DMM: Persist or DMM: Quicken + RKV?

[Frosty]

Which route for buffing should a cleric take? With DMM: Persist, you'd have all your buffs before hand, and you wouldn't waste as many turn undeads buffing yourself compared to DMM: Quicken + using turn attempts to get extra swift actions. However, you're still vulnerable to dispel. One lucky targeted dispel in battle and you won't have time to buff yourself back up.

If you go the DMM: Quicken + RKV route, it'll take a lot of turn attempts to fuel all of your buffs, but you have the option of doing it mid-battle. Plus, you're not limited to range: Personal spells with this method.

Which option would you prefer?

[Marius]

Persist

Even if they expend an action to dispel your buffs (there're better things to do when a party is attacking you) you could avoid it by having a ring of counterspells chaged with a dispel.

[Keld Denar]

Persist is actually more economical. In a 1 encounter per day scenario, DMM Persist uses (6+1) 7 turn attempts per buff. DMM Quicken uses (4+1+1) 6 turn attempts per buff. Past the first encounter, however, Persist continues to only use those turns you already spent on it, while Quicken requires 6 more turns per buff.

Also, DMM Persist can be done by Cleric20, or with any full caster prc. The DMM Quicken route loses either 2 feats and 2 CLs, or 3 CLs. This violates the first rule of charOP and is likely to invoke the wrath of TLN.

EDIT: Also, DMM:Persist is availble at 1st level with the right domains. The RKV idea would need to be about 11th-12 level to come into play.

That said, I highly discourage use of DMM. Without Nightsticks, its horribly underpowered (except for DMM:Pesist) and with Nightsticks, its horribly overpowered. There is no middle ground for this feature.

[Fax Celestis]

Also, DMM Persist can be done by Cleric20, or with any full caster prc. The DMM Quicken route loses either 2 feats and 2 CLs, or 3 CLs. This violates the first rule of charOP and is likely to invoke the wrath of TLN.

Despite the CL loss (which can be made up with Practiced Spellcaster), it nets you a metric ton of Devoted Spirit and/or Shadow Hand and/or Stone Dragon and/or White Raven maneuvers. Dependent on your build, having access to those maneuvers could be a considerable advantage.

[Crimson Avenger]

Persist

Even if they expend an action to dispel your buffs (there're better things to do when a party is attacking you) you could avoid it by having a ring of counterspells chaged with a dispel.

Be careful with this, That only works if they use Dispel Magic. If they cast Gr Dispel you're in trouble, or Chain Dispel, or Slashing Dispel, or Dispelling Touch, or any of the other Dispel spells. A Ring of Counterspells only works automatically if it is the SAME spell that they cast at you. Of course you can use it's other function as per Dispel Magic just fine.

[Frosty]

That said, I highly discourage use of DMM. Without Nightsticks, its horribly underpowered (except for DMM:Pesist) and with Nightsticks, its horribly overpowered. There is no middle ground for this feature.

I have a limit that a character can only benfit from 2 nightsticks per day.

Despite the CL loss (which can be made up with Practiced Spellcaster), it nets you a metric ton of Devoted Spirit and/or Shadow Hand and/or Stone Dragon and/or White Raven maneuvers. Dependent on your build, having access to those maneuvers could be a considerable advantage.

Right Think of this character as a martial build with lots of cleric levels for buffing and healing. BAB isn't that big of a concern because 1) You don't do full attacks anyways since you use maneuvers and 2) You can quicken a Divine Might.

Depending on how martial you want this build to be, you might get just enough cleric levels to get the buffs you want, and go the rest of the way in Warblade or Crusader or something.

[Fax Celestis]

Right Think of this character as a martial build with lots of cleric levels for buffing and healing. BAB isn't that big of a concern because 1) You don't do full attacks anyways since you use maneuvers and 2) You can quicken a Divine Might.

Depending on how martial you want this build to be, you might get just enough cleric levels to get the buffs you want, and go the rest of the way in Warblade or Crusader or something.

Exactly. And what's scarier than a clericzilla? A clericzilla with the ability to shadow jaunt as a swift action.

[Keld Denar]

Exactly. And what's scarier than a clericzilla? A clericzilla with the ability to shadow jaunt as a swift action.

/shadowpounce

NOBODY EXPECTS THE CLERICZILLA INQUISITION!

RKV is so amazing. I'm so looking forward to playing my paladin RKV in my buddy's upcoming game. Divine Might + Battle Blessing + Divine Impetius is crazy. I'm so looking forward to it.

[Frosty]

WHat is Divine Impetus?

[Keld Denar]

WHat is Divine Impetus?

Thats the name of the 7th level RKV ability that lets you burn turn attempts to buy swift actions which I assume you were planning on using to cast multiple DMM:Quickened spells in a round.

[Chronos]

That said, I highly discourage use of DMM. Without Nightsticks, its horribly underpowered (except for DMM:Pesist) and with Nightsticks, its horribly overpowered. There is no middle ground for this feature.

