Conveniently, there is a variant paladin, the harmonious knight (Champions of Valor web enhancementChampions of Valor web enhancement), that gets inspire courage +1, 1/day at 1st level, instead of at-will detect evil. Not saying that detect evil isn’t nice, but considering everything we just said above about inspire courage, I hope it’s clear that inspire courage is a whole lot better. Note that to be a harmonious knight, you need to worship Milil—at least, you do in the Forgotten Realms. As Champions of Valor is a Realms-specific book, in other settings your DM may adapt it to another god—or just ban it entirely. Also, technically, the harmonious knight gets “inspire courage” but not “bardic music”—their inspire courage ability doesn’t reference bardic music or the bard class in any way. That might be an issue qualifying for bardic music feats, which is largely the point of taking harmonious knight in the first place. So ask your DM about those things.
Conveniently, there is a variant paladin, the harmonious knight (Champions of Valor web enhancement), that gets inspire courage +1, 1/day at 1st level, instead of at-will detect evil. Not saying that detect evil isn’t nice, but considering everything we just said above about inspire courage, I hope it’s clear that inspire courage is a whole lot better. Note that to be a harmonious knight, you need to worship Milil—at least, you do in the Forgotten Realms. As Champions of Valor is a Realms-specific book, in other settings your DM may adapt it to another god—or just ban it entirely. Also, technically, the harmonious knight gets “inspire courage” but not “bardic music”—their inspire courage ability doesn’t reference bardic music or the bard class in any way. That might be an issue qualifying for bardic music feats, which is largely the point of taking harmonious knight in the first place. So ask your DM about those things.
Conveniently, there is a variant paladin, the harmonious knight (Champions of Valor web enhancement), that gets inspire courage +1, 1/day at 1st level, instead of at-will detect evil. Not saying that detect evil isn’t nice, but considering everything we just said above about inspire courage, I hope it’s clear that inspire courage is a whole lot better. Note that to be a harmonious knight, you need to worship Milil—at least, you do in the Forgotten Realms. As Champions of Valor is a Realms-specific book, in other settings your DM may adapt it to another god—or just ban it entirely. Also, technically, the harmonious knight gets “inspire courage” but not “bardic music”—their inspire courage ability doesn’t reference bardic music or the bard class in any way. That might be an issue qualifying for bardic music feats, which is largely the point of taking harmonious knight in the first place. So ask your DM about those things.
Skill Focus (Diplomacy)
This is just a feat, and a fairly basic one at that. There are loads of things you can do to improve Diplomacy, and taking Skill Focus would be a step most diplomancers will likely take, so hey, you get it free. But it’s not really “special.” You optimize it by optimizing Diplomacy.
Note that Diplomacy is a really problematic skill. As written, high Diplomacy checks can allow you to just tell people what to do, even if they should hate you. Hence the tongue-in-cheek “diplomancer” to refer to characters who have very high bonuses. No one runs it like that, or should—but as a result, it becomes very unclear what a high Diplomacy check should get you.
At any rate, optimizing a diplomancer has little to do with the marshal class—the only relation is that marshal could be a source of a feat that a diplomancer probably wants. Look up any of the many Diplomacy/diplomancy handbooks out there for more on how to get the most out of the skill; it isn’t hard to break the game, as written.
Super-niche, but there is another application of this class feature that actually is unique to the marshal, not that I’ve ever found a particularly good use for it—if you already have Skill Focus (Diplomacy) when you take marshal 1st, you get to choose another feat you qualify for. This is actually very rare, officially, though many if not most DMs just allow it for all bonus feats. Anyway, you can leverage this if for some reason you want to “delay” a feat you otherwise could have chosen until later, presumably because the feat you want requires things you don’t have yet. You can take Skill Focus (Diplomacy) instead, and then take your 1st level of marshal when you want to get the other feat.
Minor aura
This is probably the best class feature that the marshal has. It’s certainly the one most amenable to optimization, which is to say it can be optimized, at all, because none of the others really can.
The idea with your minor aura is to pump your Charisma as high as possible, so that when you, say, motivate Dexterity, you’re offering a large bonus.
Dexterity is, by the way, probably the best target: since initiative is a Dexterity check, motivate Dexterity applies to it, and giving +Cha to your entire team’s initiative checks is amazing. Initiative is often the most important roll in a battle, so that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Master of tactics and the various save boosters aren’t bad, either—sadly, you can’t ever have more than one minor aura active at a time.
Since optimizing this means pumping Charisma as hard as you can, it is very, very worthwhile to look for other opportunities to accomplish “Cha SAD-ness,” where “SAD” means “single attribute dependency.” In other words, since you are getting a stratospheric Charisma score, you want to apply that score to as many things as you possibly can. Unfortunately, minor aura is the only marshal feature that accomplishes that, and can only do it for one thing at a time.
Major aura
Ironically, this isn’t as good as the minor aura. Charisma can be huge; this bonus starts at +1 and grows extremely slowly.
The save bonus is almost-certainly the best target for it. The DR isn’t bad—particularly at low levels—but ultimately the saves are more important.
You can’t have more than one major aura active at a time.
There are a few feats that improve auras, but they’re basically uniformly garbage. So the optimal thing to do here is basically not do anything, because putting resources into this feature is largely wasted.
