside to using those abilities in lieu of fighting defensively yet. This is a window where it could make sense to use these abilities. Out of the two, Acheron Flurry is probably the stronger option, and certainly mandates that the person we're mounting focuses on us before our allies.
   7	Marshal	Underfoot Combat	Here we get another +4 to our AC for free (and soft cover) while riding our enemy, and Marshal gives us Motivate Strength to help with our climb checks to stay mounted.
   8	Knight	-	Vigilant Defender complements Iron Guard's Glare and Bulwark of Defense, making it difficult for enemies to pass you by to get to your allies. Additionally, we get a knight bonus feat at this level: Great Fortitude is probably the best option, since knights have good will saves, although Diehard's effective +10hp could be relevant in some cases for quick escapes via surreptitious burrowing.
   9	Knight	Confound the Big Folk	Shield Ally comes online as a last-ditch effort to keep damage off of our allies, but more importantly, Confound the Big Folk comes online. Here we get a "free" 50% chance to have our mount hit by attacks intended for us (including ranged touch attacks!), but this does require us to fight defensively. This means that narrow level range from 6-8 where Acheron Flurry and/or Pierce Magical Protection can be used without cost has come to an end, as both abilities require a standard action. At this point, Iron Guard's Glare is what we want to have. We can also use a standard action to try to trip our mount without AOOs and without any benefit afforded to them by their size, and while that is valuable, it also requires us to drop our 50% miss chance, which is just as problematic as using the two aforementioned abilities. Situationally it may be worth it, of course, and at least this one doesn't require that we do damage...

   
   
7. Seeing it laid out like that, I'm not certain about the value of a two-feat investment to get Iron Guard's Glare vs other options, and I'm not certain about where to take this build at higher levels where worldbuilding tends to get off the rails anyway. Getting to opponents worth harassing will probably become more difficult than undermining them for a surprise round to climb aboard. Doing things that make it worth dealing with you rather than ignoring you becomes more difficult (although Test of Mettle is probably our best bet here). Surviving once enemies start to focus on you rather than your allies becomes more difficult, too, as enemies start to get access to SoD/SoS spells that don't use ranged touch attacks.
   
   With regard to getting to opponents, Darkstalker while pumping Move Silently might be a valid way going forward, although we'll be pretty narrowly focused with our 2 ranks/level since we're already max'ing climb. I can't think of a better way forward off the top of my head apart from just hoping they don't take Mindsight/the DM ruled Mindsight requires LoE.
   
   Detecting enemies while underground will become more difficult, too. Our Tremorsense graft is a good start; some way to communicate telepathically with party members could be helpful too, as we can use their perception skills to point ourselves in the right direction.
   
   Surviving... Big melee brutes aren't our main concern at higher levels. Mages start to get impossible to deal with. At a certain level of optimization, we just have to accept that they either have Craft Contingent Spell active, or they do not. If they do, there's nothing anyone can do to get the jump on them. If they do not, at least we can try to be viable until level 17 when Foresight comes online. Once we are on them, there's any number of tricks they could have done to boost their concentration checks, so Mage Slayer is less relevant.
   
   Acheron Flurry becomes much less reliable the higher level we get, as AC and DR skyrocket, and miss chance becomes much more common. If we could activate it without dealing the unarmed damage, I think the ability would scale quite well. As is, I feel like it falls short.
   
   Maybe Witch Slayer 5 would be helpful to this end. Mettle and Slippery Mind will help our defenses, while Momentary Disjunction should help give our party time to get onto a problematic target. With that said, this ability does nothing to help with pre-buffs, so if they pumped themselves enough to survive your party's blitz on this round, we're back to square one. This is also a standard action to activate, which means we aren't Confounding if we use it, which is problematic.
   
