Warrior-Cleric of Tharmekhul - Build Suggestions?

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Hey all, I'm conducting a gedanken-experiment -- best build for a
flexible non-fighter dwarven warhammer specialist, basically.

So far, my plan is:

Cleric 7 (Destruction, War) / Battlesmith (RoS) 1 / Pious Templar 3.
(take the 4th level Dwarven Cleric racial substitution level from RoS, too).

This yields +1 to hit and +(Wisdom bonus + 4) to damage with
self-crafted warhammer, exclusive of Strength and Masterwork/Magic
bonuses. Assuming a Strength of 18 and a Wisdom of 20 (including
enhancement bonuses) at level 11, with a self-crafted Dwarven
Thrower, this yields something like Attack +17 / 2d8+16 thrown,
with 20/x3 crits. With a simple Masterwork Warhammer, it's Attack +15 /
1d8+13 (+15 two-handed, and Power Attack becomes interesting...)

One could always power up with Cleric and Paladin (Blackguard?)
spells, too.

Feats would include True Believer, Weapon Focus: Warhammer (B),
Brutal Throw, Weapon Specialization: Warhammer (B), Craft Magic
Arms & Armor (B), and I'm not sure what else.

One concern I have (and I'm sure it's shared by many folks playing
dwarven PCs) is the 20-foot movement rate. Boots of Striding &
Springing, and multiclassing to Barbarian for a level, are the
initially-obvious solutions. But neither Cleric nor Barbarian are
favored classes for a dwarf, so that boils down to either Cleric 4
/ Barbarian 3, or dismissing the Barbarian option (which would also
require the character to use Mithral armor construction, so as to
reduce armor encumbrance to "medium").

Another concern is reflex saves (rather, the lack of same).

Anyway... any suggestions? How might you advance the character to 20th?

Donald

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)

Donald Tsang <tsang@soda.csua.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>This yields +1 to hit and +(Wisdom bonus + 4) to damage with
>self-crafted warhammer, exclusive of Strength and Masterwork/Magic
>bonuses. Assuming a Strength of 18 and a Wisdom of 20 (including
>enhancement bonuses) at level 11, with a self-crafted Dwarven
>Thrower, this yields something like Attack +17 / 2d8+16 thrown,
>with 20/x3 crits. With a simple Masterwork Warhammer, it's Attack +15 /
>1d8+13 (+15 two-handed, and Power Attack becomes interesting...)

Whoops. The racial substitution level's Extraordinary ability only
applies to melee attacks with the warhammer, so it's only 2d8+14
thrown...


>Feats would include True Believer, Weapon Focus: Warhammer (B),
>Brutal Throw, Weapon Specialization: Warhammer (B), Craft Magic
>Arms & Armor (B), and I'm not sure what else.

Endurance seems to also be required for the Battlesmith class...

By 11th, a dwarf gets four feats (1,3,6,9), so between True Believer,
Brutal Throw, and Endurance, that leaves one.

One interesting idea is Two-Weapon Fighting (and Oversized Two-Weapon
Fighting at 12th)... how does that compare to Power Attack and, say,
Practiced Spellcaster or Power Throw?


Donald