Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Sajek 06-07-07, 02:12 PM	Caesarius Benedict strode through the chaos of battle. The undead abominations sent to oppose the forces of his temple fell by the dozens, their unnatural frames unable to withstand the purity that the Light brings. His eyes narrowed behind his helmet, locking on the necromancer commanding these crimes against the Gods. He was cackling madly, radiating unholy power. "Mage!" he thundered in his deep, commanding voice, "I am Caesarius Benedict, High Crusader of the Fists of Heironeous! Your perverse magics fail to penetrate the shield that my faith generates! My God shall purge your blight from the world by my blade this day!" The necromancer smirked at him. "Foolish priest," he hissed back, "do you think your righteousness can save you now? The hammer of your pathetic god shall shatter upon the anvil of mine! "So be it," the cleric said in a low voice. He raised his sword, suffused with a shimmering nimbus of white energy, until it was level with the necromancer. "May your god have mercy on you, for I shall not." This is the type of character concept I have been toying with. A cleric (/fighter?) who is completely devoted to his cause and kicks ass in the name of his god. He upholds the law, spreads good, opposes chaos, and seeks to smite evil wherever it may spring up. He leads a very disciplined life and follows a personal code of conduct (akin to a ghetto-paladin); never drinking, no lying, no cheating, that kind of thing. Stat-wise, I am drawing a bit of a blank (other than Extra Turning, of course). Could I get some other skill/feat/equipment/roleplay suggestions for him?
mearrin69 06-07-07, 04:03 PM	(N.B. The character described below is all about smashing a world-spanning undead menace but he's less than charitable towards evil of any sort.) This is not wholly unlike my new cleric character for our Age of Worms game. If you have access to Expedition to Castle Ravenloft you might check out the Lightbringer Cleric class feature substitutions (Destroy Undead in particular as it's quite good compared with straight turning). Quicken turning will let you turn as a free action so you can destroy AND bash heads. There are also some nice alchemical thingies in there specific to undead fighting. You might consider a powerful weapon as well (and name it something holy and ominous - Radiant Inquisitor Helios' mace is called "Banish"). I created the character at 14th level (to replace my wizard...sniff) so I had a bit of cash to spend. I took a +5 breastplate (nothing special about it except the bonus) and a +2 holy undead bane mace. It's quite the undead basher. Also good on plain old evil enemies, though less so. A ring of negative energy resistance has come in handy too. Combining Feat of Strength from the Strength domain and spells like Divine Power with his quickened destroy undead has been quite successful. Holy Word has been a good one too - especially against the evil outsiders we have faced. Good old standbys like Flamestrike and Cometfall (Complete Divine I think) let him cleanse with fire. For RP, I'm not playing him as very preachy but he does invoke the name of Pelor a fair bit, both as a battle cry and in healing and buffing ("By the light of Pelor our hurts are mended" and that sort of rot). He's very interested in bashing the bad guys (esp. undead, of which he keeps a tally on his mace haft (heh, Lightbringer quotas) but less so on side quests related to just getting some gold - though he's happy to get treasure for the enrichment of the church and the lightbringers after the bad guys have been purged. Since he's already well-equipped and doesn't need much else equipment-wise I'm earmarking much of what he garners for donation and good deeds. Not sure what else I could say. Hope that stuff helps a bit. Like I said, he's pretty focused on undead, but a couple of changes could generalize the type a bit. M edit: This guy's quite a bit different than the bookish, note-taking wizard character he replaces (played him from 2nd level through 13th). Let me just say that high-level clerics totally ROCK if you're fighting the forces of darkness.
Sajek 06-07-07, 04:25 PM	Thanks, Mearin. The anti-undead stuff would be nice (undead are abominatons against the gods, as he would say), where could I find a Ring of Negative Energy Resistance? Another side note, attitude wise, I'm kind of basing him off Miko from OotS. Not fun loving at all, very reserved, romantasiced (sp?) notions about duty and honor, that kind of thing. I'd also like to have a bunch of one-liners and battle cries for him when he casts spells, stuff like "The Light burns your soul of impurities!" for Holy Smite or "Heironeous' strength be mine!" for Righteous might.
mearrin69 06-07-07, 04:33 PM	As to the ring I'm not sure there's one listed in DMG but there are ring of other energy resistances (fire, etc.) so my DM said it was okay - don't know if we're breaking anything there so check with your DM to see if it works in your campaign. Maybe another poster will have some advice about this as well. Yeah, I liked the Miko thing - allows for some fun roleplaying and also gives some opportunity for getting tripped up when someone says something that's outside of your black/white worldview. My guy is NG so he's not too concerned about whether you've upheld the law or not - just whether you're evil or good and what you're up to at the moment. A LG cleric could be even more over the top I think. Fun but I wasn't ready to RP that. One of the divine books (CD or maybe Complete Champion) or PHB II offers some good examples of one-liners. Not sure where I saw them, sorry, but maybe someone else can provide some refs for that. I like the concept though and I've been trying to do it - though I can't say I'm a master at RP. All in all, I'm liking the character - and I didn't actually think I would. Have fun with your char! M