Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

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TheBlueWizard
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Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by TheBlueWizard » Wed Feb 03, 2021 10:57 am

So, I’ve recently started to get back into Arelith and decided to remake a character I had on the go (could barely remember what he was attempting to be when I made him last August or so).

He’s a Halfling Cleric who is gonna focus on using a sling. Think the build is gonna be like Ranger/Cleric/Bard (or Rogue)

My main query is;

Should I go for a Zen Archery build, really pump up that Wisdom?

Or

Should I go Dex-based, really pump up that ... dextrousnessness?

I’m not too great with builds that are tailored to Areliths unique mechanics, so any input would be great.

The benefits I can seem to gather for both are;

Wisdom Zen Build;

- Higher spell DC’s
- Potential higher ab
- Chance to get decent Divine Might/Shield
- Lot more focused


So, when I tested it myself I found that without having to invest in both Dex and Wisdom for this ranged build, it gave me just about enough left over stats to get about a 16 natural Charisma score, while also attempting to get Power Attack on a Strength lacking Halfling build. I could net myself an additional 9 damage and AC with getting the Divine Shield/Might feats.

Focusing then on Wisdom meant I then got a slightly higher AB than a Dex build (which has so many areas it has to focus on to work), while also getting access to some Epic Spells.

The DC on potentially useful offensive spells was higher, but I’m not sure how valid they are as an option when compared to PvM saving throws and the like. Only one I ever picture as being useful is Storm of Vengeance.

The downside is the AC, I think? The build massively lacks Strength, so I’m not sure if Heavy Armour is the best way forward for it (in terms of not having enough carrying capacity to effectively walk around) I can boost the Dex up with spells/items, but would that make Medium armour worth it (coming of a base 10 Dex stat)?

Dex Build

- Higher AC (maybe)
- ... struggling to think of other pro’s


So, potentially a higher AC. But going with a Dex build I can’t imagine how I could manage to get 13 Str, decent Wisdom for potential Epic Spells, good Dex for AB as well as getting Cha for Divine Might/Shield.

Or would a Dex build and the item and gear options that presents make up for the lack of Divine Shield AC? I’d still miss that massive 9 Divine Might damage, though.

Originally he was going to be a Lolsy kind of Cleric/Rogue style (priest of Brandobaris), were I was gonna invest in all the relevant thief skills (locks, traps, etc). But doing that is impossible as well with the skill point starved Cleric without having to attempt a massive Int dump too. Not to mention I was only aiming for the Open Lock for prank-style burglary RP... but he could never feasibly hit the Quarter lock DC at all, so that’s redundant.


Cheers for any help in aiding a confused person!

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Good Character » Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:44 am

Zen archery all the way. Stick to 27 cleric/3 dip (ranger for bonus feat and FE or bard for tumble and maxed spellcraft or rogue for a bit of sneak attack and tumble and Evasion) or 26 cleric/4 full BAB class like ranger.

I would personally go the Necromancy foci and Mummy Dust so you have bodies to block for you.

Also, remember that more WIS gives you more spell slots. Huge boon.

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by TheBlueWizard » Wed Feb 03, 2021 2:43 pm

Good Character wrote:
Wed Feb 03, 2021 11:44 am
Zen archery all the way. Stick to 27 cleric/3 dip (ranger for bonus feat and FE or bard for tumble and maxed spellcraft or rogue for a bit of sneak attack and tumble and Evasion) or 26 cleric/4 full BAB class like ranger.

I would personally go the Necromancy foci and Mummy Dust so you have bodies to block for you.

Also, remember that more WIS gives you more spell slots. Huge boon.

Cheers for the feedback.

Upon looking at it more, I do think Zen is the only way to go.

I would love to take Mummy Dust, but I think RP wise it wouldn’t sit too well with the character and the broader kind of Halfling sensibility that the character has to portray. Shame, ‘cos the summons would be way more useful to me.

Sorry if this sounds like an Uber noob question as well, but if I was going Ranger to take the Archer path, would I have to take those as my starting class? To enable the path to activate? I’ve read the wiki on it all, and it says that that path can only be activated upon character creation

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Good Character » Wed Feb 03, 2021 3:53 pm

From what I'm aware, yes. Only way is by level 2 with -path. It's better in the long run, anyhow. You get 8 more skillpoints overall going Ranger first.

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Bazelgeuse » Wed Feb 03, 2021 3:56 pm

TheBlueWizard wrote:
Wed Feb 03, 2021 2:43 pm
Sorry if this sounds like an Uber noob question as well, but if I was going Ranger to take the Archer path, would I have to take those as my starting class? To enable the path to activate? I’ve read the wiki on it all, and it says that that path can only be activated upon character creation
You don't have to start as a Ranger to pick the Archer path. When you have two levels in Ranger, using the -path command ingame will bring up the dialogue to select the Archer path, no matter what character level you are :)

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:48 am

Have you considered Cleric/monk for the zen archery build instead?

