lvl1 undead cleric - what feat to take?

[Phaederkiel]

In an upcoming campaign, I will play a cleric. He will be undead, but probably based on a warforged, since we could not find a fair way to be a undead on lvl 1.

My skeleton race will have

Living Undead: immune to poison, sleep, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, sickened, energy drain, cannot heal naturally, half healing from healing spells (and full benefit from inflict spells), disabled at zero rather than destroyed, no need to eat, sleep, or breathe

thanks to urpriest for this part!

as well as
-2 int,-2 cha and +2 constitution.

it will not get the armor a warforged has, instead it will perhaps have dmg reduction 2/bludgeoning, magic.

I hope this is a weak enough race to play amongst elves, though...
perhaps we will drop the ability to be healed by healing spells at all.


Now this guy should roam quite a low-power campaign, so i didn't optimize his stats much.

He will be a spontaneous divine caster, as per UA 64, in a further attempt to balance him. Subsequently, I gave him his deity and domains far more for the spells then for the domain powers. I wanted him to be able to heal, and he should be able to heal himself too. Enlarge is a cool buff, and with my wis 14 I am not sure I should use any spells which give a save. Cause Fear does something even on a failed save, and is quite flavor-apropriate.

But where I am stumped is his feat.
Has anyone a good Idea? Core would be best, but I reckon there is nothing cool in core. And coolness is the most important part. Doesn't need to be powerful, as long as it gives me game options. A powerful melee feat would also be nice.

oh, and lifesense is surely out. We have a rogue to spot people.

I know the stats are awful and hinder most of the decent feats.


(oh, and if anyone has a really good idea instead of cause fear, pray tell me!)


Meet Gustav:

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=583299

[dascarletm]

How do you plan to participate in combat, just healing and buffs, or do you want to fight yerself (range, melee)?

I like divine metamagic, so you could work at that. It can be abused, but could also be used more tamely.

[Emmerask]

Hm with your stats I would go with shielded casting(Races of stone).

You need to equip a shield, then your casts don´t provoke aops, seeing your low number of skillpoints this lets you not skill concentration at all and frees your skillpoints for important stuff.

/edit

You first need combat casting and 2 more points into concentration though
So first feat combat casting?

[Phaederkiel]

smash people with my mace and try to block with my 17 ac...
Or enlarge myself and then smash people.
Or enlarge someone else.

Yes, I know, these are not exactly great options.
This is exactly the reason I am asking here.

Divine metamagic needs 2 feats. I start at lvl 1, I have 1 feat.

[dascarletm]

smash people with my mace and try to block with my 17 ac...
Or enlarge myself and then smash people.
Or enlarge someone else.

Yes, I know, these are not exactly great options.
This is exactly the reason I am asking here.

Divine metamagic needs 2 feats. I start at lvl 1, I have 1 feat.

Yeah, but you can work towards it. I like Emmerask's idea though. Get that then possibly pick up extend spell which you could then DMM.
If you want to smash, then having longer duration buffs is always fun.

EDIT: Do you know what level the campaign is planning to go to?

[Darrin]

Blind-Fight (Core). There are several cheap methods to counter concealment/invisibility, but watching a perfectly good smackdown get wasted due to miss chance just plain sucks. Also lets you move faster when blinded or in complete darkness.

Improved Initiative (Core). Kinda boring but useful. If you can't find anything else, take this.

Imbued Healing (Complete Champion). Strength domain = +2 untyped bonus to melee damage, lasts 1 minute per spell level. Turns close wounds into a buff spell.

Sacred Boost (Complete Divine). Always been fond of this one, particularly if you've got a ranger or bard in the party with a wand of CLW handy. Spell Compendium may make it obsolete (wands of vigor are more efficent), but also makes close wounds available.

Sacred Healing (PHBII). Spend turn undead = MOAR healing, +2 HP per die.

Skill Knowlege (Unearthed Arcana) or Apprentice (DMGII). To pick up Tumble or UMD as a class skill. You don't really have the skill points for it, but... I really *like* those skills.

