3.5 Bard/paladin Core only build

[chrisbremen]

I was hoping to stop by here and get some feedback on a build I am working on.

I inspiration was Sir Didymus from the Labyrinth movie

What I am shooting for is an honorable and noble gnome who rides a war-dog into battle and sings songs about it.

For his ablities I went
str- 16 dex - 10 Con - 12 int 14 wis 8 char 16

For classes i went Bard 5/ Pal 3

skills-
I am going to max the following
concentration, handle animal, ride, Knowlege arcane, perform (string instrument), perform (singing), and UMD

Feats-
Animal Affinity
Mounted Combat
Ride by attack
Spirited charge
Quick draw

Flaws
Inattentive
Poor reflexes


Thoughts?

[Janthkin]

Could you define what you mean by "core"?  (You've got flaws, so presumably Unearthed Arcana, which doesn't fit my def'n of core).

[chrisbremen]

Actually after looking at it for awhile I found a few things I wanted to change. You are correct that I had to take flaws off. Also the combo of paladin and bard didnt work right because of the lawful good that the paladin would make the bard. So what I did was to take 2 lvls of fighter instead of paladin which gave me the two feats I had to take away for the flaws.
The idea is that I can buff party up with bard and then be able to charge through to do an attack and be away to setup another buff or cast spell.

I also switched quick draw with power attack. I am trying to not make him so much of a one trick character so I thought I would give him the gnome hooked hammer to use when he isnt able to charge, and then use power attack with that. Power attacking with the lance spirited charge doesnt make sense to me so I dont think I would use it that way.
Also what would I be able to do to make my riding dog more survivable besides adding armor to him?

He is now effectively:

str 14 dex 12 con 16 int 10 wis 8 cha 18

bard 6/ fighter 2

+1 lance
+1 gnome hooked hammer

feats
Animal affinity
mounted combat
ride by attack
spirited charge
power attack

Also if I am using a war trained riding dog would he be able to do his attack(trip) during the charge or does he get a separate initiative slot for that?

thanks

[Captnq]

See, here's the problem, if you are sticking core, I really can't help much.

Is your DM allowing the expanded list of non-magical equipment from say, arms and equipment guide? How about poisons? The expanded rules on skills? Core animal handling sucks. All the best tricks are in other books. What books exactly are allowed?

[chrisbremen]

Per the gm

First 5 levels will be limited to the 'core' 3.5 books (PH, DMG, and MM1), once the group and DM's experience level rises other books (PH & DMG 2, Complete Books, etc) will be available.

[chrisbremen]

I was just looking at devoted war singer and that sounds almost exactly what I was looking for. Buffing allies, and still being able to get some melee combat in. Do you know which book that is from?

If a bard is not allowed to be lawful but a prerequisite for the pr class is lawful, 1st lvl bard spells, and a class with special mount; how would you go about doing that?
Getting 3 Lvis of bard, taking 2 lvl of pal, them taking pr class?
The pr class says you can then take a class from all three ( bard, pal, and dw)

Thanks for the help

[Jackinthegreen]

Devoted Performer from Complete Adventurer page 107 is a multiclass feat that stacks paladin and bard levels for the purposes of advancing Smite Evil.  It also allows gaining more bard levels despite being lawful and you must remain lawful good to retain paladin abilities.

A bard can't be started as lawful, but a character's alignment can change over time.  As per the bard's rules in the PHB, a bard that becomes lawful retains all the class abilities but can no longer advance as a bard.

As far as prestige classes go, it depends on what kinds of things you want to focus on.

Devoted Warsinger is not an official D&D class and cannot be found in any supplements.  It is purely homebrew posted to a wiki site.  For the sake of simplicity at filtering information ignore all wiki sites except wikipedia's D&D pages since there is a lot of homebrew and unofficial stuff on them.  For example, this wikipedia page lists perhaps all of the prestige classes in official rule books.

For what it's worth, if Devoted Warsinger were an official PrC I would not recommend using it because the Code of Conduct class feature means you cannot retreat from a battle lest you lose all your prestige class abilities until you get an Atonement spell cast on you.  Pure and total BS.

The type of character you're thinking of is probably best done as a bard and crusader.  The crusader can be found in Tome of Battle, but don't expect your DM to allow it because many think it's too powerful (or too "wuxia") despite the fact that spellcasters can easily do much worse such as rewrite reality.