Combining Stealth/Divine

[TheCrowing1432]

Arcane has a few smatterings of Stealth based classes (Beguiler/Arcane Trickster/Spell Thief)

But ive not really noticed a divine sneak, is there one? Or is multiclassing Rogue/Cleric all that can be done?

I mean theres a divine/sneak prestige class, the black flame zealot, but thats all I know of.

Can someone give me some insight?

[daremetoidareyo]

Actually, arcane trickster gives "+1 existing class" So you could go wizard 5/rogue3/cleric/arcane trickster the rest of the way. it's a terrible waster of time, but

perhaps spellwarp sniper is what you're looking for.

Concentration 8 ranks , Spellcraft 8 ranks, Point Blank Shot
Spellcasting: "Ability to cast 3rd-level spells."
Special: Sneak attack or sudden strike +1d6.

it's a 5/5 class for "+1 existing level"

At level 3 spells, get glyph of warding, load that up with any spell you can, then turn it into a ray that you can sneak attack with.

EDIT:
Don't forget the TERRIBLE eye of lolth prestige class. This thing is all over the place and doing all of those things poorly.

[Extra Anchovies]

Shadowbane Stalker (Complete Adventurer) is an okay one. Only requires a one-level rogue dip for entry and gives 8/10 casting, so you don't miss out on ninths.

Consider alternately the Divine Trickster, by the Giant himself.

[TheCrowing1432]

Actually, arcane trickster gives "+1 existing class" So you could go wizard 5/rogue3/cleric/arcane trickster the rest of the way. it's a terrible waster of time, but

perhaps spellwarp sniper is what you're looking for.

Concentration 8 ranks , Spellcraft 8 ranks, Point Blank Shot
Spellcasting: "Ability to cast 3rd-level spells."
Special: Sneak attack or sudden strike +1d6.

it's a 5/5 class for "+1 existing level"

At level 3 spells, get glyph of warding, load that up with any spell you can, then turn it into a ray that you can sneak attack with.

EDIT:
Don't forget the TERRIBLE eye of lolth prestige class. This thing is all over the place and doing all of those things poorly.

I was more thinking something along the lines of beguiler, but a divine version, a skill monkey with divine spell casting progression.

And SpellWarp Sniper is all about Ray's, which divine spell casters dont get,

[gooddragon1]

Arcane has a few smatterings of Stealth based classes (Beguiler/Arcane Trickster/Spell Thief)

But ive not really noticed a divine sneak, is there one? Or is multiclassing Rogue/Cleric all that can be done?

I mean theres a divine/sneak prestige class, the black flame zealot, but thats all I know of.

Can someone give me some insight?

There's the trickery domain (invisibility in there), the silence spell, and the alternate class feature to spontaneously cast spells from a domain rather than cures for clerics.

That's pretty stealthy. It's not a specific class though I guess.

[nedz]

I was more thinking something along the lines of beguiler, but a divine version, a skill monkey with divine spell casting progression.

Human Beguiler 5 / Divine Oracle 1 / Beguiler +6 / Divine Oracle +2 / Beguiler +X (not quite in that order in the middle)
Feats: Educated, Arcane Disciple, Skill Focus (Knowledge Religion), Arcane Disciple, Arcane Disciple
Choose a deity: grab some domains.
Also gets Shadow Conjuration and Greater Shadow Conjuration at the appropriate levels.

And SpellWarp Sniper is all about Ray's, which divine spell casters dont get,

Halfling Rogue 1 / Druid 5 / Spellwarp Sniper 5 / Druid ++ (Or Spirit Shaman)
ACFs to consider: Wilderness Rogue (UA, p 56), Halfling Rogue Substitution Levels (RW, p 160), Deadly Hunter (UA, p 58), Spontaneous Druid (UA), Halfling Druid Substitution Levels (RW, p 157), Elemental Companion (CM, p 33) [Air elemental for flight]

[Othniel]

Sanctified Slayer archetype for Inquisitor maybe?

