A holy ranged/melee damager

[Sunseeker]

As far as 3rd goes, I can build a pretty spot-on fighter, run a game, make a pretty solid sorcerer, but for the life of me whenever it comes to holy-themed characters I always want to facepalm. They seem to almost universally be pigeon-holed into the "healer" or "support" category(provided they're of good alignment). Even the best Paladin seems to be more mid-row support than anything else.

So basically what I'd like to find out, is it even realistically possible to create anything holy-themed and do damage at range in the same way you can as a sorcerer? To the best of my knowledge, this simply can't be done, but I'd love to be corrected.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Damage with spells, or damage with a bow?

There are lots of guides on how to make an archer Cleric with the Zen Archery feat from C.Warrior. How good it is depends on your sourcebooks. C.Champion and Spell Compendium being the most useful, IMO.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I'm currently playing a game with a Favored Soul of Kord. While he does possess Cure spells, his objective is to melee and tank. In fact, he died once because he kept on hitting the enemy instead of healing himself. His Character is in no way optimized, but is a really fun one to see played.

A Cleric of Kord (Does not need to be of Kord, especially if you want to cherry pick your domains, but that will automatically grant you the flavor and RP justification you are looking for) Can shout "Healing is for sissies, go buy a potion!!" and Divine Might himself, toss out a Spiritual Weapon, and throw spells that do holy and fire damage around, or use the Zen Archery Feat and go shoulder to shoulder with any good Ranger build. Perhaps make him a Dwarf and give him the heaviest armor you can find.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A holy PC using a weapon with the Throwing & Returning enchantment does just fine. If he's a Kensai, so much the better.

Some of the metamagical Reserve feats give you supernatural attacks usable every round.

As I recall, there's a PrCl combining warlock & divine class abilities...meaning you'd have to MC warlock first.

If you multiclass into Sorcerer or battle sorcerer and you take one of the Heritage feats (Celestial, Draconic or Infernal), you can follow up with one of their spell-channeling feats (Celestial Lance, Draconic Breath, infernal Shout). Now, it doesn't improve your ability to do damage, but like your clerical side, in which you can spontaneously cast cure spells, your PC would thus be able to learn non-damage spells appropriate to the PC (Grease? Sleep?) while still being able to channel arcane spell slots for damaging effects...in armor...without ASF or provoking AoOs.