So, we're playing a Kingmaker campaign.. I've got this human Cleric but I'm generally unhappy with how I've built him. The DM is going to be kind and let me re-make him so long as I make him along the same general concept (Necromancer Cleric), so I'm hoping to come up with something a bit more flavorful, and better to boot. Mainly, what I'm dissatisfied with are his low Initiative rolls and generally being easy to hit. So here are the things I can't change :
Class , Cleric
Race, open for debate but I'm pretty sure I can change it, I'm hoping so.
concept : Necromancer
deity : Hanspur
party usefulness : party face
We used a 20 point build. What I've discovered through two and a half levels of playing is that my general usefulness is alright. Channeling negative energy is pretty much my only "trick" right now. Right now my stats are something like Str 11, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 15, Cha 18. I know I probably messed up my point buys, but I won't dump a stat, I just don't like doing it. Anyways, here's what I'm tentatively thinking :
Race : Undine (backstory as being descended from some servitor of Hanspur's way back when)
Str 9 (11-2), Dex 16 (14+2), Con 12, Int 12 (so I have the same number of skills I have now), Wis 16 (14+2), Cha 14.
My two first level feats were Command Undead and Selective Channeling, Selective Channeling has been awesome. I pretty much have to keep it because it's my only offensive capability right now. Command Undead has been utterly useless. I'm starting to think in this campaign it won't be relevant until level 5 anyways when i can cast Animate Dead. So here's how I might do my feat progression :
1 Selective Channeling
3 Improved Initiative
5 Command Undead
7 Cosmopolitan (Use Magic Device and Perception, two relevant languages since I'm party face)
9 Skill Focus (Knowledge : religion)
11 Eldritch Heritage : Arcane (Familiar, greensting scorpion)
13 Craft Wondrous Item (too late for this?)
15 Improved Familiar
17 & 19 , who knows.
I had Travel and Death domains before but for this character I'll switch to Travel and Water.
Traits will be Reactionary and...? I had Dangerously Curious but if I DO take cosmopolitan I won't need it. Any good suggestions?
It seems alright but I'm sure it could be streamlined. If I don't need Cosmopolitan I can move the Eldritch Heritage things up some. What I like is, while my Cha will be lower and I'll have less Channeling, I think at the early levels I can make up for that with the Water domain power and being better with a crossbow. I was also considering a two level dip into Inquisitor for flavor reasons and to get cunning initiative. I would consider a one level dip into Monk for the AC but I'm more than certain Hanspur has no monk/clerics in his service as their alignments are incompatible. (The flavor reason would be that I'm pretty sure the DM wants my new character to have some reason to hunt down my old one and take his place. My old character might just turn into my first minion).
You guys are always amazing, the help you provided on my Dragon Disciple was awesome, and I'm sure it will be here!
OH and if it matters, it's a 3 person party. There's me, a Catfolk Barbarian, and a half-elf druid with a snake animal companion (first time player to any RPG so he is a bit lost sometimes but he's getting better.)
Thanks again advice forum!!
I think Aasimar would be a better fit. Statted like :
Str 11, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 16 (+2), Cha 16 (+2)
1 Selective Channeling
3 Improved Initiative (or Channel Force)
5 Command Undead
7 Improved Channel Force (or Improved Channel)
9 Quick Channel
11 Craft Wondrous Item
13-19 just leaving it open. I'm wondering a few things :
Would I be better off switching Dex and Str? I'm leaning towards no, but the lack of a decent ranged weapon bugs me.
I kind of wanted archery as a backup plan, but I don't want to dip for it. Is there any way for me to obtain proficiency with it without burning a feat for MWP : Longbow, or dipping a level, being an elf or half elf, or worshiping Erastil?
What skills do I need? I'm planning to drag along undead minions so I'm going to max Diplomacy to calm the minds of the good folk of the River Kingdoms that they are quite safe and tame to be around. How much Spellcraft is needed? I'd like some points in Fly, because that's a spell I'm going to cast a lot probably.
