in our current campaign (setting is Forgotten Realms, somewhere in the Moonsea region). I'm currently playing a human Ranger2/Hexblade3/Ur-Priest2, and I will be taking the Bone Knight PrC on my next level up. The character concept is something akin to a Death Knight (e.g. Prince Arthas from WC3), wading into melee with some undead Minions.
However, I've no idea what feats I should take in order to synergize well with the rest of the party without hurting the character concept. Our group consists of a Diviner (Banned school:Necromancy, focussing on combat control), a golden half-dragon Barbarian (can tank/deal pretty good damage), a Rogue/Swashbuckler (DW Damagedealer with fairly high strengh) and a Warmage (probably going Uttercold Assault with Fell Animate, Energy Substitution:Cold and Lord of the Uttercold).
Some more details about my character:
Race: Human
Stats: Str 16, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 13
Feats: Iron Will, Spell Focus(Evil) [Both required for Ur-Priest], Power Attack, Cleave
Notable Equipment: +1 Vampiric Greatsword, +1 Mithral Breastplate (with +1 Armor Spikes), Ring of Invisibility, the rest is mostly mundane stuff
When I hit Level 9, I'll select Practiced Spellcaster(Ur-Priest), but apart from that, I've no idea. Our DM is pretty lenient with sourcebooks, so pretty much anything apart from ToB and the Leadership feat is allowed. Note however, that the party is mostly good-aligned, so nothing too blatantly evil please ;)
A question on Divine Metamagic though: Do you actually need to have the respective Metamagic feat what you wish to apply it to? The wording in Complete Divine says "When you take this feat, take a metamagic feat. This feat applies only to that metamagic feat."
Flaws are allowed. However, which ones would you recommend? As far as I can tell, the standard flaws in Unearthed Arcana all hurt pretty much.
Errata updated it so you need the metamagic feat, but if your dm doesn't play with errata, more power to you. (This works best if he doesn't allow multiple nightsticks [you can argue that they're just extra turning, which stacks, I don't know how open to it he is]). With extra feats open start taking extra turning often. go into contemplative after bone knight and grab undeath domain for extra turning again. With enough turns, you can persist all the buffs you need. (If he allows dragon/duneon, grab easy metamagic to save some turn attempts).
Ok, so I'll add a flaw, and get Extend Spell. Then I'll retrain Cleave into Persistent Spell. This way, I'll get DMM(Persist) at L12 (assuming that I take Practiced Spellcaster at L9).
This still leaves 2 Feats open. Should I invest both of them in Extra turning? Combined with the Undeath Domain and a Nightstick, this would yield 19+Cha Bonus turning attempts a day; enough for 3 persistent spells.
Or should I spent those feats differently somehow?
2 (Unholy)
3 (Base)
8 (feats)
4 (domain)
4 (nightstick)
21 +Cha Assuming you can get at least a +7 Cha (doable with a +6 item, +4 or more from spells and a base 14Cha) You can persist 4 spells a day. Grab a rod of extend and you're up to 8. How you ask?
DMM Persist a spell, use a rod to extend it, now it lasts 48 hours. Repeat for 4 good spells. Do it again for the next four on day 2. Repeat Day 1 ad nauseam.
Powerhouse? Yes. :D
Note: Faerun has Persist at +4, complete arcane updated it to +6, if you still use +4, try to get +9 Cha and persist 6 spells a day with 30 attempts
Any ideas on how to save this character(Feats, PrCs etc.)? Or should I just re-roll something else?
P.S.: The character is L8 right now: Ranger2/Hexblade3/Ur-Priest2/Bone Knight1
I wouldn't say rerolling is needed that's still a nice build. I don't know Bone Knight *don't have the book* but you might try Monk instead of Ranger, for Evasion + Melee action. I once had a lot of fun with a Hex-monk.
As for reserve feats, I don't really like them with my limited spells per day. Healing won't be necessary, since our DM plays an NPC dwarf cleric who accompanies us on our adventures.
Also, my DM announced that he has outlawed dancing shields in his campaign, so that won't be an option either. Maybe "Buckler Defense" might work here? I don't know whether it works for 2h-weapons, and I definitely don't want to go Sword&Board.
Our Warmage considers re-rolling his character into a Wolverine-like melee character (probably Psychic Warrior or Totemist). This leaves our party almost complete focussed on melee, which can easily go awry (especially in confined spaces).
Therefore, would retraining my character to archery (switch Two-Weapon-Fighting with Rapid Shot, Power Attack with Point-Blank Shot and Cleave with Precise Shot) work out well? I guess that my stats are somewhat average for an archer (16str, 15dex), but I will have the entire cleric spell list to back me up, and Zen Archery can always prove useful later on.
So, what do you guys think? Would retraining be a viable option?
An Ur-priest/Bone Knight really screams melee combatant, but you can pull archery fairly easily. There are, honestly, a lot of options open to you, it's your call, but if you do go archery, retrain two-weapon fighting and power attack.
For the love of any deity/dm/pun-pun, why the hell do you still have cleave? Imp initiative is better. Hell skill focus craft underwater basketweaving is a better feat. /rant Seriously though, talk to your party/DM, figure out what you want to play and then do it, and do it well
Don't constantly shift your character if you won't enjoy it.As for going archery, another motivator is that our DM banned the "dancing" property for shields, so I'm kinda screwed on armor class if I keep using my Greatsword/Armor Spikes 2-weapon-fighting style. Our barbarian has Mithral Fullplate as well huge natural armor, our Warmage has Mithrall Fullplate+Shield, and our rogue has a high con. This leaves me, in light armor, with 12 Con at the front. Combined with my really poor dice rolls (I might as well roll d10s instead of d20s ;)), I guess I'm kinda frustrated really. I will definitely talk to the other players
So, depending on the chosen combat style, I'll arrange the feats this way:
Melee: Two-Weapon Fighting, Power Attack, Imp. Initiave
Ranged: Rapid Shot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot
Or should I get rid of Power Attack as well, considering my rather low attack bonus?
Really? Light Armor? Hit yourself. Do it. You're a cleric, and unless you're playing a cleric/rogue or something, you should be wearing heavy armor. That's why you get proficiency with it
If everyone is going melee and you'd like to avoid it, you can still wear heavy armor (and should). I'm not sure why your DM disallowed animated shields. It's a +2 bonus, which is not cheap, but eh.
As for banning animated shields, he says he does it in order to encourage "sword&board"-fighting style.
Pick up a flaw (either -2 to melee or -2 to range) and grab quicken spell.
Retrain cleave into DMM quicken.
If you stay melee, you're fine, if you go ranged, switch your ranger focus and trade power attack for precise shot (this applies to ranged spells, too). There's a decent thread in the Handy Links you'll want to check out that has a nice compilation of ranged attack spells for clerics.
Either way, with DMM Quicken, you'll basically be 'DMM Persist Lite.' Good luck.