Author Topic: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?  (Read 19575 times)

Offline Iainuki

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #20 on: October 26, 2013, 10:50:55 AM »
2) My DM will interpret defenseless and helpless consistently and fairly over time, I trust that, and I trust that the players will be fine recognizing that one way of ending a combat comes with a cost.

You know your group.  FWIW, Vow of Nonviolence cripples some character concepts as well as cutting off a very useful set of tactics, so it would be polite to ask them first.

As for what you want, I doubt it can be done.  Your restrictions mean that you won't hit gray guard 10 until 17th level.  At CR 17, you're looking at monsters that have ~244 HP (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869122/Optimization_By_The_Numbers).  With unrestricted spell access, it's not very hard for optimized casters at that level to one-round enemies by using action multiplication with SoDs and similar spells, much less all the other ways that casters can break the game.  Effective characters whose offense consists of doing damage need to be able to two or three round enemies at a minimum.  As for your side, you aren't even close.  Let's plug in some numbers.  Under ideal, extremely unrealistic conditions, you'll have +16 BAB at 17th level.  (That would mean all your classes other than apostle of peace have to have full BAB).  I don't know what your stats are, but assuming you start with a 16 Str and prioritize Str in Vow of Poverty, you have 16 + 6 + 4 = 26 Str, for a +8 Str mod.  You also have a +4 enhancement from Vow of Poverty.  With monk unarmed damage (which violates the full BAB assumption), you're looking at an attack routine with flurry of +26/+26/+21/+16/+11 with 1d6 + 12 damage.  Your character has crazy MAD so your Cha mod is not going to be good, let's say it's +2 which will require good rolled stats.  Your best possible smite adds +16 damage, and you get a maximum of 4 smites.  One round a day, your attack routine is then +28/+28/+23/+18/+11, dealing 1d6 + 28 damage per hit except for the last one.  Mean monster AC around CR 17 is a little higher than 28, but I'll call it 28.  That means your smite nova expects to deal ~100 damage, less than one half the HP of an average monster, under unrealistic, unworkable assumptions.  That's for one round a day.  The rest of the time, your damage will be less than half that, maybe ~44.  Also, many monsters at CR 17 have some kind of DR that you will have trouble negating without someone else from your party buffing you in combat.

Since your class levels are mostly locked, you have to look elsewhere for damage.  Apostle of peace has virtually no buff spells that improve damage.  (The whole list is prayer, good hope, and greater aspect of the deity, I think.)  Even if it theoretically did, you wouldn't be able to cast them because you only have access to 6th-level spells at 17th level.  Vow of Poverty prevents you from using magic items, unless you plan to start using magic items at 17th level and your DM will give you full wealth by level to spend.  (See further discussion below.)  That means you have, basically, feats to increase damage.  Your best shot is probably Superior Unarmed Strike (TB) and avoiding monk, which will get you a base 2d6 at 17th level.  RAW, Superior Unarmed Strike is unaffected by character size, but that's ridiculous, so you should still be able to stack effective size increases for unarmed damage to add some more damage.  You can also add Snap Kick for the extra attack since you can't flurry with no monk levels.  You can't get the good BE feats for increasing unarmed damage because you can't take enough monk levels for ki strike (lawful).  There are a variety of other feats that increase damage, either unarmed or while smiting, but nothing that's going to swing your damage enough to make it competitive, especially outside your 1 round smite nova.  Other feats will help with but not eliminate your problems with DR.

Even an unenchanted ward cestus is a violation of Vow of Poverty because it's an exotic weapon, and the main point of using one is that you can use weapon mods with your unarmed attack, which requires enchanting it.  (IMO, you can't flurry with it because it's not a monk special weapon.)  If your DM does let you have all of the Vow of Poverty benefits and full 17th-level wealth, that will go a ways to making your character more effective.  That said, you will need a way to add weapon mods, whether ward cestus, scorpion kama (MIC 201), the Savage Species item, or something similar.  This will help less than you might expect since weapon mods aren't that great at improving damage in general and some of the better options are barred to you because you don't have sneak attack or rage, but it will help.  I doubt it will help enough because the damage gap is so big.  I hate to be so pessimistic, but I don't see how to do what you want given the constraints of your build and the system.

