Advice for a Melee Cleric

[RexDart]

(First off: Thanks, but not interested in the DMM Persist stuff.)

I have a 5th level Human Cleric in a current campaign who I've always intended as a martial, war-oriented type for story reasons. (The campaign begins with the outbreak of a major war.)

STR 16
DEX 13
CON 13
INT 13
WIS 14
CHA 13

Feats: Shield Specialization, Weapon Focus (Warhammer), Shield Ward, Protection Devotion

My intention has always been to go into the Ordained Champion prestige class, progressing something like:

6: Ordained Champ-1: Power Attack (trading in Good Domain), Divine Shield?
7: Ordained Champ-2:
8: Ordained Champ-3: CHA +1
9: Brutal Strike?
10:
11:
12: Divine Fortune?
15: Retrieve Spell

I keep waffling, though, on a number of issues, mostly related to feat choices:

1. Does Power Attack make sense if you aren't a full-BAB class? If not, what Fighter Feats would be better? Or just forget the Fighter Feat trade-in option of Ordained Champion and keep the Good Domain?
2. I like the divine feats (and, especially, having something to do with Turn attempts when there are no undead around), but my CHA makes them look a little underwhelming.
3. Do I want to take level 4 and 5 of Ordained Champion, or stick with Cleric?

[tyckspoon]

1. Does Power Attack make sense if you aren't a full-BAB class? If not, what Fighter Feats would be better? Or just forget the Fighter Feat trade-in option of Ordained Champion and keep the Good Domain?

Power Attack is good if you have to-hit bonuses to spare, and if you are getting extra returns on Power Attacking. The first doesn't require being a full BAB class, but it does help. The second is best achieved with two-handed weapons, at least, and then needs further specialized prestige class or feat investment (but at lower optimization levels two-handed weapon + being strong usually is enough.) Your current plan doesn't look like it'll really provide either of those - you are using a one handed weapon and do not appear to have a plan to have an excessively high to-hit bonus in order to sacrifice to Power Attack - so no, I would say Power Attack does not appear to be a good feat for this build. Your to-hit/damage bonuses will likely need to come from your equipment and class abilities instead.

Fist of the Gods is a useful feature at Ordained Champion 4 if you want to bonk stuff with your hammer. Swift casting from War domain is.. mostly not, probably at higher levels you mostly are using this for Swift Divine Power and nothing else. Questionable if this level is worth giving up another spellcasting level, but it's decent for what it is.

Ord. Champ 5 does -not- have useful abilities, but it's an advancement in BAB and spellcasting, so if you're taking 4 anyways there really isn't much reason not to do it - it's better than a Cleric level would be, but by this point ideally you are moving on into another relevant prestige class.

[Fero]

Power attack becomes very good if you take Ordained Champion 4, as you can cast divine power as a swift action.

For divine feats, have you considered using DMM for something other than persist? For example, DMM could be amazing with your quickened Flame Strikes and Blade Barriers. You should also look at the devotion feats. Travel is probably the best but may not be avaliable to your gods. Law devotion is also very good and a cool use of your turn attempts.

With regard to Ordained Champ 4, losing a CL hurts but it seems a shame before getting 2 very good class features.

What diety are you planning to follow anyways?

[Crake]

It looks like your wielding a 1 handed weapon and a shield in your offhand: Are you sheathing your weapon every time you want to cast a spell, and then redrawing it? Because with both your hands occupied, you can't provide the somatic components to your spells.

You can solve this by wearing a buckler instead of a shield, though I'm not sure which kind of shield you selected for your shield specialization feat (you haven't noted in your description), so buckler might not be an option, or you can pick up the somatic weaponry feat, which allows you to use a held weapon to provide the somatic components for your spells.

[RexDart]

It looks like your wielding a 1 handed weapon and a shield in your offhand: Are you sheathing your weapon every time you want to cast a spell, and then redrawing it? Because with both your hands occupied, you can't provide the somatic components to your spells.

You can solve this by wearing a buckler instead of a shield, though I'm not sure which kind of shield you selected for your shield specialization feat (you haven't noted in your description), so buckler might not be an option, or you can pick up the somatic weaponry feat, which allows you to use a held weapon to provide the somatic components for your spells.

