Feat Advice Please

[Lord_Balon]

I've got a 7 clr / 1 ftr toon (this is my first toon) which I'm considering swapping out feats on. This is what I've currently got

Lvl 1: Least dragonmark of Warding
Lvl 1: Two handed fighting (Ftr bonus)

Lvl 3: Toughness

Lvl5: mental Toughness

My goal is to be make a "fun to play" battlecleric primarily soloing. My end goal is to be 18 clr/2 ftr.


I've got enough experience to get my next level and want to be sure I pick smart feats. I'm leaning towards taking my second ftr level to get the additional feat. If I go this way, I'd pick up:

Lvl 8: Extend or Quicken Spell
Lvl 8: Improved 2 hand fighting (ftr bonus)


First, is it wise to pick these level 8 feats?


Second, I want to swap out my the dragon mark for another feat. However, it looks like the only two real choices are either Toughness or weapon focus. What are the thoughts of the forum.


Thank you all for your advice.
(I can post my data on my character if you need me to)

[Gercho]

Some feats you may want to have:

Extend Spell
Power Attack
Empower Spell
Maximize Spell?
Maybe the third for THF

If you have high Concentration Quicken is less important.
As a battle cleric there will be situations where you will want to use your blade barriers to kill.

Mental thoughness seems less important tan those.

[WeaselKing]

Getting rid of that dragonmark is an excellent decision.

Unfortunately the way you have taken feats puts you in a little bit of a pickle and does not allow you to take a metamagic feat at level one, otherwise I would recommend maximize. Unless you want to spend some time and plat/TP on a multistep feat swap, I would suggest that you pick up Power Attack, which is something you want by endgame. The only thing is that you might not want to use it right away. It is nice for THF though because you get -5 to hit but +10 to damage, which you can get even higher using the dwarven power attack enhancement.

[LAWPRE]

If you do not use the Dragon Mark, I would spend the Plat and get rid of it.

Also, since you are already not going to have capstone, I would take 2 levels of Monk instead of a second fighter level. As Wis is a Monk stat, you will still benefit from each class. Also, 2nd level Monk gives you evasion (NO dam from ref sv) and this is very handy for reducing HP loss when you are soloing.

[Emili]

Extend is nice on a BC as all the buff spells like divine favor last longer.

[Lord_Balon]

If you do not use the Dragon Mark, I would spend the Plat and get rid of it.

Also, since you are already not going to have capstone, I would take 2 levels of Monk instead of a second fighter level. As Wis is a Monk stat, you will still benefit from each class. Also, 2nd level Monk gives you evasion (NO dam from ref sv) and this is very handy for reducing HP loss when you are soloing.

I'm not familiar with monk at all but this sounds interesting. If I went this path, would I still be able to use armor and still get the benefit of monk evasion?


I'm going to ditch the dragonmark and pick up power attack. I'm also going to start reading up on picking up 2 levels of monk.



Thanks to everyone that responded to this thread.

[LAWPRE]

Since Evasion is Reflex based, you Reflex save cannot go negative. So, no medium or heavy armor below level 5 unless it has the plusses to offset the Dex loss and other deficits .

[Impatiens]

I'm not familiar with monk at all but this sounds interesting. If I went this path, would I still be able to use armor and still get the benefit of monk evasion?

If you go with two levels of monk you'll want to wear robes or outfits. In addition to evasion, which is wonderful, monks get a wisdom bonus to AC, but you need to be unarmored to get that. As a cleric I imagine your wisdom is rather high so the AC bonus you would get from that would likely outweigh any AC bonus you would get from wearing armor.