As for the other aspects of your character, I have a few other comments.  Your spellcasting is hurt enough so that it's not going to bring you very much utility or do much to help in combat, even with healing.  The skill Heal is frankly almost useless no matter what you do with it, and I kind of doubt you have the skill points to support it on top of the other things.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2013, 09:54:33 AM by Iainuki »

Offline davethebrave

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #21 on: October 26, 2013, 03:28:25 PM »
Ok, your comments have me rethinking the concepts involved, so maybe instead I go with a "the divine will moves through me" justification for violating instead of roughing people up (man I liked that mental image though, AoP breaking dudes' jaws), and it could be some kind of action multiplication cloistered cleric? I don't know what that would look like, I only recall seeing it done with arcane casting.
Yours,
Dave the Brave

Offline Iainuki

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #22 on: October 27, 2013, 10:19:39 AM »
There are a couple of ways clerics can break the action economy, but really only one that's unique to them.  Divine Metamagic (CD) (Quicken Spell) is less popular than using Persistent Spell, but it's as or even more powerful when combined with the right combat spells.  They can use methods available to everyone like the belt of battle (MIC).  They can also use backdoor methods to get the same spells that everyone else uses.  The Trickery domain gets time stop and the Animal domain gets shapechange, for chronotryn and choker nonsense, in the core, and there are other domains outside the core that give access to the same spells.  The Spell domain gets you anyspell (SC), which you can use to cast celerity (PH2) with dazing immunity just like a wizard.  One final addition that can make all other action abuse even more ridiculous is ruby knight vindicator (TB), a PrC that lets you burn turning attempts for extra swift actions.  It costs some caster levels, meaning less powerful spells to back it up, but can create some truly terrifying action novas.

As for what you do with your extra actions, it's really your choice.  The best and most straightforward option is slinging SoDs and no-save-just-dies, which the cleric spell list has in abundance.  You can also do other casting-oriented stuff like summoning, buffing, or debuffing---while clerics aren't as good at some casting roles like battlefield control as druids and wizards are, they're quite competent at others.  You can also use action multiplication with weapons, but as always, dealing damage with weapons is an inferior mode of offense compared to spells , and making a caster that does enough damage with weapons is a nontrivial optimization problem, especially a divine caster.

I'm not entirely sure what you're thinking of now, so if you want to link to something that provides an example, that might help clarify it for me.

Offline Captnq

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #23 on: October 27, 2013, 05:00:56 PM »
I know you are REALLY trying to make this work, but... maybe it's time to walk away?

Hardest thing I ever do is walk away from something I've created. I've got folders full of ideas and plots that never saw the light of day. I have to create 4 adventures for every one I actually run. Why? The players ignore the NPCs, the Plots, the adventure, the treasure, the You-Name-it.

However, because I refuse to force the players to go where I want them and I discard that which does not work and only use the material that does, my games are awesome. 8 years, every week. No pause. They keep coming back for something. It sure ain't my personality or company. I'm a fuckin' asshole.

If I get too attached to a concept, I forget it. If I like an NPC, I kill 'em. If I really really REALLY want the players to stick to a plot line, I abandon it. It's about RESULTS. It's about the STORY. The stats are actually, in my opinion, unimportant. When I'm making the story for myself and nobody else, nobody wins but me.

This sounds like one of those times. The story is about you. Now, you ARE a player. You get to tell your own story. But, there are a few other cast members and I don't think they're gonna be too happy with the parts they need to play in your narrative.

