Feat Selection: Half-Orc Cleric

[jrients]

Howdy, folks! I got such great responses around here when I asked for advice I thought I'd try again. My burninating sorcerer probably won't see play right away because another player is very keen on bringing a wizard to the table. So now I'm working on a half-orc cleric. My plan is multiclass with wizard and eventually become a mystic theurge. (I know this is a rough row to hoe with a half-orc, but that's what I want to do.) The stats of the guy are currently Str 16, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 14, Cha 10 but it's a pointbuy campaign so I can rearrange if necessary. What feats should I take at first level? I was leaning towards Extra Turning. Since this PC is for Living Greyhawk I can only use the PHB for the first three levels of the PC, after which I can use some feats from the Complete books.

 

[JimAde]

If it were me, I'd probably put better numbers into the casting stats. If you really want to go Mystic Theurge you're going to need decent stats in both wisdom and intelligence.

Ok, Feats...

Extra turning is good planning ahead for getting Divine feats later, but will do you very little good now. Do you know what domains you're going to select? You might be able to take feats to capitalize on that (like weapon focus for a proficiency granted by the War domain).

 

[Odysseus]

If you wanted to go with extra turning, i'd increase the charisma.
Alternativly you could try alertness or lighting reflexs.
I've tried a cleric sorcerer class, and focused on touch attacks. His 1st level feat was improved feint.

 

[jrients]

If it were me, I'd probably put better numbers into the casting stats. If you really want to go Mystic Theurge you're going to need decent stats in both wisdom and intelligence.

To push Wis or Int any higher it will take off two points from another stat for every point of increase. I guess I can spare it in Str, but this guy needs to double as a frontline fighter for at least one level. My plan was to put my stat pushes into Int to catch up with Wis.

Extra turning is good planning ahead for getting Divine feats later, but will do you very little good now. Do you know what domains you're going to select? You might be able to take feats to capitalize on that (like weapon focus for a proficiency granted by the War domain).

I don't have a copy of Complete Divine and my deity is Boccob, so I'm going with Magic and Knowledge domains.

 

[Thanee]

A feat you definitely want later is Practiced Spellcaster (maybe even twice), so plan ahead accordingly!

The big question is: What do you want to do with the character?

Then pick feats to capitalize these abilities you aim for.

If you want to be able to fight in melee, for example, you probably want at least some feats there. Power Attack maybe at 1st, so you can pick up Cleave at 3rd.

For offensive spells, you better forget about spells with a save really fast, as that won't lead you anywhere. Even Spell Focus won't help with a 12 Int. And the multiclassing doesn't exactly help to make these spells any more powerful either. It's better to focus on buff spells and utility spells, especially those, which are not highly caster level dependant, until you could pick up Practiced Spellcaster.

In order to be able to even cast your spells, you'll need to put all level up points into Int/Wis, and even then it's getting close later, but I suppose you won't play that far, anyways (takes a long while to level up in LG, or not?).

Up to 7th level everything is fine, since you only have 2nd level spells by then.
At 8th level you need Int +1.
At 10th level you need Int +2. This means 4th and 8th level you have to raise Int.
At 12th level you need Int +3 and Wis +1. Impossible without magic items already.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Shadeus]

Wow, that's a rough build. As a cleric/wizard, you want solid mental stats. And half-orcs have penalties to two of them. If you want to play a half-orc, that's great. But recognize your limitations. You can't focus on so many stats. I would dump Cha entirely and put it at 6. Then it lends itself to NOT taking Extra Turning. Being multiclass, your turning abilities are always going to be inadequate anyway. Meaning when you are 6th-level (say 3/3), you will be able to turn 3 HD creatures...and poorly. They are barely a challenge for a 6th-level party so you will probably see few of them.

You can take the 4 pts you put in there and maybe boost your Int to 14 or Wis to 16.

Also with that huge Str, you might be tempted to go into melee combat. With that poor Dex, combine that with no armor if you want to cast spells with the arcane spell failure penalty, you are looking at a horrible AC. Your enemies will cut you to pieces. Better to leave the fighting to those who can do it better.

I would seriously consider dumping Str too. That's 6 points right there that you can put into other key abilities like Con and Dex. With the d4 from Wizards, any hp you can scrounge up will be hugely beneficial in the long run.

