Ordained Champion advice

[danielxcutter]

Thought exercise. I don't plan on actually using this for play anytime soon, if at all.

So I've seen the Ordained Champion PrC, and it seems pretty sweet. While best for Clerics, it also seems to be a pretty darn good one for Paladins as well.

Could you guys give me some answers to the following questions?

1. I hear that Bone Knight goes really well with OC, which according to my own research seems to be correct. However, it does have the disadvantage of being Eberron-specific, which might not be an option for some characters. Is the Sacred Exorcist PrC a good substitution for this - or a good choice in general? It gets an extra turning pool, which means double the smiting. I suppose it's a case-by-case situation, but SE does seem pretty awesome with OC. And you can use it to enter via Favored Soul if I read that correctly.

2. If I enter OC via Paladin, I should really trade my smite away, right? Sure, your smite will be weaker(pallys turn undead as three levels lower than a cleric, and no Cha bonus), but it's not alignment-based, and it's easy to get more smites per day than Paladins twice your level. Any ACFs for this? Speaking about ACFs, what should a Cleric choose? How about Favored Soul?

3. Combining OC's Rapid Spontaneous Casting with Ruby Knight Vindicator allows you to cast about five or six, say Flame Strikes or Blade Barriers in one turn... as swift actions. I'm not sure if it's worth it, though. You can't get 9ths. On the other hand... 120d6 really hurts.

4. Any other advice/opinions/ideas that doesn't fall under the first three questions?

[danielxcutter]

Hate doing this, but bump to put this back on the front page.

[Dante Daylight]

I was thinking about becomming an Ordained Champion myself for a while with my Paladin, so I am familiar with it's benefits and flaws. To summarize at this point: anything without turning/rebuking and minimum 1 domain get just a fractial benefit out of OC than anything with one or both.

1.

- Paladin/Bone knight/Ordained champion sounds really solid, if you don't have any issues with the taint from the association with the undead (which for my Paladin would be a matter)

- Sacred Excorcist looks fine (Levels in SE even stacks with previous turning levels) but you have alignment problems when you are planning for more turning pools in order to have more uses of the OC abilities. That is because anything other then rebuking or turning undead wouldn't work, and rebuking undead is just an option for nongood clerics as far as i know but Sacred Excorcist demands a good alignment.

2.

- There is not too much gain in entering OC from plain Paladin and I don't know any substitution for smite that would be a better solution in this place. The problems a Paladin->OC will face:

-- To perform a smite as OC you have to burn a turn undead as swift action, blocking use of most usefull items and skills
-- you lose 1-2 spellcaster levels for your spell progression
-- you have to take weapon focus of your deity for entering OC, burning one feat slot with nearly no benefit
-- you just gain the war domain spells but no additional slots
-- with just few and low level spellslots most abilities of OC just don't are worth the sacrifice
-- no class advancement for paladin abilities besides turn undead at all
-- no spontaneous casting (cleric only) and no good spell to channel into your weapon

- I don't have much experience with favoured soul so there is few advice, not preparing spells and the amount of spellslots can get interesting. Main problems I see for the favoured soul:

-- no Turn undead pool and progression
-- no domains
-- no swift sponaneous casting

- As cleric you should choose war domain bevore becoming OC, so you save the entry feat and can choose to get a new domain from OC and have the option of the domain power or a fighter feat which can be nice

3.

- Ruby knight vindicators Divine Impetus sounds in fact awesome in combination with OC.

4.

- I had the idea of making Paladin6->Fist of Raziel1->Divine crusader1->Ordained Champion5->Fist of Raziel7 which would grant a lot of smiting, fighting and some nice casting action. I just cancelled it because it just felt as too much munchkining for me.
- Something like Favoured soul->Prestige Paladin->Ordained Champion->Sacred excorcist can be a thing if the main goal is to avoid cleric and make a Paladin with much spells (but my dm wouldn't alow for Prestige Paladin).

[Rebel7284]

There is an issue with getting extra swift actions with RKV.

Divine Impetus doesn't specify an action to use. Examining the ability RAW, it should default to a standard action. However, most of the time converting a standard action to a swift one, would be very suboptimal and you can accomplish the same thing by using ready an action.

So you have to ask your DM to examine the intent and determine what the action cost should be. It looks like the intent was to grant a single swift action, not the ability to quicken 20 spells on the same turn. Therefore, I would rule it to be a free action usable once per turn. Your DM's mileage may vary.

[flappeercraft]

Unfortunately you acn't combine OC with RKV unless you use houserules. For OC as a requirement you need to be a follower of Hextor or Heironeous while for RKV you need to follow Wee Jas.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Sacred Exorcist wouldn't give you more Turn Undead, it just increases the effectiveness. Honestly, Bone Knight has never really impressed me. You lose a CL, and get... well, it makes a great necromancer, but not so much a gish. A better followup would be Fist of Raziel; you don't need Turn Undead stacking since you're just burning them for smite attempts, and it powers up all smites you make.

