Hierophant PrC: Am I dumb for taking it?

[Human Paragon 3]

The Hierophant prestige class is not amazing, that much is clear, but am I shooting myself in the foot by taking it? My character is a druid/human paragon/death delver. The highest spell level I can cast is 4, but my DM is allowing me to take Hierophant anyway.

The lack of true spellcasting levels obviously hurts, as I could advance my druid casting from level 4 to level 9 with a real spellcasting class. My attraction to Hierophant is that it makes my character better at what he already does (the focus is way more on Death Delver than druid), rather than change his abilities and character in a fundamental way.

Here's the sheet. (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=348853) Advice would be much appreciated.

[Urpriest]

...what do you do with Death Delver? Usually people dip it for turning. It's got a bunch of defensive features, but I have no idea what you would do with it. It's been frequently suggested as an Iron Chef ingredient for that very reason. If Death Delver is most of what you do, then...what do you do?

[Human Paragon 3]

A little bit of everything. Check out the laundry list of abilities on the sheet. The campaign has been very undead heavy, and will likely remain so, so DD is more useful than usual here. I can perform crowd control, throw out save-or-lose effects, heal, scroll cast, root out enemies with tracking and enhanced sensory abilities, make useful knowledge checks, or effectively front-line.

The build is a pile of nonsense, and I am the first to admit this, but it has been surprisingly effective in practice.

[Urpriest]

Ah in this case, definitely Hierophant. The difficulty with casting PrCs like Death Delver is caster level, with Hierophant you can apply the caster level advancement to Death Delver and come out with almost normal CL. You suffer none of the normal penalties from Hierophant because your Death Delver casting is already almost complete, and the Druid spells you would get by advancing Druid instead wouldn't be level appropriate and wouldn't fit well into your normal tactics.

[Human Paragon 3]

So you think the benefit of adding 5 CLs to death delver are greater than gaining 3rd, 4th, and 5th level druid spells?

[Grim Reader]

I am not sure what excatly is your attraction to Hieropahnt. What does it give your character that meshes well with his stuff?

Have you considered Bone Knight? Advance your Druid Casting 4 levels and get immunities for tanking? Or for a somewhat more exotic option, going evil and doing Blighter? You might need to fudge the "3rd level druid spells" requirement, but it sounds like your DM would be ok with that. You'd get 6th level spells and undead wild shape out of it.

The initial loss of Druid spellcasting wouldn't hurt as much because you seem to be functioning off your Delver casting.

On the Good side, there is Knight of the Raven, full BaB and almost full spellcasting.

[Human Paragon 3]

The hierophant abilities would basically enhance my death delver casting. I boost my delver CL, get the ability to cast my most powerful spells more often, cast touch spells at range, and boost my rebuking, essentially making me a stronger death delver.

Bone Knight sounds intriguing... where can I find it?

[ericgrau]

The caster level boost is worth it but the turning/rebuking boost is the one ability that isn't worth it. Your checks are 4 higher but you lost an effective level in rebuking because hierophant doesn't advance rebuking. For that matter how are you going to keep up in rebuking at all? Divine reach is a trade off, so that's up to you. It's still cheaper than reach spell metamagic if you use it frequently, though quite the drawback if you only use reach some of the time. If you have some trick for your rebuking to keep up then the special ability to share rebuking with other PCs is nice.

[Snowbluff]

The hierophant abilities would basically enhance my death delver casting. I boost my delver CL, get the ability to cast my most powerful spells more often, cast touch spells at range, and boost my rebuking, essentially making me a stronger death delver.

Bone Knight sounds intriguing... where can I find it?

The ability to hand out Wildshape/day is incredible. A party full of bears? Heck yeah!

Also, I agree every my master urpriest Urpriest. Long live the Urpriest!

[Human Paragon 3]

I don't have wild shape. Traded it away.

I suppose I could give out rage, fast movement, Monk AC bonus, and favored enemy, though. Not terrible, though I don't think most of my party members would benefit from those.

As for Rebuking, rebuking at +14 is better than rebuking at +10, no? Though other prestige classes might completely stack, which would be better.

