Ur-Vindicator build brainstorm

[Elves]

Take this build:

x5/ur-priest 2/ruby knight vindicator 9/telflammar shadowlord 4

x5 has to grant base saves of +3 Fort and +3 Will and must include at least 1 level in a martial adept class. What's the best use of those levels?

I lean monk1/crs1/totemist 2/x1 for the extra damage from flurry/decisive strike... The x1 could be swordsage to make this an idiot crusader, but if you have infinite actions anyway, what's the point of shadow pouncing?

More open ended:

x8-9/ur-priest 2/RKV 9-10

What's your perfect ur-vindicator?

[cartejos]

Unless you are allowed to use a method to break skill caps, your first level of ur-priest can't be taken until after 5th level at the earliest.

I'm partial to taking 3 levels in Hexblade to get Mettle

Remember that you can't worship a deity to be an ur-priest, and you must worship wee jas to become a Vindicator

[Elves]

Unless you are allowed to use a method to break skill caps, your first level of ur-priest can't be taken until after 5th level at the earliest.
Was thinking Primary Contact retrain cheese, but forgot it has two 8 rank reqs. That's probably trying too hard anyway since the build works fine without it.


Remember that you can't worship a deity to be an ur-priest, and you must worship wee jas to become a Vindicator
It says you must hate gods. It's perfectly possible to worship someone you hate. Notice she's not granting you spells or anything, so she's not necessarily reciprocating your worship.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Swordsage 1/ Warblade 1/ Crusader 1/ Duskblade 2

[Elves]

Swordsage 1/ Warblade 1/ Crusader 1/ Duskblade 2
not dusk 3?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

not dusk 3?

You could, if you're going to delay Ur-Priest by a level or miss out on the Idiot Crusader shenanigans. But 2 is all you need for the base save prerequisite.

[Elves]

You could, if you're going to delay Ur-Priest by a level or miss out on the Idiot Crusader shenanigans. But 2 is all you need for the base save prerequisite.
I meant, what are you using it for?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I meant, what are you using it for?

The will save and skill prerequisites for Ur-Priest.

[Maat Mons]

Putting aside any questions of compatibility of the two PrCs, I feel the biggest issue here is that such a build only really blooms at high level. Ur Priest, by itself, doesn't bloom until ECL 10, when their spell access catches up to a straight-classed caster. And theurgic classes are virtually always later bloomers. I mean, ToB multiclassing mechanics kind of help here. But those same mechanics also encourage players to delay the maneuver-granting levels to maximize the benefit.

If none of that bothers you, I'll second the recommendation of Hexblade 3, for Mettle, and throw in a recommendation for Paladin of Tyranny 2, for Divine Grace. Take the Serenity feat to get things switched over to Wisdom. Conveniently, Hexblade has a good Will save, and Paladin (of Tyranny) has a good Fortitude save. Those two classes, together, also cover all the skills required for Ur Priest, with the exception of Knowledge (the planes).

Edit: On further consideration, Serenity does nothing to Arcane Resistance, so that winds up a little more MAD than I was thinking.

Since you're going into Ruby Knight Vindicator, you'll presumably want a dip in either Crusader or Warblade so you have a recovery mechanic. Crusader saves you from having to take 2 feats to meet the prerequisites of RKV.

Not sure what to do with the other 2 or 3 levels.

[Rebel7284]

- Binder 1 is a fun early dip. Has Fort and Will as good saves and the fast ability healing helps with the ritual of shadow walking (if you go that way and buy off the LA) but also allows you to freely cast corrupt spells and makes one one hell of a face to boot with those social skills boosts.
- Swordsage 2 adds Wisdom to AC in best Armor along with allowing you to become an idiot, so some nice synergy there.
- Spellchanneling at Duskblade 3 is nifty, but you already have plenty of use for your standard actions with strikes, so your mileage may vary.
- Something with sneak attack might be nifty to help qualify for Shadowlord even if you get knocked out of your stance, but might not matter depending on table.

Talk to your DM how often you can use Divine Impetus. RAW it defaults to a standard action, however this makes the ability useless. Your DM then has to rule if it's a free action or a free action usable once per turn. The wording of the ability seems to point to the INTENT being once per turn, but your table's mileage may vary.



Divine Impetus (Su): At 7th level, you learn how to use the divine power of the Stern Lady to quicken your reactions and act without hesitation. You can expend a turn or rebuke undead attempt to gain one additional swift action this round. For example, you could use this ability to both change your stance and initiate a boost maneuver in the same turn, or if you initiated a counter before your turn, you can activate this ability and then initiate a boost on your turn.

[Thurbane]

Putting aside any questions of compatibility of the two PrCs,

Have to be honest, my initial response was PrC that requires you to hate all gods and not worship them + PrC that requires you to worship a specific god?

divide by zero error encountered

[Elves]

Putting aside any questions of compatibility of the two PrCs, I feel the biggest issue here is that such a build only really blooms at high level.
If Regdar survived until 20th level, so can you.


Talk to your DM how often you can use Divine Impetus. RAW it defaults to a standard action, however this makes the ability useless. Your DM then has to rule if it's a free action or a free action usable once per turn.
You know that is interesting. I always read it assuming it was a free action [implied to be once per turn], but you're right that Su abilities default to a standard action. That doesn't make it useless either, because you can't usually trade a standard for a swift action the way you can for a move action. Hm. No, I think you're completely right that this ability has been severely misinterpreted, reading by strict RAW. That's disappointing. Obviously makes it useless for shadow pouncers.


Have to be honest, my initial response was PrC that requires you to hate all gods and not worship them + PrC that requires you to worship a specific god?
There's nothing in the entry requirements of ur priest that says you can't worship a god. The line that "ur priests despise gods" is flavor. Even if you treat it as some kind of hard rule, there's no contradiction between despising something and showing it veneration. Does everyone love their boss? The character's hatred for gods could be something they keep hidden in their heart, or could be something the Ruby Knights are willing to overlook as long as he pays lip service and follows protocol, since he's a useful agent. If you're going to use flavor text as a hard requirement, you have to admit that at the level of flavor and story, things are more complex.

And that aside, I'm happy to ignore setting-specific fluff reqs like worshiping Wee Jas, just like I'm not gonna stop someone from taking Lion Tribe Warrior because we're not in FR -- it's unrelated to the substance of the thing.

[Rebel7284]

You know that is interesting. I always read it assuming it was a free action [implied to be once per turn], but you're right that Su abilities default to a standard action. That doesn't make it useless either, because you can't usually trade a standard for a swift action the way you can for a move action. Hm. No, I think you're completely right that this ability has been severely misinterpreted, reading by strict RAW. That's disappointing. Obviously makes it useless for shadow pouncers.

I thought you could ready a swift action, thereby effectively turning your standard action into a swift one. No idea if that takes precedence over the usual "only one swift action per turn" thing. Anyway, I would assume that any DM that allows RKV in the first place would allow for a reasonable interpretation of Divine Impetus, but if your intent is ironclad RAW, then yeah, RKV is not the best.

[Elves]

It's not in the SRD, but yes, according to RC 110, you can ready a swift action.
That's not the same as the conservative reading of impetus, because readied actions have to be triggered and they change your initiative. But it does give the "intuitive" reading a little more basis.

A detractor would reply that RC wasn't published when RKV was printed, it was a unique ability at the time and we don't get to change it just because it was later partly invalidated.