[Curmudgeon]

I was more thinking something along the lines of beguiler, but a divine version, a skill monkey with divine spell casting progression.

A Kobold Cloistered Cleric with Trickery and Kobold domains, using the Sacred Outlaw multiclassing feat (Dragon # 357) to stack Rogue+Cleric levels for both sneak attack and undead turning, is pretty good. Trickery adds Bluff, Disguise, and Hide to your list of Cleric class skills; Kobold adds Search and Disable Device. The Knowledge domain all Cloistered Clerics get adds all Knowledge skills. Take 3 levels of Rogue to build up any other needed skills (Move Silently, Tumble, & c.) and make the rest all Cleric levels.

[jiriku]

The cloistered cleric variant, selecting Knowledge, Travel, and Trickery domains, has a great selection of stealthy class skills and the skill points to use them, along with excellent, appropriate domain spells. Altogether a very slippery character. Use the Cityscape web enhancement to swap Survival for Sense Motive, and it gets even better.

[Crake]

Interestingly enough the Ruby Knight Vindicator from tome of battle has some stealth based abilities, such as being able to ignore all armor check penalties to hide and move silently. It also gets access to shadow hand maneuvers, so picking up something like assassin's stance, and the shadow blade feat could quite easily lend to some rather sneaky divine build. Hell, combine it with swordsage entry (getting the devoted spirit stuff via feats) and you can even get wisdom to AC while wearing light armor (nimble mithril breastplate anyone?).

[Chronos]

My personal favorite is a human cloistered cleric with Able Learner and a one-level dip into the skillful class of your choice (ninja would give Wis synergy).

[ben-zayb]

Wait...what?

I mean, sure, Ranger isn't rocking 9th level divine spells, but it's actually the only core class with built-in (i.e. not requiring ACF) Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight. There surely are ways to expand their spell list too.



Alternatively, I second the aforementioned halfling druid substitution levels, giving it 6+Int skill points to be of use with the addition of Climb, Jump, Hide, and Move Silently as class skills. Its Undersized Wildshape also gets you situationally stealthier forms.

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

I'm feeling pretty confident that there's something in the Forgotten Realms sourcebooks.

Divine Seeker: stealth skill requirements, Stealthy feat requirement, patron diety requirement. Doesn't give casting but does give some SLAs. It's a pretty crap PrC.

Deathstalker of Bhaal has stealth skill requirements, Hide and Move Silently as class skills, Sneak Attack progression and 3/5 divine casting. Again, still crap.

Darkmask has skill requirements, feat requirements, spellcasting requirements, a specific patron diety and a roleplaying requirement. Good class skills, 6+int skill points and 5/5 casting progression. It's also got medium BAB and a wad of vaguely useful and flavorful SLAs and abilities. It gets "Sneak Attack as the Rogue class feature" at level 3. Whether that means 1d6 at level 3, or increasing to 2d6 at level 5, or something else, I don't know. It seems decent, but the requirements suck.

Harper Agent has the skills and the skill points, plus 4/5 casting progression. No sneak attack progression though, and the class features are not good.

Master Harper has pretty onerous requirements, but has 10/10 casting progression, good class skills (but only 4+int) and vaguely flavorful class features. No sneak attack progression, though, and the entry requirements are awful.

Moonstar Agent has the skill list and 5/5 casting progression to go with 4+int skill points and a nice skill list. But it's a typical FR class in that it has pretty crap entry requirements and the class features are not good.

The Nentyar Hunter is a PrC that's Ranger-y with its own spellcasting progression and spell list. It could be useful in the first circumstance, I think, but only if you have a way to expand the spell list, which is tiny and bad (but kind of an interesting mix of bad).

Nightcloak doesn't have any advantages for skills, but it has 10/10 casting progression and a bunch of interesting class features. Nothing stealthy though beyond the skill requirements to enter.

