D&D 3.5 Binder/Cleric Build?

[Coniferous]

The playground was recently very helpful for me in making a sneaky druid. That game is set to start by the end of the month. A colleague from work is also planning a once monthly 3.5e game for our fellows at work, many of whom are familiar with 5e or 4e. A decade since my last game and now I have two coming up! The Gods may be silent in our campaign world but they listen to prayers here.

So far the party composition is open. The world proposed is one where the Gods are more distant or maybe even dead. It re-sparked the idea I had for a character years ago; a character who can channel the gods, personality and all, in a world where they are mostly silent. This character would be more of a vessel for the Gods' will.

The easiest way of doing this, in my mind, is with the Binder class from Tome of Magic. I'm wondering if there is a good Binder/Cleric build, or a Cleric-y Binder PrC (I'll be borrowing the DM's ToM tomorrow, I can't check right now).

We have access to all the books listed below:

Tome of Magic
Tome of Battle (on a case-by-case basis)
Core (DMG, DMG2, PH, PH2, all MM's)
Completes (CA, CAdv, CM, CW, CS, CD, CC)
Unearthed Arcana
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Races of Destiny
Eberron Campaign Setting
Races of Eberron
Faiths of Eberron
Magic of Eberron
Heroes of Horror

All wisdom welcome.

EDIT

I do not have access to the Vestiges from online. I can only use those found in one of the above books.

[Venger]

are you interested in tenebrous apostate? It's a fun class for a binder/cleric theurge if that floats your boat, then after that you can either ask your dm if he can make up a divine version of anima mage, or if not just enter using southern magician and you'll be able to finish up with pretty much as full of both as possible.

[Coniferous]

are you interested in tenebrous apostate? It's a fun class for a binder/cleric theurge if that floats your boat, then after that you can either ask your dm if he can make up a divine version of anima mage, or if not just enter using southern magician and you'll be able to finish up with pretty much as full of both as possible.

I'll have to get back to you after I get my hands on my DM's ToM. I'll look up the PrC then.

What is southern magic?

[Venger]

I'll have to get back to you after I get my hands on my DM's ToM. I'll look up the PrC then.

What is southern magic?

tenebrous apostate is a divine/binding theurgic class with an emphasis on tenebrous.

anima mage is (normally) arcane/binding, but if you're interested in going divine, talk to your gm and see if he can just change it, since you're dealing with a very limited resource pool.

southern magician (admittedly a kneejerk on my part) is a feat from races of faerun (not on your list) which allows divine casters to enter arcane prcs and vica versa. but if your gm's banned that as a source, he ought to be amenable to letting you enter anima mage as a divine caster or making up some appropriately named alternative like with all the other theurgic classes.

[Coniferous]

tenebrous apostate is a divine/binding theurgic class with an emphasis on tenebrous.

anima mage is (normally) arcane/binding, but if you're interested in going divine, talk to your gm and see if he can just change it, since you're dealing with a very limited resource pool.

southern magician (admittedly a kneejerk on my part) is a feat from races of faerun (not on your list) which allows divine casters to enter arcane prcs and vica versa. but if your gm's banned that as a source, he ought to be amenable to letting you enter anima mage as a divine caster or making up some appropriately named alternative like with all the other theurgic classes.

Our DM is pretty by the book. I think the reason is because we have a lot of new people with experience in different edition and he wants to keep it simple and easy to understand.

I'm noticing a lot of the vestiges are kind of evilish (thank you google). I was hoping to avoid that as much as possible. I can make a little evil work, though. I had a chance to skim Tenebrous Apostate and I like the class. It also feels kind of evil, though. It could still work; the original idea I had was a character who gets spontaneously possessed by different Gods to carry out their will. She could have a stronger bond with some than others, I would need to think of an in-character reason for that.

What are some of the more goodish vestiges? They all seem to float around grey to jet black.

[Psyren]

Our DM is pretty by the book. I think the reason is because we have a lot of new people with experience in different edition and he wants to keep it simple and easy to understand.

Luckily for you, "Anima Priest" is an official adaptation in the book - ToM pg. 53.



What are some of the more goodish vestiges? They all seem to float around grey to jet black.

Balam, Buer, Focalor, Ipos...

[Venger]

Our DM is pretty by the book. I think the reason is because we have a lot of new people with experience in different edition and he wants to keep it simple and easy to understand.

I'm noticing a lot of the vestiges are kind of evilish (thank you google). I was hoping to avoid that as much as possible. I can make a little evil work, though. I had a chance to skim Tenebrous Apostate and I like the class. It also feels kind of evil, though. It could still work; the original idea I had was a character who gets spontaneously possessed by different Gods to carry out their will. She could have a stronger bond with some than others, I would need to think of an in-character reason for that.

What are some of the more goodish vestiges? They all seem to float around grey to jet black.

not that alignment means anything, but you can be a tenebrous apostate without being evil if that's something that bothers you.

[ATHATH]

not that alignment means anything, but you can be a tenebrous apostate without being evil if that's something that bothers you.
In fact, it's more optimal to NOT be Evil, since being Neutral will let you cast both Sanctified and Corrupt spells (from the Book of Exalted Deeds (and Champions of Valor, IIRC) and the Book of Vile Darkness (and Elder Evils, IIRC), respectively), which can be combo'd with Naberius to great effect. Speaking of Naberius, symbionts and those rituals from Lords of Madness (IIRC) also work really well with him.

