All opinions welcome!

[The Red Mage]

Hello all, I have an interesting predicament which can be argued firmly one way or another. I would like to ask all of your opinions on the issue before pursuing the direction of my new character.

My idea for my new character would be a swashbuckler, tactician type who promotes team strategy and utility in battle and empowers his teammates with warcrys. I decided the build best for this would be Fighter/ PDK/ Duelist. I wanted to avoid splashing bard, because, well, I wanted to make a melee character who does -not- have access to all the scrolls and such. It's a bit overpowered(because of all the skillpoints he has with 16 int), and it doesn't fit the flavor of the character as well as PDK does.

My predicament, though, is that my character is not knighted, obviously. I did not know the PrC was as well guarded before this, having played characters on the opposite spectrum than this faction before. I would like to take two levels of the PrC early which would give him one use of Rallying Cry a day for the RP flavor, but, rudimentarily he would need to be Knighted ICly before taking the class at all.

I would like your opinions on the matter. I do not plan on roleplaying as a commander or a battle leader with him at low levels, obviously. It's just the foundation of the character supported by the class's mechanics early on to establish what he's about in combat. I see it as more as his commitment to the faction. His overall level would warrant more to his reputation within the faction, and not the PrC itself as I do not plan on taking more levels in it for the more powerful warcrys until high teens. But, I understand the basic knight need knighting aspect of this as well.

So, to staff and other players, would you be offended or offput if I had a character who had PDK levels without them being first knighted? I repeat, I do not have any intention of roleplaying them as a knight, just whatever rank he is at the time. It's just for the RP aspect of the build for me, but I will not be upset if it isn't optional.

[ThayanKnight]

I would just assume the PrC is more of "Elite Purple Dragons" more than actual knights. Being knighted by the crown is rare enough to make the PrC pretty useless if that is a prereq. All my opinion, of course.

[tenorgeneral]

Personally, I find this class seems to be similar to the Pathfinder PRC Battle Herald, and would do better if utilized as such, rather than as something you have to be a knight to take.  It's a flavorful class, that's not super powerful, and well...  Combine that with the fact that getting knighted by the crown is a prereq, has meant in practice that there are no current PDKs on the server (talking about the class, not the Knightly Order RP achievement type thing).

The other issue I can see from a purely setting perspective is that only the king can knight someone, which means there will not be any PDK's for a while as the King can't take the throne yet, and the Regent is missing, and there is no exception in the royal traditions for Dowager Queens knighting people.

My two cents.

EDIT:  Actually every last PDK is knighted by the King, and there are quite a few of them, so it's not rare in setting (just rare for PCs in that...  maybe four that I have heard of have ever been knighted).

[Valimar Dragonbane]

Throwing this out there as well, I believe the Duelist class is partially broken in that the AC bonus doesn't turn on all the time.  I've got a couple of levels of it on Vilith, and while the concept is neat, if the class is really jacked up from a mechanics standpoint... that's an ouch.

[The Red Mage]

I think it works fine as long as you reequip your cloth armor with your weapon out.

[The Red Mage]

Alright. I'm still welcoming all opinions for and against this character concept. However, I want to make a new suggestion regarding the previous posts already:

Since there is no current King, and since only the King can knight people, and there is a very possible fact that we may never see another King on this server, would it be unreasonable to change the class instead to Purple Dragon Solider? It would take a change to the class's description. Perhaps mentioning that this class does not grant any IC rank. Ranking is determined by a character's personal roleplay?

I do not want to make it seem like I am changing the server just for one character, but it does seem like, otherwise, the class would just be unplayable for anyone ever.

[Dismus]

As one of players of the 3 or 4 actual Purple Dragon Knights knighted by the crown. Zander was knighted by the Steel Reagent and not the king. I would have no problem if someone took the class not being Knighted if they where a member of the Purple Dragon faction. A lot of the War Wizard characters take the class before they pass the tests to become War Wizards.  

[The Red Mage]

I plan on trying my best to be a part of and remain in the faction.

[tenorgeneral]

Historically Regents have all the powers of the kings they rule for until the king comes of age.  But as there's no Regent either right now...  problem.

Should have mentioned that in the first post of mine, but I forgot.  That being said, I'm pretty down with Dizzy's idea.

[The Red Mage]

All opinions for and against are still welcome.

In the meantime, I would like to invite an Admin to give me maybe an official decision, so I can go ahead and perhaps pend a LETO required for the mounted combat feat, so I can correctly judge how I want to introduce my character at level 3, since I plan on taking the first level at level 5.