Blackguard/Divine Champion Build (Final)
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0.0 Contents
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1.1 Introducton
2.2 Fighter
3.3 BlackGuard
4.4 Divine Champion
5.5 Levels 17-20
6.6 Races
7.7 Attributes, Skills, & Feats
8.8 Level Progression
9.9 Questions/Comments
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1.1 Introduction
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The following is an awesome build that is completely superior to the average
fighter. The only thing that a fighter has that this build doesn't, is that it
can take Improved Critical: [weapon], and Weapon Specialization: [weapon]
earlier. This build can take those same feats, but by delaying them will have
access to the divine feats Extra Smiting and Sacred Vengeance.
You must also be evil. But otherwise that's not a problem. The main skill
this build uses is Intimidate which will help (force) you to act evil and
allow you to play through the Official Campaign as an evil jackass.
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2.2 Fighter
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Your first few levels will have you starting off as a Fighter establishing the
foundation for the Blackguard prestige class. The Divine Champion prestige
class is reached at the same time as the Blackguard and you're welcome to take
it before the Blackguard levels. However, I recommend Blackguard first as it
gives you some interesting abilities and seems to offer more help than what
Divine Champion can do.
The prestige classes, Blackguard and Divine Champion, both level up the same in
regards to hit points (+10) and BAB (+1 per level; high), just the same as a
fighter.
To achieve the basis of being able to take Blackguard, you'll need to be evil,
attain a BAB of 6, and Hide 5. Since Hide is a cross-class skill for a
fighter, you won't be able to achieve 5 ranks until you reach level 7. At
level 8 you can take Blackguard/Divine Champion levels. Being evil is easy to
achieve. As long as you take an evil alighnment at the start, you'll be fine.
As far as BAB is concerned you'll have a BAB of 7 when you meet all the other
requirements for the Blackguard. For Divine Champion all you need is a Weapon
Focus and BAB 7. Like a Blackguard, you'll have a BAB of 7 at level 7 and will
be able to access Divine Champion at level 8. The Weapon Focus feat will be
taken at character creation. The feats to be taken for Blackguard are Cleave
and Power Attack which are attained by your 4th Fighter level.
This build's dump stat is Intelligence. Your intelligence will suck which will
hurt your ability to gain skill points per level (although Humans are fine).
It makes it very difficult to raise cross-class skills when you're only gaining
2 skill points a level. Therefore, you'll want to take the Able Learner feat
which reduces the cost of raising a cross-class skill to one point per skill.
You'll also want to save any points dedicated to cross-class skills until you
get the Able Learner feat in order to give you the greatest benefit.
Once you have Able Learner achieving Hide 5 is easy. Save enough points so you
achieve it at Character Level 7. Don't put more than 5 points into Hide as
you'll want to wear the heaviest armor. You surely aren't going to be sneaking
up on your enemies in all that heavy armor are you? Therefore, don't take any
more than needed.
The remaining skill points can be put into Intimidate. Intimidate makes it
easier to be evil and helps with the roleplaying aspects as well. You'll be
a bully with a sword arm to back up the verbal abuse that spews out of your
mouth.
If you like, you can take an additional level of Fighter in order to get the
Greater Weapon Focus feat or intersperse it with any Blackguard/Divine Champion
levels.
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3.3 Blackguard
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At Character level 8 you'll be able to take levels in the Blackguard prestige
class. I don't really recommend more than 4 levels of Blackguard. You don't
get bonus feats as a Blackguard which is the only thing that makes it worse
than a straight Fighter. Everything else makes it superior.
Only the first 4 levels of Blackguard are worth it. The 4 levels afterwards
really aren't that helpful in my opinion and the lack of feats don't make up
for what you get (a Fighter type character needs his feats). However, the
build is complete at level 16 and the final four levels (levels 17-20) can be
dedicated to Blackguard levels if you like. Although I don't recommend taking
levels 5-8 for a Blackguard, a discription is included for your reference.
Your first level level of Blackguard allows you to "Use Poison" if that's your
thing. At level 2 you get Bull's Strength, an awesome Fighter buff. This is
probably the best part of being a Blackguard. In addition, you get Dark
Blessing which is the same as the Paladin's Divine Grace. It adds your
Charisma bonus to all your saves, including your lackluster Will save. Level 2
also gives you Smite Good which could be helpful seeing as you're an evil,
intimidating bastard and you'll probably make some good-aligned enemies.
At the third level of Blackguard, you can create an undead ally to help absorb
hits. In fact, most people think the skeleton you create is pretty good. You
also gain the ability to turn undead (which is affected by your Charisma).
