Realpolitik cleric rebuild

[jonatzin]

Hello!

Some background first: I've been playing a 8 Lvl capped pathfinder campaign with my friends, it's my first time playing in forever so I wasn't exactly sure how things would go. I ended up playing a 6 Lvl dwarf cleric with the trickery and exploration domains. I also have an additional 1 level dip into fighter (mostly for armor, weapons and shield proficiency).

I ended up playing him differently then what I originally envisioned and he's now more of a walking tank (22 AC, higher then anyone else in the entire party), with a wand of invisibility and wand of summon (lvl 3) which are used quite liberally. He's also turned into the quite the survivalist always extremely careful, always checking for people's motives and always ready with a few scrolls of remove something.

Through story line the GM decided to gives us an opportunity to change our characters to an extent. I can now reassign levels, pick and new deity, change attributes and skills. However I need to keep my race and the general theme of the character (i.e. still religion based, but I can also take more melee based dips like paladin, fighter, inquisitor or I can go full cleric). So I have a few questions:

1. How do I maximize my summoning capabilities?
2. How do I keep my armor capabilities?
3. Which forgotten realms deity would be most suited towards a Realpolitik roleplay?

Thanks!

[Segev]

"Realpolitick" doesn't mean a lot to me in terms of usual D&D RPGs. What do you intend to be doing that you see this character's "realpolitick"ness coming into play as an advantage? (By this question, I am attempting to discern what it is you're envisioning your character doing, so we can better determine mechanics that support it.) I do know what the word means, but it's usually used in more, well, political situations than the usual D&D campaign, and it takes certain leaps of assumption that could go a number of directions to work the concept into the Forgotten Realms. (It's absolutely doable, but I am not sure what direction to take on it.)

[jonatzin]

Hi!

I was thinking of something along the line of survival, making sure he is safe and well off regardless of the situation. Something along the line of a boy scout "always prepared" but more sneaky, world grounded and maybe a hint of devious. Includes sucking up to other faiths if necessary and doing what needs to be done to survive.

Does that help?

Edit: Spelling and clarification

[Segev]

Cleric is pretty good at that just from spell access alone. I think your character is probably fine as-is. Have you noticed any shortcomings in your build or abilities that you'd like to specifically shore up?

[Miss Disaster]

Regarding your Realpolitik emphasis with your F.R. Dwarven Cleric (based on your statement that your race will stay the same), I would look at the god, Vergadain. You can Google him for a number of Wikipedia and F.R. Wiki references.

He is the Dwarven God of wealth, luck, chance, nonevil thieves, suspicion, trickery, negotiation & sly cleverness.

Note the last 2 portfolios that I highlighted. :smallamused: Your current 2 cleric domains are Trickery and Exploration. Vergadain already has Trickery available - which is one less change you would have to make. I would swap out the Exploration domain for Luck - which has an excellent domain ability (thematically appropriate to your cleric, too) as well as additional spells granted. Vergadain clergy are all about bargaining and the "Art of the Deal". So he would be all about focusing on power, pragmatism, material/mercantile acquisition ... and staying alive at all costs. Realpolitik at its best. ;-) Vergadain clergy have 5 alignments available to them - NG, LN, N, CN and NE.

[paladin1818]

Animal domain has great summoning qualities, & just dip into fighter again. There's lots of deities with nature that also have other great domains, my person fav is travel. Or just maybe plant domain with barkskin, or use a morningstar(they are ok weapons)

[bean illus]

I would drop the Fighter level, unless you just can't fix your feat tax without it. It won't be as useful as it was at lower levels, now that you have more spells/etc.

"Thou shall not lose caster levels" is perhaps even more relevant in an E8 game than in an E20 game. I assume that CL boosting mechanics (like domain boost) are still available? and the dip could be used for something else. I recommend Church Inquisitor or Divine Oracle, both of which grant domains+.