Swashbuckler Cleric


Advice

Grand Lodge

I am decided to build a Cleric with a heavy swashbuckler feel and attitude. I am not set on any particular build at the moment. Anyone have any advice? If you have already done this please let me know what worked and what didn't. Thanks in advance.

Shadow Lodge

Consider worshipping Cayden Cailean, first of all he's a god of luck and who doesn't need luck. Secondly, his favored weapon is the rapier, which works perfectly for the feel you are going for.


Warpriest or inquisitor really will do the same thing better.

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Well , as has been suggested Inquisitor might be more able to capture that feel.

Then again, what are you after ?

an Inquisitor will get you what you´ll probably find missing from the cleric´s ability´s. Skill points, acrobatics, social skills and perception along with some others go hand in hand with the classic image, and sadly the clerics 2+ int will find that hard.

For firsthand experience, I have a swashbuckler 1 inspired blade/wandering exorcist cleric 2 ( so yeah it takes some work ) both classes offer 4+ int skills now and Im a swashbuckling exorcist .. which is what I wanted, a traveling hero that battles evil to help the common man, especially when haunts are involved.. but with flair( A paladin of Cayden, basically ). It might not be what you´re looking for.

Silver Crusade

A one level dip into swashbuckler is one obvious choice.

Otherwise, it depends a lot on what you consider a swashbuckler to feel like.

Amateur swashbuckler is a pretty good start.

Cleric of Cayden with fencing grace (you can get this by level 3 if human). Maybe take a trait to get acrobatics.

You'd end up with a functional but far from overpowered character. Your biggest problem will be MAD and lack of skill points.

Grand Lodge

Rapier is a fairly common favored weapon. Cayden, Besmara, Arazni, Zura, Count Ranalc, plus a few in some less used pantheons: Giant, Great Old Ones, and Infernal Dukes. So options exist for deities if you really want to focus on the god aspect or a certain domain. (Personally, I think Cayden, Besmara, and Ranalc probably make the most sense) Cleric, Warpriest and Inquisitor have all been suggested already. However, if you have access to Inner Sea Gods I'd also take a look at the Evangelist prestige class.


It's feat intensive, but to summarize what others above have said into a single set of ideas.

Cleric of Cayden Cailean, preferably human. Focus on a high Wisdom, with fair points in Dex and Cha (I came up with a 10, 12, 11, 10, 17, 14 array on a 15-point buy. At 4th level bump your Wis to 18 or your Con to 12 at your discretion). Grab Weapon Focus (Rapier) and Weapon Finesse at 1st, Fencing Grace at 3rd, and grab Deific Obedience (Cayden Cailean) at 5th. At 6th level you can prestige into Evangelist of Cayden Cailean. Exalted is a possibility as well.

Optionally, Amateur Swashbuckler will help you with the 'feel', and you have the charisma to help support it, however your BAB probably won't be quite up to par with typical enemies you'll be facing, making Opportune Parry and Riposte less than optimal for you.

As others have said, Inquisitor or Warpriest could also be used to emulate this feel. As a cleric you'll be more focused on casting spells as opposed to direct combat (though you have some mighty spells that can help you with the combat stuff, for sure).

Grand Lodge

Nargemn wrote:

It's feat intensive, but to summarize what others above have said into a single set of ideas.

Cleric of Cayden Cailean, preferably human. Focus on a high Wisdom, with fair points in Dex and Cha (I came up with a 10, 12, 11, 10, 17, 14 array on a 15-point buy. At 4th level bump your Wis to 18 or your Con to 12 at your discretion). Grab Weapon Focus (Rapier) and Weapon Finesse at 1st, Fencing Grace at 3rd, and grab Deific Obedience (Cayden Cailean) at 5th. At 6th level you can prestige into Evangelist of Cayden Cailean. Exalted is a possibility as well.

Optionally, Amateur Swashbuckler will help you with the 'feel', and you have the charisma to help support it, however your BAB probably won't be quite up to par with typical enemies you'll be facing, making Opportune Parry and Riposte less than optimal for you.

As others have said, Inquisitor or Warpriest could also be used to emulate this feel. As a cleric you'll be more focused on casting spells as opposed to direct combat (though you have some mighty spells that can help you with the combat stuff, for sure).

Couple of points.

PFS is a 20 point buy - so stat array needs to be adjusted. That said there are probably a couple of options to go that will affect stat spread.

WIS>DEX>CHA>else is probably your most switch hit spells/combat build. Wis for Will saves, spell DCs, and bonus spells (also potentially some class features), DEX for attack, dmg, AC, Initiative, CHA for charmed life (if you go enough levels of swashbuckler), panache, and as a bonus channels. You could lower DEX if you want to flavor more towards spell casting with the rapier as a pure back-up. More Dex if you are going buff or self-buff cleric/warpriest.

Evangelist has no need to take any caster levels ahead of time, though you can.

Also, not mentioned before was Oracle, which could also work and be slightly less MAD as you can double up uses of CHA.