The only non-epic aura-improving feat that is even kind of good is Dilate Aura (Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells)—that lets you double the range of “your aura” for Cha bonus rounds, once per encounter. With your Charisma, that should easily mean the entire encounter. On the other hand, marshal auras have a staggering 60-foot radius, which is also going to easily cover the vast majority of battlefields.
Also, note that it says “your aura”—no word on what happens if you have more than one, e.g. a minor and a major. The feat also says nothing about what kind of action it takes to activate this feat. If it takes more than a swift, this should be a hard-pass. If it’s swift, it’s iffy, but maybe depending on what else you’re doing with swift actions and how often you think battles might use it. If it’s free, then it’s looking pretty decent−if you expect some wide-open combat scenarios.
Major aura also qualifies you for the Draconic Aura feat from Dragon Magic, allowing you to page 86 states that a marshal can take dragon shamana draconic aura in place of a major aura, and if they do, it follows the rules for major auras. Those are mostly meh, tooThis does increase the range (draconic auras default to a 30-foot radius), but it also means that you can’t have the “fast healingdraconic aura up at the same time as your own major aura—which pretty much ruins the option.
That isn’t to half health” issay that draconic auras are no good—some are decent enough. You’re just better off getting them through the Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic) feat, so they can remain independent of your marshal auras and you can use both at once. As long as areyou have the firedragonblood subtype—which isn’t hard to get and cold resistance onesyou probably will want anyway—the feat version also scales about the same as your major auras, but based on character level instead of marshal class level. AgainThat can be a big win. Of course, at this point, being a marshal has nothing to do with your draconic auras since you can’t have multipleDraconic Aura just requires character level 3rd, so this isn’t really optimizing “marshal” at this point so much as it is “something anyone can do, but a marshal might be somewhat more interested in than others.”
Anyway, there are some relatively good options for draconic auras, especially in a more magical party. I imagine your allies may particularly like energy (Dragon Magic), power (Dragon Magic; note that Player’s Handbook II has an entirely different aura named power), and resolve (Dragon Magic), though senses (Player’s Handbook II or Dragon Magic) and vigor (Player’s Handbook II) are decent for any party really. Honestly, there are enough decent draconic auras that I’d consider recommending dragon shaman for picking them up, except that you’re still limited to one or at most two at a time (and if you get them via dragon shaman, it’sthey scale based on dragon shaman level and not character level).
Finally, a really hardkey thing about draconic auras is that Double Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic) exists. That’s pretty substantial; I could easily see 2×Draconic Aura + Double Draconic Aura being worthwhile to leverage this, thoughyou.
Grant move action
This is great!
But you only get it a very few times per day.
There isn’t really any way to “optimize” this, save for using it on the allies who will get the most use from it. That would usually be anyone who wants to full-attack, but doesn’t have anyone in reach.
2nd-level harmonious knight/2nd-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/14th-level crusader
You want to start with harmonious knight paladin just to qualify for Snowflake Wardance, Extra Music, and Dragonfire Inspiration for your human bonus feat, 1st-level feat, and 3rd-level feat. Then you can take Song of the White Raven at 6th.
Your other feats are wide open (and honestly, Dragonfire Inspiration is pretty optional). A couple Draconic Auras and then Double Draconic Aura at 12th might be on-brand though.
2nd-level harmonious knight/5th-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
- Basically the same as the above, but taking more marshal levels, and delaying crusader (and Song of the White Raven) until 9th. The advantage of taking crusader at 9th is that you get 3rd-level maneuvers and stances from your initial set. This is not, in my opinion, worth getting through levels 6th–8th without maneuvers, or Song of the White Raven, but if you wanted more marshal this might be the way to get it (if I were starting at 9th or higher, I might consider this option superior).
3rd-level bard/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
You want to start with harmonious knight paladin just to qualify for Snowflake Wardance, Extra Music, and Dragonfire Inspiration for your human bonus feat, 1st-level featBasically, and 3rd-level feat. Then you can take Songa version of the White Raven at 9th. Your 6th-level feat, as well as feats at 12th and above, are open for whatever. You might want to go with your initial crusader level at 5th or 6th so you can take Song of the White Raven at 6th—you won’t be ablegames where harmonious knight is ruled not to choose 3rd-level maneuvers, but you’ll have Song of the White Ravenwork for another 3 levels, which is hugebardic music feats.
Note that you should feel free to tune your number of marshal levels to your preferences—you should weigh carefully whether or not your second-favorite or third-favorite aura is worth delaying crusader. This build has the advantage of taking crusader at 9th when you getBard 3rd-level maneuvers and stances from your initial set, but getting maneuvers allows access to at allinspirational boost a level or three sooner is worth more than that. Alternatively, another coupleand Song of bard levels qualifiesthe Heart. Given you forqualify, Song of the Heart, which may be worth more than grant move action, a second major aura, and is definitely a third minor aurahigher priority than Dragonfire Inspiration.
If you can’t be a harmonious knight, or if being one doesn’t meet bardic music prerequisites for you, add a level ofCould go with just bard instead of a1st, and get more marshal levellevels or aget into crusader levelearlier (probably at 6th so you can take Song of the White Raven then, and then pick up battledancer after).
1st-level bard/3rd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level swordsage/11th-level crusader.
Either your 1st-level feat or your human bonus feat has to be Precocious Apprentice for this to work.