Shade Hunter is a Rogue-y/Ranger-y PrC with 8+int skills from a broad list, decent class features and its own Ranger-like casting progression. Crap requirements though.

--

So there aren't many classes that advance both Sneak Attack and divine casting. There are quite a few that grant some sort of divine casting and expand the skill point pool and skill list to include more stealthy/Roguey options. This is only from a quick look through some FR stuff, so it's possible that there are some I'm missing.

[Amphetryon]

Temple Raider of Olidamarra.

[Zaq]

Temple Raider of Olidamarra.

Which is basically worse than just alternating Rogue and Cleric. 10 levels of TRoO gets you 40 skill points (ignoring INT), 3d6 SA, +7 BAB, and a small selection of spells up to 4th level, including the Luck domain. 5 levels of Rogue and 5 levels of (non-Cloistered) Cleric gets you 50 skill points, 3d6 SA, +6 BAB (might be higher depending on your class load when you start), and a huge selection of spells up to 3rd level, including two domains of your choice. Technically, TRoO gets higher-level spells, but the list is absolutely tiny (without any real gems on it), and they get very few spells per day. Rogue/Cleric gets way more skill points and way more magic, and they don't have to wait until halfway through the game to start getting spells (the absolute earliest you can enter TRoO is after level 5, and that's only if you're coming from a full-BAB base; much more likely that you'd enter after level 7).

Also, if you enter TRoO with Rogue levels as your base (and Rogue is the easiest class to use to get all the skills you need), half the class features are redundant (you probably already have Uncanny Dodge/IUD, you already have Trapfinding, and nobody cares about Trap Sense).

So yeah. I honestly think you're better off alternating Rogue and Cleric to get TRoO's abilities, and that's assuming the clumsiest multiclass possible (just mindlessly alternating one class with the other, rather than arranging your levels specifically to get the abilities you want when you want them). The class does exist, but it's not a good option for combining a stealth focus with a divine caster.

[Troacctid]

The cloistered cleric variant, selecting Knowledge, Travel, and Trickery domains, has a great selection of stealthy class skills and the skill points to use them, along with excellent, appropriate domain spells. Altogether a very slippery character. Use the Cityscape web enhancement to swap Survival for Sense Motive, and it gets even better.

And toss in the Proteus feat to spontaneously cast any glamer spell off of any list.

[Curmudgeon]

And toss in the Proteus feat to spontaneously cast any glamer spell off of any list.

That bolded part isn't included in the feat. Spell levels are a feature of the spell list they appear on. Proteus lets you sacrifice a prepared spell to cast any lower-level illusion (glamer) spell. Spells on different lists aren't comparable in level, so "lower-level" is meaningless across lists. For example, if you've got Control Water prepared you can use Proteus to cast a 5th-level or lower Illusion (glamer) spell from your Wizard list, but only a 3rd-level or lower Illusion (glamer) spell from your Cleric list.

[atemu1234]

That bolded part isn't included in the feat. Spell levels are a feature of the spell list they appear on. Proteus lets you sacrifice a prepared spell to cast any lower-level illusion (glamer) spell. Spells on different lists aren't comparable in level, so "lower-level" is meaningless across lists. For example, if you've got Control Water prepared you can use Proteus to cast a 5th-level or lower Illusion (glamer) spell from your Wizard list, but only a 3rd-level or lower Illusion (glamer) spell from your Cleric list.

But they do possess a level, it is simply meaningless in context of preparation and casting to you.

A fitting analogy is, 'Is a pizza still a pizza when you are not allowed to eat it?'

[Amphetryon]

That bolded part isn't included in the feat. Spell levels are a feature of the spell list they appear on. Proteus lets you sacrifice a prepared spell to cast any lower-level illusion (glamer) spell. Spells on different lists aren't comparable in level, so "lower-level" is meaningless across lists. For example, if you've got Control Water prepared you can use Proteus to cast a 5th-level or lower Illusion (glamer) spell from your Wizard list, but only a 3rd-level or lower Illusion (glamer) spell from your Cleric list.