Undead turning is pretty useless unless your party consists of ranged
characters. Then you can scare them away and have your warlocks / sorcerers /
Arcane Archers unleash hell on them 1 by 1 while your Blackguard takes care of
any undead with the balls to resist your turning attempts. Level 3 also gives
your Blackguard the Aura of Despair which causes any enemies within 10 feet of
you to get -2 to their saves.
Level 4 gives you Sneak Attack +1d6. You can only sneak attack enemies that
can't see you, that are attacking someone else, or are caught flat-footed. The
only time Sneak Attack is good is when you catch the enemy flat-footed. Since
you're a Fighter class character, you want the enemies attacking you, not
someone else. The benefit of more damage is nice, but it's at the cost of
enemies attacking your weak rear-line mages. And don't think about trying to
attack an enemy that can't see you. The only way to do that is to use your
Hide skill and the only way you'll be able to sneak up on an enemy with all
that heavy armor on is if the enemy is deaf and even then he'll probably hear
you. If you do decide to put more levels into Blackguard you get an extra +1d6
at level 7 and level 10.
Level 5 allows you to summon a Fiendish Dire Rat which becomes stronger at
level 10. It also shakes the screen when you cast it. You can't have a
skeleton from the Create Undead skill at the same time as your Fiendish Dire
Rat. Level 5 allows you to take the feat Divine Might which allows you to
increase your weapon damage based on your Charisma. You lose one of your turn
undead feats, however. This is probably the one thing that would make you want
to continue on as a Blackguard. It's up to you as you have 4 extra levels at
the end to do with what you want.
Level 6 lets you cast Inflict Serious Wounds which is useless against undead.
You'll be smiting good-aligned enemies so there's not many other enemies to
use it against. Level 7 allows you to cast Contagion which just gives your
enemy a random disease (which acts like the opposite of a buff spell). Level 7
also gives you extra sneak attack damage so you do +2d6 Sneak Attack damage.
Level 8 gives you Inflict Serious Wounds which is the same as Inflict Serious
Wounds with an additional +1d8 damage. Useless level.
Level 9 doesn't give you anything and Level 10 makes your Sneak Attack damage
+3d6. You can't go past 10 levels of Blackguard. I'll say it again, I don't
recommend more than 4 levels.
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4.4 Divine Champion
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After taking 7 levels of fighter and 4 of Blackguard, you can start working on
Divine Champion. You need some type of Weapon Focus to start taking Divine
Champion levels, but you should have picked that at level 1.
The spell benefits of being a Divine Champion stop at level 5 but you'll want
the sixth Divine Champion level for the extra feat. The Divine Champion gains
feats every even level in addition to whatever would have been gained normally
(every 3rd level).
The first level of Divine Champion gets you Lay on Hands which gives you some
basic healing. Level 2 gets you Sacred Defense which gives you +1 to all your
saves per every 2 levels of Divine Champion you take. With Dark Blessing from
the Blackguard levels you'll have good bonuses to all saves, your will save
probably being the most important (your Fortitude is naturally high, you can
let your Rogue deal with anything that requires a high reflex save such as
triggering traps). Level 2 grants you your first bonus feat. However, you can
only choose a combat related feat.
Level 3 allows you to Smite Infidel. Smite Infidel gives you a bonus to your
attack based off your Charisma and adds extra damage equal to your Divine
Champion levels. It only works against enemies of differing alignment than
you. As long as you're evil, Smite Infidel is completely superior to Smite
Good as Smite Good only adds +1 damage. If you some how are able to make your
evil character good, you'll be able to Smite Evil (Infidel) and Good. In the
official campaign, there are lots of undead which a good aligned Divine
Champion can easily handle with Smite Infidel.
There's nothing special at Level 4. Just an extra bonus combat feat. These
combat feats are where you'll start taking all the weapon feats that you had to
pass up on level 9 and 12 as those are the levels you'll want to start taking
Divine Feats. If you take the combat feats earlier (at every 3rd level), then
you'll have nothing left to choose from when you get the Divine Champion bonus
feats. The bonus feats are combat only; you don't get to choose from a full
list like with your normal character feats.
Level 5 gives you Divine Might which is a pretty awesome buff affected by your
Charisma. Level 6 gives you another bonus combat feat. I'd recommend stopping
at this point. Further levels of Divine Champion give you nothing but
additional combat feats at even levels.
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5.5 Levels 18-20
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At this point you'll be level 17 with 13 chosen feats (14 if human). You can
either take 3 more levels of fighter to get a full 16 feats (17 if you picked
human). Taking the 8th level of Fighter will get you Greater Weapon Focus.
