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How viable is a Human Cleric WIS-based Longbow build? And if so, how would one go about building it?

Some kind of a Cleric/DC Divine Might Cha/Wis-build, maybe? Kjetta's Luthor was like that with a heavy crossbow.

With human (Rather than Half-Elf or Elf) you lose the ability to splash Arcane Archer for some arrows and AB. I understand that racial concepts aren't really the prerogative of the build thread, but it should at least highlight what you're missing, and what you then need to work around.

Zen Archer Cleric builds are pretty solid. Your damage and AB will be really quite high once you've managed the super saiyan buff time. But haven helps a lot with that.

There are generally two methods that its done:
1.) DC Caster Cleric + Zen Archery. In this model, you're maximizing Wisdom, focusing into a single school, and really trying to pump up that AB for consistent damage. When arrows fail, you also have an extremely potent spell selection (That will be probably more effective in PvP than the arrows, while the arrows will be a nice, consistent source of damage during PvM).

2.) The Charisma/Wisdom, Zen Archery Cleric (Divine Might/Shield). It becomes OP with another weapon other than Longbow, but Longbow works well enough. Cleric/DC is your basic combination, with a tumble-dumping class likely inserted. In this model, you're relying on Cleric buffs for all the AB you need, and increasing your damage dramatically (As well as your AC). Its more of a ranged-focus combat style, rather than the Caster who dips into archery. It can be very, very effective-- but takes the greatest amount of knowledge for spell selection, gear, stat arrangement, and gameplay. Its more effective, but more difficult. The end stats on a well-played Cleric are incredibly underrated.

Just build a high-wis cleric with 4 fighter levels pre-epic to push your AB up to 16, for the extra attacks. Cha builds split your ability score focus too much with wis, str (need 13 for power attack and divine might) and cha, I feel. But I could be full of crap as I'm terrible with clerics.

Iron, with your air genasi gnome you'll be suffering multiclass penalty from level 4 onwards if you take rogue at 1st level - multiclass penalty applies when you take 2 or more classes with levels more than 1 apart, but favoured classes aren't counted in this. Favoured class for air genasi is fighter, but for gnome it's wizard (and the subrace will override). Humans and half-elves get their highest level class counted as their favoured. The bonus skill points are nice but you'll have plenty as a high int wizard anyway, and I doubt you'd want the extra 20% grind. Trust me on this, I have many times accidentally stumbled into multiclass penalty and ruined my interest in a character as a result.

Meh, I already decided to go for the 27/2/1 version starting with rogue. I know it's painful, but I've levelled drow too. It's too much potential wasted on the end product otherwise. I am actually several skills short of all I want, so every little bit helps. I guess I could buy every fifth level with DCs to make up for it. :lol:

(Although the cost is still stellar, so I probably won't.) But a wizard should be pretty easy to level up, regardless.

Is it a good idea to just pump Spot and ignore Listen altogether? That would let me get Discipline or AE or something else.

If you can afford to take Epic Skill Focus: Spot, sure. Although with maxed spot and good spot gear you've got a fair chance of catching stealth-fighters who don't max their hide bonus on their PvP gear. Listen's better for overall detection, just too slow to be reliable in combat.

Listen is wonderful for detection, but only viable for combat for a handful of builds. Bards, Monks (You'd have to know when and how to use the buffs).

A bard or monk with the right equipment for listen on top of their combat gear can use 'Combat Listen detection' very, very effectively.

Oh well, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it (at level 29). It would be as much for RP as for combat, but I was primarily curious whether it's redundant to put twice the skillpoints into detection when I could just pick one and get another skill for utility.

Unsure if i'm committing a faux pas here, downright asking for a build but i'm going to go for it anyway.

I'm looking to make a cleric of Jergal, I'd like to have the 27th level repose domain summon to accompany and be able to buff the group up or sling spells so I can pull my weight. I wouldn't mind going melee cleric if the 27th level summon isn't up to scratch (if anyone could shed a little light as to its usefulness I'd appreciate it) Repose and Rune domains would be perfect for me. I'm flexible on anything else. Thanks for any help!

Kamina wrote:

How viable is a Human Cleric WIS-based Longbow build? And if so, how would one go about building it?

21 cleric, 9 monk CAN work. The negative side is a lack of greater dispel immunity and several feats / epic spells short.
23/7 or 24/6 gives much less ac and no improved evasion: but you get what you didn't have above.

Is the difference between those builds in AC only 2 and 3?
21/9 gives 9 wis AC, 23/7 giving 7 wis AC and 23/6 giving 6 wis AC. Does 2 or 3 AC really make that much difference Svensk?

