DMM for a Cleric/Sublime Chord?

[Palanan]

...and wow do I need help.

I've never done much with bards, and only rarely dabble with arcane casters, so I'm all at sea with this. I'd like to finish the build at 12th level, just high enough to get the Song of Arcane Power...but for everything between Bard X and SC 2, I'm really at a loss.

This will be for an individual in my campaign which the PCs won't meet for some time, although his attitudes and decisions may affect them well before then. He'll be a highly-placed figure in a substantial principality, possibly the Royal Astronomer, and he's mainly preoccupied with observing the heavens and countering the machinations of the neighboring realms.

Apart from bard levels, I'd also like him to have a connection with the local goddess of magic, possibly involving theurge-ness. This will be someone who started as a dilettante and found his focus later in life, so I'm open to all manner of options, from just about any 3.0/3.5 sourcebook, including Dragon magazine.

So, so, so. Suggestions?

[Keld Denar]

Typical entry is often something like:

Bard8/Virtuoso2/Sublime2/Virtuoso+8

Or some variant with a touch of Mindbender or Lyric Thamateurge splashed in prior to Virtuoso if you can manage it. The reason for Virtuoso here is that the only really good things from Sublime Chord are the spellcasting and Song of Arcane Powah. You get the latter after 2 levels, and the former via anything that advances spellcasting. Virtuoso advances spellcasting, along with giving you more music/day and gives 6+int skill points.

I'd suggest your race to be Silverbrow Human (Dragon Magic), and your feat progression to be:

1st Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic)
H Melodic Casting (CMage)
3 Songs of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting)
6 Lyric Spell (CAdventure)
9 Rapid Metamagic (or Arcane Preperation, both CArcane)
12 Quicken Spell (PHB)
15 Minor Shapeshift (CMage)
18 something

If you can take flaws, I'd pick up Extra Music at 1st level just to give yourself some more encounters/day usefulness at 1st level. You can convert the extra songs into extra spells via Lyric Spell later, so its not really a waste of a feat.

[Harry]

You could play a cleric1/savage bard 5/sublime chord 2/ur priest 2/mystic thurge 10 at level 1 take Heretic of the Faith that allows you to go ur priest the build gives 9th lvl divine and 9th level arcane spells if the game stops at 12 you still have 6th level arcane and 4th Level divine spells also iirc ur priest allows you to keep your domain powers so pick your a domain that your deity grants and any other domain since heretic of the faiths allows you to switch out a single domain hope this helps:smallsmile:

[Palanan]

Lyric Thaumaturge actually looks really interesting, and fits well with what I have in mind. I'd love to incorporate this, but I'd also like to bring in a touch of divine casting, and possibly fit a couple levels of theurge in there somewhere.

Dragon 311 has the Green Whisperer, which advances bardic abilities and both bardic and druidic spellcasting. Ideally I'd like something just like that, except with cleric instead of druid. Is there a way to include a little divine casting in there?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You could use Prestige Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm#prestigeBard), adapted to advance divine casting as per Divine Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantDivineBard) , and go Cloistered Cleric 5/ X 3/ Divine Prestige Bard 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Mystic Theurge 8. Use Greater Anyspell via the Spell domain to fulfill the arcane casting requirement of Sublime Chord, since spells you cast via (Greater) Anyspell are cast as arcane spells. You'll need to find a prestige class that advances divine casting and grants Perform as a class skill, or spend a feat on Apprentice: Performer (DMG2). That ends up with 17/20 Cloistered Cleric casting and full Sublime Chord casting, with access to Divine feats/cheese.

[Keld Denar]

You could play a cleric1/savage bard 5/sublime chord 2/ur priest 2/mystic thurge 10

Build is also illegal. Its really not possible to enter Sublime Chord without some severe skill point shanananananananananananigans before ECL11. Most DMs aren't gonna allow the Inspire Greatness + Psychic Reformation trick to work.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Keld Denar
Build is also illegal.... Most DMs aren't gonna allow the Inspire Greatness + Psychic Reformation trick to work.

Agreed on that last point about sha(nana)(4)gans. I'm the DM, and there's no way I'd allow that.