Here. Consider a HOSPITALER/GRAY GUARD. You can just role-play out all the flaws you want to play and you don't have to worry about them coming back to bite you in the ass. Just a thought.
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Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #24 on: October 28, 2013, 07:01:23 PM »
... however, if large doses of cheese are OK
Paladin 2 / X 2 / Grayguard 10 that Rebuilds
is a Pal 2 / Grayguard 10 / AoP 1 / OA Maho caster 1
with choosy level placements for AoP and Maho.
Not much to write home about before, but then
you + DM get a debate about what happens.


It is possible to wait on the Vows, and instead
role a lot, with a very low items build.
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Offline davethebrave

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #25 on: October 30, 2013, 05:02:39 PM »
Hmmm, yeah, I guess there's not many ways to min/max a gray guard AND have the AoP levels do anything worthwhile. I thought I might be missing something that I'm just not aware of that'd let me cheese it, but if not...should I make a new thread for a gearshift or could people help me here with the change?

I can always, as captnq suggests, RP someone who has taken vows of poverty, peace and nonviolence without taking the feats or dipping into AoP or any of the other things that might tick off a party (I actually don't think it would make anyone in this game upset that I was AoP useless, we have a big party with a lot of roles covered and a slack DM)...that said, I DO want to be able to hard break Paladin vows (eventually) with little to no consequence, and still remain at least somewhat impactful in combat.

I imagine the combat with this character, when it eventually starts going down, to be a single-minded, blinders on, 1v1 smite party on the biggest, toughest baddies. From a character motivation perspective, if a foe is serious enough for the divine forces to flow in a violent way through the character towards that foe, it's time to hit them as hard and fast as possible, over and over again, until they are subdued (or, if tragically necessary, killed). I don't really know how to represent that in combat for a GG 10, I guess? If I'm already sacrificing rules for story though, maybe I could just min/max that combat concept and then RP it as if I have become deluded into thinking my CN violence party is LG Paladinhood? I'm not sure how far out of the concept I want the rules to be for shoehorning purposes or vice versa, but I guess my hope is to be effective enough in combat to actually pull off smacking the villain of the piece into next week. Whether or not I like that or feel tortured about it, as a character, doesn't need feats or AoP levels, necessarily...I just liked the idea of it!
Yours,
Dave the Brave

Offline Rebel7284

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #26 on: October 30, 2013, 05:10:40 PM »
You can enter Grey Guard early with Favored in the Guild thing.  That allows you to break your vows a level earlier.  May still be too little too late.

Edit: http://dndtools.eu/feats/cityscape--53/primary-contact--2239/
« Last Edit: October 30, 2013, 05:17:17 PM by Rebel7284 »

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #27 on: October 30, 2013, 06:02:30 PM »
"This whole damn multiverse hates me, so I've gotta use Glitterdust.  Forgive me oh merciful one."


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Doh!
Illithid Savant could do it way earlier.  Way way earlier.
Just have to go to Sigil, and find a +Gray Guard 10 NPC
diplomance them into letting you eat their brain with a
contingency Heal all ready to go.  That's so LG Brain Eating.
It's only those CG weenies that want Brain Eating + Free Will.
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Offline Rebel7284

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #28 on: October 31, 2013, 03:06:52 AM »
"All we want to do is eat your brains.
We're not unreasonable; I mean no one's going to eat your eyes"

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #29 on: October 31, 2013, 04:17:03 PM »
" ... and you'll get your Brain back,  We PROMISE !!"
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Offline Iainuki

