3.5 Cloistered Cleric help!

[spaghettis]

I'm thinking about playing as a cloistered cleric in a 3.5 campaign starting at level 4. Does anyone know of a way to boost my BAB progression back up to average?

[Nifft]

Persistent divine power, which comes online at level 7 which is around when you'd start to care about having multiple iterative attacks.

[AvatarVecna]

"Divine Power" is a 4th level cleric spell that grants you BAB=ECL for 1 round/level. You can extend it to make it last twice that long, or you can persist it to make it last all day (note: persistent "Divine Power" is only possible pre-epic through metamagic reduction or mitigation).

[spaghettis]

Thank you both, I misunderstood divine power. It is immensely better than what I originally thought.

[AvatarVecna]

No problem, always happy to help out. Was that the only issue the class was giving you?

[Grod_The_Giant]

I think there's also a weapon enhancement-- Aptitude?-- that lets you treat your BAB as though it were medium.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Skillful brings your base attack up to medium, Aptitude is the one that allows you to use WF(x) with weapon y.

[AvatarVecna]

I think there's also a weapon enhancement-- Aptitude?-- that lets you treat your BAB as though it were medium.

I don't think Aptitude does that; if so, it's better than I recalled. Aptitude (IIRC) just lets the weapon it's on count as any other weapon for the purposes of your feats (such as Weapon Focus or Improved Critical, but if you're a fan of cheese, it also works for things like Lightning Mace and Roundabout Kick).

[Troacctid]

You can also use prestige classes, if that counts. Cloistered Cleric 4/Church Inquisitor 10 is full casting and only 1 point of BAB behind a standard Cleric.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Skillful brings your base attack up to medium, Aptitude is the one that allows you to use WF(x) with weapon y.
Ahh, I knew it was something like that. Thank you.

[Thurbane]

Some PrC's with good BAB will do it: Knight of the Raven (although you need BAB +4 to enter, so level 8 without dipping or another PrC first). It will cost you a lot of skill points though.

[AvatarVecna]

Sacred Fist grants full casting and full BAB, but it also basically require a Monk dip (decent but not as great as 1-2 levels of casting), and that you don't use weapons (problematic for a cleric that apparently cares about BAB, but not an insurmountable obstacle.

[Nifft]

With the right Domain choices, a Cloistered Cleric 20 is perfectly viable.

Travel Domain, for example, gives a power that's great at level 5, and even better at level 20 -- plus the Survival skill, which might be nice if your party lacks a Ranger. You've certainly got the Wisdom to make Track checks.

Trickery Domain is another of my favorites: it gives nice spells, plus Bluff, Disguise, and Hide.

With Spell Compendium options like the Pact Domain, you've got even more choices about spending all your lovely skill points.

Heck, even with just the Knowledge Domain, you probably have plenty of places to put your points -- and with the Knowledge Devotion feat, you get a juicy combat benefit at higher levels. (IMHO it's nice to keep the Knowledge Domain and pay for the feat separately, because Dungeoneering, Nature, and Local are not on the Cleric list otherwise -- nor is Nobility, and you want 5 ranks of that for the Diplomacy bonus.)