Do you think War Priest would be a good choice instead? It stacks rebuke, gives me +5 BAB for front lining, a few nifty party boosting SLAs, and two caster levels for druid.

[ericgrau]

As for Rebuking, rebuking at +14 is better than rebuking at +10, no? Though other prestige classes might completely stack, which would be better.
If you look at the HD limits you need a +3 to get an HD higher on the creatures you rebuke and hierophant puts you a level behind. So effectively you got a +1. But not only that, the upper limit on the HD you can rebuke went down by 1 and no amount of bonus to your rebuking check will fix that. So overall I'd say it's a net loss. However you also get a huge +4 to your rebuking damage rather than the +1 you'd get from a level that advances rebuking normally. So it's great for rebuking swarms of weak undead, and a net loss for rebuking 1 or 2 powerful undead. I missed the 2nd part of that ability so maybe I should have asked about your campaign world first. Still, consider what you fight first in case you gimp yourself. (EDIT: I didn't think about the boost to swarms of undead originally and blamed it on writer error)

[Human Paragon 3]

My DM will probably let the hierophant levels stack with my delver levels for turning. If so, it will be a +9 to my cleric level for rebuking, and a +4 to turning damage, making me almost as good a rebuker as cleric 20, and in some ways better.

EDIT: The undead we face will probably either be swarms of small undead, or monsters with so many HD that you'd need to be an epic cleric to have a shot at turning them.

This is Return to the Tomb of Horrors.

[Heatwizard]

Bone Knight sounds intriguing... where can I find it?

Five Nations, one of the Eberron source books, page 119.

[Grim Reader]

Bone Knight is from Eberron, Five Nations page 117.


I don't have wild shape. Traded it away.

Good thing Blighter gives Wild Shape, it does not stack with previous wild shape ability:smallbiggrin:

If you can swich around two skill ranks to Knowledge: Dungoneering, you qualify for Abolisher: Also grants Wild Shape, 4/5 divine spell advancement, some Favored Enemy and Animal Companion Synergy.

Although you might find Abolisher 1/Master of Many Forms more useful.

I suggested Blighter over Ur-Priest, because Ur-Priest kills off all divine spellcasting when you enter. So you wouldn't have your 4th levels spells back untill level 18. Blighter would kill your Druid Casting, but leave the Delver spells alone.


Do you think War Priest would be a good choice instead? It stacks rebuke, gives me +5 BAB for front lining, a few nifty party boosting SLAs, and two caster levels for druid.

Its not useless, but I think you could do better.

[Human Paragon 3]

I'm not interested in wild shape. I traded it away for a reason. I don't want to turn into animals, I want to master the mysteries of death. Unless you can seriously sell me on Blighter, I don't think I will be taking it. The nature / forests aspect of my character is practically nil. The two druid levels represent mostly an intellectual connection to the magical forces of the world, and an abstract study of nature.

Ur Priest is basically out of the question, as I am a double divine caster already.

[Psyren]

Blighter is focused on death - not just of the natural world, but they get plenty of necromancy too (they get goodies like Harm and Create Undead that normal druids don't get), and even undead wild shape.

Ex-Druid 5/Blighter 10/Hierophant 5 gives you lots of power and chilling flavor.

[Human Paragon 3]

Blighter is focused on death - not just of the natural world, but they get plenty of necromancy too (they get goodies like Harm and Create Undead that normal druids don't get), and even undead wild shape.

Ex-Druid 5/Blighter 10/Hierophant 5 gives you lots of power and chilling flavor.

No doubt, but Death Delver 10 is not on the negotiation table.

How would Drud 5/Death Delver 10/Blighter 5 be?

[Grim Reader]

You'd get 5th level Blighter spells (Stuff like Harm and Create Undead), the ability to turn into animal skeletons and all the Death Delver stuff.

I looked up Boone Knight too, it is a PrC which grafts armor made of bones to itself. You'd get 4 more levels of spellcasting, some unded-related goods, and immunity to stunning. Sadly the best immunities come online after level 5.

I'd have suggested Walker in the Waste, but most people want that for the capstone at level 10.

Maybe you cold get your DM to agree to a Neutral entry to Knight of the Raven? A hard, full-BaB chassis, giving you +4 levels of spellcasting and +3 levels of Rebuking, greater turning and some more undead-related goodies.