Reasoning-

Drop Divine Shield (monk wisdom doesn't stack with it, so rather than spending a feat to get temporary charisma AC, simply have full wisdom AC full time - a cleric/monk with a +14 wisdom modifier and a + 8 dex modifier (14 base so you can get rapid shot, +12 gear) has more AC than a full plate and tower shield- and your cleric levels should let you +5 your robes.

You should still take divine might, the damage added to your arrows shuriken will ignore DR.

Use shuriken instead of a sling, and you'll get to use your UBAB for your ranged attacks with zen archery, with the bonus damage from divine power (18 str), aid, bless, divine favor, etc.

You won't have a +16 BAB for 4 base attacks/round. If you split your levels pre-epic correctly, you'll have +15.
Divine Power wrote:Extra attacks per round can be gained by the increased base attack bonus (BAB). The number of extra attacks is determined by the usual progression based on the improved BAB, but each of the extra attacks will be free attacks (starting at full base attack). For example, a level 16 cleric (with a normal BAB of +12/+7/+2) will have, upon casting this spell, base attacks of +16/+11/+6/+16. These additional attacks do not show up on the character sheet.
So, when you go a ranger split, because your BAB is already +16, you don't get an extra attack from the spell. Your BAB at 20 during divine power would become +20/+15/+10/+5.

Whereas with a cleric 16/monk4 split your BAB will go from +15/+10/+5 to +20/+15/+10/+20. Your UBAB, which you use for shurikens, becomes +20/+17/+14/+11/+8/+20, and *THEN* you can haste for ANOTHER +20 at the end of your chain. You can then RAPID SHOT, going from +20/+17/+14/+11/+8/+20/+20 to +18/+18/+15/+12/+9/+6/+18/+18, giving you four attack rolls at +18 UBAB with shuriken, and then an extra 4 attack rolls, which is twice as many attacks two extra APR factoring haste and rapid shot on both builds, and a higher minimum attack roll despite that.

At level 30, all these numbers increase by +5, but you retain the same number of attacks. The real trade-off is that during divine power, 5 of your BAB is magical, so you can only get another +15 to it rather than another +20. You'll get 5 of it from divine favor, one from bless, one from aid, one from prayer, two from battle-tide, which leaves you another +5- which comes from your greater magic weapon spell (suck it, True Strike). Capped AB, during full buff cycle, of 25+20+14(wis mod) = +57/+57/+54+51/+48/+45/+57/+57. (Suck it, weapon focus- or get WF, EWF, and Prowess, and add +4 to all that, because that's not disgusting or anything.)

Higher AC, evasion, more attacks/round at an overall higher AB curve with a crapton of damage bonuses (oh, and if you can get your hands on plain shuriken, you can +5 them to ignore DR). The loss of UMD isn't really that crippling, but you could always still dip bard- I'd lean into more cleric levels though.

You lose the three free archery feats, but remember you saved a feat on Divine Shield. Trade = 2 feats and UMD for twice as many attacks + all the other perks. Last edit- oh, and apparently shuriken also work with flurry of blows here- so you can save the feat on rapid shot, since combat modes are exclusive and they won't stack. Down to one feat lost.
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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by AstralUniverse » Thu Feb 04, 2021 2:00 pm

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:48 am
Whereas with a cleric 16/monk4 split your BAB will go from +15/+10/+5 to +20/+15/+10/+20. Your UBAB, which you use for shurikens, becomes +20/+17/+14/+11/+8/+20, and *THEN* you can haste for ANOTHER +20 at the end of your chain. You can then RAPID SHOT, going from +20/+17/+14/+11/+8/+20/+20 to +18/+18/+15/+12/+9/+6/+18/+18, giving you four attack rolls at +18 UBAB with shuriken, and then an extra 4 attack rolls, which is twice as many attacks two extra APR factoring haste and rapid shot on both builds, and a higher minimum attack roll despite that.
Sounds incorrect to my understanding. You're not taking into account that bonus attacks have their own scaling down in 5s. Even if monk. So with divine power and haste you get 20/15/10/20/15 actually, and if you stack more bonus attacks (Attack of opportunity, flurry, cleave, thunfering rage, kensai, etc etc) they all continue to scale down in 5s. And if Rapid Shot works like Flurry does, the bonus attack is also included in that separate bonus apr progression. So stacking bonus attacks on a zen archer has diminishing return.
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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by thimblegiant » Thu Feb 04, 2021 9:01 pm

Played an Cleric/Monk on Arelith once and by Epic levels was regretting it. It's been awhile so I'm not going to attempt to dissect what went wrong in detail, but I wouldn't do it again. I ended up with a Cleric who couldn't and a Monk who wouldn't, or something like that.

Bottom line is it didn't work as well as I expected given both classes really need your full attention to be effective.

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Ork » Thu Feb 04, 2021 10:52 pm

For reference, free attacks when added follow the -5 AB attack schedule. For instance, for your cleric/monk thrower with rapid shot, your attack progression would look like: +18/+15/+12/+9/+6 & +18/+13/+8. I do not believe UBAB's -3 counts for free attacks, but I could be wrong.