You probably want to be a 1st-level bard/2nd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/1st-level swordsage at 6th, because you’ll want to take Ascetic Mage at that point and swordsage is how you’re getting Improved Unarmed Strike (see the unarmed adaptation on page 20, and note that while it costs you proficiency in light armor, it doesn’t change how your AC bonus works so it still works in light armor). Level-up marshal and swordsage again after that before going into crusader at 9th.
Aside from that, feats are the same as for the above build. MovingYou basically need to decide which of crusader and Song of the White Raven up, and swordsage and Ascetic Mage, is going to happen at 6th is more painful, thoughand which at 9th. Note that in both cases, since you haveyou’ll need to save a stronger uselevel of yourmarshal for after 6th-level feat than the previous build. On the other hand, ifto make sure you want some 3rd-level swordsage maneuver thatqualify for the feat you can’twant to get as a crusaderat 6th. The one that happens at 6th, maybeobviously, happens sooner, and you’ll wantbe able to swap crusaderenjoy that effect sooner. The one that happens later, you’ll get to choose 3rd-level maneuvers and swordsage aroundstances for, which is a littlebig deal.
I favor swordsage and get Ascetic Mage atfor 9th level for two reasons:
Song of the White Raven is much more painful to be missing than Ascetic Mage. Without Ascetic Mage, you can still use light armor and be fine; the AC bonus is just that, a bonus. Without Song of the White Raven, you’re losing your first and most important turn in each and every combat.
You generally plan on leveling more of crusader, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get higher-level maneuvers and stances at higher levels. You’re only taking two swordsage levels, so you only get that one shot.
Taking swordsage 1st at 9th—which is what I recommend here—does mean taking Ascetic Mage before getting the swordsage’s AC bonus. Dragonfire Inspiration can safely be delayed until later levelsThat’s fine; Ascetic Mage only requires Improved Unarmed Strike, or just dropped entirelyand will apply to the AC bonus once you get it.
BothAll of these builds want as much Charisma as humanly possible, because they add Charisma to attack, AC, and all saves, as well as to the initiatives of everyone in their party. Both allow for powerful buffing in the form of auras and bardic music, get decent skill point totals, and allow you to be a respectable combatant in your own right (at least once crusader comes online). The former build is simpler, has more of the marshal class, and allows you to switch that Charisma bonus to the party’s initiative to more things. It also has more feats to play with at higher levels. The second build can wear light armor, has more maneuvers, and therefore should have more of a combat presence, particularly in the 6th–8th level range.
Skill Focus (Diplomacy)
This is just a feat, and a fairly basic one at that. There are loads of things you can do to improve Diplomacy, and taking Skill Focus would be a step most diplomancers will likely take, so hey, you get it free. But it’s not really “special.” You optimize it by optimizing Diplomacy.
Note that Diplomacy is a really problematic skill. As written, high Diplomacy checks can allow you to just tell people what to do, even if they should hate you. Hence the tongue-in-cheek “diplomancer” to refer to characters who have very high bonuses. No one runs it like that, or should—but as a result, it becomes very unclear what a high Diplomacy check should get you.
At any rate, optimizing a diplomancer has little to do with the marshal class—the only relation is that marshal could be a source of a feat that a diplomancer probably wants. Look up any of the many Diplomacy/diplomancy handbooks out there for more on how to get the most out of the skill; it isn’t hard to break the game, as written.
Super-niche, but there is another application of this class feature that actually is unique to the marshal, not that I’ve ever found a particularly good use for it—if you already have Skill Focus (Diplomacy) when you take marshal 1st, you get to choose another feat you qualify for. This is actually very rare, officially, though many if not most DMs just allow it for all bonus feats. Anyway, you can leverage this if for some reason you want to “delay” a feat you otherwise could have chosen until later, presumably because the feat you want requires things you don’t have yet. You can take Skill Focus (Diplomacy) instead, and then take your 1st level of marshal when you want to get the other feat.
Minor aura
This is probably the best class feature that the marshal has. It’s certainly the one most amenable to optimization, which is to say it can be optimized, at all, because none of the others really can.
The idea with your minor aura is to pump your Charisma as high as possible, so that when you, say, motivate Dexterity, you’re offering a large bonus.
Dexterity is, by the way, probably the best target: since initiative is a Dexterity check, motivate Dexterity applies to it, and giving +Cha to your entire team’s initiative checks is amazing. Initiative is often the most important roll in a battle, so that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Master of tactics and the various save boosters aren’t bad, either—sadly, you can’t ever have more than one minor aura active at a time.
Since optimizing this means pumping Charisma as hard as you can, it is very, very worthwhile to look for other opportunities to accomplish “Cha SAD-ness,” where “SAD” means “single attribute dependency.” In other words, since you are getting a stratospheric Charisma score, you want to apply that score to as many things as you possibly can. Unfortunately, minor aura is the only marshal feature that accomplishes that, and can only do it for one thing at a time.
Major aura
Ironically, this isn’t as good as the minor aura. Charisma can be huge; this bonus starts at +1 and grows extremely slowly.
The save bonus is almost-certainly the best target for it. The DR isn’t bad—particularly at low levels—but ultimately the saves are more important.
You can’t have more than one major aura active at a time.
There are a few feats that improve auras, but they’re basically uniformly garbage. So the optimal thing to do here is basically not do anything, because putting resources into this feature is largely wasted.