Our interpretation (which perhaps is not strictly correct?) is that you only need one hand free, and an arm with a light shield can hold a weapon while freeing the other hand for casting. ("A light shield’s weight lets you carry other items in that hand, although you cannot use weapons with it." - SRD)

Her deity (campaign is already in progress, I'm trying to chart future options) is from Goodman Games' Aereth setting, Daenthar, with the domains Earth, Good, Law, Protection. She took Good and Protection, but cashed Protection in for the Protection Devotion feat. Technically, Daenthar wouldn't be a War domain god, but he does have martial aspects, and I argued that in the current time of war, those aspects would come to the forefront, which the DM allowed.

[Gorthawar]

I'm not the biggest fan of divine shield with such low charisma. It takes a standard action to activate which you could use for a buff spell instead. And shield specialisation / ward don't seem that strong without it.

Law devotion will give you +3 ac as a swift action instead and you can turn it into and attack bonus instead as well.

Holy warrior might be decent for a one handed build and with ordained champion you should always get the bonus as long as you have a 4th level slot or higher available.

[Crake]

Our interpretation (which perhaps is not strictly correct?) is that you only need one hand free, and an arm with a light shield can hold a weapon while freeing the other hand for casting. ("A light shield’s weight lets you carry other items in that hand, although you cannot use weapons with it." - SRD)

Hmmm, that seems solid enough at a glance

[Anthrowhale]

If you can manage it, I'd suggest taking the spontaneous domain ACF with the spell domain. This would enable you to access:
(a) Alter Self[Crucian] which gives you a high armor class.
(b) Heroics[any fighter feat] whenever you find yourself needing something in particular.
(c) Wraithstrike allowing you to use touch attack + power attack with a two-handed weapon for substantial damage.

And, since it's spontaneous access, you can cast Anyspell many times per day.

On the cleric side, cloistered cleric is always good for the ability to pick up knowledge devotion. Divine Insight and Guidance of the Avatar allow you to spike your skill check. Even Lore of the Gods could be interesting. Separately, Sense Weakness is a good spell. You might also consider Brambles, using the duskwood (?) material in Magic of Faerun with your chosen two-handable weapon. At higher levels, Sense Weakness + Surge of Fortune with an x4 two-handable weapon can hit very hard. At even higher levels, you can combine with Polymorph[high dex flying creature], Greater Flyby Attack, and a vorpal weapon to lop the heads off many foes.

In terms of feats, you might look at Holy Warrior if you are going to have the war domain.

[Saintheart]

Just to give some ideas if you're interested in warhammers (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?609676-A-Ballad-for-John-Henry-Options-for-Players-and-DMs-using-the-Warhammer).

[RexDart]

Just to give some ideas if you're interested in warhammers (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?609676-A-Ballad-for-John-Henry-Options-for-Players-and-DMs-using-the-Warhammer).

Oh, that's cool, didn't know there was anyone out there who liked warhammers (it's the deity's preferred weapon and she's also a former blacksmith.)

A lot of interesting ideas here that aren't really options for this particular character in this particular setting. E.g. levels 1-5 have so far been entirely an urgent journey from point A to point B with no downtime to plausibly develop a fervent interest in a new domain and its Devotion feat.

I do like Holy Warrior, though I'm somewhat irritated that it's not a [Divine] feat.

I'm thinking I might actually want to focus more resources on CHA than WIS or STR. I've already pretty much decided to avoid spells with saving throws since she doesn't really have the WIS for that.

[Eladrinblade]

Power attack is worth taking for cleave or even great cleave depending on how your DM runs things.

[Particle_Man]

Is tome of battle allowed? If you don’t mind losing a few caster levels a reskinned for your god version of Ruby Knight Vindicator might be worth a look.

[RexDart]

Is tome of battle allowed? If you don’t mind losing a few caster levels a reskinned for your god version of Ruby Knight Vindicator might be worth a look.

Our group hasn't used it (or if anyone has the book, but that can be addressed if necessary), but I don't think it's disallowed. I personally don't quite grasp how all the Tome of Battle stuff works, to be honest.

[Biggus]

2. I like the divine feats (and, especially, having something to do with Turn attempts when there are no undead around), but my CHA makes them look a little underwhelming.


Divine Vigor (CW p.108) is divine feat which works well for a melee Cleric without high CHA.

Divine Defiance (FC II p.83) and Sacred Vitality (LM p.30) are also worth considering.

[RexDart]

Divine Vigor (CW p.108) is divine feat which works well for a melee Cleric without high CHA.