Could I get a specific citation, preferably with page number, for where the sentence I've bolded is stated within the rules, please?

[Curmudgeon]

Could I get a specific citation, preferably with page number, for where the sentence I've bolded is stated within the rules, please?

Player's Handbook, page 56:

Spells: A wizard casts arcane spells (the same type of spells available to sorcerers and bards), which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list (page 192).

Player's Handbook, page 179:

Adding Spells to a Sorcerer’s or Bard’s Repertoire: A sorcerer or bard gains spells each time he attains a new level in his class and never gains spells any other way. When your sorcerer or bard gains a new level, consult Table 3–5: Bard Spells Known or Table 3–17: Sorcerer Spells Known to learn how many spells from the appropriate spell list in Chapter 11: Spells he now knows. With the DM’s permission, sorcerers and bards can also select the spells they gain from new and unusual spells that they have gained some understanding of (see Spells in the sorcerer description, page 54).

Player's Handbook, page 180:

Divine spellcasters do not require spellbooks. However, such a character’s spell selection is limited to the spells on the list for his or her class (see Chapter 11: Spells). Clerics, druids, paladins, and rangers have separate spell lists.

Because you're restricted to the spell list for your class, levels on other lists have no meaning for you.

Then, of course, there's the fact that no spell is given a level except as a function of a class list.

Level: Brd 2, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 2

[TheCrowing1432]

A Kobold Cloistered Cleric with Trickery and Kobold domains, using the Sacred Outlaw multiclassing feat (Dragon # 357) to stack Rogue+Cleric levels for both sneak attack and undead turning, is pretty good. Trickery adds Bluff, Disguise, and Hide to your list of Cleric class skills; Kobold adds Search and Disable Device. The Knowledge domain all Cloistered Clerics get adds all Knowledge skills. Take 3 levels of Rogue to build up any other needed skills (Move Silently, Tumble, & c.) and make the rest all Cleric levels.

The cloistered cleric variant, selecting Knowledge, Travel, and Trickery domains, has a great selection of stealthy class skills and the skill points to use them, along with excellent, appropriate domain spells. Altogether a very slippery character. Use the Cityscape web enhancement to swap Survival for Sense Motive, and it gets even better.

My personal favorite is a human cloistered cleric with Able Learner and a one-level dip into the skillful class of your choice (ninja would give Wis synergy).

These are all great ideas.

Human Cloistered Cleric/Rogue with the Able Learner/Sacred Outlaw feats, And the Trickery,Travel, Knowledge Domains.....

Interestingly enough the Ruby Knight Vindicator from tome of battle has some stealth based abilities, such as being able to ignore all armor check penalties to hide and move silently. It also gets access to shadow hand maneuvers, so picking up something like assassin's stance, and the shadow blade feat could quite easily lend to some rather sneaky divine build. Hell, combine it with swordsage entry (getting the devoted spirit stuff via feats) and you can even get wisdom to AC while wearing light armor (nimble mithril breastplate anyone?).

Swordsage/Ruby Knight Vindicator huh? This has possibilities.....

[squiggit]

Second Ruby Knight. Fun class. Nontraditional though since it rocks stealth in heavy armor.

If you can get third party, Pathfinder's Inquisitor is more or less perfect for this too.

I mean, sure, Ranger isn't rocking 9th level divine spells, but it's actually the only core class with built-in (i.e. not requiring ACF) Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight. There surely are ways to expand their spell list too.

I assume it's an issue of theme here. Ranger runs off druid-esque divine which has very different utility and flavor than cleric-themed divine.

[gomipile]

Druid with the feat Nightbringer Initiate gains Hide and Move Silently along with some additions to the spell list(If you're in Eberron and willing to be non-good or your DM is willing to refluff the feat and re-crunch the Mabar connection.)