Major aura also qualifies you for the Draconic Aura feat from Dragon Magic, allowing you to take dragon shaman auras. Those are mostly meh, too, but the “fast healing up to half health” is decent enough, as are the fire and cold resistance ones. Again, since you can’t have multiple auras at a time, it’s really hard to leverage this, though.
Grant move action
This is great!
But you only get it a very few times per day.
There isn’t really any way to “optimize” this, save for using it on the allies who will get the most use from it. That would usually be anyone who wants to full-attack, but doesn’t have anyone in reach.
2nd-level harmonious knight/5th-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
You want to start with harmonious knight paladin just to qualify for Snowflake Wardance, Extra Music, and Dragonfire Inspiration for your human bonus feat, 1st-level feat, and 3rd-level feat. Then you can take Song of the White Raven at 9th. Your 6th-level feat, as well as feats at 12th and above, are open for whatever. You might want to go with your initial crusader level at 5th or 6th so you can take Song of the White Raven at 6th—you won’t be able to choose 3rd-level maneuvers, but you’ll have Song of the White Raven for another 3 levels, which is huge.
Note that you should feel free to tune your number of marshal levels to your preferences—you should weigh carefully whether or not your second-favorite or third-favorite aura is worth delaying crusader. This build has the advantage of taking crusader at 9th when you get 3rd-level maneuvers and stances from your initial set, but getting maneuvers at all a level or three sooner is worth more than that. Alternatively, another couple of bard levels qualifies you for Song of the Heart, which may be worth more than grant move action, a second major aura, and a third minor aura.
If you can’t be a harmonious knight, or if being one doesn’t meet bardic music prerequisites for you, add a level of bard instead of a marshal level or a crusader level.
1st-level bard/3rd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level swordsage/11th-level crusader.
Either your 1st-level feat or your human bonus feat has to be Precocious Apprentice for this to work.
You probably want to be a 1st-level bard/2nd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/1st-level swordsage at 6th, because you’ll want to take Ascetic Mage at that point and swordsage is how you’re getting Improved Unarmed Strike (see the unarmed adaptation on page 20, and note that while it costs you proficiency in light armor, it doesn’t change how your AC bonus works so it still works in light armor). Level-up marshal and swordsage again after that before going into crusader at 9th.
Aside from that, feats are the same as for the above build. Moving Song of the White Raven up to 6th is more painful, though, since you have a stronger use of your 6th-level feat than the previous build. On the other hand, if you want some 3rd-level swordsage maneuver that you can’t get as a crusader, maybe you’ll want to swap crusader and swordsage around a little and get Ascetic Mage at 9th. Dragonfire Inspiration can safely be delayed until later levels, or just dropped entirely.
Both of these builds want as much Charisma as humanly possible, because they add Charisma to attack, AC, and all saves, as well as to the initiatives of everyone in their party. Both allow for powerful buffing in the form of auras and bardic music, get decent skill point totals, and allow you to be a respectable combatant in your own right (at least once crusader comes online). The former build is simpler, has more of the marshal class, and allows you to switch that Charisma bonus to the party’s initiative to more things. It also has more feats to play with at higher levels. The second build can wear light armor, has more maneuvers, and therefore should have more of a combat presence, particularly in the 6th–8th level range.
Skill Focus (Diplomacy)
This is just a feat, and a fairly basic one at that. There are loads of things you can do to improve Diplomacy, and taking Skill Focus would be a step most diplomancers will likely take, so hey, you get it free. But it’s not really “special.” You optimize it by optimizing Diplomacy.
Note that Diplomacy is a really problematic skill. As written, high Diplomacy checks can allow you to just tell people what to do, even if they should hate you. Hence the tongue-in-cheek “diplomancer” to refer to characters who have very high bonuses. No one runs it like that, or should—but as a result, it becomes very unclear what a high Diplomacy check should get you.
At any rate, optimizing a diplomancer has little to do with the marshal class—the only relation is that marshal could be a source of a feat that a diplomancer probably wants. Look up any of the many Diplomacy/diplomancy handbooks out there for more on how to get the most out of the skill; it isn’t hard to break the game, as written.
Super-niche, but there is another application of this class feature that actually is unique to the marshal, not that I’ve ever found a particularly good use for it—if you already have Skill Focus (Diplomacy) when you take marshal 1st, you get to choose another feat you qualify for. This is actually very rare, officially, though many if not most DMs just allow it for all bonus feats. Anyway, you can leverage this if for some reason you want to “delay” a feat you otherwise could have chosen until later, presumably because the feat you want requires things you don’t have yet. You can take Skill Focus (Diplomacy) instead, and then take your 1st level of marshal when you want to get the other feat.
Minor aura
This is probably the best class feature that the marshal has. It’s certainly the one most amenable to optimization, which is to say it can be optimized, at all, because none of the others really can.
The idea with your minor aura is to pump your Charisma as high as possible, so that when you, say, motivate Dexterity, you’re offering a large bonus.
Dexterity is, by the way, probably the best target: since initiative is a Dexterity check, motivate Dexterity applies to it, and giving +Cha to your entire team’s initiative checks is amazing. Initiative is often the most important roll in a battle, so that’s nothing to sneeze at.
Master of tactics and the various save boosters aren’t bad, either—sadly, you can’t ever have more than one minor aura active at a time.
