Samurai / Cleric - interesting idea that may work or just a waste?

[Helaman]

I have a character about to exit level 1 who is a cleric. Given the Tien background and god of the character I was considering a remake as a samurai and proceeding from there but Clerics do have useful abilities, fun religious twerks and spells that make them useful and flavourful.

However multi-classing, particulary with a spell caster seems to never end well and with this concept, its about as MAD attribute wise as one can get.

Whats the opinion on this character concept and should I be putting Str as my focus stat or my Wis?

[Preston Hudson]

Intriguing idea going with multiclassing a Samurai and Cleric. As far as the stat to focus on, I am really not sure. I would make sure they both were the better stats and alternate the attribute increases between the two.

[Dhjika]

Helaman wrote:

I have a character about to exit level 1 who is a cleric. Given the Tien background and god of the character I was considering a remake as a samurai and proceeding from there but Clerics do have useful abilities, fun religious twerks and spells that make them useful and flavourful.

However multi-classing, particulary with a spell caster seems to never end well and with this concept, its about as MAD attribute wise as one can get.

Whats the opinion on this character concept and should I be putting Str as my focus stat or my Wis?

It really depends on how much of cleric you plan to have. You get quite a few benefits with only a few levels of cleric. You can get to 4th level as cleric with only losing 1 BAB over Samurai.

If you do not plan to attack with your cleric spells, you do not need a wisdom very high - high enough only to cast the spells or scrolls that you want to use - and all the wands are open to you.

[Kyoko Hitomu]

I think you'd need a minimum of 14 wis (and you'd be adding +1 to wis every time you got a free stat at lvl 4,8,12). You could dump Charisma as it only affects the amount of channels you'd have.

Depending on how many skill points you'd want you'd either dump int (since the difference between 10 and 7 is 1 skill point for every Cleric level, and you'd gain +4 points to spend) or you'd want to bump int to 12 so you'd get 3 skill points each level as a cleric. Whichever you think would suit your character more.

I know it removes some of the "flavor" of being called a Holy Samurai and you lose a few proficiencies....but if you plan on going to at least 6th level Samurai you should consider Cavalier since you'd qualify for Horse Master (which bumps your mount to your character level and not your Cavalier level). Expert Trainer is removed in the additional rules as a prereq and you get a different feat in place of Expert Trainer also. (I think Skill focus: Ride or something).

If you plan on going less than 3 in Samurai it's not worth it, and 5 gets you Banner....you may as well go to 6th lvl as Cavalier instead if you're planning on 5th lvl Samurai just so your mount stays useful for the rest of your career.

I considered this build a few days ago and I think it's got potential as a Cavalier/Cleric. Yours probably more than mine because I was reluctant to go any other race than a Halfling lol. You'll be stuck with some crummy low level spells but as long as you pick some useful spells like Cure Light Wounds, Bull's Strength, Protection from Evil, or other spells that add more "flavor" and fun to your character it should work out great.

BTW, I did a little comparison a few days ago and I believe less than 5 or 6 levels of Samurai or Cavalier and you're looking at the same BAB or 1 point difference than a full Cleric's BAB, higher than that you should have a little bonus. (Not sure on the difference on saves though, and you'll want to find a way to cover your will saves, maybe take Iron Will?)

EDIT: My suggestion on 14wis with 1's each 4 lvls is if you're focusing on 6 or more levels of Cleric. You could probably get a way with less and I'm too lazy atm to look it up.

[Akerlof]

Do you want to be mostly samurai or mostly cleric or evenly distributed between both?

For a battle focused cleric, a one level dip into samurai wouldn't be bad. It gets you heavy armor proficiency, great weapon proficiencies, resolve and a d10 hit die. (Which is why it's best to take the dip at first level, and also means you can take Power Attack or Weapon Focus at first level.) For this build, you'd want 18ish str and probably 14ish Wis: You use spells to buff and remove debuffs, not to attack enemies. It's a fairly good trade for a level of spell casting if you're not focusing on casting with that character. Going a second level to get your order ability very possibly isn't worth it, it puts you a full spell level behind rather than on the sorcerer spell advancement path.

