Cleric/Warlock *Help Needed*

[metalith]

I need opinions or help for an Eldritch Disciple build. I am trying to optimize both the Warlock and Cleric side as much a possible. Trying to keep 9th Level Cleric spells and best Invocations/Eldritch Blast potential.

I have certain rules I have to follow. Clerics have to worship a deity. No prestige class dipping (IE you have to finish a Prestige Class before moving to another).

I am looking to be Chaotic Good for Exalted Spells. I will be starting at level 15. To play through level 20.

I can use any material from any books and Dragon Magazine but no online material.

Chaotic Good Venerable Silverbrow Human of Olidammara

Domains: Trickery, Celerity, Knowledge

32 pt Build

Str 10
Dex 10
Con 14
Int 16
Wis 20 (25)
Cha 15

Cloistered Cleric 1/Warlock 1/C. Cleric 3/Eldritch Disciple 10/Mystic Theurge 5

(1) Zen Mastery
(H) Extend Spell
(F) Persistent Spell
(F) Divine Metamagic (Persistent)
(*) Knowledge Devotion
(3) Ability Focus (Eldritch Blast)
(6) Extra Turning
(9) Maximize Spell-Like Ability
(12) Quicken Spell-Like Ability
(15) Travel Devotion
(18) * Open

Gift of the Divine Patron
Healing Blast
Damage Reduction
Wild Frenzy
Corrupting Blast

[BowStreetRunner]

Okay, I'm with you up to the Mystic Theurge part. A Warlock's invocations don't actually fulfill "able to cast 2nd-level arcane spells" requirement.

I've been over this many times before and searched far and wide - as far as I can tell, there is no way to continue to progress both invocation and divine progressions beyond Eldritch Disciple/Epic Eldritch Disciple. So if you want 9th level cleric casting you are going to have to sacrifice your warlock levels.

[Snowbluff]

@BSR then you dd not look very hard. The second level arcane casting can be done with a feat. Precocious apprentice or southern magician. Legacy champion would work as well, if I remember the wording of ED correctly.

[metalith]

I have a problem with Precocious apprentice feat since it says choose a school and Warlocks don't get schools.

I could probably use Southern Magician. Any other opinions on the build or suggestions.

One thing I am trying to do with this is be able to do multi-healing with Eldritch Blast. Maximized Eldritch Chain Healing Blast to be able when needed for multi-healing. Our DM likes sending intensive battles our way. So strong in-combat healing have been necessary in the past.

[Snowbluff]

Schools are inclusive. The only person who does not have access to a school would be a specialist wizard. You have accesss to schools anyway, since you have cleric levels.

[prufock]

Not sure what Zen Mastery does, couldn't find that feat.

Usually in optimizing a theurge build, my goal is "theurge early, theurge often." As such, MT earlier might be better for you, though the whole "no dipping PrCs" thing irks me.

Cloistered Cleric 2/Warlock 1/Mystic Theurge 10/ED 7
Feats: H. Heighten Spell, 1. Versatile Spellcaster, 3. Southern Magician - this should let you qualify for MT. After level 3 take whatever you want (your feat choices are solid, DMM, Persist, Devotions, etc).

Effective Invocation Level: 18
Effective Divine Caster Level: 18

[nedz]

I notice you haven't taken any Extra Invocation feats.
Maybe you have all of the least and lesser invocations you want ?
Which invocations are you thinking of taking ?

Is Ability Focus (Eldritch Blast) doing anything for you ?
This is only good if you have any essences.

I take it you meant Zen Archery rather than Zen Mastery ?
You EB's are unlikely to miss since they are ranged touch attack — YMMV with this one.

[BowStreetRunner]

Schools are inclusive. The only person who does not have access to a school would be a specialist wizard. You have accesss to schools anyway, since you have cleric levels.

You can take Precocious Apprentice only as a 1st-level character. There is no way you fulfill the requirements as either a 1st level cleric or a 1st level warlock. This does not work.

