3.5 how do you build an edgy cleric?

[liquidformat]

This is mixing setting books but.

Keen Intellect (Int to Will Saves, Wis Skills are now Int Skills)
Academic Priest (Int to max Cleric Spells and Bonus Spells, but not Save DCs)
Willing Deformity (prerequisite feat)
Deformity Madness (Immunity to Mind Affecting, -4 to Wisdom but who cares since Int powers Will Save and Wisdom Skills, once every minute add half your character level to your Will Saving Throws as an Immediate Action.)

Add in Cloistered Cleric and now you are playing a mad scientist who is researching his way through the divine madness which is reality.

or you know be an archivist and then you can ignore academic priest at least...

[Jay R]

Part of the problem is that "edgy" is not really descriptive. It just means someone on the edge of something you expect her to be in the center of. It could mean the neutral good PC in a party of paladins, or the True Neutral in a Good party, or the Chaotic in the Lawful party, or the Evil character in the Neutral party. Or many other things not tied to alignment, like the hidden rogue in a party of stalwart fighters. Try to get her to define exactly what kind of "edgy" she wants, or you are likely to create a correctly edgy character that doesn't fulfill what she really wants.

Right, but isn't Belkar being a murderous psycho despite being a halfling kind of the joke?

Well, it certainly leads to many jokes.

He's a halfling, he's supposed to be jolly. Why isn't he jolly? WHY ISN'T HE JOLLY?

But he's still an example that halflings aren't inherently excluded from the deep end of the alignment pool, which includes many different styles of "edgy".

It's not that a halfling couldn't be an edgy character, it's just that I wouldn't expect it to be the first choice of someone who thinks "Oooh, let's make something really edgy!"

To the extent that edgy means anything at all (an open question), it means "different from those around her". An edgy halfling should be someone different from most halflings -- which is exactly what she's trying to do.

[Trandir]

Part of the problem is that "edgy" is not really descriptive. It just means someone on the edge of something you expect her to be in the center of. It could mean the neutral good PC in a party of paladins, or the True Neutral in a Good party, or the Chaotic in the Lawful party, or the Evil character in the Neutral party. Or many other things not tied to alignment, like the hidden rogue in a party of stalwart fighters. Try to get her to define exactly what kind of "edgy" she wants, or you are likely to create a correctly edgy character that doesn't fulfill what she really wants.




Well, it certainly leads to many jokes.

He's a halfling, he's supposed to be jolly. Why isn't he jolly? WHY ISN'T HE JOLLY?

But he's still an example that halflings aren't inherently excluded from the deep end of the alignment pool, which includes many different styles of "edgy".




To the extent that edgy means anything at all (an open question), it means "different from those around her". An edgy halfling should be someone different from most halflings -- which is exactly what she's trying to do.

According to her being edgy by means doing any of the following whenever possible: inflict magical pain, becoming one with the shadows, using blood to fuel magic, mind controlling people and stealing life force.

[Ramza00]

or you know be an archivist and then you can ignore academic priest at least...

Depends on your style of play.

Archivist has 1 less spell per level since it has no domain spell slot and also has Wisdom for its Bonus Spells (which Academic Priest fixes and makes Int.)
Cloistered Cleric would have 6+Int Skill Points, Archivist has 2+Int Skill Points.

There are pros and cons for each route, thus it is a subjective personal choice of what you want to play. Want every cleric spell accessible within 10 minutes for you keep a spell slot open go with Cleric, if you want something similar with Archivist you have to track down those spells via quests or hope your DM makes it easy to do magic marks and swap spells with other classes which do not have prayerbooks.

[nedz]

Lots of eyeshadow and emo music?

Trickery domain gives Disguise Self - so that's the make-up sorted.

As to edgy: well how about using Rebuke Undead to power Healing Devotion instead of casting those boring old curing spells ?

Ed:
Looking at this again - we still have too many options

Inflict magical pain, becoming one with the shadows, mind controlling people.

Beguiler ?

Inflict magical pain, becoming one with the shadows, stealing life force.

Necromancer ?

