"Aura Party" in Play

[blargney the second]

So you're Druid 8/Swordsage 1 now? It's ironic when you see how those levelling up decisions got your character killed...

 

[Thurbane]

Would it be totally stupid to create a Bard/Marshal/Dragon shaman character?

Just a level or two of Brd & Mrsh, and then level up in DS?

 

[Nifft]

Would it be totally stupid to create a Bard/Marshal/Dragon shaman character?

Bard X / Marshal 1 = smart

Bard X / Warblade Y = smart (if the Warblade focuses on White Raven stuff and the PC takes Song of the White Raven)

pure Dragon Shaman = smart

Multiclassing a Dragon Shaman = not so smart

Multiclassing a Bard such that his Inspire Courage falls behind too much = not so smart

IMHO, -- N

 

[blargney the second]

Bard X / Warblade Y = smart (if the Warblade focuses on White Raven stuff and the PC takes Song of the White Raven)

Multiclassing a Dragon Shaman = not so smart

You know, I never really realized that Song of the White Raven let bard/warblade/crusader stack for inspire courage bonuses. That's freaking awesome! I'm thinking bard 4/crusader x with spells sans somatic component and the biggest armor you can get your body on.

I've recently come to the same conclusion re: dragon shaman multiclassing. It's a damn fine class just straight up.

 

[Mistwell]

You could use an Inspire Courage Optimized bard:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=185372

At 6th level, I think you have you have most of the bonuses already. Base (1)(buy two badges), Feat (1), Spell (1), Badge (1) = +4/+4 to entire party for six full combats a day. I doubt you could afford a Vest at that level, but if you could, then it's another +1/+1. And a masterwork instrument could boost the damage by +1 as well. And at 8th level it goes up again by another +1/+1.

I gotta get that Book of 9 Swords. Song of the White Raven sounds great for the inspire courage optimization!

 

[blargney the second]

I like bards. They're such team players.

 

[Jhaelen]

and on the plus side, I got reincarnated as a bugbear off of a random roll. 8 points of physical stats was a nice unexpected bonus!

Congratulations! Do you use a modified reincarnation table or have you just been incredibly lucky?

 

[Darklone]

Aaaw, Nifft, one level barbarian doesn't hurt neither a bard nor a dragon shaman! Extra Rage, good str, Power Attack... wonderful chummy. And as first level it adds a lot of low level survivability.

 

[blargney the second]

I've run a pure dragon shaman as well as a dragon shaman X/barbarian 1. Straight up DS is generally better for a variety of reasons:
- breath weapon dice... you want as many as possible!
- breath weapon DC. It goes up 1/2 levels, so getting +2 DC for one combat a day isn't that amazing.
- aura bonus. You want as high as possible!
- special abilities. Dragon shamans good some cool ones at higher levels.

All this is versus the speed bonus, a marginally higher hit die, 2 more skill points, and martial weapons. In theory that's good stuff, but in actual play I kept finding that one more level of dragon shaman would have worked out better than the barb level.
-blarg

 

[Wik]

Our DS was a dwarven fighter 1/ DS X. I can't remember if he started off as a fighter, or Dragon Shaman, though.

He had the heavy armour, a tower shield, and a bunch of feats aimed towards AC and whatnot. He became an AC Monkey, although he definately loved his DS abilities. Got a little upset when I ruled that he had a problem using Spider Climb wearing so much heavy armour, but whatever.

He didn't really notice too much of a "hit" because of that one level of fighter. Actually, I think he wanted to take one more, because he liked the feats (and knew that the heavy armour had saved his butt more times than he could count).

However, all that being said, I think the heavy armour was sort of a crutch, and he ultimately became bored with the character, because there wasn't much he could do in the game, rules-wise.