What's the ideal class/classes for an army's Commander General?

[Who_Da_Halfling]

Hey guys, my group is currently in a major city and I'm planning on them eventually having contact with the Commander General of the army. She's meant to be a crusader-type who is somewhere in the Good spectrum and is a benevolent authority figure as well as a savvy and talented military leader and strategist.

My question is, what class or classes should this character be(3E)?

The most obvious are Paladin, Knight, or Marshall. Paladin makes her a bit more of a spellcaster than I would like, and Knight is a little too combat focused. I'm not 100% on the Marshall tho, as I don't have access to its sourcebook (the Crystal Keep page doesn't have the fluff that I would like to see). I haven't even made a dent in checking the Prestige Classes yet either.

What do you guys think? BTW, if you want to try to do builds, I only have the Complete and Core, plus PHBII, so no feats or anything from outside of those.

-JM

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Bard, Marshall, Warblade, or Crusader.

[BobVosh]

Bard, Marshall, Warblade, or Crusader.

QFT

Skip bard if you don't want spells.

[Dienekes]

Isn't Marshall defined as the class for a commander?

What I would do is have a Marshall/Crusader mix, or Marshall/Paladin, or even Marshall/Fighter if you stat them to have higher intelligence/charisma.

[Kizara]

Marshall 1/cleric x

Throw in pal 3 for effect (aura of courage is fantastic if your DM can model morale realistically).

Alternately, use something from ToB...


Thing is, marshall is a cool idea and decently-designed class, but it sucks, your major aura bonuses don't scale nearly fast enough, you don't have any specific boosting or teamplay abilities etc. Really, just take 1 level in it.

[jcsw]

Any class with abilities which give bonuses to the rest of the party works, thus:

Bard (With Perform(Oratory), probably) (May be too magical for your tastes)
Paladin
Marshal
Crusader (Focused on White Raven for best results.)

Dragon Shaman works to some extent, although it might need refluffing.

Heroes of Battle has the legendary commander prestige class, this might be useful, if you are in fact using the rules in this book.

[CthulhuM]

If you want her to be a savvy, nonmagical, tactician, then Marshal or Warblade (with emphasis on white raven maneuvers) are far and away the best options.

[Who_Da_Halfling]

Where is the Warblade from (Crystal Keep has Marshall but not Warblade)?

Non-magical is preferable, although not totally necessary. I would like to keep the Commander General separate from mages/casters.

Also, are there any applicable Prestige Classes that would benefit her battlefield-leading ability? I'm planning on having her out-level the 6-7 level party by a significant amount, so even if they're up to 9 when they meet her, she'll be at least level 15. Any ideas?

-JM

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Where is the Warblade from (Crystal Keep has Marshall but not Warblade)?

Non-magical is preferable, although not totally necessary. I would like to keep the Commander General separate from mages/casters.

Also, are there any applicable Prestige Classes that would benefit her battlefield-leading ability? I'm planning on having her out-level the 6-7 level party by a significant amount, so even if they're up to 9 when they meet her, she'll be at least level 15. Any ideas?

-JM

Warblade is Tome of Battle.

[kamikasei]

She's meant to be a crusader-type who is somewhere in the Good spectrum and is a benevolent authority figure as well as a savvy and talented military leader and strategist.

Important questions:

Is she necessarily a skilled fighter herself? Is she an inspiring leader (such that you would want her to be able to give bonuses to her allies) or an expert commander (no need for statistical bonuses, her job is to work out how best to achieve the army's objectives and give the appropriate orders)? Are you limited in how you stat her up or can you give her whatever stats you feel like, whether unfair by the PCs' creation method or not (obviously you can, but what's the norm or unspoken contract)?

You could just give her virtually any class, tack on a high intelligence and some appropriate skills, and leave it there. On the other hand, if you want her to be able to get mechanical use out of her intelligence you probably want something like Duskblade or Warblade - and Duskblade is a caster while you don't have ToB. Then again, I don't know of any intelligence-based classes which can use it to give bonuses to allies - which would be ideal. Essentially you want a 3.5e tactical warlord.

Does she even have to be a fighter-type? You might consider a Psion (seer). High int, can use powers to gather intelligence and predict outcomes. Again, castery though.

On the Marshal - wasn't it available online on the WotC site?

[Xefas]

If you're not adverse to using homebrew, then:

The Demented One's Warlord Class would work very well. This is probably the best and easiest solution.

The Sublime Marshal works too, if you like Tome of Battle.

Finally, the option I like least out of the three, but is still way awesome would be Fax Celestis' d20r Warlord.

[TempusCCK]

Take a look into the book Heros of Battle, there's some fairly interesting mechanics for the kind of thing you're looking for here.

[Fishy]

I'm with kamikasei, actually. Bard/Warblade/Marshall et. al are great -tactical- leaders, but that's not really the same thing as a great strategic leader.

Is there some way of granting bonuses to people in a manner that lets them grant bonuses to other people?

[RMS Oceanic]

There's a Bard Spell in Complete Champion that turns other people into Bards in terms of Bardic Music. That might work.

[Grail]

Legendary Leader from Tome of Battle is a good one. But any class can be a general. My long term game has had lots of warfare - and generals have ranged from Aristocrat to Arcane Archers with just about everything else in there as well, coz at the end of the day Skills and Tactics make a general (well they make a good general), not game mechanics.

[Who_Da_Halfling]

Hmm, some very interesting thoughts here. I should really invest in a Tome of Battle if I want to make the military a bigger part here.

Ultimately, the campaign is shaping up (I hope, I'm now talking like 15 sessions in teh future) towards a climactic battle to defend a city against overwhelming odds (similar to Azure City, except I don't plan on having the good guys fall back). The PCs will ultimately take on the BBEG, but there should be plenty of combat and such in-between, and that's where the Commander General's combat prowess will come in. So, I suppose she doesn't need to be an amazing fighter, but she can't be like a Commoner in battle. She should be able to pretty easily mop up the mooks that will be coming over the walls.

Xefas, I'll take a look at those homebrew classes. The sound interesting from your short descriptions but I'll need to look closer.

ultimately, I do want something like that Bard spell that lets others give bonuses for you. Maybe I can homebrew a Marshall aura like that?

I have been using 32-point buy for the important NPCs in the city, but those are all people of the level of the PCs, who the party is meant to regularly interact with and possibly accompany directly into battle. Thus, I dont think they would a) notice, or b) necessarily care if the General had somewhat absurd stats. Just thinking mechanically, unless her class required it, she doesn't strictly NEED high Dex, since she's almost certainly going to have some kind of Plate Armor anyway. I will probably decide on stats for her, the BBEG, and the Queen fairly arbitrarily (if they even encounter the Queen).

-JM

[Defiant]

Marshal all the way, maybe with some dips in fighter or some other class.

Thing is, marshall is a cool idea and decently-designed class, but it sucks, your major aura bonuses don't scale nearly fast enough, you don't have any specific boosting or teamplay abilities etc. Really, just take 1 level in it.

I disagree. A well-played Marshal can serve competently in combat while dominating social intercourse. Meanwhile it boosts others' abilities in combat.