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #30 on: October 31, 2013, 04:20:19 PM »
I'll start with some general comments about the situation.  Much of the BE material is not well thought-out or well written, and its moral philosophy is screwy at best.  The Vows of Poverty, Peace, and Nonviolence are probably the worst examples, though that book is so filled with badness I'm not really sure.  Part of the problem is that all three go against the basic structure of the game: player wealth is a huge part of player power in 3.5 (for non-casters, it's actually the majority of their power), and D&D in all versions is a game about killing monsters and taking their stuff.  When you violate those assumptions, you get trouble, and that's exactly what the Vows create.  Vow of Poverty is constructed so that arguably doing very ordinary things like climbing a ladder is a violation of the vow.  Vow of Nonviolence forces a code of conduct on the rest of your party, which is always a roleplaying no-no and is just as bad as frenzied berserker in disrupting intraparty harmony.  Mechanically, the same three Vows are crippling.  Vow of Poverty replaces some of the numerical bonuses you would get from equipment, but characters need abilities like flight as much as they need numerical bonuses, and for non-casters equipment is the only way to get those things.  Vow of Nonviolence's save DC bonus only works against humanoids and monstrous humanoids, and many monsters aren't either.  Vow of Peace gives no offensive benefits at all, defensive benefits that are marginal at best, and prevents you from harming most everything, even creatures like illithids that survive on sentient creatures' brains.  I'd actually say that core paladin's code of conduct has the same problems as the BE's Vows, just a less severe version of them because it fits better with D&D's milieu. 

Because of all of these problems, I'll give you the same advice I give everyone:  if you want to roleplay a character concept like "pacifist," stay well away from the BE's implementation of the concept because it sucks.  Poverty as a character concept frankly just doesn't work in D&D, you take an unavoidable power hit because the system doesn't support it.  From what you've said, your concept doesn't even require poverty, except for apostle of peace, so the only thing that Vow of Poverty is doing is screwing you for no reason.  You mentioned some of the ways to play a pacifist while not taking anything in the BE before, and those all work better from a mechanics standpoint than the BE feats.  Much the same can be said of gray guard, because mechanically, gray guard is a weak and poorly-designed class.  The signature ability doesn't arrive until level 10, so for most of your career, you're going to be a paladin who's periodically losing all your class abilities and getting atonements to get them back.  Meanwhile, gray guard gets in 10 levels 2 smites/day, 5/10 spellcasting advancement, debilitating touch which is  inferior to other methods of sickening enemies, devastating touch which is all but useless, a competence bonus to some skills that won't stack with a circlet of persuasion's bonus to the same skills and more, and justice blade.  I'd rather have core paladin's full spellcasting and mount advancement, and the same 2 smites/day, than any of those things, and core paladin isn't good.

The best mechanical implementation of your concept is going to be for you to build a good character, then roleplay a code of conduct that makes you as useless as you want on top of that.  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TechnicalPacifists are a thing in fiction, they show up all over the place.  Figure out for yourself how pacifists deal with creatures that need to other creatures' brains to survive, separate the mechanics from the code of conduct, and it will be much easier to do what you want.

Offline davethebrave

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #31 on: October 31, 2013, 05:01:38 PM »
Yeah, the poverty part of it was just something I had tried to include because of AoP prereqs, so if I'm dropping poverty I can still be a pacifist as much as possible, but again the combat concept isn't pacifist at all.

To reiterate for clarity: whatever it is I end up doing, RP-wise, mechanically my desires are to be able to zero in on one foe, hit them no matter what, hit them many times and inflict lots of damage per hit, and while the flavour would be nice if it were divine, I'm not married to the paladin at this point. That's why I was asking if I should start a second thread, because now I'm just wondering how to maximize the mechanics of dramatic big bad enemy/leader enemy kills in melee, since I know how I want the mechanics to look when this character does break from the pacifism, whereas before I was just trying to figure out what would be the best possible version of the AoP/GG combo, thinking it might be possible to cheese it enough to stack damage bonus upon damage bonus in an effective way.

Since it's not, I think I just want to go with whatever lets me get face to face with things that want to eat faces and smash it with holy power until it stops wanting to eat faces (lethally or not is really up to how bad it wants faces). Is the paladin hopeless, or could the right combination of feats and PrCs make my smites worthwhile? Should I just go with better damage output from somewhere else and flavour it "holy"?
Yours,
Dave the Brave

Offline Keldar

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #32 on: October 31, 2013, 11:30:50 PM »
Paladin is pretty darn terrible.  (Pathfinder version at least makes Smite Evil good for what you want.)