Since optimizing this means pumping Charisma as hard as you can, it is very, very worthwhile to look for other opportunities to accomplish “Cha SAD-ness,” where “SAD” means “single attribute dependency.” In other words, since you are getting a stratospheric Charisma score, you want to apply that score to as many things as you possibly can. Unfortunately, minor aura is the only marshal feature that accomplishes that, and can only do it for one thing at a time.
Major aura
Ironically, this isn’t as good as the minor aura. Charisma can be huge; this bonus starts at +1 and grows extremely slowly.
The save bonus is almost-certainly the best target for it. The DR isn’t bad—particularly at low levels—but ultimately the saves are more important.
You can’t have more than one major aura active at a time.
There are a few feats that improve auras, but they’re basically uniformly garbage. So the optimal thing to do here is basically not do anything, because putting resources into this feature is largely wasted.
The only non-epic aura-improving feat that is even kind of good is Dilate Aura (Fiendish Codex II: Tyrants of the Nine Hells)—that lets you double the range of “your aura” for Cha bonus rounds, once per encounter. With your Charisma, that should easily mean the entire encounter. On the other hand, marshal auras have a staggering 60-foot radius, which is also going to easily cover the vast majority of battlefields.
Also, note that it says “your aura”—no word on what happens if you have more than one, e.g. a minor and a major. The feat also says nothing about what kind of action it takes to activate this feat. If it takes more than a swift, this should be a hard-pass. If it’s swift, it’s iffy, but maybe depending on what else you’re doing with swift actions and how often you think battles might use it. If it’s free, then it’s looking pretty decent−if you expect some wide-open combat scenarios.
Dragon Magic page 86 states that a marshal can take a draconic aura in place of a major aura, and if they do, it follows the rules for major auras. This does increase the range (draconic auras default to a 30-foot radius), but it also means that you can’t have the draconic aura up at the same time as your own major aura—which pretty much ruins the option.
That isn’t to say that draconic auras are no good—some are decent. You’re just better off getting them through the Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic) feat, so they can remain independent of your marshal auras and you can use both at once. As long as you have the dragonblood subtype—which isn’t hard to get and you probably will want anyway—the feat version also scales about the same as your major auras, but based on character level instead of marshal class level. That can be a big win. Of course, at this point, being a marshal has nothing to do with your draconic auras since Draconic Aura just requires character level 3rd, so this isn’t really optimizing “marshal” at this point so much as it is “something anyone can do, but a marshal might be somewhat more interested in than others.”
Anyway, there are some relatively good options for draconic auras, especially in a more magical party. I imagine your allies may particularly like energy (Dragon Magic), power (Dragon Magic; note that Player’s Handbook II has an entirely different aura named power), and resolve (Dragon Magic), though senses (Player’s Handbook II or Dragon Magic) and vigor (Player’s Handbook II) are decent for any party really. Honestly, there are enough decent draconic auras that I’d consider recommending dragon shaman for picking them up, except that you’re still limited to one or at most two at a time (and if you get them via dragon shaman, they scale based on dragon shaman level and not character level).
Finally, a really key thing about draconic auras is that Double Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic) exists. That’s pretty substantial; I could easily see 2×Draconic Aura + Double Draconic Aura being worthwhile to you.
Grant move action
This is great!
But you only get it a very few times per day.
There isn’t really any way to “optimize” this, save for using it on the allies who will get the most use from it. That would usually be anyone who wants to full-attack, but doesn’t have anyone in reach.
2nd-level harmonious knight/2nd-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/14th-level crusader
You want to start with harmonious knight paladin just to qualify for Snowflake Wardance, Extra Music, and Dragonfire Inspiration for your human bonus feat, 1st-level feat, and 3rd-level feat. Then you can take Song of the White Raven at 6th.
Your other feats are wide open (and honestly, Dragonfire Inspiration is pretty optional). A couple Draconic Auras and then Double Draconic Aura at 12th might be on-brand though.
2nd-level harmonious knight/5th-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
- Basically the same as the above, but taking more marshal levels, and delaying crusader (and Song of the White Raven) until 9th. The advantage of taking crusader at 9th is that you get 3rd-level maneuvers and stances from your initial set. This is not, in my opinion, worth getting through levels 6th–8th without maneuvers, or Song of the White Raven, but if you wanted more marshal this might be the way to get it (if I were starting at 9th or higher, I might consider this option superior).
3rd-level bard/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
Basically, a version of the above for games where harmonious knight is ruled not to work for bardic music feats.
Bard 3rd allows access to inspirational boost and Song of the Heart. Given you qualify, Song of the Heart is definitely a higher priority than Dragonfire Inspiration.
Could go with just bard 1st, and get more marshal levels or get into crusader earlier (probably at 6th so you can take Song of the White Raven then, and then pick up battledancer after).
1st-level bard/3rd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level swordsage/11th-level crusader.
Either your 1st-level feat or your human bonus feat has to be Precocious Apprentice for this to work.
You basically need to decide which of crusader and Song of the White Raven, and swordsage and Ascetic Mage, is going to happen at 6th, and which at 9th. Note that in both cases, you’ll need to save a level of marshal for after 6th, to make sure you qualify for the feat you want to get at 6th. The one that happens at 6th, obviously, happens sooner, and you’ll be able to enjoy that effect sooner. The one that happens later, you’ll get to choose 3rd-level maneuvers and stances for, which is a big deal.
