[3.5] Raven/Crow Char-Motif's

[Krazzman]

Hello again fellow Playgrounders,

I've come to you with a question that popped up while I thought about a Character I am currently playing.

On a CG Cleric/Warlock/Eldritch Theurge (Currently level 2 Cleric) what Invocations, Magic Items, Spells and Feats should/can I take to get a Raven or Crow (Or another, luck spending bird?) Animal Motif starting to go?

Currently his Feats are: Travel Devotion, Practiced Spellcaster and for 3rd Level I thought about Armored Spellcaster (getting medium armor for my Warlock site).

Any recommendations?
My thoughts so far were:
Feats: Obtain Familiar on level 6 (But this is a long way till that and then later getting Improved Familiar or something like that).
Invocations: (I think there was one turning yourself into a swarm but I am unsure, maybe refluffing it into turning into a Flock of Ravens/Crows/Birds?)
Magic Items:
Reflavoured/rebuilt Cloak of the Mantaray.

I hope you can help me with this. Else post what other animal motifs you tried out that worked out well. (I might go with another animal motif for a new character should one of the current die...)

[OttoVonBigby]

It doesn't sound like you want a PrC but FWIW Expedition to Castle Ravenloft has the "Knight of the Raven," an undead-hunting class. At 1st level they get a celestial "raven harrier" who, well, is marginally more useful than the druid's raven in Diablo II LoD :smallamused: but it is a raven--plus, if it dies, you get a new one the next morning, no questions asked. Perhaps you could talk your DM into porting that class feature elsewhere if you don't like the PrC.

[Fouredged Sword]

Take the acquire familiar feat and the wild cohort feat.

Now you have 2 ravens sitting on your shoulders.

Take the Air domain from your cleric level. Planer bind some air subtyped ravens (ravens from the elemental plain of air) and you can get 8 ravens per cleric HD to boss around, and you can just summon more if they die.

You can also take the planer touchstone feat (catalogues of enlightenment) to get even more ravens by using your character level in place of your cleric level and freeing up the domain space.

8 ravens per level may get a little out of hand though. Summon some air elementals to fill in space on your rebuke list. Be a halfling (or another small character) and take ranks in ride and you can rebuke a medium air elemental to ride around in place of fell flight.

Other than that, fell flight is good, and eldrich spear is a good match for that if you tend to fight in the open.

Looking back, you need to rebuke air subtyped Raven Swarms (use the murder of crows stats). The air subtype removes the need to breathe, so you can keep them in a bag of holding. Open your bag and a massive cloud of ravens spills forth to peck your foes to death, starting at level 8!

[Rethmar]

Not sure if this is something you'd want, but if you haven't chosen a race yet, you could play a Kenku. They're a crow-people race, found in the MMIII.

[Krazzman]

Wow, nice.

The char in question has the Luck and Travel Domains and is Human (Follower of Tymora from Sembia [or whatever the semi-italian region in faerun is called]).

Knight of the Raven... (we don't have the book in question) but how viable is a 1st Level dip? Loosing a casterlevel...

Fell Flight would come online at level 10(maybe 11 with the KofR "dip"). Currently I think about Baleful Utterance as first Invocation to further enhance the motif of "nothing can hold him" and then get the ravens.

I might be able to ask if the required 4 BaB can be loosened to get the first level at level 5 or I have to wait till level 8... (i might try to get fractioned BaB allowed too to get this a bit faster).