Post/Author/DateTime	Post
catsclaw 12-07-06, 07:16 PM	I'm putting together a build that will likely feature 5 levels of Marshal, giving me a choice of 3 minor and 2 major auras. My CHA is likely to be iffy for a number of levels (as I'm building a Dwarf, I'm handicapped in that regard) but I need suggestions of what auras to take. Here are my thoughts: MINOR AURAS Motivate Cha: always popular, and would help with my Diplomacy skills. Motivate Wis: good for Spot, Listen, and Sense Motive, but not much beyond that. Motivate Dex: good for initiative, but somewhat limited in combat. Hard to buff rogue skills if you're being noisy. Art of War/Master of Tactics/Force of Will/Demand Fortitude/Watchful Eye: Useful, somewhat, but very situational. MAJOR AURAS Motivate Ardor: A small bonus to damage is always nice. Motivate Care: Less chance to be hit is probably better than reducing damage if you are. Motivate Urgency: Only an additional 5', but that can be big. And in heavy plate, I'd need the help. Hardy Soldiers: I'd never get beyond DR 1/--. Thoughts?
jstorrie 12-07-06, 08:03 PM	Minor: Motivate Cha can break social/investigative mods. The bonus isn't just that one PC gets a little boost - it's that suddenly the whole party can succeed on aid rolls, giving you +8 to +12 on Diplomacy, Gather Info, Intimidate, etc. Do take if you have multiple minor auras, for sure. Art of War is great if you are built for tripping, not great otherwise. Force of Will is a great 'will always be useful' aura. Will saves are the most dangerous ones and coincidentally the ones that are often lacking due to poor character builds. Master of Opportunity is good for Elusive Target / Defensive Throw builds. Mostly useless otherwise. Motivate Dexterity is a flat init bonus, which will always be useful. Over the Top is for Marshal Cavaliers who want to see big numbers. Major: Motive Attack is strictly better than Motivate Ardor, given that the majority of melee PCs will have power attack and that mathematically speaking +hit is just plain more valuable than +damage. Motivate Care is another 'will always help' aura that applies equally well to the entire party. Motivate Urgency is generally only great if you go as high as Marshal 7. If you do, even the dwarves and plate wearers will have move 30, allowing you to keep up with or outpace quite a few creatures. Resilient Troops is a nice bonus if you aren't running Force of Will. If Force of Will is going to be your standard combat aura, though, skip it as they don't stack. Hardy Soldiers is generally only good for the 'trick factor.' Sometimes you'll run into strange situations where you're taking one or two points of damage every round and DR 1/- will be useful. I would recommend either: Art of War, Motivate Cha, Motivate Dex, with Resilient Troops and Motivate Urgency or Motivate Cha, Force of Will, Motivate Dex, with Motivate Attack and Motivate Urgency The main choice in my mind is whether you'd rather run Force of Will or Art of War during combat encounters. Outside of combat encounters, you can run Motivate Dex constantly for the intiative bonus and switch to Cha whenever someone needs to talking. Do keep in mind, though, that running Force of Will constantly will now and then can save you from remote charming / magic jarring problems.
Britt 12-07-06, 08:33 PM	Motivate Dex is the most powerful aura you can get. Heck, it is one of the most powerful abilities in the game, IMO. Based on my experience writing, playtesting, and playing a Motivate Dex Marshal, going first = winning. Almost all encounters you face are built to be capable of being defeated. Having all of one side go before the other side is more powerful than most people realize, even if they think it's really good. When I was writing/playtesting Playing Both Sides, I had to make an explicit entry to roll initiative separately for each creature. After several iterations of tests, if all the monsters went first, it was a TPK; if all the monsters went last, it wasn't very challenging. Because of the abilities of the creatures, having them roll separately did a good deal to level out the encounter and keep it from being too easy or too hard. All of this was due to initiative. All that said, I recommend not taking Motivate Dex. Primarily, it's just too good and makes things boring and easy. Secondarily, if you play with other marshals, they will likely have Motivate Dex. I really like the other stat Motivates, particularly INT. That helps with Search, Disable Device, Knowledge, and a few other skills. Most of the stat Motivates have decent uses, other than CON (even though I took that with my dwarf marshal for flavor). Overall, I recommend developing the background and flavor for your character and use that to make your decision. Pick the abilities that would be the most important to your character or that your character would want his allies to do well. Definitely look at usefulness and power of the abilities, but make those secondary to roleplay, IMO.