I favor swordsage and Ascetic Mage for 9th level for two reasons:
Song of the White Raven is much more painful to be missing than Ascetic Mage. Without Ascetic Mage, you can still use light armor and be fine; the AC bonus is just that, a bonus. Without Song of the White Raven, you’re losing your first and most important turn in each and every combat.
You generally plan on leveling more of crusader, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get higher-level maneuvers and stances at higher levels. You’re only taking two swordsage levels, so you only get that one shot.
Taking swordsage 1st at 9th—which is what I recommend here—does mean taking Ascetic Mage before getting the swordsage’s AC bonus. That’s fine; Ascetic Mage only requires Improved Unarmed Strike, and will apply to the AC bonus once you get it.
All of these builds want as much Charisma as humanly possible, because they add Charisma to attack, AC, and all saves, as well as to the initiatives of everyone in their party. Both allow for powerful buffing in the form of auras and bardic music, get decent skill point totals, and allow you to be a respectable combatant in your own right (at least once crusader comes online). The former build is simpler, has more of the marshal class, and allows you to switch that Charisma bonus to the party’s initiative to more things. It also has more feats to play with at higher levels. The second build can wear light armor, has more maneuvers, and therefore should have more of a combat presence, particularly in the 6th–8th level range.
An obvious choice, bards’ music works a lot like marshals’ auras, and fill a similar niche. Note that bardic music doesn’t actually require music per se, just an audible performance, so no worries about having to turn into a musician—Perform (oratory) should be just fine. Unlike auras, bardic music is very, very amenable to optimization—medallion of courage (Magic Item Compendium), inspirational boost (Spell Compendium), and/or Song of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting), and/or medallion of courage (Magic Item Compendium) can easily get your inspire courage up to +3 or +4 even aswith just a 1st-levelfew (1, 2, or 3, respectively) levels of bard. Words of Creation (Book of Exalted Deeds) can double that, though honestly I’d suggest that may be going too far.
Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic) grants a new song that adds Xd6 fire damage to allies’ attacks, where X is the bonus from inspire courage—meaning all of the above optimization applies to that as well. Since it’s a separate song, you can overlapplay one, stop, and play the other, and the two overlap while the first lingers and getyour party gets +X attack and +Xd6+X damage, which is rather impressive. (Some DMs may decide that the two are twotoo closely related to stack them like that, thoughthough; RAW, it’s good, but it is a bit of a technicality. If yours makes that ruling, Dragonfire Inspiration can still be good but you might be better off just saving the feat. If your allies have Power Attack inspire courage might even be the better song.)
Conveniently, there is a variant paladin, the harmonious knight (Champions of ValorChampions of Valor web enhancement), that gets inspire courage +1, 1/day at 1st level, instead of at-will detect evil. Not saying that detect evil isn’t nice, but considering everything we just said above about inspire courage, I hope it’s clear that inspire courage is a whole lot better. Note that to be a harmonious knight, you need to worship Milil—at least, you do in the Forgotten Realms. As Champions of Valor is a Realms-specific book, in other settings your DM may adapt it to another god—or just ban it entirely. Ask themAlso, technically, the harmonious knight gets “inspire courage” but not “bardic music”—their inspire courage ability doesn’t reference bardic music or the bard class in any way. That might be an issue qualifying for bardic music feats, which is largely the point of taking harmonious knight in the first place. So ask your DM about thatthose things. As a
If your DM is on board with harmonious knight and with its inspire courage counting as bardic music for prerequisites, you don’t actually need to take bard levels at all—though if you don’t, you’llall. You’ll probably want to take Extra Music (Complete Adventurer)—each, though—each one gives you 4 additional uses per day, so even taking it once should just about do you, unless you really want to layer inspire courage and Dragonfire Inspiration and Snowflake Wardance on every fight.
PaladinIf your DM is not OK with harmonious knight, or rules that it doesn’t meet “bardic music” prerequisites, they might find From Smite to Song (Champions of Valor, the book this time) more convincing:
You can spend a smite evil attempt to duplicate the effects of the inspire courage bardic music ability (see page 29 of the Player’s Handbook). Your effective bard level (for the purpose of determining the value of the bonuses granted) is equal to your paladin level. Add Perform to your list of paladin class skills.
This explicitly references bardic music, and says you count as a 2-level classbard of your paladin level for the purposes of the bonus granted by your inspire courage bardic music effect. We get divine graceIt’s still a little iffy since you are “duplicating the effect of” rather than just having this ability, but if you value a level more than a feat (and you generally should), it can be worth asking.
Otherwise, you can just take a level of bard and get outa couple of levels of paladin. It’s not as though the bard level is bad, we just were trying to economize a little.
Anyway, regardless, paladin is a 2-level class. We get divine grace and get out.
2nd-level harmonious knight/5th-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
You want to start with harmonious knight paladin just to qualify for Snowflake Wardance, Extra Music, and Dragonfire Inspiration for your human bonus feat, 1st-level feat, and 3rd-level feat. Then you can take Song of the White Raven at 9th. Your 6th-level feat is probably best off, as well as feats at 12th and above, are open for whatever. You might want to go with your initial crusader level at 5th or 6th so you can take Song of the HeartWhite Raven at 6th—you won’t be able to choose 3rd-level maneuvers, but whatever worksyou’ll have Song of the White Raven for another 3 levels, which is huge.
