D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Help me establish a city state!

[Corsair]

So I'm playing in a game set in war torn Unther, and I had an idea for a backup character: a young adventurer who wants to try to establish his own personal fiefdom. He plans to try to carve out a small chunk of the Untherite country side and populate it with refugees and freed slaves. If things go well, hopefully he can be a small Casablanca or Switzerland and profit from the chaos around him.


Two part question:

1) What type of character would be best suited for this? I want something with decent charisma who is not a squishy arcanist. Leadership is a must, I assume.

2) How should I go about doing it that will maximize my chances of success, and not just get myself destroyed by a Mulhorandi army or what is left of Untherite nobles?

 

[Corsair]

After a lengthy discussion in IRC and another on the GITP forums, many people are convinced my plan to create a city state is doomed to fail, since Mulhorand will likely stomp on me like a bug.

The common alternate solution is to subvert Free Unther somehow, either through an overt act such as leading a populist uprising, or through working with what is left of the government to achieve a position of power, then negotiating peace with Mulhorand so whatever little bit of Free Unther is left after the treaty sees me (and ok, the party too) as "Great bringers of peace."


So if I go that path:

1) Which option is better? Work with the existing leaders? Lead rebellion of slaves and commoners?

2) What relationship should I aim for with Mulhorand? Basically ask them to let me do my rebellion in peace and in return promise to give them most of Free Unther? Do I actively fight them until I get into a position of power, then negotiate a peace?

3) Relationships with other countries in the region or other groups? Do I seek support from Thay? Do I try to encourage powerful churches to support us through sending missionaries (since they will want to convert people who otherwise only worshiped Gilgeam before)?

 

[rgard]

Character wise I'd go with one of these:

1. Paladin (to get some support from your church)
2. Marshal. Marshal is kinda weak though. A common fix I've heard of is to give the class a full bab progression.
3. Battle Sorcerer. My favorite gish.

For your approach you could go to both Mulhorand and Free Uther and see what kind of deals you can get. Agree to the terms both give you and play them both against each other; then betray the one that is least likely to take you out.

Maybe not the best plan if you go Paladin, but there are the other flavors of Paladin in Unearthed Arcana. The plan above works just fine with BS or Marshal.

 

[Corsair]

I'm fine with a charisma based Gish, as long as I'm relatively sturdy and playable from level 2 or 3 or so. I'm not as much of a fan of Paladin, if only because I don't want the code holding me back when it comes time to make tough choices (though I could argue that a "good of the many" argument will trump the "good of the few" in establishing my new theocratic city state).

I'm definitely digging a marshal or bard type character, especially if I go for the "lead an open rebellion of slaves and commoners" route. What other options are there for melee oriented warrior leader bards?

 

[rgard]

I'm fine with a charisma based Gish, as long as I'm relatively sturdy and playable from level 2 or 3 or so. I'm not as much of a fan of Paladin, if only because I don't want the code holding me back when it comes time to make tough choices (though I could argue that a "good of the many" argument will trump the "good of the few" in establishing my new theocratic city state).

I'm definitely digging a marshal or bard type character, especially if I go for the "lead an open rebellion of slaves and commoners" route. What other options are there for melee oriented warrior leader bards?

Here are the variant classes from the SRD:

Variant Character Classes :: d20srd.org

There are bard variants and the battle sorcerer. The battle sorcerer does have d8, medium BAB and starts off able to wear light armor. You can boost that to medium and heavy armor with feats.

Thanks,
Rich