O'Raghailligh wrote:

Is the difference between those builds in AC only 2 and 3?
21/9 gives 9 wis AC, 23/7 giving 7 wis AC and 23/6 giving 6 wis AC. Does 2 or 3 AC really make that much difference Svensk?

It is just that level difference, yes. The extra monk AC comes every five levels, so you won't get any more anyway. But it's a fair difference. Also worth noting is the monk movespeed bonus from 20% to 30% at 9, and slightly improved fists (if it's your melee choice). Not worth 3 CL, though - especially since at cleric 23 you get an epic bonus feat which you can use in Armor Skin for more reliable AC.

Going to rephrase my request for a build into this to keep my thoughts on what I want to know more clear:

A Sorc/RDD build that's heavy RDD, preferrably 20RDD. It'll be Bronze kin and a lightfoot halfling base race.

Probably NG to start, and creep toward LG as it's blood is awakened.

While talking about this with someone they informed me that 10S/20RDD would be a good spread for it, but I'm open to input.

I'm blind as to abilities or feats because I don't know if an RDD is more suited to melee or what kind of combatant they typically are. The Sorc levels are pure base for RDD is fine, they'll be RP'd but I want my character to focus on awakening his dragon blood!

Thanks in advance you beautiful people!

I think 10 dragon disciple is heavy. 20 is just overkill.

How about 9fighter/1bard/20 DD? At least you can hit things with that setup.
18 fighter/2bard/10 DD is way more buff

... Wait, someone said S10/DD20 was good? I'm not sure what I'm not seeing but that build looks *terrible*.

Going only 10 levels in a caster class is virtually useless, and RDD unfortunately doesn't synergise with casters at all since all of its good features benefit melee fighter types more - you could maybe swing a spellsword if you went light on the DD levels, but even then it's a bit of a long shot because DD is a 3/4 AB class. Overall it's not a strong class and mostly for fun/flavour. Most people go DD10 unless they've been around a while and got really invested in the PC/lore. DD20 doesn't give you much more request leeway than DD10, although it's good for a few things.

If you're going an LG type you could always try a Paladin/DD build. I'm not sure of the spread but I imagine it's at least 16 pally levels, which leaves room for 10DD and a bit of sorc. If you're starting with NG, Bard/DD/Fighter (or DC) is a good choice, as bard nets you the requirements and also allows you to grab a tumble dump. Fighter levels push up your AB and give you feat freedom. I used something like... Bard6/DD14/Fighter10, and that was a pretty rough build. DD14 nets you a bonus feat, though you could always take it further at the expense of Fighter if you're super crazy. Bard20/DD10 is probably one of the better DD builds, as you get everything a bard should (including Lasting Inspiration) and the nice goodies that DD has to offer.

The spellsword is something like Sorc21/DD9 and it kind of sucks but you'll do alright as a caster. DD9 makes me sad but not having any epic spells on a caster makes me sadder.

You'll probably get better advice on the various iterations from people who actually know how to build, but yeah. So basically these, though it's not an exhaustive list:

Bard20/DD10
Bard/Fighter/DD
Bard/DC/DD
Paladin/Sorcerer/DD
Sorc21/DD9

Very_Svensk wrote:

I think 10 dragon disciple is heavy. 20 is just overkill.

How about 9fighter/1bard/20 DD? At least you can hit things with that setup.
18 fighter/2bard/10 DD is way more buff

serbiris wrote:

... Wait, someone said S10/DD20 was good? I'm not sure what I'm not seeing but that build looks *terrible*.

Going only 10 levels in a caster class is virtually useless, and RDD unfortunately doesn't synergise with casters at all since all of its good features benefit melee fighter types more - you could maybe swing a spellsword if you went light on the DD levels, but even then it's a bit of a long shot because DD is a 3/4 AB class. Overall it's not a strong class and mostly for fun/flavour. Most people go DD10 unless they've been around a while and got really invested in the PC/lore. DD20 doesn't give you much more request leeway than DD10, although it's good for a few things.

If you're going an LG type you could always try a Paladin/DD build. I'm not sure of the spread but I imagine it's at least 16 pally levels, which leaves room for 10DD and a bit of sorc. If you're starting with NG, Bard/DD/Fighter (or DC) is a good choice, as bard nets you the requirements and also allows you to grab a tumble dump. Fighter levels push up your AB and give you feat freedom. I used something like... Bard6/DD14/Fighter10, and that was a pretty rough build. DD14 nets you a bonus feat, though you could always take it further at the expense of Fighter if you're super crazy. Bard20/DD10 is probably one of the better DD builds, as you get everything a bard should (including Lasting Inspiration) and the nice goodies that DD has to offer.

