Cleric Roleplay build ideas

[Ethernil]

Designing a character for some probable game in the future, when i actually find someone willing to DM in my area. More of a thought exercise.

I want to make a zealous cleric focused on smiting the damned and the undead, something similar to the character Alexander Anderson in the Hellsing anime series (i m talking about attitude, i am not aiming for a close copy such as throwing sanctioned bayonettes or having regenerative powers).

Could someone please help me brainstorm?

[TheFamilarRaven]

Which edition are you playing? 3.5 or PF? A mix of both? If it's 3.5 than what your describing could be easilly done with your standard CodZilla build. Pathfinder you might be better off as a paladin for smites. But if cleric is a must, than the destruction domain grants a smite as a domain power. If you could find a deity that grants both destruction and sun domains you'll be a smiting, anti-undead machine. Not as anti undead as a cleric with both glory and sun.

If you want to lean more heavilyl on the smiting aspect. Then take the ferocity subdomain along with destruction for two smites that, as far as i'm aware, stack.

As for roleplaying ideas. It sounds like you've already got that covered. You've got inspiration from Alexander Anderson, so just act like him (or don't. 'cause he was a psychopath... like everyone else in that show).

[Fizban]

Do you want your smiting to specifically work only on the damned and the dead? Either way, standard Smite Evil would do the job. The Celestial domain from BoED or the Elysium Planar Domain (SpC or Planar Handbook) both grant Smite Evil based on Cleric level, which you can get extra uses for with the Extra Smiting feat and a couple specific magic items.

If you want to smite via spells, Holy Smite and Righteous Smite are both perfectly servicable. Unfortunately, while Holy Smite can be found on a couple domain lists, the only domain that features Righteous Smite (from BoED) is the Wrath domain, which for some stupid reason does not have Holy Smite. It should be one of the most reasonable tweaks to fix one of the domains to have both the lower and higher level versions of the spell, but otherwise you have to spend two domains to get them, and then two feats to get Domain Spontaneity in both so you can cast them more than 1/day. Bolt of Glory is also highly effective against fiends and undead, and even though SpC did not see fit to reprint and make use of Righteous Smite, their list of no-longer-domain-exclusive spells includes Bolt of Glory on the general Cleric list.

Along the same lines, Purify Spell (BoED) increases the die size by one step vs Evil Outsiders, but that's not very much, except when applied to Bolt of Glory (does d12 increase to d20 or just 2d8?). Energize Spell (Libris Mortis) on the other hand is what Purify wants to be, except against undead.