I didn’t see any Pal / Bard / BG’s on a search, so here’s mine. I see him as a Paladin, fallen first into a life of licentiousness (as a Bard) due to his beauty and then from there into depravity (as a Blackguard) due to bitterness over the loss of his Paladin status.

This character shines with a buffed Epic Fiend (I find that if I don’t buff the Vrock he sometimes has all his stats revert to 8 - YYMV). Toss a regular Bulls Strength onto your Vrock and with your Bard Songs in play he’s fairly decent combatant/meat shield. The character himself benefits from the double Bull’s Strength feature of the Blackguard + that classes good epic combat progression of feats and SA to deliver nice AB, damage, and dev crit DCs in conjunction with Bard and Curse Song raising his attack/damage/saves and lowering those of his enemies.

This character would love Charisma boosting equipment - he needs 6 points of charisma to unlock 6th level spells, but more importantly he’ll double any charisma bonus as a saving throw bonus due to his Paladin/BG nature.

Race Human
Alignment Starting Neutral Good, end Neutral or Chaotic Evil
PvM, Possibly PvP

(Note - you pretty much have to edit this character into existence or play in a PW where donations to deities affect alignment (like Kingmaker), since the alignment shifts are fairly dramatic. While I would like to have been able to reflect the RP aspects of the character in the levelling scheme, the fact is that due to an arbitrary decision by Bioware starting as a paladin necessitates 11 Wisdom and that can’t work in this build. You also get 8 bonus skill points doing it this way, but that’s not the point).

Starting

Str 14
Dex 10
Con 14
Wis 8
Int 14
Cha 16

Leveling

1 Bard 1 - Power Attack, Cleave
2 Paladin 1
3 Paladin 2 - Still Spell
4 Bard 2 - Str + 1 (15)
5 Bard 3
6 Bard 4 - Lingering Song
7 Bard 5
8 Bard 6 - Str + 1 (16)
9 Blackguard 1 - Weapon Focus: Scimitar
10 Blackguard 2
11 Blackguard 3
12 Blackguard 4 - Improved Critical: Scimitar, Str + 1 (17)
13 Blackguard 5
14 Blackguard 6
15 Bard 7 - Knockdown
16 Blackguard 7 - Str + 1 (18)
17 Blackguard 8
18 Bard 8 - Curse Song
19 Blackguard 9
20 Blackguard 10 - Str +1 (19)
21 Blackguard 11 - Great Strength I (20)
22 Blackguard 12
23 Blackguard 13 - Epic Prowess +
24 Blackguard 14 - Improved Knockdown, Str + 1 (21)
25 Bard 9
26 Bard 10
27 Blackguard 15 - Epic Fiend
28 Blackguard 16 - Epic Weapon Focus: Scimitar +, Str + 1 (22)
29 Bard 11
30 Bard 12 - Extend Spell
31 Bard 13
32 Bard 14 - Str + 1 (23)
33 Bard 15 - Blind Fighting
34 Blackguard 17
35 Blackguard 18
36 Blackguard 19 - Great Cleave, Armor Skin +, Str + 1 (24)
37 Blackguard 20
38 Blackguard 21
39 Bard 16 - Overwhelming Critical
40 Blackguard 22 - Str + 1 (25), Devastating Critical

Ending

Str 25
Dex 10
Con 14
Wis 8
Int 14
Cha 16

Skills
Perform 30
Tumble 40
Spellcraft 30
Discipline 43
UMD 22
Hide 5
Concentration 40
Taunt 43

HP - 416 max, 340 (1 try)

AC - 31, 44 buffed, effectively 46 with Curse

AB - 39/34/29/24, buffed minimum 49/..., maximum 53/... Curse song effectively adds another +5 to hit and lowers enemy resistance to Taunt and IKD by 2 points apiece.

Buffed Damage 1d6 + 17 + 7d6 SA, Crit Range 12-20, Dev Crit DC 37 + x2 Bulls Strength variable of 1-5, Curse Song effectively raises the DC by another 2.

Saves ..start/end

Fort 30, buffed 32 + 2-4
Reflex 25, buffed 27 + 2-4
Will 24, buffed 27 + 2-4

Important Spells
1 - Identify, Mage Armor, Protection from Alignment
2 - Bull’s Strength, Eagle’s Splendor, Ultravision, Darkness
3- Wounding Whispers, Haste, Keen Weapon, Greater Magic Weapon
4 - Improved Invisibility, War Cry, Legend Lore, Cure Critical Wounds
5 - Ethereal Visage, Greater Dispelling
6 - Mass Haste, Energy Buffer

Version 2. You could readily leave strength at 14, increase Charisma to 24, drop Great Strength, Great Cleave, Overwhelming Crit, and Dev Crit and grab Empower Spell, Extra Turning, Divine Might, and Divine shield. This character will have notably lower AB (only slightly mitigated by Empowered Strength added to Blackguard Bull’s Strength) but will have much better saves (+8 on all above numbers) and decent divine damage and AC bonuses in the +8-10 range. I prefer the first version, but this one is more or less immune to Devastating Critical due to high Fort saves and has 6th level spells without needing equipment. Wait, Paladin has to be Lawful Good, I would suggest you start with the Paladin in lawful good and then change alignment to neutral/chaotic evil.

