Cleric with Rogue splash: Shadar-Kai or Morninglord?

[shawnvw]

To play with my mid-level friends I'm going to create an Iconic, leave the Ball and Chain Garrett, go to Eberron, and level up until I'm Cleric 11/Rogue 2.

I'm trying to decide between a Morninglord and a Shadar-Kai. The Morninglord racial enhancement line would make me a much better healer and undead-fighter.

The SDK is probably an odd choice, but I like the idea of a pierced, tattooed assassin giving up the Goth image and becoming a friendly healer. Call it a flavor build. Maybe more levels of Rogue and fewer of Cleric?

Which build would be more practical overall? Would either have any synergies (or...whatever the opposite of "synergy" is) that are not obvious? What enhancement trees would be best?

Thank you.

[Enderoc]

With your chain attack and healing aura, by your stripes be they healed... I would do a bit more rogue and go dex to damage in order to make the most of your chain attacks. Single weapon fighting with orb. Thing is you will need a Charisma item if not a tome. I would also start with at least 16 intelligence. I would also invest nothing into trap skills. Open locks is another story, it's cheaper to upkeep and is dex based. Remember you need balance to use SWF as well. Do at least the bare minimum there.

So 3 rogue with weapon finesse and SWF using dex to damage with light weapons... Evasion cleric with high reflex and high DCs with the chain attack. I would later go 3 bard for swashbuckler. So 3 rogue, 3 bard, 14 cleric... And you got your Iron Maiden.

[unbongwah]

I'm trying to decide between a Morninglord and a Shadar-Kai. The Morninglord racial enhancement line would make me a much better healer and undead-fighter.
Generally speaking, investing heavy into racial trees makes you a flavor build, since it means taking APs away from the class PrEs, which are usually better. Note I say "usually;" caster PrEs are long overdue for buffs.

Anyway, need more details: are you going for a healer build? Caster spec? Battle cleric? Do you have any gear to pass to this new char or will you be relying on your Iconic starter gear? Etc...

[Hazelnut]

To play with my mid-level friends I'm going to create an Iconic, ...

The SDK is probably an odd choice, but I like the idea of a pierced, tattooed assassin giving up the Goth image and becoming a friendly healer. Call it a flavor build. Maybe more levels of Rogue and fewer of Cleric? ...

I don't have any useful advice for your particular build choice, but I've occasionally thought of doing a similar flavour build starting with the Morninglord. Take it to Eberron and make an Artificer/Cleric. The flavour being a Forgotten Realms novice cleric that was abandoned by Elminster in the Demonweb who managed to escape to Eberron. As far as I can tell there isn't much synergy in that design. Just an Elf with a sun tan and a mechanical dog.

[shawnvw]

Anyway, need more details: are you going for a healer build? Caster spec? Battle cleric? Do you have any gear to pass to this new char or will you be relying on your Iconic starter gear? Etc...

Healer, mainly, but not exclusively. (I want to be able to solo too.)

Since I'm not going all the way to 15th yet, I'll have to buy most of my gear. (I can inherit a few from other characters. Maybe my guild has a loot chest.)

[Jetrule]

Shadar kai then. It is currently alot easier to kit out caster gear than trapper gear and at lvl 15 you can open up a box full of trapper gear loot. Then again if you feel like you can gear up.. go morning lord because +2 to int will be more helpfull tghan +2 to dex. and racial tree has some cheap buffs and full heals for low a.p.

[Saekee]

you want to start rogue at level 1 for skills & unless you are burning a lesser heart, SDK lets you (forces you) to start level 1 as a rogue.
You probably will not use any racials.

[Dewboy691]

I would also invest nothing into trap skills.

DON'T be one of those "players" that have a class that is associated with trap skills and doesn't have them, PLEASE!!! I ran with a person that had 4 levels of Arti and no trapping skills while running on one of my only NON-trapping toons.

As I calm down I realize that everyone has their own play style and as long as you're having fun that's all that matters. Personally, I (along with everyone else in the party) love the extra 30% xp and even more so, I love my loot. Yes, even the trashy stuff. I don't play for the crazy xp/min or if I can lead the kill count. I'm very much a support player, most of the time.

So, there's my partial rant to try to sway you from 'not investing in trap skills'.

