I've just been reviewing some of the older threads for some Divine Warrior type characters, to see if any can really compete against one I've been messing about with on my local server vault. I found Torias and CoolRMM discussing the cleric / paladin / CoT build, on v4.0, page 20, but I think they went with way too many cleric levels. The most useful cleric spells are Greater Sanctuary, Harm and Heal; anything beyond those are fancy but non-essential, IMO.
Here's my Disciple of Torm, anyway. Race: Human Stats: Str 16 Dex 8 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 12 Cha 16 At level 4, put 1 point into Wisdom. Then put all the rest into Charisma from then on.
For skills, I took Discipline, Spellcraft, Concentration, and cross-classed Tumble.
Level progression: 6 * Paladin 10 * Cleric (Strength and Healing domains) 4 * Champion of Torm then for epic levels 6 * Champion of Torm 1 * Cleric 11 * Champion of Torm 1 * Cleric 1 * Champion of Torm
The feats went something like this: 1 - Power Attack, Cleave 3 - Extra Smiting 6 - Divine Might 9 - Extra Turning 12 - Divine Shield 15 - Extend Spell 18 - Weapon Proficiency Exotic, Weapon Focus Scythe* 20 - Improved Critical: Scythe* 21 - Great Charisma 1 22 - Great Wisdom 1* 24 - Great Charisma 2 (->23), Great Wisdom 2* 26 - Great Wisdom 3* (->16) 27 - Great Charisma 3 30 - Great Charisma 4 (->26) 31 - Great Smite 1* 33 - Great Charisma 5 (->28) 35 - Great Smite 2* 36 - Epic Weapon Focus: Scythe 39 - Toughness (you might want something different) 40 - Great Smite 3*
* = CoT bonus feat OK, so using a scythe wastes a feat and makes the build miss out Great Cleave, amongst other things. But to be honest I never found Great Cleave much of an advantage over regular Cleave.
There are lots of great things about this build - but most of them have already been been covered in Torias' original Divine Warrior build. I mean things like Divine Wrath, Divine Might & Divine Shield lasting for awhile, extremely high saving throws, Smite Evil, etc. In this case, the Disciple's Divine Might & Divine Shield give +10 to AC and damage, for 10 rounds. Not quite as good the Divine Warrior but the Disciple makes up for it in other areas.
From here on in I'll just mention the upgrades mine has. As well as Lay on Hands, my Disciple has Heal, available on two Cleric spell levels. As well as being really useful to, um, heal people with, it can be used against undead as Harm can be against non-undead. The Disciple also gets Harm, which makes dealing with those tricky non-evil baddies (hint: black and white slaads) a cinch. I really like the cleric buffs too, things like Darkfire, Divine Favour, Divine Power make the damage output of the Disciple far outstrip the Divine Warrior. To help with attack rolls and physical damage, the Disciple has Strength domain powers, giving her +4 Strength for 10 rounds. The best thing about all these different damage types is, it's really hard for someone to have immunites to all of them. A fully buffed Disciple deals slashing, piercing, fire, magical and divine damage which is going to have some effect on just about anything. All the different damage types are multiplied by 4 in case of a critical hit. Crits of over 180 are not uncommon with this build.
But where it really comes into its own, over and above the Divine Warrior, is the defensive buffs. Stoneskin is accessible through the Strength domain and stacks with the 9 points of DR gained through Divine Wrath, which gives it melee damage reduction comparable to a Dwarven Defender, at least for a short while. Combine this with much underrated spells like Shield of Faith and you have a much better tank than the Divine Warrior. If you're fighting against mages or meleers with elemental damage on their weapons, the Disciple can also throw up 30/- points of DR against all elements, in the form of Protection against Elements. This is up there with True Seeing for difficulty in dispelling. When the Disciple is fully buffed I have never seen it lose PaE until at least the third dispel. you don't have to worry about it running out either, it lasts for 24 hours non-extended.
Edited By Herbie Shimmer on 03/29/04 17:19:37
Edited By griphook on 07/07/05 23:43
Quote: Str 16 Dex 8 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 12 Cha 16 At level 4, put 1 point into Wisdom. Then put all the rest into Charisma from then on.
21 - Great Charisma 1 22 - Great Wisdom 1* 24 - Great Charisma 2 (->23), Great Wisdom 2* 26 - Great Wisdom 3* (->16) 27 - Great Charisma 3 30 - Great Charisma 4 (->26) 31 - Great Smite 1* 33 - Great Charisma 5 (->28)
My main question concerns the stat allocation. Why Start with a low Wisdom and use valuable feats to raise it later, and also spend starting stat points on Charisma instead?
Would it not be better to start with:
Str 16 Dex 10 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 14 Cha 14
Then spend 1 stat increase and 1 Great Wis feat to get the necessary 16 Wisdom? You then have 2 Feats Previously used for Great Wisdom that can now be used for Great Charisma instead. In effect you end up with 10 Dex instead of 8 for no penalty that I can see?
Personally I would also consider 14 Str instead of 16, giving 14 Con and an extra 80 Hps but thats personal choice.
Anyway, GREAT build and IMO slightly superior to the current Divine Char on the site.
I love this build, you are incrediably buff on any server. However when I played this char I did change a few things that I found made it better. With this char I was able to play straight from lvl 1 with no difficulty at all. Here are the changes.
Race: Human Stats: Str 14 Dex 10 Con 14 Int 12 Wis 14 Cha 14 Charisma every 4 levels
For skills, I took Discipline, Spellcraft, Concentration, and cross-classed Tumble.
