Trouble reaching the Crusaders potential, please help

[PrayForHitPoints]

Quick background: I am, as far as anyone has ever told me, an excellent role-player. I create detailed backgrounds, I stay in character and I've been described as engaging. What I am NOT is good at making characters mechanically. I always end up feeling left behind in combat situations because I build my characters around a concept while everyone I play with min/max's and build their character identity around that. Well a new game is about to start up and this time I'm determined to change that. I'm not expecting anyone here to make a character for me, that's just silly, but I do need a lot of help and hand holding.

Here are the facts.
Its a 3-4 player game
We will be starting at level 15
I want to play a tanky/support Crusader
We will be fighting lots of demons
It has to be a human character
It cannot involve more then 1 multiclass and 1 prestige class
No RKV or any prestige class that is specific to a certain order/sect/god

I understand that TANKY and SUPPORT might not both be an option as I haven't seen anything about a support Crusader on these forums but I thought I would ask. ANY tip you folks could provide would be GREATLY appreciated. I understand there are a lot of Crusader buil up here already but as I'm new to this I have no idea which ones are good or even what half of the acronyms mean (I had to look up RKV)

[Hades]

Since RKV is out, maybe you can do the "arcane type of gish".

Wizard 4/Crusader 2/Jade Phoenix Mage 9.

JPM advance Devoted Spirit, and with this build you'll reach spellcasting as a 11th level wizard (6th level spells), IL of 13 (7th level maneuvers), BAB of +13.

DR of 10/evil all day (Mystic Phoenix Stance expending a 5 level slot) may be nice with the "tanking" aspect, and BF control, buffs, etc can grant a great support.

About armor class, you can cast Greater Mage armor to have a +6 armor bonus and call a day, but is not hard to get an armor with 0% asf, stacking mithral, twilight, etc.

Mithral githcraft (DM2) caster (dragon#358) twilight (MIC) thistledown (RoTW) full plate, for instance, has a 0% asf.

Spells  like greater magic weapon, greater mighty wallop, superior resistance, heart of earth, etc. are all your friend.

Yes, that's more a gish build, but the focus on devoted spirit can grant a nice "crusader" feel.

[PrayForHitPoints]

Thanks for the reply. If you dont mind my asking, why only 2 levels of Crusader? I see a lot of people saying its one of the best melee classes ever but almost every build I see only has one or two levels of it. Why is that?

[Hades]

I put only 2 levels to not hinder too much wizard casting.

Crusader IS one of the best melee class, and even a plain and simple Crusader X is a perfect viable build

If you do a gish (arcane or divine) build the priority is to minimize caster level loss, that's why Ruby Knight Vindicator or Jade Phoenix Mage builds normally have only 1-2 levels of the "martial class".

Another variant of this build is to use wu jen instead of wizard: maybe is not as powerful, but flavourwise it's very nice (with the "oriental" feel you became a sort of "mystic samurai"). Also there are some wu jen spells that are very nice for a gish, like Giant Size (became up to Colossal, with all the size bonus on abilities score and weapon damage) and Body Outside Body (you create "clones" of yourself that can't cast spells, but can use maneuvers).

[phaedrusxy]

Thanks for the reply. If you dont mind my asking, why only 2 levels of Crusader? I see a lot of people saying its one of the best melee classes ever but almost every build I see only has one or two levels of it. Why is that?

Because the best thing it provides is the maneuver progression, but you can advance that using prestige classes along with casting. Maneuvers are great, but maneuvers + casting is better, of course. And in general, casting > maneuvers, anyway. So if you're going to give up a bit of one or the other, better to give up maneuvers over casting.

This is always the thing you run into when building a "gish"... Mechanically, casting progression is the strongest thing in the game, and when it comes to considering what to trade off, nothing is going to really compete with more casting progression... I understand that from a RP perspective, this can definitely be less than satisfying. (And of course many skilled optimizers in fact play many characters that have minimal to no casting ability).

[DaCraw]

You've mentioned that your friends typically min/max, but just to be clear, roughly what power level do they tend to play at? Can you describe what you think they will want to play as?

In any event, 'Support' to me screams Bard. Or, in your case, Bardsader. This won't be as powerful as a well played Wizard/Crusader/JPM, but you will be able to contribute in combat. If you were allowed 2 prestige classes, I'd suggest Bard 7/Crusader 2/JPM 1/Sublime Chord 1/JPM 2->10. This would get you essentially sorcerer spell casting (with level 9 spells, but one level behind the sorcerer), level 8 maneuvers, and up to +9-14d6 sonic damage inspire courage (depending on how much you optimise).

As you can only have one prestige class, you may want to look at a basic Bardsader: Bard 4/Crusader 16. Take Dragontouched, Dragonfire Inspiration, Draconic Heritage (Battle or Pyroclastic), Words of  Creation, Song of the White Raven, Extra Granted Maneuver, and another feat of your choice. Also, make sure that you play a masterwork mandolin and wear a Vest of Legends. The first round of any given combat will probably consist of you using a swift action to inspire courage (with Dragonfire Inspiration and Words of Creation) to give everyone in your party +9-10d6 sonic damage (albeit at the cost of taking 3d4 nonlethal yourself), stopping the song as a free action, then using your standard action to inspire courage (with Words of creation) giving them a +9-10 morale bonus to their attack and damage rolls (taking another 3d4 nonlethal damage), and finally using your move action to find an advantageous position. In subsequent rounds, you can go to town with the standard Crusader maneuvers. They'll probably outshine you in combat, but you'll know that it was largely because of your buffs.

[Tonymitsu]

...Take Dragontouched, Dragonfire Inspiration, Draconic Heritage (Battle or Pyroclastic), Words of  Creation, Song of the White Raven, Extra Granted Maneuver, ...

How do you qualify for this when it requires Sorcerer 1?


Tome of Battle, page 125, indicates that RKV is easily adaptable and could be found in almost any religious order.  I'm not sure I understand that restriction.  Does your DM's universe have no gods and only clerics devoted to ideals (or no clerics at all)?

Crusader class features tend to be "all-in" or "don't bother", in that some of them stop being relevant at higher levels unless you have lots of levels in crusader.  Nothing at all is wrong with Crusader 20, but spells are always the mechanically superior choice and the Crusader/Wizard/JPM is gaining the versatility of spells at the cost of crusader class features.  Note that spellcasters are only as good as their spells and if you aren't good with spells then that build won't help.
Another problem is that Crusader has wonky stance progression, in that their best stances (like Thicket of Blades) aren't available when they gain new stances (and, unlike maneuvers, once you pick a stance you are stuck with it).  You will frequently see Crusader 1/Dip class 2/Crusader X in order to "fix" the stance progression so you qualify for the best stances as soon as you can learn new ones.

In general, if you want to be a tank, don't worry too much about armor class.  For one thing crusader class features are fueled by taking damage.  Also, any enemy you face with an intelligence higher than 3 is going to ignore a target it can't hit in favor of one that it can.  Your goal, as a proud Big Stupid Fighter, is to be the target of the enemies attacks, so anything you do to make yourself seem like a bigger threat or more appealing target is what you want.

[Keldar]

Dragontouched lets you take Draconic Heritage regardless of class.