Post/Author/DateTime	Post
jamchugh 01-13-04, 07:51 PM	Hello all, I am starting a homebrew campaign this weekend and have opted to play a cleric. Now, not only have I ever played a cleric before, but I really would appreciate any info on how I could have a cleric that is as knightly as possible without losing any spellcasting if at all possible. The biggest help would be a PrC to aim for and feat selection. Also, if no PrC quite fits the bill my DM said he's gonna whip up a knighthood of his own so your suggestions will serve as a template at the least. Domains are also free to select as he will make a God fit what I choose. Thanks in advance
Dark Tyrant 01-13-04, 07:57 PM	Hospitaler from defendors of the faith would be a good choice.
cultjake 01-14-04, 03:56 AM	Human Ftr1 - Mounted Combat, Power Attack, Ride By Attack Clr2 - Extend Spell Clr5 - Persistant Spell Hospitaler from there on out.....
jamchugh 01-14-04, 08:34 AM	Is Power Attack required for Ride by Attack, and with this build will I only lose 1 caster level, or am I missing something?
Raist27m 01-14-04, 10:02 AM	The Divine Champion from the Forgotten Realms book is pretty in-line with the theme you're going for. Includes fighter feats, and bonuses to saves, though you lose a bit on the magical side.
Leagle 01-14-04, 12:45 PM	War domain, and take a level or 2 of fighter, or your cleric isn't honouring his god enough. The correct god is needed of course, not just anyone with war. Heironeous is a knightly chap, Grumnsh has war domain, and he is not knightly.
jamchugh 01-14-04, 10:52 PM	so the feat suggestion of cultjake and the war domain, but which other domain?
cultjake 01-14-04, 11:11 PM	Ftr1/Clr5/HosX loses no spell levels. You would still have access to ninth level spells, just 1 less per day. Domain choice isn't really all that important, because once you enter Hospitaler, you only have access to two of Healing, War, Protection or Glory. (You can take Domination, but there are few evil Hospitalers out there.) Something else to consider, do you expect to be doing much outdoor adventuring? Mounted combat is a pretty limited style. There are times when it is *awesome*, but there are alot of times (esp underground) when those feats are useless. Ftr1Clr19 is a great build. No prestige classes are really necessary for this to be a powerhouse. The one level of fighter grants you the two bonus feats for Weapon Focus and Expertise, and the rest of the build is pretty much straight cleric. Once you get your persistent buffs going, you'll make most fighters look silly. Power Attack is not a pre-req for the Mounted feats. It's pretty much a standard feat for any strength-based melee character. Under the 3.5 rules, with a Two-handed weapon, it is especially nice. My Ftr8/Clr4/Hos3 is currently using Greataxe with an animated shield. Best of both worlds, a shield and a 2hander.
Malben 01-15-04, 01:21 AM	One of the better domains for a "knightly" cleric, aside from War, is Strength. I certainly agree with the other posters who have suggested a level or two of fighter, as well; the extra feats you gain from this will be exceedingly useful to you when you go into combat. I'm going to guess that you're aiming for a Thomas Malory style of knight, the sort who rides around on a horse and uses a lance, and all of that. In such a case, a couple of levels of fighter make a big difference; they'll let you get hold of Mounted Combat and Spirited Charge, for example, and still have room for some more feats from simple level-up additions. I definitely recommend the Extend Spell feat, if you can possibly fit it in; if you are playing a knightly cleric, you will want to buff yourself for combat. Extend spell makes it much easier to do so. If your DM allows the Persistent Spell feat, at high levels that's even better. I'm running a cleric who uses Persistent Spell for a lot of his buffs, and he's quite a force in combat. A fighter is better at melee combat than he is, but that really is almost solely a matter of the fighter's having more feats and a better range of options to choose from so far as weapons go. And of course, if the DM ever succeeds in getting an NPC to collapse all my buffs with a Greater Dispelling . . . But despite this, you've picked out a highly viable way to play the cleric. I recommend the War Domain and the Strength Domain. They pay off nicely when you're interested in buffing yourself in preparation for combat. The Protection domain is also widely available to deities that have either War or Strength, and it likewise very worthwhile for the spells it provides access to. As far as prestige classes go, I suggest the Divine Disciple (from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book). Flavor-wise and mechanics-wise, it isn't particularly distinctive to the Forgotten Realms setting; you could drop one into any setting with clerics, almost, and it'd work fine. It'll mean that you take a hit on your base attack bonus, but if you're able to cast Divine Power (and you can't get into the class without being high enough in level to do so), you can just use that spell to get a base attack bonus equal to your character level. The beauty of the Divine Disciple PrC is that it gives you access to a third domain, including the domain's granted power. If you're using optional domains, like the ones in the Forgotten Realms campaign book, then this is a really nice feature of the class, because a lot of the deities of that setting offer more than two domains that include access to good spells or useful domain powers -- for example, Clangeddin Silverbeard (patron of dwarven paladins) offers not only War and Strength, but also the Good domain (which is actually quite a nice domain -- it's the sole access point to the holy smite spell, which is actually quite nice. I wouldn't pick the Good domain if I had other choices that I thought were better, but if I suddenly have a third domain available . . . hey, why not?