Have you considered starting as a buffer class then transitioning to butt whooping?  A few levels of Bard (Divine ACF optional) allows you to be a useful pacifist starting off, Inspiring courage and tripping or flanking.  Then later you can grab Dragonfire Insperation to add asskicking and go into a Bard PrC like Warchanter or Crusader with White Raven Tactics for effective holy butt-kicking. (Batman)  Fochlan Lyricist would be another good PrC for that kind of transition too, starting off anemic then gaining combat power later in the game. 

If you really want something from BoED, Fist of Razeel, or Champion of Gwynhryff can add power to a weaker character.  The latter gets all of the best cherries of a Barbarian and a Paladin with none of the pits.  Divine wrath at all the injustice you encounter transforms your mild mannered reporter into an engine of destruction.

Or being in Eberron, you could use Exorcist of the Silver Flame to go from Cloistered Cleric (or Archivist) into a Paladinesque powerhouse.  Obviously taking Knowledge Devotion as part of the transition.

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #33 on: November 01, 2013, 03:41:04 PM »
hmm ... mimicking a VoP build could work.

Try some No Items build and take all your treasure back
to whatever Town, get spellcasting services in return. 
This is what VoP is supposed to do anyway, right?
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Offline davethebrave

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #34 on: November 01, 2013, 08:02:29 PM »
hmm ... mimicking a VoP build could work.

Try some No Items build and take all your treasure back
to whatever Town, get spellcasting services in return. 
This is what VoP is supposed to do anyway, right?

Not trying to replicate Vow of Poverty anymore, as I said in my most recent post on the thread.

Keldar: Of your ideas, the one most appealing to me is Exorcist of the Silver Flame out of Knowledge Devotion Cloistered Cleric. Would you recommend just continuing in Cleric after the PrC, or is there another PrC I could be taking to cheese it out even further and leave Cleric at 5 levels?
Yours,
Dave the Brave

Offline davethebrave

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #35 on: November 01, 2013, 09:04:36 PM »
Browsing around Complete Champion, I read (maybe for the first time) the Ordained Champion class...that might do REALLY nicely! Are there any recommended magic items for a Cloistered Cleric/Ordained Champion/Exorcist of the Silver Flame you could steer me towards outside of the DMG?
Yours,
Dave the Brave

Offline Keldar

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #36 on: November 01, 2013, 09:26:59 PM »
Start with the standard Cleric recommendations and Bunko's

Belt of Healing deserves mention just for making Cure potions pointless.  And later, Belt of Battle helps break the action economy for everyone.

Offline davethebrave

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Ordained Cloistered Exorcist of the Silver Flame Build v. 1.01
« Reply #37 on: November 01, 2013, 10:49:20 PM »
Ok, here's the preliminary

Some of this is Dragonmark stuff, but I'm not married to having a Dragonmark. I was toying around with a war orphan Deneith fostered by the Silver Flame as the origin story behind my Silver Flame devotee, but I can keep the idea without needing to have a Dragonmark.

Human: Able Learner
Cloistered Cleric 1: Least Dragonmark, Law Devotion (flawfeats: Mark of the Recovery, Sentinel Stance)
Fighter 1: Weapon Focus (longbow)
Cloistered Cleric 2: Knowledge Devotion
Cloistered Cleric 3:
Cloistered Cleric 4:
Ordained Champion 1: Practiced Spellcaster (Cloistered Cleric), Power Attack (swapped for Law ability)
Ordained Champion 2:
Ordained Champion 3:
Ordained Champion 4: Smiting Power (possibly Dragonmark Smite?)
Ordained Champion 5:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 1:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 2: Holy Warrior
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 3:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 4:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 5: Awesome Smite
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 6:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 7:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 8: Persistent Spell
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 9:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 10:

As I said earlier in the thread, trying to maximize my smiting! I'll be using a longsword, but the prereqs for OC are explicit, so WF (longbow) it is.

