Suggest a feat for a Cleric of Kol Korran [Archive] - Wizards Community

Suggest a feat for a Cleric of Kol Korran [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
DigitalMage
11-14-07, 09:57 AM I am creating some pregen characters for an Eberron game and I am lacking inspiration for a 3rd level feat for a cleric of Kol Korran (God of Weath and Trade).

So far the character has Negotiator to make him a great diplomat. So what do you suggest?
DigitalMage
11-19-07, 09:18 AM No suggestions at all? is Combat Casting worth it?
Keenath
11-19-07, 10:22 AM Combat Casting is virtually never worth it unless it's a prereq for a PRC; Skill Focus (Concentration) is better. Skill Focus gives you +3 to ALL uses of concentration, including holding a spell when you take damage. Combat Casting gives you only +1 more, and applies only when casting defensively or grappled.

Can you give us a better idea of the character than just "cleric of kol korran"? Is he focusing on Face abilities? Is he interested in Spellcasting more than in Melee abilities?

Following the commerce and trade idea, you might give him Craft Wondrous Item, and Craft Arms & Armor at 6th.

Going for a more overall-character-design direction, I have a few ideas.

First, clerics tend to make terrible 'face' characters -- they have three skills (concentration, spellcraft, and K:religion) that they kinda want for purposes of their class, only 2+Int skill points, and they don't get Bluff or Intimidate or Gather Info as class skills. Since a Face wants at least moderate skills and good charisma, you're looking at a pretty MAD character there. (In other words, you'd need decently high scores in a large number of abilities).

To mitigate that, there are a few things you can look to.

The most obvious would be to focus on spellcasting, with a minor in Face, and pretty much ignore the melee thing.

You'll want to dump Strength; Dex can be relatively low (because your heavy armor won't let you dodge much anyway), a maximum of 12 or so; and Con should be moderate. Your three best scores go in Wis, Cha, and Int, probably in that order. Your preferred weapon is probably a crossbow or shield-and-mace (and just expect not to deal much damage).

You didn't mention a race for your cleric; a Halfling or Gnome would work well for a cleric who isn't planning to get into melee, for example -- Gnomes in particular fit with the Trade/Commerce concept, and get a useful Con bonus, but will be slow as hell in that heavy armor.

I'd provide the character with some Divine feats, because a good Charisma means he'll also have extra turn attempts. I'd avoid Divine Metamagic, though many people like it; I think it's a fairly cheesy feat. Spurn Death's Touch (Liber Mortis) is awesome; you burn turn attempts to cure ability damage, paralysis, or negative levels with a touch. Divine Alacrity (Faiths of Eb) lets you spend a turn attempt to get +30' speed for 1 turn, which is good -- but you have to have the Travel domain to get that feat. Happily, Kol Korran provides Travel, and that's one of the better domains in any case. Divine Shield (Complete Warrior) is good if you have a high charisma modifier, and Divine Vigor (ibid) gives you temporary HP and speed, which can help offset a small character's slowness.

This build tends to be pretty feat-light, so you can get away with a lot. One or two Divine feats are probably plenty to go on with, and the rest of the feat slots can be used on metamagics. I tend not to get any metamagic feats until around level 9, because I pretty much refuse to use my best slots on metamagicked spells -- the on-level spells are MUCH BETTER -- and 2nd level is really the first level with spells I'd be interested in bothering with metamagic for. My 6th level slot is usually already spoken for, but in certain builds I might get a metamagic there, and just wait one level to use it much. But I tend to pick up at 9th. The first metamagic for a cleric is almost always Extend, because so many of your buff spells are very time-dependent, and Extending a spell is good and cheap. Don't ever get a metamagic with the intent to boost damage spells; clerics just aren't that good at damage-spells.

If you really want to be a decent Face, especially with a gnome (or human, of course), you can take one or two levels of bard or (with a halfling) rogue. Yeah, I know, I know, "don't give up caster levels" -- but if it fits your concept better, screw the "best practices" optimization stuff. One level of Bard doesn't get you any significant spellcasting power, but its skill point supply means you can use just a few bard levels to really boost your interpersonal skills -- and a bardsong, even 1/day, can be worth having in a buff/debuff class. There's a feat in Dragon #357, Sacred Performer, which lets you stack your Bard and Cleric levels for determining daily uses of Bardic Music and class level for purposes of turning. It doesn't get you the upper end music USES, though, so it might not be that great.
The rogue gives you even more skills, but sneak attack is probably less useful to a cleric, and may be against your beliefs from a purely RP standpoint. (On the other hand, Kol Korran is neutral and somewhat opportunistic, so maybe not..!) And of course, if you're not focusing on melee damage, one or two sneak attack dice probably aren't gonna help you out much.

