Radiant Avenger/Student of Caiphon advice

[Llamas Notsheep]

I've been gone from my game for a while due to some incredibly busy RL stuff (bar exam, wedding, and honeymoon, to be exact). I find now that the party has made level 11 and divine power has come out. My DM is letting me rebuild my character to account for the various options available. I adjusted my attributes to get power attack at 11, picked up just a couple of the new powers, and shifted feats around a bit. Below is the build I'm looking at.

First, a note on a house-ruled feat my DM is allowing: Divine Empowerment, basically a divine version of Arcane Admixture. I'm using it to add radiant to Overwhelming Strike here (and OS is a basic attack, thanks to Power of Skill).

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Shadar Cain, level 11
Deva, Avenger, Student of Caiphon
Avenger's Censure: Censure of Retribution
Pact Initiate: Pact Initiate (star pact)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 15, Con 11, Dex 9, Int 19, Wis 21, Cha 14.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 14, Con 10, Dex 8, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 13.


AC: 27 Fort: 21 Reflex: 24 Will: 24
HP: 85 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 22

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +17, Athletics +13, Perception +18, Intimidate +13, Arcana +15

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +4, Bluff +7, Diplomacy +7, Dungeoneering +10, Endurance +8, Heal +10, History +11, Insight +10, Nature +10, Stealth +4, Streetwise +7, Thievery +4

FEATS
Level 1: Armor Proficiency (Leather)
Level 2: Weapon Proficiency (Fullblade)
Level 4: Righteous Rage of Tempus
Level 6: Power of Skill
Level 8: Divine Empowerment [Houserule - adds radiant to overwhelming strike]
Level 10: Pact Initiate
Level 11: Power Attack


POWERS
Avenger at-will 1: Bond of Retribution
Avenger at-will 1: Overwhelming Strike
Avenger encounter 1: Avenging Echo
Avenger daily 1: Temple of Light
Avenger utility 2: Refocus Enmity
Avenger encounter 3: Deadly Stride
Avenger daily 5: Menacing Presence
Avenger utility 6: Oath of the Relentless Hunter
Avenger encounter 7: Splinter the Formation
Avenger daily 9: Enduring Strike
Avenger utility 10: Leading Step

ITEMS
Battle Harness Drowmesh +3, Adventurer's Kit, Bloodclaw Fullblade +3, Symbol of Victory +2, Iron Armbands of Power (heroic tier), Boots of the Fencing Master (heroic tier), Cannith Goggles (heroic tier), Amulet of Protection +1, Belt of Vigor (heroic tier), Scabbard of Sacred Might (heroic tier), Strikebacks (heroic tier), Alchemist's Fire (level 1) (5), Cloak of Survival +3
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======

I've got a couple of new toys, I find. I'm pretty confident with my equipment and whatnot, as I'll be getting a bloodiron fullblade at the first opportunity.

I'm a little concerned about feats, though. Anyone want to give some input? I dropped toughness to pick up Divine Empowerment, and I lost 1AC when I dropped 2 int to bump my str up for Power Attack. I probably won't be grabbing toughness or Improved AOF for a while. Here's what I'm looking at for the coming levels:

Upcoming feats:
12) Devastating Critical
14) Starfire Womb
16) Toughness
18) Improved Armor of Faith
20) Reserve Maneuver, maybe?

For those not familiar with the basic build idea, Student of Caiphon gets a crit range of 18-20 with radiant and fear attacks. With the double roll the avenger gets, that means about a 28% crit rate. Temple of Light and the Scabbard of Sacred Might allow me to make my few non-radiant attacks radiant. With bloodiron I'll be doing a massive 4d12 + 6d10 crit damage more than 1/4 of the time. It's not nearly as absurdly powerful as a half elf avenger/daggermaster using twin strike, but it's a nice offensive build that maintains a lot of the flavor and versatility of the avenger.

Anyone have any input?

