Hello to everyone
Working on a character concept for a possible eberron game starting at level 6.
Its looking like someone else in the group already has designs on playing an archer, so I was looking to play a melee focused/semi tank inquisitor. However, the inquisitors lack of heavy armor and smaller hd has me a little worried. I know that multiclassing is generally frowned upon, but I was planning on taking at most 3 levels of paladin.
Basically I'm just looking for something to dip into for heavy armor prof, martial weapons, and at least a few levels of a higher hd. I thought about cavalier (order of the star), but the mount doesn't appeal and much of the abilities are level dependent, kind of weak for an at most 1 level dip. So, I turned to the paladin. Opposite problem here, seems kind of pointless to only take 1 level, and I may just be caught in a 3.5 mindset, but level 3 seems like a good point to branch out after nabbing a bunch of good stuff.
Again, planning on being frontlines with heavy armor, not sure if two handed or sword and board yet. Ability scores I plan on being str>wis>con>cha>int>dex. Dex being a dump stat because will be in heavy armor anyway and not too worried about ranged combat, I could switch con and wisdom even, not sure how high the campaign will take us, might not be necessary to have 16 for full casting.
Backstory would be a former soldier for Thrane who after witnessing war crimes by his own forces becomes an inquisitor. Joins the group as an agent of the Diet of Cardinals, opposite to my friend playing a SF cleric who is a personal agent to Speaker Jaela.
So, good idea for 3 levels of paladin? Fits character concept and seems alright to me. Any thoughts anyone may have on build, optimization or the lack there-of, please let me know. Not sure yet what the other characters will be, there could be four more, not counting my buddy's cleric, last I heard they would be a basic-four group.
I'm not going to speak on the build but to better fit your back story I would go full inquisitor. It seems hard to believe that a beurocratic organisation would send a Paladin who seems much more likely to side with another paladin then with the dubious theocracy.
evilnerf wrote: I'm not going to speak on the build but to better fit your back story I would go full inquisitor. It seems hard to believe that a beurocratic organisation would send a Paladin who seems much more likely to side with another paladin then with the dubious theocracy. Thanks for the response. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Eberron setting, so just let me elaborate a bit. The Silver Flame is the religion of a theocratic nation that just came out of 100 year long war with its neighbors. The nation itself is mostly ruled by the Diet of Cardinals, of whom some may or may not be a bit dickish and maybe not always have everyone else's best interests at heart. The actual religion is guided by the Keeper of the Flame, who is an 11 year old girl, and the font through which the Silver Flame speaks.
After that, two things:
One, in Eberron you don't have to be within one step of your deity's alignment, so evil clerics of a LG religion are possible, and depending on your game style, rampant.
Two, and this is mentioned in setting material, the paladins of the Flame have been fighting for a 100 years against not only their temporal (am I using that right?) neighbors, but also any supernatural evil that may rise to take advantage of the chaos. Shifting fortunes of war, enemies not bound to the same moral code, constant battle, all in all, not a grand time to be a paladin.
(This is a very simplified little exposition, if you are interested though, I highly encourage you to look into it some more, there are a ton of sources online, Eberron is my favorite setting and the Church of the Silver Flame is a great part of it.)
This characters backstory is that as a paladin he witnessed various crimes being committed by his own brothers in arms, turned them in to his commander, who in turn let them go free and told him not to say anything. Naturally he went up the chain of command to make sure these atrocities did not continue. And as is usually the case, he only ran into a bigger, more corrupt fish. After being stripped of his position and cast out he is approached by another leading member of the clergy and offered a second chance to end the corruption, thus embarking on his career as an inquisitor. His former training and experience would lend itself very well to helping him inquise?/inquisit?/investigate corrupt soldiers of the church.
Bearlock wrote: evilnerf wrote: I'm not going to speak on the build but to better fit your back story I would go full inquisitor. It seems hard to believe that a beurocratic organisation would send a Paladin who seems much more likely to side with another paladin then with the dubious theocracy. Thanks for the response. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the Eberron setting, so just let me elaborate a bit. The Silver Flame is the religion of a theocratic nation that just came out of 100 year long war with its neighbors. The nation itself is mostly ruled by the Diet of Cardinals, of whom some may or may not be a bit dickish and maybe not always have everyone else's best interests at heart. The actual religion is guided by the Keeper of the Flame, who is an 11 year old girl, and the font through which the Silver Flame speaks.