Alternatively, you could abandon the "face" role and instead focus on other aspects of commerce, like making items and communication, mechanically going more to the standard 'cleric' role of melee tank with magical buffing.

As far as selecting domains: Travel is one of the best domain powers, and has some good spells too -- I'd take it in a heartbeat. For your second choice, you have a few to choose from. Commerce has a lame power, but an awesome spell list, including some normally non-clerical spells like Glibness (normally bard only) and Polymorph Any Object (normally sor/wiz only), and Tongues as a 3rd level spell instead of 4th.
Charm has a decent domain power (which, by the way, can get you up to two extra Turning uses per day, if you wait until all the rest of your uses are gone before activating the domain power), and a pretty good spell list -- but be sure you're ready to deal with tons of Charming and Suggesting before you drop that on the cleric.
DigitalMage
11-20-07, 05:54 AM Thanks for all the suggestions. I probably should have given more info at the start. First of all, this character will be a pre gen for a series of Convention scenarios so crafting stuff won't likely get much use, besides there will also be an Artificer in the party to do all that.

As for his stats and concept they are all pretty fixed at the moment.

He is a half elf cleric who works for Prince Oargev ir'Wynarn as an ambassador and diplomat for New Cyre. The rest of the party provide muscle, espionage, military, scouting and magical device uses with the spy being the Bluff guy.

Stats are:
Str 10
Dex 12
Con 10
Int 13
Wis 14
Cha 14

Appraise 4 (+5), Diplomacy 6 (+12), Gather Information 0 (+4), Knowledge (Arcana) 2 (+3), Knowledge (Religion) 2 (+3), Listen 0 (+3), Profession (Merchant) 2 (+4), Search 0 (+2), Sense Motive 0 (+4), Spellcraft 2 (+3), Spot 0 (+3)

Domains are Charm and Commerce.

Also, I only intend to use stuff from the core books PHB, DMG, MM and also the Eberron Campaign Setting book - nothing else!

if nothing else Skill Focus Concentration might be the way to go!
kuonji
11-20-07, 06:19 AM Improved Initiative is one of my favorite cleric feats.

If you are using diplomacy heavily and want to really pump it up, go for skill focus in that.

I don't see concentration listed with your skills, so taking skill focus in it isn't all that great if you aren't putting ranks into it in the first place.

Not sure what spells come in your domain, but charm sounds like enchantments, so perhaps Spell Focus: Enchantment (maybe greater spell focus later).

If you're worried about undead then Improved Turning/Extra Turning are always options.

And if you really have nothing better in mind, it's never too early for Spell Penetration/Greater Spell Pen.
Windspear
11-20-07, 06:20 AM Skill focus is a very good choice, although I wouldn't rule out improved initiative.
Keenath
11-20-07, 09:54 AM In my experience, there's not a whole lot of point to slapping improved init on a cleric. A rogue gets a great advantage from improved init, because if he acts early in the order, he can probably sneak attack somebody who's still flat-footed.

A cleric, not so much. Most of your group debuffs are targetted anyway (that is, they don't affect allies unless you tell it to), so you don't have the wizard's worry about being able to drop fireballs safely before the tanks charge in. And anyway, clerics usually have pretty low dex where ImpInit isn't going to help that much.

Your stat listing doesn't make much since -- I'm not sure how you got a +4 gather info with 14 charisma, unless you've got items you didnt' list out for us.

Anyway, I'd either take Skill Focus in Diplo, or a metamagic feat.
ogg205
11-20-07, 11:21 AM Sorry, I havn't been on for a while to give suggestions. Ok, given the type of deity that you have, you may wish to select windfall as a feat- for rp purposes. It gives you something like 300gp per level of character you have.

Generally good cleric feats to have:
Weapon focus (deity's weapon)

quicken spell

Toughness and improved toughness (so you don't die in combat)

endurance and diehard (once again, this helps keep you alive long enough to heal yourself).