Level progression: 6 * Paladin 10 * Cleric (Strength and Healing domains) 4 * Champion of Torm then for epic levels 6 * Champion of Torm 1 * Cleric 11 * Champion of Torm 1 * Cleric 1 * Champion of Torm
The feats went something like this: 1 - Power Attack, Weapon Focus Scimitar 3 - Cleave 6 - Extra Smiting 9 - Divine Might 12 - Extra Turning 15 - Divine Shield 18 - Extend Spell, Knockdown* 20 - Improved Critical: Scimitar* 21 - Epic Weapon Focus: Scimitar 22 - Great Wisdom 1* 24 - Great Charisma 1 (->23), Great Wisdom 2* 27 - Great Charisma 2 30 - Great Charisma 3 (->26) 31 - Armor Skin* 33 - Great Charisma 4 (->28) 35 - Great Smite 1* 36 - Great Charisma 5 39 - Great Charisma 6 40 - Great Smite 2*
* = CoT bonus feat
Ok I mostly just changed the stats to match up with what was suggested above, and that added extra dex, extra con, slightly less strength and the same amount of wisdom and charisma. It also has one less great smite, but you can use whatever bonus skill you want at that level, I chose armor skin. You could take epic weapon focus at this level and give yourself one extra feat somewhere else.
I went the way of a shield and scimitar just for personal preference, and rearranged a few feats to make it easier to level early on. If you still want the scythe you just have to remove knockdown and toss in exotic weapon profficancy.
Just figured I'd post changes if you wanted to start with different starting stats.
Love the build!
Dragon
Quote: Posted 04/11/04 14:05:22 (GMT) -- billb0
Level progression: 6 * Paladin 10 * Cleric (Strength and Healing domains) 4 * Champion of Torm then for epic levels 6 * Champion of Torm 1 * Cleric 11 * Champion of Torm 1 * Cleric 1 * Champion of Torm
The feats went something like this: 1 - Power Attack, Cleave 3 - Extra Smiting 6 - Divine Might 9 - Extra Turning 12 - Divine Shield 15 - Extend Spell 18 - Weapon Proficiency Exotic, Weapon Focus Scythe* 20 - Improved Critical: Scythe* 21 - Great Charisma 1 22 - Great Wisdom 1* 24 - Great Charisma 2 (->23), Great Wisdom 2* 26 - Great Wisdom 3* (->16) 27 - Great Charisma 3 30 - Great Charisma 4 (->26) 31 - Great Smite 1* 33 - Great Charisma 5 (->28) 35 - Great Smite 2* 36 - Epic Weapon Focus: Scythe 39 - Toughness (you might want something different) 40 - Great Smite 3*
* = CoT bonus feat
Here is another suggestion if I may
6 Paladin 3 Cleric 10 CoT 1 Cleric This is to get the best pre-epic BAB. Apart from BAB theres no real reason to take the pre-epic levels in any other order AFAIK. Theres also 3 additional CoT bonus feats.
In Epic levels, the Cleric levels are not going to give any bonus feats but taking 12 in total makes sense because that leaves 12 Epic CoT levels which gives 4 bonus feats, as you say. Plus an extra 6th level spell is useful.
Indeed this character is very 'customisable' in epic levels because you can move blocks of 3 CoT levels to Cleric to gain extra spellcasting at the cost of a feat. So P 6/Cl 12/CoT 22 is good as is P 6/Cl 15/ CoT 19. In fact I think the second option might be better again! That gives a jump from 6th to 8th level spells at the cost of only 1 CoT bonus feat and a few points in saving throws...is there anything else I've missed which might rule that out?
Please ignore most of my last post because I fell into the trap of thinking CoT gets bonus Epic feats every 3 levels and not 4..
On the contrary Cheese, you last long post also has a lot of merit. I fully realise that the original build was for an instant level 40 character, not one who has to labour its way up on a PW.
If it were so, then there is a resource waste of too many cleric levels at too low a wisdom level. The Char should have access to level 5 spells, but couldn't handle anything above level 3. On a PW this is a waste, asking for delayed cleric progression and more early CoT levels, which is exactly what you suggest. Your "free" dexterity plus ramping up wisdom to 14 further improves the PW playability. just my opinion, of course.
Michelle
I'd love to see this build further expanded on for my PW. I'd really enjoy this one, the feel of it works for me, and would make a nice chance from the dual weilding scimitar pirate I'm current running around with.
I've been playing a slight variation of this build in the absolutely fantastic Twilight and Midnight modules by Rick Burton and have to say its great.
But a word of warning, it seems that even if you qualify for Divine Might and Shield, and Extra Turning, you can't take them on a CoT level. This has thrown off some of my revisions and is a bit of a pain in the @ss.
But great build anyway!
I have been playing small variations on this build (cleric 12 versus 15) on two PWs over the past 3 months. Here are my comments, but please note - THEY APPLY ONLY TO HIGH MAGIC PWs.
1) Great fun to play. Useful in many situations - healer; secondary tank; buffer; solo specialist; etc. 2) Great for RP. Makes sense and is not weird and contrived. 3) Relies hugely on the CHA based spells. A heavy Dispell Magic and she was toast on most occasions - so weak against high level mages. 4) During long battles against weapon masters and suchlike, she rarely won, because invariable at some stage she had to stop to refresh 2 to 4 divine spells - it simply takes too long. Her great advantage is temporary. 5) As a meleer her AB is below par. That low strength is a real drawback. She needs all her divine spells just to match the punch of a fighter-type many levels below her. 6) Performs very well against undead.
Summary: Superb for a very low magic world - HUGE advantages with the attack and defence provided by the divine spells. But on most of the top-20 permanent worlds which tend to be high-magic, I believe she would unfortunately come off second best.
On the contrary Cheese, you last long post also has a lot of merit. I fully realise that the original build was for an instant level 40 character, not one who has to labour its way up on a PW.
just my opinion, of course.