Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 bladedancer Aug 13, 2009 7:22:55	Hey guys I am looking to use the Book of Nine Swords for the first time in a campaign. I was looking at the Ruby Knight Vindicator as I know no one in my group will be making a cleric and I will probably also be the default melee guy. So I was wondering if you guys could help me with what feats,stances and maneuvers I should take. The build should be capping out at about 15-16th level. All Wotc books are allowed. No Dragon Magazine or 3rd party source books are allowed. Thanks in advance for any help given.
#2 wildfire393 Aug 13, 2009 19:29:41	Well, first let's look at the requirements: Hide 4 Ranks, Intimidate 4 Ranks, Knowledge Religion 8 Ranks, 1 Devoted Spirit Manuever, 1 Devoted Spirit Stance, Ability to rebuke/turn Undead, deity Wee Jas. This means that you need 5 levels in some combination of Crusader and Cleric/Paladin in order to qualify. There are a couple of other classes that grant Rebuke/Turn, notably the Dread Necro from Heroes of Horror, but unfortunately it is not a Divine class, making it less than optimal, for reasons you will see in a minute. You must take at least one level in Crusader and at least one level in Cleric or Paladin, but the other three levels can be in either of these classes. Alternately to the Crusader, two feats can be taken, one Martial Study to grant a maneuver and one Martial Stance to grant a Stance. However, this is generally suboptimal since the Crusader does a lot. Now, let's look at the benefits: Over 10 class levels, the RKV gets 10 BAB, 3/3/7 Saves, +8 to Divine CL and Spells, 5 Maneuvers known, 2 Maneuvers Readied, and 2 Stances known, +10 initiator level. In addition to the 3 standard Crusader Schools, the Vindicator gains access to the otherwise Swordsage-unique Shadow Hand School. Additionally, as class features you gain the following class features - The ability to burn a Turn/Rebuke use to re-ready (and re-grant) a maneuver, the ability to not take an armor penalty on Hide checks, the ability to burn a Turn/Rebuke use to gain another Swift Action, and the ability to burn a Turn/Rebuke use to gain +4 Sacred/Profane bonus to hit and +1d10 damage with a Strike. Now, let's look at the drawbacks: It requires CL 17 to gain access to level 9 Divine Spells using a Cleric base, and it requires Initiator level 17 to gain access to level 9 Maneuvers. Since the RKV gains only 8 DCL, that means you need 9 levels of actual divine caster to get level 9 Spells. However, this gives an initiator level of only 15 (1 from your base Crusader, 10 RKV, and 1/2 of your 9 Cleric levels = 4+11), which only grants access to level 8 maneuvers. This means you need at least 4 Crusader levels (4 + 10 + 1/2*6 = 14+3 = 17) to gain access to level 9 Maneuvers. However, this only gives you a DCL of 14, which only gets 7th level spells. Effectively, you must choose between 7th level spells and 9th level maneuvers or 9th level spells and 8th level maneuvers. It is suggested that if you want 9th level maneuvers, your divine class be a Paladin, which cannot get 9th level Spells in the first place, which makes that "loss" less significant (and grants full BAB the entire time). Additionally, though the RKV gives additional readied maneuvers, it does not give additional Granted maneuvers. This means that this actually makes the Crusader maneuver system significantly weaker. If you take a single level of Crusader (the requirement to get level 9 Spells), you end up with seven readied maneuvers per encounter but only 2 granted. This means that it will sometimes take five full rounds before you gain access to a specific maneuver you want to use and six full rounds before you can begin to recover maneuvers (as opposed to three and four for a standard Crusader). Finally, the RKV suffers badly from MAD. As a character with full BAB (minus a few from Cleric levels), Constitution is clearly required for some sturdiness. As a character limited to melee attacks (due to the fact that strikes almost all require melee attacks to activate), Strength is very important. As a divine caster, Wisdom determines bonus spells, Save DCs, and the max level of spells you can cast. Finally, Charisma is required for Turn/Rebuke undead charges and power, as well as for some features of the Paladin (smite, divine grace etc) and Crusader (smite, indomitable soul, etc). To make matters worse, the fact that the class requires five full levels of Skill points (including the x4 at first level) combined with the fact that both the Cleric and the Paladin only get 2 skill points (though the Crusader gets 4) means that you cannot dump Int. You must have at least a +1 Int (or take more Crusader levels than Cleric/Paladin levels with a 10 Int) in order to qualify for the RKV after level 5. The only remotely "dump" stat that the RKV has is Dex, but there is still a lot of potential use for it (TWF, Combat Reflexes, AC, etc). This means that if you're playing a game where your stats are NOT determined by rolls (or if you are and they are rolled poorly), unless your point buy is fairly ridiculous, you're in trouble. Even with good rolls/point buy, you're probably going to be investing most of your wealth into Enhancement/Intrinsic Bonuses to keep up with your mad MAD. Seriously, you need starting stats like 16 Str, 10 Dex, 14 Con, 18 Wis, 12 Int, 16 Cha to pull this build off very well. That being said, there are pretty much two builds of the RKV to 10: Crusader 1 / Cleric 4 / RKV 5 -or- Crusader 4 / Paladin 1 / RKV 5 The first will be able to eventually get 17 DCL and 9th level Cleric Spells. The second will have full BAB and can probably be a pretty brutal melee combatant.