[Phaederkiel]

yes, 1-3.

Enlarge person is 1minute per level already. I am not even sure if I reach 2nd lvl spells.


I am quit unwilling to take a combination of 2 feats which comes online only 2 levels after.

[Phaederkiel]

I really like imbued healing at the moment.

sacred healing seems to work off my cha, which is 8. Is this really the feat you were referring to, darrin?


Blind fight and Imp Ini are the two I try to circumvent...If nothing else, I'd probably take blind fight.

[Humble Master]

If your DM allows it you might want to try Pious Spellsurge from Complete Divine. It lets you spend 2 Faith Points to add + 1d6 to either the effective caster level or DC of a single spell. However you get Faith Points via roleplaying so you need to check with your DM and talk about how it would work. There are some guidelines in Complete Divine on how to use Faith Points too.

Edit: If you want to bash people, Combat Casting can help make spell casting easier to do while bashing people.

[Darrin]

sacred healing seems to work off my cha, which is 8. Is this really the feat you were referring to, darrin?


It depends on Cha in as much as it helps determine how many Turn Undead attempts you get per day (which is at least 3, even with Cha = 8), but other than that, no. The Complete Divine version gives Fast Healing 3 to all creatures (even enemies) within a 60' burst, and has a duration determined by your Cha bonus. The PHBII version gives you a +5 bonus on Heal checks and +2 HP per die on cure spells until the end of your turn, but couldn't care less what your Cha bonus is. The PBHII version was printed later, and supercedes the Complete Divine version.



Blind fight and Imp Ini are the two I try to circumvent...If nothing else, I'd probably take blind fight.

I had to take it on a Barbarian character once as a prereq, and it turned out to be a lot more useful than I thought it would be.

[cerin616]

Your level 1 feat should be improved turn resistance unless you plan on never turning undead. Its in Libris Mortis.


Turn Undead: You turn the closest turnable undead first, and you can’t turn undead that are more than 60 feet away or that have total cover relative to you. You don’t need line of sight to a target, but you do need line of effect.

Your first target will always be yourself. If you can gert your turn resistance above your Cleric level +4 you will never be able to turn yourself (unless you optimize turn undead with +cleric level abilities)

[Phaederkiel]

cerin: yeah, i was afraid I could turn myself. Are you sure that I'd do that, if I were a full fledged undead? I am pretty sure I could plea with my dm not to let me turn myself. Or trade TU against some ACF are there any good?

darrin: yes, blind-fight is quite ok. In my current campaign, one player was blinded six times, I think. Without me as a dm aiming for it, mind you.

I did not see that there was a phb2 version of that feat. It's much better now.

[cerin616]

I mean, you might be able to talk your DM into not allowing it to happen. It wouldn't be too unfair. I also wouldn't ACF TU away even if you can, its extremely powerful both for divine meta-magic and just fighting undead. Considering its 1 feat, I think its your best bet. It also helps prevent getting rocked by other clerics.

Considering, I dont think your race is all that over powered anyway. Sure you have a bunch of immunities, but its less than a warforged juggernaut can get.

And you have that massive disadvantage of heal spells half effective, turn undead, greater turn undead, rebuke undead (a high level evil cleric can just say "sup" and make you fight your allies), not to mention you no longer have natural healing, so sleeping doesn't restore hit points or ability damage.

[ericgrau]

The stats & racial abilities lend themselves well to melee so I'd be a melee cleric. Since this is low optimization I'd get weapon focus no question. You'll use it nearly every round so the benefit adds up more than a bigger bonus that you rarely use. If it were higher optimization you'd be building towards something like shock-trooper but it isn't. Without shock trooper you don't have enough attack bonus for power attack either.

Combat casting is another big consideration since you'll be in melee a lot and at low level concentration checks can fail. Being able to inflict-heal yourself is handy when you're on the front lines. Or to inflict-damage foes is also very good. If you plan on inflict as your major source of damage, you might as well wield a shield. If OTOH you plan on primarily weapon attacks your DR means that THF might be better for now. Or switch back and forth as needed.

