Help with epic gestalt cleric needed

[Madwand]

Hi folks, I'd like to thank you all for your previous wonderful character building advice. I come you all now with a literally epic challenge: a level 21 gestalt character! My mind reels a bit with the possibilities here, so I could use some build advice!

First, the campaign background. This is a post-apocalyptic Greyhawk campaign. According to the DM, "Evil cult members have opened 9 portals to the layers of the nine hells, letting all of the demon princes escape, in their reign, they destroied the dragons and the dieties Bahamut and Tiamat. The Pantheon of Gods and Dieties have fought them, but to no avail. The demons have made a prison in the middle, controlled in parts by all 9 greater demons and princes. To restore the god's to their rightfull place they have to stop all the demons and break into the main prison to free the dieties."
PCs will start the game in a the demonic prison of the Prince of demons Demogorgon. The PCs must escape together (and recover their items!).

Ok, so the character build rules/house rules:
Most alignment restrictions are ignored.
Most restrictions on PrCs such as god requirements or alignments are ignored.
36 point buy for characteristics
Gestalt
NO fractional point buy
Spellcasting is crippled for the first several sessions. Spells are randomly swapped with other spells when cast. Things will return to normal later in the campaign. A "dimensional messup" is causing this. Some way to avoid or bypass effect would be useful!
Prestige classes are allowed on both sides of the gestalt.
"Multiclass" prestige classes are allowed (such as RKV)
Flaws are allowed
Free +2 LA
LA applies to both sides of the gestalt
Normal wealth by level, however characters may not have their equipment at game start.

As you can see from this, this character should probably fight well naked and without spellcasting. This is also an online game, so I would prefer builds that don't slow down gameplay a lot (such as having many attacks). This suggests to me a Tome of Battle-based build. I also want full spellcasting so I will be epic-ready when magic returns to normal (if it ever does). I will need the build to be powerful, as the DM has promised some very difficult fights. Of course I want to avoid completely game-breaking builds or infinite loops. In addition I expect that most fights will be vs. demons and devils, so I'd better be able to handle them well!

So, here is a preliminary build. Spellcasting classes are on the left, "fightery" classes on the right:
1 Cloistered Cleric 1//Crusader 1
2 Cloistered Cleric 2//Unarmed Swordsage 1
3 Cloistered Cleric 3//Crusader 2
4 Cloistered Cleric 4//Unarmed Swordsage 2
5 Cloistered Cleric 5//Ordained Champion 1
6 Ordained Champion 2//RKV 1
7 RKV 2//Fighter 1
8 RKV 3//Fighter 2
9 RKV 4//Feat Rogue 1
10 RKV 5//Feat Rogue 2
11 Ordained Champion 3//RKV 6
12 RKV 7//Paladin 1
13 RKV 8//Paladin 2
14 RKV 9//Barbarian 1 (lion totem for pounce)
15 RKV 10//Barbarian 2 (wolf totem for improved trip)
16 Cloistered Cleric 6//Ordained Champion 4
17 Ordained Champion 5//Master of Nine 1
18 Cloistered Cleric 7//Master of Nine 2
19 Cloistered Cleric 8//Master of Nine 3
20 Cloistered Cleric 9//Master of Nine 4
21 Cloistered Cleric 10//Master of Nine 5

I could use any suggestions for improving the build. Here are a few things I've been thinking about, feedback is welcomed:

With the free +2 LA, I'm thinking of taking the Saint template.
The Shapeshift spell is awesome. I'd like to have it. Animal domain or some other domain might provide this.
Epic Spellcasting is necessary of course (21st level feat).
This character will probably be looking towards the future with aspirations of eventually becoming a god and replacing the fallen deities. Any thoughts on how best to accomplish this would be welcome.
It would be nice to reliably turn demons and/or devils, even better if they went POOF! Any suggestions on how to accomplish this?
Ideas for an alternate means of using spellslots is welcome ("divine strike" feat would be nice if it existed), to make up for the fact that I won't be able to cast spells reliably. Ordained Champion is good for this, but more ideas would be nice.
I'd like some ideas for how to deal with "you are in prison and all your stuff was taken from you." Thoughts? Is there a way to magically restore stolen equipment?
Also, ideas for where to go from here would be good. Should I continue Cleric//Crusader levels perhaps?