#3 ikildkenny Aug 13, 2009 20:07:04	Crusader 4 / Paladin 1 / RKV 5 and the only Problem here is, that you only get turn undead at Paladin 4 ... as well as spellcasting ... so in the end, you will have to take Crusader1/Paladin4 considering this setup, your stat analysis is ... well ... wrong! first: Skillpoints: you will need 16 skillpoints in total, 12 of them are allready spent at first level - since crusader grants you 4 and thus 16 at first level you even have at least 4 to spare ... during the following levels (Paladin) you will be forced to spend half you skillpoints on knowledge religion - but hey, you will never be anything like a skillmonkey (may I suggest Concentration?) so you are more than just fine with a int of 10 ... even 8 if you are human! second: Wisdom and high spellcasting as the op mentioned, the campain will most likely stop at lvl 16ish - so 9th level spells are never a real option, 4th level paladin spells at best ... so in the end ... you are more than just fine with a WIS of 14 DEX: Dumpstat indeed - focussing on some kind of TWF-Tree seems rediculus with this class combination, so you should be fine with 10, maybe 12 points and a fullplate STR: your main score - no discussion here CHA: close third after CON - sure, you need CHA for most of your class features - but you are the melee tank .. you NEED CON so you will end up with stats (assuming 32 point buy and Human) : STR 16 +2 (levels)=18 DEX 10 CON 14 WIS 14 INT 10 CHA 14 so your build could most likely look like this: Crusader 1 (Extra granted Maneuver, Power Attack) Paladin 1 Paladin 2 (Extra Smite) Paladin 3 Paladin 4 RKV 1 (Divine Might) RKV 2 RKV 3 RKV 4 (Extra Turning) RKV 5 you will definatly meet the Prereqs, will be able to max out Concentration and you will still have 18 Skillpoints to spare ... Average HP will be 80ish without any items or extras ...
#4 wildfire393 Aug 13, 2009 22:20:08	My mistake, I've never actually looked too closely at the Paladin. If that is the case, and given the level restrictions, he's probably better off going Crusader 4 / Cleric 1. This means at 15th level he'll be effectively 9th level cleric (for 5th level spells) and a 14th level Crusader (for 7th level maneuvers). This also means he needs a minimum of 15 Wisdom unless he invests a point in it later. Remember also that a low Wisdom score leads to lower DCs for his saving throws. However, you are wrong about the skills. The 4 ranks in intimidate can be taken immediately, as can 4 of the 8 ranks in Know Religion, but Hide is a cross-class skill for Crusaders, Paladins, and Clerics, meaning you will need two points per rank and you can only start at 2 and get 1 per every other level. This means that if you have a 10 int, you will not be able to get a rank in Concentrate, a rank in Know religion, and a half-rank in Hide at any non-Crusader level. So he must have 12 Int, especially if he's going to be taking multiple levels of Cleric/Paladin. The exception to this is if you pick trickery as one of your domains for your cleric, but as your god MUST be Wee Jas to qualify for the RKV, you cannot do this. So given a 32 point buy, the best you could manage is this: 15 Str, 10 Dex, 14 Con, 15 Wis, 12 Int, 12 Cha Which only gives you 4 uses of turn per day, and neither your attacks nor your spells are amazingly good. With so many RKV class abilities being based on turning, I really wouldn't be satisfied with stats worse than this: 16+ Str, 10 Dex, 14+ Con, 16+ Wis, 12 Int, 16+ Cha Which is absolutely not happening under any reasonable point buy. As for build: Crusader 4 / Cleric 1 / RKV 5 Feats - H Power attack, 1 Extra Granted, 3 Extra turning, 6 Divine Might, 9 Free
#5 Endarire Aug 14, 2009 0:21:01	For a casting-heavy build, go Cleric4/Cruader1/RKV10 in that order. If you can, nab Barbarian1 for Pounce. Additionally, PrCs that give additional maneuvers readied give the same number of granted maneuvers to a crusader. Look on Tome of Battle 96 under Maneuvers Readied. It's the last sentice of the first paragraph.
#6 bladedancer Aug 14, 2009 1:43:06	Thanks for all the suggestions folks. This definitely will help a ton. The Dm finally told us he will be running the meat grinder adventure City of the Spider Queen (updated to 3.5 where needed). He is also allowing me to reflavor the Prc to whatever FR deity I wish. I was thinking Hoar to get my bloody vengeance on.So it should be fun as I only have a few days to get this guy done.
#7 wildfire393 Aug 14, 2009 12:40:29	For a casting-heavy build, go Cleric4/Cruader1/RKV10 in that order. If you can, nab Barbarian1 for Pounce. Additionally, PrCs that give additional maneuvers readied give the same number of granted maneuvers to a crusader. Look on Tome of Battle 96 under Maneuvers Readied. It's the last sentice of the first paragraph. He probably wants to take Crusader 1 first for enough Skill points to qualify. He probably doesn't have room for Barb 1, as that would cut in to the Spellcasting or Maneuver level he could obtain. Additionally, as a RKV he can pick up Shadow Blink at max level which he can use to pseudo-pounce, and there's no guarantee that his DM would allow the Pounce ACF anyways. Also I missed that bit about Granted maneuvers, so I guess disregard that paragraph of mine under Drawbacks. Finally, if you want to be REALLY cheesy, find a way to qualify for Ur-Priest. With only two levels of Ur-Priest, you can get level 9 Cleric Spells from the RKV, meaning that you can have room to take enough Crusader levels to qualify for level 9 Maneuvers. Assuming, of course, that in qualifying for the Ur-Priest you take fewer than 5 non-Crusader levels.