Any suggestions, comments, questions, critiques?
Yours,
Dave the Brave

Offline Iainuki

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #38 on: November 02, 2013, 12:25:26 PM »
Some random brainstorming: the highest per-round damage in the game comes from the charging combinations, and mounted charging has an interesting synergy with smiting because the multipliers you get from wielding a lance, Spirited Charge, etc. multiply your smite damage so even without Power Attack you can achieve some high damage numbers.  I don't know if there's a way to make an actual build out of this, but I'll throw out some ideas and the links between them.  The big problem with mounted combat is that if you're Medium, you need a Large mount that can't always fit inside wherever the party might be exploring.

The two premier smiting classes are ordained champion, which you found, and fist of Raziel (BE).  There are some other classes that advance preexisting smites like the Destruction domain's, but none, as far as I can recall, that advance spellcasting and a previous smite at the same time.  Exorcist of the silver flame is also a worthy addition to either.  As far as mounted combat goes, the feats you want are Mounted Combat, Ride-By Attack, and Spirited Charge.  For charging, you can probably do without pounce, not that it wouldn't help to create a truly awe-inspiring smite nova, but you still might want the standard charging feats, Power Attack and Shock Trooper (CW) with its prerequisite Improved Bull Rush, to add even more damage.  You can take Leap Attack (CAd) but it's only useful when you're not mounted so it would be a backup feat for when your main schtick doesn't work.  The two classes that give good bonus feats and advance divine spellcasting are ordained champion, again, but you have to swap out domain granted powers which you may not want to do, and hospitaler (CD), which conveniently has Mounted Combat and Ride-By-Attack as prerequisites.  One other class you might want to take a look at is prestige paladin (UA/SRD), specifically because of the spell rhino's rush (SC 176-177) if your DM would allow you to take it, which adds another charge multiplier.  The valorous weapon property (UE) also adds another charge multiplier.  For a different approach, the White Raven discipline (TB) gets a stance that adds to charging damage and several maneuvers that also add fixed damage on a charge that you can probably multiply with all other stacked multipliers, with ruby knight vindicator advancing both White Raven maneuvers and initiator level and divine casting, as well as providing some very useful abilities especially since it's quite possible you'll end up with a swift-action overload---ordained champion's smite's big disadvantage is that it takes a swift action, meaning you can't nova it and can't use it while casting a swift-action spell at the same time.  Finally, if you're planning on investing a lot into your Cha, which is not impractical because of your insane starting stats, marshal has an aura that adds Cha to charging damage.  I don't know much about Eberron deities, domains, etc. so it will be up to you and your DM to see if any of these things can work together.  Technically, RKV is Wee Jas, ordained champion is Hextor or Heironeous, fist of Raziel is Raziel, and so on.

The best mounted weapon for this is clearly a lance because of the multipliers.  You can also use it one-handed while mounted if you're not using Power Attack for sword-and-board since your Str bonus is pretty negligible on top of all the other modifiers you have.  Other than that, there's an argument to be made that going with something with a good threat range (18-20) with a scabbard of keen edges will give you another multiplier some of the time, especially if you have fist of Raziel's auto-confirm-on-a-smite-ability.  Alternately, you can get some fairly ridiculous damage by combining a smite with a weapon with a high multiplier, x3 or better x4, and surge of fortune (CC 128-129) to force a natural 20.  IMO, there are very good reasons for using a reach weapon unless for some reason you can't, and since none of the other reach weapons bring much to the table for you, I'd just use the same lance mounted and unmounted unless you're looking at criticals.  If you use the same weapon, you can also just stick merciful on it once if you want less violence as an option.