Without Nightsticks, you're going to have a very hard time persisting more than one spell. So that gets you Righteous Might or Divine Power, but not both. I suppose you could still quick-cast the other at the beginning of combat with a metamagic rod, but it's still probably not worth the feat investment.

[Frosty]

Can't you take Extra Turning multiple times? But yes, you need at least one nightstick to make it really worth it.

[AKA_Bait]

That said, I highly discourage use of DMM. Without Nightsticks, its horribly underpowered (except for DMM:Pesist) and with Nightsticks, its horribly overpowered. There is no middle ground for this feature.

I dunno. I have a cleric with DMM: Reach Spell that's pretty handy. Superpowered? No. Useful and helpful for the character (who uses a goodly number of touch spells (healing allies, plane shifting enemies, etc.) Of course the persist combo is somewhat unwealdy/useless without the nightsticks.

[Frosty]

Poll: should Nightsticks be banned, or just restricted on number of sticks allowed to be used at once?

[Toliudar]

Somebody got the actual text for Nightsticks handy? I thought that a nightstick didn't fuel turn attempts, but simply allowed a character to access four more turn attempts than they usually could in a day. Which would mean that multiple Nightsticks wouldn't stack.

Regardless, a restriction of 1/day would certainly provide a bit of that middle ground that lussmanj referred to.

[Gralamin]

Somebody got the actual text for Nightsticks handy? I thought that a nightstick didn't fuel turn attempts, but simply allowed a character to access four more turn attempts than they usually could in a day. Which would mean that multiple Nightsticks wouldn't stack.

Regardless, a restriction of 1/day would certainly provide a bit of that middle ground that lussmanj referred to.

According to Libris Mortis:

Anyone who possesses the rod and is able to turn or rebuke undead gains four more uses of the ability per day.

Since it gives additional uses of the ability, they will stack.

[VeisuItaTyhjyys]

Persist is simply more bang for your buck, especially if you load up with a few extra turnings, which isn't a bad decision, since you don't need that many feats as a cleric, anyway.

Favored Soul/Sacred Exorcist/Persist Cheese is much worse. Spells based on Cha bonus and turning being based on Cha bonus makes one happy SAD caster. Add in to that the fact you get a few permenant buffs of your own always in place that you thus do not need to persist, better saves than a cleric, and only lose those lame "Detect" spells and such things nobody ever uses anyway, and you've got some heavy breakage going on.

[Zincorium]

Somebody got the actual text for Nightsticks handy? I thought that a nightstick didn't fuel turn attempts, but simply allowed a character to access four more turn attempts than they usually could in a day. Which would mean that multiple Nightsticks wouldn't stack.

Regardless, a restriction of 1/day would certainly provide a bit of that middle ground that lussmanj referred to.

It states that you gain four more uses of the ability. This is one of those things that, since it's not a bonus per se, and mentions nothing about stacking, it would default to yes it does by RAW.

Additionally, the feat it replicates (extra turning) can be explicitly taken more than once and that those uses stack. So presumably that's RAI as well. But I agree on the limit of one usable per character, actually needing to turn undead (as opposed to fueling DMM) is fairly rare so it'll only hurt cheesemasters in most games.


On a side note, RKV is one of the coolest fluff Prcs I've seen in a while (or maybe I'm just itching to play a 'paladin' of Wee Jas). If it weren't for the external turning cheese or questionable uses of white raven manuevers, it'd be a very solid class crunch-wise as well.

[UserClone]

I don't see why Night Sticks would even necessarily count as part of your Rebuke/Turn repertoire when counting how many uses you have per day, as far as DMM goes. Just because it isn't expicitly written in there, folks will try to cheese it up, but the way I see it, it isn't even a problem. Bah. I mean, it's charges on a magic item to me, not actual R/TA's.

[Frosty]

I wonder if there's any way to abuse White Raven Tactics with a RKV.

[Rad]

I don't see why Night Sticks would even necessarily count as part of your Rebuke/Turn repertoire when counting how many uses you have per day, as far as DMM goes. Just because it isn't expicitly written in there, folks will try to cheese it up, but the way I see it, it isn't even a problem. Bah. I mean, it's charges on a magic item to me, not actual R/TA's.

As somebody pointed out to me some time ago; nightsticks do not have charges.

[Keld Denar]

I wonder if there's any way to abuse White Raven Tactics with a RKV.

I don't think so. Initiating WRT is a standard action. Recovering it requires 2 turn attempts (one to gain a swift action, one to use the swift action to recover a maneuver). Since WRT can't be use on yourself (sage ruling?), you've now only have a move action left, which can't really be used for anything.

Hmmm, a pair of RKVs working in tandem could move suprisingly fast. One would WRT on the other, then recover and move, then the other would WRT the 1st using his WRT action, recover, then move, then the 1st would repeat. Together, the could span a distance equal to base speed x daily turn attempts/2 in a single round. This would exhaust all their turns for other stuff though. Still, kind of neat. Travel Devotion abuses this better, since you can spend a single turn to gain a swift action, then use that swift action for a move, repeat as needed.