The spellsword is something like Sorc21/DD9 and it kind of sucks but you'll do alright as a caster. DD9 makes me sad but not having any epic spells on a caster makes me sadder.

You'll probably get better advice on the various iterations from people who actually know how to build, but yeah. So basically these, though it's not an exhaustive list:

Bard20/DD10
Bard/Fighter/DD
Bard/DC/DD
Paladin/Sorcerer/DD
Sorc21/DD9

Yeah I was a little thrown off too because I know next to nothing about playing anything not Rogue or Monk based and looking at RDD just confused me even more so

I'll have to find out what they were looking at and ask them when I get a chance but basically if I'm going heavy RDD I'm going to need to be melee centric which is fine since those feats are pretty easy typically and the Bard/DD build has been posted on here a dozen times.

Though maybe it was 20/10 Sorc/RDD and it -is- an RP build for the most part being as I do love Dragon lore and that seems a bit more realistic, though I think if that's what was recommended I'd switch to Pally/Sorc or Ftr/Bard since I'm really bad at playing casters and it's just not my thing..

Thanks for the input guys!

Anything Is realistic if you can justify it.

But heed my words: "Roleplay" builds may look good in the eyes of DM's and a minority of the playerbase, But what matters is if you will enjoy it.
And playing a 20/10 sorcerer/DD will not be enoyable.

Your spells will be wet noodles.
Your damage embarrassing.
Your attack bonus laughable.

How fun is that?

Since she's getting decent ability bonuses from the DD class and has 20 caster levels, the only thing "wrong" with that build is the lack of EMA for AC and EMD for something to carry her through PvM. She's stuck with Black Blades and they might not be thematically appropriate. It's a RP build, but far from the worst.

A 20th level sorceress with 40 CHA and an epic spell focus is not a "wet noodle".

A subpar spellsword is still a spellsword, so when fully-buffed you'll be competent in PvM. Damage will be fine since you'll have good str and all the damage buffs, AB will be passable as long as you take the right feats seeing as I can get a Sorc/Monk to work, and spellswords aren't DC-based casters anyway (although if you had picked a high cha race, you could probably run a gimmicky S20/DD10 build based upon stacking spell save DCs and then spamming them in combat). But, you lose epic spells and bonus epic feats, so leveling will be fine up until near-endgame, at which point your effectiveness will taper off (but if you don't find yourself needing to grind this may not be an issue).

I don't enjoy spellswords myself because I don't like spending more time buffing than fighting followed by a strained period of counting rounds for the shorter buffs (tenser/mass haste) but if it's your thing (it's apparently not, so moot point) then give it a go. I don't think anyone's tried it.

But seeing as you don't like casters, Pally is a good gateway - from what I know there's a little bit of buffing and timing of rounds-long buffs, but it's mostly straight melee. There's probably a build somewhere in the thread but I don't know it. I'd guess that you're a bit too feat-starved for devcrit, but then, all the DD builds that aren't Bard/Fighter are feat-starved.

If you are more partial to rogues and monks, and not casters, why not try something like monk9/sorc1/RDD18 (28 level build, using strongheart subrace, str based monk build, though your potion dispels will hurt), or rogue11 or 13/sorc1/RDD18 or 16 (30 level build, dex and/or str based sneak, could go for either dev crit type or epic dodge, same issue with easy dispels... which you're not getting away from with sorc 10 anyways). If you don't like casters, and want to play a RDD, which doesn't synergize well with caster anyways, there seems little reason to try to make it a caster.

If you want a caster, and the RDD wings, go sorc20/RDD10. It's not great, the spells fall just short of epic, and are dispel-able, but you at least get the full allotment of spells for self buffing, 8 RDD pre-epic gives you slightly better AB, and you get all the RDD stuff. Dropping a level or two of fighter or paladin might be very helpful in that.
*I'm not great at building casters either*

My request: Great Smiter build. I can't seem to make a decent one... it all just looks so painful. How many great smite feats can you even take with a 30 level limit? Paladin is obviously going to be *leagues* better, but how many can a Blackguard pull off?

Very_Svensk wrote:

Anything Is realistic if you can justify it.

But heed my words: "Roleplay" builds may look good in the eyes of DM's and a minority of the playerbase, But what matters is if you will enjoy it.
And playing a 20/10 sorcerer/DD will not be enoyable.

Your spells will be wet noodles.
Your damage embarrassing.
Your attack bonus laughable.

How fun is that?

That's why I come here, to find the balance where my character can be fun to me but also not depress the hell out of me when I try to play them!