Are the Channel Force feats good? they LOOK good. How badly do I need Improved Channel?
My traits are Reactionary and....??? I'm not totally sure what a good secondary trait would be here.
Travel domain is awesome, but I have a choice between Chaos, Death, and Water for my other one. I'm looking at Death, because I do like the level 8 power but I'm not totally in love with it. The Demon subdomain would be good but I'm an aasimar, I gotta draw the line somewhere. Water would give me Cone of Cold later and a decent-ish low level ranged attack. So some opinions there would be helpful.
My goals for this character are to fulfill the out of combat need of party face, to be a minion toting necromancer, have decent AoE capabilities (my channel negative has been awesome for this thus far but I have a feeling it is going to be outpaced by the challenges sooner or later), and to at least be semi-relevant in combat for the first few levels (even though so far the RageCat (who I affectionately call Mittens OOC) has been handling the bulk of the damage dealing so far, while the druid and I play support. the lack of a decent ranged attack in our party is frustrating, though.
Thanks guys :)
You didn't say anything about archetypes that I saw.
So, how about Undead Lord Cleric? You said you still have to be a Necromancer.
Have an Undead buddy right from the start.
I'd look at variant channeling. Specifically for status effects on harm. Nobility gives daze on channel negative, madness gives confusion etc. Damage will be outpaced, but daze or confusion will remain useful. You can get healed by negative channeling by taking Necromantic Affinity if you get up to a 16 constitution so you are not locked into the Death domain. I wouldn't recommend Undead Lord because the companion isn't that great and you lose a 2nd domain. I'm partial to Trickery, Darkness and Travel for bonus spells. If your GM allows it, you could even turn into an undead during the campaign.
Race wise, Aasimar is great. I'd prefer to take Samsaran though for the Mystic Past Life racial feature. Being able to poach certain spells from other spell lists / domains is very very nice.
A few more options to consider. Look into Sacred Summons. If you decide to sacrifice the option to have versatile channeling, you could do a summoner build. Summoning as a standard instead of 1 round is very nasty(especially when you get bonus critters to summon). Reach Cleric is a good build choice for that, though if you are set on buffing channeling it would be hard to squeeze out a good build (as you'd normally tank Cha). It's doable, but would come into it's own at the end of the campaign.
If you want to be a channeler with spells as a backup, check out Holy Vindicator. You lose 3 levels of casting but get some good channeling buffs and stigmata is pretty good. You can negate the penalty to hit w/Power Attack by using stigmata, or buff your spell pen etc.
Cleric has a ton of options, each making the class feel noticeably different. Each sound fun to me, so hopefully you'll enjoy what you decide on.
You didn't say anything about archetypes that I saw.
So, how about Undead Lord Cleric? You said you still have to be a Necromancer.
Have an Undead buddy right from the start.
I completely love the flavor of the Undead Lord, Rynjin, it's awesome. And I'm really tempted. So pros and cons of that archetype ..
Pros : Like you said, undead buddy from the start, that's pretty neat. Since this aasimar is going to be replacing my human cleric, we're going to be working it in game that there's some reason for my new character to kill my current one... so there's a certain poetry in having my old character around as a zombie that I kind of find fun.Two extra bonus feats, Command Undead, as well as something at 10th I'll definitely want.
The empowered healing on an undead horde is very nice, too, to pick up the pieces after your guys eat a large fireball or something.
The only real CON to the class is giving up your second domain (well both domains really since the one you get is chosen for you) and the versatility therein. I'm really hesitant to do this because this party lacks an arcane caster, and lacks a skill monkey for UMD to mimic an arcane caster. So I don't want to give up the Travel domain for access to teleport spells and fly. I'm sure we're going to want Haste at some point but as of right now I have no clue where we're going to get it.
All told, it's a very close call for me.
It's really too bad the Agent of the Grave PrC is only for evil, Whispering Way types.