[Venger]

In fact, it's more optimal to NOT be Evil, since being Neutral will let you cast both Sanctified and Corrupt spells (from the Book of Exalted Deeds (and Champions of Valor, IIRC) and the Book of Vile Darkness (and Elder Evils, IIRC), respectively), which can be combo'd with Naberius to great effect. Speaking of Naberius, symbionts and those rituals from Lords of Madness (IIRC) also work really well with him.

she's playing in an eberron game. eberron, being a good setting, allows people of all alignments to cast all spells. other suggestions are solid.

[Grod_The_Giant]

You can also try refluffing vestiges, DM permitting.

You can get into Tenebrous Apostate as early as 6th (with Improved Binding, a feat you will take), but I recommend waiting until effective Binder level 8th, when you get the extra vestige-- otherwise you'll be stuck with nothing but Tenebrous for a few levels, and the lack of offense there will make you pretty sad. (Unless, I guess, you use Rebuke to control a bunch of undead to fight for you).

If your DM approves the "Anima Priest" variant, I'd go for that above Tenebrous-- it's much more open-ended in terms of who you can bind, which sounds more fitting for your dude.

Oh, but be warned-- I've heard that the Binder feels kind of sparse between ~3rd and 8th level, when your medium-BAB weapon attacks stop working so well, but you can't yet bind a second vestige for a doubled-up offense or to have combat and utility. (Honestly, you kind of have to build towards one or two vestiges anyway, to take full advantage; the class could really use a floating bonus feat or two)

[ATHATH]

You can also try refluffing vestiges, DM permitting.

You can get into Tenebrous Apostate as early as 6th (with Improved Binding, a feat you will take), but I recommend waiting until effective Binder level 8th, when you get the extra vestige-- otherwise you'll be stuck with nothing but Tenebrous for a few levels, and the lack of offense there will make you pretty sad. (Unless, I guess, you use Rebuke to control a bunch of undead to fight for you).

If your DM approves the "Anima Priest" variant, I'd go for that above Tenebrous-- it's much more open-ended in terms of who you can bind, which sounds more fitting for your dude.

Oh, but be warned-- I've heard that the Binder feels kind of sparse between ~3rd and 8th level, when your medium-BAB weapon attacks stop working so well, but you can't yet bind a second vestige for a doubled-up offense or to have combat and utility. (Honestly, you kind of have to build towards one or two vestiges anyway, to take full advantage; the class could really use a floating bonus feat or two)
I thought that increasing your EBL with feats, PrCs, etc. also increase the number and level of vestiges that you could bind. Am I just wrong/misremembering?

[Venger]

I thought that increasing your EBL with feats, PrCs, etc. also increase the number and level of vestiges that you could bind. Am I just wrong/misremembering?

yes, you are.

[Nifft]

I thought that increasing your EBL with feats, PrCs, etc. also increase the number and level of vestiges that you could bind. Am I just wrong/misremembering?

You're correct about PrCs granting an increase in number of vestiges bound, but what Grog is saying is that for your first few levels of TenApo you will be below Binder level 8 and so you'll have (a) Eternal Bondage to Tenebrous, but (b) only one Vestige bound at a time. In combination, that means you have only Tenebrous bound, period.

It's not the worst thing in the world -- Tenebrous is pretty strong -- but it's not as fun as having at least one other choice available.



yes, you are.

Dude what?

[Venger]

I thought that increasing your EBL with feats, PrCs, etc. also increase the number and level of vestiges that you could bind. Am I just wrong/misremembering?

ugh mobile cut off my post:

improved binding just boosts the level of vestiges you can access, it doesn't do other stuff like give you extra vestiges bound. classes like tenebrous apostate that give +soul binding make you just read a level up on your chart, like a +spellcasting class does with a spellcaster

[Coniferous]

Luckily for you, "Anima Priest" is an official adaptation in the book - ToM pg. 53.



Balam, Buer, Focalor, Ipos...

I will take a look at those vestiges. I'll need to make a list of the ones I want to use, or would be most in-character to use.


not that alignment means anything, but you can be a tenebrous apostate without being evil if that's something that bothers you.

True. I'm working on possibilities for that now. It would involve the character being more inwilling, maybe growing into the role or developing in a way that draws them closer to that particular vestige.


In fact, it's more optimal to NOT be Evil, since being Neutral will let you cast both Sanctified and Corrupt spells (from the Book of Exalted Deeds (and Champions of Valor, IIRC) and the Book of Vile Darkness (and Elder Evils, IIRC), respectively), which can be combo'd with Naberius to great effect. Speaking of Naberius, symbionts and those rituals from Lords of Madness (IIRC) also work really well with him.

All books we don't have access to :(



she's playing in an eberron game. eberron, being a good setting, allows people of all alignments to cast all spells. other suggestions are solid.

I don't know if it's an Eberron game exactly. I only know we have access to material from those books. I think the DM is making their own world.


You can also try refluffing vestiges, DM permitting.

You can get into Tenebrous Apostate as early as 6th (with Improved Binding, a feat you will take), but I recommend waiting until effective Binder level 8th, when you get the extra vestige-- otherwise you'll be stuck with nothing but Tenebrous for a few levels, and the lack of offense there will make you pretty sad. (Unless, I guess, you use Rebuke to control a bunch of undead to fight for you).

If your DM approves the "Anima Priest" variant, I'd go for that above Tenebrous-- it's much more open-ended in terms of who you can bind, which sounds more fitting for your dude.

Oh, but be warned-- I've heard that the Binder feels kind of sparse between ~3rd and 8th level, when your medium-BAB weapon attacks stop working so well, but you can't yet bind a second vestige for a doubled-up offense or to have combat and utility. (Honestly, you kind of have to build towards one or two vestiges anyway, to take full advantage; the class could really use a floating bonus feat or two)

I will need to look into that. I don't have a build laid out yet. I'm also looking at Knight of the Sacred Seal.

