The 3.5 Cleric Handbook

[AfterCrescent]

Generally speaking, archers in 3.5 are feat tight. It's hard to be an archer and have spare feats in D&D... Which makes me sad, because I love the archer concept.

The skills aren't too bad, honestly, and rapid shot is a pre-req for manyshot, so it's not too bad.  Track and Endurance are your crap feats, but like a lot of PrCs, sometimes you have to take crap feats. I personally like being human and going into Human Paragon. You end up losing 2 CL (1 for HP, and 1 for PR), so you'll still get 9th level spells. But skills are easy, and the free feat can help.  There are other options, of course, this is just my simple preference.

[Omen of Peace]

Air - The AC boost is nice, and the feat does not specify nonmagical ranged attacks like other spells, so this ability blocks ray attacks 50% of the time. That's nice

It says "thrown and projectile weapons have an automatic 50% miss chance against you while the air mantle is active".
Spells are not weapons - they can be weapon-like but tis not the same.

"Any spell that requires an attack roll and deals damage functions as a weapon in certain respects, whether the spell deals normal hit point damage, nonlethal damage, ability damage, or energy drain. Such spells can threaten critical hits, can be used in sneak attacks, and can be used with favored enemy damage bonuses. You can even use a number of combat-enhancing feats from the Player’s Handbook to improve the effectiveness of weaponlike spells, as noted in Chapter 3 of this book. " (Complete Arcane)

[AfterCrescent]

And unfortunately, Complete Champion came after Complete Arcane, so the feats that could affect weapon-like spells don't include any possibilities from CC.

But I do agree that weaponlike spells =/= weapons. Although every DM I've met allows this interpretation, I admit there is merit to the opposite standpoint.  Still, some spells (Icelance, for example) would have this miss chance under either interpretation, I'd argue.

[Omen of Peace]

The wording that includes spells is simply "ranged attacks". Wall of Blades (ToB) or Entropic Shield are known examples of such a wording. Sorry to badger you - and good for you if your DMs allow it ! I'm also always in favor of flexibility - but I think the RAW and RAI are pretty clear. Perhaps you could make it a suggested houserule. Anyone else wants to weigh in ?

I don't have the book with me, but from what I recall about Icelance it could indeed go both ways.

[BowenSilverclaw]

I'll have to agree with those saying that Air Devotion won't help you against spells, since it explicitely mentions Projectile and Thrown weapons. Spells are neither projectile or thrown weapons.

[AfterCrescent]

Fair enough. I'm outnumbered.   I've edited it. Thanks for the critiques; I do appreciate it.

[BowenSilverclaw]

Yeah, it's the fact that it explicitely mentions specific ranged weapon types and not ranged weapons in general, otherwise I would probably have been on your side on this one, AC

[Omen of Peace]

Fair enough. I'm outnumbered.  

Fear our army of two ! 

[BowenSilverclaw]

Fair enough. I'm outnumbered.  

Fear our army of two ! 

Fear us, for we are the warriors of the RAW! 

[Emy]

Spell-like abilities give you an arcane caster level, right? So (a silverbrow human / someone with a dragonmark or the Community domain) could take Obtain Familiar, as long as they have necessary 4 ranks in Knowledge (arcana).

Does this work? If so, is it useful?

[AfterCrescent]

Spell-like abilities give you an arcane caster level, right? So (a silverbrow human / someone with a dragonmark or the Community domain) could take Obtain Familiar, as long as they have necessary 4 ranks in Knowledge (arcana).

Does this work? If so, is it useful?

Nope. As far as I can find, there's no actual "arcane caster level" term defined in D&D. The only logical conclusion to draw is that you must have a Caster Level (a defined term) and it must apply to Arcane spells. Spell-likes are not arcane, by definition. And while creatures may have SLAs and even have set CLs, you don't arguably have an arcane caster level.
However, even if you could argue that, I don't see this feat being useful. Your "arcane caster level" would be too low to be useful.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

You could blow two feats on magical training and practiced spellcaster, but I don't see why you would want to.

[Agita]

Spell-like abilities give you an arcane caster level, right? So (a silverbrow human / someone with a dragonmark or the Community domain) could take Obtain Familiar, as long as they have necessary 4 ranks in Knowledge (arcana).

Does this work? If so, is it useful?