Originally Posted by Biffoniacus_Furiou
You could use Prestige Bard, adapted to advance divine casting as per Divine Bard, and go Cloistered Cleric 5/ X 3/ Divine Prestige Bard 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Mystic Theurge 8.... You'll need to find a prestige class that advances divine casting and grants Perform as a class skill...

In fact, I'd been thinking about using Cloistered Cleric as a starting point, and I'd love to find exactly the kind of PrC you've described.

So, any suggestions?
.
.
EDIT: Also, since the cloistered cleric's lore ability is described as identical to bardic knowledge, would those two abilities stack?
.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Building on the Mystic Theurge shenanigans...

Savage Bard 5/Ur-Priest 2/Mystic Theurge 3/Sublime Chorde 2/Mystic Theurge +7 is entirely legal. It requires you to be chaotic (savage bard) evil (ur-priest) and Iron Will, Spell Focus (Evil) before level 6. This set-up also requires a load of skill points to be burnt for the cross-class ranks in Listen for Sublime Chorde. You could ditch a level of Mystic Theurge for another in Savage Bard to aid that, but that slows down Ur-Priest's casting.

Another option is to go Lyric Thaumaturge from Complete Mage in place of Virtuoso. Feat wise, Keld's got you covered. The stub goes Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 4/Sublime Chorde 2/Full casting +8. If you grabbed Arcane Preparation, the +8 could be Ultimate Magus for more shenanigans. This approach requires Practiced Spellcaster (Bard) and accepting the idea that the feat Arcane Preparation is enough to qualify. It's pretty damned cheesy, but Lyric Thaumaturge 3 nets you a 1st and a 2nd wizard/sorcerer spell known for your bard slots.

If you don't like the UM approach, then Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 3/Virtuoso 1/Sublime Chorde 2/Virtuoso +8 is almost identical to Keld's stub, save being a level late for Virtuoso Performance.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

In fact, I'd been thinking about using Cloistered Cleric as a starting point, and I'd love to find exactly the kind of PrC you've described.

So, any suggestions?

I already gave you links to both the Prestige Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/prestigiousCharacterClasses.htm#prestigeBard) and the Divine Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantDivineBard) variants, originally found in Unearthed Arcana. It would be as simple as switching Prestige Bard's spellcasting prerequisite to divine spells rather than arcane, and its advancement to divine casting. Note that as per the sidebar on page 71 of UA, you would still add the Bard-exclusive spells to your Cleric spell list for taking Prestige Divine Bard. If you're using Spell Compendium, the Cleric list already has a 1st level spell of each of those schools, so no problem there.

[Socratov]

Typical entry is often something like:

Bard8/Virtuoso2/Sublime2/Virtuoso+8

Or some variant with a touch of Mindbender or Lyric Thamateurge splashed in prior to Virtuoso if you can manage it. The reason for Virtuoso here is that the only really good things from Sublime Chord are the spellcasting and Song of Arcane Powah. You get the latter after 2 levels, and the former via anything that advances spellcasting. Virtuoso advances spellcasting, along with giving you more music/day and gives 6+int skill points.

I'd suggest your race to be Silverbrow Human (Dragon Magic), and your feat progression to be:

1st Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic)
H Melodic Casting (CMage)
3 Songs of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting)
6 Lyric Spell (CAdventure)
9 Rapid Metamagic (or Arcane Preperation, both CArcane)
12 Quicken Spell (PHB)
15 Minor Shapeshift (CMage)
18 something

If you can take flaws, I'd pick up Extra Music at 1st level just to give yourself some more encounters/day usefulness at 1st level. You can convert the extra songs into extra spells via Lyric Spell later, so its not really a waste of a feat.

don't forget the spellbreaker song ACF, the Hymn of HealingACF (they both replace songs you wouldn't need anyway) and to take Song of the heart at lvl 6 as ACF, that frees up 2 feats you can fill with lingering song and Chaos Music so you won't exactly miss out on the last bonus to Inspire courage...

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Various Folks
*several bard variants*

I appreciate the suggestions, but the Prestige Bard loses several spellcasting levels, and I'd rather keep those and fit in something theurgic. Savage bard wouldn't really work for the character concept I have in mind. Divine Bard would be great in some ways, but unfortunately I don't think it would qualify for Sublime Chord or Lyric Thaumaturge.