You can also snag Iron Will for your normal character feat which will make your
Will save greater than your Reflex save.
At this point you have 2 levels to do whatever you like. I've mentioned above
what you get by taking additional levels of Blackguard and Divine Champion. 2
extra levels of fighter gets you the same thing as 2 levels of Divine Champion.
Your character will also only be able to select one additional class, if any,
as you can't multiclass more than 4 classes.
That said, if you're able to multiclass easily to a second base class you can
do some fun things. If you enjoy sneak attacking, you can take 2 levels of
Rogue to get an extra +1d6 Sneak Attack and Evasion at the second level of
Rogue.
Taking a level of Ranger lets you take Favored Enemy: Undead. If you do this,
take the 5th level of Blackguard and Divine Might for your character feat (you
have to take the feat at character level 15 or 18).
If you're able to convert your evil Blackguard into a Lawful Good character
(good luck), you can take 2 levels of Paladin which grants you Smite Evil at
first level (although if you're good, Smite Infidel does the same thing and
does it better). At second level Paladin you get Divine Grace for even more
universal saves based on your Charisma. You also get a second instance of Lay
On Hands (which is useless due to lack of enough pertinent class levels).
A level of Neverwinter 9 gives you an additional aura that benefits your allies
It also increases your Reflex and Will saves. Your Fortitude save should be
high enough to handle not getting it from the Neverwinter 9.
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6.6 Races
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In order to take any of the above base multiclasses, you'll need to take either
Human, Half-Elf, a class that has Fighter as its preferred class, or a class
that has the multiclass choice as its favored class. Those races are any
dwarf, Wood Elf for Ranger multiclassing or Aasimar. A discussion of each
follows.
For Dwarves, a Gold Dwarf is probably the best and it also allows some
interesting possibilities with Dwarven Defender or using a Dwarven Waraxe.
The attribute adjustment is probably the killing factor for this race though as
you want 13 Dexterity and anything past 12 cost 2 attribute points. You can
have a higher constitution though.
A Wood Elf can make you a strong fighter (+2 Strength/Dexterity) with a weak
constitution (-2 Con). A Half-Elf isn't too special, it just gives you a few
benefits which aren't good (but aren't bad either). A Half-Elf will also allow
you to multiclass like a human and ignore your fighter levels. This is
probably the third best race to pick for this build.
A Half-Orc is a little bit pitiful. You're getting 2 strength at the cost of 2
Intelligence and 2 Charisma. This will hurt you more than you can think.
You'll be an awesome fighter, but you'll need to sacrifice your Wisdom and you
don't want to weaken your Will saves. However, if you keep your Wisdom at 8,
your Will save will be the same as your Reflex save if you follow this build.
Aasimar is pretty nice and would be the second best race to pick. You'll be one
level behind all your fellow adventurers, but you'll be able to increase your
Charisma (and make all your Charisma related abilites awesome) or increase your
Constitution (tranfer the Charisma points to Constitution) to allow you to net
1 more HP per level (just like taking Toughness). You can't pick any base
classes besides fighter, however. An Aasimar can multiclass to Paladin if
you're interested; of course you got to figure out a way to take your evil
Blackguard and make him Lawful Good.
A human is probably the best race. A human gives you an additional feat at
birth along with lots of extra skill points. It also makes it easier to
multi-class with more base classes than fighter. Humans don't get the 2 extra
points in Wisdom and Charisma. In most builds these 4 points will be
allocated to bringing your 14 Constitution to 16. A human can't do this but
can negate the drawback by using their extra feat and taking Toughness.
However, if you want to put the points into Charisma, Aasimar is best as that
allows you to maximize your attribute points.
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7.7 Attributes, Skills, & Feats
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Your character attributes should look like:
Strength: 17
Dexterity: 13
Constitution: 16 (14 as human, take Toughness feat)
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 14
If you want to take a backround feat, take only: Bully, Devout, Ladies' Man,
or Tale Teller. Put your starting skill points into Intimidate, and don't put
any points into Hide until you're able to take Able Learner. You'll need to
save some skills but you should have Hide 5 at Level 7.
If you wish to eschew taking Blackguard (why???) then you can put your Hide
points into Tumble, Appraise, or Craft Armor (let Khelgar craft the weapons).
None of the other skills are really needed.
If you chosen race is human, you can put your extra skill points wherever you
like. I put 10 points into Tumble (for the AC bonus) and the remaining in
Appraise. You'll want to max out Intimidate first before going after
additional skills.
