From Smite to Song Feat + Initiate of Mil Feat Question

[Eviltedzies]

Initiate of Mil stacks your Bard, Cleric, and Paladin levels for "determining which kinds of bardic music you can use (but not any other effect related to bardic music)."

From Smite to Song allows the sacrificing of a Smite Use to fuel an Inspire Courage effect.
"Your effective bard level (for the purpose of determining the value of the bonuses granted) is equal to your paladin level."

Now my question is, would Initiate if Mil allow a Paladin to multiclass into a Cleric or Bard and still be counted as a full Paladin when using From Smite to Song?

Ex: A Paladin 10 using From Smite to Song counts as a Bard 10 for how high his Inspire Courage Bonus goes.

Would a Paladin 5 / Cleric 5 with Initiate of Mil count as a Paladin 10 when using From Smite to Song?

By the RAW I want to say no since From Smite to Song explicitly states that your effective bard level is equal to your Paladin level, BUT since Initiate of Mil says your "Bard", Cleric, and Paladin levels stack I want to think that this also applies when using "From Smite to Song."

Thoughts?

[SorO_Lost]

Smite to Song directly uses Inspire Courage as a Bard equal to your Paladin Level whereas Initiate of Mil provides an exception to what Classes are checked to determine what kinds of Bardic Music you can use. These two things don't really overlap.

For example, Paladin 10 with both of them doesn't even have Bardic Music and he still has 0 uses of Bardic Music per day, he can only duplicate the effect of an IC produced by a 10th level Bard. If he were to dip Bard he'd obtain Music/Uses and calculate his access accordingly, but his effective level for IC much like Spells depends on how he is using it. As a Bard or as a Feat.

Most of the Paladin stuff lets you effectively pretend you're a Bard but it really has some technicalities tied to it. Like Harmonious Knight directly gains Courage X/day, Competence 1/day, and Greatness per Remove Disease - 1. He cannot use Metamagic Song nor does his uses of Greatness affect how many times he can use Courage.

Devoted Performer & Initiate of Mil with a dip in each (or a more abusive interpretation that skips bard) allows you to use Bardic Music while increasing your usages per day as a Paladin which is about the best way to truly combine them. That also means a Paladin can access Divine Metamagic & Metamagic Song to persist anything obtained through Sword of the Arcane Order as well as his default Paladin List. I even used the abusive interpretation as a build for Fumbles in the 2nd party Fun Finds thread if your interested.

[Jackinthegreen]

No, those two feats combined would not let you multiclass into cleric or paladin and get the full benefits.

Initiate of Milil only stacks your classes to determine which song effects you have access to, but not the number of bardic music uses per day or the magnitude of bonuses from the songs.

Smite to Song only lets you stack bard and paladin levels to determine the magnitude of the Inspire Courage song effects, not the number of bardic music uses per day nor which kinds of songs you have access to.

The example Paladin 5 / Cleric 5 with both of those feats would have access to Inspire Courage +1 (since he only counts as a 5th level bard for the purposes of Inspire Courage), Inspire Competence, and Inspire Greatness.  And whichever other bardic music abilities a bard would get up to 10th level. However, unless they had some way to get actual Bardic Music uses they could only use Inspire Courage since From Smite to Song only gives the ability to duplicate Inspire Courage.