Finally, for your feat, I would consider a spell focus feat. Maybe the enchantment spells are a good way to go. At low levels you have hold person and command for clerics. Wizards have sleep, charm person, hideous laughter, and daze. With your low mental stats, you will need those boost to your save DCs or your foes will just ignore your spells. Unless you want to focus on buff spells, that might be your best bet.

 

[jrients]

Okay, maybe my ultra-strong half-orc mystic theurge was a pipe dream. What if I go with straight cleric, keep the strength at 16, but rearrange the other stats for a fighting cleric type? Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 6 might work. I know I could push Int down lower but I really hate the idea of taking a penalty to my skills/level. Spellwise I'm interested would mostly be healing, buffing, etc. Once the fight starts I want to bash things with a morningstar. Should I simply follow the Power Attack tree or are there other good options?

 

[Thanee]

Barbarian 1 / Cleric X

The barbarian level won't limit your spellcasting too much, but will be a great help in combat.
Rage, more hp, better weapons, Fast Movement (unless you wear non-mithril fullplate).
Also you'll have some decent skills at least during the lower levels.

Power Attack and Cleave are obvious feat choices, for the first levels.
Later Extra Rage would be good to have.

Of course, you will have to live with the little problem, that you cannot cast spells while you rage, but that just fits for a Half-Orc, I think.

I'd probably leave Dex at 12 and push Str to 17 or Wis to 15.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Lord Pendragon]

this guy needs to double as a frontline fighter for at least one level.

Why? Trying to create a double-focussed character that remains viable through 20 levels is tough enough, a triple-focussed character is virtually impossible. I'd suggest you abandon the idea of being any kind of melee fighter and focus on the two spellcasting classes.

My plan was to put my stat pushes into Int to catch up with Wis.

Going this route means your stats aren't going to be much above the bare minimum at any given point. Sure, items will bump these up, but you're going to have less bonus spells than most casters, weaker save DCs... It's just not worth it, not for a character who's entire focus is casting lots and lots of spells.

my deity is Boccob, so I'm going with Magic and Knowledge domains.

What other domains does Boccob offer? Because for your character, Magic and Knowledge are pretty much the most useless domains you could possibly select. Actually having wizard levels makes the granted powers of both domains virtually useless to you. (The Magic Domain lets you use scrolls, wands, etc. as if you were a wizard of 1/2 your cleric level...but you're already a wizard of your full cleric level!)

Of course, these are all min/maxing thoughts/concerns. If you're making some of these decisions for RP reasons, let us know so we can stop thinking about them from a min/max standpoint.

Edit: Oh sure, completely change your focus while I'm typing this monster up.

 

[Shadeus]

Okay, maybe my ultra-strong half-orc mystic theurge was a pipe dream. What if I go with straight cleric, keep the strength at 16, but rearrange the other stats for a fighting cleric type? Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 6 might work. I know I could push Int down lower but I really hate the idea of taking a penalty to my skills/level. Spellwise I'm interested would mostly be healing, buffing, etc. Once the fight starts I want to bash things with a morningstar. Should I simply follow the Power Attack tree or are there other good options?

This could work. Lord Pendragon is right though; Magic and Knowledge are not great domains. The only think good is Magic allows you to use wands of fireballs, which might be useful. But you are better off with War, Protection, or Strength as domains.

I see this as a viable build. I would even consider reducing your Dex slightly; as a cleric you don't need it as much with all the heavy armor. This would be one reason to NOT go barbarian, is you can wear all that heavy armor right away without losing that nice movement bonus. Of course, mithral full plate is the way to go, but that's expensive and several levels off.

Another bonus to getting one level of a martial class (like barbarian or fighter) is a lot more weapon choices. Morning stars are for the weak; you want a greatsword! Then you can use shield of faith, divine favor, divine power, and righteous might to round out your attacks. Don't forget greater magic weapon too. Get a +1 flaming shocking frost sword too. Then throw the greater magic weapon on it and make it +2 by level 8 and +3 by level 12. Get a +1 weapon with abilities and use the spell to enhance it.

At later levels, consider augment healing; it's a great feat for making those healing spells really count when you need it. It's in CD and gives a bonus of +2 per spell level to all healing spells. So 1d8+3 for CLW at first level; not too bad. Where you really get the most benefit out of that feat is with the "mass" cure spells.