As for Southern Magician, if you are a Mulan Human able to cast 2nd level cleric spells you could cast a divine spell as an arcane spell once per day per two spellcaster levels. The actual source of the spell's power doesn't change, nor does its means of preparation. So it is by no means certain that a particular DM will agree that this works. This is cheese, and not the kind of thing you can expect will be allowed in 100% of all campaigns, even if the sourcebooks are permitted.

As for Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster cheese, there is a line on page 206 of the DMG that states "You can also advance the class level of a ten-level prestige class beyond 10th level, but only if the character level of the advancing character is already 20th or higher." Again, this is not the kind of thing you can expect will be allowed in 100% of all campaigns, as many DMs will rule that this type of cheese violates the Epic Character rules.

As for Zen Mastery, I'm guessing the OP meant Zen Archery, since this is a WIS-based ranged attacker.

[Snowbluff]

You can take Precocious Apprentice only as a 1st-level character. There is no way you fulfill the requirements as either a 1st level cleric or a 1st level warlock. This does not work.
It works. AFB for the part about first level, but the feat still works because Warlocks are not excluded from using any schools.


As for Legacy Champion/Uncanny Trickster cheese, there is a line on page 206 of the DMG that states "You can also advance the class level of a ten-level prestige class beyond 10th level, but only if the character level of the advancing character is already 20th or higher." Again, this is not the kind of thing you can expect will be allowed in 100% of all campaigns, as many DMs will rule that this type of cheese violates the Epic Character rules.

It's advancing the class features, not the actual class.

[BowStreetRunner]

It works. AFB for the part about first level, but the feat still works because Warlocks are not excluded from using any schools.

It's advancing the class features, not the actual class.

It is CHEESE. Warlocks do not have access to ANY schools until they take a level in something that gives them access to that school. If the warlock later takes a dip in wizard and chooses to specialize, are you going to argue that he still has access to the banned schools just because he has a level in warlock?

If the player's DM allows it, fine. But recommending someone do this sort of thing without checking with their DM to see if the DM will allow it is just setting a person up for failure. I do not recommend CHEESE to anyone unless I preface it with a warning that their DM may not allow it.

I have been playing RPGs for over a quarter of a century and during that time have played with exactly ZERO DMs who would allow this sort of thing. You can tell the player 'it works' until you are blue in the face but if their DM disallows, your position holds absolutely no weight whatsoever. Don't tell them it works, unless you know their DM will allow it. Tell them what arguments to make if they want to convince their DM it works. That would be far more helpful. I don't ever remember any DM being swayed by the argument 'well, some person on the forums said it works'.

[Snowbluff]

25 years and you don't know that there are no DMs until someone brings the build to a table? It's up the player whether or not he wants to do it, and considering the use and power of this 'cheese', I don't know why your DMs hate you. If it was a sorcerer early entry, or and early entry at all, I would understand a singular, well spoken complaint. Warlocks, on the other hand, are much weaker and probably should be able to enter these classes, anyway.

But it is not. It works. :smalltongue:

[metalith]

Understood. The DM didn't like taking only one or two levels in a prestige class since he believes that is against the purpose of a prestige class and a number of other reasons. I think he has some issues with highly optimized character builds.

Prufock -

It was supposed to be Zen Archery. Sorry was partly multi-tasking when writing that up.

Okay I can do that build but not sure what Versatile Spellcaster would add to the build. If you could explain those feat interactions I would appreciate.

Since I was looking to have 18/18 with the one I originally put up.

nedz -

Ability Focus adds a +2 DC to all saves against my Eldritch Blasts. Zen Archery is necessary since even with a ranged touch attack I have a 10 dex, and acted to greatly reduce this builds MAD.

Least

Eldritch Glaive
Beguiling Influence
See the Unseen

Lesser

Eldritch Chain
Fell Flight
Walk Unseen

Greater

Virtrilic Blast
Noxious Blast
Chilling Tentacles

Dark

Binding Blast
Dark Foresight

[Snowbluff]

Understood. The DM didn't like taking only one or two levels in a prestige class since he believes that is against the purpose of a prestige class and a number of other reasons. I think he has some issues with highly optimized character builds.
Aw shucks. You should explain to him you are taking a bullet by having warlock levels. :smalltongue:


Okay I can do that build but not sure what Versatile Spellcaster would add to the build. If you could explain those feat interactions I would appreciate.