EDIT

What vestige complements Tenebrous? I'm drawn towards either Andras or Savok, even though they likely aren't the best choices.

[Thurbane]

What is southern magic?

I'm glad you asked! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?536210)

[Coniferous]

I'm glad you asked! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?536210)

That was an enjoyable read from start to finish.

It's unfortunate the feat isn't allowed in this game (it's not from one of the approved books). Then again, I'm not sure what I would do with it. Anima Mage, maybe, but Tenebrous Apostate seems like an excellent PrC to use.

EDIT

With respect to Tenebrous: how does his Will of the Worm ability work? It says you turn/rebuke as a cleric of your EBL but then says you do not gain the ability to focus positive/negative energy from the ability. Does it give you one turn/rebuke per 5 rounds? If you have levels in Cleric, do you have additional uses from binding Tenebrous? Are Cleric level necessary to use the ability? I'm kind of lost here.

[Venger]

That was an enjoyable read from start to finish.

It's unfortunate the feat isn't allowed in this game (it's not from one of the approved books). Then again, I'm not sure what I would do with it. Anima Mage, maybe, but Tenebrous Apostate seems like an excellent PrC to use.

EDIT

With respect to Tenebrous: how does his Will of the Worm ability work? It says you turn/rebuke as a cleric of your EBL but then says you do not gain the ability to focus positive/negative energy from the ability. Does it give you one turn/rebuke per 5 rounds? If you have levels in Cleric, do you have additional uses from binding Tenebrous? Are Cleric level necessary to use the ability? I'm kind of lost here.

If your gm allows you to just use the anima priest variant, southern magician is unnecessary, so don't worry about it.

what on earth is "will of the worm?"

as far as your turn/rebuke goes, from your "tenebrous's rebuke" ability, neither the class, nor the vestige mentions anything about focusing positive or negative energy. yeah, you can turn/rebuke once every 5 rounds. yes, the uses stack. no cleric levels aren't necessary, but you said you wanted to be a cleric anyway and you need turn/rebuke to enter the class

[Grod_The_Giant]

With respect to Tenebrous: how does his Will of the Worm ability work? It says you turn/rebuke as a cleric of your EBL but then says you do not gain the ability to focus positive/negative energy from the ability. Does it give you one turn/rebuke per 5 rounds? If you have levels in Cleric, do you have additional uses from binding Tenebrous? Are Cleric level necessary to use the ability? I'm kind of lost here.
I don't see anything about positive/negative energy-- just "gain Turn/Rebuke as a cleric of your level, with the usual alignment restrictions and stacking rules, once/5 rounds." It's also not called "Will of the Worm." Are you looking at the original book, or at something online? The positive/negative energy bit sounds like Pathfinder...

In any case, I think the commonly accepted reading of the ability is "once every five rounds, you can make a Turn or Rebuke attempt." Which can presumably be used to power Divine and Devotion feats, which is awesome. (Healing Devotion for the win! Or Strength Devotion, or pre-errata Water Devotion, or Divine Might, or Divine Vigor, or Persistent Refusal, or...)

[Venger]

I don't see anything about positive/negative energy-- just "gain Turn/Rebuke as a cleric of your level, with the usual alignment restrictions and stacking rules, once/5 rounds." It's also not called "Will of the Worm." Are you looking at the original book, or at something online? The positive/negative energy bit sounds like Pathfinder...

In any case, I think the commonly accepted reading of the ability is "once every five rounds, you can make a Turn or Rebuke attempt." Which can presumably be used to power Divine and Devotion feats, which is awesome. (Healing Devotion for the win! Or Strength Devotion, or pre-errata Water Devotion, or Divine Might, or Divine Vigor, or Persistent Refusal, or...)

you explicitly can:


You can still use these turn attempts in conjunction with divine feats, as normal.

[Sagetim]

The playground was recently very helpful for me in making a sneaky druid. That game is set to start by the end of the month. A colleague from work is also planning a once monthly 3.5e game for our fellows at work, many of whom are familiar with 5e or 4e. A decade since my last game and now I have two coming up! The Gods may be silent in our campaign world but they listen to prayers here.

So far the party composition is open. The world proposed is one where the Gods are more distant or maybe even dead. It re-sparked the idea I had for a character years ago; a character who can channel the gods, personality and all, in a world where they are mostly silent. This character would be more of a vessel for the Gods' will.

The easiest way of doing this, in my mind, is with the Binder class from Tome of Magic. I'm wondering if there is a good Binder/Cleric build, or a Cleric-y Binder PrC (I'll be borrowing the DM's ToM tomorrow, I can't check right now).

We have access to all the books listed below:

Tome of Magic
Tome of Battle (on a case-by-case basis)
Core (DMG, DMG2, PH, PH2, all MM's)
Completes (CA, CAdv, CM, CW, CS, CD, CC)
Unearthed Arcana
Spell Compendium
Magic Item Compendium
Races of Destiny
Eberron Campaign Setting
Races of Eberron
Faiths of Eberron
Magic of Eberron
Heroes of Horror

All wisdom welcome.

EDIT

I do not have access to the Vestiges from online. I can only use those found in one of the above books.

You could go with a Cleric of (insert sun god there, like, Corellion Latherion or whatever his name is, or what have you) and then regularly bind Amaunator. Since Amaunator is the Netheril aspect of the sun god/god of rebirth/god of healing binding him along with being a cleric of said current god seems like it would be thematically appropriate.