[Aegis013]

...2. If I enter OC via Paladin, I should really trade my smite away, right? Sure, your smite will be weaker(pallys turn undead as three levels lower than a cleric, and no Cha bonus), but it's not alignment-based, and it's easy to get more smites per day than Paladins twice your level. Any ACFs for this? Speaking about ACFs, what should a Cleric choose? How about Favored Soul?...

I wouldn't trade the Smite Evil feature from Paladin if I were going to play a Paladin/OC. The reason is because the smites can be used simultaneously to make a super-smite. The Smite Evil feature is also required for a variety of desirable feats, whereas OC's Smite feature isn't Smite Evil and may not qualify.

As far as Clerics' ACFs, Unearthed Arcana's Cloistered Cleric gets some extra skills, Knowledge Domain at the cost of reduced BAB (which is fixed with Divine Power spell) and HP, but you can trade Knowledge Domain for Knowledge Devotion which is a good feat for a melee gish and it's, in my opinion, a worthwhile trade.

I'm AFB and don't remember any Favored Soul ACFs.

[Pleh]

Unfortunately you acn't combine OC with RKV unless you use houserules. For OC as a requirement you need to be a follower of Hextor or Heironeous while for RKV you need to follow Wee Jas.

Eh, that's a fluff problem. Just a "talk to your dm" kind of situation. Therafirm (http://therafimrpg.wikidot.com/ordained-champion) says "any martial deity," so they include gruumsh, moradin, and Larenthian as acceptable.

Usually, any deity that is at war with another (just as heironeous and Hextor are) could reasonably qualify.

Honestly, I find it silly a cleric couldn't just be a cleric serving the ideal of war and take this class. It's about asome superfluous as requiring assassins to be evil.

[WhamBamSam]

I'm not the biggest fan of Ordained Champion's Smite, compared to other things that could be done with a Turn/Rebuke. It also eats your swift action, which means no Devastating Smite, which I'd be throwing around on just about any other Smite focused build.

If your DM rules that Divine Impetus is a free action (which is not supported by RAW), then maybe sticking around for a 4th level on an RKV build could be worth it. Even then, you're losing out on 9ths both for spells and maneuvers, which is less than ideal. You could improve that trick with the Customize Domain feat in Dragon 325, if available.

I actually really like Ordained Champion, but I generally take 3 levels for Channel Spell, then jump ship to avoid losing more caster levels.

For classes that can get in and be advanced by Ordained Champion, here's a list...

Archivist - Requires weapon proficiency to qualify for Weapon Focus. You can get this from your race by being an Outsider (Neraph, Racial Class 0 Tiefling or Aasimar (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a), any race with the Otherworldly feat, standard Tiefling or Aasimar if you can stomach the LA+1), Giant ((Primordial) Menta or Feral-Kind Cyclopean from Dragon 323, (Primordial) Half-Giant if you can stomach the LA), Elf (if you can use a deity with a Favored Weapon matching a racial proficiency, which you definitely can, as Heironeous' favored weapon is Longsword), Kobold (if you can use a deity with a favored weapon of Heavy Pick or Light Pick, which they got racial proficiency for from the RotD Web Enhancement (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a)), or something. You can also take the MWP or Militia feat, but Otherworldly for the outsider type is pretty much strictly better and is available to any race via the Celestial-Attended Birth option in Champions of Valor. You can also get proficiency by wrangling yourself a domain (Church Inquisitor, Divine Oracle, etc) and casting Substitute Domain if necessary to switch over to the War Domain for days at a time, or by delaying entry and taking Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment: War Domain) for the War Domain's granted power, which gives proficiency and weapon focus in one. Archivists also don't get the Bonus Domain, or generally care about any features that aren't Channel Spell, but they have broader spell access for Channel tricks.

Cleric - Intended entry, extra goodies (albeit ones I don't think are that good, apart from the Bonus Domain and maybe trading old domain powers for fighter feats), and the War Domain gets you Weapon Focus as a bonus feat. Cleric 4 into Ordained Champion is solid.

Divine Crusader - Can get in on its own if you choose the right domain, but domains with Magic Weapon generally don't have all that much you want to Channel. However, since Ordained Champ can be entered relatively early, has an overlapping Weapon Focus prereq, and helps with Divine Crusader's BAB requirement, Divine Crusader makes a great class to mix in after Ordained Champ. Paladin 4/Ordained Champ 3/Divine Crusader 1/Bone Knight X or Paladin 5/Ordained Champ 2/Divine Crusader 1/Ordained Champ +1/Bone Knight X are good solid ways to inject the Paladin entry with a bit more spellcasting oomph.

Favored Soul - Lacks Turning, but gets Weapon Focus as a bonus feat, and gets in without fuss.

Paladin - You can spare yourself the feat by using an ACF to trade away Turning for a Fighter feat, though that's generally a bad exchange even if you don't intend to use the Turn based Ordained Champ abilities.

