The Greyhawk Cleric

[Gullintanni]

Good morning playground!

I'm building a Cleric of Wee Jas based on Living Greyhawk rules (It's an awesome setting and the Greyhawk ruleset is far more balanced than vanilla 3.5). It's a 28-point buy.

I'm taking the Divine Magician ACF and Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF's. I plan to go Cleric 10/Divine Oracle 3/Contemplative 7. For those unfamiliar, Divine Magician means I get one Domain at first level, and I get to pick one Domain for Spontaneous Casting, which means my first Domain pick will be my Spontaneous one for all eternity.

Of the Domains offered by Wee Jas in Greyhawk, I'm interested in Domination, Magic and Inquisition; keeping in mind that the Magic domain 9th level spell is replaced by Miracle in Greyhawk rules (Disjunction is banned).

Which of these would make the best Spontaneous casting pick? I'm considering magic for spontaneous miracles and spontaneous Dispel Magics. Once I pick up the Inquisition domain, all dispel checks receive a +4 so there's power there for counterspelling etc.

Do you think this makes sense given my other choices? How would you spend your ability points?

[Keld Denar]

I'd pick Magic, it has more useful spells. You can copy/get the Inqusition domain a couple other ways. If you dip a level in Church Inquisitor (a pretty flavorful PrC for WeeJas, the Stern Lady, a VERY lawful diety), you pick it up as a bonus domain. If you just want the +4 dispel checks, you can put ranks in Knowledge Planes, buy a 250 gp rock, and spend your 6th or 9th level feat on Planar Touchstone from Planar Handbook. It gives you an ability based on the location you have it keyed too. The Catalogues of Enlightenment gives you one domain granted power. Pick Inquisition and you get your shnazzy +4 untyped bonus on dispels, easy as pie.

[Gullintanni]

I'd pick Magic, it has more useful spells. You can copy/get the Inqusition domain a couple other ways. If you dip a level in Church Inquisitor (a pretty flavorful PrC for WeeJas, the Stern Lady, a VERY lawful diety), you pick it up as a bonus domain. If you just want the +4 dispel checks, you can put ranks in Knowledge Planes, buy a 250 gp rock, and spend your 6th or 9th level feat on Planar Touchstone from Planar Handbook. It gives you an ability based on the location you have it keyed too. The Catalogues of Enlightenment gives you one domain granted power. Pick Inquisition and you get your shnazzy +4 untyped bonus on dispels, easy as pie.

Greyhawk doesn't use the Planar Handbook, but Church Inquisitor is a great idea. I'm somewhat frustrated by the cross-class knowledge (arcana) but that's still not a bad set-up. I don't have to take Contemplative quite as far that way.

Thanks!

P.S. any tricks for grabbing Knowledge (Arcana) as a class-skill for early entry? Divine Oracle has it but I can't enter that until level 6. Then I'd be taking Inquisitor at level 7, but It'd be nice to have Inquisitor asap.

[KillianHawkeye]

I don't know the rules for Living Greyhawk, but if you can use class variants from Unearthed Arcana, Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) gets all Knowledge skills in-class from the Knowledge domain.

[Gullintanni]

I don't know the rules for Living Greyhawk, but if you can use class variants from Unearthed Arcana, Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) gets all Knowledge skills in-class from the Knowledge domain.

LG doesn't use UA. It's the Completes, Races of the Wild/Stone/Dragon/Destiny, PHB2, Stormwrack, Sandstorm, Spell Compendium, Frostburn and the Miniatures Handbook.

I think my final build is going to be Cleric 5/Divine Oracle 1/Church Inquisitor 1/Cleric +3/Contemplative 1/Church Inquisitor +5/Cleric +4.

The resulting creation has access to the Magic, Oracle, Inquisition and Domination domains, resulting in a sort of Find, Interrogate, and Command strategy, which fits Wee Jas' portfolio's pretty well.

This build unfortunately ends up with only 12 levels of rebuking, but the only place I can think to cut is leave Church Inquisitor at level 1 and take cleric the rest of the way which seems a bit cheesy. Otherwise this seems like a pretty strong build. Good for buff/debuff/save-or-die and divination, with spontaneous AMF and Dispels coming from the Magic domain.

If anyone has any other advice, that'd be great but otherwise, I think I'm set.

Thanks!

[Keld Denar]

I like the first 6 levels of CI, but I know what you mean about the fact that its a drag that you lose turning. Also, LG rules ban Divine Spell Powah and Divine Metamagic, the two best outlets for your thusly neutered turning abilities.

If you took the Knowledge domain, you'd have all Knowledges as class skills, allowing 4th level entry into CI. That might be worth it over the Magic domain. You can pick up Magic later if you really want.

