Ooooh woe is the state of blackguards in Neverwinter Nights. I'd like to beef them up a little, not in the sense that you might be thinking, not because I play Mordor mostly, and also in accordance with the former idea of forcing alignments.
Aig't. So the eternal blackguard VS paladin & Champion of Torm dilemma. Well let's briefly discuss the advantages of each:
Paladin: Spells like aid/bless/prayer/divine favor all add a fair bit of AB and some irresistible damage that a blackguard cannot get unless he multi-classes with cleric.
Abilities like Lay on Hands, Remove disease, and fear/disease immunity allow the paladin to heal himself and have free immunity to certain monster abilities.
Feats like Divine Grace that a paladin gets sooner than a blackguard allow for some quick multiclass bonuses (a sorc 29/paladin 1/PM 10 is better than a sorc 28/BG 2/PM 10 by 3 feats: 1 bonus from level 29 sorc, power attack and cleave)
Paladins are a base class, not a prestige class (so a player could be a paladin 32/WM 7/rogue 1 if they wanted, but not a Blackguard 30/WM 7/rogue 3 or something)
The big wallop: Holy Sword, even after the change
Now these are all great paladin abilities, I don't mind having them in the game at all, but they're just in-contrast to Blackguards, okay? I don't want to change these.
MAKE sure you understand that before I continue!Champion of Torm: A bonus feat every 2 levels like a fighter, but it continues with +1 to saves and the smite evil ability is not reduced in power; as a result Champions of Torm can get a more powerful smite through epic bonus feats.
Divine Wrath grants +3 AB, divine damage (irresistible mind you), 5/+1 DR for 1 round/charisma bonus; the +3 AB and saves become +5 at level 10 CoT.
Also great Champion abilities, don't change 'em.
Blackguards: They have spell-like abilities such as inflict serious or critical wounds, contagion, bull's strength, and 2 summon spells. The summons have been improved a little, but not the other spells, I also believe that the epic blackguard summon is seriously buggy in that he either spends all his time casting before he dies, or kills himself, or both - I forget which.
Gets access to Sneak Attack.
Only class that can smite good.
Does eventually get Dark Blessing at level 2.
Requires cleave and +5 hide; so you can take 1 monk level or spend 2 feats to get the cleave requirement.
Is a prestige class.
So that's the situation.
I'll mostly leave Champions of Torm out of this however, because I believe they are more opposite to Assassins than Blackguards.
Okay, so the simplest solution that I've thought-through many times and heard from others even more: Blackguards should get (Un)Holy Sword. It occurred to me instead that I don't want to put another onhit-dispell weapon out there because there are enough complaints about it already.
Here's what I would do to blackguards to balance them with the above.
I picture blackguards as being an extreme evil; so much so that they draw the attention of even darker powers than themselves. This does not necessarily make the blackguard strong himself, but he has devious friends indeed.
For our blackguard-editing benefit (and assassins btw) bioware has separate spell IDs for blackguard inflicts, bull's strength, and summons; which is great because we can edit those without effecting the normal spells!
First, the experimental change: Edit the server's CLS_FEAT_BLKGRD file to make FEAT_PRESTIGE_DARK_BLESSING granted on level 1 instead of level 2, like paladins.
Second, change Bull's Strength: The blackguard (or his target) gains attack bonus and a bit of magical damage.
+3AB +1 AB/[3 Blackguard levels] to a maximum of +5 and +2 negative damage/[3 BG levels] to a maximum of +10 for 1 round/Blackguard level. Increase the uses/day to 2 (done in feats.2da)
Third, change Inflict Serious Wounds: The blackguard casts a spell that will heal (hit charisma modifier multiplied by his blackguard level) to himself, or a target undead/outsider; if targeted otherwise the spell will act as normal.
Fourth, change Inflict Critical Wounds: The blackguard grants +2 saving throw bonus and +2 magical damage/[3 Blackguard levels] to a maximum of +10 to a target undead/outsider for 1 round/charisma modifier; if targeted otherwise the spell will act as normal.
Fifth, change Contagion: The blackguard grants his charisma modifier in dodge AC to a target undead/outsider to a maximum of +10 for 1 round/[charisma modifier], and maybe a negative energy damage shield to that target like Unholy Aura for the same duration; if targeted otherwise the spell will act as normal.
Sixth, improve the summons; especially the epic vrock feat summon. These feats should not have spells, except the epic vrock summon which should be a Balrog that can cast (Un)Holy Sword on it's weapon once/day; this way they will attack, I think they should also be scripted to attack hostile Good-aligned targets first. It'd be easy enough to make these fairly good, and you can make it look awesome - a nice balor: Black model with a scythe
So you'll notice that a lot of the blackguards' abilities are now geared towards summoning and buffing/preserving those summons. Having a companion improves the blackguard's chances of getting to use his sneak attack abilities, and I believe it is more fitting for balancing VS paladins than having another holy sword on the market.