Improved buckler profficiency (I generally select this so I can wield a greatsword two handed and still have AC when I cast divine power/rhiteous might on myself)

Combat expertise (if you need to keep from getting hit)

Dodge and mobility (to help you get to those downed fighters without getting wacked)

Possibly consider the feat from complete divine which allows you to spontaneously cast your domain spells.
DigitalMage
11-20-07, 11:41 AM Your stat listing doesn't make much since -- I'm not sure how you got a +4 gather info with 14 charisma, unless you've got items you didnt' list out for us.
Half Elfs get +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy and Gather Information checks :)
DigitalMage
11-20-07, 11:43 AM so perhaps Spell Focus: Enchantment (maybe greater spell focus later).

If you're worried about undead then Improved Turning/Extra Turning are always options.

And if you really have nothing better in mind, it's never too early for Spell Penetration/Greater Spell Pen.
Hmmm some interesting choices there - I might well go for Spell Focus (I will have to check the type of spell which is best though).
Keenath
11-20-07, 12:06 PM Sorry, I havn't been on for a while to give suggestions. Ok, given the type of deity that you have, you may wish to select windfall as a feat- for rp purposes. It gives you something like 300gp per level of character you have. I think he just said he only wanted to use core and the Eb Campaign Setting book.

Toughness and improved toughness (so you don't die in combat)....
Okay, I understand Improved Toughness, but I can't believe you actually just said somebody should take toughness, the worst feat in 3.x...
Note that toughness is not a prereq of Improved Toughness. Also, Improved Toughness is not in any of the books he said he's limiting himself to.

I just was looking at the feats from the ECS, and have a few more suggestions.

If you want to add a little connection between the cleric and a House, give him the Favored In House feat. That'll allow him to make checks to pull in favors when he wants to, which fits really well with the "Kol Korran" and "commerce" things.

Any of the action point feats -- Action Boost, Action Surge, Heroic Spirit -- would be appropriate.

Spontaneous Casting allows you to spend two action points to trade a prepared spell for a different spell on your spell list, which coudl be of use.

Or, because he's a half elf, you could give him a Least Mark of Storm -- he might be a secret/unknown scion of the house, or he could have left to pursue the clerical path against the house's wishes, or some similar thing.
kuonji
11-20-07, 03:02 PM In my experience, there's not a whole lot of point to slapping improved init on a cleric.

I've noticed it tends to vary from group to group, in my circle, Imp Init tends to be an extremely useful cleric feat. If the cleric grabs a high init, they can toss off an early buff and still be in the line up for healing/casting ahead of the bad guys, which for our tactics works really well.
Chimaera2000
11-20-07, 04:15 PM If you're playing your cleric exclusively as a healer or noncombatant, than obviously Improved Initiative won't have that much use for you. For most any other cleric, Improved Initiative is a great feat. If you go sooner in combat, you can (for example):

1) Cast a buff that affects your party members, giving them a greater advantage. Casting bull's strength on the barbarian before he closes to melee enhances one of his attack, while casting mass resist energy before the red dragon can breathe gives you a tremendous advantage.

2) Reposition yourself into a tactically advantageous position (heading to cover before enemy archers can open fire).

3) Close the distance to melee, open up with ranged attacks, or blast the enemy with spells. All of these hasten the removal of your enemies. This is highly important because if eliminate an enemy, he cannot hurt you. If you take out an enemy one round sooner, you have saved the party from one action's worth of pain.

These are a few of the reasons for why many on the Character Optimization Board consider Improved Initiative to be one of the strongest feats in the game. Unless you're using your feats for even better things (Divine Metamagic, PrC prerequisites and such), it's worth it to stick it in for any character build. It's not as outright essential for clerics as it is for wizards and rogues, but as the above examples show, it's still highly useful.

It sounds like your character concept is focused on being the diplomat of the party, so I'd grab Skill Focus (Diplomacy) or Improved Initiative. I wouldn't normally recommend Skill Focus, but it makes a lot of sense for your character concept. Grab Improved Initiative if you want to further your ability to contribute in combat.
DigitalMage
11-21-07, 07:46 AM If you want to add a little connection between the cleric and a House, give him the Favored In House feat. That'll allow him to make checks to pull in favors when he wants to, which fits really well with the "Kol Korran" and "commerce" things.
Interesting, though as a half elf he is limited in the houses to choose from. Still I will bear it in mind.