Originally Posted by Thrice Dead Cat
Another option is to go Lyric Thaumaturge from Complete Mage in place of Virtuoso. Feat wise, Keld's got you covered. The stub goes Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 4/Sublime Chord 2....

In fact, this is close to what I'm thinking, although I have a different take on the first six levels. The build I'm thinking of is

....Bard 2/Cleric 3/CW 1/ Lyric Thaumaturge 4/Sublime Chord 2

where "CW" is my slightly altered version of the Green Whisperer, which I'll call "Celestial Whisperer" for want of a better name. Since the Green Whisperer advances bard and druid spellcasting, but no other druid abilities, it doesn't seem much of a stretch to advance cleric spellcasting but no other cleric abilities.

So if my math is correct (and unlike Tony Stark, my math is rarely correct) this should allow for Lyric Thaumatuge and Sublime Chord as planned, and Practiced Spellcaster should bring his cleric casting up to 8th level, which is good enough for me. Does this look workable?

[Thrice Dead Cat]

don't forget the spellbreaker song ACF, the Hymn of HealingACF (they both replace songs you wouldn't need anyway) and to take Song of the heart at lvl 6 as ACF, that frees up 2 feats you can fill with lingering song and Chaos Music so you won't exactly miss out on the last bonus to Inspire courage...

I always forget about the Eberron Campaign Setting's ACF that lets Bards sacrifice later bardic music effects for bonus feats. Being able to free up a feat for Chaos Music earlier is nice, even though Chaos Music itself is a bit like Practiced Spellcaster.

Another option is taking two levels in Divine Crusader, possibly by going Bard 6/Paladin 2/Divine Crusader 2/Sublime Chorde 2. It's full CHA-casting, even if it requires some alignment finagling. Paladin of Freedom 2 could be used, but that locks the character in as CG rather than just ~G.

Going back the UM idea, you could take on Knight of the Weave 2 (Champions of Valor, PG 111) before continuing with Sublime Chorde. It's still all arcane casting, but KotW does come with the whole "servant of magical deity" shtick you're wanting.


I'd probably go with the Paladin approach, but I'm a sucker for getting +CHA to saves.

[Palanan]

I didn't know about the Eberron ACF, which sounds great. Chaos Music would rock, although I may reflavor it a little to downplay the "chaos" aspect, since there will be some cloistered cleric in there, which doesn't seem too chaotic. Thanks for the recommendation on that one...I don't play bards, so I'd never heard of it.

And you're right, Knight of the Weave is perfect for the concept...just, unfortunately, not all that exciting mechanically. Maybe one of the Initiate feats?

[Coidzor]

Heck. Chaos Music is what Practiced Spellcaster wishes it could be and that Practiced Manifester is, but only for Ardents.

And it's about the only justification for requiring bards to be chaotic, despite the fact that fundamental laws of music and magic would imply that, yeah, there should be a lawful equivalent anyway.

[Flickerdart]

A Bard 1 dip with Extra Music and Talfirian Song will allow you to spoof the spell levels needed to enter Sublime Chord, so long as you have an Illusion spell known. The next 9 levels can be in whatever. It could be worth grabbing 9 levels of Cleric, and then going SC 2/MT 8 for double nines.

For an alternative spin, go Wizard, dip something skillful closer to 10th to get your skills where they need to be, then take your Sublime Chord into Ultimate Magus, using your Wizard side to power sweet metamagics and so forth.

[Palanan]

At some point I might work up an Ultimate Magus, but probably not for this guy; I'm avoiding the wizardly approach for a number of reasons.

Right now I have three levels of cloistered cleric, and another four of Lyric Thaumaturge...but I'm not entirely set on the latter. Divine Crusader is a little too militant for this character, and also he's extremely weak on BAB, so wouldn't qualify until after Sublime Chord 2 in any event.

Divine Oracle would be easy, and would be a good fit for the persona (and give him four domains along the way)...but for a brief dip, the Oracle Domain doesn't seem that useful. Extra Music is already in there, maybe needs a couple more ACFs.