[Tshern]

Letting all of the demon princes escape by opening portals to Nine Hells?

For escaping from the prison, I'd assume it has an AMF, so prepare Invoke magic. I'll see if I can come up with something more later.

[Madwand]

Letting all of the demon princes escape by opening portals to Nine Hells?

For escaping from the prison, I'd assume it has an AMF, so prepare Invoke magic. I'll see if I can come up with something more later.

Invoke Magic is a good idea. It's a sor/wiz spell, so I probably can't get it as a cleric, although maybe the party wizard (if we have one) can take it. There is still a problem with the fact that we won't have the material component on us probably, and the fact that we get a random spell anytime we try to cast anything. I'm hoping the various "Shadow Jaunt" maneuvers will just let me teleport out of an AMF, or maybe I can get Iron Heart Surge by picking up a Warblade level and just cancel the field.

[Rebel7284]

Two prestige classes? I always wanted to combine Incantatrix with Dweomerkeeper.  -2 To all metamagic costs and supernatural spells/free metamagic with skill check is nice.

[Tshern]

Damn, I recalled you could use Divine magician to get it, but it doesn't allow Evocation spells. Bad luck there.

[Ithamar]

Saint is a great template, but don't forget you lose all of your own (Su) abilities while Shapechanged.

[Lycanthromancer]

Since the campaign mostly deals with evil outsiders, make a turning-based build (with a bit of Persisted divine metamagic thrown in, for later).

Do everything you can to raise your effective turning level, be Neutral or Evil (so you rebuke, rather than turn), and take the Planar Turning feat at level 21.

Being able to rebuke literally armies of fiends to turn against their masters is a great way to gain power at the expense of your enemies.

I had a 24th level cleric/heirophant that could turn as a 45th level cleric, and I could even rebuke demon lords without a whole lot of effort.

[Echoes]

The main problem with Planar Turning is that you need +1 rebuking level per point of SR the outsider has. You basically need to pull UMD shenanigans with a phylactery of undead turning to get a high enough rebuking level to command anything worth bothering with. As an example, let's take the balor. Balors have 20 HD and SR 28, which means that you need a rebuking level of 68 in order to successfully command one. The same goes for devils. Pit fiends have 18 HD and SR 32, meaning they also take a rebuking level of 68 to command.

With a rebuking level of 45, you aren't going to be able to command anything bigger than a bone devil or a glabrezu, neither of which are going to matter in epic play except as message carriers or scouts (bone devils are halfway decent at this, with fly, invisibility and greater teleport at will). Sure, glabrezus have wish as a SLA usable 1/month, but if you wanted wish you'd just command a horde of efreeti. Both are equally useless in actual combat but phenomenally useful as utility monsters. They still won't make a difference when it comes time to actually fight a demon lord, archdevil or deity

If planar turning didn't have the SR-as-Turn Resistance clause, it'd be disgusting. As is, it's mostly unusable unless you want minor outsiders doing your household chores and serving as messenger-boys (greater teleport at will is useful for something).

Since the OP is going RKV, Divine Defiance is about the best damn feat you can take behind DMM. Make an epic version of dispel magic (preferably with scaling CL but anything with a high enough cap will do). Make it take a retarded amount of time to cast, or some other crazy mitigating factor. It doesn't matter because you're never going to cast it. What you're going to do is prepare one copy of it every day and use Divine Defiance to counter people as though you were casting your uber-dispel. Since immediate actions take up your swift action if it's available, RKV can give you as many counters as you need per round. Grab Mordenkainen's disjunction as well, just to have a single copy prepared to auto-counter it, just in case.