And further down the leveling line, you could potentially bind Beur, and use her healing abilities to not only stretch the party's healing resources, but also to heal npcs regularly and then attribute it to your god, as a means of building faith and inspiring hope.

I'll second the 'ask the GM about Anima Mage adaptation', since I don't think there was a neutral divine/binding class, just Tenebrous Apostate. Tenebrous Apostate is hilariously evil, because it's binding the cover name of Orcus (prince of demons and all that) who used the name Tenebrous to masquerade as a legit god of undeath. And since the name got worship, it kind of grew a personality of it's own to some degree. And then Orcus killed it, and it became a Vestige.

Now, that all said, Tenebrous Apostate is a 5 level prestige class. You could potentially take 3 cleric/1 binder/10 'Anima Priest'/ 5 Tenebrous Apostate, and then grab one last level in binder, but you would be really weak at binding the entire time, wouldn't get more than one vestige, and would be stuck with Tenebrous once you started into that prc. Just going early entry into Anima Mage/Anima Priest would probably serve you better, and then on the other end of the prestige class you could determine if you want to keep building binder or cleric and go from there. You could even go Scion of Dantalion by then, if you wanted to have creepy vestigal faces on your torso and try to use it to represent being the physical embodiment of a pantheon of gods or something.

[Coniferous]

If your gm allows you to just use the anima priest variant, southern magician is unnecessary, so don't worry about it.

what on earth is "will of the worm?"

as far as your turn/rebuke goes, from your "tenebrous's rebuke" ability, neither the class, nor the vestige mentions anything about focusing positive or negative energy. yeah, you can turn/rebuke once every 5 rounds. yes, the uses stack. no cleric levels aren't necessary, but you said you wanted to be a cleric anyway and you need turn/rebuke to enter the class


I don't see anything about positive/negative energy-- just "gain Turn/Rebuke as a cleric of your level, with the usual alignment restrictions and stacking rules, once/5 rounds." It's also not called "Will of the Worm." Are you looking at the original book, or at something online? The positive/negative energy bit sounds like Pathfinder...


I've been waiting to get my hands on my DM's copy of Tome of Magic and have been basing everything off of what I can find with a google search. The only Tenebrous vestige I found looked about right, but it appears some of the wording was off. My apologies for the confusion.



In any case, I think the commonly accepted reading of the ability is "once every five rounds, you can make a Turn or Rebuke attempt." Which can presumably be used to power Divine and Devotion feats, which is awesome. (Healing Devotion for the win! Or Strength Devotion, or pre-errata Water Devotion, or Divine Might, or Divine Vigor, or Persistent Refusal, or...)

That's excellent. I will need to look into some divine feats and what they bring to the table.

[Sagetim]

I've been waiting to get my hands on my DM's copy of Tome of Magic and have been basing everything off of what I can find with a google search. The only Tenebrous vestige I found looked about right, but it appears some of the wording was off. My apologies for the confusion.



That's excellent. I will need to look into some divine feats and what they bring to the table.

I think most of those are clustered in Complete Divine, maybe some more in Complete Champion. And if you're rolling forward with Tenebros Apostate, then it might behoove you to grab the one that lets you pop turn for a burst of positive energy. It's something like 1d8+wis mod of healing that can also deal damage to undead in it's area of effect. Normally the feat is kind of eh for scaling, because you have a limited number of turns per day, but if you can pop it once every 5 rounds, it could be a fairly solid option for healing up in between fights.

[Coniferous]

You could go with a Cleric of (insert sun god there, like, Corellion Latherion or whatever his name is, or what have you) and then regularly bind Amaunator. Since Amaunator is the Netheril aspect of the sun god/god of rebirth/god of healing binding him along with being a cleric of said current god seems like it would be thematically appropriate.


You'll have to excuse me, I have no idea who Amaunator is. Can you give me a run down or direct me to a source?

Thanks.

EDIT


I think most of those are clustered in Complete Divine, maybe some more in Complete Champion. And if you're rolling forward with Tenebros Apostate, then it might behoove you to grab the one that lets you pop turn for a burst of positive energy. It's something like 1d8+wis mod of healing that can also deal damage to undead in it's area of effect. Normally the feat is kind of eh for scaling, because you have a limited number of turns per day, but if you can pop it once every 5 rounds, it could be a fairly solid option for healing up in between fights.

Do you remember the name of the feat by any chance? I'm having trouble finding it.

EDIT

Sacred Purification but it requires turn undead and I'll likely be rebuking, because of Tenebrous.

[Venger]

You'll have to excuse me, I have no idea who Amaunator is. Can you give me a run down or direct me to a source?

Thanks.

he means Amon

[Coniferous]

he means Amon

Ah, thank you :)

[Grod_The_Giant]

I've been waiting to get my hands on my DM's copy of Tome of Magic and have been basing everything off of what I can find with a google search. The only Tenebrous vestige I found looked about right, but it appears some of the wording was off. My apologies for the confusion.
This reference (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?358392-The-new-quick-vestige-list) is pretty good.

[QUOTE]That's excellent. I will need to look into some divine feats and what they bring to the table.