IMO get both of those feats soon, or leave out weapon focus if inflict is your main source of damage. Where turn resistance fits in depends on how many enemy undead you tend to face. Even lone undead aren't enough, because they tend to have too many HD to turn. It takes swarms of weak ones before you start turning a lot.

Your race may not be much compared to warforged, but compared to elves it is slightly strong. It could be slightly weakened but I think even left alone it won't ruin the game.

[Phaederkiel]

I wanted to do THF in the beginning, but I have not found a worthwile 2 handend simple weapon. And the one god who gives uses a good weapon (Greatsword, Kord) does not have war as a domain.

I honestly thought about taking Weapon Prof: Falchion for my feat, but this strikes me as too low-Op.

I could use a longspear refluffed as a pitchfork though, fitting for the village healer my character was before he found his untimely break from living.

I am intrigued with using inflict spells. It collides a bit with the healer part, but I think death left some marks. Is there perhaps a possibility to power especially inflict?

or is there any interesting thing I can use by beeing a spontaneous caster?

[GeekGirl]

Your level 1 feat should be improved turn resistance unless you plan on never turning undead.)

That's probably the best bet here. Combat casting get a lot of flack bu tit is a pre-req for a lot of other things. It may be better to look ahead and see what you want to do slightly longerterm.

[Phaederkiel]

Yes, I could take combat casting. But that would mean investing all my skillpoints (remember, i get ONE per lvl) AND my feat into a tactic which is very often replicated by AC and tactical movement.

I think I will cast mainly as a healbot, and I think I should take something that let me be better at physical fighting. Or makes the character more interesting to play.

Obviously, Inflict is the one spell I cannot get through without a concentration check. But since this check is botchable anyway ( about one quarter) and my AC is ok (17), simply hope for my AC.

[ericgrau]

Icic, but what skill do you really need besides concentration? Even knowledge (religion) isn't actually mandatory. The purpose of combat casting would be assuming you rely on inflict for damage, since it does more than your weapon. Especially once you hit inflict moderate wounds and above. So combat casting might be more of a level 3 feat. Then you would prepare inflict spells and spontaneously cure the party. You probably want inflicts to heal yourself anyway. Your concentration modifier at level 3 would be 6 (ranks) + 3 (con) + 4 (feat) = 13. That's 85% success on 2nd level spells, 90% on 1st level spells, and it increases by 5% every level from there. Since skills don't have nat 1s, it can reach 100%. OTOH if you expect multiple fights per day, inflict isn't as great except for self healing.

[Phaederkiel]

I wanted to go with heal as a skill, a) because it is flavourful, b) because I hoped to be able to save some spells that way. Especially since I myself will not heal naturally.

I took the cantrip heal to stabilize, but perhaps I am overestimating the campaigns difficulty, and do not need to stabilize more then 7 people per day...

But anyway, having heal checks could mean that i can cast that extra inflict per day.

[ericgrau]

I've been with an extremely cruel DM and fellow players told everyone to put ranks in heal, even if that meant taking it cross-class. But a cleric could spontaneously cast cure minor wounds more than enough times per day ya. In general something you use constantly is far better than something you rarely use, even if the first option is a little worse otherwise. And any flavor can and should come from your back-story. If you were a professional medic before joining a church ok, fine, but otherwise clerics don't need any skill to feel clericky. Unless you have a specific reason, using skill points to replace story writing is a bad roleplaying crutch.

If you prefer the style of fighting with a weapon that's great too. A weapon proficiency feat for +50% damage actually wouldn't be too bad early on. It's only that it gets worse later. Spiked chain proficiency for reach could help you protect allies with attacks of opportunity and tripping so it stays useful at higher levels, but that's bordering on not-low optimization. You could look into a guisarme too. The damage is only +10% but the reach sometimes helps even at low level. If you like enlarge person it could help more. Even without the right domain you could carry potions. That said, casting it on yourself or others isn't a great primary function as a party member. Maybe if the party member also has reach it makes more sense to tag him. But otherwise it's a weak buff and partial debuff, making it rather minor to blow a turn on it. Ideally you cast it before combat.