 

[pascalnz]

sorry but why on earth do you have points in charisma? your wisdom could be 22 at this point alieviating some of the power attack pain.

also charisma isn't adding to a defense .

swap out leather armour prof for improved armour of faith. it adds the same ac in paragon and one more in epic. and there are some cool cloth enhancements.and see more nasty cheese later on in the post.

making overwhelming strike into radiant is really powerfull. heck there is allready a couple of radiant at wills. ever wondered why there isn't a divine version? yikes count your blessings your dm is basically feeding you cheese.

if you would like more nasty cheddar, pick up a light shield. you lose looots of ac [5 at this level if you took improved instead of leather] run through badguys get massive bonus to damage[have some DR up it'll help] then as a free action drop the shield and switch that hand over to your fullblade as another free action.

radiant servant isn't quite as crunchy, but it is a whole lot more interesting and less feat/useless feat dependant. have you seen the lvl 11 encounter???. and the action point ability is better.

 

[Samir]

sorry but why on earth do you have points in charisma? your wisdom could be 22 at this point alieviating some of the power attack pain.

also charisma isn't adding to a defense .

Student of Caiphon is MC warlock, and Pact Initiate requires requires 13 charisma

swap out leather armour prof for improved armour of faith. it adds the same ac in paragon and one more in epic. and there are some cool cloth enhancements.and see more nasty cheese later on in the post.

Agreed, assuming I did understand the OP correctly in that you're starting at level 11. If you're starting in Paragon there's no reason to go leather armor prof over imp AoF.

Something you might want to check out is the excellent Avenlock thread on gleemax (linked is the google-cached version of it since the forums are down).

 

[Madred]

ditch strength. power attack is not so good. (and for just that one feat, it is absurd to put 14 in Str).

start with 18 int, 18 wis, 13 charisma, 11 con.

 

[Madred]

this seems weird (the link build).. retribution avenger with sequestering strike ??

 

[Madred]

Level 4: Righteous Rage of Tempus
Level 6: Power of Skill



you wish.. and so do I.

 

[pascalnz]

remember rightous rage has been errated. it's still good , but it's not a free crit.

power attack aint worth it a guy put up a list of "if you have this much static damage, it's not worth power attacking. as a ret avenger your static damage should be huuuge!.

avengers are accurate but there not foolproof, they do miss and -2 you will notice, especially since the cost of the strength is also lowering your to hit another 1 to 2, which also lowers your static damge by 1 to 2. also with higher int your static damge will most likely be higher than the bonus from power attack.

at level 14 lets say you get hit 3 times [extremely doable]
if you have power attack you will lose 6 damage from a higher int[allready lost PA's damage there] you will lose 1 static from a higher wis, and you'll lose 3 to hit.

and it only gets worse the more stuff you get hit by. power attack is a trap. I only just realised how much of a trap.

oddly PA isn't bad for an epic non warlock avenger[probably non ret] you can start with 13 strength and have two 16's in your primaries before racials.

 

[Llamas Notsheep]

Good call on improved armor of faith.

I'm firmly of the belief that getting hit for an extra 5 damage is never a good idea unless you have damage resist, though. 100% of (non-minion) monsters around my level have more HP than I do, and 100% of them do more than 5 damage on a hit. Our party has one warlord, meaning two encounter heals. Running around and getting whacked 3 times for probably ~10 damage per hit isn't worth it. If you can run through a cloud of minions and just take 5 damage a pop, great. But usually that isn't the case.

Basically, in my mind, the censure of retribution is an added bonus, but the double roll is the actual damage pumping feature of the retvenger.

As for power attack, it's actually the largest damage boost from a single feat an avenger can get. With a +10 static damage bonus (what I currently have) it's around 3.5 DPR when hitting with a 10 (including the -2 from PA). That's pretty standard. It's not until it takes about a 15/17 to hit that it's no longer worthwhile. Using bloodclaw (bumping it up to +19), it's useful up to 13/15 to hit, IIRC.

