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AD&D 3.5 The Cudgel of St. Cuthbert

First up is the a Version of the War Priest I like to call the Cudgel of St. Cuthbert. This is a Human 5 Fighter/5 Cleric/10 War Priest. While his BAB will not be as high as some of the other characters, he makes up for it with buffs and class feats.

Abilities:
This character is never going to be able to cast spells past the 5th level, so Wisdom doesn't need to be over 15. This character will also not be turning many undead, but needs a 13 for full potential. Skills will not matter that much. Therefore INT can be dump stats. He will most certainly be wearing Full Plate, so a DEX of 13 is fine, this way he still gets the +1 to his AC and can get Dodge. STR and CON are the two most important attributes here. I would suggest putting your rolls in this order:
STR
CON
WIS
CHA
DEX
INT

Skills:
This character does not rely on many skills, most of which would be wasted while wearing Full Plate and using a shield. This character will have at least 3 skills per lvl, and you should max out concentration. Get Diplomacy to at least 8 ranks by lvl 11 and 5 ranks in Sense motive for the prereqs for War Priest.

Level Progression:
For the first level you should choose Fighter. With your three feats I would suggest Power Attack, Cleave, and Weapon Focus: Warhammer

Level two choose Cleric. At this point you get to choose a deity and two domain powers. This character worships the god St. Cuthbert and his two domain powers are Destruction and Strength. Destruction will grant you the ability to smite once per day, adding +4 to your attack, and your caster level to damage. With the Strength domain you gain the ablility once per day to raise your STR one point per caster lvl for a round as a free action. You will also get some great domain spells like enlarge, Bull's STR, and Righteous Might. (+8 STR, +4 CON, +4AC, DR/5 Evil, and one class size up (making your Long Sword a Great Sword in terms of Damage for 2d6 instead of 1d8 for 1 round per caster lvl)

Level Three go back to the fighter. You should have 2 feats for this, one bonus and one fighter. Choose Combat Casting and Improved Smiter (Complete Cleric) for the ability to add an alignment to your smite to overcome DR and an extra 1d6 of damage.

Level Four stick with the Fighter. Nothing much here other than the +1 to a stat. If you have a 12 to your Dex, use it here, otherwise just up your STR

For Level Five up your Cleric lvl to 2. No much happens here other than some more skills and a +1 to your BAB.

Level Six brings another 2 feats. This time go with Weapon Specialization Warhammer and Great Cleave.

Level Seven add another level to cleric. Here your BAB will go to 6/1, adding another attack. You also will get 2nd lvl cleric spells.

Level Eight add a Level of Cleric once more. Add the +1 to your STR.

Level Nine add your final level of Fighter. For your feats choose Improved Critical: Warhammer and Divine Metamagic (Complete Cleric, spend a turn undead for any metamagic feat applied to a spell)

Level Ten get your final lvl of Cleric. You now have 3rd lvl spells.

Level Eleven add your first level of War Priest (Woo Hoo) and from here on out that is all you will take. You will get the Rally domain added (At fifth casting lvl you get Holy Sword (makes weapon +5 and Pure Good {2d6 vs. Evil}) and Rally, which lets anyone under the fear effect reroll their save +1.

Level Twelve you will get another stat point (STR) and another feat. Chose Arcane Disciple to add your domain spells to your normal list. You also get inflame +2 (+2 to all allies vs. Fear/Charm) and a caster level.

Level Thirteen you will get Mass cure light wounds once per day.

Level fourteen you will get another caster lvl, giving you 4th lvl spells, and inflame +4

Level fifteen you will get another feat, chose Extra Smiting (+2 to smiting attempts per day, Complete Warrior). You also get Fear Aura. Once per day you can attempt to instill fear in anything in a 20 foot radius, 1 round/lvl. (Will Save=10+class lvl+modifier)

Level sixteen you get another stat point (Str) a caster lvl, inflame +6, and Heroes feast once per day. (You bring forth a great feast, including a magnificent table, chairs, service, and food and drink. The feast takes 1 hour to consume, and the beneficial effects do not set in until this hour is over. Every creature partaking of the feast is cured of all diseases, sickness, and nausea; becomes immune to poison for 12 hours; and gains 1d8 temporary hit points +1 point per two caster levels (maximum +10) after imbibing the nectar-like beverage that is part of the feast. The ambrosial food that is consumed grants each creature that partakes a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls and Will saves and immunity to fear effects for 12 hours.)

Level Seventeen you get Haste 3 times per day. Spiffy.

Level Eighteen you will get your last feat. (Extra Turning) You will also get another spell lvl, giving you 5th lvl spells.

Nineteen: Mass Heal

Twenty: Your last stat point (Str) another lvl of Magic, Inflame +8, and Implacable Foe (For a movement cost all allies within 100 feet are still conscious at -19, but die at -20. To continue this action the caster must make concentration checks every round.)

So there we have it. The Cudgel of St. Cuthbert.
By level twenty this character should have a BAB of 18/13/8/3.
A Base Fort save of: 11
A Base Reflex save of: 5
A Base Will save of: 11

At least 69 Skill points:
great self and party buffs
and the ability to kick some a**.