Howie23 12-07-06, 09:22 PM	Motivate Dex is the most powerful aura you can get. The basic use for Motivate Dex seems to be to have it on, then once combat starts and init is rolled, move to a different aura. Has there been any consideration to whether turning Motivate Dex off gives up the initiative bonus? We don't use variable initiative in LG, but there is precedent to the idea that init can change based upon conditions, such as the deafness condition. Effectively, Motivate Dex is giving Improved Initiative to the entire party or bad guys, which seems disbalanced. I realize that this has a bigger impact on PCs; I'm not trying to nerf PCs or Marshalls, just seeing if there is a rebalancing force here (needing to keep the motivate Dex up through the entire combat). David
Japangirl 12-07-06, 09:57 PM	Motivate Dex is great for the rogue who needs to tumble into position, if you are looking for another in-combat use for it.
Iswald 12-07-06, 10:57 PM	Has there been any consideration to whether turning Motivate Dex off gives up the initiative bonus? We don't use variable initiative in LG, but there is precedent to the idea that init can change based upon conditions, such as the deafness condition. It'd be nice. But, it'd also increase the complexity too much and confuse many players. For example, PC A has 18 init, PC B (marshal) has 17 init, NPC X has 16 init. If the marshal, on his turn, changes his aura away from motivate dex, then both his init and PC A's init would drop. Some people seem to think this would allow both PCs to act twice that round. I don't see why it would be hard to keep track of these things but, whatever.
SirApropos 12-07-06, 11:23 PM	I actually have a PC with 5 levels of Marshal and have the following Auras. Minor Auras Motivate Dex - As most people have said a no brainer. Going first always helps and now your Rogue pals can Tumble through NPC's instead of around them. To answer the question about whether changing the Aura changes your Initiative. It does not. Initiative is a single roll that is made before combat. It is a static number unless you delay or ready an action. Motivate Cha - Good for Social Situations but also boosts a Cleric's Turning Check since it is a Cha check. Almost always maxing out your turning check is a good thing. Master of Tactics - This is situational but it also helps get through weird DR's and suppliments damage in cases where Sneak Attack won't apply like Undead and Constructs. Major Auras Motivate Care - The +1 to AC comes in handy more often than not. Resilient Troops - The +1 to Saves also can make a difference.
paigeoliver 12-08-06, 04:30 AM	The initiative roll has already been made when the aura is switched. So switching it off does not effect anyone's existing initiative roll anymore than casting cat's grace or ray of clumsiness mid fight would. Also note that ALL marshal auras are on the power level of giving multiple feats to the entire party. Motivate dex effectively gives the whole party 9 feats (improved initiative and 8 skill focuses). Motivate intelligence is more like 17 feats (skill focus in every INT skill). Accurate Strike: One of the worst ones, only worthwhile if you are going to take improved critical on an 18-20 crit range weapon, even then it isn't that hot. Art of War: Only take this if you can use it yourself, as you can't count on anyone else being able to use it. Demand Fortitude: Not worthwhile. Determined Caster: Only for HIGH level dedicated marshalls, even then it is questionable. Force of Will: One of the best auras. This one is truly best if you are going to make a Marshall/Outcast champion, since you can give your whole party around +10 on will saves then. Master of Opportunity: Not worthwhile. Master of Tactics: One of the better combat auras. Motivate Charisma: This one is a trap, plain and simple. Any kind of character who would take it will be autoing those rolls by 5th or 6th level anyway. I have a 6th level Marshall WITHOUT motivate charisma and he has never failed a social skill roll. I have a friend who has a 6th level marshall who DOES have motivate charisma, and he now wishes he didn't take it. Also, if you REALLY want to make the "defeat people with diplomacy" character be sure and work improved initiative and the fast talker campaign card into your build. Motivate Constitution: Drowning, starvation, forced long term movement, and avalanches almost never come up (so there go all the CON checks