Nope. As far as I can find, there's no actual "arcane caster level" term defined in D&D. The only logical conclusion to draw is that you must have a Caster Level (a defined term) and it must apply to Arcane spells. Spell-likes are not arcane, by definition. And while creatures may have SLAs and even have set CLs, you don't arguably have an arcane caster level.
However, even if you could argue that, I don't see this feat being useful. Your "arcane caster level" would be too low to be useful.

Would Alternate Source Spell and/or Southern Magician work?

[AfterCrescent]

Would Alternate Source Spell and/or Southern Magician work?

Alternate Source Spell would, since you have to already be able to cast arcane spells. Thus you have an 'arcane caster level.' It would not, however, make your caster level from cleric levels into 'arcane caster levels'.  Southern Magician just plain doesn't work

[Slaughterhouserock]

Just wanted to say that this guide has been a great help for me.  I never play clerics(I get stuck as the healer if I do), but needed one for a game I'm running and this made things much easier.  Many thanks. 

[AfterCrescent]

Glad it helped.

Just remember, even if you play a cleric, no one can force you to play the healer. Feel free to write 'cleric' and play a battle priest, with no healing.

[Slaughterhouserock]

Glad it helped.

Just remember, even if you play a cleric, no one can force you to play the healer. Feel free to write 'cleric' and play a battle priest, with no healing.

While true, it was either heal or get bitched at for not doing so.  My old groups weren't exactly pleasant to play with.  After reading through all of this, I would love to give a cleric a shot.  Unfortunately, the people I play with now are all new to the game and would not be able to DM.

[AfterCrescent]

Well I hope you get the chance sometime.   If you're up for it, you might find Play-by-Post gaming interesting.

[Emy]

Spell-like abilities give you an arcane caster level, right? So (a silverbrow human / someone with a dragonmark or the Community domain) could take Obtain Familiar, as long as they have necessary 4 ranks in Knowledge (arcana).

Does this work? If so, is it useful?

Nope. As far as I can find, there's no actual "arcane caster level" term defined in D&D. The only logical conclusion to draw is that you must have a Caster Level (a defined term) and it must apply to Arcane spells. Spell-likes are not arcane, by definition. And while creatures may have SLAs and even have set CLs, you don't arguably have an arcane caster level. However, even if you could argue that, I don't see this feat being useful. Your "arcane caster level" would be too low to be useful.

Maybe. I've looked at it a bit more now. I was going to mention that spell-like abilities that don't have a caster level listed use the character's hit dice, but looking back over the feat, that wouldn't advance the familiar, as it's not based on "caster level" (-- imagine if it were!).

There are two descrete problems that must be solved if a cleric is to benefit from Obtain Familiar.

1) Qualification
To qualify, the character requires a skill (easy), and arcane caster level 3 (not so easy).

2) Advancement
The familiar's effective sorcerer/wizard level is based on "your level in all classes that allow you to cast arcane spells."


First, (1)

For feats or prestige classes requiring a minimum caster level, creatures that use spell-like abilities or invocations instead of spells use either their fixed caster level or their class level to determine qualification.

"Arcane caster level"s are a subset of "caster level", therefore this sentence applies to things that require an arcane caster level. It certainly qualifies. (If it doesn't, then warlocks or other SLA users don't qualify for mindbender, which they are definitely supposed to be allowed into.)

The word "instead" might cause problems (since it could be argued to exclude anyone with any spellcasting capability); however, if the character in question ever used an SLA when they could have used a spell, then they have just used a spell-like ability instead of a spell. It's a somewhat poor argument, but it's necessary due to the unfortunate word selection in Complete Arcane.

Second, (2)

Even if spell-like abilities qualify the cleric, without some way of casting arcane spells as a cleric, the familiar will have 0 levels of familiar abilities.

So I just need a way to get cleric to qualify as a class "that allows you to cast arcane spells" so that the familiar's abilities are actually progressed. Anyspell, perhaps?

[AfterCrescent]

Nope. Anyspell would still be an divine spell. Classes that advance divine casting =/= classes that advance arcane casting. Even if you can get a divine spell to be cast as an arcane, it's still not getting you an arcane caster level. I don't see a way to do this, and, frankly, it wouldn't be worth it with the amount of loops you'd have to jump through and shady interpretations you'd need to slip past your DM.