Cleric/rogue

[Gokken]

Building a cleric/rogue

Stats are
10
15
14
13
17
12
Can be placed as I would like his level 3, Anyone have a idea of how to play him out?

we have no rogue in our party, so a minimum of sneaking skills would be nice.
we have another cleric, but his more melee combat focused. So i was thinking of going more the caster route. Any suggestions on feats? besides practiced spellcaster.

Thought on going Dual wield sneak attack with divine power and rightious might. or 1hand and shield and sneak with inflict spells? any suggestions?

I think Ill end up being the prime rogue/healer

thanks in advance

[Urpriest]

Can you use content from Dragon Magazine? There's a feat (Sacred Outlaw IIRC) that will help substantially with this sort of build.

[Gokken]

I don't know, our gm is a if its in the books you can use it kinda guy. it is one of the official books?

[eggs]

Two weapon fighting is pretty demanding in terms of both feats and stats. I'd recommend going with a two-handed weapon and some natural secondary attacks to maximize sneak attack. That would maintain multiple attacks per round, remove the demand for a high dexterity score, and smooth out the issue of somatic components.

With Craven and Staggering Strike, it'd be as sneak attack-capable as most other rogue builds, and still have room in the build for melee casting staples like Quicken and Persist.

[Gavinfoxx]

You don't actually NEED a Rogue to do Rogue things. A properly made Cleric can be PLENTY rogue-y.

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=292794

Kobold and Trickery domain and Knowledge Devotion on a Cloistered Cleric!

[Urpriest]

I don't know, our gm is a if its in the books you can use it kinda guy. it is one of the official books?

It's in Dragon Magazine. It didn't make it into the Dragon Compendium, so it isn't in a book.

[Gokken]

a 2hand? I thought dual wield would maximise sneak seeing you got more attacks cabable of sneaking.

Think its abit risky though, seeing our campaign will be really hard. so I think ill get killed pretty fast with a 2hand.

anyone have some experience with a mainly caster cleric?

[gallagher]

kobold domain ftw

[Rubik]

kobold domain ftwKobold domain and the cloistered cleric, for 6 skill points per level.

[Greyfeld85]

a 2hand? I thought dual wield would maximise sneak seeing you got more attacks cabable of sneaking.

Think its abit risky though, seeing our campaign will be really hard. so I think ill get killed pretty fast with a 2hand.

anyone have some experience with a mainly caster cleric?

If you're planning on running a caster, you don't need any levels in rogue.

That said, you should really be more specific as to what sort of caster you're looking to play. Healer? Buffer? Battlefield control? Blaster? Minion master?

Because depending on your answer, cleric may not even be your best choice. Especially since you say there's already another cleric in the party.

That said, one of these days I'd like to play a cleric/rogue archetype. A really creepy hide-in-the-shadows type cleric whose order serves as a group of assassins.

[JeminiZero]

Keep in mind that when you take a level up in cleric, it still costs double skill points to buy cross class skills (such as your Rogue search, disable, open lock) even if the cap of these skills has been raised by a 1 level splash in a trapfinding class. The commonly cited ways to circumvent this are to:
1) Be a human or human variant and take Able Learner
2) Take Cleric domains that make Search/Disable Open Lock class skills. (Kobold as mentioned above)

Secondly, if you want to function as a trapfinder, Rogue is not the only trapfinding class out there.

Consider for example a Ranger with the Trapfinding variant (loses Tracking). This nets you +1 BAB, martial weapon proficiency, and 1 favored enemy (take the FE: Arcanist variant). Also take up skilled city dweller (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) and swap Ride for Tumble. You may also want to lose Wild Empthy for Voice of the City. The only important Rogue skills you lose out on are Open Lock and UMD.

This way, you won't feel compelled to take the feat hungry 2WF chain, which gets progressively weaker at higher levels (since your sneak attack remains at a piddly 1d6).

[Invader]

Zenythri – medium outsider (native) (MM2) +2 Str, +2 Dex, +2 Wis, -2 Cha, True Strike +1 LA

The -2 Cha really only hurts if you'll be fighting a lot of undead but you said you have another cleric already.

This race plus 2 levels of rogue for sneak atk and evasion with whatever 2 rogue feats you'd like and then just take straight cleric and let your spells cover the rest.

[eggs]

Comparing Rogue 1/Cloistered Cleric 2 builds with rearrangements of those stats, the War domain, Craven and Knowledge Devotion+Divine Insight for quick buffing:

TWF:
Race: Human, STR 10, DEX 15
2 feats used for TWF and Weapon Finesse
Standard Attack: 1 Shortsword +8 melee, 1d4+3+1d6+3 sneak attack (avg. 13.5)
Full Attack: 2 Shortswords: +6/+6 melee 1d6+3+1d6+3 sneak attack (avg. 13.5/ea)

THW+Natural Attack:
Race: Silverbrow Human, STR 15, DEX 10
1 feat used for Dragon Tail
Standard Attack: 1 Greatsword: +8 melee, 2d6+6+1d6+3 sneak attack (avg. 20.5)
Full Attack: 1 Greatsword: +8 melee, 2d6+6+1d6+3 sneak attack (avg. 20.5)
1 Tail: +1 melee, 1d6+4+1d6+3 sneak attack (avg. 14)

Against AC 17, and not factoring in criticals:
Expected TWF Damage (Std): 8.1
Expected THF Damage (Std): 13.5
Expected TWF Damage (Full): 12.24
Expected THF Damage (Full): 15.74

(EDIT: I choose AC 17 because my normal ballpark of AC averages is 15+.75*CR, not because it's a particular advantage to THF. The most TWF-favoring ACs are 21 and 29+, and the advantage is still THF.)