[ShurikVch]

inflict magical pain

Profane Agony feat

Spells:
Angry Ache (Book of Vile Darkness)
Blade of Pain and Fear (Spell Compendium)
Circle of Nausea (Book of Vile Darkness)
Slash Tongue (Book of Vile Darkness)
Symbol of Pain
Wall of Pain (Shining South)
Wrack (Spell Compendium)

becoming one with the shadows

Feats:
Blend Into Shadows (Drow of the Underdark)
Fade Into Darkness (Drow of the Underdark)
(To satisfy the "Darkness" prerequisite, take the Innate Spell (Darkness) feat)

using blood to fuel magic

Bane of Infidels PrC (Masters of the Wild): have such CFs as Sacrifice, Major Sacrifice, and Mass Sacrifice

Spells with "blood" in the material components:
Bladebane (Unapproachable East)
Demonic Blood Infusion (Ghostwalk WE)
Extract Gift (Fiendish Codex I)
Fire In the Blood (Heroes of Horror)
Masochism (Book of Vile Darkness)
Sadism (Book of Vile Darkness)
Stone Trap (Shining South)
Utterdark (Book of Vile Darkness)
Zone of Respite (Spell Compendium)

Also, while not, exactly, "blood", there is Eldritch Corruption feat in the Heroes of Horror

mind controlling people

Well, there are enough such spells:
Command / Greater Command
Enthrall
Geas/quest / Familial Geas (Heroes of Horror)
Remorseless Charm (Champions of Ruin)
Symbol of Persuasion

For feats, take Commanding and Puppet Master (both are from Dragon #312)

Finally, there is "Mentalist" ACF (in the Even More Magic & Mayhem), which - among other things - replaces Rebuke Undead with Rebuke Humanoid

and stealing life force

Spells:
Death Knell
Consumptive Field
Greater Consumptive Field

Feats:
Life Leech
Profane Lifeleech (Libris Mortis)

[Feantar]

Oh boy! I get to stomp all over someone's character concept!

If you look at the Cleric class in the Player's Handbook, in the Deity, Domains, and Domain Spells section, you'll find this oft-overlooked buzzkill: "If the typical worshipers of a deity include members of a race, a cleric must be of the indicated race to choose that deity as his own. (The god may have occasional worshipers of other races, but not clerics.)"

So no halfling Clerics of Lolth. No non-drow Clerics of Lolth at all.

Surprisingly, Drow are a subrace, not a race. So you ccan have an non-drow cleric of Llolth, as long as they are an elf. RAW, that is.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

According to her being edgy by means doing any of the following whenever possible: inflict magical pain, becoming one with the shadows, using blood to fuel magic, mind controlling people and stealing life force.

I'll agree that the Profane Agony feat in DotU covers inflicting magical pain. It's even compatible with the Master of Spiders ACF I recommended. I'd say delivering poison runs hand in hand with this goal, making spider minions and Craft: Poisonmaking top choices.

Get a necklace with a small pendant made from wood or bone, put Unguent of Timelessness on it. Hire an NPC spellcaster to put Extended Deeper Darkness on it, Heightened to 4th level so it beats any Daylight cast at its default level, at a caster level 20th. That normally lasts 40 days, but the unguent makes every day's passage of time take an entire year for the item that's cast on, making it last 40 years. You remember those weird girls in middle school who liked to chew on their necklace? She can hold the pendant in her mouth to block the darkness effect, but 'drop' it as a free action by spitting it out to suddenly plunge the are into darkness. If you don't like the unguent shenanigans she can just cast it herself every few days once she's high enough level and use a Lesser Rod of Extend on it. Cast Ebon Eyes or take the Baator domain in SC to be able to see in magical darkness.

There are a few ways I can think of to accomplish blood magic, such as the Tainted Scholar in HoH and Blood Magus in CA, both of which are arcane-only. There's Maho-Tsukai in OA, which became Tainted Sorcerer in UA, which is the predecessor to Tainted Scholar as described in its adaptation section, stating the designers wanted to combine Tainted Sorcerer and Loremaster for a forbidden dark knowledge theme. Given the source of the Tainted Scholar's design, you could make a divine version that combines Tainted Sorcerer and some abilities from a fitting divine prestige class.

Mind controlling is mostly enchantment spells which Clerics are lacking in. Stealing life force may be animating the dead or creating incorporeal undead from fallen foes, or using Vampiric Touch or Empathic Transfer, Hostile or even something like Magic Jar. I'd say going Cleric 3/ Ardent 1 straight into Psychic Theurge (or a Tainted Sorcerer version of Psychic Theurge) is the way to go. Get the Corruption and Madness mantle for the mind-stuff and Pain and Suffering mantle for the magical pain stuff plus stealing life force. That first level of Ardent needs to be taken at 3rd level, at which you also get Practiced Manifester so you can pick 2nd level powers. Be sure to use Substitute Powers to pick up additional powers that are fitting for the mantles chosen. A second Aredent level gets another mantle, that could be Deception or Destruction or Light and Darkness or Mental Power, there are plenty that fit the character.