that I could find in the game) and the only con skill is concentration. So this one is a bad one. Motivate Dexterity: This is the single best aura. Don't combine this one with motivate wisdom though. If you are a frequent convention player then you may want to consider motivate wisdom instead. I have sat at tables with multiple motivate dex marshals at conventions quite a few times. Motivate Intelligence: This one is very good. It should probably be your second or 3rd aura, unless you are a trapfinder build, in which case it is your first aura. Motivate Strength: Crucial STR checks are very rare. Skip this one unless you are making a jump-check based character for some reason. Motivate Wisdom: This is one to consider as an alternate to motivate dexterity. Most marshals should have one or the other. Over the Top: It is worse than the flanking aura unless you own a lance, in which case it becomes way better. Watchful Eye: This one is an interesting 3rd option for an "always on" aura. This one in particular helps to keep people from falling into pit traps. Major auras. There isn't a lot to say about these other than wait for the movement one until you can make it 10' of movement. The melee and ranged to hit auras allow melee/archer characters to take up to 4 levels of marshall with no effective long term loss of attack bonus, although they will be one iterative attack behind at certain levels (the levels those attacks are most likely to miss at anyway). This is best combined with the will save aura. I would also note that two marshall levels is a valid way to pump 3 points of will save into even an charisma dump fighting character. They can offset that BAB loss with their major aura. Hexblade levels are slightly better than marshall levels for this though. Or take them both for a high attack bonus character with a GREAT will save.
Nutation 12-08-06, 01:57 PM	I'm putting together a build that will likely feature 5 levels of Marshal, giving me a choice of 3 minor and 2 major auras. You might post your entire build. Marshal 5 is a lousy stopping point for BAB and saves. 4 levels is a popular choice. A character who's not a pure marshal presumably has other utility. You'll do pretty well then with one major aura always on and 2 minor auras, one in combat/one out of combat. Too much switching of auras and fiddling with indicator tents (you must make aura tents) confuses the party and leads to bard syndrome - constantly reminding people of the modifiers you bestow. So, what do you expect to be doing besides projecting auras?
catsclaw 12-08-06, 02:25 PM	You might post your entire build. Marshal 5 is a lousy stopping point for BAB and saves. 4 levels is a popular choice.I know most people stop before 5, but I'd really like the utility of the extra major and minor aura. My build would look something like this: Marshal/5, Paladin/3, Divine Crusader/1, then a prestige class with strong divine spellcaster progression. Maybe out of the Dragonomicon. Levelling up, I'd start with 2 Marshal levels, then the 3 Paladin levels, then back to Marshal and the prestige classes. I'm strongly considering Mysticism as the domain for the divine crusader. Adding Divine Crusader means I don't need to worry about the WIS-based Paladin spells, and the faster spell progression of Divine Crusader means I'll get access to 6th level spells by retirement. Well, a 6th level spell, anyway. With the right domain, I think I could make it count.
jstorrie 12-08-06, 05:31 PM	My current build is along those lines, but with some changes - I'm doing Pal4/Mrsh2/Ftr2/Crusader X, for three reasons. First, you can take SF: Diplomacy at first level, and then 'trade' it for a builder book feat when you take your first level of Marshal (since you get any feat that you qualify for, instead of SF, if you already have it when you take that Marshal level.) I'm using that to get Sacred Healing at level 5, which will save a lot of money over time on consumable healing. Second, Pal4 gives turning which allows Sacred Healing and Divine Might for maximum Cha synergy. And third, the Fighter feats allow Shock Trooper, so you are a competent melee damage dealer as well as party-buffer. I think that the Divine feats and Shock Trooper outweigh the extra auras, personally. It does mean that you have to make a tricky choice (Force of Will, Motivate Dex, or Motivate Cha?) but that choice is simplified somewhat by your choice of Divine Crusader domain.
