Splat recommendations

[Occasional Sage]

I'm kicking around a new character concept: a half-orc gish cleric of Gruumsh. My intention is to build Death Knell (eventually built into my weapon) to kill stuff and boost my CL (Gruumsh approves of the killing, right?) before raining spells of death and destruction down on my enemies.

What, in ya'll's opinions, are the four or five best books to draw on, and why?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Races of Faerun.

Why? Grey Orc. MUCH superior to Half-orc in this case (assuming you can buy off the LA). Hells, even if you can't, it's still probably a better choice. Especially since it has Favored Class: Cleric...

[Flickerdart]

Grey Orc? More like Water Orc (UA). Half-Orc also gets Half-Orc Paragon from that book, and the alternative Paladins might be useful.

CW has Eye of Gruumsh, which as I recall is all right, but it won't advance casting. Complete Divine and Champion are obvious assets. Spell Compendium has a lot of really nice spells that would help you with the gishing and the smiting.

[mucco]

Premise: with Death Knell, the build won't work well. Bonuses from the same source don't stack, so even if you casted the spell ten times, you'd only get a +1 to CL.

With that in mind,
1. Spell Compendium: Consumptive Field does exactly what you're looking for. More, it's an area effect so you don't have to cast it every time you kill someone, and you don't have to send someone between -1 and -9 for the trick to work. As an added bonus, SC has tons of stuff for any caster.
2. Complete Divine: DMM Persist that Consumptive Field, win d&d.
3. Complete Champion: Animal/Knowledge/Luck/Travel Devotion feats. Pure awesome.
4. Libris Mortis: get your sidekicks up and running!
5. Magic Item Compendium: equipment is going to be important.

Keep in mind that DMM Persist Consumptive Field is a cheap broken trick that as a DM I wouldn't allow.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Grey Orc? More like Water Orc (UA). Half-Orc also gets Half-Orc Paragon from that book, and the alternative Paladins might be useful.

CW has Eye of Gruumsh, which as I recall is all right, but it won't advance casting. Complete Divine and Champion are obvious assets. Spell Compendium has a lot of really nice spells that would help you with the gishing and the smiting.

Depending on the PB and how much casting the OP intends, that -2 to Wisdom might be a bit much to swallow. Still, if he doesn't much care for the higher level casting/high PB game, then Water Orc is an excellent suggestion.

[Flickerdart]

The best damage spells don't offer a save, and neither do buffs, so his Wisdom is entirely beside the point.

[Particle_Man]

Grey Orc? More like Water Orc (UA). Half-Orc also gets Half-Orc Paragon from that book, and the alternative Paladins might be useful.

And you could go from half-orc paragon to orc paragon for extra str goodness. :)

[Occasional Sage]

Six levels of no-CL seems... less than optimal.

[mucco]

Yup. If you want prestige classes, find some in the Completes maybe. It's not necessary though, straight Cleric is good enough. DMM Persist/Quicken is the way to build a gishy cleric. If you don't want to be broken, avoid persisting Consumptive Field and cast it each combat, while focusing on other buffs.