[Phaederkiel]

well, I thought: What is the cleric of a small village goingt to do every day?
Mend broken bones and heal flues. And I find the thought of a undead healing someone quite cool.

Mechanically, I think there is a lot of room for heal checks at the end of a day, which in turn allow me to cast more during the day.

Obviously, there is a point to be made for concentration. It fits fluffwise nearly as good (those undead are quite single-minded), and I am nearly convinced it is mechanically better.

Enlarge person is the reason I took the strength domain. I think we will have a dwarf barbarian, who will really benefit from being large. And it is an ok selfbuff, is it not? Perhaps I can persuade my colleague to get a reach weapon.

As for a weapon proficiency, is there any which is good and fluffwise possible for a villageman? I thought even falchion to be a bit of a stretch. But if I blow a feat, I'd rather take a exotic for it, not something which is available via crossclassing.

[Darrin]

As for a weapon proficiency, is there any which is good and fluffwise possible for a villageman? I thought even falchion to be a bit of a stretch. But if I blow a feat, I'd rather take a exotic for it, not something which is available via crossclassing.

The "traditional" peasant weapon is usually a spear or simple pole-arm. Easy to make, easy to use, doesn't require a lot of training, and has that all-important feature of being able to stab your opponent before they get close enough to stab you. If you want to stick to Core, then go with a longspear + spiked gauntlet.

However, if you want to specialize in undead, you'll probably want to avoid piercing weapons, since skeletons have DR 5/bludgeoning and zombies have DR 5/slashing. You can switch the longspear to a fauchard (Dragon Compendium), which has the same stats as a longspear but is slashing. For skeletons, keep a morningstar and maybe a sling as a backup weapon.

If you want something exotic, Jovar (Planar Handbook) is a pretty decent two-handed weapon: 2d6, 18-20/x2. If you're just looking for big DPR numbers, then ask your DM if you can adapt a Fullblade (A&EG) to 3.5 rules: 2d8, 19-20/x2.

[GreenETC]

Just FYI, being anything other than a living Humanoid makes you immune to Enlarge Person, so you can only cast it on your friends.

And if your Dwarf friend wants to, he can use the Weapon Familiarity rules on Complete Warrior p154 to switch his Urgrosh proficiency for the Dwarven Warpike from Races of Stone for a 2d6 reach/tripping weapon. It's something I do on all Dwarves I play.

[graymachine]

Are you married to taking that homebrew and being undead at 1st level? If not, I would far more recommend taking Necropolitan at 3rd level since it is a lot better and all it costs you is XP. Necropolitan also gets a natiral healing, which while not much, is better than nothing. Furthermore, you can arrange for the NPC making you undead to have the undead crafting feat tree out of Liber Mortis, and potentially getting Spellstitched, both of which have great bonuses.

That aside, your hp is going to suffer from not having a CON score; the d12 looks good, but it is only 6.5 hp per level, so you end up with about the same hp as a Wizard with a good CON score. Doesn't matter much if you are playing support or crowd control, but if you are front-lining, this is going to be an issue. If you are front-lining, I would highly recommend the magic item out of the MIC that lets undead get a hp bonus from their CHA score, although I can't recall its name. Actually, I'd recommend it regardless; keep in mind when you hit 0 hp you ash.

EDIT: As for a feat, I would take Improved Turn Resistance only if you think that your DM is going to be throwing divine casters against you from the get go; sure it's a gamble, but if you don't think so then it can probably wait.

[Phaederkiel]

yes, starting as a lvl 1 undead is what i am married to.

And all those abilities, while very nice, are quite OP, which i actively try not to do. MIC is out of the question, for example.

[cerin616]

Another option to avoid turning yourself is to be evil. With rebuke undead you can do 2 things, dispel turn attempts, and bolster your turn/rebuke resistance.

Plus, it doesn't even affect your aura. Undead creatures almost always have an evil aura regardless of alignment.

