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I am about to bring a new character into an established campaign based on the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path. The characters are already established in Korvosa and have played through to the third book.
The guidelines for character creation are that I belong to an established house (one that has been designed as part of another character's background and his character's family), human race, 6th-level, epic 25-point build and either Lawful or Neutral alignment, no evil characters.
My idea is to have a younger son of the family go away on crusade to Mendev. He has taken the Crusader's Oath and has spent the last two or three years fighting evil.
Before he left on crusade, he was a rakish layabout who had very little ambition and enjoyed the benefits of being a younger son in a doting noble family. After the death of his closest sibling at the hands of Gaedren Lamm, he argues bitterly with his brother-in-law and becomes withdrawn. Eventually, he falls out with his family and takes up the Oath to go on crusade.
Dropping out of the Endrin Academy, he swears allegiance to his god, Abadar, and heads off with other volunteers for the north. Over the course of these two or three years he grows up, becomes more devout (becoming a cleric) and is eventually wounded. His time at an end in Mendev, he returns home to find his city in peril.
Putting the past behind him and attempting to reconcile with his family, especially his brother-in-law since he has avenged the murder of his sister in the first gaming session, to focus on the threats to Korvosa. Even though he is war-weary, he does not hesitate on joining the fight to save his homeland.
Yes, a bit cliched. However, I have been keen to play a crusading martial-type since the new rules were released. So, my question is, how would you design a crusading priest of Abadar? I am not sure to focus on Abadar or Iomedae. I am also stuck on skills and feats.
Thank you for any assistance! :)
Iomedae is very definitely the crusading type, and it's her church that's the main driving force behind the Mendev Crusade, so if you're wavering between the two deities she's certainly a good choice. But she's more the general "find and fight the greatest evil, be a heroic example" sort.
I think you could have a crusading priest of Abadar, but he would be more likely to end up getting involved with a specific city, or merchant's guild, or trade route, or lawcode, than one of Iomedae's type. Focusing on "my home city" would be very much in character for this type of cleric; he would be actively looking for lawbreakers, threats to the city, people corrupting the City Watch or trying to steal from the Bank of Abadar, that sort of thing. More police/SWAT type than soldier, but I could certainly see it working. I could see a priest of Abadar going north to help fight the Worldwound; after all, demons are a threat to everyone, and there are cities and civilization in danger up there, though it's perhaps more _likely_ that a priest of Iomedae would so. But coming back home would be perfectly in character too.
If you want to handle the roleplaying load, you could say he went there, learned better, and switched deities...
At 6th level, you have four feats. One of them should probably be a combat or defensive feat to reflect the character's background in Mendev. As a cleric, though, your feats are almost gravy compared to your domains, which a more defining choice, so pick out which of Abadar's domains really make your character happy to be supporting and then pick feats that support that.
If you plan to go into combat a lot, Combat Casting would help (less chance of being brained while casting). Power Attack would be handy, and maybe Heavy Armor if you plan to be clad in mighty plate mail.
If you plan to spend most of your time casting spells, a metamagic feat (probably Extend Spell first) would give you added flexibility. Silent Spell and Still Spell are very helpful for roleplaying flexibility and sneaking up on people (though I don't imagine a cleric of Abadar does much sneaking...)
Skills: Knowledge(religion) and Spellcraft are probably must-haves for you. As a human in your favored class, you could have 2/level more on top your intelligence bonus. I'd probably pick up Perception (just on general principles) and at least a few ranks in Knowledge/planes or Knowledge/history or Knowledge/nobility to reflect your past acquaintance with various people. A Profession (lawyer) skill would be handy for your church.