Any of the action point feats -- Action Boost, Action Surge, Heroic Spirit -- would be appropriate.
I have mixed opinions on Action Point feats - the fact that Action Points do not refresh until you level up means you only have a fixed number of uses of such feats until they are dead weight (til next level). If action points refreshed every adventure then they would be much better, still as this is a con scenario that would effectively be the case.

Mind you I have just looked at Action Boost and that looks great - d8s instead of d6s when you use an action point to add to a roll! Heroic Spirit looks good as well +3 Action Points!

Unfortunately Action SUrge and Spontaneous Casting both have pre-requisites that the character doesn't meet (BAB3+ and CL5+ respectively).
[/QUOTE]
I may well go for Action Boost or Heroic Spirit, as this character is a pregen for con scenarios and thus the player will have the full AP allotment to spend in just 4 hours of gameplay I will likely go for Action Boost - thanks!
Keenath
11-21-07, 09:47 AM Interesting, though as a half elf he is limited in the houses to choose from. Still I will bear it in mind.Well, that's the case no matter WHAT race you pick, of course, with humans having maybe the widest choice of houses at 5. Dwarves and half-orcs only get one house, full Elves and Halflings have two each, and gnomes have one also.

Half-elves can pick from Medani (mark of Detection) or Lyrandar (mark of Storm), which are both pretty interesting. The least mark of detection is useful with the ability to give 2/day Detect Magic, while the least mark of Storm has the interesting Gust of Wind (not normally available to clerics).

And of course, a Favored In House can just pick one, since it doesn't mechanically matter.
Wih
11-21-07, 08:56 PM House Lyrander has one of the strongest Dragonmarks in the game AFAIK, it's well worth picking up. Gust of Wind is a save or lose vs Swarms, and save or suck vs anything that isn't big. Once you get to Control Wind, it's all over, and if you take Dragonmark Visionary anything that doesn't have Lightning Resist is dead.
DigitalMage
11-22-07, 06:00 AM I woudl rather avoid the cleric having a dragonmark as I already have the Bard having a dragon mark (Mark of Passage).