I have no plans to play a caster RDD by any means, so I'll probably do a Fighter/Bard/RDD

My plan:

Race: Human (I really don't use human subraces, and I don't plan to start)
Str: 18 (+ALL THE POINTS)
Dex: 10
Con: 12
Wis: 8
Int: 14
Cha: 10
I don't like min/maxing but my above point, I can't reach my goals buildwise for the character so I'll just adapt into it and own my low abilities ICly. Gave up 1 AC for +2 CHA and another INT point

Pre-Epic (4 Ftr, 1 Bard, 10 RDD, 5 Fighter): 12 Feats total (5 from fighter, 1 from human, 6 from level)
PA, WF, WS, KD, IKD, Blind Fight, Cleave, Great Cleave, Imp Crit, Disarm, Imp Disarm, Toughness

Epic (9 Ftr, 1 Bard): 8 Epic Feats (4 from Fighter, 4 from level)
OCrit, DCrit, EWF, EWS, ArmSkin, Epic Prowess, ESF: Disc, and one more feat

Does this all seem correct? It took me way longer to put this together than it should have.

Edit in: Do to the fact of how long it took me, other people had chimed in without me responding!

My plan for the character is to go melee, someone just off-handedly mentioned the Sorc path and I'm really not interested in Casters of any breed, even the solid PvP/PvM Breeds because I just am not a fan of playing them.

I was hopelessly confused because I'm about the worst builder ever and nothing was making sense to me and combine that with me mis-remembering the spread they had suggested added only to my confusion XD

Don't even try a Smiting BG build - it will just make you cry. For Smiting pally, AFAIK 3 Great Smites is probably the most you should attempt, unfortunately I lost the build I had for it.

CounterPhobia: Looks alright, although I personally wouldn't bother with disarm and expertise. Could use the spare feats to boost saves, or possibly set them aside as custom feats for once the scripting embargo disengages.

serbiris wrote:

CounterPhobia: Looks alright, although I personally wouldn't bother with disarm and expertise. Could use the spare feats to boost saves, or possibly set them aside as custom feats for once the scripting embargo disengages.

Alright! I'm not a huge fan of Disarm but was at a a loss of what to take, so I snagged them. Having too many feats isn't what I'm used to

Looks like I'm ready to roll this character Thursday! Thanks for your direction for this poor lost bastard, I appreciate you guys!

Last edited by Casvenx on Mon, May 12 2014, 11:22 AM, edited 1 time in total.

serbiris wrote:

Don't even try a Smiting BG build - it will just make you cry.

I was afraid of that... but at least it's not just me then!

Disarm can be useful, but really only with a two handed weapon (it takes weapon size into account in the attack modifier). Imp disarm does almost nothing; removing the AoO Disarm draws matters almost not at all if the disarm works anyways, and it doesn't help the attack roll on it. It's also fairly redundant to take both the knockdown feats AND disarm, they serve the same purpose. You could replace those with some save feats?

Last edited by Silvarus on Mon, May 12 2014, 11:06 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Casvenx wrote:

My request: Great Smiter build. I can't seem to make a decent one... it all just looks so painful. How many great smite feats can you even take with a 30 level limit? Paladin is obviously going to be *leagues* better, but how many can a Blackguard pull off?

I never liked great smiters, and they are particularly gimmicky with just 30 levels.

Just go full charisma and never look back.

For charisma builds, BG works just as well as Paladin, if not better due to prestige classes being more permissible in multiclass builds. Everyone who whines about BG:s being bad does not know how to build them.

Improved disarm on a large weapon can actually INCREASE your attack bonus.

Large vs large= -4ab
Large vsmedium = +4/-4 = 0ab
Large vs small =+8 / -4 = +4 ab
large vs tiny = +12/-4 =+8ab

Nevermind, I just noticed something in smiting:

Quote:

This feat cannot be used with ranged weapons.

The idea was trying to make a missile character viable without going AA. Using darts to be specific. Still putzing around with it, but not nearly as interested.

Casvenx wrote:

The idea was trying to make a missile character viable without going AA. Using darts to be specific. Still putzing around with it, but not nearly as interested.

Divine Might based missile characters are awesome. I have heard good things about slings.

Slings also give you street cred. And you can use a shield, which helps gear management. Joon's original version was a Divine Might slinger (David and Goliath) but I decided to rebuild him as Friar Tuck instead when I figured out how.

I think you can safely aim for something like 20/20 Wis/Cha on a Divine Might Zen Archer. It's a fine line between the AB,spell DCs and spells/day from Wis and the Divine Might/Shield power/duration from Charisma, but I would generally err on the side of Wisdom.

20/20 sounds just about perfect. You can probably pull a similar build with paladin or BG as well, though cleric spells sure are awesome.

