Fist of Raziel

[WeaselGuy]

So, I see plenty of threads touting the Fist of Raziel, and I agree, it's pretty amazing. But, I've never taken the time to actually go crazy with it, and I was wondering, what would some of you guys do to totally pimp out an Aasimar Fist of Raziel? No Dragon Magazine, no Homebrew, free +2 LA for race or template combo (can be either a +0 Lesser Aasimar, or the standard +1 Aasimar).

[ColossusCrusher]

Just off the top of my head, I'd go for a Phrenic Lesser Aasimar, Paladin entry, maybe a few levels of something else after Pally 5 (for mount/charging smite/divine spirit). Definitely go for Dynamic Priest to shift your casting except for DCs to Charisma (Serenity moves the class features to Wisdom but is in Dragon Compendium). Maybe a two level dip in Witch Slayer for Mettle. There's plenty of great templates, but I'm really biased in favor of Phrenic. I just love it.

[Kazudo]

With such strict guidelines I agree with the above information. I would actually recommend using an Illumian with Aeshkrau rather than an Aasimar, but that's mostly to get the entire build (save for smiting) into STR. At that point, I'd recommend Cleric 1/Unarmed Swordsage 6/Fist of the Forest 3/Fist of Raziel 10. I don't even know what I'd do for that last level. Fist of Raziel's pretty tough to finish well.

[Pluto!]

I wouldn't focus a build on smiting without getting Ordained Champion into it. Extra turn attempts are just so much more abundant than traditional extra smites, not even going into OC's non-smiting features.

[Xaktsaroth]

I've always liked:

Cleric 7/Prestige Paladin 3/Fist of Raziel 10.

18 BAB, 9th level spells. :D

[TheDarkDM]

You could always use your free +2 to start as a Saint.

[WeaselGuy]

I've always liked:

Cleric 7/Prestige Paladin 3/Fist of Raziel 10.

18 BAB, 9th level spells. :D

Yeah, that's pretty much what I've always sketched out in the past...

[Angelalex242]

My traditional build loses spellcasting...because Prestige Paladin doesn't exist in my world.

Clr 1/Pal 6/Fist 10/Clr 4.

If you absolutely MUST have your spellcasting...

Clr 8/Fist 10/Clr 10, losing only one level of spellcasting.

It isn't actually a pre-req of Fist that you must have Smite Evil.

And yes, using your free +LA for anything other then the Saint Template is simply absurd. Saint is one of the strongest templates out there. Exalted characters shouldn't leave home without it.

[Red Fel]

I wouldn't focus a build on smiting without getting Ordained Champion into it. Extra turn attempts are just so much more abundant than traditional extra smites, not even going into OC's non-smiting features.

I'm actually a fair fan of this. Cleric 5/ OC 5/ FoR 10 is pretty nice. It is slightly more casty than Paladin -> FoR, and there is some question as to Smite overlap (FoR says explicitly yes to Paladin, and explicitly no to Destruction, and this is neither, although OC's Smite is closer to Destruction's). But you get a total of 17 levels of Cleric casting (5 from Cleric, 3 from OC, 9 from FoR) which is just enough to get you into 9th-level spells, and the Ordained Champion's War spells can be fairly potent when used smartly.

If you're going for a more maximum-smitey FoR, consider the fact that a Cleric 5/ PrPal 5/ FoR 10 gets a baseline of 7 smites (PrPal 5 gets you 2/day, FoR 9 gets you another 5/day), while Pal 10/ FoR 10 gets 3 smites (Pal 10 gets 3/day). (Guh, ignore that first half, Cleric 5 doesn't satisfy the BAB prereq of PrPal.) However, the former build gets you Cleric 17 casting (5 from Cleric, 3 from PrPal, 9 from FoR) while the latter gets you Pal 19 casting. On the other hand, being proper Paladin instead of Prestige Paladin gets you access to various ACFs and racial substitution levels; for example, Charging Smite has the very useful benefit of not discharging your Smite on a miss. (Not that you plan to miss, do you?)