I'd look at variant channeling. Specifically for status effects on harm. Nobility gives daze on channel negative, madness gives confusion etc. Damage will be outpaced, but daze or confusion will remain useful. You can get healed by negative channeling by taking Necromantic Affinity if you get up to a 16 constitution so you are not locked into the Death domain. I wouldn't recommend Undead Lord because the companion isn't that great and you lose a 2nd domain. I'm partial to Trickery, Darkness and Travel for bonus spells. If your GM allows it, you could even turn into an undead during the campaign.
Race wise, Aasimar is great. I'd prefer to take Samsaran though for the Mystic Past Life racial feature. Being able to poach certain spells from other spell lists / domains is very very nice.
A few more options to consider. Look into Sacred Summons. If you decide to sacrifice the option to have versatile channeling, you could do a summoner build. Summoning as a standard instead of 1 round is very nasty(especially when you get bonus critters to summon). Reach Cleric is a good build choice for that, though if you are set on buffing channeling it would be hard to squeeze out a good build (as you'd normally tank Cha). It's doable, but would come into it's own at the end of the campaign.
If you want to be a channeler with spells as a backup, check out Holy Vindicator. You lose 3 levels of casting but get some good channeling buffs and stigmata is pretty good. You can negate the penalty to hit w/Power Attack by using stigmata, or buff your spell pen etc.
Cleric has a ton of options, each making the class feel noticeably different. Each sound fun to me, so hopefully you'll enjoy what you decide on.
Hi, thank you for your suggestions!! Variant channeling, Hmm. That's really interesting. If I were to go with that I'd DEFINITELY need Improved Channel huh? I could probably sell
Sacred Summons : LOVE IT. But is it any good for a Neutral Cleric of a CN deity? (Hanspur). Doesn't that just restrict me to creatures of the chaotic subtype? So... slaadi? Lol. (Which, I am 100% sure Sacred Summons is better than Versatile Channeling... I just can't give up Hanspur as my deity) so unfortunately this feat is probably not an option for me...since they have to exactly match the aura right? So I couldn't summon demons with it.
Yeah you know, I wanted Undine, for the flavor reasons, but playing an Aasimar necromancer type kind of fits this "moral gray area" party I'm in. We're in it for power and glory and camaraderie. The power of Mystic Past Life is awesome, but I'm pretty sure my DM doesn't want anything TOO exotic. We had to talk him into letting the barbarian play a catfolk. Aasimar, Tieflings, and elemental-blooded aren't too exotic for him, he outright outlawed Kitsune, Tengu, Grippli... I'm pretty happy with Aasimar.
I read the guide to the reach cleric, and I had never thought of building a cleric that way. But as you said.. it's way too dependent on every stat. I am the party face so dumping Charisma seems like a poor idea for me.
Okay so does anyone have suggestions for me? I'd really like opinions on the Water, Death, and Chaos domains I have to choose from for my 2nd domain.
So my skills - maxed Diplomacy, maxed Spellcraft (?) some ranks in Knowledge : religion, and just randomly putting points in things like Climb, Swim, and Perception? Or should I just max Perception (even though it's not a class skill)?
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If you play an undead lord, you will want to always have inflict spells prepared. Also, if you go undead lord, you will want to take channel force so you don't hurt your companion with channel if you try to hurt undead. I'd suggest an Undead lord with versatile channel, channel force and spont. cast cure spells. Max out your diplomacy and then divide skills btw. spellcraft and knowledge religion, or maxing out all three if you keep the 12 INT. You will probably want improved or extra channel. Now you can heal your buddy, you can target one person and harm them while also having nice crowd control because you can pull/push foes to control the field. Maybe bralani's step for a trait.
EDIT:alignment domains aren't that great IMO. Water is slightly better than death because you now have ranged weapons via icicle.
Versatile Channeler is worth at least a look, if you haven't already ruled it out.
