Odds and ends

[Corwin]

I'd like to hear from Dune on whether he feels an exalted concept compatible with undead minions. I can handle things on the paladin front as long as there's no torture and the like to make Ilmater frown.

[Anastasia]

Undead minions could be a problem, yes. I have no problem with an exalted character working with a neutral character, but chumming around with undead is a bit much.

I'm not familiar with Ilmater's policy on undead off the top of my head but I can check.

[Merc]

Yes, I am building (or trying to) a paladin of freedom/bard build.

Currently struggling with figuring out how I want to spread my ability scores. I was originally going for Str 17, Dex 11, Con 17, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 18 to make a combat expertise build, but then I remembered bards get ASF on med/heavy armor and I rolled a 1 on the d10 HP roll.

So now trying to figure out how to move stuff around while keeping the Con 17 and Cha 18.

Do I want to just eat the ASF and wear heavy armor until I can get spellsword 3/mithral/twilight? Wear light armor and go for high dex build/low str?

Try Divine Bard, which gets rid of ASF but makes the casting Wis/Cha-based, so I can't dump Wis? This means no Combat Expertise as I'd have to dump Int instead. It also pretty much goes back to the original paladin casting, which makes me feel like I'm wasting Ko's house-rule.

**

As for undead minions, I'd probably be uncomfortable with them, but as long as they're working to do good, that's fine with me as a paladin of freedom.

[Corwin]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Initiate_of_Spirituality_%28DnD_Feat%29
How does this feat chain work? Also, you mentioned making new ones, so I wondered if you had any concepts already.

[Ebiris]

Changing over to Scout/Warlock for fun and friendliness.

[Anastasia]

*Reads*

Homebrewed stuff, eh?

I have no particular problem with that feat, I'd do it like this:

Initiative of Spirituality [Exalted]
Prerequisite: Cha 13
Benefit: Once per day you can punish undead and evil outsiders. As a standard action you unleash a blast of holy energy around you. This has a radius of 10ft, dealing 3d6 holy damage. A fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 character level + charisma modifier) halves the damage.

[Anastasia]

Changing over to Scout/Warlock for fun and friendliness.

Okay.

[Corwin]

Roger. I'll ask about the feats from http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Exalted_Feats that interest me right away, then.

Initiate of Justice, Initiate of Honor and Initiate of Humility. Can the latter work with a Vow of Poverty?

[Anastasia]

Initiate of Justice, Initiate of Honor and Initiate of Humility. Can the latter work with a Vow of Poverty?

Initiate of Justice: No. You don't buy paladin class features with a feat. I also don't see why you'd do sonic damage with an exalted feat that adds on to smites.

Initiate of Honor: No problem with it, isn't that like Broken One's Sacrifice? http://dnd.savannahsoft.eu/feat-276-broken-one-s-sacrifice.html

Initiate of Justice: Irrelevant. You get most of those benefits with VoP. I'd call those an alternate VoP; if you really want Endurance just select it as a normal feat.

[Merc]

[18:25] <Merc> Oh, one thing. I was thinking of taking the Healing Hymn ACF. It replaces Fascinate, which makes Suggestion/Mass Suggestion class features useless at level 6/18. On Eberron, you're allowed to replace bardic music abilities with bardic music feats (sorta like cleric's domain/devotion trade). Won't matter for a while, but wanted to get your thoughts on that.
[18:27] <Kotono> That's fine, replacing those with something instead of being dead class features is good.
[18:28] <Merc> *nods*
[18:30] <Kotono> What's healing hym do? What book?
[18:30] <Kotono> Hymn. Can't type today.
[18:32] <Merc> Healing Hymn is from Complete Champion, g 47. It adds your ranks in Perform as a bonus to healing spells cast during the duration of the hymn.
[18:32] <Kotono> So 7 ranks in perform would be +7 to CLW, for example?
[18:32] <Merc> Doesn't affect healing from wands and such though.
[18:32] <Merc> Yeah
[18:33] <Merc> It only works on spells cast at the time, so a CLW wand will still do it's boring basic heal.
[18:33] * Kotono nods.
[18:33] <Merc> My lay on hands or CLW spells I cast would be boosted by it though.
[18:33] <Kotono> Sounds fine.
[18:33] <Kotono> Lemme read it for exact functionality.
[18:34] <Merc> I also wanted to take Loresong instead of Bardic Knowledge. That one's from dungeonscape...lemme hunt the page.
[18:34] <Merc> bardic knowledge and bardic knack both struck me as not really appropriate when I'm dumping Int. >.<
[18:34] <Kotono> I genuinely do gotta go. Put all these ACF requests in the odds'n'ends topic and I'll reply a little later.
[18:34] <Kotono> Yes.
[18:35] <Merc> Page 8 of dungeonscape for loresong.
[18:35] <Merc> And yeah, I'll post in odds

[Anastasia]

Healing Hymn is fine. HOWEVER! It wouldn't affect your lay on hands. It boosts conjuration(healing) spells, while Lay on Hands is a supernatural ability.