I don't get very well why you take 2 Paladin levels, no spells, not high CHA for saves anyway.... you didn't took divien might/shield, but BG can take it on its own..... 5 fighet levels for EWS work better......

You end with an odd STR number, maybe you should drop DEX to 8 and start with 15 STR to end at 26, anyway, Bard can buff DEX isn't he? if not (since I don't remember) he can still use a scroll for it, so there's no problem if you wear a full plate.


On the Version 2 you state there, you get a use of the paladin out of the CHA, which will give you saves.

STR characters work better with two handed weapons as far as I can tell..... although the second version would be ok with a scimitar.
Quote: Posted 04/01/06 20:13:28 (GMT) -- Thaxll'ssyllia

Wait, Paladin has to be Lawful Good, I would suggest you start with the Paladin in lawful good and then change alignment to neutral/chaotic evil.

I don't get very well why you take 2 Paladin levels, no spells, not high CHA for saves anyway.... you didn't took divien might/shield, but BG can take it on its own..... 5 fighet levels for EWS work better......

You end with an odd STR number, maybe you should drop DEX to 8 and start with 15 STR to end at 26, anyway, Bard can buff DEX isn't he? if not (since I don't remember) he can still use a scroll for it, so there's no problem if you wear a full plate.


On the Version 2 you state there, you get a use of the paladin out of the CHA, which will give you saves.

STR characters work better with two handed weapons as far as I can tell..... although the second version would be ok with a scimitar.

He does look a little weird on paper, doesn't he? It makes sense when you do it out, though.

I note his alignment shifts are complicated - neutral good to lawful good to neutral or chaotic evil. But if you start with Paladin you lose 3 attribute points to Wisdom, which I note in my initial post. Therefore either use a character builder or play in a PW where alignment shifts are easy.

I take 2 Paladin levels for 3 reasons. 1) For saves. The build doesn't have stellar saves in the way that a smiter paladin build does, but it gets +6 to all saves - the first level of paladin grants the same saves bonus as 6 levels of Champion of Torm. It is, however, better than that, since Charisma boosting equipment and spells (of which he has one) gives double benefit. The buffed character has between a +8-10 bonus to all saves, and another +6 to save vs. spells from spellcraft. 2) For AB. I wanted 16 levels of bard for full bardsong - that meant that the highest optimal number of blackguard levels I could take would be 22 (gets an epic feat and SA die every 3 epic levels, + vrock power on whatever interval that is). That leaves 2 levels. Nicely enough, I can take 2 levels of a full AB class and end up with 18 BAB by level 20. Paladin's save bonus alone is better for this character than any other benefit this character can grab from 2 levels of a fighting class. 3) Immunity to fear. Granted, not a top tier ability which makes people go "Wow!", but it is nice to be able to laugh in the face of terrifying Berserker builds and dragons.

I had an early build with fighter levels instead of paladin, but taking 4 levels instead of 2 paladin costs you both an epic blackguard feat and a die of sneak attack, as well as (I believe) Epic Vrock power. All told, a fighter version has +4 EWF damage (acquiring which takes up 2 of the 3 fighter bonus feats) and a pre-epic feat, against a post-epic BG bonus feat, 1d6 SA, Immunity to Fear, an additional bonus to saves = Cha bonus, and Vrock power. I don't think I have to explain why I went with the latter.

I end up with strength at an odd number, but I also have 2 bulls strength spells going onto this character (Blackguard's version stacks with the spell). While it's always nice to have more strength, I'm adding 4-10 points of bonus strength on so it's not quite as germane whether he ends up even or not; when he's playing like he should, he's not going to end on 25. I don't have the second level spell slot open to take Cat's Grace, since I wanted to have the Ultravision/Darkness option open and need Bull's Strength and Eagle's Grace.

Finally, scimitar is used to maximize the number of criticals and because it allows for shield use. With x2 strength buffs he has fairly nasty Dev Crit DCs, so we want as many as possible. I definitely thought about Greatsword, but I think it's better in a non-Dev Crit build.

As an aside - I chose Seducer since I thought too many of the BG builds I've seen focus on the Blackguard as a force of uncontrolled slaughter, which is more psychotic than pure evil. This BG is more of a Rosemary's Baby type, sowing future cambion legions with his faithful Vrock companion. Now that's eeeeeevil. Still your fully buffed STR will be an odd number. Start DEX at 8 and STR at 15, Cat's Grace will take care of your DEX. 4 preepic feats on epic feats slots... ouch! And Dev crit so late. Dropping Dev crit and going STR looks like a good alternative.