Healing Devotion (CC) grants a bit of fast healing for 1 minute-- as an immediate action on yourself, or a full-round on someone else. (It also auto-activates if you drop below 0, which is neat). Lets you steal Buer's schtick as an infinite-use Wand of Lesser Vigor.
Strength Devotion (CC) lets you bypass hardness and gives you a pretty nasty slam attack
Water Devotion (CC) lets you summon a water elemental, though the errata took out the "expend turn attempts to use it again" part. I've heard arguments that the line in the general rules for Domain feats ("If you have the ability to turn or rebuke undead, you can gain additional daily uses of a domain feat’s benefit by permanently sacrificing [errata'd to expending] daily uses of that ability" overwrites the otherwise-missing recharge section, so who knows. Ask your DM.
Divine Might (CWar) gives you Cha to damage for a round. (The Deities and Demigods version lasts for Cha modifier rounds; so sad it was overwritten)
Divine Vigor (CWar) gives you +10ft speed and +2 temporary hp/level for a few minutes.

[Sagetim]

he means Amon

Yeah, sorry about that. I was remembering some odd bits of Forgotten Realms stuff that all seemed to fit together and forgot that they had named the Vestige Amon in the Tome of Magic book. The whole 'Amon hates on these others, including Karsus' and 'Amon was a god of light, etc' seemed to line up with Karsus having probably pissed of Every deity when he cast the only 12th level spell in Forgotten Realms history, to steal the power of the god of magic, then screwed that up, grew giant, turned to stone, then died and left the world in mayhem while he was busy becoming a Vestige. So Karsus having a spoiled relationship with Amaunator, the Netheril god of light and rebirth and what have you, made sense. Then add in the quests involving Amaunator in Baldur's Gate 2, and you can see where, in my head, these things all lined up to get Amon = Amaunator. Not to mention the similarity in name.

But for reference, Baldur's Gate 2 has a ruined temple to Amaunator in it, where you fight some shadows trying to do some dark and terrible stuff to the world, while the other quest involving Amaunator fits with the title "Void Before the Altar", since it involves a small town that's been sealed off from the world, kept ageless by their god's benevolence, and the whole deal kind of went sour at some point in the past as the people started hating their god for the blessing (after all, they couldn't die, couldn't grow up, couldn't etc...). And their hate for their god, and forgetfulness with regards to it's name, created the monster with no name that they just couldn't deal with in what used to be the altar room.

So yeah, that was just me misremembering what was actually written in the book. Sorry about that.

Edit:
Sacred Healing might get you where you are going for mass healing, instead of Healing Devotion. While it does 3 fast healing and doesn't improve on that, and the duration is shorter, it can affect a large area (such as the entire party at once, and also npcs). As far as I can tell, it requires the ability to turn/rebuke, so any alignment of cleric can take it as long as they meet the heal rank requirements.

Oh, huh, Sacred Purification is from Player's Handbook 2, sorry if I mislead you there. If you're running a neutral cleric of Tenebrous, you could still Turn as far as I can tell. The Tenebrous Apostate's requirements even mention turn or rebuke undead under it's prerequisites.

Also worth mentioning: Because of the wording for the vestige's turn/rebuke ability, a neutral character can pick which you do when you bind Tenebrous. While Eternal Bondage might put a damper on swapping between the two, I would encourage you to ask your GM if you can still pick which to do every day, since the prestige class lets you still make a binding check every day to avoid Tenebrous' Influence.

[Coniferous]

Yeah, sorry about that. I was remembering some odd bits of Forgotten Realms stuff that all seemed to fit together and forgot that they had named the Vestige Amon in the Tome of Magic book. The whole 'Amon hates on these others, including Karsus' and 'Amon was a god of light, etc' seemed to line up with Karsus having probably pissed of Every deity when he cast the only 12th level spell in Forgotten Realms history, to steal the power of the god of magic, then screwed that up, grew giant, turned to stone, then died and left the world in mayhem while he was busy becoming a Vestige. So Karsus having a spoiled relationship with Amaunator, the Netheril god of light and rebirth and what have you, made sense. Then add in the quests involving Amaunator in Baldur's Gate 2, and you can see where, in my head, these things all lined up to get Amon = Amaunator. Not to mention the similarity in name.

But for reference, Baldur's Gate 2 has a ruined temple to Amaunator in it, where you fight some shadows trying to do some dark and terrible stuff to the world, while the other quest involving Amaunator fits with the title "Void Before the Altar", since it involves a small town that's been sealed off from the world, kept ageless by their god's benevolence, and the whole deal kind of went sour at some point in the past as the people started hating their god for the blessing (after all, they couldn't die, couldn't grow up, couldn't etc...). And their hate for their god, and forgetfulness with regards to it's name, created the monster with no name that they just couldn't deal with in what used to be the altar room.

So yeah, that was just me misremembering what was actually written in the book. Sorry about that.

Edit:
Sacred Healing might get you where you are going for mass healing, instead of Healing Devotion. While it does 3 fast healing and doesn't improve on that, and the duration is shorter, it can affect a large area (such as the entire party at once, and also npcs). As far as I can tell, it requires the ability to turn/rebuke, so any alignment of cleric can take it as long as they meet the heal rank requirements.

Oh, huh, Sacred Purification is from Player's Handbook 2, sorry if I mislead you there. If you're running a neutral cleric of Tenebrous, you could still Turn as far as I can tell. The Tenebrous Apostate's requirements even mention turn or rebuke undead under it's prerequisites.

Also worth mentioning: Because of the wording for the vestige's turn/rebuke ability, a neutral character can pick which you do when you bind Tenebrous. While Eternal Bondage might put a damper on swapping between the two, I would encourage you to ask your GM if you can still pick which to do every day, since the prestige class lets you still make a binding check every day to avoid Tenebrous' Influence.

So you can. For some reason I was under the impression that if you worshipped an evil deity (like Tenebrous) you could only rebuke.