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
DigitalMage 11-14-07, 09:57 AM	I am creating some pregen characters for an Eberron game and I am lacking inspiration for a 3rd level feat for a cleric of Kol Korran (God of Weath and Trade). So far the character has Negotiator to make him a great diplomat. So what do you suggest?
DigitalMage 11-19-07, 09:18 AM	No suggestions at all? is Combat Casting worth it?
Keenath 11-19-07, 10:22 AM	Combat Casting is virtually never worth it unless it's a prereq for a PRC; Skill Focus (Concentration) is better. Skill Focus gives you +3 to ALL uses of concentration, including holding a spell when you take damage. Combat Casting gives you only +1 more, and applies only when casting defensively or grappled. Can you give us a better idea of the character than just "cleric of kol korran"? Is he focusing on Face abilities? Is he interested in Spellcasting more than in Melee abilities? Following the commerce and trade idea, you might give him Craft Wondrous Item, and Craft Arms & Armor at 6th. Going for a more overall-character-design direction, I have a few ideas. First, clerics tend to make terrible 'face' characters -- they have three skills (concentration, spellcraft, and K:religion) that they kinda want for purposes of their class, only 2+Int skill points, and they don't get Bluff or Intimidate or Gather Info as class skills. Since a Face wants at least moderate skills and good charisma, you're looking at a pretty MAD character there. (In other words, you'd need decently high scores in a large number of abilities). To mitigate that, there are a few things you can look to. The most obvious would be to focus on spellcasting, with a minor in Face, and pretty much ignore the melee thing. You'll want to dump Strength; Dex can be relatively low (because your heavy armor won't let you dodge much anyway), a maximum of 12 or so; and Con should be moderate. Your three best scores go in Wis, Cha, and Int, probably in that order. Your preferred weapon is probably a crossbow or shield-and-mace (and just expect not to deal much damage). You didn't mention a race for your cleric; a Halfling or Gnome would work well for a cleric who isn't planning to get into melee, for example -- Gnomes in particular fit with the Trade/Commerce concept, and get a useful Con bonus, but will be slow as hell in that heavy armor. I'd provide the character with some Divine feats, because a good Charisma means he'll also have extra turn attempts. I'd avoid Divine Metamagic, though many people like it; I think it's a fairly cheesy feat. Spurn Death's Touch (Liber Mortis) is awesome; you burn turn attempts to cure ability damage, paralysis, or negative levels with a touch. Divine Alacrity (Faiths of Eb) lets you spend a turn attempt to get +30' speed for 1 turn, which is good -- but you have to have the Travel domain to get that feat. Happily, Kol Korran provides Travel, and that's one of the better domains in any case. Divine Shield (Complete Warrior) is good if you have a high charisma modifier, and Divine Vigor (ibid) gives you temporary HP and speed, which can help offset a small character's slowness. This build tends to be pretty feat-light, so you can get away with a lot. One or two Divine feats are probably plenty to go on with, and the rest of the feat slots can be used on metamagics. I tend not to get any metamagic feats until around level 9, because I pretty much refuse to use my best slots on metamagicked spells -- the on-level spells are MUCH BETTER -- and 2nd level is really the first level with spells I'd be interested in bothering with metamagic for. My 6th level slot is usually already spoken for, but in certain builds I might get a metamagic there, and just wait one level to use it much. But I tend to pick up at 9th. The first metamagic for a cleric is almost always Extend, because so many of your buff spells are very time-dependent, and Extending a spell is good and cheap. Don't ever get a metamagic with the intent to boost damage spells; clerics just aren't that good at damage-spells. If you really want to be a decent Face, especially with a gnome (or human, of course), you can take one or two levels of bard or (with a halfling) rogue. Yeah, I know, I know, "don't give up caster levels" -- but if it fits your concept better, screw the "best practices" optimization stuff. One level of Bard doesn't get you any significant spellcasting power, but its skill point supply means you can use just a few bard levels to really boost your interpersonal skills -- and a bardsong, even 1/day, can be worth having in a buff/debuff class. There's a feat in Dragon #357, Sacred Performer, which lets you stack your Bard and Cleric levels for determining daily uses of Bardic Music and class level for purposes of turning. It doesn't get you the upper end music USES, though, so it might not be that great. The rogue gives you even more skills, but sneak attack is probably less useful to a cleric, and may be against your beliefs from a purely RP standpoint. (On the other hand, Kol Korran is neutral and somewhat opportunistic, so maybe not..!) And of course, if you're not focusing on melee damage, one or two sneak attack dice probably aren't gonna help you out much. Alternatively, you could abandon the "face" role and instead focus on other aspects of commerce, like making items and communication, mechanically going more to the standard 'cleric' role of melee tank with magical buffing. As far as selecting domains: Travel is one of the best domain powers, and has some good spells too -- I'd take it in a heartbeat. For your second choice, you have a few to choose from. Commerce has a lame power, but an awesome spell list, including some normally non-clerical spells like Glibness (normally bard only) and Polymorph Any Object (normally sor/wiz only), and Tongues as a 3rd level spell instead of 4th. Charm has a decent domain power (which, by the way, can get you up to two extra Turning uses per day, if you wait until all the rest of your uses are gone before activating the domain power), and a pretty good spell list -- but be sure you're ready to deal with tons of Charming and Suggesting before you drop that on the cleric.