[graymachine]

yes, starting as a lvl 1 undead is what i am married to.

And all those abilities, while very nice, are quite OP, which i actively try not to do. MIC is out of the question, for example.

Fair enough. I think, though, that Spellstitched may be able to be applied to an undead post-creation, so that might be something to discuss with your DM. Also, there's a pretty good undead guide floating around the Playground that might be helpful, although I don't have a link to it at the moment; it goes over spells and such from your perspective as an undead, which can help a great deal. Desecrate, for example, while great for you, might not be appreciated much by your living party members.

Also, since you seem to want to be doing healing support you'll probably want to get/craft wands of Inflict X for your own personal healing; an Eternal Wand with a strong Inflict spell might be a good investment.

[Phaederkiel]

hmm. i did not find the guide.

[graymachine]

Another option to avoid turning yourself is to be evil. With rebuke undead you can do 2 things, dispel turn attempts, and bolster your turn/rebuke resistance.

Plus, it doesn't even affect your aura. Undead creatures almost always have an evil aura regardless of alignment.

He doesn't make a turn attempt against himself; the individual utilizing the ability isn't normally in the target category. I've never seen it interpreted this way; if it was, you would see undead cleric BBEGs saving against their own rebuking attempts.

[graymachine]

hmm. i did not find the guide.

Not sure where I saw it; might have been on a different site. Do you think you could talk your DM into having the area Desecrated when you were made undead? The extra hp would be nice, and it seems like something reasonable for a necromancer to do assuming the undead creation wasn't on the fly.

[Phaederkiel]

now for perhaps a stupid question:

if I took strength devotion as my feat, would I get an additional attack to my mace? Would that attack be at -5 or not? And do I read this feat right and I have the slam always on, not only when using the ability of str. Dev.?

Not that this is really low-op...

oh, and a warforged has a slam anyway, has he not? Something to consider when we balance thiis homebrew class. Perhaps I get a +2 on all will saves against enchantment and fear effects on top.

[ericgrau]

As for a weapon proficiency, is there any which is good and fluffwise possible for a villageman? I thought even falchion to be a bit of a stretch. But if I blow a feat, I'd rather take a exotic for it, not something which is available via crossclassing.

This is a good non-optimization reason to dig through a lot of splatbooks. There may or may not be a well known popular and optimized one, but there are likely to be 10 lesser known ones. I found this: http://rodriguezvaughn.com/geekspeak/index.php?topic=133.0 . Scroll down to exotic weapons. Google or a dictionary helps. Perhaps a greatspear for peasentness, 2d6 and throwability. Or a great falchion.

And village healer backstory is a perfectly good reason to put ranks in heal, optimal choice be damned. Do check out the heal rules any time you run out of cure spells, face poison or face disease.

[Olfgar]

as well as
-2 int,-2 cha and +2 constitution.



Can I make a safe guess that you guys are not including the part of "Undead have no Con score", because if not, that +2 con is a little bit of an oversight and takes away 4 stat point and gives none.

If I remember correctly I think there is a system that has undead use Cha as a con score so they get some bonus health...that or its just for some type of lich, while it was one of the WotC variants or the PF variant...I cant really remember, ive done alot of reading on undead.

[Phaederkiel]

yeah, you can. As Urpriest put it:
In particular, you don't want Con --. Con -- gives a whole mess of immunities, including immunity to most things that target two out of your three saves. It's really not sensible to just slap it on a LA +0 race.

and he is probably very much right about this. I decided to model this guy upon the warforged.

[Darrin]

if I took strength devotion as my feat, would I get an additional attack to my mace?


No, I don't see that in there anywhere.



Would that attack be at -5 or not?


Unless the text says otherwise, any natural weapon can become a secondary attack, which gets a -5 attack penalty and 1/2 Str bonus on damage.