Divine Defiance (FC II p.83) and Sacred Vitality (LM p.30) are also worth considering.

Oh, those are nice - I hadn't looked at the last two before.

Is my intuition correct that Retrieve Spell is good enough to be worth the trouble (i.e. taking two other Divine feats?)

[Biggus]

Is my intuition correct that Retrieve Spell is good enough to be worth the trouble (i.e. taking two other Divine feats?)

Depends, does your DM allow multiple Nightsticks to stack?

[RexDart]

Depends, does your DM allow multiple Nightsticks to stack?

Probably not.

[tyckspoon]

Probably not.

Then likely no - Retrieve Spell is very costly in terms of TUs spent per spell recovered, so if you don't have a cheap way to get a looooot of Turn Undead usages (IE, Nightstick piles and/or constructing your entire build for getting multiple sources of turning pools so your one Extra Turning gets a lot more mileage) you won't get much from Retrieve Spell - basically you'll get two or three very low level spells back or one mid-high level slot. Which if you want that it's probably much more build resource efficient to do it with gold instead of feats - low level Pearls of Power, scrolls, maybe a metamagic rod of Extend if you have a buff you're hoping to stretch over multiple encounters instead of recasting it, etc.

[RexDart]

I'm thinking Power Attack ultimately makes sense, as it will be decently usable once I can cast Divine Power. More to the point, I can't think of any more promising Fighter Bonus Feat to take (for swapping out the Good Domain Power, which is largely useless.) Any Fighter Bonus Feat options I'm overlooking?

[Particle_Man]

Our group hasn't used it (or if anyone has the book, but that can be addressed if necessary), but I don't think it's disallowed. I personally don't quite grasp how all the Tome of Battle stuff works, to be honest.

Well speaking specifically of the Crusader and the Prestige Class it leads into (the most relevant classes here), you would get "maneuvers" which are basically either supernatural or extraordinary abilities that you would usually use during combat. You would have a "spellbook" of known maneuvers, from certain "schools" called disciplines. From that, for the day you would have some readied (about 5 to begin with) and of those, at any given time you would have a smaller number granted at the beginning of a combat (say, 2 of them) and 1 more at random would be granted each round until you have all 5 available, and then they would reset the next round and you would have only 2 (randomly chosen) granted again. So you will not always have every readied maneuver "to hand" but you will never be without a few to choose from. As you gain levels in the prestige class this would improve, so that instead of 5 readied (and 2 randomly granted as the start of a combat) you would have 7 readied (and 4 randomly granted). There is also a feat that can improve the number you have randomly granted at the start of a combat by one, giving you more maneuvers to choose from and a faster reset.

Actually using these maneuvers will usually take a standard action, a swift action or an immediate action (some rare ones will take a full round action or move action). Usually they involve attacking your opponent and gaining an impressive rider effect if you hit. So you would lose your chance for iterative attacks, but get one "big" damaging attack or one normal attack that does something cool (maybe free healing for you or an ally, maybe a combat buff for ally/allies, maybe your attack ignoring DR/hardness, maybe even a free 50' teleport or one round invisibility).

Separate from that you would also have a few "stances". These are basically "always on" abilities but you can only have one stance at a time. You can switch stances as a swift action. Stances can vary from "any enemy that moves, even as a 5' step, draws an Aoo from you" to "you can take 11 once per round on a d20 roll" to "get 2d6 sneak attack" to a host of others.

Separate from that, the crusader has an ability to delay damage for one round, while simultaneously using that delayed damage to give you a bonus to attack and damage rolls. The prestige class can use turn undead slots to do cool things (which, since the prestige class does not advance your cleric level for turning, is a nice bonus), and allows you to ignore the armor check penalty to hide (which might be fun for setting up an ambush).

Anyhow, I am gushing because I like this book, this class and this prestige class. If you do use it, I would recommend getting a few cards (even playing cards would do) to help simulate the randomness of the readied maneuvers being "granted", "not-yet granted", and "granted and used up until the reset". A draw pile, a display, and a discard pile, in other words.

If you go for maximum cleric and minimum crusader you could have, with this prestige class, 17th level cleric spell ability and 15th level crusader maneuver ability (this is slightly complicated by the fact that half of your cleric levels would "count" for your crusader level maneuver ability) technically you could use feats to add stances or maneuvers to your "known" ones, btw). So at 20th character level you would have ninth level cleric spells and a selection of cool 1st to 8th level maneuvers and stances.