[danzibr]

Typical entry is often something like:

Bard8/Virtuoso2/Sublime2/Virtuoso+8

Or some variant with a touch of Mindbender or Lyric Thamateurge splashed in prior to Virtuoso if you can manage it. The reason for Virtuoso here is that the only really good things from Sublime Chord are the spellcasting and Song of Arcane Powah. You get the latter after 2 levels, and the former via anything that advances spellcasting. Virtuoso advances spellcasting, along with giving you more music/day and gives 6+int skill points.

I'd suggest your race to be Silverbrow Human (Dragon Magic), and your feat progression to be:

1st Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic)
H Melodic Casting (CMage)
3 Songs of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting)
6 Lyric Spell (CAdventure)
9 Rapid Metamagic (or Arcane Preperation, both CArcane)
12 Quicken Spell (PHB)
15 Minor Shapeshift (CMage)
18 something

If you can take flaws, I'd pick up Extra Music at 1st level just to give yourself some more encounters/day usefulness at 1st level. You can convert the extra songs into extra spells via Lyric Spell later, so its not really a waste of a feat.
Supposing you want to take Words of Creation, where would you throw that in? Then again, if you're taking Words of Creation you're more buff-centric. Maybe I should make a thread on this...

[Socratov]

either lyric spell or Words of creation at 6, and the other after that one. Is lyric spell worth it btw?

[Acanous]

There's a feat somewhere called "Poignant Pause" that lets you continue using bardic music while doing something else (Such as casting a spell) for a round. No idea where it is, one of my fellow players has it.

[Keld Denar]

Melodic Casting is better than that in nearly all respects. It allows you to activate wands and cast spells without breaking a song. That means that with few exceptions, you can keep a single IC going throughout a fight. It also allows you to make Perform checks in nearly every situation where you would be required to make Concentration checks. This not only saves you 1 skill point per level that you can invest elsewhere, but for most bards, Cha tends to be a few points higher than Con.

I didn't include Words because I don't like it. It has the [Exalted] tag, which means you have to be exalted to keep it. I prefer bards to be a bit more scoundrelly, and its hard to be scoundrelly while being exalted. So, blah.

As far as Lyric Spell, I LOVE it. You almost always have more songs than you ever need. This let's you syphon a few off to cast spells. More spells is always better than fewer spells. I'm in a game right now where I'm expected to summon 5 Phantom Steeds just about every day for the party to travel with. I couldn't do it without Lyric Spell. One steed is 4 musics, and I have like, 15 with Extra Song. It's just really really useful. Also, music comes back each day, regardless, so if you ever find yourself in a situation where you can't rest, you can still get some spells back per day.

[kulosle]

Okay so as a man who has played several Bards and loves them more than any other class I have a few suggestion. Hopefully I remember them all.

Kelds first post is the poster boy for all bards and is a really good build.

Theurge Bard.
If you do want double nines there are a few good ways to do it. All of them involve taking 2 levels of Ur-priest, 2 levels of Sublime Chord and 7-8 levels in a dual progression class. So the question becomes what of the first 8-9 levels. Savage bard 8 works fine if you choose mystic theurge 8 as your dual progression class. Other wise it gets complicated. Fochlucan Lyrist would be the ideal dual progression but that takes evasion so you have to push every thing back a level Savage bard 7/ rogue 2/ ur priest 2/ sublime chord 2/ fochlucan lyrist 7. This means you would start a level 12 with only one level of sublime chord. You could take one less level of bard so that every thing lines up nicely still and use cheese to get higher level spells sooner. Sanctum spell is the easiest. Also you can drop a level of bard for mindbender 1 for mindsight if that is important to you.

The ACF for extra feats is very important as most bards would be feat starved without it, and is still hungry for feats with it.

Bardadin
Thrice dead cats suggestion about a paladin bard is a good one but i'd alter it a bit. There is a devoted performer that makes your bard and paladin levels stack for bardic music and smite (and lets bards be lawful). There is the initiate of mill feat which lets bard/cleric/paladin levels stack for bardic music (maybe twice with both feats). There is a feat called smite to song that lets your trade smite attempts for bardic music uses. Then there is a prestige class that I'm spacing the name one (see knew I'd forget something) that lets you turn turn undead attempts into smite attempts. So now you have all of the bardic music to be had. Also there is the War Chanter class but you already said that you didn't want to be too militant, but it is a really good class all the same that you might want to look at.

