Ultimate Support / Survivalist.. Critique Plz

[WerePox47]

Building a 12th level support character that also has great ac and saves.. Here's what i came up with so far.. Feel free to make other suggestions etc etc.. Rules are anything pfsrd, 20 point but, 2 traits, wbl(108k)..

Spoiler:

Capt. Support
Dwarf Cleric(Evangelist)11/Holy Vindicator 1

Str 14/16
Con 14/16
Dex 10/12
Int 10
Wis 20/24(16base+2race+2level)
Cha 12/16(13base-2+1level)

AC: 28(10+11armor+1dex+2NA+3shield+1insight)/37 with Vind Shield and SoF
Saves: Fort +16 Reflex +9 Will +20 (+5 vs Spells/SLAs)(+3 vs Poison)
Attack: +13/+8 1d8+4

Traits: Glory of Old, Exalted of the Society

Feats:
1st-Lingering Performance
3rd-Combat Casting
5th-Craft Wonderous
7th-Alignment Channel
9th-Steel Soul
11th-Divine Interference

Domain: Glory/Heroism Subdomain

Gear:
+4 Headband of Wis/Cha and Phlactery of Positive Channel
+2 Belt of Physical Perfection
+5 Cloak of Resistance
+2 Dwarven Plate
+1 Hvy Steel Shield
+1 Warhammer
+2 Amulet NA
Ring of Sustanance
Dusty Rose Ion Stone
Eyes of the Eagle
Winged Boots
Ghostvision Gloves
Mitre of the Heirphant
Spellguard Bracers
Handy Haversack
Quick Runners Shirt
Wand of Cure Light x2
Cure Lt pots x afew

His Inspire Courage is at +3 and his channels are 6d6. He has Aura of Heroism as well.. His AC and Saves are strong, and his hps should be pretty good too(dr 3/- helps as well).. Overall pretty strong support/survivalist i think... Thoughts?

[WerePox47]

I can only take the lack of response as the build will do great as is.. Kinda wanna fit selective channel in for in-combat usage.. hmm.. Maybe swap it out for lingering performance? On second thought he only has 6 per day, prob not worth the feat for 6 uses..

[WerePox47]

It seems really awesome to say 1st round i, move action-inspire courage, swift action-aura of heroism, and standard cast-blessing of fervor...

[Wasum]

What exactly do you want to hear?

[WerePox47]

Suggestions for improvements was what i was looking for.. Im normally decently compitant at building things, but i do miss stuff and/or not make the best selections of feats etc etc.. General advice, (with this being the advice section and all)... Maybe none is needed, if so, sorry for wasting space..

[Soporific Lotus]

Looks pretty good but I have to question the level of holy vindicator. You lose a level of casting and perform to gain heavy armor and shield proficiency. Is this character going to be leveled up or is for a one shot? If you are going to be leveling the character I would definitely say go straight cleric as being a level behind on spell casting will really hurt. If it is a one shot it is not as important.

It looks like you plan on making attack rolls as you have a moderately boosted strength and a magic weapon. Your damage is going to be very low so there is not a lot of benefit to getting in the middle of combat even if you continue to take levels of holy vindicator. Maybe if you offer flanking and aid other bonuses it could be worth it but you can wear a mithral heavy shield without penalty and instead of getting alignment channel you could take medium armor proficiency. You would then have a spiked gauntlet so you could threaten and cast spells with a heavy shield. You cannot use a heavy shield with your war hammer out and cast spells with somatic components. You need a light shield or buckler for that. If you give up on making attack rolls you can also drop strength a bit, assuming you used point buy, and boost your other stats.

If you really do want to make attack rolls I would recommend taking weapon focus and dropping steel soul or divine interference and since you said anything PFSRD is legal you could take the guided weapon property which lets you use dexterity for both attack and damage rolls. I think it is an overpowered ability which should be at least a +2 enchantment but if your GM allows it, it would make you into a front line fighter. It also lets you drop strength so that you only need to worry about encumbrance which casting ant haul can take care of.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/magic-weapons-non-core/we apon-property---guided

[WerePox47]

Forgot about guided.. I deff drop str down a bit.. I was taking the level of vind to get the 6 sacred bonus to ac.. The game will cap at ard 18th, so ill still get 9th level spells and i figured an ability that gives up 9ac, (maxed out) would be invalueable.. My image for him was to join melee and give flanking bonuses, and do alittle damage here and there.. Consider my above 1st round of swift-aura of heroism, standard-blessing of fervor, move-inspire courage +3 and he would instead have 3 attacks at +22/+22/+17 for 1d8+11 with the guided weapon property.. Thats not huge damage, but consistant and great output from the party buffer.. In a major fight he could cast divine power, or even righteous might as well to really ramp up.. Ill switch the shield to light, thanks for catching that.. I really like the level of vind for this, because im planning on being in melee and a str evangelist only get lt armor and no shields.. I think its worth the cl loss for what i wanna do with this guy.. My next craft was gonna be an orange ion stone to at least regain the full cl.. i thought about trait for +2cl, but i dont want this guy to fail an important deff cast in combat, so i chose the +2 conc and comabt casting feat..

[Soporific Lotus]

It’s funny, when I initially looked up holy vindicator I thought he cannot use a shield so the ability is wasted but even when I noted that you can use a shield I forgot about the ability. That is a pretty big AC boost and I cannot argue with how you want to play your character. It might be interesting to make a note of how many times you are actually attacked during the campaign. It all depends on your GM’s style if it is worth it to expend significant resources on defense. I think your character will do what you want it to do. Have fun.