   Occult Slayer 2 gives us free-action Spell Turning along that same vein; as we have a 50% chance to avoid touch attacks and ranged touch attacks, negating targeted spells helps cover us in a big way. The feat taxes could be hard to meet, as we've already taken two levels of fighter; we can buy an item to grant Improved Initiative, and take two more levels in fighter to qualify to start into Occult Slayer at level 10, I suppose, although that hits our Test of Mettle DC. It does reduce our multiclass XP penalty from 40% to 20% though, providing the DM is actually tracking that. 2 more levels gives us a second use.
   
   Maybe something like Knight 4 (Weapon Focus, Skill Focus Diplomacy) / Fighter 2 (Goad, Giantbane, Mage Slayer) / Marshal 1 (Underfoot Combat) / Occult Slayer 2 (Confound the Big Folk) / X 1 / Prestige 10 could be viable?

In general, I'm hoping for some feedback to help me clean up the build and plan for viability in those later levels. Thanks for any insight you can offer!

[Twurps]

I like the concept! I've always thought that 'bigger is better' for tanks. I've never thought to go smaller. I'm not sure it's actually better, but it sure is funny!

As for the build:
Is there a good reason for the fighter levels, other than the extra feats?

I ask because I see 2 feats being used for Martial study and martial stance. At that point, wouldn't an initiator class make more sense? either one of them get a stance and a maneuver right at lvl1. And as far as tankyness goes: there's few classes that beat the Crusader. So replacing fighter 2 with a single level in crusader gives you 1 extra level to play with, and some additional crusader 1 goodies such as the delayed damage pool. (Does DR from mineral warrior apply twice if part of the damage is taken later?)

I like the marshal addition for motivate strength. but it comes in a bit late at lvl 7, and the climb DC is 10. Shouldn't that dc be a virtual auto-success at that point anyway? I know your strength is abysmal, but there's masterwork tools, magic (strength enhancing?) items, and maybe a party buffer to buff that DC, and within a couple of levels, even that isn't required anymore. At that point, isn't the marshal level just a dead level?

So actually: instead of replacing fighter with Crusader, replace Marshal with crusader, and use the 2 fighter bonus feats saved this way to easy your PrC entry.

[Doctor Despair]

As for the build:
Is there a good reason for the fighter levels, other than the extra feats?

I ask because I see 2 feats being used for Martial study and martial stance. At that point, wouldn't an initiator class make more sense? either one of them get a stance and a maneuver right at lvl1. And as far as tankyness goes: there's few classes that beat the Crusader. So replacing fighter 2 with a single level in crusader gives you 1 extra level to play with, and some additional crusader 1 goodies such as the delayed damage pool. (Does DR from mineral warrior apply twice if part of the damage is taken later?)

You're probably right about that; it would make more sense to swap out a Fighter level for something like that rather than take the level dip. We do want a fighter bonus feat at level 6 to get Giantbane however!

I like the marshal addition for motivate strength. but it comes in a bit late at lvl 7, and the climb DC is 10. Shouldn't that dc be a virtual auto-success at that point anyway? I know your strength is abysmal, but there's masterwork tools, magic (strength enhancing?) items, and maybe a party buffer to buff that DC, and within a couple of levels, even that isn't required anymore. At that point, isn't the marshal level just a dead level?

So actually: instead of replacing fighter with Crusader, replace Marshal with crusader, and use the 2 fighter bonus feats saved this way to easy your PrC entry.

I actually had included the marshal level for both motivate strength and for access to Confound the Big Folk at level 12. Without the marshal level, we can't take Underfoot Combat until level 9, delaying Confound until level 12. Neither Underfoot nor Confound are fighter bonus feats for some reason.

With that said, the climb DC is 10 to get on, but thereafter our "mount" can make a grapple check opposed to our climb check to try to force us off. As an opposed check, it seems critical to make sure we keep it high.

Motivate strength should also help us defend against large or huge enemies who try to grapple us. The size penalty is going to hurt us a lot in those situations.

I like the concept! I've always thought that 'bigger is better' for tanks. I've never thought to go smaller. I'm not sure it's actually better, but it sure is funny!

