PC wants to make an exalted celestrial bloodline eldritch disciple

[Cozod]

Sorry for the long subject, lol. As it says, a pc wants to make an exalted celestrial bloodline eldritch disciple. I'm assuming human and a major bloodline. He plans taking VoPoverty as well. Is there any kind of tricks or surprises I should look out for? He's only lvl 2, but I think he can have over +17 diplomacy. Aside from that though he almost seems like he'll be under powered going dual caster and then having a pseudo LA of 3 from bloodline.

But aside from high diplo, I don't see anything to crazy. There are just so many numbers involved between the bloodline abilities and VoP, then 2 casters, prc that doesnt advance .evenly for casting, and the amount of exalted feats, I can't shake the feeling that I'm missing somekind of uber CO combo.



TL;DR. Is an exalted celestrial bloodline eldritch disciple with VoP overpowered?


Thanks!

[Phelix-Mu]

It's unlikely that VoP is contributing something huge to the mix; consensus is that loss of magic item access is a very significant nerf, and that the benefits of the feat very poorly replicate what is lost. Cleric spells can ameliorate this, but the character will be less powerful than the same character w/out VoP, in all likelihood (exalted feats are fairly mediocre). You will need to work out some kind of workaround for cleric spells that require expensive material components, if you haven't already.

More than VoP, the exalted stuff that can be nice for clerics are a handful of the sanctified spells. While they require sacrifice component (ability damage or drain, or worse...note the ability damage is incurred at the expiration of the spell effect), good clerics can spontaneously swap out prepared spells for sanctified spells. Not all of them are good, and a couple are just about useless, but some of them are very good, particularly for VoP type stuff (luminous armour and its older brother, greater luminous armour), which are easily extended to last practically all day. I also seem to remember storm of shards and hammer of righteousness being decent spells, and spontaneous access obviously increases utility.

If he were very ambitious, he might try some kind of Nonlethal Substitution and Vow of Nonviolence/Vow of Peace approach, but that is very ambitious. Nonviolence stands to boost the DC of spells and such, but at huge role play price.

I don't know anything about bloodlines, though, so this opinion of mine is far from definitive. Someone else is probably ninja'ing me as we speak, and maybe they know more on the bloodline issue.

[Psyren]

VoP is generally underpowered unless you're running a very low item game. What you may want to keep an eye though on is the divine class he's using to enter ED.

[Phelix-Mu]

VoP is generally underpowered unless you're running a very low item game. What you may want to keep an eye though on is the divine class he's using to enter ED.

Oh, I may have incorrectly assumed cleric. Good catch by Psyren.

Ditto on his reading. The build suggests a Cha focus, but I'm not clear that VoP makes archivist implausible.

Domain stacking might be useful, but the build is pretty crowded already.

Really, I don't see a big problem. Dipping Naberius binder to offset penalties from sanctified spells would work, I think, but at a further loss of CL, more of a nerf than a boost.

[Cozod]

Good point, forgot to mention it would be cleric for divine caster levels.

That was a much more detailed response than I expected, lol, thanks. I agree, VoP always seems underpowered in a regular amount of magic items campaign. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any loopholes or what have you. He seems most excited about the facts he can use turn attempts to make EB heal instead, so I don't think I need to be worried about him being OP in the sense of damage or debuffs after reading this.

Thanks again you two!

[Gotterdammerung]

3-4 cleric lvls and 10 eldritch disciple lvls with the 3 bloodlines will let him turn as a 18-19th lvl cleric. Which essentially allows him to stay on par with a straight turning cleric. If he goes a turning cleric route with feats to back it he can be very effective at shutting down undead.

The VoP isn't doing a whole lot for him but I think it shows he is more interested in solidified fluff over raw power. But it isn't so horrible that he will be ineffectual. He can possibly do some interesting stuff with the exalted smite feats but I haven't looked at that too closely.

It is arguable that he will have the eldritch blast of a 1 warlock+3 bloodline + 10 Eldritch Disciple + 3 Bloodline. Allowing it to stay caught up for the most part as well.

Lastly, Many of the Eldritch Disciple class abilities will be minorly enhanced by the 3 bloodline levels. For instance, Corrupting blast will give a will save penalty of 6. This can be used with shape blasts like chain and the 20 foot radius to apply a large will save penalty to many enemies. Might be good for setting up an ally to spike the encounter with a save or die.
Basically every "Gift of the Divine Patron" will benefit in some small way from bloodline lvls, except for the healing blast.


All in all, I don't see anything particularly broke, or any glitches he could exploit. But even if there is, I think this is the kind of fun solid character idea that deserves to do whatever it is built to do.