The one issue I have is not being able to target the burst. You could end up healing enemies. There's also action economy. I can give myself fast healing as a swift action with Healing Devotion. You are right though, it is quicker and more effficient for healing a group.

[Psyren]

Yeah, sorry about that. I was remembering some odd bits of Forgotten Realms stuff that all seemed to fit together and forgot that they had named the Vestige Amon in the Tome of Magic book. The whole 'Amon hates on these others, including Karsus' and 'Amon was a god of light, etc' seemed to line up with Karsus having probably pissed of Every deity when he cast the only 12th level spell in Forgotten Realms history, to steal the power of the god of magic, then screwed that up, grew giant, turned to stone, then died and left the world in mayhem while he was busy becoming a Vestige. So Karsus having a spoiled relationship with Amaunator, the Netheril god of light and rebirth and what have you, made sense. Then add in the quests involving Amaunator in Baldur's Gate 2, and you can see where, in my head, these things all lined up to get Amon = Amaunator. Not to mention the similarity in name.

But for reference, Baldur's Gate 2 has a ruined temple to Amaunator in it, where you fight some shadows trying to do some dark and terrible stuff to the world, while the other quest involving Amaunator fits with the title "Void Before the Altar", since it involves a small town that's been sealed off from the world, kept ageless by their god's benevolence, and the whole deal kind of went sour at some point in the past as the people started hating their god for the blessing (after all, they couldn't die, couldn't grow up, couldn't etc...). And their hate for their god, and forgetfulness with regards to it's name, created the monster with no name that they just couldn't deal with in what used to be the altar room.

So yeah, that was just me misremembering what was actually written in the book. Sorry about that.


You're not wrong actually, Amon IS Amaunator (if you're playing in FR.) WotC has said so explicitly. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070718)

[ATHATH]

You're not wrong actually, Amon IS Amaunator (if you're playing in FR.) WotC has said so explicitly. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070718)
Huh. Neat.

[skunk3]

Kind of only tangentially related, but some people are awfully fond of binding Naberious for the ability score healing... warlocks in particular. If you went with the Eldritch Disciple prestige class you could get invocations, EB, plus cleric casting. Eventually you could take hellfire warlock and increase your blasting output by a lot and technically suffer no penalty for it due to the vestige. I think it's cheesy AF personally but to each their own. Eldritch Disciple is really fun to play IMO, and with a little dip in Binder you can spam hellfire all day.

[Coniferous]

Kind of only tangentially related, but some people are awfully fond of binding Naberious for the ability score healing... warlocks in particular. If you went with the Eldritch Disciple prestige class you could get invocations, EB, plus cleric casting. Eventually you could take hellfire warlock and increase your blasting output by a lot and technically suffer no penalty for it due to the vestige. I think it's cheesy AF personally but to each their own. Eldritch Disciple is really fun to play IMO, and with a little dip in Binder you can spam hellfire all day.

I hadn't even considered that. I love warlock, and eldritch blast is the best, but I think it might be taking it a little far. It would involve a lot of dips and I like to try and keep things simple.

A lot of the games I've played have barely hit 10th level, so I'm working with that mindset. What I'm thinking so far is something along the lines of:

Human Cleric 1/Binder 5/Tenebrous Apostate 5/Cleric 9.

1st - Fell Drain, Healing Devotion
3rd - Knowledge Devotion
5th - Improved Binding (Bonus Feat)
6th - Divine Metamagic Fell Drain
9th - ??
12th - ??
15th - ??
18th - ??

Thoughts?

Also, does the turn/rebuke cost of DMM happen when preparing spells or when casting?

[Nifft]

A lot of the games I've played have barely hit 10th level, so I'm working with that mindset.

If your games die around level 10, then Ur-Priest (from Complete Divine) may be a good fit.

Binder 5 / Ur-Priest 2 / Tenebrous Apostate ++

Tenebrous is an evil not-a-god, so you might as well go full-evil, since Ur-Priest has the best cookies.

You'll need Iron Will and Spell Focus (evil), the latter from Complete Divine. Also, you'll need a way to get Spellcraft on your skill list, and a decent Intelligence score to get all the needed skills.

Luckily, there's an awesomely flavorful feat: Keeper of Forbidden Lore (from Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss). It requires Int 13, but you need a high Int anyway for Knowledge Devotion, so that ought to be compatible with your plan.

Your feats might look like:
L1 - Keeper of Forbidden Lore, Iron Will
L3 - Spell Focus (evil)
L5 (bonus) - Improved Binding
L6 - Healing Devotion
L9 - Knowledge Devotion

You lose out on Fell Drain, but the advantage is that you're casting much stronger spells -- Ur-Priest casting is accelerated, and achieves level 9 spells in a 10-level class.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Kind of only tangentially related, but some people are awfully fond of binding Naberious for the ability score healing... warlocks in particular. If you went with the Eldritch Disciple prestige class you could get invocations, EB, plus cleric casting. Eventually you could take hellfire warlock and increase your blasting output by a lot and technically suffer no penalty for it due to the vestige. I think it's cheesy AF personally but to each their own. Eldritch Disciple is really fun to play IMO, and with a little dip in Binder you can spam hellfire all day.
Meh, not that bad, methinks. Warlock damage is medicore even with Hellfire.

[Coniferous]

If your games die around level 10, then Ur-Priest (from Complete Divine) may be a good fit.

Binder 5 / Ur-Priest 2 / Tenebrous Apostate ++

Tenebrous is an evil not-a-god, so you might as well go full-evil, since Ur-Priest has the best cookies.