Speaking of funnier, I had actually given up on getting responses (presumably deterred by the large amount of writing and comparatively vague ask of the forum), so I've been workshopping this a little bit. I think it's turned out a little more satisfying, so I'm hopeful that the better-formatted, full build will have a warmer reception.

[Zarvistic]

Maybe I am missing something, but giantbane doesn't say you need to be adjacent. You don't even need to be attacked by a melee attack, can be any as long as it misses.

I wanted to mention the hin disciple sub levels for the monk. As a halfling you could still reduce person to get to tiny and it gives underfoot combat at level 1. The blur of motion ability is nice if you're going to fight defensively for giantbane too. If going with multiple monk levels, the dark moon disciple sub level 7 is also nice for hiding possibly.

[Twurps]

You're probably right about that; it would make more sense to swap out a Fighter level for something like that rather than take the level dip. We do want a fighter bonus feat at level 6 to get Giantbane however!

I actually had included the marshal level for both motivate strength and for access to Confound the Big Folk at level 12. Without the marshal level, we can't take Underfoot Combat until level 9, delaying Confound until level 12. Neither Underfoot nor Confound are fighter bonus feats for some reason.

Not really necessary. 1 level crusader frees up 2 feats. one of which is actually a 'regular' feat at lvl3. So crusader dip for the stance and the maneuver, means mage-slayer can come in at 3rd. Then Giantbane is your fighter feat, and underfoot combat can be your 'regular' lvl6 feat. coming in 1 level earlier without needing Marshal. (At which point, we actually also free up our lvl1 feat I guess? as that's only there to make the marshal feat a free pick?)

With that said, the climb DC is 10 to get on, but thereafter our "mount" can make a grapple check opposed to our climb check to try to force us off. As an opposed check, it seems critical to make sure we keep it high.

Motivate strength should also help us defend against large or huge enemies who try to grapple us. The size penalty is going to hurt us a lot in those situations.

My bad, I had only read the DC10 initial check. So it is actually important to keep this check high for staying 'mounted'. (I would get freedom of movement, maybe through a magical item, for your regular 'grappling defence' Even with 'motivate strength', that's not going to be pretty.)
that got me looking into the skill-requirements for this build, and either I'm missing something, or there's no way this build is achieving the required 10 ranks in tumble required for both underfoot combat and Confound the big folk. Neither Knight, fighter, nor Marshal has that as a class skill, and my crusader suggestion isn't helping there either.

so we have either fighter or marshal to replace, and we would like feats, skill points, and tumble as a class skill.... 'Feat rogue to the rescue!'

So if you want to keep marshal in there: the 3 levels become:
1) Crusader
2) marshal
3) Feat roque
Pro's: motivate strength is still in there, crusader nets us 1 feat (lose 1 fighter feat, but get 1 stance and 1 maneuver without taking feats). rogue gives us the skill points boost we need, and tumble as class skill. We could even go regular rogue, have no extra feats at all, but have sneak attack. Although the knights code might not like that, so I'm sticking with the extra feat to be safe.
Con: loses 1 BAB

Or: giving up the marshal level.
1) Crusader
2) feat rogue
3) feat rogue
Pro's: Crusader nets us 1 feat (as above), We now have 2 levels of rogue for even more skill points goodness. And not needing skill focus at lvl1 actually saves us a second feat. (Could even make that: 'skill focus: climb' to reduce the impact of losing marshal. finally: Evasion from Rogue 2 is nice, trading it in for spell deflection might be even better!
con's: loses 1 BaB as above, loses motivate strength.

I haven't done the math on the skill points, but if we replace skill-focus diplomacy with skill focus climb for a +3 to climb: losing motivate strength only puts us down 1 point on that skill, So unless we were already getting max ranks earlier, the extra skill points from rogue might actually be better. If not: option 1 might be best.

