Cleric Feat Advice

[hamlet]

OK, I've got a question since my system mastery of D&D 3.x is low. I figure you guys can point me in the right direction or at least advise me of some unintended consequences.

Disclaimers first.

1) It is not my intent to optimize, really, or power build here. Merely to avoid inadvertainly shooting myself in the foot.

2) I am quite limited in my access to resources. The DM has confined options to the PHB (unlimited), the Complete Divine (with permission, some of which I have), and the Kingdoms of Kalamar books (if anybody here actually knows any of them, but I'm not counting on that particular aspect).

About the character: a cleric who's just last session rolled over to fourth level and has gotten himself another feat. Right now he has power attack and improved initiative. He's very strong and pretty (CHA and STR 17) not to mention CON of 18. Wisdom 18. No, seriously, those are rolled numbers. Freakin' luck.

He's also dumb as a post with an INT of 8 and kind of slow at DEX 10.

He's essentially a paladin of the Knight of the Gods (Chivalry, helping people, monster slaying, etc.) walking around with a greatsword and a half breastplate and he often forgets that he's a cleric and can cast magic until it's too late. That last bit is actually a characerization choice based on his INT and just the quirks of the character. Most of the time he's in the thick of melee smacking people around and doing a good job of it so nobody seems to mind.

So, when it comes down to feat choice, I find myself with a couple of possibilities.

1) Extra turning sounds like a good option. He already gets 6 turns a day, and more can only help since undead are lurking about here and there.

2) Complete Divine has a little feat called "Sacred Boost" I think that gives him a bonus at the expense of a turn use to make healing magic more effective, which also seems like it would be very spiffy to use against undead since there's another powerful healer in the group. Pop a turn use and then for a little while suddenly we can blast away at undead with healing spells bypassing DR and the like.

3) There's a feat where a turn attempt grants your weapon an extra d4 damage vs. opposite aligned creatures/characters on a successful strike, but the DM has already ruled that, since it's got a low requirement, it's only against a true opposite alignment (i.e., since I'm LG, it would only work against CE). I think that's in the Kalamar book, but I might be mistaken since I'm having trouble finding it right now.

I'm leaning heavily towards the Sacred Boost at the moment, but that's not set in stone. Anybody got any better ideas? Suggestions? Things I've missed?

[holywhippet]

No complete arcane? Pity that as persistent spell is one of the best things for a melee focused cleric (combined with divine metamagic which you can get from complete divine). On that note, I would consider divine metamagic along with some other metamagic feat to apply it to. Maximise is a good option since it is useful for healing spells. You'd need to get it first then persistent spell later though.

Sacred healing would be handy if/when you meet the requirements for it.

[hamlet]

I do have some access to Complete Arcane, though again, with specific permission.

And I'm not 100% sure that fits the idiom of the character. A little too thoughtful for him.

[holywhippet]

Have someone scribe a reminder on the inside of his helmet so when he puts it on each day he remembers to cast his persistent buffs.

[Kennisiou]

Consider taking Divine Metamagic: Quicken Spell. It's often viewed as suboptimal compared to persist, but it's also a lot friendlier to the party, generally, since it lets you quicken out spells that help them rather than persist a bunch of buffs mostly on yourself.

Also, don't worry too much about powergaming feat selection. On full casters it's really all about the spells. If your feat selection is spot-on but you're doing things like persisting Eagle's Splendor then you're not really going into high-op territory. Just look at spells that affect battles and non-combat encounters, but don't completely reshape them to be only on your terms. There are plenty of mid-power cleric spells that will leave you always able to contribute to the game without always overshadowing everyone, which is a pretty solid sweet spot.

[atomicwaffle]

My favorite feat from complete divine: Divine Vigor. 1 turn attempt to get +10 ft movement speed and +2 temp HP per character level. lasts 1 minute per con modifier.

[Firechanter]

Yeah, the important thing is that you get some option that allows you to spend your turn attempts on something worthwhile.

If your DM is already so restrictive with splat access, I don't suppose DMM Persist will fly at his table. However, maybe you can get permission to use Chain Spell (Complete Arcane) and then DMM that.
--> Without further ado, you can buff _all_ your party's weapons with GMW as a single level 4 spell slot and 5 TU attempts, from level 7 on.

Encourage everyone to equip their armour with +1 Defending Armour Spikes (8K GP each). Presto, "free" AC all around.

You can also take Reach Spell and use the same trick for all kinds of Touch buffs (e.g. Magic Vestment). So you pay the Reach increase normally with spell slots (+2), then DMM Chain the Reach-ed spell.
Or you can wait until level 13, take Hierophant and take the Divine Reach trick.

The advantage of DMM Chain is that you use it for buffing purposes, so you're helping your party and not stealing anybody's spotlight.

Also, with stats like that, I would suggest rounding all those 17s up to 18 with your level boosts, before focusing on Wis again.

[QuackParker]

So is your cleric focused particularly on scattering the undead / does your campaign feature a large number of undead?

Otherwise, you might be better off optimizing his combat feats or metamagic feats depending on how you build it. I personally like playing a menacing foe of the undead, but it isnt always practical.

[hamlet]

There aren't really a great number of undead, although we find a few of them here and there. They are in some places and not others.

As for the build, he's very strongly melee oriented. Literally, this is a specialty version of the cleric that's about as close to being a paladin as you can be without actually being a paladin. Some strong cavalier vibes in that he's not permitted to use ranged weapons, though not a lot stopping him from using ranged spells, just a bit out of idiom.

Really, he's the kind of guy that smashes things first then thinks about magic later.

The divine metamagic idea is an interesting one. I don't have any metamagic feats right now, and using it in combination with turn attempts to get "free" boosted spells seems cool, but then extra turning becomes critical down the line.

I still like the idea of Sacred Boost, but it's kind of limited after a fashion.

Found a new feat that's possible. Kalamar specific. Let you use a turn attempt to give all allies in a 60 ft burst a bonus to fear saves equal to CHA bonus for a few rounds. We've yet to face any fear saves, but it's definately flavorful since it's specifically geared towards the religion of the character (i.e., prerequisite is to be a follower of that god).

Have to dig out my copy of Complete Arcane to see if there's anything of use there. But do keep in mind the INT of 8. Only two skill points per level. It'll take a long time to get higher skill totals.