Bone Knight gets Pro-undead stuff and Knight of the Raven anti, sortof.

[Human Paragon 3]

Thanks. I'll look into those.

[Psyren]

Nitpick: Harm and CU are 6th, not 5th.

[Human Paragon 3]

Hm, Knight of the Raven still doesn't get me 5th level druid spells by 20! It would only take me to druid CL 8. I don't think it's worth it. The major advantage over heirophant is the full BAB.

I think so far, Hierophant has the best package, weirdly enough.

[Grim Reader]

Nitpick: Harm and CU are 6th, not 5th.

Not on the Blighter list. Fifth all the way:smallbiggrin:


Hm, Knight of the Raven still doesn't get me 5th level druid spells by 20! It would only take me to druid CL 8. I don't think it's worth it. The major advantage over heirophant is the full BAB.

I think so far, Hierophant has the best package, weirdly enough.

Yes, to get 5th or higher level spells you either need an accellerated casting class, like Ur-Priest, Blighter or Divine Crusader. (Technically they could give you 6th.) Or a full-advancement PrC. I'm a bt stumped on what could do full-advancement and still have a good enough chassis to support you.

[Human Paragon 3]

Yeah, it's such a bizarre build and character. A BAB boost would be great since I do go into melee, but I need that spell casting punch. 4th level druid spells ain't gonna cut it at level 20. With Heirophant, I can get more castings of my higher-level spells, saving my spell points for the lower-level ones which are often of greater utility anyway.

If I can boost my rebuking and caster level from death delver, all the better.

Another odd house rule lets caster-level boosting PrCs boost other class features of the base class, so by boosting my death delver and druid caster levels with heirophant, I get to double dip the class features. Although Death Delver doesn't care about advancing beyond 10, a lot of the effects have their saves and durations based on D.D. level. Hierophant would bring me to effective death delver level 15, so my death ward will last 15 hours, my fear aura will be DC 28 and last 15 rounds, and so on.

[Psyren]

Not on the Blighter list. Fifth all the way:smallbiggrin:

YES on the Blighter list. 6th.

EDIT: Create Undead is indeed 5th, but Harm is 6th.

[Grim Reader]

YES on the Blighter list. 6th.

EDIT: Create Undead is indeed 5th, but Harm is 6th.

And 5th. Its one of the oddities of the Blighter list, Harm is on two levels.

[Psyren]

...Touché sir, I missed that.

@OP: Is that all the houserules regarding DD?

[Human Paragon 3]

It's not just regarding DD, it's regarding all prestige classes. Any PrC that says +1 spellcasting level or the like advances all the features of the class it's advancing.

This is a broken house rule, IMO, but we're using it. The wording of Hierophant combined with this house rule suggests to me that it will advance the class features of all my base classes "Levels in the hierophant prestige class, even though they do not advance spell progression in the character’s base class, still stack with the character’s base spellcasting levels to determine caster level." It doesn't say you need to specify a base class if you have more than one.

[Grim Reader]

...That does indeed make Hierophant a lot better than I was thinking. I don't think there are any full-advancement, full-bab class for divine caster.

[Snowbluff]

I don't have wild shape. Traded it away.

I suppose I could give out rage, fast movement, Monk AC bonus, and favored enemy, though. Not terrible, though I don't think most of my party members would benefit from those.

As for Rebuking, rebuking at +14 is better than rebuking at +10, no? Though other prestige classes might completely stack, which would be better.

Do you think War Priest would be a good choice instead? It stacks rebuke, gives me +5 BAB for front lining, a few nifty party boosting SLAs, and two caster levels for druid.

You traded away a class-feature-stronger-than-most-class Druid class feature to be more like a monk? Now that was dumb.

If I recall correctly War Priest isn't very good. My PrC of choice is RKV, but...

[Elfstone]

You traded away a class-feature-stronger-than-most-class Druid class feature to be more like a monk? Now that was dumb.

If I recall correctly War Priest isn't very good. My PrC of choice is RKV, but...

Mechanically, Hell yes.

Fluff wise, Nope, he did the right thing.