Also, take a look at the Lightbringer feat from Races of Faerun. You have to be a human from Damara (though your DM seems like he'll waive the regional requirement) to take it, be able to turn undead, and be able to cast divine spells. The feat allows you to spend a full-round action and 3 turn attempts prior to casting a spell to increase that spell's CL and DC by 2. You can take as many of these full round actions as you want, but you have to cast the spell the round after you finish charging. Assuming your DM will allow nightstick stacking, buy a pile of them (like, say, 600+) and spend an hour or so charging. That will net you a +120 to CL and DC. Go Shadowcraft Mage, mimic an arcane genesis and make your own plane where 1 hour there = 1 round normal time. Pop into your plane and spend an hour charging, then drop a quickened gate before you cast your big spell. Toss your pumped-up spell through (holy word and it's ilk work well, probably heightened to get around greater spell immunity) and assassinate your target with no save (or an insanely high one if they have Divine Denial). For extra cheese, grab a wizard cohort who was born on your genesis plane and have him cast planar bubble. Now you can pull this trick off from wherever, with essentially 1 round (real-time) of preparation.

It's actually very easy to build all of this into a gestalt character, esp. with your DM's loosened restrictions on gestalt. You can get 20th-level spellcasting, ScM 5, and 20th-level IL all in one build with levels to spare and grab all the above. If you can, try to grab some Sovereign Speaker levels to snag domains that grant different types of turning. Lightbringer requires that you expend turn attempts, but fails to mention a particular flavor. As such, if you can grab the various elemental domains alone, that'll net you 4 extra pools from which to charge your spells. Alternatively, get a nightmare (bind it, rebuke it if you go that route, whatever) and have it use astral projection on you. This lets you manifest yourself to the various planes to get fresh copies of all your equipment, including your nightsticks. That way, you can persist all the buffs you want, then refresh your turn attempts and go adventuring knowing that you can counter people virtually at will or toss off supercharged spells at a moment's notice if needed.

[PhaedrusXY]

Well, you might consider Binder (Tome of Magic) on one side. All their abiliies are Supernatural, and so bypass SR and have no components. They're also not spells, and so shouldn't be screwed up by your DMs "dimensional messup". They are a bit complicated to play, especially if you've never looked at them, though. And one of the best things about combining them with a spellcaster is using the free metamagic from the Anima Mage PrC, but that would probably not be allowed in gestalt, as it is a duel progression PrC.

Anyway, it is something to consider besides ToB stuff. Here is a link to the handbook. One possibility that comes to mind is that you could give yourself the unarmed fighting ability of a monk of your level, the ability to bypass silver damage reduction, and other things like permanent Mind Blank and the ability to teleport short distances, all at the same time at that level, while naked.

[Lycanthromancer]

Actually, it's one half SR as turn resistance. Much more reasonable. Especially once you have things like assay resistance.

[Echoes]

Yes, 1/2 SR to turn resistance = 1 effective HD per point of SR. Remember that in order to successfully command a creature, you must have twice it's effective HD in rebuking levels. 1/2 x 2 = 1. Hence +1 rebuking level per point of SR.

Assay spell resistance simply gives you a bonus to CL to overcome SR. It doesn't do anything to reduce the SR itself.

[Lycanthromancer]

[edit] Actually, no.

1 point of turn resistance = +1 effective HD.

So it's +1/2 SR to HD to determine turnability, not +SR to HD.

[Echoes]

Destroying Undead

If you have twice as many levels (or more) as the undead have Hit Dice, you destroy any that you would normally turn.

Evil Clerics and Undead

Evil clerics channel negative energy to rebuke (awe) or command (control) undead rather than channeling positive energy to turn or destroy them. An evil cleric makes the equivalent of a turning check. Undead that would be turned are rebuked instead, and those that would be destroyed are commanded.

For each effective HD added, you must increase your rebuking level by 2 to compensate. Thus, a pit fiend (18 HD + 32 SR) has 34 (18 + 16) effective HD for the purposes of rebuking. Thus, in order to command one, you must have a rebuking level of 68 ([18 + 16] x 2). Like I said, 1/2 x 2 = 1.