Cheers,
Kail
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Stand and fight, live by your heart
Always one more try, I'm not afraid to die
Stand and fight, say what you feel
Born with a Heart of Steel! While playable 1-40, he clearly peaks at 40 in the current build.

I can see dropping Dev Crit - it's a powerful add on and I was looking to exploit the higher DCs available through the double buff, but with 7d6 SA + a two handed weapon he would have other sources of damage. For connecting those SA's, I would rather have Darkness and Ultravision than Cat's Grace and see invisibility, and you're only going to fully buff around 1/16th of the time, so the odd ending number for strength doesn't bother me. If you dropped Great Cleave, Overwhelming, and Dev Crit for Great Strength II-IV, he would rise to 28 Str anyway, which makes the point moot and sets his two-handed weapon damage to 2d6 + 13 + (3-8 strength buffing variable) + 7d6 SA, and his AB and IKD DCs would rise at bit to help him pull that off more often. You'd have to use your BG bonus feats with care to pick up Armor Skin, Epic Prowess, Epic Fiend, and EWF because you can't use them for strength, but once you know that it's easy. I think this character would probably be stronger 1-39, although at 40 I think the Dev Crit build might be stronger.

I don't inherently mind where I spend post-epic feats - while it's nicer to spend them on the epic feats which open up, for many builds (and virtually any caster/warrior without bonus fighter feats) you'll miss some of the good pre-epics on your way up, and the proof of the character is in gestalt effect. This build manages to grab quite a few post-epic bonus feats - these help to offset the high numbers of post-epic feats spent on pre-epics.

All that said, however, if someone could tell me a way to grab Lasting Inspiration for this character it would be nice - I fill the reqs are per the manual and the option doesn't show up, making me believe you need to be an epic bard. Actually, Bard level 20
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"And one calculates time from the dies nefastus on which this fatality arose – from the first day of Christianity! – Why not rather from its last? – From today? – Revaluation of all values!" First, the STR part, don't leave it odd, it won't matter how or what, I'm 85% sure you'll get it to max with an item or something, most characters max ther base stat without need of buffing spells.

Good answer about the paladin, still it's not quite complete from where I see it.

It's good to have saves, granted, but don't discredit the fighter so quickly, you would lose sneak attack power if you take more fighter levels, yes, however, fighter gives feats, not the opposite, in any gven case, EWS means you got WS before so it's a +6 damage, not +4, now, if you take fighter levels below 20 on epic levels (ie. take level 4 fighter at level 21), you gain an extra feat, but, you can choose from epic fighter list of feats, you can get Dev Crit, EWF, Armor SKin, Epic Prowess, Overwhelming Crit, etc. as a bonus fighter feat from a level 6 fighter no problem, so lowering Blackguard levels for fighter levels ultimately gives you more feats. Fighter would avoid completely alignment problems too.

Anyway, keep the Paladin if you like, there's no problem about it, I was just clearing the facts. I got the idea that his concept is a Paladin/Blackguard, though
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"And one calculates time from the dies nefastus on which this fatality arose – from the first day of Christianity! – Why not rather from its last? – From today? – Revaluation of all values!" It is indeed, FinneousPJ.

I didn't realize Epic Weapon Spec stacked with regular weapon spec. You're still gaining 3 fighter feats and losing 1 Blackguard, and then spending the net two you gain on both Weapon Specs - so it's +6 damage v. better saves (effectively 3 feats worth if you take Luck of Heroes as a base, although those wouldn't scale with bonus Charisma), 1d6 SA, and immunity to fear. I see the latter as more useful across the board than the former, especially given that the average buffed damage of the Paladin version is going to be 25 + 24 SA - YMMV, but I find the group of Paladin / BG benefits to outweigh switching the average damage to 31 + 21 SA. But this is as good as it ever gets for the fighter version.

If you want more feats than the BG, excepting the WP Spec pair which have to try to balance off against the above benefits, then you have to go to fighter 8 / bard 16 / BG 16, which yields 7 bonus feats (5 after EWS) to the 22nd level blackguard's 4. You also lose notable Vrock power and another die of SA, the SA portion of which alone is known to be worth an epic feat (but which the character cannot buy because he doesn't qualify for), in exchange for 1 feat. If you go beyond that the next break point is at fighter 14/BG 10/Bard 16, with 2 net feat advantage (again, accepting EWS) to compensate for no Epic Vrock and 4d6 SA.

The fighter version certainly gets you around the problem of alignment. However, once you accept that this build is only usable in certain places, it is in my mind vastly superior where it can be used.

Edited By SonsofNorthWind on 04/03/06 23:19