Note that you should feel free to tune your number of marshal levels to your preferences—you should weigh carefully whether or not your second-favorite or third-favorite aura is worth delaying crusader. This build has the advantage of taking crusader at 9th when you get 3rd-level maneuvers and stances from your initial set, but getting maneuvers at all a level or three sooner is worth more than that. Alternatively, another couple of bard levels qualifies you for Song of the Heart, which may be worth more than grant move action, a second major aura, and a third minor aura.
If you can’t be a harmonious knight, or if being one doesn’t meet bardic music prerequisites for you, add a level of bard instead of a marshal level or a crusader level.
1st-level bard/3rd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level swordsage/11th-level crusader.
Either your 1st-level feat or your human bonus feat has to be Precocious Apprentice for this to work.
You probably want to be a 1st-level bard/2nd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/1st-level swordsage at 6th, because you’ll want to take Ascetic Mage at that point and swordsage is how you’re getting Improved Unarmed Strike (see the unarmed adaptation on page 20, and note that while it costs you proficiency in light armor, it doesn’t change how your AC bonus works so it still works in light armor). Level-up marshal and swordsage again after that before going into crusader at 9th.
Aside from that, feats are the same as for the above build. Moving Song of the HeartWhite Raven up to 6th is more painful, though, since you have a stronger use of your 6th-level feat than the previous build. On the other hand, if you want some 3rd-level swordsage maneuver that you can’t get as a crusader, maybe you’ll want to swap crusader and swordsage around a little and get Ascetic Mage at 9th. Dragonfire Inspiration will necessarilycan safely be delayed until after Song of the White Raven, so probably 12th and 15thlater levels, respectivelyor just dropped entirely.
An obvious choice, bards’ music works a lot like marshals’ auras, and fill a similar niche. Note that bardic music doesn’t actually require music per se, just an audible performance, so no worries about having to turn into a musician—Perform (oratory) should be just fine. Unlike auras, bardic music is very, very amenable to optimization—inspirational boost (Spell Compendium), Song of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting), and/or medallion of courage (Magic Item Compendium) can easily get your inspire courage up to +3 even as a 1st-level bard. Words of Creation (Book of Exalted Deeds) can double that, though honestly I’d suggest that may be going too far.
Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic) grants a new song that adds Xd6 fire damage to allies’ attacks, where X is the bonus from inspire courage—meaning all of the above optimization applies to that as well. Since it’s a separate song, you can overlap the two and get +X attack and +Xd6+X damage, which is rather impressive. (Some DMs may decide that the two are two closely related to stack them like that, though.)
Conveniently, there is a variant paladin, the harmonious knight (Champions of Valor), that gets inspire courage +1, 1/day at 1st level, instead of at-will detect evil. Not saying that detect evil isn’t nice, but considering everything we just said above about inspire courage, I hope it’s clear that inspire courage is a whole lot better. Note that to be a harmonious knight, you need to worship Milil—at least, you do in the Forgotten Realms. As Champions of Valor is a Realms-specific book, in other settings your DM may adapt it to another god—or just ban it entirely. Ask them about that. As a harmonious knight, you don’t actually need to take bard levels at all—though if you don’t, you’ll probably want to take Extra Music (Complete Adventurer)—each one gives you 4 additional uses per day, so even taking it once should just about do you, unless you really want to layer inspire courage and Dragonfire Inspiration and Snowflake Wardance on every fight.
Paladin is a 2-level class. We get divine grace and get out.
2nd-level harmonious knight/5th-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
You want to start with harmonious knight paladin just to qualify for Snowflake Wardance, Extra Music, and Dragonfire Inspiration for your human bonus feat, 1st-level feat, and 3rd-level feat. Then you can take Song of the White Raven at 9th. Your 6th-level feat is probably best off as Song of the Heart, but whatever works.
Note that you should feel free to tune your number of marshal levels to your preferences—you should weigh carefully whether or not your second-favorite or third-favorite aura is worth delaying crusader. This build has the advantage of taking crusader at 9th when you get 3rd-level maneuvers and stances from your initial set, but getting maneuvers at all a level or three sooner is worth more than that.
If you can’t be a harmonious knight, add a level of bard instead of a marshal level or a crusader level.
1st-level bard/3rd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level swordsage/11th-level crusader.
Either your 1st-level feat or your human bonus feat has to be Precocious Apprentice for this to work.
You probably want to be a 1st-level bard/2nd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/1st-level swordsage at 6th, because you’ll want to take Ascetic Mage at that point and swordsage is how you’re getting Improved Unarmed Strike (see the unarmed adaptation on page 20, and note that while it costs you proficiency in light armor, it doesn’t change how your AC bonus works so it still works in light armor). Level-up marshal and swordsage again after that before going into crusader at 9th.
Aside from that, feats are the same as for the above build. Song of the Heart and Dragonfire Inspiration will necessarily be delayed until after Song of the White Raven, so probably 12th and 15th, respectively.