[Madwand]

Wow! Some great ideas so far. I'll try to address a few of the comments:

Re: Planar Turning. I think I understand what Echoes is saying. It doesn't seem worthwhile, especially given all the levels in non-turning PrC's I'd have to give up.

Re: Divine Defiance. This does seem really good. I'm unclear on the wording though, a possible interpretation is that it uses up the spell slot you counter with, although it doesn't say that. Of course, an alternate way to go is just to create an epic spell that permanently makes the caster immune to hostile spells of 9th level and below.

Re: Lightbringer. Awesomely strong, probably too strong. This gets quite close to "infinite loop" territory which I'd like to avoid.

Re: Leadership, rebuking, and other ways of gathering minions. Yes, these are great, but due to the fact that this is an online game and play time is at a premium, I'd prefer not to bog down the game with hordes of minions.

Wow, though. Just amazing suggestions! I love how after reading a build thread like this I always want to end up playing 5 different characters in 5 different campaigns.

I've been continuing to refine my original character build. It currently looks like this:

[spoiler]
1 Cloistered Cleric 1//Martial Rogue 1
2 Cloistered Cleric 2//Barbarian 1 (lion totem)
3 Cloistered Cleric 3//Barbarian 2 (wolf totem for improved trip)
4 Cloistered Cleric 4//Crusader 1
5 Prestige Paladin 1//Ordained Champion 1
6 Ordained Champion 2//RKV 1
7 RKV 2//Prestige Paladin 2
8 RKV 3//Fighter 1
9 RKV 4//Fighter 2
10 RKV 5//Martial Rogue 2
11 Ordained Champion 3//RKV 6
12 RKV 7//Ordained Champion 4
13 RKV 8//Hierophant 1 (Metamagic feat)
14 RKV 9//Hierophant 2 (Metamagic feat)
15 RKV 10//Unarmed Swordsage 1
16 Ordained Champion 5//Unarmed Swordsage 2
17 Contemplative 1//Master of Nine 1
18 Contemplative 2//Master of Nine 2
19 Contemplative 3//Master of Nine 3
20 Contemplative 4//Master of Nine 4
21 Contemplative 5//Master of Nine 5
[/spoiler]

That build gives about 17 feats, not counting domains or bonus feats. To get everything to fit I expect to make some use of retraining. These are the feats I'm currently thinking about:

[spoiler]
Able Learner
Extra Granted Maneuver
Improved Trip (bonus)
Weapon Focus (bonus)
Extra Turning
Power Attack (Rogue)
Combat Reflexes
EWP: Spiked Chain
Extend Spell (Heirophant)
Persist Spell (Heirophant)
DMM: Persist
Epic Spellcasting
Holy Warrior
Battle Blessing (CC p55)
PP: Mounted Combat
Mo9: Adaptive Style
Mo9: Dodge (Fighter)
Mo9: Blind-Fight (Fighter)
Mo9: Improved Initiative (Rogue)
Mo9: Improved Unarmed Strike (Unarmed Swordsage)
[/spoiler]

I'm a little unsure of the Barbarian levels. They don't really fit very well with the character (alignment conflicts aside). I don't expect to use rage much at all due to Ordained Champion class features (Wis for Str), Pounce is probably unneccessary due to Shadow Blink and/or Travel devotion if I take that domain, Improved Trip is nice but not amazing at the levels we're talking about, and I'm concerned that my trip bonus isn't enough to trip most of the enemies I'd actually care about falling down.

Any further tips for refining or improving this or a similar build are appreciated!

[Madwand]

Here's a thought: How does a build using prestige paladin interact with the "Sword of the Arcane Order" feat? Would this allow any cleric to prepare up to 9th level wizard spells? That seems pretty good! That would also seem to open up all sorts of gish prestige classes that require the ability to cast arcane spells, and the Arcane Strike feat. I'm not sure what I would want to do with this (assuming it's possible) beyond just taking lots of great gishtastic wizard spells. Persistent Wraithstrike ahoy! Not to mention that Battle Blessing might auto-quicken all those wizard spells... a build like this could potentially end up being a better wizard than a wizard, if these interpretations of the feats are correct.

