Martial Adept/Cleric Class

[Corwin of Amber]

I am planning on making a character that is a Swordsage with a few levels in Cleric (spontaneous casting variant) to take advantage of a high wisdom score. I want to focus mostly on Shadow Hand. I plan to enter Ruby Knight Vindicator as well, but I'm not sure how to go about this.

My play style will end up using Cleric buffs like Cat's Grace, along with Practiced Spellcaster feat in order to augment my combat abilities. My domans will be Celerity and Healing, along with spontaneous casting I will be able to buff myself and others quite proficiently. Additionally, I will use shadow Blade and Weapon Finesse to use dexterity for spiked chain damage and attack, so I don't have to worry about a good strength score. High dex and the wisdom AC bonus should make me very hard to hit.

My question is this: Based on the way I wish to play, is it better to take a level of Crusader in order to get the pre-reqs for vindicator or should I use 2 feats for martial stance and study to qualify?

If I use martial stance/study, I plan to take Martial Spirit Stance and Crusader's Strike.

 

[Dandu]

Can you spare two feats?

Have you thought about using the Cloistered Cleric variant?

 

[Corwin of Amber]

Can you spare two feats?

Have you thought about using the Cloistered Cleric variant?

What would Cloistered cleric do for this build? it seems counterproductive to the melee/support role. What benefit does it have over normal cleric other than an additional domain and more skills?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

The idea is that you're not actually taking many levels in the class itself, but many of the benefits -- extra domain (which with the level 2 C.Champion spell you can swap for a better one), expanded spell list, extra skill points at level 1 (when the +4 increase makes the most difference) -- will stay with you once you prestige class out. And, sad as it is to say, poor BAB is pathetically easy to overcome. There's the Divine Might / Righteous Might combo, and the Skillful weapon property in C.Arcane...

 

[Corwin of Amber]

The idea is that you're not actually taking many levels in the class itself, but many of the benefits -- extra domain (which with the level 2 C.Champion spell you can swap for a better one), expanded spell list, extra skill points at level 1 (when the +4 increase makes the most difference) -- will stay with you once you prestige class out. And, sad as it is to say, poor BAB is pathetically easy to overcome. There's the Divine Might / Righteous Might combo, and the Skillful weapon property in C.Arcane...

What spell lets you switch domains?

What is the Divine Might/Righteous Might combo? And, will I be able to use it since they are both level 4&5 spells? I won't be able to cast them until level 16 or so, since I'm taking a few levels in swordsage.

Also, the expanded spell list won't be entirely useful since my DM most likely won't let me use 2 variants at once, since the sorcerer of our group wanted to use a variant that allowed no time increase to spontaneous metamagic along with a variant that lowers spells known in exchange for a larger HD and he was told to choose just one.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Divine Power is what I was thinking of. Level 4 spell to give you full BAB. Normally available at level 7 and up, just how much swordsage are you taking?

The C.Champion spell I forget the name of, but it's something really intuitive, like "Switch Domain," you'll recognize it by the title. Lasts a day/level, so should be fine.

As for variants, what other variants were you planning to use? PH2's spontaneous domain one? Only one I mentioned was cloistered cleric. And even then, regular cleric is fine, I was just trying to explain why Dandu recommended it.

 

[Corwin of Amber]

I was planning on taking either 4 or 8 levels of swordsage, in order to get the discipline focus abilities for shadow hand. That said, I definately wan insightful strike, but I'm not sure about the utility of defensive stance vs 4 more spellcaster levels; any thoughts on this?

The variant I was planning on using was the spontaneous divine caster variant from unearthed arcana, since I play clerics often, and I wanted to do something different. To be honest, any other wisdom-based caster would work for this build, but I tend to dislike druids. If anyone has some suggestions on this front, I'd definately consider something besides cleric.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I suggest you take the extra 4 caster levels...