Noob with a concept question: Swift Wing. Ever heard of it?

[Aldhissla]

I've recently stumbled upon a prestige class in Dragon Magic which, as far as I have been able to tell, is not very well known or popular. My gut tells me that despite every little bit of awesomeness in the PrC, people are turned off by the loss of two Caster Levels.

Counterproductive as it is, that does not happen to bother me at all. Which brings me to my question about the Swift Wing class which I felt like pitching to you all here.

Could some sort of viable, aerial, ranged-caster/support cleric come from having all ten levels in this draconic crusader sort of class? What would be done with the final five levels as well, while keeping the theme of a dragon-equivalent of a miniature angel?

I suppose the crux of the issue is feats. Take the idea of Breath of Life and pick up Extra Turn Undead to take advantage of Divine feats fueled by it? Buff folks and rain hellfire mild heavenly annoyance down upon enemies all day from on high with Reserve feats? Say screw it all and abuse Divine Metamagic?



...Your thoughts on the matter.

[Randomguy]

Counterproductive as it is, that does not happen to bother me at all. Which brings me to my question about the Swift Wing class which I felt like pitching to you all here.

Could some sort of viable, aerial, ranged-caster/support cleric come from having all ten levels in this draconic crusader sort of class? What would be done with the final five levels as well, while keeping the theme of a dragon-equivalent of a miniature angel?

Swiftwing is a passable cleric prestige class. It's not completely optimal, since you lose 2 caster levels, but you keep 9th level spells, and that's the most important part.

Unless you get some way to improve it (possibly metabreath feats) then Breath of Life is a pretty bad class feature. It's 10d6 damage at most, which isn't that great.
The wings also aren't as good as they sound, since the best part about actual wings is that you can fly in an AMF, but your wings are Supernatural, so you still can't fly in an AMF.

A swiftwing cleric can fill any of the same rolls that a normal cleric can, since there isn't much to encourage/discourage any cleric rolls. You might be a bit better at archery or blasting though, since you get wings, but everyone's flying by level 10 anyway.

[Greyfeld85]

Which is why Skypledged rock face for clerics of winged fury.

[Aldhissla]

Skypledged? Nifty name. I've never heard of that before. Is it a class or race?

[Kuulvheysoon]

Skypledged? Nifty name. I've never heard of that before. Is it a class or race?

I believe that it is a Raptoran (Races of the Wild) only divine casting prestige class from the same book.

[Answerer]

Clerics are so powerful that you can lose two spellcasting levels and get zero in return, and still be very much "viable". While it's nothing like optimal (because you do lose a ton doing so), you also have a ton of room to lose and still be viable in most campaigns. So you should be safe.

[eggs]

Casting levels are very powerful. That goes two ways on the Swiftwing:
--It sucks to lose them.
--But if you're already pretty close to a full caster, you're already probably going to be one of the strongest party members, even if you do lose one or two.

The class doesn't give much to focus feats. The Breath Weapon is pretty awful, but if you plan on burning actions on it anyway, you might as well throw Entangling Exhalation into the mix. And probably Practiced Spellcaster to patch the lost CL.

But beyond that, I'd mostly pick feats like any other Cleric - Divine Metamagic (Persist gets most of the hype, but Quicken, Twin, Reach, Ocular and Chain are all excellent), very possibly Divine Defiance, maybe initiate or domain feats depending on deity or Domain Spontaneity depending on domains.

EDIT:
Skypledged are awesome. Shapechange, Control Winds and Foresight on a Cleric? Yes please.

[Aldhissla]

I had heard of Raptorans in the past, but always assumed they were something like a flying saurial rather than a bird humanoid, due to today's frequent definition of 'raptor.'

Pity, though. That seems like an interesting class I'll have to miss out on for this character specifically. And isn't there usually a huge fuss about whether it's okay or not to add breath weapon feats to something that doesn't function the same way as a dragon's with a cooldown and the like?

And as far as it being lackluster, I suppose the breath could always have the potential to get homebrewed up a bit.

[Aldhissla]

Hrm... On second thought, I suppose that the draconic humanoid part of the idea doesn't have to be entirely set in stone. Feathery wings also seem a bit better on a humanoid in my mind, especially since based off of your patron dragon's type you could have some pretty oddly-shaped wings in relation to visualizing yourself flying. Like brass dragon sail wings.