An interesting idea comes up with Divine Recovery though. How does it react with the feat Vitalizing Recovery? Can you can spend a turn attempt to recover a single maneuver as a swift action to trigger VR? If so, you could use a strike every round as your standard, recover it with a turn as your swift, and heal from it. You'd be almost unkillable until you ran out of turns....

[Rad]

I think that Vitalizing Recovery can be used only once per encounter.

[daggaz]

DMM persist, without a doubt.

Even without nightsticks, its much much better than DMM quicken etc..

So much better, its brokenly too much better and I wont allow it in my games, or use it myself, even without nightsticks (which are just little battery packs full of cheesy brokenness).

Seriously, first thing you do, even if you can only persist one spell, is persist righteous might. Now you are walking around large sized with a huge str bonus, extra hps, and reach (without paying the standard +2 LA), and the first thing you do when a melee battle begins is cast quickened divine favor and divine power. Let the destruction begin... and pretty much obliviate the need for fighters in your group, seriously.

And you get to be large all day long... unless somebody maybe blows an action and a spell and attempts to dispel it. At which point, you toss up another righteous might for the hell of it because you always keep a spare prepared, its just that good...


Clerics just dont need to be that good. Not unless you are playing a game at rediculously high power levels.

[Keld Denar]

I'm actually of the camp that clerics are not as good as fighters at dealing damage. Just because they are more independant from external buffs, a full BAB and +6 str do not a fighter make. While the cleric is blowing 1/2 of his precious 7-8 feats on Extend Spell, Persistant Spell, DMM:Persist, and an Extra Turning or 2, not to mention Power Attack just to get off the ground, the fighter is taking other things, like Shocktrooper, Leap Attack, Robilar's Gambit, Elusive Target, prereqs for classes like Exotic Weapon Master that grant extra attacks and a ton of other useful features. A lot of things can be replicated or replaced with spells, but I can garuntee I can make a melee mutt and cleric team that will trump any melee cleric and cleric team on damage. There is no rival to a moderately buffed and fully optimized fighter (who uses less cheese). I'm not saying a DMM:Persist cleric is weak, especially not with nightsticks and a virtually infinite number of running persistant spells, but pound for pound, a properly build and equiped fighter will out damage the DMM:Persist cleric in melee any day.

And now back to your regularly scheduled discussion of the coolest prclass ever, the RKV!

[Douglas]

Initiating WRT is a standard action.

No, it's a swift action.

[valadil]

Poll: should Nightsticks be banned, or just restricted on number of sticks allowed to be used at once?

FWIW I wouldn't let Nightstick be used for anything but turning or rebuking actual undead. They let a player burn all his own turn attempts on cheese, but still have something left if the undead show up. I don't know or care if that's how they're written - that's how I'd run them.

[Frosty]

I thought there is a FAQ ruling somewhere that says you can use WRT on yourself? Something about "you count as an ally" or something stupid like that.

[Keld Denar]

I thought there is a FAQ ruling somewhere that says you can use WRT on yourself? Something about "you count as an ally" or something stupid like that.

If there is, then the sage is an idiot. That is just completely stupid.

Also, since WRT is a swift, you could

initiate WRT on a friend
recover swift action with a turn
recover WRT with a turn and a swift action
recover swift action with a turn
initiate WRT on a friend
....repeat

basically you could WRT 1 + N/3 times in a single round, where N is the max number of turn attempts you have. That's scary. Imagine an RKV + Wizard combo. RKV gives the wizard 5-6 full round actions. Wizard takes reality over his knee and punishes it for existing 5 times. Its better than Timestop since you CAN affect others.

Imagine looking at a heavily armored man and his robewearing wizard friend. The man channels divine energy and then cheers the wizard on. Time blurs for a second, and then you roll 5 fort saves or die. Game over man.....game over.

[Marius]

I'm actually of the camp that clerics are not as good as fighters at dealing damage. Just because they are more independant from external buffs, a full BAB and +6 str do not a fighter make. While the cleric is blowing 1/2 of his precious 7-8 feats on Extend Spell, Persistant Spell, DMM:Persist, and an Extra Turning or 2, not to mention Power Attack just to get off the ground, the fighter is taking other things, like Shocktrooper, Leap Attack, Robilar's Gambit, Elusive Target, prereqs for classes like Exotic Weapon Master that grant extra attacks and a ton of other useful features. A lot of things can be replicated or replaced with spells, but I can garuntee I can make a melee mutt and cleric team that will trump any melee cleric and cleric team on damage. There is no rival to a moderately buffed and fully optimized fighter (who uses less cheese). I'm not saying a DMM:Persist cleric is weak, especially not with nightsticks and a virtually infinite number of running persistant spells, but pound for pound, a properly build and equiped fighter will out damage the DMM:Persist cleric in melee any day.

And now back to your regularly scheduled discussion of the coolest prclass ever, the RKV!

Actually you can take the Undeath (extra turning) and Planning (Extend spell) domains to save feats. And clerics can also take prestige classes.