An obvious choice, bards’ music works a lot like marshals’ auras, and fill a similar niche. Note that bardic music doesn’t actually require music per se, just an audible performance, so no worries about having to turn into a musician—Perform (oratory) should be just fine. Unlike auras, bardic music is very, very amenable to optimization—medallion of courage (Magic Item Compendium), inspirational boost (Spell Compendium), and/or Song of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting) can easily get your inspire courage up to +3 or +4 even with just a few (1, 2, or 3, respectively) levels of bard. Words of Creation (Book of Exalted Deeds) can double that, though honestly I’d suggest that may be going too far.
Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic) grants a new song that adds Xd6 fire damage to allies’ attacks, where X is the bonus from inspire courage—meaning all of the above optimization applies to that as well. Since it’s a separate song, you can play one, stop, and play the other, and the two overlap while the first lingers and your party gets +X attack and +Xd6+X damage, which is rather impressive. (Some DMs may decide that the two are too closely related to stack them like that, though; RAW, it’s good, but it is a bit of a technicality. If yours makes that ruling, Dragonfire Inspiration can still be good but you might be better off just saving the feat. If your allies have Power Attack inspire courage might even be the better song.)
Conveniently, there is a variant paladin, the harmonious knight (Champions of Valor web enhancement), that gets inspire courage +1, 1/day at 1st level, instead of at-will detect evil. Not saying that detect evil isn’t nice, but considering everything we just said above about inspire courage, I hope it’s clear that inspire courage is a whole lot better. Note that to be a harmonious knight, you need to worship Milil—at least, you do in the Forgotten Realms. As Champions of Valor is a Realms-specific book, in other settings your DM may adapt it to another god—or just ban it entirely. Also, technically, the harmonious knight gets “inspire courage” but not “bardic music”—their inspire courage ability doesn’t reference bardic music or the bard class in any way. That might be an issue qualifying for bardic music feats, which is largely the point of taking harmonious knight in the first place. So ask your DM about those things.
If your DM is on board with harmonious knight and with its inspire courage counting as bardic music for prerequisites, you don’t actually need to take bard levels at all. You’ll probably want to take Extra Music (Complete Adventurer), though—each one gives you 4 additional uses per day, so even taking it once should just about do you, unless you really want to layer inspire courage and Dragonfire Inspiration and Snowflake Wardance on every fight.
If your DM is not OK with harmonious knight, or rules that it doesn’t meet “bardic music” prerequisites, they might find From Smite to Song (Champions of Valor, the book this time) more convincing:
You can spend a smite evil attempt to duplicate the effects of the inspire courage bardic music ability (see page 29 of the Player’s Handbook). Your effective bard level (for the purpose of determining the value of the bonuses granted) is equal to your paladin level. Add Perform to your list of paladin class skills.
This explicitly references bardic music, and says you count as a bard of your paladin level for the purposes of the bonus granted by your inspire courage bardic music effect. It’s still a little iffy since you are “duplicating the effect of” rather than just having this ability, but if you value a level more than a feat (and you generally should), it can be worth asking.
Otherwise, you can just take a level of bard and a couple of levels of paladin. It’s not as though the bard level is bad, we just were trying to economize a little.
Anyway, regardless, paladin is a 2-level class. We get divine grace and get out.
2nd-level harmonious knight/5th-level marshal/1st-level battledancer/11th-level crusader
You want to start with harmonious knight paladin just to qualify for Snowflake Wardance, Extra Music, and Dragonfire Inspiration for your human bonus feat, 1st-level feat, and 3rd-level feat. Then you can take Song of the White Raven at 9th. Your 6th-level feat, as well as feats at 12th and above, are open for whatever. You might want to go with your initial crusader level at 5th or 6th so you can take Song of the White Raven at 6th—you won’t be able to choose 3rd-level maneuvers, but you’ll have Song of the White Raven for another 3 levels, which is huge.
Note that you should feel free to tune your number of marshal levels to your preferences—you should weigh carefully whether or not your second-favorite or third-favorite aura is worth delaying crusader. This build has the advantage of taking crusader at 9th when you get 3rd-level maneuvers and stances from your initial set, but getting maneuvers at all a level or three sooner is worth more than that. Alternatively, another couple of bard levels qualifies you for Song of the Heart, which may be worth more than grant move action, a second major aura, and a third minor aura.
If you can’t be a harmonious knight, or if being one doesn’t meet bardic music prerequisites for you, add a level of bard instead of a marshal level or a crusader level.
1st-level bard/3rd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/2nd-level swordsage/11th-level crusader.
Either your 1st-level feat or your human bonus feat has to be Precocious Apprentice for this to work.
You probably want to be a 1st-level bard/2nd-level marshal/2nd-level paladin/1st-level swordsage at 6th, because you’ll want to take Ascetic Mage at that point and swordsage is how you’re getting Improved Unarmed Strike (see the unarmed adaptation on page 20, and note that while it costs you proficiency in light armor, it doesn’t change how your AC bonus works so it still works in light armor). Level-up marshal and swordsage again after that before going into crusader at 9th.
Aside from that, feats are the same as for the above build. Moving Song of the White Raven up to 6th is more painful, though, since you have a stronger use of your 6th-level feat than the previous build. On the other hand, if you want some 3rd-level swordsage maneuver that you can’t get as a crusader, maybe you’ll want to swap crusader and swordsage around a little and get Ascetic Mage at 9th. Dragonfire Inspiration can safely be delayed until later levels, or just dropped entirely.