Combine that with the City Shape alternate class feature to get smaller and vermin wild shapes and you can get some insane size and racial bonuses to Hide, along with possibly racial bonuses(from the animal or vermin forms) to Move Silently, Spot, Listen, and/or Climb. The ability to fly in a stealthy and unobtrusive form could be very handy as well.

Also, remember that the level 2 Druid spell Reduce Animal has a duration of 1 hour per level and doesn't change your character's speed.

[Amphetryon]

Player's Handbook, page 56:
Player's Handbook, page 179:
Player's Handbook, page 180: Because you're restricted to the spell list for your class, levels on other lists have no meaning for you.

Then, of course, there's the fact that no spell is given a level except as a function of a class list.

The citations you've given do not read, from here, as explicitly indicating "spell levels are a feature of the spell list on which they appear," which was the citation requested. That you can parse them to indicate that is not the same thing, as folks around here consistently prove that the rules of the game can be parsed in more than one linguistically valid way.

[TheCrowing1432]

Second Ruby Knight. Fun class. Nontraditional though since it rocks stealth in heavy armor.

If you can get third party, Pathfinder's Inquisitor is more or less perfect for this too.



I assume it's an issue of theme here. Ranger runs off druid-esque divine which has very different utility and flavor than cleric-themed divine.

It is an issue in theme, rangers are wilderness classes, their spell casting is weak, and they dont gain benefits from stealth like rogues do (no sneak attack) they also arent very good skill monkeys.

[ben-zayb]

Ah, I understand. The wilderness theme itself is what made me think of rangers and druids first as potential sneak-themed classes, but in this case Cloistered Cleric / Ruby Knight Vindicator does appear be more of what you're looking for.

[Thurbane]

Another vote here for Ninja 1/Cloistered Cleric X (and maybe a skill based PrC that boosts divine casting?).

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

It is an issue in theme, rangers are wilderness classes, their spell casting is weak, and they dont gain benefits from stealth like rogues do (no sneak attack) they also arent very good skill monkeys.

While Rangers are wilderness classes, I disagree with your other three contentions. Ranger casting can be quite good, especially with some combination of Sword of the Arcane Order, Mystic Ranger and Shooting Star substitution levels. You aren't CoDzilla but your casting is definitely adequate. Rangers can be quite stealthy, and there are benefits to be gained that aren't directly related to damage. Yes, sneak attack is nice, but there are things it's less effective against, and it's certainly possible to do quite a lot of damage without it. At 6 skill points/level, Rangers can be quite effective skill monkeys. Yeah, int isn't a stat priority (). Still, the Ranger skill list is pretty good, especially with things like Skilled City-Dweller, maybe Trap Expert depending on the campaign, Urban Ranger and Urban Companion.

[ericgrau]

There is a simple bit of homebrew I have for this. I had help. I was just thinking a minute ago about how much I dislike how the system handles multiclassed casters and how the PrCs for this are a patchwork solution.

Here it is: Every 2 levels outside of a casting class advances it by 1 level. Every 4 levels of a noncaster class instead advances a divine caster class by 1 level. Matching types (divine/divine, arcane/arcane) advance each other by 3/4 of a level per level, rounded down. These bonus levels may not exceed your real levels. So a rogue 8 / cleric 8 casts as a cleric 10. A rogue 12 / cleric 4 casts as a cleric 7. A rogue 15 / cleric 1 casts as a cleric 2. A rogue 4 / cleric 4 / wizard 4 casts as a cleric 7 and a wizard 8.

The harsher progression for divine casters / noncasters isn't to say that they need a nerf, rather that divine casters are already partially martial. And I'm trying to ignore super high op play where you'd only play a single classed caster anyway rather than lose even 1 caster level.

This way you can multiclass freely with caster classes and not worry about finding a PrC the fits your particular concept.

[Endarire]

+1 to Curmudgeon. Also, Divine Bard.