Duskblade 13/Crusader 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 6 seems to me to be much superior to Duskblade 20. You hit the really big duskblade class feature and retain your highest-level spells.

The issue is timing. The best levels to take Crusader are 5th, 9th, or 13th. Coincidentally, however, 5th, 9th, and 13th are also the levels where it is most painful to have a single level of crusader rather than being a single-classed duskblade, as those are the levels at which you get new levels of spells (and full-attack arcane channeling, in the case of 13th). You have two competing goals: get the next spell level (and full-attack arcane channeling) as soon as possible, while having maneuvers for as long as possible, since they are useful.

Therefore, I recommend taking the crusader level at 6th, 10th, or 14th; that is, I’d take the next spell level first, rather than the maneuvers. Here’s a breakdown of each option:

Duskblade 5/Crusader 1

You can take 2nd-level maneuvers with your first five maneuvers. This means, primarily, that you will have mountain hammer for the longest possible time, which is awesome. Other than that, though, you’ll probably still take a number of 1st-level maneuvers.

Duskblade 9/Crusader 1

You can take 3rd-level maneuvers and stances with your initial set; you can skip crusader’s strike for revitalizing strike, you can still take mountain hammer, and the amazing white raven tactics is available to you. Thicket of blades opens up as an interesting stance option; martial spirit is pretty small at these levels, and thicket of blades greatly improves your presence on the battlefield.

Duskblade 13/Crusader 1

Clearly if you haven’t taken crusader by this point, you should. Duskblade has little to offer, so you lose almost nothing at this point. The disadvantage of waiting this long is that you haven’t had maneuvers at all until this point. The advantage, on top of duskblade features ASAP, is divine surge, an excellent offensive maneuver.

The Awkward Bit

OK, so now that we’ve covered how to do it, there’s one other thing to consider: you cannot use arcane channeling and a martial strike at the same time. Arcane channeling requires a standard action attack or a full-attack, so the attack(s) you get from a strike don’t count. This makes strikes massively less useful to you than they would be to others. A boost or counter heavy selection of maneuvers solves this issue; you could do pretty well with defensive rebuke, shield block, and white raven tactics. But missing out on fantastic options like mountain hammer, tactical strike, the various healing strikes, and divine surge is a disappointment.

It also means you don’t have especially great mobility. You have invested 13 levels in duskblade to allow you to full-attack with spells, so you really do want to be making full-attacks. Crusader doesn’t help with that. Swordsage or warblade would help a little, since Tiger Claw is pretty good at that (sudden leap, arguably pouncing charge), but cleric for Travel Devotion or barbarian for Lion Spirit Totem (Pounce) might be better. Those options don’t lead into a great prestige class like jade phoenix mage, but they still might be better options.

The Other Thing

Finally, item-based healing is generally sufficient in 3.5. In-combat healing is rarely an optimal strategy, barring emergencies; the crusader is far better at this than other classes, but you shouldn’t usually need it. The aura you describe all-but-eliminates the worst emergencies, too. Wands and healing belts are quite sufficient for out-of-combat healing. As Jeor Mattan mentioned in comments, the real draw of actually having a cleric is the various options he or she would provide for removing status conditions, since items have HP-healing pretty much covered (and until you get heal, clerics’ HP-healing spells are pretty poor), and crusaders don’t cover that at all.

This is another situation where a level of cleric may be more useful to you: it would allow you to use wands of any cleric spells you like, with no Use Magic Device check. That will cover a lot your needs.

The best way that I can see you improving your combat effectiveness is through the specific spells you choose.

As you had said, money is sort of tight in your campaign, so you need to make due with what you have at your disposal naturally. Luckily, this isn't hard considering that you have a +4 Cha score (Giving you anywhere between 1-4 additional spells per day at your current bonus). So considering your want to improve how well you do in combat, focus on preparing combat buff spells

These are the spells that I think you should prioritize (keep in mind that I only have the core rule book on hand):

+Bless Weapon(1st): A very situational buff, but powerful when used against the right enemies (ya did good on this one)

+Magic Weapon(1st): Prepare this instead of Bless. Bless may give you a bonus against fear, but Magic Weapon increases your damage as well as your attack bonus.

+Bull's Strength(2nd): I know that you put most of your stuff into Ranged Weapons, but everything on the list available to me is either a buff you don't need or something that seams too underhanded for a "rock star" (also, I don't think you need a spell that lets you take half of the damage that your friends take when there is a fully-functioning tank). As you may already know, Bull's Strength increases your Strength Ability by 4, so at the very least, you increase your Combat Maneuver Scores. This means it's easier to absolutely wreak an enemy's day by affecting how they move, inflicting statuses on them, or simply moving through them.

+Greater Magic Weapon(3rd): THIS is one of the key spells you should prepare when you get into the upper echelons. It's like Magic Weapon, but it gives you additional bonus amounts for every four levels your character has. Also, this spell specifically states that you can cast this spell on up to 50 arrows in the same quiver; this means that if you have to switch to another bow, or if your party also invests in bows, the spell is used to its maximum potential between multiple weapons.

+Prayer(3rd): Anyone in a 40ft radius of you receives a +/-1 to every roll depending on their loyalties; That's an increased advantage of 2 against whatever enemies you are fighting!

+Dispel Chaos/Evil(4th): these two spells give you +4 against the attacks of the designated alignment and automatically dispels effects cast by said creatures or spells that are of that alignment

This last one is just in case you attempt to build physically or your Fighter is being cornered by a Demon or something...

-Holy Sword: PROS: weapon automatically becomes +5 AND deals an additional 2d6 damage to Evil Creatures. CONS: Can only be applied to melee weapons and negates the powers of whatever weapon it is used on (that last bit could be fun to use against an enemy using an all-powerful cursed weapon, but again, this is a bit situational)

I hope this helps.

P.S.: Your party should invest in Heavy Repeating Crossbows once you hit level 10
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