YES! Lyric Spell is worth it!

Poignant Pause < Melodic Casting < Lingering Song
Fights rarely last longer than 10 rounds. If you find that this isn't true then go with melodic casting, but for most cases lingering song will do the trick.

[Flickerdart]

Initiate of the Draconic Mysteries gets Evasion at 1st level - but the entry cost is three feats and a fair number of skills.

[Coidzor]

If you like druid casting and can get a non-class-based evasion OK'd, you can fit druid and sublime chord into a fochluchan lyrist build. Requires Dragon Magazine material though.


Bard 2/ Druid 3/ Green Whisperer (Drag #311) 5/ Sublime Chord 1/ Fochluhan Lyrist 9 - Dual 9s just requires a trick to get evasion like Impulse Boots (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=eai9v3lbtdk3bu55fh3pkjm1r0&topic=6950.msg226807#msg226807)

[kulosle]

I forgot about the prerequisite to of being able to speak druidic. Is there a way around that?

[Morph Bark]

I forgot about the prerequisite to of being able to speak druidic. Is there a way around that?

Get a Druid to teach you Druidic in-character, but good look convincing one under a wary DM.

[Coidzor]

I forgot about the prerequisite to of being able to speak druidic. Is there a way around that?

Enchantment spells are rather useful there if you find something not-immune. Only needs to be a 1st level druid, after all.

[Palanan]

Okay, thanks to everyone for the suggestions on this. For now I think I'm going with a Bardic Sage/Cloistered Cleric of Oghma, with the following build:

....Bard 3/Cleric 2/CW1/Lyric Thaumaturge 4/Sublime Chord 2/Contemplative 1

--but I'm still not sure which feats to go with. Here's what I have so far:


1st standard - Melodic Casting
.....human - Extra Music
.....flaw - ?
3rd standard - Practiced Spellcaster (Cleric)*
6th standard - Practiced Spellcaster (Bard)
8th bonus - Captivating Melody**
9th standard - ?
12th standard - ?


*Note that he'll actually take the early levels in the order B1/B2/CC1/CC2/B3.
**Bonus feat from Lyric Thaumaturge; looks utterly meh, but it's free.

He'll take the Healing Hymn ACF from Complete Champion, and will start out with the Luck and Travel domains (plus Knowledge from Cloistered Cleric). When he takes his level of Contemplative, he'll go with the Charm domain, which gives a 4-point boost to Charisma once per day.


So, I have a few questions on this:

1. Is there a cap on the bonus from Healing Hymn, depending on the level of the healing spell? For instance, if he has 13 ranks in Perfom and uses the hymn together with a CLW, will the bonus be +13, or is it capped in some way? And will that bonus stack with the standard bonus for caster level?

2. Does the Song of Arcane Power only apply to arcane spells, or can it amplify divine casting as well? Apart from the name itself, there's nothing in the text that specifies which spells are modified.

3. Bardic Sage grants a bonus divination spell for each spell level he's able to cast. Since Lyric Thaumaturge and Sublime Chord continue his bardic spellcasting, will he gain the bonus divination spells for those higher levels as if he'd continued with Bardic Sage?

4. There's a bard ACF from Expedition to Castle Ravenloft called Inspire Turning, which swaps out Inspire Competence in exchange for a +2 bonus on an ally's turning check. I don't have this source, so I can't check the exact wording...but if the bard has cleric levels, could this apply to his own turning checks? And if so, would this work with Divine Spell Power?

5. Are there any other interactions between cleric and bard abilities that he could take advantage of?
.

[Socratov]

1. Uncapped IIRC (which makes it so great)
for the rest i have no idea...

[Palanan]

If Healing Hymn is uncapped, that would be useful. 1d8+5+13 would certainly be an improvement on the standard CLW.

As for the empty feat slots, it occurs to me that I could fit in Extend Spell, Extra Turning and Divine Metamagic. I think DMM is explicitly restricted to divine spells, but even so, that could be a powerful combination alongside Sublime Chord.

[eggs]

DMM is a huge investment, and isn't going to do much for you with only 3 Cleric levels. If you can use the Alternative Source Spell feat (Dragon 325), you could use it on Sublime Chord/Bard Spells, which would be kind of neat, if you can also use nightsticks. Otherwise, I'd skip it.

