Making a ranged cleric. (restricted books)

[strangebloke]

I'm helping a friend of mine roll up a cleric, as he has never played a cleric before, and I have. (once)

Unfortunately, I have a lot of restrictions. I'm only allowed to use the core books and the completes, the cleric should be optimized for ranged combat, and only base races are allowed.

Rolls: 16, 12, 16, 12, 16, 16 (heck yes.)

Our hero is starting at level five.

I feel like reach metamagic with zen archery is the way to go here, although with the generous stat distribution, maybe I don't need zen archery.

(well, persistent spell works as well, but come on...)

current plan is human with cleric 3/ church inquisitor 2. Zen archery, Reach spell, DMM reach.

[Fitz10019]

For a ranged cleric, a human will be good, and he'll either use a crossbow, or spend a feat on longbow proficiency, or repeating crossbow proficiency.

An elf is arguable better. He would have one less feat, but have longbow proficiency as a racial feat.

A longbow is loaded as a free action, but a crossbow requires a move action to load. Early on, this does not matter. But later when your full attack includes more than one attack, spending a move action to load keeps you limited to one attack.

All that aside, this character may possibly start out as a ranged attacker and later on learn to enjoy the cleric's interesting spell options.

Therefore, let him build his character one level at a time. There's nothing wrong with that for one's first character. Don't box him or yourself into some super-neato build you find on the forums.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

If SRD material is allowed, and if you choose to go DMM: Persist instead of DMM: Reach, then Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) might be a better choice, in the long run. You'll want Travel Devotion and Knowledge Devotion (though you may want to keep the Knowledge Domain, since that's technically what's getting you all the Knowledges as class skills, to fuel Knowledge Devotion) which are both quite tasty and effective for an Archer Cleric (Knowledge Devotion for damage, Travel Devotion to allow you to move and Rapid Shot Full Attack).

Elf may be a better selection for this character than Human, because then you don't have to spend a feat on Martial Weapon Proficiency: Longbow (which you'd want instead of a crossbow, as crossbow archery is much more feat intensive than regular archery, which is already feat intensive itself). It also opens up Seeker of the Misty Isle (Complete Divine, pg. 61), which is a. Full Casting by the text of the class (and text-trumps-table), and b. has some tasty bonuses for an archer (including Travel Domain as a bonus). You don't necessarily want ten levels in the class, fifth level and seventh level seem to me to be the best break points. Even just the first level, for the bonus domain, may be worth it (since you can trade it out for Travel Devotion, saving you a feat/domain) if the Survival prereq doesn't get in your way.

That changes, however, if you can play an Aasimar (not a base race, I know, but it's in the MM1, so it may not be too much of a stretch - only really worth it with LA buy off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) (from Unearthed Arcana and found on the SRD)) since, as Outsiders, they are proficient with all martial weapons already, and because +2 Wis +2 Cha is excellent for a DMM Cleric.

You'll also want to check out the following handbooks: the Archery Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2892), the Cleric Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1238), the Quickstart Cleric Archer (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10961), and the Absolute Guide to Cleric Prestige Classes (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=10556).

I've played, and thoroughly enjoyed, Cleric Archers in the past, and they're a lot of fun. Let us know what you and your friend decide to go with!

[Blueiji]

I'm currently running an Archery based Cloistered Cleric Human.

I acquired the Longbow proficiency with a level in Human Paragon, which allows you to pick one martial weapon and gain proficiency with it. Plus, the capstone for human paragon allows you to give a +2 to any one ability score, which can be used to really quickly get your Wisdom to 18, which is important.

The Human Paragon class is on the SRD, so it should be OK to use, here's the link: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#humanParagon