More later, gotta pack up the laptop.. heading home from the in-laws' place.

 

[BobTheNob]

Lol. Another student of Caiphon Avenger.

This is why Dragon magazine needs Eratta.

To OP. The advice in here is good and have fun with your build.

 

[Iron Sky]

I've been playing an Avenger with PA for about 4 levels of heroic and I've come to the conclusion that it's not worth having. On average, about once an encounter, even with my Oath, PA has turned a hit into a miss. That's losing 1 or 2d12+16 damage (23-31 average damage) and whatever rider the power has, which is not worth it since it'll take 7-10 hits with PA to make up for the damage alone, much less the rider AND ignoring any Censure bonus damage that was missed.

At Paragon, it goes up to +6, but even then I'm not entirely convinced. If I bump my Avenger up to level 11, off the top of my head he goes up to about 1 or 2d12+21(28-36 average) which means I need to hit 4-6 times with PA on to make up for the damage of the miss it causes, ignoring the rider that is likely lost as well.

If you have a regular supply of hit bonuses given by your Leader, you might miss less than I have in my experience, but even then, paying for a 13 just to get PA would be very hard for me to justify.

I'd replace it with Melee Training(Wisdom) and put the extra ability points in Wis or Int (with spares in Con).

Here's the Avenger SoC that I made a few months ago, if you're interested. He's probably less "OP" than he was when I first created him (pre-Divine Power), but might be useful? He's also much "cheesier" since he's half-elf for Twin Strike...

---

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Lord Priest Syphos the Terrible, level 16
Half-Elf, Avenger, Student of Caiphon
Avenger's Censure: Censure of Pursuit
Pact Initiate: Pact Initiate (star pact)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 20, Con 13, Dex 14, Int 9, Wis 20, Cha 14.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 10, Dex 13, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 11.


AC: 33 Fort: 28 Reflex: 28 Will: 28
HP: 117 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 29

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +12, Athletics +18, Stealth +15, Perception +18, Bluff +15

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +10, Arcana +7, Diplomacy +12, Dungeoneering +13, Endurance +9, Heal +13, History +7, Insight +15, Intimidate +11, Nature +13, Streetwise +10, Thievery +10

FEATS
Level 1: Weapon Proficiency (Double axe)
Level 2: Armor Proficiency (Leather)
Level 4: Weapon Focus (Axe)
Level 6: Weapon Expertise (Axe)
Level 8: Improved Armor of Faith
Level 10: Two-Weapon Fighting
Level 11: Pact Initiate
Level 12: Versatile Master
Level 14: Two-Weapon Opening
Level 16: Two-Weapon Defense

POWERS
Avenger at-will 1: Radiant Vengeance
Avenger at-will 1: Bond of Pursuit
Dilettante: Twin Strike
Avenger encounter 1: Whirlwind Charge
Avenger daily 1: Aspect of Might
Avenger utility 2: Distracting Flare
Avenger encounter 3: Sequestering Strike
Avenger daily 5: Executioner's Cloak
Avenger utility 6: Aspect of Agility
Avenger encounter 7: Inexorable Pursuit
Avenger daily 9: Temple of Shadow
Avenger utility 10: Channel Endurance
Avenger encounter 13: Sequestering Word (replaces Whirlwind Charge)
Avenger daily 15: Aspect of Fury (replaces Executioner's Cloak)
Avenger utility 16: Winds of the Astral Sea

ITEMS
Radiant Double axe +3, Boots of the Fencing Master (heroic tier), Solitaire (Cinnabar) (heroic tier), Amulet of Protection +4, Feytouched Snakeskin Armor +4, Magic Holy Symbol +3, Rod of Time Distortion +2, Viper Belt (heroic tier), Diamond Bracers (heroic tier), Skull Mask (heroic tier), Hedge Wizard's Gloves (heroic tier), Quickcurse Rod +1