As you can tell, this character is not the primary heal, nor the tank. He excels at burst fighting, buffing, and healing in a pinch. With properly timed buffs you can get his attack score at XX and his Damage at XX with the Strength Domain bonus (+11 to STR) Righteous Might (+8 stacking for +19) Minimum you should already have a 21 to your STR, giving you a 40 (Modifier of 15) +1 to attack with Prayer, +1 to attack with Bless or Aid and a +1 from Heroes' Feast. With the spell holy Sword, your weapon is considered a +5 with an extra 2d6 v. evil. If you add smiting on top of this you have an attack score of 55/50/45/40 with 2d6 Blunt and 2d6 Good + 33 Blunt Damage that has a crit of 19-20 x3. 35-57 damage per attack and 105-171 on a crit.

You can twink this character even more by replacing the Warhammer with a Scythe changing your damage to 2d8 Slashing + 2d6 Good + 40 Slashing with a crit of 19-20 x4. That is 42-68 on a normal hit and 168-272 on a critical.

Your AC and saving throws are going to be relatively low for your level, so I would treat this character as a backup fighter. Besides, I don't think anyone will complain about another healer that can buff extremely well and cast Res if things get bad.

Yeah, that is the fun of it.

I don't twink in an actual game, unless I know everyone is going to be twinking. Usually those games are just hack and slash anyway, where the only skills you need deal directly with combat anyway.

No, my love of twinking comes from two things. The first one is because I can. It's like someone who works their tail off to supe up their car. Most likely they are not going to go 180+ miles an hour down the freeway, it is just a matter of pride. Secondly, is D&D Online. Like all multiplayer games, you have to twink to a certain degree to keep up with the end game players, unfortunatly. At first I just used the tried and true cookie cutter builds. I made the healbot and the DPS Fighter/Barbarian. I even made the Ubertank that was the 7Fighter/3Paladin that was all the rage at the time. But I was the first to throw in 2 lvls of rogue at the end. Turbine had a problem with disabling the evasion feat if you went any heavier than light armor, so they just let everyone who had it use it regardless of armor. Soon people found out about this and started to pick up 2 lvls of rogue if they were a ranger, or a barbarian. I was the one who stripped two levels off of the fighter in the build and got evasion. Sure I gave up a feat and one to my ac, but the build was not meant for damage, it was meant to survive anything, and I figured that someone who could take a fireball and not take a point of damage, or spring a trap for no damage when the rogue could not disable it outweighed the +1 to the BAB. Besides, I was able to jack up use magical device because of it, which is one of the things that class is built for in the first place.

So yeah, give me two classes, hell two conflicting classes (as long as they can both be taken, as cool as a Pally/Barb would be, you would have to have a split personallity to play it)

This is relevant to my interests as well since I have a plethora of ebooks and want to know what I should play with.
Case and Point: Totemist/ Ranger (2 weapon)

Ok, I need to read up on the Totemist, I am not familiar with that one.


And Banshi, what are you looking for in the character, more spellcasting or melee? There are MANY options there, including the Dragon disciple, which is just wrong on how bad a** they are.

That's a fact.

PCs with breath weapons? Whew.

That's because breath weapons are awesome.

... But should be reserved solely for use against PCs.

Okay, so my local group has started up another game and I've decided to try something fun. We're starting at first level and I'll be playing a Spelltheif. I'll be in a rather large group with people who have already planned out their progressions up to level 20 kazillion. Being one of the few people actually letting the story drive some of my development, I realize that I will be at a great disadvantage after about the fifth level mark.

Here is what the party already consists of (I think):
1.) An actual Rouge, though he seems to be having a problem staying with the party.
2.) One Ranger who is on the fast track to Bladesinger-dom (Something also about trading his tracking for trap finding.....I'm not sure.)
3.) One Bard prepped to become some Song Master(?) prestige class someday.
4.) One Favored Soul who also plans on swapping with War-Socerer(?) every other level.
5.) One Unearthed Arcana class that acts like a priest but is really a Sorcerer of some kind with a sick. He's got some book holy symbol.
6.) One Totemist......I'm not sure what he's got planned.
7.) One Kobald Rouge who plans on becoming a Trapmaster someday.
8.) One Kobold War-Blade. I'm not sure what that class is but it sound very un-Kobold.
9.) Another Unearthed Arcana class, this time with glowing rings that hover around his neck and wrists. I'm not really sure what's going on there either.
10.) A Scout that can't decide if he wants to also pick up a healing class along the way for some reason or just toss some Barbarian into the mix.
11.) And me, the cute lovable human Spellthief who really has no long reaching goal besides getting her next meal and finding a neat dungeon to explore.


Yes, this is quite the daunting list I know. Really I don't know why we have a role-playing army instead of a nice little party, but.....it's always this way. x_x

Any advise from you guys?
Spellthief likes Charisma and Dex and I have both at 17 and a 16 Intel for good measure. My strength is 15, con 13, and wisdom 12.