I agree on Bone knight, it could be quite nice.

[Psyren]

...That does indeed make Hierophant a lot better than I was thinking. I don't think there are any full-advancement, full-bab class for divine caster.

Sacred Fist does, if you go by text trumps table. Not that divine casters really needed full BAB, since they have Divine Power. (The Clerics do, anyway.)

[Human Paragon 3]

It made mechanical sense and fluff sense. I only have 2 levels of druid - not enough to wild shape anyway.

Unfortunately, I can't make the prereqs for sacred fist, so that's out.

[Snowbluff]

Mechanically, Hell yes.

Fluff wise, Nope, he did the right thing.

I agree on Bone knight, it could be quite nice.


It made mechanical sense and fluff sense. I only have 2 levels of druid - not enough to wild shape anyway.

Unfortunately, I can't make the prereqs for sacred fist, so that's out.

Okay. Fyi druid 19/Heirophant1 full wildshape party is cool, but if you don't have the feature in the first place then heirophant get a -1 from me. Warpriest would be getting my vote.

[Psyren]

Unfortunately, I can't make the prereqs for sacred fist, so that's out.

I wasn't actually suggesting it for you - I was responding to Grim Reader.

[Venger]

Blighter is focused on death - not just of the natural world, but they get plenty of necromancy too (they get goodies like Harm and Create Undead that normal druids don't get), and even undead wild shape.

Ex-Druid 5/Blighter 10/Hierophant 5 gives you lots of power and chilling flavor.

unfortunately, due to the BA requirement of +4 for blighter for whatever asinine reason, druid 5 does not qualify, so you need to either stay in druid a level (pointless, you lose all your abiliites anyway) or dip a full BA class such as ranger, like the sample character does. probably pick favoured enemy (animal). even if you're not going blighter, it's a decent choice, there's a lotta animals in this game.



Sacred Fist does, if you go by text trumps table. Not that divine casters really needed full BAB, since they have Divine Power. (The Clerics do, anyway.)

RAW, text does indeed trump table.

how are you getting into hierophant without being able to cast 7th lvl druid spells? is your DM giving you a pass? hierophant's kinda cool, there are much worse classes you could enter. are you going to go with any of the abilities or did you just want to focus exclusively on boosting your CL?

[Human Paragon 3]

how are you getting into hierophant without being able to cast 7th lvl druid spells? is your DM giving you a pass? hierophant's kinda cool, there are much worse classes you could enter. are you going to go with any of the abilities or did you just want to focus exclusively on boosting your CL?

Yeah, the DM is waving the 7th level slot requirement, since it has little to do with the class features of Hierophant. I was planning on grabbing an SLA or two, maybe boosting my rebuking, and possibly getting the ability to share rebuking or casting touch spells at range. Not sure if the last two are worth it.

[Venger]

And 5th. Its one of the oddities of the Blighter list, Harm is on two levels.

WotC does not have Profession (copyeditor) as a class skill. This was addressed in the errata:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://crpp0001.uqtr.ca/w4/campagne/Downloads/Downloads_WotC/Erratas/CompDiv_Errata09102004.pdf

and it says to delete it from the 5th lvl spell list. personally though, I'd say go ahead and delete it from the 6th lvl spell list, blighters need all the help they can get.

[Stallion]

A pretty good divine PrC (full spellcasting progression, d6 HD, full BAB, good class abilities) is the hexer, out of Masters of the Wild. I always thought the lightning bolt prereq odd, so my DMs have generally allowed me to have it with call lightning. The type prereq may be tricky for you, but your DM seems pretty permissable. Might be worth a shot.

[Venger]

A pretty good divine PrC (full spellcasting progression, d6 HD, full BAB, good class abilities) is the hexer, out of Masters of the Wild. I always thought the lightning bolt prereq odd, so my DMs have generally allowed me to have it with call lightning. The type prereq may be tricky for you, but your DM seems pretty permissable. Might be worth a shot.

hexer kicks ass. however, it was intended for NPCs, which is why it's got the monstrous humanoid prereq and requires lightning bolt as a divine spell, which is only available on the adept list.

you can always use southern magician to get into it though.