DuctShuiTengu 12-09-06, 01:14 AM	Motivate Charisma: This one is a trap, plain and simple. Any kind of character who would take it will be autoing those rolls by 5th or 6th level anyway. I have a 6th level Marshall WITHOUT motivate charisma and he has never failed a social skill roll. I have a friend who has a 6th level marshall who DOES have motivate charisma, and he now wishes he didn't take it. Also, if you REALLY want to make the "defeat people with diplomacy" character be sure and work improved initiative and the fast talker campaign card into your build. As has been pointed out before, the trap with Motivate Charisma is not the aura itself, but rather the misconception that you still need to put max ranks into any (much less all) of your social skills. The main advantages of Motivate Charisma are: it allows you to do well at Social skills while putting your skill points towards meeting the prerequisites for skill-intensive PrCs (A PrC that requires 13 ranks in Knowledge Arcana isn't going to accept less no matter how good your skill-check is. On the other hand, the NPC you just got a 40 to diplomicise (or intimidate, or bluff, or gather information, or handle animal, or isn't going to be any less persuaded just because you only have Diplomacy 5.) it vastly improves the social abilities of many of your allies, allowing them to either assist you, or to make those social skill-checks themselves. Also, it works nicely with one fun (and slightly unconventional) spell-use with Bards: Dominate your party members and command them to act as though they aren't being mind-controlled before going into situations with monsters who try to mind control people. That resisted charisma check to see whose commands take precedence? Yeah, the only thing likely to beat you is an NPC using the same trick. That said, it's not for every character.
Iswald 12-09-06, 02:07 AM	Marshal/5, Paladin/3, Divine Crusader/1, then a prestige class with strong divine spellcaster progression. Maybe out of the Dragonomicon. Levelling up, I'd start with 2 Marshal levels, then the 3 Paladin levels, then back to Marshal and the prestige classes. I'm strongly considering Mysticism as the domain for the divine crusader. This won't work. Not just because marshal 5 is a bad place to stop but, you need another point of BAB to enter divine crusader. In my opinion, paladin 3 is also a bad place to stop. If you just take one more level, you'd be able to turn undead. While you won't be good at turning undead, you'll have many turn attemps you can use for something else if you pick a feat to do so. Mysticism isn't a bad domain for divine crusaders. Your benefit from the visage spells is likely to be reduced from wearing a cloak of charisma. Since you'll want the enhancement bonus to charisma all the time, not just when the spell is in effect.
Mommy was an Orc 12-09-06, 02:18 AM	Also, it works nicely with one fun (and slightly unconventional) spell-use with Bards: Dominate your party members and command them to act as though they aren't being mind-controlled before going into situations with monsters who try to mind control people. That resisted charisma check to see whose commands take precedence? Yeah, the only thing likely to beat you is an NPC using the same trick. That said, it's not for every character. Why Dominate when Suggestion is a function of Bardic Music? :devil:
Grantor 12-09-06, 02:33 AM	Another huge benefit if Motivate Dexterity comes when the party wanders into battlefield terrain that requires balance checks. Only rogues (possibly monks) are nonplussed by the idea of suddenly going from no ranks to some. Especially since most of these regions only require a DC of 10-12, due to the fact that no one ever has ranks in that skill. Even with skill check penalties, clerics are happy to suddenly have a 50/50 chance of getting across a patch of ice (or whatever) each round.
RedKnightofKet 12-09-06, 11:54 PM	This may just be me grinding the cheese wheel a little, but would this work? 2nd level Marshall has Cha 16, Wis 12, 5 ranks in Survival, 5 ranks in Know: nature, and the Motivate Wis Aura in his repetoire. Can he take 10 on Survival checks to live of the wild successfully? :D Also, I think Cha 14 or Wis 10 would work.... oh the possibilities.... to save 12-24 gp an adventure......