[there are walls of text so just adding from skimming through...]
lesser animate dead (UM) 2nd level, medium or small only, no variants.
the undead companion from undead lord doesn't scale well and no variants, feats or skills.
mystic theurge advances two pools of undead HD = +8 HD per level of MT, but each pool is slightly lower(12 HD for the 3 levels multiclass, assuming witch(hexes are fun) or wizard).
dhamphir (B2) has negative energy affinity if you want to go negative energy channel. (it heals undead(and dhampirs) or harms living, not both - so your allies are safe(ish)).
Yeah sorry for the text walls. I really do like versatile channeler and plan to incorporate it, and selective channel.
I saw lesser animate and read it over.. I mean it still costs onyx gems right? I hate sinking money into minions that have a high probability of never coming back, so I think I'd prefer just to save it for bloody skeletons. In fact, there's already an owlbear that we barely killed (one round away from it dropping the barbarian when he critted it), that we buried under a cairn of rocks for later "use".
has anyone taken a character like this into mid - upper levels? How effective was it? Was it frustrating trying to keep minions alive?
I tried the mystic theurge thing to level 11 with undead master(ruled to give each HD pool a +16 HD) for two 48HD pools.
I mainly focused on bloody ogre skeletons(an even 4HD) and had them grappling foes - if the foe was big enough they where allowed to "aid" eachother by just piling up on the creature.
(Fast healing and coming back from destruction is gold in minions...)
It ended like this:
Final battle 99% done with me and my minions...
I die...
Party kills BBEG in the following round...
My minions wipe out nearly rest of party... one survivor
Survivor has to flee, not getting loot...
It might be frustrating trying to keep the necromancer alive...
I tried the mystic theurge thing to level 11 with undead master(ruled to give each HD pool a +16 HD) for two 48HD pools.
I mainly focused on bloody ogre skeletons(an even 4HD) and had them grappling foes - if the foe was big enough they where allowed to "aid" eachother by just piling up on the creature.
(Fast healing and coming back from destruction is gold in minions...)
It ended like this:
Final battle 99% done with me and my minions...
I die...
Party kills BBEG in the following round...
My minions wipe out nearly rest of party... one survivor
Survivor has to flee, not getting loot...It might be frustrating trying to keep the necromancer alive...
Oh, wow. Those are two insanely large pools, did you seriously have 12 bloody ogre skeletons tromping around with you? I'm sure the death of the necromancer has some... bad consequences for an adventuring party, however, I can guarantee you that's one of the more memorable things that's happened at that table. Necromancer walks into town, local paladins might be hesitant to kill him if they know that zombie dragon is immediately going to be loosed on the population. Haha. Kind of like the whole "you kill me, my finger comes off this detonator, WE ALL DIE" scenario. Love it.
I think I'm going to stick with straight un-archetyped Cleric for the time being. He's a cleric of Hanspur, so he's not motivated enough to amass the biggest, baddest undead army ever seen. This is no Whispering Way cultist or follower of Urathoa here. He's happy to have a squad to help him patrol bridges and keep them free of trolls trying to waylay unwary travelers...and then to add those trolls to his army to make the other trolls think twice about setting up under any bridges in his little slice of the world.
I guess Undead Lord becomes a little better if you're committed to the Mystic Theurge route, since you're not getting your level 8 domain powers until super late anyways. So you basically trade half useless class features for Command Undead and a crappy companion creature.. yeah I guess that's okay. Even then I would probably still stick with Travel domain though for the +10 base speed and ignoring difficult terrain.
No, I think I had 9 ogres plus some medium sized 1HD bloodies(for traps) with us. The rest (a myriad of 1HD) was in the background defending my lair and hammering away in my mine.
GM: "You can't have mindless undead mining for you. Keep it to 'attack', 'come', 'guard' and the like."
me: "How about I equip them with hammers and pickaxes and order them to attack the cave floor?"
GM: "You realize that you probably won't enjoy the income in this campaign as you a journeying south?"
me: "Yes."