[Keld Denar]

Alternatively, if you go with Illumian over Human (you have an unused flaw feat), you can effectively DMM Persist 2 spells/day, irregardless of source. So you could DMM Siren's Call or Greater Mirror Image or something like that. Saves you a feat since you only need Extend + Persist, rather than Extend + Persist + DMM, so you really don't lose anything.

[Palanan]

I'm actually not much of a DMM artiste, as you can probably tell. Is Persist pretty much the only reason to go the DMM route?

Also, for various reasons, I don't want to go with an Illumian for now, so I'm set on human. But not necessarily set on DMM, just wondering about those feat slots I still have to fill. Divine Spell Power was another option I was considering.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I'm actually not much of a DMM artiste, as you can probably tell. Is Persist pretty much the only reason to go the DMM route?

Also, for various reasons, I don't want to go with an Illumian for now, so I'm set on human. But not necessarily set on DMM, just wondering about those feat slots I still have to fill. Divine Spell Power was another option I was considering.

Divine Metamagic gets a lot of use with Persistent spell, but it gets expensive on turn undead attempts. The only other metamagic feat worth using DMM on is probably Quicken Spell, but that trades "Day long buffs" for "free" quickened spells.

[eggs]

I'm actually not much of a DMM artiste, as you can probably tell. Is Persist pretty much the only reason to go the DMM route? Rapid, Chain, Quicken, Reach and Twin can all be useful on various primary-casting builds, but they're all a bit more dependent on build specifics than Persist, with regard to their usefulness. They're less boring/overplayed, though.

It might be worth 3-4 feats (DMM, Specific Metamagic, ASS and maybe Rapid Metamagic, depending on DMM implementation) to get 2-3 quickens per day (before nightsticks), but that's a huge investment for an effect that comes up 0-1 times per fight.

[KicktheCAN]

Pick up the Southern Magician feat at 1st level. It will allow you to use DMM on your Sublime Chord spells.

Then go Cloistered Cleric 7/Heartfire Fanner 3/Sublime Chord 2/Mystic Theurge 8.

You only actually need one level of Heartfire Fanner (Dragon #314) but I recommend taking three since it gives some great class features. You do need to pick up Perform as a class skill to get in. The Flexible Mind feat can do that for you and there are probably some prestige classes you could enter by 7th level that would net it for you.

If you don't care about Song of Arcane Power then you can skip Sublime Chord 2.

[Palanan]

Well, Southern Magician is so often invoked for things I'd consider iffy, like qualifying for theurge builds, that I'm instinctively leery of using it for something like this. I probably wouldn't allow it for a player in my game, so I don't want to use it for an NPC.

As for Heartfire Fanner...I do like it, and I'm using it with Green Whisperer on another build in the same campaign. But it doesn't really fit what I have in mind here.

And call me naive, but Song of Arcane Power seems pretty decent to me. That could just be me. ....:smalltongue:

[Keld Denar]

Pretty decent? +4 CL to all of your day long buffs making them more potent and difficult to dispel? It's amazing, basically Divine Spell Power, but better and almost free. It's slightly less useful in combat if you need to stay mobile, but still good if you can stay put.

[Palanan]

...which was actually my next question, whether Divine Spell Power could be somehow combined with Song of Arcane Power.

There's nothing in the text of the latter ability that specifically requires arcane spells. Common sense, unfortunately, says it probably wouldn't work, but can't blame a chap for wishing. :smallbiggrin:

[Cor1]

Maybe that would work if mixed with Alternate Power Source or Southern Magician (that you don't like, but FWIW)

[Palanan]

Heh. True. ....:smallwink:

It doesn't look like there's much that can be done with DMM, if I don't want to leave my human base and go Illumian or whatnot. Eggs mentioned it would be a major investment for something that only has 3 cleric levels to work with, so I may have to let that slip away.

Any other suggestions for filling those empty feat slots? I know Lyric Spell has been mentioned a couple of times, but I'm not sure if it would be that useful. (Remember, no bard experience here.) Should I give it another look? Or are there other feats that would be more useful for the bard/cleric combination?