[LeadHero5]

that will give you Int for damage. But even with 18 Int, you will get 6 skill points per level. Everything is cross class so you would need 8 skill points to just to keep the trapping maxed. You can dump open locks and buy bells from store and f you know your quests, you could let spot go as well. I was looking at a healing rogue but couldn't justify this build to my goofy static group. For healing bard or druid would be better.


DON'T be one of those "players"
I have one of those rogue splashes but I let them know at the beginning and if they need my spot for a real rogue, I'm good with that.

[Enderoc]

DON'T be one of those "players" that have a class that is associated with trap skills and doesn't have them, PLEASE!!! I ran with a person that had 4 levels of Arti and no trapping skills while running on one of my only NON-trapping toons.

As I calm down I realize that everyone has their own play style and as long as you're having fun that's all that matters. Personally, I (along with everyone else in the party) love the extra 30% xp and even more so, I love my loot. Yes, even the trashy stuff. I don't play for the crazy xp/min or if I can lead the kill count. I'm very much a support player, most of the time.

So, there's my partial rant to try to sway you from 'not investing in trap skills'. There are some builds that utilize aspects of trapper classes that don't even touch traps. One of the perks for both is UMD.
4th level Arty gets elemental weapons right? ( no I don't do that either but there is logic to some of it)

[Gljosh]

I ran a 17/3 SDK Cleric/Rog (plan was 18/2 but I had issues getting traps) and it ran fine. I did a few ETRs and ran as; a caster-heavy in RS and DD-which was ok (I don't recommend it), melee Q-staffer-I really loved this build (some Acro, some RS, and WP).

I chose SDK to not have to use a +1 heart. Plus I was less concerned about a high Int score as I have trap skill swaps (GS Necklaces, Cannith Crafted Rings) and Open Lock was my dump skill-most locked things that are required have keys.

Also, IF you want to do traps Space out the Rogue classes to back fill those skills; Search First (Spot is nice but not as needed as before Traps as static), Disable, Heal, Spellcraft (optional), with Open Lock last (just craft a +Dex +OL item-Ring or Necklaces are great).

[Selvera]

I would recommend Shadar-Kai for this build. While looking at an arcane archer Morninglord cleric sounds interesting, the fact that they can’t get dex to damage with bows and that elf-AA’s are very AP starved (bad if you want to pick up lovelies from cleric AND rogue) means I don’t think a morninglord arcane archer would be any good in the end. I would only consider morninglord if you want the int boost from racial/cores and were doing a mechanic rogue. Keen senses is good.
On the other hand, SDK also have Keen senses, and have a bunch of nice sneak attack dice bonuses guarantees that if you want to invest into the racial tree, there’s at least some enhancements worth taking at all tiers. I’m still undecided on if I like whirling chain or not, but gloom stalker sounds like a decent bonus if you’re going that deep. Also, starting with level 1 rogue is a nice bonus.

For synergies:
Aura is a nice pickup on any melee, rogue included. It does lock out T5s from other trees, which is unfortunate (T5s from rogue trees will bring a lot more damage), but if you want to be primarily a healer, this ability is awesome.
Both of these classes are very happy NOT being the target of enemy attacks. Gear that reduces melee (or ranged if you’re ranged) threat generation will serve both classes quite well.
Rogues get evasion, evasion helps you not die a lot, not dead clerics can heal/res their allies. Boom synergy! (But no really, evasion is awesome if you have the reflex save for it).

Un-synergies:
Clerics often wear heavy armour. Heavy armour is awesome. Rogues don’t get evasion in heavy armour.
There’s pretty much no way a combination like this would ever want to use a favored weapon, so you don’t get those juicy pickups from the warpriest tree (but you can still pick up the juicy 15 HP and 10 PRR if you want!)
There’s really not much in any rogue tree that helps casting at all. (This is part of why I think you’re going melee with a split like this, but maybe a slightly lower level caster with evasion would be worth it).

As for ability to solo, if you invest deep enough into any of the rogue trees, you’ll do enough damage to solo, while having cleric spells are good self-heals which will help with this. Really, as a rogue/cleric you’ll be sort of a jack of all trades master of none.

(For skills, I agree with the poster above with extra emphasis on Search is THE most important trapping skill.)