Loresong is fine.

[Merc]

Ah, alright. That's fine anyway. I'd rather have healing/buffing oriented flavor stuff for bard side than the 'charm person' type effects of fascinate/suggestion. Go go spammed cure minor wound, I guess?

Also, there's really only two PrCs that interest me (for future), but both have things that would need adapting to take. I'm bringing it up now to see if they're worth adapting, and so I can start focusing build to meet prereqs, whatever they may end up being.

First one is easy, Pious Templar (Comp. Divine, pg 50-51). Problem is spellcasting is wis-based, not cha-based. Alternatives are either making spellcasting cha-based, or making it advance paladin casting. If the second, and you feel a need to slow it down (dead caster levels), that's fine too. Also dunno if you might want to modify prereqs in any way to accomodate changes on the spellcasting side of things. If we keep the True Believer feat, since that allows one to use Relics...does my patron deity have any relics? >_>

Second is more complex, Knight of Sacred Seal (Tome of Magic, pg 54-55). It's mechanically based on combining binder/paladin flavors. The binder side is just that it adds levels in soul binding in the same sense a spellcasting PrC adds spellcasting levels. So that's easy to convert. Most of the class abilities transfer fine just by modifying flavor from binder to paladin stuff. Exception is Level 5's capstone ability, Vestige's Surge, which dunno how that'd work (besides just not taking level and worrying about it). On the prereq side of things, alignment asks for nonchaotic (obviously a problem) and the binder class feature. It also seems otherwise...low, for the power of what you're getting.

Not a huge deal if it's troublesome to adapt them, I don't mind going straight paladin (baring another PrC catching my eye, but those two were the only things to really do so at the moment).

Oh, and I guess I'll mention it now, but on the special mount thing, I'll probably want to take the charging smite ACF, as I'm not a fan of mounted combat.

[Anastasia]

Check the house rules, Pious Templar has come up before.

I'll read about Knight of the Sacred Seal and get back to you.

[Merc]

Check the house rules, Pious Templar has come up before.

Yay.

[Merc]

Just for randomness:
[18:12] <Merc> I am honestly split between Lathander and Alicia for patron deity.
[18:13] <Kotono> Hah, really?
[18:14] <Merc> Yeah, oddly enough.
[18:14] <Kotono> What appeals to you out of each of them"
[18:14] <Kotono> ??
[18:14] <Kotono> Wow, typo hel.
[18:14] <Kotono> Hell.
[18:14] <Kotono> Sigh.
[18:15] <Merc> Heh
[18:18] <Merc> Lathander's dogma resonates well with the bard part, resonating new ideas and such, and I like his general portfolio/domains even if I'm not going cleric. About improving yourself and helping others. Alicia's dogma goes a little more on the perseverence side of things but still similar and feels a bit more focused on justice and knowledge, and the general list of worshippers fits with a bard/paladin as a divine gish.
[18:19] * Kotono nods.
[18:19] <Merc> So yeah, both kinda fit with the mood of the character, and Alicia just has that bonus amusement of connecting to the old game.
[18:19] <Kotono> Both would fit welle nough. Lathander's a popular deity and Balmuria's where Alicia did much of her mortal works so there's a whole lot of connection.
[18:20] <Kotono> Alicia's church is small and she is only a quasi-deity, so her domain list is small. Lathander's is bigger. On the other hand they're well regarded in Balmuria and you'd be well recieved there.
[18:21] <Kotono> The domains part doens't get you too bad, though if you're interested in domains feats you could get stung there down the line.
[18:22] <Kotono> The main thing is the connection with the old game. That's really up to you - I think it's a good connection but I don't wanna force you into it.

Later:
[19:08] <Merc> *snorts* I just realized another reason why I should make my character be a paladin of Alicia. Alicia Reynes - Andrea Redfall. Same initials.
[19:08] <Kotono> Snicker.
[19:08] <Kotono> Good point.

I did later switch from greatsword to falchion -because- I'd decided to go with Alicia as patron. That one's sadly not a coincidence.