For a samurai, a one level dip into cleric isn't bad, either. You gain two domains, orisons, a couple spells, and the ability to use cleric spell completion and spell trigger items and +2 on your Fort and Will saves. Some domains, like Travel and Luck are extremely powerful from first level on, others not so much. Statwise, build a cavalier and make sure you have at least 11 Wis, 12 would be better, but 12's always better on a weak Will save class. Going a second level isn't worth it, all you get is one 1st level spell.

Dividing evenly between the two, or even having a significant number of levels in one but primarily leveling in the other is probably going to be pretty bad. You suffer diminishing returns on the value you gain the further you go into your secondary class, your samurai will be behind on HP and BAB in exchange for not many spells or your cleric will be behind on channeling and spells in exchange for a little attack and a few HP.

Clerics and martials actually synergize pretty well for a one level dip if you want to be a primarily "hitting things with pointy sticks" type. Don't be afraid to try it, but remember the goal of your character: If you want to be a meleer, build your stats to be a meleer and just keep your Wis high enough to cast. I wouldn't suggest dipping if you want to focus on casting as a cleric.

[Thomas, the Tiefling Hero!]

I'm pure cleric, but I'm of the "stand in the front and fight" variety. My stats started as follows:

STR 16 (14+2 racial)
DEX 14
CON 13
INT 12
WIS 15 (13+2 racial)
CHA 10 (12-2 racial)

I put my 4th level bump into CON and 8th into WIS. I've purchased a +2 STR belt and a +2 WIS headband.

Between always having heroism up (which I either pre-cast or can activate as a swift action via domain) and casting divine favor on round 1 (rather than moving up to attack once and then get full-attacked in return), I typically have the highest to-hit in the party.

All that is to say you don't need a martial dip to be good at fighting. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't have hurt me to take a one-level dip; I'd still be getting new spell levels at the same pace as a sorcerer, so it's not exactly a horrible gimp.

You could really go either way. Just be wary of bigger dips.

[Helaman]

How do you activate as a swift? I am not familiar with that...

[Seraphimpunk]

why not go all cleric, and pick a deity from the dragon gazateer that has katana or an eastern weapon, wear some samurai armor, and get a horse ( maybe one of the deities has Animal , and you can pick up a mount at 4th level ). if you can get a neutral deity like irorri , you can channel negative energy and pick up Channel Smite , and later take versatile channeler. it could be fun to be a cleric with a blade that goes around smacking living things and channeling his chi in the blade. ::shrug:: focus on strength and charisma for channels , or strength and wisdom for spells.

or switch to an Oracle of your Tien diety, and multiclass Samurai and Oracle.
Samurai still use charisma for some abilities, like cavaliers right? so its not awful to keep some charisma ( even a +1 is decent to springboard an ioun stone or headband off of at later levels , and as a cleric a 13 cha can at least let you Selective Channel.

[Yiroep]

If you're multiclassing Cleric and Samurai, I would definitely try to focus more on Strength than Wisdom. Martial characters almost always multiclass better than casters.

The Holy Vindicator prestige class could help alleviate some of the problems of multiclassing those two classes.

Samurai 5/Cleric 1/Holy Vindicator X could be good. Would net you a banner. You'd be pretty low on spellcasting, though. Go for a charge build, perhaps?

Samurai 4/Cleric 2/Holy Vindicator X could make a solid mounted archer build. I don't know your deity, but if your diety has a ranged weapon as a favored weapon, you could go for the Guided Hand feat and not worry about Dex as much. Otherwise I would probably go melee spec. You could also do this for a melee spec if you wanted more spellcasting and didn't care about the banner.

Cleric 4/Samurai 1/Fighter 1/Holy Vindicator X could be another spec you could do if you wanted more casting, although in my opinion you wouldn't gain much from the Samurai levels there.

Another idea is to go Oracle. Maybe go oracle of lore or nature depending on what flavor you want so you can have Charisma to AC.

Just some thoughts.

[Thomas, the Tiefling Hero!]

Helaman wrote:

How do you activate as a swift? I am not familiar with that...

It's the 8th-level domain power of the Glory(Heroism) domain. For a number of rounds per day equal to my level, I can emit a 30ft aura of heroism, activated as a swift action.

[Seraphimpunk]

channel smite, guided hand, point blank shot, precise shot,
it can take a while to get a guided hand ranged archery build good, but they're fun usually.