[Echoes]

I don't think Sword of the Arcane Order will work with Prestige Paladin because you don't have any Paladin spell slots. You have Cleric spell slots and access to the Paladin spell list, which is very different.

The real trick to abusing Battle Blessing is the Geomancer PrC. Ideally, you do something like Wizard 3/Geomancer 10/Sacred Exorcist 1/Prestige Paladin 1 (not necessarily in that order), taking Southern Magician to qualify for Geomancer with just Wizard. This way you cast all of your Wizard spells as Paladin spells and thus apply Battle Blessing (which is better than automatic quicken because it reduces full-round spells to standard actions as well).

CustServe (or the Sage, I don't remember which) has ruled that Southern Magician doesn't work that way, but it's a retarded ruling. Under their ruling, the feat cancels itself out and doesn't actually do anything useful at all.

[Madwand]

So... Planar Turning is ineffective at destroying evil outsiders. What if it is used in combination with the "Disciple of the Sun" divine feat? Does that work? If it does, then the "Turn Anathema" spell becomes that much more amazing too.

If anyone has any suggestions about what kinds of spells would be useful against evil outsiders, I would like to hear them. I am concerned particularly about spell resistance, as every spell I would like to channel and hit them with has it. It would be nice if I could use Orb spells, but I can't keep casting Miracle every time I want one of those. I've read the Cleric handbook thoroughly, but so far no better strategy has occurred to me other than "hit hard and hope those demons fail a saving throw and spell resistance once in a while".

[Brainpiercing]

Ok, some thoughts:

Your DM will randomly swap spells initially, well, that just means you might have to cast a few times before getting the right one? If that is so, just prepare several, and take low-level ones to avoid doing too much damage to yourself or others. Also, the permanent Emanation feat should alllow you to turn one spell into something that can't be messed with - for instance a Greater Consumptive Field. (Admittedly I forgot whether this works at that level - my epic group is at lvl 40 by now.)

ToB in Epic scales rather poorly. Remember that nothing replaces a full attack in Epic -except two full attacks. So pick those maneuvers well, and generally ignore most things that don't either allow you to supercharge, do quadruple damage, OR are Time Stands Still level good. (Raging Mongoose).

Find a way to cast Wraithstrike.

Use Miracles for Buffing, freely, with spells such as Giant Size, Owl's INsight, Ray Deflection(!!) etc. Possibly persist those.

Make sure to always have Mindblank active.

[Madwand]

Sounds good. I plan to try to get around the "Random spells" thing using Ordained Champions channel spell ability.

I don't like Greater Consumptive Field. It's either completely abusive, or it interferes with my other class abilities like Delay Death and Immortal Fortitude.

ToB in epic worries me. I've done my best to take useful maneuvers. These are the one's I plan to typically ready, if there are better options I'd like to know:

[spoiler]
Crusader Maneuvers:
White Raven Tactics
Shadow Blink
Order Forged from Chaos
Greater Divine Surge
Diamond Nightmare Blade
Time Stands Still
Strike of Perfect Clarity
Adamantine Hurricane

Swordsage Maneuvers:
Rapid Counter (Counter)
Moment of Alacrity (Boost)
Iron Heart Focus (Counter)
Scorpion Parry (Counter)
Iron Heart Surge
Quicksilver Motion (Boost)
Comet Throw

Stances:
Iron Guards Glare
Leading the Charge
Thicket of Blades
Aura of Perfect Order
Immortal Fortitude
Stance of Clarity
[/spoiler]

I plan to cast persistent wraithstrike with Miracle. Giant Size is situational, but excellent. Owl's Insight isn't persistable, so it will be situational. I'm not worried about saving throw DCs nearly as much as I am worried about spell resistance.