As a fighter you get your starting feat and a bonus feat (combat only). For the
combat feat, I took Weapon Focus: Longsword (but you can take anything you
want, even Weapon Proficiency: Exotic). For the starter feat, I'd suggest
taking something under the Backround Traits. You can't take the backround trait
during any other time except at character creation. I'd take one of the
following: Bull Headed, Luck of Heroes, Snake Blood, or Strong Soul. I chose
Luck of Heroes.
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8.8 Level Progression
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Below is how I leveled my character as an Aasimar. As a human, you can
multiclass earlier while an Aasimar will have to wait until level 20 in order
to avoid the experience penalties. For the bonus feat at birth for a human,
take Able Learner to allow you to use all those extra skill points. In the
Level Progression below, take Toughness where it says to take Able Learner.
Taking Toughness at level 1 and Able Learner at level 3 doesn't allow you to
maximize your skill points and Toughness only gives you 1 hit point. My
Aasimar/human character is as follows:
Level 1: Fighter, +2 Intimidate, Weapon Focus: Longsword, Luck of Heroes
(+2 Intimidate, +Able Learner if Human)
Level 2: Fighter, +1 Intimidate, Power Attack
Level 3: Fighter, Save skill point, Able Learner (+Toughness if human)
Level 4: Fighter, +1 Strength, +2 Hide, Cleave
Level 5: Fighter, +1 Hide
Level 6: Fighter, +1 Hide, Power Critical: Longsword, Great Cleave
Level 7: Fighter, +1 Hide
Level 8: Blackguard, +1 Strength, +1 Intimidate
Level 9: Blackguard, +1 Intimidate, Extra Smiting
Level 10: Blackguard, +1 Intimidate
Level 11: Blackguard, +1 Intimidate
Level 12: Divine Champion, +1 Strength, +1 Intimidate, Sacred Vengeance
Level 13: Divine Champion, +1 Intimidate, Improved Critical: Longsword
Level 14: Divine Champion, +1 Intimidate
Level 15: Divine Champion, +1 Intimidate, Dodge, Weapon Specialization:
Longsword
Level 16: Divine Champion, +1 Strength, +1 Intimidate
Level 17: Divine Champion, +1 Intimidate, Extra Turning (or Blind Fight)
Level 18: Fighter, +1 Intimidate , Greater Weapon Focus, Iron Will (yes!)
Level 19: Fighter, +1 Intimidate,
Level 20: Fighter or (Ranger), +1 Strength, +1 Intimidate, Blind Fight or
Mobility if Fighter, (Favored Enemy: Undead if Ranger)
Humans will probably want to take the Ranger level earlier to handle all the
undead in the Official Campaign.
You should take the feats as stated above in the order listed. Some feats are
only offered at specific times.
Also you'll need to take the Divine feats at a specified level when you are
leveling the Divine Champion and Blackguard. If you don't take them at the
proper level (level 9 and 12), you'll never be able to take them.
If you are interested in taking a fifth level of Blackguard, take it at level
15 and choose Divine Might for the feat. Then take Dodge at Fighter level 10
if you don't take Ranger (although a favored enemy is pretty nice.)
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9.9 Questions/Comments
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If you have any questions or comments you may email me at:
[email protected]
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9.91 Contributions
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The following people have contributed some interesting
suggestions:
[email protected]
Taking one level of ranger early (preferably level 1) offers 2 benefits. First
Hide is a class skill for Ranger allowing you to achieve Hide 5 at level 2. If
you don't take Able Learner, you'll waste a skill point getting the fifth Hide
point. However, a Ranger gets 4 more skill points than a Fighter, and by
taking Ranger at level 1, you get four times as many extra skill points, easily
negating any loss you take. [However, you'll need to take the Able Learner
feat eventually, if you want to get Tumble 20.]
The second benefit is that you can take the Blackguard prestige class one level
earlier. [You'll be Fighter 5 rather than Fighter 7 and therefore not have the
Fighter 6 feat]. You also get the Favored Enemy a whole lot earlier.
[Voxen goes on to explain possibly taking up to 6 levels in Ranger over Fighter
levels. I disagree. A second level of Ranger gets you a combat style. This
is useless as you have to wear light or no armor. You also get improved reflex
saves and 4 extra skill points per Ranger level at the cost of 2 hit points and
Fighter feats. Level 3 gets the Toughness feat. Level 4 gets a useless Animal
Companion and spells based on your Wisdom, and Level 6 gets you the Improved
combat style, only useful in light or no armor.]