Warforged with the Strength devotion gets two slams when activated. I'm not entirely sure how to parse this... if you go by the "one slam good, two slams bad", then two slams = arms, and your arms would have to be free to use them. Although if you did so, then one would become primary, and the other would be secondary... so I don't know. The Strength devotion never states that you *don't* get the slam, so even if you lost your Warforged slam with both arms occupied, then you should still have the Strength devotion slam available. Ugh, this is making my head hurt. Sounds more like a DM call.



And do I read this feat right and I have the slam always on, not only when using the ability of str. Dev.?


The feat is worded ambiguously. All of the devotion feats (except Knowledge devotion) generally have a duration of 1 minute when activated. I don't see why Strength would be any different... it looks like the intent was you have a slam for 1 minute. However, the slam/adamantine effect was never explicitly given a duration. I'd be inclined to treat it as 1 minute. It could be read the other way, but it seems kind of powerful for a single feat available at level 1. But if your DM agrees... enjoy.

[Phaederkiel]

No, I don't see that in there anywhere.


Unless the text says otherwise, any natural weapon can become a secondary attack, which gets a -5 attack penalty and 1/2 Str bonus on damage.


Thanks for answering!

ok, I seem to have worded this wrongly. Do I get this when I activate this feat:
Primary: Mace +2; secondary: Slam -3
meaning two attacks,
or do i have to choose between the two forms of attack?

I do not think that this feat is too powerful even if one takes the "always on" reading, since I doubt I will hit with it much.

A warforged would get a slam anyway, wouldn't he? would that mean slam+mace or either slam or mace?

[Darrin]

ok, I seem to have worded this wrongly. Do I get this when I activate this feat:
Primary: Mace +2; secondary: Slam -3
meaning two attacks,
or do i have to choose between the two forms of attack?


No, you don't have to choose. According to the MM, if you mix manufactured weapons with natural weapons, the manufactured weapon becomes your primary and all your natural weapons become secondary attacks. So yes, you'd get Mace +2/Slam -3 as your full attack.



I do not think that this feat is too powerful even if one takes the "always on" reading, since I doubt I will hit with it much.


Most feats that grant natural attacks cost at least two feats: Aberration Blood + Deepspawn, or Willing Deformity + Teeth. However, there are at least two methods to get a permanent natural weapon with only one feat: Shape Soulmeld + Claws of the Wyrm and Planar Touchstone -> Catalogues of Enlightenment -> Hunger domain.

But really, it's the "all your natural attacks become adamantine" as a permanent ability that puts this over the top of "reasonable" for a 1st-level feat. That's an ability that Monks don't get until 16th level, and a Ring of Adamantine Touch with a similar effect costs 6000 GP (Magic Item Compendium). The ability to bypass DR/adamantine is not something the designers tend to give out so lightly.



A warforged would get a slam anyway, wouldn't he? would that mean slam+mace or either slam or mace?

I wasn't sure if your race was also getting the slam (wasn't mentioned in the OP), but if you do get it, then yes, you'd have a slam. Just be aware, according to the stat block in Monster Manual III, it loses the slam from it's full attack when wielding a spear. Whether or not you keep that slam with a one-handed weapon such as a mace... well, there's no written rule that says if an appendage is busy wielding a weapon, you don't get a natural attack with that appendage. This is implied from Common Sense (which as we all know is not on speaking terms with RAW) and from the stat blocks in the MM. If we go strictly by RAW, the Warforged loses its slam if both arms are occupied.

Under "one slam good, two slams bad", the Warforged keeps it's single slam in all circumstances. Things get considerably more murky if you add more slams on top of that.

However, the Strength domain, if we assume it's a temporary slam (1 minute), grants that slam under all circumstances. It's a separate slam attack from the Warforged slam, so your full attack would look like: Mace +2/Slam#1 -3/Slam#2 -3.

If you took the "Second Slam" feat from Races of Eberron, you get an additional slam with a -5 penalty. Since your "first slam" is currently a secondary attack, it looks like you take an additional -5 penalty (although I'm not entirely sure about this... the text says nothing about whether the second slam is primary or secondary). Your full attack would look like: Mace +2/Slam#1 -3/Slam#2 -3/Slam#3 -8.