Mitchell 01-15-04, 02:40 AM	The war domain is important because it gives you automatic weapon proficiency and weapon focus with the dieties favored weapon, thus, you will want a diety with a "knightly" weapon like a sword or an axe. If you are a human, 1/2 elf, or dwarf, then take the fighter level or four, otherwise, I would avoid it due to the experience penalties you will suffer because of the favored class thing not being right. You don't have to try too hard to make a "knightly" cleric, as they can wear whatever armor they want and are decent in combat. I remember reading something a long time back that basically said clerics were modeled after the knights templar, albeit in a fantasy game sort of way so they could cast spells and such. If you really want to be "knightly", though, I would use my feats on combat stuff and not metamagic. There are those who will say that this doesn't maximize your potential, but so what? Have fun with the guy. Not every character has to have these "X" feats to be fun.
jamchugh 01-15-04, 03:22 PM	All right, I appreciate the info thus far and have come to some conclusions... I will definitely be checking out the Divine Champion and Disciple in the FR setting along with the Hospitaler. Character is a human that will take War domain and choose longsword for the granted focus. I was planning on not using a shield but that's a little wierd when you use a lance. Glory sounds like it fits in with my theme quite well, so for my initial 2 domains I think I'm set. I really don't want to lose any viability (or at least as little as possible) as a caster so I'll probably be limited to 1 lvl of fighter for the feat (though weapon spec. seems to make a lot of sense for a knight, but the three additional lvls hurt a ton as a caster), and from what I'm hearing, other than extend and persistant spell, the feats are whats going to make my cleric seem knightly (at least as far as melee and mounted goes). So mounted combat, ride-by-attack and spirited charge are great for the mounted side, but what do you think about the melee aspect? What feats would you recommend and considering the few I'll end up with? (9 if I go 1 lvl Ftr and human, right?) Any thoughts?
Malben 01-15-04, 08:26 PM	Actually, up to three levels of fighter will not make any really substantial difference to this cleric build -- as long as you have 17 levels of cleric spellcasting, you can cast level 9 spells. Personally, I'd make no bones about going ftr4/clr16. If you're out to focus on melee/mounted combat, focus on melee/mounted combat. The +2 damage from Weapon Specialization are really very nice, especially if you're using said weapon as part of a mounted charge with the Spirited Charge feat. But I can also see why you'd want the extra caster levels; I'm playing a cleric who will end up with a full 20-level caster progression, but who relies on his warhammer for the majority of his offensive clout. I use the remainder of his spells for a combination of ranged attack capability, defense, and utility (Wind Walk is a lot more attractive if you're in a big enough party to necessitate multiple castings of Teleport in order to move everyone, for example). As a side note, Glory is not a standard domain. It's what's called a Prestige Domain; you get it by being a Hospitaler or by taking one or two other classes that offer a prestige domain and also being an adherent of the proper deity when you do so. My build of choice for a "knightly cleric" would look something like this at 20th level: - human - clr15/dis5 - Strength, Planning (from the FRCS), and War Domains - Martial Weapon Prof. (any) (War Domain), Weapon Focus (any) (War Domain), Mounted Combat, Power Attack, Extend Spell (granted by Planning Domain), Spirited Charge, Ride-by Attack, Persistent Spell (FRCS), Divine Might (Defenders of the Faith), Cleave, Improved Sunder - At least 10 ranks in the Ride skill (this means you'll be investing quite a lot of skill points, since it's cross-class). Important spells to consider for Persistent Spell: Divine Favor -- this level 1 spell is the first one you get access to which is worth persisting. It adds a luck bonus (i. e. it stacks with almost any other cleric spell you cast) to both attack and damage. Divine Power -- this level 4 spell can't be persisted until you hit caster level 15. Until you can do that, Extend Spell is the thing to use with this one; it gives you BAB equal to your total character level, adds a +6 enhancement bonus to Str (doesn't stack with Bull's Strength), and gives you +1 hit point per character level Righteous Might -- this is a level 5 spell; to persist it you must be caster level 17 or better. Extend it until then; it gives enlargement bonuses to both Str and Con and DR vs. evil or good (depending on caster alignment). Be wary of this spell; it doesn't work well on horseback because it makes you as big as your mount. Other important spells: Align Weapon -- I make it a habit to keep at least one instance of this prepared, in case we run into something with alignment-based DR. To go with this, you probably also want to keep +1 cold iron and +1 alchemical silver weapons on hand, since lots of powerful fiends have material AND alignment AND magic-based DR available to them. I like to have my primary weapon (the one I cast Greater Magic Weapon on) made out of adamantine. It's nice for opening doors, making doors, killing constructs, killing wizards, and destroying your foes' weapons before they can try to use them on you. Greater Magic Weapon -- use this spell to buff your primary weapon; it has a nice, long duration, and it will allow you to devote your income towards upgrading pieces of equipment other than your weapon. Magic Vestment -- this is another good spell; I recommend a suit of Mithral or Adamantine full plate as soon as you can get it, with Magic Vestment applied every morning after your prayers and spell preparation. I might be mistaken about the duration, but I think it's in hours. True Seeing -- this spell is vital. I always have one prepped. At high levels, it really can be the difference between life and death. Heal -- Prep this. If you can do so, prep a couple of them. Effectively, it means that you can get into melee, get pounded to the bring of death, and then come back to nearly full health. Magical Gear to look for: Necklace of Prayer Beads, including a Bead of Karma -- the +4 caster level bonus from a Karma bead lasts 10 minutes. In the course of ten minutes, you can easily cast all your buff spells when you get up each morning. In many cases, this increases the duration (for non-persisted spells), or makes the spell more effective (Greater Magic Weapon is a good example of this, as is Divine Favor), or makes a spell significantly harder to dispel. Very worthwhile. Weapon of Wounding -- 1 Con damage per hit! That works out to 1/2 the target's level every time you land a blow, on average! These are great. My cleric uses a warhammer with the wounding enhancement. Cloak of Displacement (minor) -- this grants a 30% miss chance to all attacks against you that are not made by someone who's using True Seeing. In physical combat, this means that you'll last approximately 1/3rd longer. It also makes you immune to sneak attacks. Don't leave home without it.