Sha'ir - As I mentioned in your ZSM thread, Sha'irs have enough divine casting to count for the purposes of advancing their casting with Ordained Champ, but that divine casting does not include their ability to cast Magic Weapon, so you need to engage in some chicanery, usually Southern Magician. The problem is, you can't get both Southern Magician and Weapon Focus on time as a straight Sha'ir, because Weapon Focus requires BAB+1 and proficiency, and Southern Magician requires the ability to cast 2nd level spells,so you can't take either at 1st level (I guess with a flaw and a permissive DM, you could go Precocious Apprentice, Southern Magician, Militia or Otherworldly at 1 and then Weapon Focus at 3). This means you're either delaying to enter from Sha'ir 6 (Whatever at 1st, Southern Magician at 3rd, Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment: War Domain) at 6th, or losing a caster level. Sha'ir 3/Fighter 1 is the simplest route, if you're willing to burn a first level feat on Skill Focus (Diplomacy), then Sha'ir 3/Marshal 1 can also get Weapon Focus at 4th level, Sha'ir 3/Cloistered Cleric 1 with the War Domain gets in without even needing Southern Magician, though it feels awkward, Human Paragon 1/Sha'ir 2/Human Paragon +1 with Southern Magician as the Human Paragon 2 bonus feat is nice if you've got a particular skill in mind for your build, and if you need to be an Elf for some reason, you can use Half-Elf Sha'ir 4/Half-Elf Paragon 1 or the Sha'ir 6 entry above, with Human Heritage at 1st level, Southern Magician at 3rd, and Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment: War) as your bonus feat for Half-Elf Paragon 1 or 6th level feat.

Knight of the Chalice, Hunter of the Dead, and Disciple of Thrym all have Magic Weapon on their spell lists as well, if any of them seem appealing for whatever reason. Other divine casting classes are kind of a pain to enter with and generally don't have much payoff.


Since I view it as far and away the most interesting aspect of Ordained Champion, let's talk about Channel Spell...

As I mentioned in the ZSM thread, Channel Spell is good for mounted characters or characters who otherwise have move actions that would be left unused, since it basically lets you convert that action into the casting of a spell.

It might be able to deliver the spell to multiple targets using things that hit all of said targets at basically the same time (the Whirling Blade spell, the Steel Wind maneuver, etc).

Even if you only get to hit one target with a channeled spell, Whirling Blade is pretty cool in conjunction with Channel Spell, though you need to be a Sha'ir or Archivist, or somehow fit it into the base of your Divine Crusader build.

An Elvencraft Bow counts as a melee weapon, so you can channel spells into it which will then go off when you use it to shoot someone (as it only counts as multiple weapons for enhancement pricing purposes).

You can use it in conjunction with some other abilities that use a standard action, like the Duskblade version of Channel Spell to hit with multiple spells in the same round, Arcane Archer's Imbue Arrow using the above Elvencraft Bow trick to the same end at range, or strike maneuvers as a classic standard action attack option.


A few less conventional Ordained Champion builds I'm fond of...

Forestlord Elf (Female Lesser Drow if multiclass penalties are enforced) Cloistered Cleric 1/Duskblade 3/Ordained Champion 3/Arcane Archer 2/Divine Crusader 1/Seeker of the Misty Isle/Sovereign Speaker/Contemplative/Whatever. Can make two-spell attacks in melee or at range from what ends up a pretty respectable spell list once you pour in all the extra domains. Basically run around being the elfiest elf to ever elf. Requires a war deity with Longbow as a favored weapon (Shevarash and Solodor Thelandria are good choices as they also offer the Elf domain for Point Blank Shot) or possibly Heretic of the Faith (a good option if you want to worship the Sovereign Host for Sovereign Speaker).

Mulan Human Paragon 1/Sha'ir 2/Human Paragon +1/Ordained Champion 3/Earth Dreamer 5/Human Paragon +1/etc or [Outsider] Archivist 4/Ordained Champion 3/Earth Dreamer 5/etc. Can see through walls thanks to Earth Dreamer and using the Brilliant Blade spell, can fling Whirling Blades through them carrying channeled spells. The Sha'ir version is a touch more SAD and can pick up Iaijutsu Focus with its Human Paragon skill, which is always handy for style and against enemies who can't see you, but the Archivist version saves a caster level.

[scolack]

Thought exercise. I don't plan on actually using this for play anytime soon, if at all.

3. Combining OC's Rapid Spontaneous Casting with Ruby Knight Vindicator allows you to cast about five or six, say Flame Strikes or Blade Barriers in one turn... as swift actions. I'm not sure if it's worth it, though. You can't get 9ths. On the other hand... 120d6 really hurts.



oh ffs. Do people honestly think the Ruby knight vindicator was intended to allow for unlimited burn turns for extra swifts per turn? of course not. 1 per turn for 2 swift actions.

If I was DMing I would immediately shut down such nonsensical cheese.

"You can expend a turn or rebuke undead attempt to gain one additional swift action this round." you can do this to gain ONE additional swift action this round. People who read that as "i can do an unlimited amount of turns to get one additional swift each" get out of here. It is clear what the rule meant.