Since I was looking to have 18/18 with the one I originally put up.
Versatile spellcaster workswith Cleric spells, since Clerics can cast spontaneously. This would let you cast spells you know (all of the cleric ones) for the cost of 2 lower level slots.

This is actual cheese with actual use, and might actually cheese your DM off.

nedz -

Ability Focus adds a +2 DC to all saves against my Eldritch Blasts. Zen Archery is necessary since even with a ranged touch attack I have a 10 dex, and acted to greatly reduce this builds MAD.
Unless you are heavily focusing Cha, it's not really worth it. I would say it depends on whether or not you are planning on pumping Wis for Cleric spells with DCs.

[Psyren]

How set are you on cleric? A base class that can cast both arcane and divine spells - e.g. a Sha'ir - can get into both Eldritch Disciple and Eldritch Theurge, hitting 9th-level spells and dark invocations easily. Your only hurdle is getting access to Turn Undead for Eldritch Disciple - easily cleared by dipping cleric, Sacred Exorcist, or simply using the Eldritch Disciple Adaptation which lets you drop the TU requirement.

[metalith]

Psyren -

This needs to be a strong in-comnat healer build. DM does like Adaptations either.

Sha'ir looks interesting but the spell list is all wrong but maybe for a different character work beautifully.

Snowbuff -

Good try but he won't accept it.

I can see about dropping Ability Focus looking at it now in review. Which frees up a slot.

Trying to stay as much DAD as I can. I would have a 10 Int too if it was not for the skill requirements.

[Valwyn]

Maybe you could ask your DM if certain invocations count as spells? Baleful Utterance is Shatter, Darkness is Darkness, Spiderwalk is Spider Climb, Charm is Charm Monster, Walk Unseen is Invisibility... They are actually SLAs, but many just say "Works as X spell". It will probably still be a "no", but it's worth asking.

[metalith]

It would not work unfortunately. We already had an issue similar to that come up before. DM said no.

If anyone has a complete build resuggestion I am open to try it. I am pondering the MT build suggested but take a nasty HP hit 10d4 vs 10d8.

[prufock]

Okay I can do that build but not sure what Versatile Spellcaster would add to the build. If you could explain those feat interactions I would appreciate.

Since I was looking to have 18/18 with the one I originally put up.

Just to expand on what Snowbluff said:
As a cleric 2 you can cast 1st-level spells. Versatile Spellcaster lets you burn 2 of those spells to cast 1 level higher. Heighten Spell lets you increase the spell level of a 1st level spell to 2nd. All together, you can burn two first-level spells to cast a first level spell heightened to 2nd level.

Southern Magician means you can make that 2nd level spell count as arcane a few times a day.

This means you meet the 2nd-level arcane AND divine requirement of Mystic Theurge.

[metalith]

We are allowed Feat Retraining, so I could opt out of Heighten Spell and Versatile Spellcaster since I can see them being necessary starting off.

[prufock]

We are allowed Feat Retraining, so I could opt out of Heighten Spell and Versatile Spellcaster since I can see them being necessary starting off.

Yeah, you still need them early on to get into MT early, but you can retrain them once you have 2nd level spell slots (which would be MT 1 in my build). I know some DMs rule that you can't change feats if they would make earlier choices impossible (though it doesn't say that in the feat retraining rules - it's in the class feature retraining rules), so make sure your DM okays it.

They're solid feats in their own right, of course, but you might want something different.

[Krazzman]

First off. Extra Invocations is a must for you.

With the infamous Warlock/Urpriest/Eldritch Disciple you can actually get "better" results.

But your build with the feat Practised Spellcaster (Cleric) would give you Casting as a 15th level cleric with spell slots according to level 13 and still warlock of level 11 abilities. At the start of your adventure. Don't know if the feat Practised Spellcaster (Warlock) would raise your Eldritch Blast Damage by 2d6 but this might help.