GM: "Fine, the undead mine is up and running."
Or at least it was until I died. I assume.
Building with extreme numbers is fun, but mostly to have stuff going on in the background. Not to break the game.
This kind of thing is exactly why I wanted to play this character in this AP. It's Kingmaker so there are VAST opportunities for the "leftover" undead to help you. Is there some kind of "teleport to me when I say this command word" magic item? It might be fun to have a giant zombie dragon hanging out at the lair ready to be used as a tactical nuke.
I definitely don't want to break the game. I've been thinking of just having a few skeletons with me, useful ones like big cats with pounce, or like you mentioned, ogres for grappling (actually hadn't thought of that before, but it's a solid idea)..since this party is basically non optimized and we need a little bit of help from minions. The druid's constrictor snake companion is alright, but at level 2 he's not even making every handle animal check he attempts so right now, it's unreliable. We also have yet to run into an undead creature, and I'm guessing that here in the Green Belt, they're not plentiful.. so I'm going to have to wait until level 5 to begin my collection anyways.
If you had living foremen in that mine, they surely got a nasty surprise that day. Not only were they not going to get paid since the boss man died, they weren't going to even live. I'm guessing you had to have living of some kind in there to spot when your undead crew actually turned up something valuable..
Nothing living.
The mine was meant to have a magical smelting furnace which took ore and smelted and sorted metals into bars.
The idea was to have someone/something clear the rubble into the furnace, but it didn't go beyond "up and running".
About the teleport to me item: I have a vague memory of seeing something like that, but it's activated by the minion... and it might be a spell.
But it's not an unreasonable item, it requires a message being sent, and the zombie dragon activating something.
There is something for construct-calling that might give you an idea... Ultimate Magic spell - Call Construct.
Maybe something like
Call Undead
conj(teleport)[evil]
cleric 6th, sorc/wiz 6th
10 minutes to cast, permanent duration(until used)
one crystal worth 50 gp per HD
smash to call undead in a puff of smoke
Okay, so assuming I only have my animate dead and command undead feat pools available to me..it should be enough to keep a decent army around right? (I may get the wizard spell on a staff later, if I keep Dangerously Curious as my other trait. Or if I'm somehow convinced to switch deities to someone with the Inevitable domain...would make Sacred Summons better too huh?)
I think an item / spell that just "tags" your minion indefinitely and then lets you call it is perfectly reasonable. I haven't seen Call Construct but if that exists, there's no reason this can't either. And it would certainly beat hauling a zombie dragon around everywhere.
So what kind of gear should I invest in for my skeletal army? Some magical composite bows for the high STR humanoid ones? Tower Shields and tridents for others? (tridents because it's Hanspur's favored weapon... fluff over optimization there). Is it even worth buying gear for them?
If you multiclass, don't take Command Undead as it counts your cleric level.
But otherwise you're looking at 4+1 HD of undeads per level and that is more than a fighter gets :)
Their claws are pretty good, especially if you can find some creatures with extra hands. Give them the gear from the low level henchmen you kill, it's usually some armor and a martial weapon - the stuff some adventures(those without wagons) just leave behind.
You could give some longspears and some spears and have them form a nice line.
chakrams are pretty cool - and cheap - for ranged weapons that don't break from use. In a pinch the can be used for melee.
Eventually money for mundane stuff won't be an issue and you can buy them whatever you like.
Yeah, I'm planning on going Cleric 20. Usually when I play these kinds of games I am a horrible multiclasser, in fact my conversations with friends about World of Warcraft (which I played for years) frequently included complaints that I couldn't multiclass. So this time I'm planning on taking one class to 20.
More than a fighter gets.. I certainly hope so. Haha.
I'm almost totally sold on the variant channeling, since everything I've read / seen says that Channel Negative doesn't scale very well relative to encounter hp. So having a status effect mixed in with a half strength channel actually seems really good. The only question is WHICH variant do I take? And if I take Versatile Channeler, am I locked in to BOTH variants, or just the one I took initially?