DigitalMage 11-20-07, 05:54 AM	Thanks for all the suggestions. I probably should have given more info at the start. First of all, this character will be a pre gen for a series of Convention scenarios so crafting stuff won't likely get much use, besides there will also be an Artificer in the party to do all that. As for his stats and concept they are all pretty fixed at the moment. He is a half elf cleric who works for Prince Oargev ir'Wynarn as an ambassador and diplomat for New Cyre. The rest of the party provide muscle, espionage, military, scouting and magical device uses with the spy being the Bluff guy. Stats are: Str 10 Dex 12 Con 10 Int 13 Wis 14 Cha 14 Appraise 4 (+5), Diplomacy 6 (+12), Gather Information 0 (+4), Knowledge (Arcana) 2 (+3), Knowledge (Religion) 2 (+3), Listen 0 (+3), Profession (Merchant) 2 (+4), Search 0 (+2), Sense Motive 0 (+4), Spellcraft 2 (+3), Spot 0 (+3) Domains are Charm and Commerce. Also, I only intend to use stuff from the core books PHB, DMG, MM and also the Eberron Campaign Setting book - nothing else! if nothing else Skill Focus Concentration might be the way to go!
kuonji 11-20-07, 06:19 AM	Improved Initiative is one of my favorite cleric feats. If you are using diplomacy heavily and want to really pump it up, go for skill focus in that. I don't see concentration listed with your skills, so taking skill focus in it isn't all that great if you aren't putting ranks into it in the first place. Not sure what spells come in your domain, but charm sounds like enchantments, so perhaps Spell Focus: Enchantment (maybe greater spell focus later). If you're worried about undead then Improved Turning/Extra Turning are always options. And if you really have nothing better in mind, it's never too early for Spell Penetration/Greater Spell Pen.
Windspear 11-20-07, 06:20 AM	Skill focus is a very good choice, although I wouldn't rule out improved initiative.
Keenath 11-20-07, 09:54 AM	In my experience, there's not a whole lot of point to slapping improved init on a cleric. A rogue gets a great advantage from improved init, because if he acts early in the order, he can probably sneak attack somebody who's still flat-footed. A cleric, not so much. Most of your group debuffs are targetted anyway (that is, they don't affect allies unless you tell it to), so you don't have the wizard's worry about being able to drop fireballs safely before the tanks charge in. And anyway, clerics usually have pretty low dex where ImpInit isn't going to help that much. Your stat listing doesn't make much since -- I'm not sure how you got a +4 gather info with 14 charisma, unless you've got items you didnt' list out for us. Anyway, I'd either take Skill Focus in Diplo, or a metamagic feat.
ogg205 11-20-07, 11:21 AM	Sorry, I havn't been on for a while to give suggestions. Ok, given the type of deity that you have, you may wish to select windfall as a feat- for rp purposes. It gives you something like 300gp per level of character you have. Generally good cleric feats to have: Weapon focus (deity's weapon) quicken spell Toughness and improved toughness (so you don't die in combat) endurance and diehard (once again, this helps keep you alive long enough to heal yourself). Improved buckler profficiency (I generally select this so I can wield a greatsword two handed and still have AC when I cast divine power/rhiteous might on myself) Combat expertise (if you need to keep from getting hit) Dodge and mobility (to help you get to those downed fighters without getting wacked) Possibly consider the feat from complete divine which allows you to spontaneously cast your domain spells.
DigitalMage 11-20-07, 11:41 AM	Your stat listing doesn't make much since -- I'm not sure how you got a +4 gather info with 14 charisma, unless you've got items you didnt' list out for us. Half Elfs get +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy and Gather Information checks :)
DigitalMage 11-20-07, 11:43 AM	so perhaps Spell Focus: Enchantment (maybe greater spell focus later). If you're worried about undead then Improved Turning/Extra Turning are always options. And if you really have nothing better in mind, it's never too early for Spell Penetration/Greater Spell Pen. Hmmm some interesting choices there - I might well go for Spell Focus (I will have to check the type of spell which is best though).