Lomiat 12-10-06, 12:11 AM	Why Dominate when Suggestion is a function of Bardic Music? :devil: Or even Fascinate. Motivate CHA is NOT a trap. A Fascinate DC raised by 3 (assuming a 16 CHA) is the equivalent of Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, and Not In the Game Additional Spell Focus. And... technically, monsters aren't in combat until they go on their initiatives... And... every bard has Improved Initiative anyway, right? Other uses for Motivate CHA: 1) Once you get your Sublime Chord's song of arcane power, it's nice to make EVERY spell caster level +4. 2) Use Magic Device to emulate... everything: Alignment, Ability Scores, Activate Items Blindly, Activate Encounters (or... er.... everyone can do that. Rogues do it really well....). 3) Boost your cleric's Turn Undead attempts. etc.
Mommy was an Orc 12-11-06, 10:37 AM	I know most people stop before 5, but I'd really like the utility of the extra major and minor aura. I'd really go for Marshal 7 if you're going for Marshal 5 - doubles the power of your major auras. I would not take both Wisdom and Dexterity, as you can't use both of them at the same time. I'm not particularly enthralled with Wisdom in any case. I've been playing around with a somewhat similar mechanic, a Marshal 4/Wizard 5/Virtuoso 1/Sublime Chord 5 build(lots of potential other PrCs are possible here, but this is the most straightforward way of explaining it). You use Wizard 5 to qualify for 3rd level spellcasting, Virtuoso to gain Bardic Music, and Marshal for all the skill prereqs. From levels 1-10, you're the utility spellcaster of the party. From levels 11+, you turn near primary caster, eventually ending up with 7th level spells. And you can have Message to deal with some of the aspects of Marshal table variation(are Marshals constantly saying something every round when their aura is up? A lot of DMs, including myself, say yes...) Yet unlike a Bard build, you have a lot of flexibility in spell choice, especially at the lower levels.
Mommy was an Orc 12-11-06, 10:47 AM	Or even Fascinate. Motivate CHA is NOT a trap. A Fascinate DC raised by 3 (assuming a 16 CHA) is the equivalent of Spell Focus, Greater Spell Focus, and Not In the Game Additional Spell Focus. And... technically, monsters aren't in combat until they go on their initiatives... And... every bard has Improved Initiative anyway, right? My point about Suggestion is that you can use it instead of Dominate - you use Fascinate on your own party members, then give them the Suggestion that they act according to their core beliefs and best interests of this party, regardless of who is mentally controlling them. That lets you get into Cha mod vs Cha mod checks. And as Suggestion lasts 1 hour/level, a Bard 7 with the Extra Music feat can pretty easily fascinate and then Suggest an entire party(using up 7 Bardic Musics to do so) for 7 hours and still have 4 musics left over. Very useful for fighting Vampires. My Bard has crushed a couple of Dominate Persons in just such a fashion, even though Vamps get a Cha bonus from the template. Hard to fight +10...
Britt 12-11-06, 12:57 PM	When I was playign my half-orc, we always had the sorcerer charm monster me at the beginning of each adventure for that exact reason. It didn't eat into his spells much, his CHA was crazy good, and it lasts days. Eventually, there was mind blank, but that's not a common solution :)
TWG_Prometheus 12-11-06, 04:53 PM	Motive Attack is strictly better than Motivate Ardor, given that the majority of melee PCs will have power attack and that mathematically speaking +hit is just plain more valuable than +damage. Maybe I'm just in a nitpicky mood, but Motivate Attack is not strictly better than Motivate Ardor. That isn't to say that Motive Attack isn't way better than Motivate Ardor, only that strictly better is a very high bar to set. If you're building a steady LG group with characters that don't have Power Attack or especially if they rely on Precision damage (Rogues, Swashbucklers) then Motivate Ardor would be a way to offset their lack of output against Undead or Constructs. If all of them two-weapon fight, it's even better than that. It likely wouldn't be enough against said annoyingly crit-immune enemies, but it would be better than Motivate Attack in that situation, plus some others. Caution should be employed when describing dominance. Saying that Motivate Attack is almost always better than Motivate Ardor is much closer to the truth.
haferka 12-12-06, 10:55 AM	I have a Dru 3/Mar 2 Halfling riding a dog.. with a lance.. Motivate Dex + Motivate Attack. Great fun! I commonly drop the lance after my initial charge, switching to my club.. that way me & the dog can attack...