15/5 War Domain Cleric/Bard - Will it work?

[dbik]

Just brainstorming a bit, was thinking about making a 15/5 Cleric/Bard using tier 5 swashbuckler and hand axes or light picks. With holy sword, it gives +2 range and +1 multiplier.

Think it'd be decent dps? I see this as almost a way to multiclass a paladin and bard, since Holy Sword is pretty awesome.

What race would work best with this build?

[count_spicoli]

Holy sword wont stack with sb crit bonuses. Both competence. Also cant mix pally with bard becuae of alignment requirements

[Hjarki]

Holy sword wont stack with sb crit bonuses. Both competence. Also cant mix pally with bard becuae of alignment requirements

Swashbuckler doesn't give multiplier bonuses to hand axes or light picks. So you can use the range bonus from Swashbuckler and the multiplier bonus from Holy Sword.

That being said, it's a lot easier to get a competence bonus from 6 levels of Fighter.

[Emerge2012]

Sounds kind of cool I think but I'd build something like that more on the defensive end. Something like 15wiz/3bard/2rogue to get the trap skills, evasion, at least 25% incorporeal, always on self heals, at least 20% dodge, 50% conceal from displacement, swash crit bonuses and attacks, and your choice of upping the incorporeal to 35% (necro t5) or full time tensers (EK t5).

[unbongwah]

That being said, it's a lot easier to get a competence bonus from 6 levels of Fighter.

I'm inferring the OP wants everything else which comes with cleric 15 too: i.e., lvl 8 spells, Radiant Servant, etc. If they wanted a pure melee build, they presumably would've asked about a pure melee build.

My biggest concern would be feat shortage: even if you go for Arcane Marauder instead of Skirmisher (and thus don't need Shield Mastery feats), this is still a feat-constrained build and bard 5 / cleric 15 gets no bonus feats. Also: no Evasion unless you run in Shadowdancer.

[Selvera]

Just brainstorming a bit, was thinking about making a 15/5 Cleric/Bard using tier 5 swashbuckler and hand axes or light picks. With holy sword, it gives +2 range and +1 multiplier.

Think it'd be decent dps? I see this as almost a way to multiclass a paladin and bard, since Holy Sword is pretty awesome.

What race would work best with this build?

Doesn't look too different from my current 16/4 split that I'm doing on my healer. Except I'm a lot less damage focused (T5 radiant instead of swash, no holy sword for bonus critical profile, instead I have destruction domain for doublestrike and improved destruction).

Depends on your idea of "decent dps". Sitting in a slavelords set, I can crit for upwards of 3k while I have blitz active and wielding the sunsword; while regular hits do 400ish most of the time.

I still don't consider it a multicass with paladin bard There's no divine grace and smite evil to utilize that high cha that I tend to look for in that combination before remembering that you can't. Instead I feel like my build is a super fun one that can play like either a healing cleric or a swashbuckler quite well, and can switch between the archetypes at a moment's notice.

Best race for the build? Umm... any. You don't really spend AP in your racial tree anyways; nor do you really need to wield your favored weapon. And there's a versatility in that you can go str, dex, int or cha for damage + to hit.

As for feats; it's really no worse then a pure bard swashbuckler for feats. You might have to push your metamagics or your shield feats into epic levels. (If you go for shield). Personally I did orb for flavor; but shield is way better, especially since there are no good orbs for healers or melees at endgame. (Ever since thunder forge got left in the dust). But also because arcane marauder doesn't give useful stats (unlike say... skirmisher which gives an amazing amount of dodge).