Keenath 11-20-07, 12:06 PM	Sorry, I havn't been on for a while to give suggestions. Ok, given the type of deity that you have, you may wish to select windfall as a feat- for rp purposes. It gives you something like 300gp per level of character you have. I think he just said he only wanted to use core and the Eb Campaign Setting book. Toughness and improved toughness (so you don't die in combat).... Okay, I understand Improved Toughness, but I can't believe you actually just said somebody should take toughness, the worst feat in 3.x... Note that toughness is not a prereq of Improved Toughness. Also, Improved Toughness is not in any of the books he said he's limiting himself to. I just was looking at the feats from the ECS, and have a few more suggestions. If you want to add a little connection between the cleric and a House, give him the Favored In House feat. That'll allow him to make checks to pull in favors when he wants to, which fits really well with the "Kol Korran" and "commerce" things. Any of the action point feats -- Action Boost, Action Surge, Heroic Spirit -- would be appropriate. Spontaneous Casting allows you to spend two action points to trade a prepared spell for a different spell on your spell list, which coudl be of use. Or, because he's a half elf, you could give him a Least Mark of Storm -- he might be a secret/unknown scion of the house, or he could have left to pursue the clerical path against the house's wishes, or some similar thing.
kuonji 11-20-07, 03:02 PM	In my experience, there's not a whole lot of point to slapping improved init on a cleric. I've noticed it tends to vary from group to group, in my circle, Imp Init tends to be an extremely useful cleric feat. If the cleric grabs a high init, they can toss off an early buff and still be in the line up for healing/casting ahead of the bad guys, which for our tactics works really well.
Chimaera2000 11-20-07, 04:15 PM	If you're playing your cleric exclusively as a healer or noncombatant, than obviously Improved Initiative won't have that much use for you. For most any other cleric, Improved Initiative is a great feat. If you go sooner in combat, you can (for example): 1) Cast a buff that affects your party members, giving them a greater advantage. Casting bull's strength on the barbarian before he closes to melee enhances one of his attack, while casting mass resist energy before the red dragon can breathe gives you a tremendous advantage. 2) Reposition yourself into a tactically advantageous position (heading to cover before enemy archers can open fire). 3) Close the distance to melee, open up with ranged attacks, or blast the enemy with spells. All of these hasten the removal of your enemies. This is highly important because if eliminate an enemy, he cannot hurt you. If you take out an enemy one round sooner, you have saved the party from one action's worth of pain. These are a few of the reasons for why many on the Character Optimization Board consider Improved Initiative to be one of the strongest feats in the game. Unless you're using your feats for even better things (Divine Metamagic, PrC prerequisites and such), it's worth it to stick it in for any character build. It's not as outright essential for clerics as it is for wizards and rogues, but as the above examples show, it's still highly useful. It sounds like your character concept is focused on being the diplomat of the party, so I'd grab Skill Focus (Diplomacy) or Improved Initiative. I wouldn't normally recommend Skill Focus, but it makes a lot of sense for your character concept. Grab Improved Initiative if you want to further your ability to contribute in combat.
DigitalMage 11-21-07, 07:46 AM	If you want to add a little connection between the cleric and a House, give him the Favored In House feat. That'll allow him to make checks to pull in favors when he wants to, which fits really well with the "Kol Korran" and "commerce" things. Interesting, though as a half elf he is limited in the houses to choose from. Still I will bear it in mind. Any of the action point feats -- Action Boost, Action Surge, Heroic Spirit -- would be appropriate. I have mixed opinions on Action Point feats - the fact that Action Points do not refresh until you level up means you only have a fixed number of uses of such feats until they are dead weight (til next level). If action points refreshed every adventure then they would be much better, still as this is a con scenario that would effectively be the case. Mind you I have just looked at Action Boost and that looks great - d8s instead of d6s when you use an action point to add to a roll! Heroic Spirit looks good as well +3 Action Points! Unfortunately Action SUrge and Spontaneous Casting both have pre-requisites that the character doesn't meet (BAB3+ and CL5+ respectively). [/QUOTE] I may well go for Action Boost or Heroic Spirit, as this character is a pregen for con scenarios and thus the player will have the full AP allotment to spend in just 4 hours of gameplay I will likely go for Action Boost - thanks!
Keenath 11-21-07, 09:47 AM	Interesting, though as a half elf he is limited in the houses to choose from. Still I will bear it in mind.Well, that's the case no matter WHAT race you pick, of course, with humans having maybe the widest choice of houses at 5. Dwarves and half-orcs only get one house, full Elves and Halflings have two each, and gnomes have one also. Half-elves can pick from Medani (mark of Detection) or Lyrandar (mark of Storm), which are both pretty interesting. The least mark of detection is useful with the ability to give 2/day Detect Magic, while the least mark of Storm has the interesting Gust of Wind (not normally available to clerics). And of course, a Favored In House can just pick one, since it doesn't mechanically matter.
Wih 11-21-07, 08:56 PM	House Lyrander has one of the strongest Dragonmarks in the game AFAIK, it's well worth picking up. Gust of Wind is a save or lose vs Swarms, and save or suck vs anything that isn't big. Once you get to Control Wind, it's all over, and if you take Dragonmark Visionary anything that doesn't have Lightning Resist is dead.
DigitalMage 11-22-07, 06:00 AM	I woudl rather avoid the cleric having a dragonmark as I already have the Bard having a dragon mark (Mark of Passage).