Cloistered Cleric skirmisher question

[Invader]

I see Cloistered Cleric and travel devotion mentioned a lot in archer/skirmisher builds. Would someone be kind enough to give me the run down on how exactly it all works together? Some of it makes sense but I don't have it all quite figured out.

[StreamOfTheSky]

There is a feat, Travel Devotion, that you can use to move as a swift each round for 1 minute. And thus as a scout, you can move and rapid shot, applying skirmish damage to all the attacks and actually be almost as good as the rogue at...doing damage.

The problem is, it can only be used once per day.

But...as with all devotion feats, you can burn turn undead uses to get it more. And thus, the cleric dip.*
Cloistered cleric is just plain better than regular cleric if only dipping 1 level, since either way you don't gain BAB so all you end up losing is ~ 1 hp (d6 instead of d8) and in return you get 6 + int skills and a whole extra domain (knowledge), plus "bardic" knowledge (which maybe you can get the DM to allow you to trade for bardic knack) and some additional spells on the cleric spell list (so you can use wands/scrolls of them w/o UMD).

*Also, you can give up a domain for the equivalent devotion feat, so the cleric dip can save you a feat, too!

[Stoneback]

Plus, with the feat Zen Archery, you can use your wisdom in place of your dexterity for ranged attacks. That is Good. You know what else is based on wisdom? Your listen, spot, and survival skills. Very Good for Scouts.

If you were to play a cloistered scout (?), you could get away with Dex as your 3rd or 4th ability. Not bad.

(Wis > Con > Cha > Dex IMO)

Improved Skirmish is another strong feat for this build. Your damage will be on par with the other mundanes, especially with Divine Favor and other buffs.

[StreamOfTheSky]

"You know what else is based on wisdom? Your listen, spot, and survival skills."

You know what else Dex is used for? AC, initiative, and many skills (including TUMBLE). (And Reflex, but you left off Will, so whatever)

Look, Zen Archery is great. For an actual cleric, who is actually incentivized to max the hell out of his wisdom. But not for a part-time, pretend cleric. You still need dex for archery feats, so you couldn't dump it anyway. And a scout archer is already insanely feat starved.

PBS
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot
Swift Hunter
Improved Skirmish
Travel Devotion
Imp. Precise Shot
Darkstalker (if you actually want to do the thing in your class name)

And that's not even getting into the "nice to have" ones like Woodland Archer.

[ddude987]

"You know what else is based on wisdom? Your listen, spot, and survival skills."

You know what else Dex is used for? AC, initiative, and many skills (including TUMBLE). (And Reflex, but you left off Will, so whatever)

Look, Zen Archery is great. For an actual cleric, who is actually incentivized to max the hell out of his wisdom. But not for a part-time, pretend cleric. You still need dex for archery feats, so you couldn't dump it anyway. And a scout archer is already insanely feat starved.

PBS
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot
Swift Hunter
Improved Skirmish
Travel Devotion
Imp. Precise Shot
Darkstalker (if you actually want to do the thing in your class name)

And that's not even getting into the "nice to have" ones like Woodland Archer.

Though as stated before, travel devotion can be gotten for free. Playing a human nets another free feat, as do flaws, but those conditions are assuming variant rules that if you have, everyone else does too. Ranger does get a few free feats though, such as rapid shot.

edit: Also, wouldn't swift hunter and improved skirmish fall under nice to have feats? They aren't required to do decent damage.

[Invader]

Ah thank you kindly. I knew travel devotion was the preferred method for using Skirmish but I wasn't aware that you could burn turn attempts for extra uses.

[StreamOfTheSky]

edit: Also, wouldn't swift hunter and improved skirmish fall under nice to have feats? They aren't required to do decent damage.

Swift Hunter really is required to make Scout a decent class (by no longer having to take much of it), and more to the point... yes, I would say the feat is "required" if one is making a "swift hunter" build, as the OP was asking about.

Improved Skirmish makes a big difference, even at 20th level, the never-improving feat is adding nearly +50% to your skirmish damage. The effect is felt much more at the levels you actually pick it up. Sneak attack is literally double the skirmish damage; every little but helps a lot.

[sumkidy]

Well, I made such a character:

The idea behind this is you pick up the feat "Swift Hunter" from the Complete Scoundrel. It allows you to continue obtaining the increases to your Skirmish from the Scout class while taking Ranger levels (the Ranger and Scout levels stack to determine Skirmishing benefit).

Now normally if you just go Scout/Ranger you'd end up using Manyshot a lot because you need to move at least 10ft to get Skirmish damage, which of course only leaves you a Standard Action left in the round.

HOWEVER, with the Cloistered Cleric level, you get 2 domains as well as the Knowledge one for free. Now, you can either choose 'Travel Devotion' as a feat, or (which I highly recommend), permanently swap out the Travel Domain (and thus lose all spells granted by it) and pick up Travel Devotion for free.

NOW, Travel Devotion allows you to use, a certain amount of times per day, Freedom of Movement (and you can do it more times per day if you sacrifice turnings, so a decent Charisma and an item like a Nightstick don't go amiss), which allows movement as a SWIFT action, thus allowing you the rest of your turn to make a full attack but now WITH the benefits of Skirmishing added!

The build I made was this:

Cloistered Cleric 1
Ranger 15
Scout 4

Then when I started epic one can pick up more Ranger or Scout depending on what benefits you like. I personally began to take levels of Deepwood Sniper for diversity's sake (as well as some of its other amazing benefits).