The "Harm" ones I'm looking at are :
Freedom (pretty sure this is part of Hanspur's portfolio) : Creatures are slowed (as the slow spell) until the end of my next turn.
Rulership (if I can be talked into Abadar) : Creatures are dazed for 1 round.
My second domain is still up in the air. Travel is a definite, I'm still wrestling with Chaos (Protean), Water, and Death (though losing 50% on harm channels makes this one less appealing) Touch of chaos seems good if I'm engaged in melee, and the aura of chaos seems pretty legit in a swarm situation. Also I like having Displacement on my spell list.
Zaris
So : Aasimar Cleric (Hanspur) 2 , AL Chaotic Neutral, Domains Travel, Chaos (Protean), Str 11, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 16, Cha 16
Channel Negative Energy 1d6 (50% - Variant Channel (freedom) )
Traits : Reactionary, Sacred Conduit
Skills : Spellcraft, Diplomacy, Knowledge : Religion, Use Magic Device
Feats :
1 Selective Channel
3 Improved Initiative
5 Command Undead
7 Channel Force
9 Versatile Channel
11 Improved Channel Force
13 Improved Channel
15 Sacred Summons
17 Quick Channel
I could skip Versatile, I guess. I can always tote CLW wands, memorize the spell, or make the druid do it. haha. Feats I'd love to take but have no idea where to fit them :
Additional Traits (Adrift - aasimar race trait, Dangerously Curious)
Combat Casting
Extra Channel (though it IS Kingmaker, I think 6 per day should be fine)
Lightning Reflexes
Zaris, born to a middle class merchant family, was something of a surprise to his parents. A trident-shaped birthmark and eyes the hue of the twilight sun upon the river marked him as special, but to Zaris, it always felt more like "different." Spending many hours alone, he wandered the riverbanks near the family home, both because he felt at home, as though the water ran through both sides of his soul, and to duck the teasing and blatant bullying of his older brothers, which his parents were always too busy or disinterested to stop. Through adolesence his wanderings brought him to a secluded waterfall, upon which he one day observed an itinerant priest devoted to the Guardian of the River, Lord Hanspur. On a whim, this priest befriended Zaris, seeing the mark of Hanspur on his soul, and the loneliness in his eyes. Many days and nights Zaris spent wandering at the priest's side, taking part in rituals he seemed to know from start to finish, fishing, and learning the ways and secrets of the river. All that came to an end one day, as Zaris and the priest were enjoying a summer night by their campfire, far afield from home (as priests of Hanspur are wont to do, they observed playing in the water a pair of beautiful water fey, who beckoned them to enjoy a bath with them... which they promptly did, falling under the spell of the bewitchingly beautiful creatures almost instantly. Days, weeks, months, Zaris couldn't be sure just how long they remained thrall to the beautiful creatures, only that it was the happiest he had ever felt in his whole life, and his mentor seemed to feel the same. Until the day he awoke, naked, bloody, and surrounded by bodies...including the fey and his mentor, along with a dozen dead hobgoblins. Salvaging what he could, taking his mentor's trident and symbol, he left the scene behind, bewildered, devastated at losing the only happiness he'd ever known.. yet feeling his true calling as a servant of Hanspur..even if the event had broken his soul, it had also forged it in fire. The very first time he channeled the divine power of his god and it visibly pained those around him, his inner self died a bit, but his path became clear to him.
Personality : Very closed off, yet diplomatic in his dealings with others, there is a discernible "distance" Zaris keeps from others except the very closest of confidantes. His ongoing struggles with the events of that night years ago fuel the chaos in his heart. It is this deep-seated fear of losing more people he cares about that makes keeping the dead as company very appealing to him.
Thank you for your advice and guidance, everyone. I really feel like this character is starting to come alive in my mind, as more than just a collection of statistics on a page.