As for getting a worthy mount, the best choice is always Leadership if your DM will allow it.  Beyond that, you can always purchase mounts.  This can be a fairly reasonable alternative at lower levels, but at higher levels of purchaseable mounts only the steelwing (MM5 168-169) can really survive melee, and it's Huge.  (Clerics of appropriate alignment can animate serviceable mounts but this isn't an option for your character.)  IIRC, there are some magebred mounts and the like in Eberron that could work pretty well.  The summon monster spells can get you temporary, largely-disposable mounts starting at about III.  With a cooperative DM, the planar ally spells can be good ways of obtaining mounts that can survive combat conditions.  Prestige paladin will get you access to the special mount feature without hosing your character, but unfortunately it's hard to progress special mount without taking more class levels and there aren't many good feats to boost it without investing class levels.  The Mount Handbook, http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=25.0, has more ideas.

I am not at all impressed by Dragonmark Smite, Smiting Power, Silver Smite, Improved Smiting, Exalted Smite, or basically any of the other smiting feats you have access to except for Awesome Smite.  (Other smiting feats can be good, for instance Devoted Inquisitor which takes sneak attack.)  I recommend Awesome Smite because it handles two banes of weapon-users at the same time, DR and concealment.  From an optimization perspective, I don't see much that a Dragonmark is doing for you, but I'm not familiar with all the Eberron material so there may be something I'm missing.  Mark of Recovery and Sentinel Stance in particular are terrible feats.  As for your other feat choices, I approve of Practiced Spellcaster and Holy Warrior but note that your build as-is is not legal because Persistent Spell requires Extend Spell, and you can't swap the Law domain's granted power for both Law Devotion and Power Attack (or at least, there's no way I would allow that).  You definitely want Extend Spell anyway at some point for 1 hour/level spells like GMW and magic vestment.  You may want Quicken or Persistent Spell, though you're approaching swift-action overload with the former and the latter doesn't come into play until quite late without Divine Metamagic abuse.  If you want to break the game, Divine Metamagic is always a strong option for that.  Craft Wondrous and Craft Magic Arms and Armor are solid choices if your DM lets you use them to break WBL or won't let you pick arbitrary magic items without them.  I question Knowledge Devotion: while cloistered cleric has the Knowledges in-class and the skill points you need to buy them all, the rest of your class levels are probably going to be 2 + Int skills with more restricted Knowledge access.  You're effectively spending two feats (Able Learner and Knowledge Devotion) plus a ton of skill points for that bonus to damage, and I doubt it's worthwhile.  To me, the Knowledge domain's power looks like a prime candidate for swapping via ordained champion, and then just skip Knowledge Devotion.  I'm not even convinced that cloistered cleric is worth it for you since BAB is vaguely important for prerequisites.  Law Devotion is a good power for all weapon-users; Protection and Good Devotion can be useful under some circumstances but I'm not convinced you need either of them.  None of the Silver Flame domain powers are particularly useful to you, though you may want to look at the spells still.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2013, 06:25:20 PM by Iainuki »

Offline davethebrave

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Re: [3.5, Eberron] Apostle of Peace/Gray Guard Build?
« Reply #39 on: November 02, 2013, 06:21:37 PM »
How's this?

Human: Extend Spell
Cloistered Cleric 1: Law Devotion, Mounted Combat (flawfeats: Ride-By-Attack, Spirited Charge)
Fighter 1: Weapon Focus (longbow)
Cloistered Cleric 2: Power Attack
Cloistered Cleric 3:
Cloistered Cleric 4:
Ordained Champion 1: Practiced Spellcaster (Cloistered Cleric), Improved Bull Rush (swapped for Good ability), Shock Trooper (swapped for Knowledge ability)
Ordained Champion 2:
Ordained Champion 3:
Ordained Champion 4: Leadership
Ordained Champion 5:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 1:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 2: Holy Warrior
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 3:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 4:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 5: Awesome Smite
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 6:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 7:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 8: Persistent Spell
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 9:
Exorcist of the Silver Flame 10:
Yours,
Dave the Brave