[Gullintanni]

I like the first 6 levels of CI, but I know what you mean about the fact that its a drag that you lose turning. Also, LG rules ban Divine Spell Powah and Divine Metamagic, the two best outlets for your thusly neutered turning abilities.

If you took the Knowledge domain, you'd have all Knowledges as class skills, allowing 4th level entry into CI. That might be worth it over the Magic domain. You can pick up Magic later if you really want.

Actually, having investigated it a little, Clerics get access to Knowledge: Arcana as a class skill, so getting into CI earlier is easy. I may defer until level 5 anyway, as prior to that there are precious few outlets for fighting undead, and the best thing about the Inquisition domain is the plus to Dispels. Dispel Magic is a 3rd level spell, so I can hold off until then.

Otherwise...Cleric 17/CI 1/Oracle 1/Contemplative 1 seems full of cheddar. With the phylactery of undead turning, your turning would be 21 at level 20, so you'd still be running just fine, but if I was DMing that game I'd be tempted to spank the player. It's a tough call. I need to find something else to do with my turning.

[Keld Denar]

Its fully legal. I actually had a friend in Living Greyhawk who had a Cleric6/RadiantServant5/CI1/Cont1/SacEx2. Dipping PrCs, especially those with rather heavy fluff reqs like CI and Contemplative do is kinda shady fluff-wise, but not at all abusive mechanics wise. So you have 5 domains to choose from...you still only have 1 domain slot unless you burn a bunch of time, XP, and money making scrolls.

Other LG legal items that increases TU powah: Rod of Defiance and Lyre of the Restful Souls from Libris Mortis and the Sacred Armor/Shield enhancements from the A&EG. My 12th level Living Greyhaw cleric had the armor/shield, phylactery, and rod before LG ended 3 years ago, and ended up dusting an Aspect of Vecna at level 12 in some Dyvers year 8 mod, which was hillarious. I got pretty lucky with my access, though. I'm assuming your DM basically just running a bunch of old LG mods for you? I could look through my old certs to find which ones gave me that access, if you can request to play them from your DM.

[Gullintanni]

Its fully legal. I actually had a friend in Living Greyhawk who had a Cleric6/RadiantServant5/CI1/Cont1/SacEx2. Dipping PrCs, especially those with rather heavy fluff reqs like CI and Contemplative do is kinda shady fluff-wise, but not at all abusive mechanics wise. So you have 5 domains to choose from...you still only have 1 domain slot unless you burn a bunch of time, XP, and money making scrolls.


We're not actually running LG mods, we just enjoy the ruleset. The limits imposed are designed to prevent game breaking and a little bit of creativity.

As for shaky fluff, the only reason I'd consider Cleric 17/CI 1/Oracle 1/Con 1 legal is that the thematic blending of the character isn't actually that horrible. CI fits with Wee Jas' theme of strong adherence to oversight and law. Oracle helps a CI do that job better and Contemplative is the icing on any Cleric's cake. You simply style it as interfacing directly with the deity through their chosen representative in order to better comprehend her will.

In this case, find the non-compliant, extract information from them and then (given that our chosen domain for contemplative is Domination), "enlist" the victims aid in routing other heretics. Each of these pieces fits a logically consistent end goal.

I suppose the end goal is versatility not world-rape. I just think seeing 1/1/1 seems a little bit flimsy. The character is obviously a "Cleric" not a "Church Inquisitor". I may go Cleric 15/CI 3/Oracle 1/Con 1. Either way, I may simply replace turning with an ACF and run it an a way that doesn't break quite so far away from reality (in my opinion).

The classes in question are very fluff heavy (oracle aside) and probably deserve more than a 1 level investment for that purpose.

Also, I had no idea LM was LG legal. That makes 15/3/1/1 a much more salvageable turning build.

[Keld Denar]

Um, I think some of the stuff out of it was legal. I know when it hit the market, there were a few mods around that featured a bunch of stuff from them. Thats how I got the duel sacred enchants on my armor. Living Greyhawk, and the RPGA in general, was pretty much WotC's "Book of the Month" club, since you had to actually own the book to use source material from it. Thats why I own so many books, lol.

Also, a PrC doesn't neccisarily dictate all of your fluff. You can be an inquisitor, with or without actual levels in CI. You can be an Oracle with or without levels in DO. The PrCs just give you a couple of mechanics to go along with your fluff, but you can fake most of their abilities with creative spell use anyway...

[Tvtyrant]

Why would Disjunction be banned in Greyhawk? Its from Greyhawk.

[Keld Denar]

It was banned in Living Greyhawk. Its basically a Pen and Paper MMO. The fact that Mordy's does huge, permanent damage to your WBL, in the environment where you don't have a DM who has absolute control to restore it, can cripple a high level character. Getting a PC from 1 to 15 (the level cap at the end of LG) took something like 300-350 hours played, depending on how much you played at higher APLs.