If you want another attack, Jaws of Life (also from Races of Eberron) adds a bite as a secondary attack.

I wouldn't be too quick to dismiss these with "I doubt I will hit with it much." Secondary attacks aren't affected by TWF penalties, and are a pretty effective way to add more attacks (and thus more damage) into a build because unlike TWF, the penalties don't get worse or drag down your primary attack as you add more of them. You can also reduce the secondary penalty to -2 via Multiattack, or eliminate it entirely with Improved Multiattack (Savage Species).

[cerin616]

He doesn't make a turn attempt against himself; the individual utilizing the ability isn't normally in the target category. I've never seen it interpreted this way; if it was, you would see undead cleric BBEGs saving against their own rebuking attempts.

Well, Im not saying it should be interpreted that way. Infact when he said he wanted to ask his dm about it i said "I think it would be perfectly fair not to be turning yourself"

this doesn't change RAW though, and if his DM is the right type he may say "sorry bro, you need turn resistance or else you're stuck with divine metamagic"

[ericgrau]

Well a raging barbarian might average around 10 damage a round. Without strength devotion you might get around 4.5 DPR and around 5.5 DPR with it. Maybe more with buffs, but it still isn't OP. +20% damange on anyone else would be a bit much for most feats (outside of high op stuff like shocktrooper), but cleric weapon attacks aren't that hot to begin with. Not only low damage, but also low attack bonus.

Bypassing DR/adamantine may normally be difficult but it isn't strong. I can only think of golems that have it. Bypassing hardness at low level OTOH could let you bypass walls and doors within a few rounds, long before adamantine. But most players don't realize this, and it eats up your 1/day ability. What's really crazy is mountain hammer as a 2nd level maneuver.

It is a good point that the system expects undead clerics and yet doesn't seem to worry about them turning/rebuking themselves. Plus by RAW you approach within 10 feet of yourself and thus break the turning. At worst you wasted some of the turning HD on yourself but you never take yourself out of combat.

[cerin616]

Well a raging barbarian might average around 10 damage a round. Without strength devotion you might get around 4.5 DPR and around 5.5 DPR with it. Maybe more with buffs, but it still isn't OP. +20% damange on anyone else would be a bit much for most feats (outside of high op stuff like shocktrooper), but cleric weapon attacks aren't that hot to begin with. Not only low damage, but also low attack bonus.

Bypassing DR/adamantine may normally be difficult but it isn't strong. I can only think of golems that have it. Bypassing hardness at low level OTOH could let you bypass walls and doors within a few rounds, long before adamantine. But most players don't realize this, and it eats up your 1/day ability. What's really crazy is mountain hammer as a 2nd level maneuver.

It is a good point that the system expects undead clerics and yet doesn't seem to worry about them turning/rebuking themselves. Plus by RAW you approach within 10 feet of yourself and thus break the turning. At worst you wasted some of the turning HD on yourself but you never take yourself out of combat.

just be sure you dont optimize turn undead, or you might accidentally destroy yourself.

Get rebuke undead though, use it once to bolster yourself, and then your HD wont count towards your other attempts as its too high to affect.

[Phaederkiel]

as what seems to be a definite answer from my dm:
No, I do not turn myself.


and I myself have the opinion that this is rather clumsiliy solved in the "10 ft distance"-rule. I am too close to myself, thus, cannot turn myself.

At some point I need to make a slam and bite heavy warforged. If a dm allows flaws, you can get one bite form the feat, one slam from being warforged, one slam from the feat, one slam and one bite from being a cleric with the hunger domain and str. devotion. On Lvl one. On lvl 2, Monk is probably the prime choice, is it not? Nothing blocking my hands, so all slams should be fine. Superior unarmed and imp Natural when you go fighter at lvl 4 and 5...
Lion Totem Barbarian and snapkick at lvl 6. Look ma, need no weapon, need no twoweapon fighting. Have 8 attacks anyway.
Or is it 6, cause monk works weirdly? It probably does, hmm?