Holy Black (35 cleric/ 4 pally/ 1 monk)

[simpetar]

Yet another battle priest. Please let me know what you think about it, since this is my first attempt to make such a character.

DISCLAIMER:
This build IS NOT intended for deep hells, if shallow hells at all (not very high AC, AB, discipline, innate cold vulnerability), should do well in most pre-hell areas.

Base race: Human
Subrace: Half-dragon - Black
Leveling progression: 16 cleric 4 pally 19 cleric 1 monk
Alignment: Lawful good

Starting stats:
Str 16 (18)
Dex 8
Con 14
Wis 16 (17)
Int 12
Cha 8 (6)

all stat points go to strength

Feats:
Blooded, Extended Spell, Domain: Fire, Domain: Knowledge
SF Enchantment
GSF Enchantment
SF Transmutation
GSF Transmutation
Toughness
WF Warhammer

EWF Warhammer
Epic Prowess
IC Warhammer
Lightning Reflexes
Great Strength I-III

Great Wisdom I, II
Armor Skin
ESF Transmutation
ESF Enchantment

LSA Tumble, read Divination book
Legendary Reflexes
LWF Warhammer
Great Strength IV
LSF Divination
ESF Listen
ESF Discipline

Skills
Tumble (after LSA)
Discipline (dump at lvl 40)
Listen (dump at lvl 40)
...and you will have one more skill to max and 40 more skillpoints; I am hesitating if I should take Craft Armor + Craft Weapon for better tanking capability OR Concentration + Heal for better casting capbility

One of flaws of this build is obviously serious vulnerability to cold damage, here are some ways how to ameliorate it:
1. Drink dragon blood - easily attainable once your HC toon gets immortal (did I mention I play HC almost all the time? )
2. Spells - Endure Elements, Corona of Cold, Energy Immunity, Energy Buffer, Gate and others
3. Equipment - immunity rings, items with xx/- reduction (like Cold Feet UR boots e.g.), White Dragon Tooth (Uroboros set ammulet, with 20/- cold resistance and Epic Energy Resistance: Cold III feat on it)...
4. Other stuff - potions of elemental shield, Lock of Sune Firehair (errr... in the unlikely case you come over it in hells)

So, that is it, comments, thoughts, ideas welcome.

simpetar

[chirikov]

since the monk level is primarily for the discipline dump (and i suppose a bit of ac if you get totally stripped), you could consider swapping it out for something else, say bard for the option of umd or cot to avoid xp penalties. in fact, you could do something like 4 cot 1 pal to avoid the xp penalty, get a couple free feats and still keep the pally save bonuses (though you lose the free fear immune)

side note - lock of sune firehair is now a set drop in elysium and not a random drop in hells, so its probably even less accessible than as a bur for an hc toon at this point, especially now that you can get burs in rona which is a relatively safe in comparison

[simpetar]

Thanks, nice idea with CoT. Actually, 1 monk level was meant for discipline and listen dump and Evasion (I feel naked without it, but probably drop it for once). Neither CoT, nor paladin can raise Listen, so probably one bonus feat should go for Blindfight -> freeing a feat in LLs (probably LSF discipline, since it is quite hard to get ideal gear in HC), probably changing domain from Knowledge to Trickery (35% conceal is better than 0%) and 43 skill points to spend.
Still, the loss of Evasion...