Cleric of the Mad Mage

[Atanuero]

For my next campaign, I've decided to play a gnome Cleric of the ideal of the Mad Mage (wild experiments often resulting in failure with magic and Alchemy), with the domains Madness and Spell. My DM is allowing me to take that alternate class feature from Dungeonscape where you trade a domain granted power for spontaneous restoration instead of the Madness domain bonus (or lack thereof).

Anyway, in order to be a cleric, I need to have a high wisdom, but my ideal's fluff seems to suggest a low wisdom prerequisite. Any way I can get around this?

[Hario]

be an archivist or favored soul, though you prolly didn't want to hear that. There are no feats to my knowlege that allow you to change casting stats. Though archivist allows you to obtain any divine spell and is int spellcasting wis bonus spells and favored soul is cha spellcasting wis bonus spells.

[Atanuero]

No, I didn't really. I like Clerics.

From a roleplaying standpoint, will it be sort of weird that I'm acting erratically while having a near-maxed Wis? Can I justify my randomness by dumping Int or Cha?

[Dausuul]

No, I didn't really. I like Clerics.

From a roleplaying standpoint, will it be sort of weird that I'm acting erratically while having a near-maxed Wis? Can I justify my randomness by dumping Int or Cha?

You don't even have to do that. Ever heard the phrase "crazy like a fox?" That's you. You act in seemingly bizarre, erratic ways, and you take wild risks; but that doesn't mean you're an idiot, or unaware of the danger. On the contrary, you're very much attuned to your surroundings. You have a strong intuition and rely on it heavily.

If your DM is okay with it, you could ask permission to occasionally act on metagame knowledge to represent this.

[Darrin]

From a roleplaying standpoint, will it be sort of weird that I'm acting erratically while having a near-maxed Wis? Can I justify my randomness by dumping Int or Cha?

Hmmm... I must have missed that in the rulebook somewhere. Can you please point me to the part in the book where it says a character with high Wis or high Int can't do something idiotic or behave in an erratic way?

(In other words... why are you so hung up on the idea that your stats must dictate how you roleplay your character's personality?)

If you really need something to represent that mechanically, Spellcasting Prodigy (appears in several books I think) allows you to treat your spellcasting stat as being 2 higher for the purposes of casting spells, bonus spells, etc. This would allow you to keep your higher level spells, but still have a somewhat lower Wisdom score.

[goat]

I don't think you can really do it with a simple stat-dump. Dumping intelligence, which would be the only obvious choice, would simply wreck your alchemy abilities.

You'd probably be better off simply knocking him over the delicate line between genius and insanity. Play him as a bit reckless, easily distracted, possessing huge amounts of information and insight, but not always realising when he should be divulging it.

[The_Snark]

Hmmm... I must have missed that in the rulebook somewhere. Can you please point me to the part in the book where it says a character with high Wis or high Int can't do something idiotic or behave in an erratic way?

(In other words... why are you so hung up on the idea that your stats must dictate how you roleplay your character's personality?)

Wisdom is described as a character's willpower, ability to perceive the world around him, and common sense. Insane (in the sense of erratic, not power-mad) characters typically have trouble with at least one of those three. And your stats should affect your personality somewhat; an orc with 6 Int and Wis should not be a clever tactician. The stats shouldn't govern personality, but they also shouldn't be completely ignored.

As for the original question, I'm not really sure why you dropped the Madness domain ability, given that it's supposed to represent exactly what you want—an intuitive and extremely perceptive character who is nevertheless a little over the edge. It's not all that good, true, but then, neither is the Spell domain's granted power. I'd give that up instead.

[Azerian Kelimon]

There's no need to actually modify things, I'd say. Your character can perfectly function with his stats. Extra intelligent and wise characters can act like madmen.

For an example, see epic level handbook, Halaster.

[Atanuero]

Wisdom is described as a character's willpower, ability to perceive the world around him, and common sense. Insane (in the sense of erratic, not power-mad) characters typically have trouble with at least one of those three. And your stats should affect your personality somewhat; an orc with 6 Int and Wis should not be a clever tactician. The stats shouldn't govern personality, but they also shouldn't be completely ignored.

As for the original question, I'm not really sure why you dropped the Madness domain ability, given that it's supposed to represent exactly what you want—an intuitive and extremely perceptive character who is nevertheless a little over the edge. It's not all that good, true, but then, neither is the Spell domain's granted power. I'd give that up instead.

I dropped it for optimization purposes. Madness has NO bonus, only a penalty. Spell has some at least. It's not all about RPing, I just thought of a fun character and made him.

The reason I assumed that low Wisdom can mean insanity is because Wisdom is partially how much good judgment your character has. I definitely don't want to take another class.

The 'crazy like a fox' idea, while interesting, doesn't reflect the crazy experimenting mage with his silly inventions, redundant potions, or frequent explosions. Yes, this character could have been an artificer. No, I'm not rerolling artificer.

[KnightErrantJR]

The Dragonlance d20 books (I know, they aren't core, but they aren't some weird whacked out d20 publisher either) from MWP have two feats, Academic Priest and Dynamic Priest, which allow you to substitute Intelligence and Charisma for your primary stats, however, the bonus to your DC is still determined by your wisdom. So you may cast high level spells and get extra spells, but it will be fairly easy to save against your spells.

Both of them have the prerequisite of being taken at 1st level.

[Omniplex]

i don't see what's so awful about the madness domain ability, sure, it hurts your will save and perception skills, but adding half your class level to your wisdom score could be handy for boosting useful things like Spell DCs and Bonus Spells. well, it could at 4th level and up. I suppose it is somewhat useless at first level. if you don't intend to hit 4th level, then by all means, it is useless.

[Atanuero]

Wait, but the Madness ability only has the bonus in the 3.0 Deities and Demigods, and not in the 3.5 Spell Compendium or Complete Divine.

[The_Snark]

Wait, but the Madness ability only has the bonus in the 3.0 Deities and Demigods, and not in the 3.5 Spell Compendium or Complete Divine.

It lets you add half your class level to any Wisdom-based check or Will save once per day. That's a benefit. Although not as impressive a benefit as the 3.0 version.