These are very good points, Dundee. Plus, I absolutely love the ability of a bard to get proficiencies in any weapons. So this is what I am looking at as the final build for the party:
Ranger/Cleric (multi)
Fighter/Thief
Fighter/Mage (multi) (I thought about this, and I think he serves a better role as a magic tank over the more mage-oriented kensai-mage, we already have a magic bombardier in the sorc)
Cleric/Mage (multi)
Blade
Sorcerer
One last question: could the Kensai 13=>Thief be replaced with an Assassin(24)=>Fighter, or even a multiclass fighter-thief? Here are the tradeoffs.
Kensai=>Thief
- Kai ability
- Extra bonuses to hit/damage
- Painful amounts of thief skills
- Many thief HLAs, traps, assassinate, etc
Assassin(24)=>Fighter
- x7 Backstab
- Poison Weapon
- Greater Whirlwinds, other fighter HLAs
- Still gets UAI
Fighter-Thief (multi)
- No dual-period
- Both fighter and thief HLAs
- Elf or halfling dex bonus
Quite honestly, I am leaning towards an entire multiclass party. With ToB, the HLAs are too good to pass up, it seems. If someone can give me a convincing argument not too, I will listen, but I don't really see what advantages (other than Kai (beaten by Critical Strike, Smite, you know) or the huge backstab (hard to duplicate)) you will gain by going the kit=>dual route.