You'll need Iron Will and Spell Focus (evil), the latter from Complete Divine. Also, you'll need a way to get Spellcraft on your skill list, and a decent Intelligence score to get all the needed skills.

Luckily, there's an awesomely flavorful feat: Keeper of Forbidden Lore (from Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss). It requires Int 13, but you need a high Int anyway for Knowledge Devotion, so that ought to be compatible with your plan.

Your feats might look like:
L1 - Keeper of Forbidden Lore, Iron Will
L3 - Spell Focus (evil)
L5 (bonus) - Improved Binding
L6 - Healing Devotion
L9 - Knowledge Devotion

You lose out on Fell Drain, but the advantage is that you're casting much stronger spells -- Ur-Priest casting is accelerated, and achieves level 9 spells in a 10-level class.

Great build. I love the potential flavour for RPing.

Two issues:

1) Fiendish Codex isn't one of the permitted books
2) Ur-Priest requires evil alignment and I really don't want to be evil. I'm envisioning a lot of conflicts with other party members, most of whom are looking like they'll be good aligned.

[Venger]

I hadn't even considered that. I love warlock, and eldritch blast is the best, but I think it might be taking it a little far. It would involve a lot of dips and I like to try and keep things simple.

A lot of the games I've played have barely hit 10th level, so I'm working with that mindset. What I'm thinking so far is something along the lines of:

Human Cleric 1/Binder 5/Tenebrous Apostate 5/Cleric 9.

1st - Fell Drain, Healing Devotion
3rd - Knowledge Devotion
5th - Improved Binding (Bonus Feat)
6th - Divine Metamagic Fell Drain
9th - ??
12th - ??
15th - ??
18th - ??

Thoughts?

Also, does the turn/rebuke cost of DMM happen when preparing spells or when casting?

Looks good. swap out the latter cleric levels with anima priest (there is never a reason to take more than 1 level of cleric) and make the 1st level cloistered cleric to get free knowledge devotion and that ought to be just fine.

you pay for DMM when you cast the spell.

[Coniferous]

Looks good. swap out the latter cleric levels with anima priest (there is never a reason to take more than 1 level of cleric) and make the 1st level cloistered cleric to get free knowledge devotion and that ought to be just fine.

you pay for DMM when you cast the spell.

I would love to but I don't think my DM will go for it, as the PrC in book is arcane not divine.

[Sagetim]

Oh, Neat, I don't remember if I ever saw that article or not.

Back to the topic at hand though: It probably won't hurt to ask to swap Anima Mage to divine, since there's a listing in the book itself for adapting the prestige class in that manner. The worst they can do is say no. Also, I had thought you needed 2nd level spells for Tenebrous Apostate, but that was probably just the running theme of double casting prestige classes running through my mind.

If you want an out for cleric, that is, something to take instead of pure cleric, and divine Anima Mage is not an option, you could flip over to the Truenaming section of the book and consider the Fiendbinder, another nongood prestige class that advances cleric progression and gives you more special abilities than 'nothing'. *

And if you do start skipping your way merrily down the road of Truenaming, you'll want the Truename Training feat so you can take the skill as a class skill, Which you could pick up at level 9, having sunk cross class ranks in the skill along the way and suddenly have them expand to normal ranks. From there, your level 12 feat could be Truename Research, the better to weasel out the truenames of fiends that you would be binding, and your 15 and 18 feats could be the lexicon of the evolving mind utterance feats, if you really wanted to try and get them. Probably not going to be that effective against anything of your level, but it would be another means of affecting (by then much lower level than you) npcs on a large scale.

*unfortunately it's not a 10/10 class for spell progression, but you get some permanent minion options that aren't normally available.

[skunk3]

Meh, not that bad, methinks. Warlock damage is medicore even with Hellfire.

True, a single EB isn't that great at higher levels, but when you consider blast shapes and essences AND the fact that you can literally shoot them all day long and never run out of "ammo," that's some decent staying power. Eldritch Cone and Chain drastically amp up your potential damage output, and you have vitriolic blast, which bypasses SR completely and adds damage, and utterdark blast, which bestows negative levels... and you can spam it infinitely, basically. Also, since EB is a ranged touch attack, you hardly EVER miss.

This character I am playing will be (by 20) Warlock 4 (for 'deceive item'), Cleric 3, Eldritch Disciple 10, Hellfire Warlock 3. Should be pretty fun!

Also, the added damage from hellfire blasts isn't even the best part about the PrC IMO. You also get some other nifty abilities. Hellfire Infusion is pretty great.

Some time down the road I'd like to make another character like this, except I'd make him evil and go with Ur-Priest instead of Cleric, and focus on creating/controlling undead.

[Thurbane]

How about just a plain old Cleric who takes the three Binding feats from ToM? Maybe PrC into Malconvoker and "bind" evil beings against their will?

[Coniferous]

How about just a plain old Cleric who takes the three Binding feats from ToM? Maybe PrC into Malconvoker and "bind" evil beings against their will?

The original idea for the character, which Im trying to stay close to, does "bind" creatures, so to speak. The original concept was a person who was possessed by forgotten/dead Gods. That's why a Binder/Cleric mix seemed so appropriate.

If I were to go straight Cleric, which is possible, I would likely avoid the Binder feats in lieu of something better. The better vestiges aren't really available through the feats and I would like to tap into some of the more powerful possibilities with Binder. At higher levels, even if we stopped at 10, the vestiges available through the feats don't seem capable of making the feat investment viable.

