A friend and I were trying to come up with a leader build for an upcoming campaign we were both preparing for and were trying to figure out how to incorporate the the following essential characteristics into a build: (1) capable of effectively coordinating his team's response to any situation or threat, (2) capable of motivating and empowering his allies/subordinates, and (3) whose power is only realized in the context of a team effort.
As such, we came up with the following build that, for us anyway, epitomizes the archetype of THE LEADER. You will be able to grant allies bonus feats, extra attacks, free metamagic for mages, bonuses to stats, and coordinate their battle tactics to devastating effect. Oh, and did we mention they also get 18d6 sonic damage with every hit?
The only real downside is that we have to resort to some Dragon Magazine material, so not all DM's may approve.
Human Crusader 6/Stalwart Sorcerer 1/Heartfire Fanner 5 (DraMag #314)/Crusader 8
---- Crusader 6
ECL 1 - Negotiator, Skill Focus: Perform
ECL 3 - Power Attack
---- Stalwart Sorcerer 1
ECL 6 - Draconic Heritage (Battle Dragon - Sonic and add Perform as a class skill)
---- Heartfire Fanner 5
ECL 9 - Song of the White Raven
ECL 12 - Dragonfire Inspiration
---- Crusader 8
ECL 15 - Words of Creation
ECL 18 - Chaos Music (DraMag #326)
On Feats: If we can gain access to Heward's Hall (CS), we can gain Words of Creation sooner and gain some space in our feat progression for Song of the Heart (ECS) to further increase our Inspire Courage bonus.
Essential Items:
- Harmonizing Crystal Echo Blades (1/2 Bard level as sonic damage plus allows Bardic Music to continue for 10 rounds after singing)
- Badge of Valor (+1 to Inspire Courage bonus)
- Vest of Legends (+5 to bard level for determining bonuses of Bardic Music)
Features:
---- Dragonfire Inspiration and Draconic Heritage allow this character and his allies to deal a total of 14d6 Sonic Damage with every attack.
= Total Bard Level = 10 Bard level (Heartfire Fanner, 5 at 1st level + 5 from class levels) + 14 Crusader + 5 Vest of Legends + 4 Chaos Music = 33
= Inspire Courage [+6 (Bard levels) +1 (Badge of Valor) +2 (Heartfire Fanner: Bolster Courage)] x 2 (Words of Creation) = 18
= Dragonfire Inspiration = 18d6 Sonic damage (for 1 lucky ally) and 14d6 Sonic damage (for everyone else and yourself)
---- Awesome Heartfire Fanner Class features gives our entire party some awesome perks
- Inspired Fight - grants allies subject to Bardic Music 3 bonus feats! This allows your team to be incredible versatile, allowing them to respond to most threats by granting them the feats and abilities needed to effectively respond to the situation!
- Magic Flare - allow mages to cast spells with spontaneously applied metamagic feats (up to +2 SLA) without any adjustment!
- Bolster Courage - whenever you use your Bardic Music, one lucky ally gets an additional +2 to Attack and AC and bring his sonic damage from Dragonfire Inspiration up to 18d6!
Thanks to Heartfire Fanner, we function as a 10 level bard (default 5 level for not initially being a bard +5 from class levels). With Chaos Music (essentially Practiced Spell Caster for Bards) we function as a 14th Level Bard, so we never have to worry about running out of uses.
For maneuvers and spells, we finish with a total IL of 17, granting us a single 9th level maneuver. Spellwise, we only count as a 6th level sorcerer, allowing us some 3rd level spells.
Spells: Focus only on buffing and some requisite gish spells that remain useful regardless of caster level.
1st - True Strike (for more Power Attacking goodness), Benign Transposition (need more beat sticks to make use of the song? No problem!), Nerveskitter (act first and buff everyone), Shock and Awe
2nd - Wraith Strike (for even more Power Attacking goodness and while we're waiting for Gloom Razor to be recovered), Heroics (Grants us an extra maneuver or whatever feat we might need, like Leap Attack for Power Attacking since we will be charging a lot)
3rd - Haste (extra attack and mobility for allies? Awesome!)
Maneuver Progression: We're going to focus on White Raven, specifically, maneuvers that grant allies extra attacks and such. If we want a maximum return on Dragonfire Inspiration, we're going to have to ensure that it gets used as often in a single round of combat as possible, and no matter what happens, an entire party is always going to hit more often that you alone ever will. Iron Heart and Diamond Mind are there as well to bolster our own attack.
1 (IL 1, 3M 1 S, 1st) Leading the Charge, Douse the Flames, Sapphire Nightmare Blade, Moment of Perfect Mind
2 (IL 2, 1M 0S, 1st) Steel Wind
3 (IL 3, 1M 0S, 2nd) Emerald Razor
4 (IL 4, 0M 1S, 2nd, replace) Punishing Stance, Sapphire Nightmare Blade -> Tactical Strike
5 (IL 5, 1M 0S, 3rd) White Raven Tactics
6 (IL 6, 0M 0s, 3rd, replace) Steel Wind -> Iron Heart Surge
7
8
9
10
11
12
13 (IL 10, 1M 0S, 5th) Flanking Maneuver
14 (IL 11, 0M, 0S, 6th, replace) Moment of Perfect Mind -> Order Forged from Chaos
15 (IL 12, 1M 0S, 6th) Moment of Alacrity
16 (IL 13, 0M 1S, 7th, replace) Douse the Flames -> Quicksilver Motion, Pearl of Black Doubt
17 (IL 14, 1M 0S, 7th) Swarming Assault
18 (IL 15, 0M 0S, 8th, replace) Emerald Razor -> White Raven Hammer or Diamond Nightmare Blade
19 (IL 16, 1M 0S, 8th) Clarion Call
20 (IL 17, 0M 0S, 9th, replace) Tactical Strike -> War Master's Charge, Time Stands Still (via Heroics spell)
Combo:
Leading the Charge + War Master's Charge + Allies full attack + Clarion Call + White Raven Tactics
Grant your allies bonus damage on your charge. This attack also stuns the target. You can also configure the feats you grant them through your song such that they gain the Two Weapon Pounce feat if they wield 2 weapons. Upon reaching the target, you can choose between two options. Assuming you kill it, you initiate Clarion Call to grant a move action to them all, allowing them to make another charge against another opponent. Upon reaching that opponent, in the following round, initiate White Raven Tactics after they all have used up their turn, giving them an extra turn which they can use to full attack the opponent. If the opponent is not slain, order all you allies to initiate full round attacks, bringing the awesome damage bonus from your song to bear upon the target. In the next round, initiate Order Forged From Chaos to grant them a move action to reposition to the next foe and order them to full attack it. Then initiate White Raven Tactics after they all have used up their turn, giving them an extra turn which they can use to full attack the opponent.
The cherry on top of it all is that, due to your 1 level dip into Sorcerer, you actually can get a White Raven for a Familiar! Styllin'
Comments? Critiques? Points for improvement?