Also: as both options lose a BAB, I don't think it's feasible to get BAB6 at lvl6 for Giantbane. (as that feat also requires tumble!) So giantbane is better of at lvl7 (with rogue2 or marshal at that level), after having had at least 1 level of rogue in there. (Quite early in the build, lvl1 if you prefer skills over HP, lvl2 if you prefer HP's over skills?).

Speaking of funnier, I had actually given up on getting responses (presumably deterred by the large amount of writing and comparatively vague ask of the forum), so I've been workshopping this a little bit. I think it's turned out a little more satisfying, so I'm hopeful that the better-formatted, full build will have a warmer reception.

For me it wasn't as much the amount of text, but more the "I have no experience with any of these feats/tactics/maneuvers at all.." that was daunting.

[Doctor Despair]

Not really necessary. 1 level crusader frees up 2 feats. one of which is actually a 'regular' feat at lvl3. So crusader dip for the stance and the maneuver, means mage-slayer can come in at 3rd. Then Giantbane is your fighter feat, and underfoot combat can be your 'regular' lvl6 feat. coming in 1 level earlier without needing Marshal. (At which point, we actually also free up our lvl1 feat I guess? as that's only there to make the marshal feat a free pick?)

Underfoot combat requires 10 ranks in Tumble, so can't be taken until level 7 :/

My bad, I had only read the DC10 initial check. So it is actually important to keep this check high for staying 'mounted'. (I would get freedom of movement, maybe through a magical item, for your regular 'grappling defence' Even with 'motivate strength', that's not going to be pretty.)
that got me looking into the skill-requirements for this build, and either I'm missing something, or there's no way this build is achieving the required 10 ranks in tumble required for both underfoot combat and Confound the big folk. Neither Knight, fighter, nor Marshal has that as a class skill, and my crusader suggestion isn't helping there either.

The Skilled City Dweller ACF adds Tumble as a replacement for Ride, which Fighter, Knight, and Marshal all have, thankfully.

Spoiler: Alternate Build Considerations

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so we have either fighter or marshal to replace, and we would like feats, skill points, and tumble as a class skill.... 'Feat rogue to the rescue!'

So if you want to keep marshal in there: the 3 levels become:
1) Crusader
2) marshal
3) Feat roque
Pro's: motivate strength is still in there, crusader nets us 1 feat (lose 1 fighter feat, but get 1 stance and 1 maneuver without taking feats). rogue gives us the skill points boost we need, and tumble as class skill. We could even go regular rogue, have no extra feats at all, but have sneak attack. Although the knights code might not like that, so I'm sticking with the extra feat to be safe.
Con: loses 1 BAB

Or: giving up the marshal level.
1) Crusader
2) feat rogue
3) feat rogue
Pro's: Crusader nets us 1 feat (as above), We now have 2 levels of rogue for even more skill points goodness. And not needing skill focus at lvl1 actually saves us a second feat. (Could even make that: 'skill focus: climb' to reduce the impact of losing marshal. finally: Evasion from Rogue 2 is nice, trading it in for spell deflection might be even better!
con's: loses 1 BaB as above, loses motivate strength.

I haven't done the math on the skill points, but if we replace skill-focus diplomacy with skill focus climb for a +3 to climb: losing motivate strength only puts us down 1 point on that skill, So unless we were already getting max ranks earlier, the extra skill points from rogue might actually be better. If not: option 1 might be best.

Also: as both options lose a BAB, I don't think it's feasible to get BAB6 at lvl6 for Giantbane. (as that feat also requires tumble!) So giantbane is better of at lvl7 (with rogue2 or marshal at that level), after having had at least 1 level of rogue in there. (Quite early in the build, lvl1 if you prefer skills over HP, lvl2 if you prefer HP's over skills?).

I think I found a fairly effective way to fit everything in here. I decided to abandon the maneuvers all together, which helped a bit.

For me it wasn't as much the amount of text, but more the "I have no experience with any of these feats/tactics/maneuvers at all.." that was daunting.

It's definitely different, to say the least, haha.