I find Tenebrous Apostate does a good job of meeting the balance I'm looking for. I would also not be possible with the Binder feats, to my knowledge.

[Thurbane]

The original idea for the character, which Im trying to stay close to, does "bind" creatures, so to speak. The original concept was a person who was possessed by forgotten/dead Gods. That's why a Binder/Cleric mix seemed so appropriate.

If I were to go straight Cleric, which is possible, I would likely avoid the Binder feats in lieu of something better. The better vestiges aren't really available through the feats and I would like to tap into some of the more powerful possibilities with Binder. At higher levels, even if we stopped at 10, the vestiges available through the feats don't seem capable of making the feat investment viable.

I find Tenebrous Apostate does a good job of meeting the balance I'm looking for. I would also not be possible with the Binder feats, to my knowledge.

No worries, I thought you were trying to avoid Tenebrous Apostate due to alignment concerns...

[Coniferous]

No worries, I thought you were trying to avoid Tenebrous Apostate due to alignment concerns...

At one point I had concerns about having to worship Tenebrous as a deity and how it felt it would shoehorn the character into an evil alignment or role. I have since learned otherwise and realized the RP possibilities.

[Coniferous]

One question on the build I posted that has come to my attention. Am I permitted to take Healing Devotion as a feat if I worship Tenebrous, who's domains are death, evil, chaos and trickery?

The wording in Complete Champion has me a little confused on the matter.

[Venger]

One question on the build I posted that has come to my attention. Am I permitted to take Healing Devotion as a feat if I worship Tenebrous, who's domains are death, evil, chaos and trickery?

The wording in Complete Champion has me a little confused on the matter.

You may. It has no prerequisites.

You're probably looking at the intro bit. It says if you have such and such domain, you can trade it for such and such devotion.

[Coniferous]

You may. It has no prerequisites.

You're probably looking at the intro bit. It says if you have such and such domain, you can trade it for such and such devotion.

I was looking at the bit about clerics, matching thematically or following the domains of your deity. My concern was that, since it doesn't match the domains of Tenebrous that I wouldn't be able to take it.

[Venger]

I was looking at the bit about clerics, matching thematically or following the domains of your deity. My concern was that, since it doesn't match the domains of Tenebrous that I wouldn't be able to take it.

that's not actually a prereq, so you're good.

[Coniferous]

that's not actually a prereq, so you're good.

Excellent, thank you.

It seems my DM is open to Anima Priest as a thing, which means I can go that route instead.

My build for that involves Cloistered Cleric 3/Binder 2/Anima Priest X

Two things I'm trying to figure out now are what feats to take and not to take. Currently it's:

1 - Healing Devotion, Fell Drain, Knowledge Devotion [Domain swap]
3 - Improved Binding
6 - Divine Metamagic Fell Drain
9- ?
12 - ?
15 - ?
18 - ?

I don't expect the game to go beyond level 10-12, but I like to be prepared.

My other issue is figuring out how to to well on Binding Checks. My Cha is 14, so that's +2 but I need to surefire get good bonds for the Anima Priest abilities to function.

Thoughts?

[Venger]

Excellent, thank you.

It seems my DM is open to Anima Priest as a thing, which means I can go that route instead.

My build for that involves Cloistered Cleric 3/Binder 2/Anima Priest X

Two things I'm trying to figure out now are what feats to take and not to take. Currently it's:

1 - Healing Devotion, Fell Drain, Knowledge Devotion [Domain swap]
3 - Improved Binding
6 - Divine Metamagic Fell Drain
9- ?
12 - ?
15 - ?
18 - ?

I don't expect the game to go beyond level 10-12, but I like to be prepared.

My other issue is figuring out how to to well on Binding Checks. My Cha is 14, so that's +2 but I need to surefire get good bonds for the Anima Priest abilities to function.

Thoughts?
Sounds pretty good.

What kinds of powers do you want your guy to have? That'll help re: feat selection.

You are forgetting to add 2 (your ebl) to your binding check. your default bonus (assuming you never invest in cha again, don't buy an item for it, and don't use an eternal wand of eagle's splendor like a normal person) is 4, not 2.

even assuming just an eternal wand of eagle's splendor, you can get your check up to +6.

buy a circlet of persuasion (+3 competence). that'll get you up to a +9, which is probably fine for your purposes, since you also add your anima priest level to binding checks.

[Coniferous]

Sounds pretty good.

What kinds of powers do you want your guy to have? That'll help re: feat selection.

You are forgetting to add 2 (your ebl) to your binding check. your default bonus (assuming you never invest in cha again, don't buy an item for it, and don't use an eternal wand of eagle's splendor like a normal person) is 4, not 2.

even assuming just an eternal wand of eagle's splendor, you can get your check up to +6.

buy a circlet of persuasion (+3 competence). that'll get you up to a +9, which is probably fine for your purposes, since you also add your anima priest level to binding checks.

The combat role I'm looking to fill is mostly debuff or buff and supplemental damage and healing role. I was originally looking at a debuffing gish but Cloistered Cleric makes that much more difficult, as does the BAB and health progression of Anima Mage. The PrC is definitely better than the other options; full casting and binding progression with some very useful abilities.

A +4 isn't that good; the vestiges I'll want to bind by level 3 will have checks of 20 for Savnok. It's not a huge issue because good checks won't be that important early on. By level 6, when I first start taking Anima Mage, I'll have a +5, and by level 9 I'll have a +8 but want to meet binding checks of 21/22 for Andras or Tenebrous. It becomes less of an issue as I level but still an issue, as a common role will average around 10 but you really want success on a good pact for Anima Mage abilities.