After that, two things:
One, in Eberron you don't have to be within one step of your deity's alignment, so evil clerics of a LG religion are possible, and depending on your game style, rampant.
Two, and this is mentioned in setting material, the paladins of the Flame have been fighting for a 100 years against not only their temporal (am I using that right?) neighbors, but also any supernatural evil that may rise to take advantage of the chaos. Shifting fortunes of war, enemies not bound to the same moral code, constant battle, all in all, not a grand time to be a paladin.
(This is a very simplified little exposition, if you are interested though, I highly encourage you to look into it some more, there are a ton of sources online, Eberron is my favorite setting and the Church of the Silver Flame is a great part of it.)
This characters backstory is that as a paladin he witnessed various crimes being committed by his own brothers in arms, turned them in to his commander, who in turn let them go free and told him not to say anything. Naturally he went up the chain of command to make sure these atrocities did not continue. And as is usually the case, he only ran into a bigger,... Krozen really just casts a shadow over the rest of the Cardinals. And the son of a [expletive] burning people to death in Thaliost. Every time I play in Eberron I'm tempted to torch all of Flamekeep for allowing him to stay in power... *twitch*
I'd say your backround works great! Paladins are essentially the only people truly bound to their morals and alignment in Eberron, which makes their integrity nigh unquestionable. Considering that by and large the Cardinals aren't really corrupt (Even Krozen is more a Knight Templar than evil tyrant), that should be really important to them. The followers of the Flame know that they must be vigilant for all evils, even within themselves. That applies to the Church itself as well, and since most Cardinals are both Good aligned and somewhat competent there's no reason they wouldn't want someone with high moral standards doing their snooping. At the very least they have a better grasp of your moral code and know you won't be taking bribes or anything.
I'd say just two Paladin levels though, grab Divine Grace and jump ship. Probably better to just stick to Inquisitor the entire way, but I always multi-class anyway so I say go for it.
I'm actually pretty familiar with Eberron. My point is that the church of the silver flame's actions are not always lock step with the lawful good alignment. If I was sending someone to keep an eye on the party paladin, it wouldn't be another paladin.
Also, I think it's odd you're going with a fallen from grace storyline without actually falling. Seems a bit of having your cake and eating it too, to me.
evilnerf wrote: I'm actually pretty familiar with Eberron. My point is that the church of the silver flame's actions are not always lock step with the lawful good alignment. If I was sending someone to keep an eye on the party paladin, it wouldn't be another paladin.
Also, I think it's odd you're going with a fallen from grace storyline without actually falling. Seems a bit of having your cake and eating it too, to me.
Isn't that the best way to go with cake? But really, he didn't "fall". He got screwed trying to do the right thing and realized he needed a different set of skills to make things right. When I say he was stripped of position and cast out, its more like his rank was removed and he was excommunicated, not that he was stripped of paladin abilities, I don't think anyone but the deity could do that, certainly not an already corrupt commanding officer.
As far as the backstory goes, its kind of formed to fit/justify the build, which is ultimately an inquisitor with a little more frontline capability, heavy armor, martial weapons, etc. Myself and the DM are big believers in keeping to a level of "realism" to the setting, especially when like in Eberron you have so much stuff to work with.
And as far as the actual campaign will go, I have no idea if I will be investigating other paladins or not, but if I do, it will be a great thing play. He knows how paladins should act, and can still act the part himself, from riding a warhorse, to wielding a sword, to general soldiering life.
Xerres wrote: I'd say just two Paladin levels though, grab Divine Grace and jump ship. Probably better to just stick to Inquisitor the entire way, but I always multi-class anyway so I say go for it. Yeah from a pure optimization standpoint, paladin may not even be the way to go at all. After talking to some other people I realize there is not a whole lot of Cha synergy between the paladin and inquisitor, and just dipping a single level of fighter could be a better way to go. Could still make the backstory work, he was just one of the "Knights of Thrane", who perhaps had a paladin commander that went bad. Gets me pretty much everything i want and lets me start with more good stuff like judgement and bane right from the campaigns start.
However, like you said, they put multi-classing in for you to use it, so I may just stick with it, the idea has really grown on me.
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