IronAngel wrote:

I think you can safely aim for something like 20/20 Wis/Cha on a Divine Might Zen Archer. It's a fine line between the AB,spell DCs and spells/day from Wis and the Divine Might/Shield power/duration from Charisma, but I would generally err on the side of Wisdom.

Hmm, that sounds interesting... I had entirely forgotten about Zen Archery.

Out of curiousity, when it says air gensai are immune to drown, does this mean they do not need the gills/crab helmet to do the Alamber sea?

Air/water genasi (and possible water elves) don't need gills ring or the like, no.

Good too know, thank you

So... I kinda want to make a Kobold. But I'm completely at a loss. The -4 STR is really daunting. I've also been thinking if I do make a Kobold, it would be with 9 DD levels or something. Any ideas?

I actually saw this and I like it. Buuuuuuut.... it's hard translating it to a Kobold because of the STR negatives. Sigh.

I know Dustspray had(has?) a dex based Kobold Monk somewhere. STR builds really just don't work on them, trust me, I've tried. With a dex based one you should have reasonably high AC ad 'alright' damage with weapon finesse. I'm not the best when it comes to builds, but that's what I'd do.

Naivatkal wrote:

So... I kinda want to make a Kobold. But I'm completely at a loss. The -4 STR is really daunting. I've also been thinking if I do make a Kobold, it would be with 9 DD levels or something. Any ideas?

I actually saw this and I like it. Buuuuuuut.... it's hard translating it to a Kobold because of the STR negatives. Sigh.

Save up DC's and get dragonwrought kobold. it gets rid of the issues of Str on kobold.
supports and any Dex based character works too.

The -4 Str on Kobold is negated by the +4 Str on Dragon Disciple.

O'Raghailligh wrote:

The -4 Str on Kobold is negated by the +4 Str on Dragon Disciple.

which is a practically useless class for everything else except pushing str to insane levels.

Dex is the way to go. Sneak attack is where the damage is at.

Silvarus wrote:

Dex is the way to go. Sneak attack is where the damage is at.

Having briefly played a light crossbow wielding Kobo I can attest.

So anyways, any help with a kobold xDD build? Because that's what I was looking for. I can easily see the downsides of kobold chars, that's nothign I need help with.

what's the concept?

LE Kobold, likely UD based, Blue Disciple. No idea what even works build-wise, hence why I'm lost.

Naivatkal wrote:

LE Kobold

First things first: Yes!

Secondly, couple ideas you could try is maybe a dex based monk/bard/RDD and have the RDD stat points heavier on Con than STR and go for a tank-like build. Could go unarmed for 'claw based' or even go for Kama user and say it's a pick (Kob's traditionally being miners)

Or you could go for a rogue build, which in all likelihood'll be fairly gimped really. A 20 Bard/10RDD -could- also work if you go for a finesse build of some kind and link the bardic abilities to an inherant magical ability due to the Draconic heritage etc etc.

Not sure if it would work but a 20 Cleric/10 RDD might be cool too, lots of buffs to try get over that STR deficit, probably not too great thinking about it.

Or you could try some kind of spellsword Sorcerer/RDD build, but that's liable to run into the same issues as the Cleric build.

I personally would go for the monk build, but again I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination when it comes to these things more general concept ideas than anything.

Yeah that's basically what I was thinking, haha.

Sorc/DD isn't a bad idea either, given Sorc is the favored class for Kobos.

DEX based Monk/DD was what I was considering, though. Once someone reminded me that kobolds can't use qstaffs XD

dayfer wrote:

Not sure if it would work but a 20 Cleric/10 RDD might be cool too

Bard or Sorc if you want RDD. So no, it would not work.

Well, 20 Cleric/1 Bard(Sorc)/9 DD would, at least.

Guardian wrote:

dayfer wrote:

Not sure if it would work but a 20 Cleric/10 RDD might be cool too

Bard or Sorc if you want RDD. So no, it would not work.

... This is why I shouldn't give build advice :s
But yeah 20 Cleric/1 Bard(Sorc)/9 RDD would indeed work, dunno how well mind but...

Anyway, if you wanna discuss chromatic dragon funsies just drop me a PM.

Meh. Cleric with rdd is just weird.

Just for funsies I'd do bard/rdd/bg, dex based. Could be cool if built properly.

Guardian wrote:

Meh. Cleric with rdd is just weird.

Just for funsies I'd do bard/rdd/bg, dex based. Could be cool if built properly.

This sounds pretty interesting actually. As little bard as possible since you won't have room for that delicious 20 bard anyways and then some RDD and lots of BG. Should work either str, dex or charisma based.

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