Church Inquisitor requirements with Cloistered Cleric

[Zhepna]

Hi,

we play 3.5 and I have to creat a new character.

I'll play cleric and I was in a few different guide that

Cloistered Cleric3/Church Inquisitor2

was a good start for what I want to do.

One of the Church Inquisitor requirement is Spellcraft 4 ranks

Since I'm a human and Cloistered Cleric doesn't have Spellcraft as a class skill, how do I obtain spellcraft 4 ranks to be able to be Church Inquisitor at lvl 4 ?

From what I saw from the rules it's: Your maximum rank in a cross-class skill is one-half of this number (do not round up or down).

I just want to make sure I build it correctly and I don't understand where it's coming from and since everybody suggests it, I probably miss something...

[EndlessKng]

So that is a narrow reading of a poorly worded class skill list. My read on the Cloistered Cleric skill section is that the cleric's list is modified to now include Decipher Script and Speak Language, not that the list is just those and Knowledge skills. If that was the limit, it would be a very poor list of skills indeed; the idea of that is to supplement the normal list, not supplant.

That said, if your GM won't let you take it that way, take the Cosmopolitan feat at level 1. Gives you access to a skill of your choosing, plus a bonus. If you're using any third-party materials, you also could look at Rokugan's "Versatile" feat, which makes two skills permanent class skills.

[Zhepna]

Wow it really change everything for my build... thanks a lot!

[bean illus]

Cloistered Cleric3/Church Inquisitor2 ...was a good start for what I want to do.
... I'm a human and ...p

I just want to make sure I build it correctly ... ... probably miss something...

Any other questions? What feats are you thinking? Domains? Where does your character go after Inquisitor 2?

[EndlessKng]

Wow it really change everything for my build... thanks a lot!

NP! It's admittedly a weirdly worded section. Glad it helps out - I've considered a similar build for E6 stuff (one of the few non-Eberron prestige classes that can be taken before level 5, and this may be the only one other than Survivor that can be taken after level 3 without using early access tricks like Precocious Apprentice).

[hamishspence]

I find myself wondering why they worded it so weirdly when they didn't do so for the other Unearthed Arcana classes. Maybe the Cloistered Cleric is meant to be NPC rather than PC, and spend all their time in Cloisters?

[Ramza00]

Make sure to also grab Divine Defiance (Fiendish Codex II) so you can counterspell as an immediate action for the low price of a turn undead use and the feat.

Also stack Battlemagic Perception when you have more 3rd level spell slots then you know what to do with. Battlemagic Perception allows you to counterspell as a free action [plus other benefits], but it ends the battlemagic perception spell when you succeed.

[EndlessKng]

I find myself wondering why they worded it so weirdly when they didn't do so for the other Unearthed Arcana classes. Maybe the Cloistered Cleric is meant to be NPC rather than PC, and spend all their time in Cloisters?

A couple reasons come to mind. It may have been missed when it was being edited - depending on who wrote what, there may not have been a concerted effort to line everything up or it slipped by someone (it was a book of optional rules after all). Also, the text at the beginning of that section says that class skill changes are "additions or subtractions," not "in place of." So it seems to be more a style thing than anything else. Also, the use of the word "includes" for the new skills strongly suggests that there are others on the list, and since no other changes were made, that means that in all likelihood they were going to add those (and save for specific knowledges, none of the mentioned skills are on the cleric list already, so it seems "the skill list includes" was used where the style guide should have told the author to use "add [skills] to the skill list").