The Two-handed Fighting approach has higher expected damage both in standard action attacks and full-round attacks, requires fewer feats, makes better use of extra attacks (like AoOs or Haste effects), and deals better with enemies that aren't vulnerable to sneak attack.

[Curmudgeon]

a 2hand? I thought dual wield would maximise sneak seeing you got more attacks cabable of sneaking.
That only maximizes sneak attack if you actually get more hits.

Two-Weapon Fighting does nothing for you if you don't full attack. At the start of combat you're going to want to use a bow anyway (rather than squander attacks against sneakable foes by closing for melee instead of attacking), so no benefit. When you do get into melee Rogues are pretty squishy (weak HP, poor armor), and doing a lot of full attacks leaves you open to full counterattacks.

With Two-Weapon Fighting you'll be at -2 (minimum) to all attacks. Plus you'll have missed the opportunity to pick another feat which would increase your chances of hitting or the damage you deal. At a minimum, you have to consider this missed feat to "cost" at least what a standard feat would do for you: -1 to your attacks relative to Weapon Focus. But because you're also using twice as many weapons, you're going to be behind, typically about -1, relative to the magical enhancement you'd be able to afford with just one weapon rather than two. So really, you should consider that you'll be at about -4 on all attacks relative to the equivalent character using a single weapon. That's a really big decrease in your chance of hitting to gain one extra attack. If you want a second off-hand attack it'll cost you yet another feat and again you'll be at a disadvantage in your hit percentage relative to the single weapon user who picked a superior feat (like Craven for +1 point/character level on all sneak attacks).

If you really want more attacks, I strongly suggest you wait until you've got BAB +6 and pick up Snap Kick (from Tome of Battle). You can buy the feat prerequisite for 1,310 gp in the form of Bracers of Striking.

[Invader]

Look at celerity, fate, greed, and retribution domains.

[gallagher]

ask your DM how he feels about modifying prestige classes? if you can get a divine unseen seer PrC you would be golden until level 15

Cloistered Cleric 5/Divine USS10/Doesnt Matter 5, Kobold Domain, prepare lots of buff spells that make you harder to detect and hit, attack from range

[Urpriest]

Divine Trickster (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9623145#post9623145) is a PrC that might interest you later, if your DM is cool with content from Rich Burlew (i.e. not WotC).

[ericgrau]

You really need full casting just to do a so-so job of healing. You don't need much rogue to find traps. Solution: Rogue 1 / cleric X (or better yet the kobold domain for even less rogue). Now you almost have full casting and you can find traps perfectly fine. Heck if you max out your search and cast the spell find traps you can sometimes find them better than a pure rogue. A custom prestige class is an interesting solution but that would require a couple more rogue levels which would make your casting fall even farther behind. Like I said it's hard to be an effective healer even on a pure cleric.

Consider the augment healing feat to make healing less mediocre and likewise spells that don't consume your standard action like close wounds. Both increase the otherwise low healing per round to something more useful.

Don't forget to carry a million scrolls that fix every affliction out there. For common problems prepare those spells instead, but otherwise have it ready on a scroll since you can't possibly prepare all 20 (or whatever number) of them.

From there you need a 3rd thing to focus on. You can't find traps in combat and you shouldn't spend every round healing when there are usually better options. Wait until an ally is in real trouble and blow only your highest level spell slots on it; don't waste one of your 5 combat rounds on anything less. You could be a second combat cleric if your highest ability score is strength. You could use shield other to prevent some damage (preferably in the morning not during combat, to save time) and to spread it out to allow the more efficient mass cure spells. You could cast mass buffs like bless or prayer. You might cast spiritual weapon or other offensive spells if your highest ability score is wisdom. Etc.

[Gokken]

I made my charecter, so its supose to become a shadowbanestalker, with my friend playing shadowbane inquisitor.


I can pick Law/knowlegde/destruction/good/war it seems

[Gokken]

I was thinking of going mainly cleric, and then use my rogue sneak attack on my inflict spells, and evasion to help me survive

[Gwendol]

War and Knowledge are solid choices among those listed.

TWF is problematic for casters, since it interferes with the somatic component of spells. There are ways around that of course, but it just adds cost, feats, and whatnot. Using a 2-handed weapon is strictly better in this case. I would suggest the spiked chain since it is finessable, and gives you reach.
As long as you have one level of cleric you can get a wand of CLW early on to help out with the healing without having to use your daily spells.

[ericgrau]

If you restrict yourself mainly to between combat healing then you could do anything in the world; no need for full cleric or almost full cleric. But then you could just hand the existing cleric a wand of cure light wounds and the party won't need another cleric for healing at all. Which is fine, just as long as you realize that so you don't focus on healing.

[Gwendol]

I was thinking of going mainly cleric, and then use my rogue sneak attack on my inflict spells, and evasion to help me survive

In that case you really can't dual-wield. But if it is attacks vs touch ac you are after you could go druid/rogue instead and hit vs touch AC using the flame blade spell.

For the cleric there is the 3rd level spell Ice Axe.

[Gokken]

what book is ice axe from it sounds promising?

[Gwendol]

Spell compendium I believe.

[Gokken]

thanks mate

[Invader]

Make sure you have a wand of lesser vigor, vigor, or lesser vigor mass for out of combat, far superior to clw if you have the time.

[Gokken]

I don't know if I can obtain a wand, our gm is not keen on us getting or buying magical items.

[Gavinfoxx]

I don't know if I can obtain a wand, our gm is not keen on us getting or buying magical items.

What? He does know the problems with this, right?? How D&D is a very bad system for that, and that this is a MAJOR warning sign of a bad DM, for 3.5e??

...Then you need to drop the rogue levels, asap... focus on the Cleric. Look at my build, that will help.