Another example, a barbarian with thundering rage and haste would attack with a pattern of +25/+20/+15/+10 & +25/+20

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Archnon » Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:23 pm

Ork wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 10:52 pm
For reference, free attacks when added follow the -5 AB attack schedule. For instance, for your cleric/monk thrower with rapid shot, your attack progression would look like: +18/+15/+12/+9/+6 & +18/+13/+8. I do not believe UBAB's -3 counts for free attacks, but I could be wrong.

Another example, a barbarian with thundering rage and haste would attack with a pattern of +25/+20/+15/+10 & +25/+20
As a regular monk player I can confirm this. It follows the -5 schedule. With being able to use a shield you don't get much out of monk. If you were using a bow or a crossbow the AC is really nice on the monk dip

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Bunnysmack » Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:37 pm

I keep wanting to do this with a Drow, but keep getting stopped by the fact that all Drow deities available in Arelith are Chaotic Evil (cept the new planar power who....Actually hates drow?), so I can't play a lawful cleric and therefore can't dip monk. How much stronger is the monk variant of zen archer cleric, compared to the ranger dipped version?
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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Aelryn Bloodmoon » Fri Feb 05, 2021 2:07 am

Ork wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 10:52 pm
For reference, free attacks when added follow the -5 AB attack schedule. For instance, for your cleric/monk thrower with rapid shot, your attack progression would look like: +18/+15/+12/+9/+6 & +18/+13/+8. I do not believe UBAB's -3 counts for free attacks, but I could be wrong.

Another example, a barbarian with thundering rage and haste would attack with a pattern of +25/+20/+15/+10 & +25/+20


Went and did some digging- you're correct about the free attacks following -5, but they start at full. There's only two free attacks (divine power and haste), so the only change to the numbers given in my example (ideally 27/3 or 24/6) is that the 8th attack would be made at -5, for +52. The first five attacks come from UBAB, and the sixth comes from flurry of blows.

Edit: oh wait, I see. That's two free attacks from divine power, isn't it?

Thanks for the info, TIL!

I also did digging on ubab and free attacks- only counts for creature weapons. On the thrower it's definitely -5.
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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by TheBlueWizard » Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:42 pm

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:48 am
Have you considered Cleric/monk for the zen archery build instead?
Sadly, Cleric/Monk is a no go for my character. He’s a Priest of Brandobaris, and the alignment’s needed to be worshiping that god are all strightly Neutral.

Changing what god he worshipped would just fundamentally change the character I wanted to make.

Which is a shame, cos I did originally look at Cleric/Monk with Zen cos of the nice synergy with the high Zeus, etc.

But cheers for the suggestion!

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Inordinate » Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:48 pm

TheBlueWizard wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:42 pm
Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:48 am
Have you considered Cleric/monk for the zen archery build instead?
Sadly, Cleric/Monk is a no go for my character. He’s a Priest of Brandobaris, and the alignment’s needed to be worshiping that god are all strightly Neutral.

Changing what god he worshipped would just fundamentally change the character I wanted to make.

Which is a shame, cos I did originally look at Cleric/Monk with Zen cos of the nice synergy with the high Zeus, etc.

But cheers for the suggestion!
Lawful Neutral is still a valid alignment for Brandobaris.
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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by TheBlueWizard » Fri Feb 05, 2021 6:49 pm

Inordinate wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:48 pm
TheBlueWizard wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 5:42 pm
Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:
Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:48 am
Have you considered Cleric/monk for the zen archery build instead?
Sadly, Cleric/Monk is a no go for my character. He’s a Priest of Brandobaris, and the alignment’s needed to be worshiping that god are all strightly Neutral.

Changing what god he worshipped would just fundamentally change the character I wanted to make.

Which is a shame, cos I did originally look at Cleric/Monk with Zen cos of the nice synergy with the high Zeus, etc.

But cheers for the suggestion!
Lawful Neutral is still a valid alignment for Brandobaris.
Ah, crap? Really?

Well, aren’t I just fifty shades of stupid? How the hell have I missed that? Odd that a god of what basically encompasses the Halfling rogue cliches can be LN. Tres bizarre.


Welp, at least that means Cleric/Monk could be an option again!

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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Inordinate » Fri Feb 05, 2021 6:57 pm

Outside of the new Deity Aspects all D&D 3.5 deities allow divine followers to be within one step of the deity's normal alignment.

Also, when in doubt? Check the wiki: http://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Brandobaris
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Re: Help with a Ranged Cleric Build

Post by Gouge Away » Sat Feb 06, 2021 12:29 am

TheBlueWizard wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 6:49 pm
Well, aren’t I just fifty shades of stupid? How the hell have I missed that? Odd that a god of what basically encompasses the Halfling rogue cliches can be LN. Tres bizarre.
It's even odder that Brando clerics can't be CG. But, you can't argue with rulebooks printed 20 years ago.

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