Cleric Face build, Ideas plz totally lost.

[Deathcharge01]

Hello playground,

I've got to conjure up a build for a cleric, who besides offering the usual stuff like heals, buffs and offensive spells, is a vocal behemoth. He must be able to talk his @$$ off, he's very good at convincing people and he's a formidable debater. In short, he's a ruthless, vicious, and cunning master of Oratory.

My preliminary thoughts after some research hovered in the area of a Human Cleric/Bard base class into Evangelist Prc (pg 39 Complete Divine). However Evangelist progresses no casting :smalleek:. My hope is that some of you would have had this type of idea or challenge before and can offer some suggestions/guidance. I know my options here may be limited, and so I'm willing to consider anything at this point.(plz keep cheese if any to a minimum)

[Barsoom]

Cloistered Cleric with the Trickery domain. Now you have plenty of skill points, and Bluff+Diplomacy in-class. Your spells can pick up the slack.

Enthrall is a second level spell, and so is Guidance of the Avatar.

[Gavinfoxx]

Cloistered Cleric with Trickery and Mind domains (SpC). Possibly the Community domain. Research the normally Initiate of Gond only 'Wieldskill' spell for level one. Divine Insight for level 2, and don't forget Guidance of the Avatar. Maybe take one of the Apprentice feats from DMG II. Maybe take Able Learner.

[Giegue]

If you don't care about offensive spellcasting then I would highly suggest taking the feat Dynamic Priest from legend of twins. It switches your casting stat to charisma for every purpose except spell DCs(which are still wisdom based). You basically have to give up any kind of offensive casting, but as a result you gain cha-synergy with those social skills you want to be good at and also gain more uses of turn undead for divine metamagic. Admittedly, this works best with a melee-focused cleric who uses DMM: Persist + melee as their primary "offense" and not so much a skill-monkey- based cloistered cleric...but if you are fine with simply sticking to buffs, heals and spells with no save attached it is worth picking up for this kind of character.

If you want cha-synergy without losing offensive casting, I suggest asking your DM for the 3rd party feat Lost Traditions, from the bastards and bloodlines supplement. The feat allows you to change your casting stat to any mental stat you want for all purposes, even spell DCs. Congrats, you are now a fully cha-based cleric face.

[Deathcharge01]

I've never considered Cloistered Cleric before, its skill points are insane. And along with the suggested domains to pick up the necessary class skills, it should be hopefully the oratory expert I'm trying to create. Thanks for the tips guys.

[Roguenewb]

They've hit the right solution, but for the sake of completeness. how about Divine Bard?

[Firest Kathon]

If Pathfinder material is OK, the Oracle (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/oracle) class gives you spontaneous divine casting based on Charisma (and Diplomacy as a class skill, some mysteries may also give you Bluff as a class skill).

[Fouredged Sword]

Also, there is no reason you CAN'T also be a melee monster. After all, you just need divine power and to fix the BAB issue, and AC is overrated. I would get just enough strength to get power attack and go in with a morning star wielded two handed.

[Gavinfoxx]

You could swap knowledge domain for knowledge devotion, and pick up EWP Spiked Chain (or a refluffed polearm that has the same stats), and be a competent melee monster...