[Cayzle]

You say you want to focus on support and defense, but you are spending valuable resources on offense. Why bother with such a high strength? Why the magic weapon? Why bother with an item to boost Str when you can just boost Con and Dex? The ONLY reason you need Strength is to cart around your heavy armor, and the answer to that is Muleback Cords for 1,000 gp -- or actually, SLOTLESS Muleback Cords for 2,000, so as not to interfere with your cloak of resistance.

Let's talk about AC. The key to AC is stacking at the right price. You should be thinking about the "cost per plus" whenever you buy AC boosters. For example, putting an enhancement bonus on your armor or shield has a cost per plus of just 1,000 gp for the first plus. A ring of protection or an amulet of Natural Armor has a cost per plus of 2,000 gp. So when you are low level, boost your armor and shield before you boost your amulet or ring. However, the cost per plus to raise a +1 shield to +2 is 3,000 gp. So before you do that, buy the amulet and the ring.

So when you are going up in level, after the cost per plus goes over 5,000 gp, it is more economical to get the +1 AC ioun stone than to improve an existing item.

Your progression should look like this:

Armor +1 - 1,000 gp per plus
Shield +1 - 1,000 gp per plus
Amulet +1 - 2,000 gp per plus
Ring +1 - 2,000 gp per plus
Armor +1 to +2 - 3,000 gp per plus
Shield +1 to +2 - 3,000 gp per plus
Ioun Stone +1 - 5,000 gp per plus
Amulet +1 to +2 - 6,000 gp per plus
Ring +1 to +2 - 6,000 gp per plus
Etc.

At your level, 12th, your recommended wealth is 108,000. A typical build might divide that 40% offense, 30% defense, 30% misellany. But you are not going for offense, so call it 60/40 defense/misc (or wahtever you choose). Say you want to budget about 60,000 on defense. Break it down ...

Belt of Physical Might +2 = 10,000
Winged Boots = 16,000
Cloak of Resist +5 = 25,000
Dwarven Plate = 16,500

That's 68,000 already, with no budget for AC! I think you should rethink your priorities. Let's bring the cloak down to +3 for 9,000. With your And the winged boots?

As for the dwarven plate, sure DR3 is nice, but for the same cost, you could have +4 regular full plate.

If you are going to wear full plate, with a max dex mod of +1, I suggest instead of starting with dex 10 and paying for the belt to boost it to 12, take the points from Str, start at 12 Dex, and spend your cash on Con. Then you need the admantine damage reduction less, and can spend it on AC boosting.

But let me add one more suggestion: Ring of Invisibility! Since you are not attacking, it is like wearing an always-on Cloak of Displacement at less than half the cost. A 50% miss chance is super sweet, and you are immune to many spells and effects that require Line of Sight.

So I suggest ...

Belt of Con +4 instead of Belt of Physical Perfection +4
+1 AC Ioun Stone
Ring of Protection, Amulet of Nat Armor, magic shield, magic full plate in balanced progression to the extent allowed by your budget
Cloak of Resistance to the degree your budget allows (don't be seduced by that +5)
Ring of Invisibility
Winged Boots maybe.

That said, let us consider that you are a cleric. You may want to consider spending next to zero on shield and armor and just use Magic Vestment every day. At your level, 12th, you may want to consider straight up cleric because that gives you +3 on each for 12 hours a day for two spells. If you consider that buying +4 armor and shield would cost you over 30K gold, a standard strand of prayer beads begins to look economical. Well, maybe in a level or two. Disadvantage with Magic Vestment is that they can be dispelled.

As for your multiclassing, if you go that route, I suggest a level or two of Fighter instead of Inquisitor. A single level dip gets you an extra combat feat and TOWER SHIELD!

Tower Shield is your friend! You get +4 AC base, and since you are not attacking, who cares about the attack penalty. Moreover, you can use it (as a standard action) to be immune to attack from one direction. You may think that's a flaw, since you have to guess the direction to set your tower shield, but no. Use a readied action like this: "I ready my shield to be triggered when I am attacked, in the direction from which the attack is launched." Using a readied action, you are immune to the next attack, and usually it will be hard for a foe to get around your shield, especially if you are next to a friend. And invisible.

For a very brief word on feats, why not take some defensive feats? Toughness and Dodge come to mind. Diehard too.

I hope these ideas help get you started on a better path to a defense monster.

[WerePox47]

I will reevauluate the prices for ac boost, thanks.. You may have not noticed, but by taking craft wonderous i cut the cost in 1/2 for all those items.. I wanted the build to be a support build adding buffs and healing, but also providing flanking and secondary damage.. With Spor Lotus's recomendation of the Guided ench i can do just that.. a +1 guided warhammer will be ard 8300, so i just just offset somthin to make up the difference(ill gain 3k by not adding +2str to the belt).. This also allows me to shift some scores ard by dropping his str to 12, bumping the cha to 14(pre neg)and start his wisdom at a 19(putting all 3 levels points there).. The +2 Dwarven Plate adds +11ac for 20k and dr 3/- so i think im gonna keep that, but i suppose i could use magic vestments on my shield and save some cash there..

[WerePox47]

Defensively his saves are just off a pallys for his level and over vs spells/slas, so i think im good there.. Ill rework it but regardless his ac will be mid 30s with vind shield active, which again is very solid for his level.. I think he turned out well rounded for what i wanted.. Thanks again for all the positive input..