Possible stat builds

Caster Focus:
Human Inspired Blade Swashbuckler (min. 1)/Cleric X
STR 8
DEX 14
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 18
CHA 14

Inspired nets you a panache pool of 3, weapon finesse, and weapon focus, however losing out on the benefits of improved critical at 5 is going to make it harder to keep recharging panache. (Lets you get Dex to damage at first level though) Actually you could probably switch around INT and CHA some (more like what I do in the next build). (Any could fit here, for me I'd go Cayden)

Self-Buff:

Half-Orc Inspired Blade/Warpriest
STR 9
DEX 18
CON 14
INT 14
WIS 14
CHA 7

Ok, so this is a bit more min/max-ey. Half-Orc why? Well - luck bonuses are going to play in this build. Divine Favor + Fervor (Warpriest) for extra attack and damage so as a trait we want Fate's favored, add in sacred tattoo for some save help. Dump charisma since we aren't taking enough levels of swashbuckler to get charmed life anyway. Sacred tattoo and not staying swashbuckler is going to help our saves instead so we'll take the extra skill ranks. Honestly you can probably even start Wisdom slightly lower, but it's pretty comfortable at 14. You're going be fairly selfish in spell selection. (I'd consider a Besmaran Pirate Swashbuckler type)

Swashbuckler with some magic extras:

Racial +2 to DEX for simplicity but could work a lot of ways
Inspired Blade 5/Evangelist or Sentinel of Cayden rest.
STR 10
DEX 18
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 8
CHA 14

A lot of these stats could be adjusted or traded around, you won't be casting all the time, but there's a ton of flavor in each of the prestige classes and are built to handle full martials well. In fact you can end up at 7/18/14/14/9/14 fairly easily (some weight issues, but it could work). (Evangelist basically makes you a full swashbuckler - 1 level, with some goodies and sentinel is actually hugely similar to swashbuckler already). (Actually I have a swashbuckler who if I knew about these options would have ended up doing something along these lines)

Silver Crusade

A Human Warpriest can have Weapon Focus (Rapier), Weapon Finesse & Fencing Grace at 1st level. Give yourself a starting Dex of 18, a passable Con and Wis and you should be good to go. Assuming you're Human with 10 int, you're only getting 3 skill ranks per level, so it may have to be ranks in Acrobatics, Intimidate and Perception to maximise that swashbuckling feel with minimal skill ranks.

Alternatively Swashbuckler (inspired blade) 1 / Cleric (Evangelist) 4 / Evangelist 6 might work for you. You can pick up fencing grace at 1st level regardless of race. You get more a lot more skill ranks outside of the cleric levels, & can inspire your allies if that's something you want. Character may suffer from MADness if you want to get the most from all of your class features though.

RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

I've got a sword-and-board paladin in full plate armor who took a one-level dip into Kata Master monk, so he gets Opportune Parry and Riposte with a temple sword. Something like that is an option if you want to go Strength-based.

It looks like there are a lot of ways to go with this, so can you be more specific about what you mean by "swashbuckler feel and attitude"? Do you have to use a rapier? Do you have to be a cleric, or will another divine spellcaster suffice? Do you want to focus on spells, or on melee? Does it have to be chaotic? What/how many skills are essential to you?

Dark Archive

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I'm also a little surprised no one has suggested Besmara as a deity for cleric/inquisitor?

Grand Lodge

Wow, excellent suggestions guys, Thank you.

I totally forgot about Oracles' while looking at this idea.

You have given me a ton of inspiration and things to look over and plan, When I get done I'll post my results here. Thanks again.


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Yeah, without more info, hard to give you more specifics. If you actually want high CHA with full casting, you want the Oracle. If you want high CHA, partial casting, you probably want some kinda Paladin. If you want full combat focus and WIS, War Priest. If you want out of combat utility and WIS, Inquisitor.


Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Dylos wrote:
Consider worshipping Cayden Cailean, first of all he's a god of luck and who doesn't need luck. Secondly, his favored weapon is the rapier, which works perfectly for the feel you are going for.

this is what i came here to say.

Dark Archive

It's also possible to play as a Sacred Fist Warpriest of Besmara and pick up Crusader's Flurry, allowing you to Flurry of Blows with a raiper. Takes a couple feats to get there, but a Hume or Half Elf (replacing skill focus with a weapon proficiency) can meet the prerequisites in time to snatch CF as soon as level 3. It is also possible to just play a vanilla Warpriest if you like the Sacred Weapon tricks.


Socar wrote:

Wow, excellent suggestions guys, Thank you.

I totally forgot about Oracles' while looking at this idea.

You have given me a ton of inspiration and things to look over and plan, When I get done I'll post my results here. Thanks again.

For what it's worth I have an Oracle in PFS who has taken this route. He's a Halfling Inspired Blade Swashbuckler 1 / Seeker Oracle 3 (Winds Mystery). He's been a blast to play so far. I took fencing Grace at one to add Dex to damage and combat reflexes at three to take advantage of my larger than normal inspiration pool. I preferred this route too the Inquisitor because it gave me marginally better casting ( better after 8 or so ) but I can still get in a mix of up with the melee. Haven't been disappointed so far.


For excessive combat potential with a Cleric, consider an Evangelist Cleric of Cayden Cailean, Heroism Domain. Having access to Inspire Courage and the Heroism spell gives you (and your allies) a massive combat buff with a perfect swashbuckling flavor. Amateur Swashbuckler + Extra Panache is a simple way to have a 3 point panache pool with no need for charisma at all.

There's also Kata Master Monk 1/ Evangelist, which eventually lets you use flurry of blows with a rapier.

Oracle is really good as well - Battle is always solid, though for a dex-based Oracle, consider one of the Mysteries that can grant you a Revelation armor. By the time your dexterity is reaching a point that it's clashing with normal armors, the Revelation armor is starting to get powerful, and it costs you zero gold. If you use an Elf, Half-Elf or Aasimar you can stack your Favored Class Bonus onto your Revelation armor and have a ridiculously good 'armor'.


I've personnaly tried an inquisitor(sanctified slayer)of Besmara with fencing grace, outflank and combat reflexes, it's incredibly fun to play and with a good flanking partner can deal a fairly good amount of damage with bane and sneak attack.

Not overpowered, but really fun to play!

Grand Lodge

Just how melee focused are you looking to be?

Grand Lodge

I purposely left my disclaimer a little vague. Mostly wanted a free flow of ideas to get inspiration and pick from again you guys rock thanks for the help.

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