A (partial) Mindblank effect will be available via epic magic. These are the epic spells I've planned on using:
[spoiler]
Fortify: +20 enhancement bonus to any chosen stat
17+2*19=55
-23 Fortify: 0 spell resistance
30 Duration 12.5 days
Mitigating Factors:
-42 Backlash 42d6
-18 10 minute casting time
-2  Personal target
Total 0

Armor: 30 natural armor bonus
14+2*29=72
-23 Fortify: 0 spell resistance
12 duration 1 week
Mitigating Factors:
-42 Backlash 42d6
-18 10 minute casting time
-2  Personal target
Total -1

Spell Resistance 50
27 Fortify: Base 25 SR
25 +25 SR
10 duration 5 days
-42 Backlash 42d6
-18 10 minute casting time
-2  Personal target
Total 0

This spell makes the caster nearly immune to having his magic stripped. He and his carried items become immune to being dispelled by nonepic spells and are immune to antimagic and Mordenkainens Disjunction. He is even partially immune to spells using the "dispel" epic seed, although such spells may dispel this spell if specifically targeted to do so. Even then, this spell recieves a +1 to it's caster level to avoid being dispelled.
Immune to dispel, greater dispel, disjunction, dispel epic seed
Base seed: Ward
14+2*2+5*2+8*2+5*2+9*2:72
1 +1 vs dispel checks
12 duration 1 week
-23 Fortify: 0 spell resistance
-42 Backlash 42d6
-18 10 minute casting time
-2  Personal target
Total 33

This epic spell protects from all divination spells and effects, similarly to the Mind Blank spell. In addition, the caster is aware of anyone using such effects and may provide them an illusionary substitute of a person and/or scene. This illusion may contain sight and sound, and may also appear as the caster desires to Detect spells.
Seed: Conceal
23 Block divination spells
Seed: Delude (sight, sound, detect spells)
14+2+2:18
44 Duration x22 (3 days)
-23 Fortify: 0 spell resistance
-42 Backlash 42d6
-18 10 minute casting time
-2  Personal target
Total 0

Epic Teleport: As teleport without error, 1850 pounds
27 Transport
4 Interplanar
34 +850 pounds
-23 Fortify: 0 spell resistance
-42 Backlash 42d6
Total 0
[/spoiler]

In conclusion: Epic spells are totally broken. I'm not even trying hard here! +20 to all stats for 1 feat is stupid.

I'd still like to hear some thoughts on the "Disciple of the Sun" divine feat. Would it work in conjunction with "Planar Turning" or the "Turn Anathema" spell?

[Echoes]

Here's a couple tips: get a ring of nine lives. They come with 9 charges, which you can do various things with. What you want is the "if I fail a save, expend a charge to pass it anyway" option. Combo this with Immortal Fortitude stance. Say you get hit for 2,000 damage (which is easy in Epic) and you only have 400 HP. You now have to make a Fortitude save that is in the thousands. Go ahead and roll, a nat 20 will save you a charge. If you fail, you burn a charge on your ring and pass anyway. Of course, delay death/beastland's ferocity will do the same, but in case you get dispelled (a disjunction will take your buffs, but you'll have a good chance of passing the saves for your gear unless it's crazy-heightened) it's a good fall-back.

Second, buy yourself a ring of evasion and a starmantle cloak. The cloak makes you immune to non-magical weapons and allows you to make a DC 15 Reflex save for half damage against all other weapons. Combo with Evasion and now you get to make DC 15 Reflex saves to avoid taking damage from weapons. Grab a reroll item or three (the MIC has a few) and you're golden.

After that, boost your saves/SR (or, if your DM won't kill you, go the Divine Defiance route) and you're pretty much set.

As for Disciple of the Sun - it's meh. It looks like it works with Planar Turning, but still it's not something to leap for. Look at how many creatures you'll be able to destroy at a time, on average. 2d6+21+10 (assuming you have a 30 Cha with items) means your average turning damage is 38, which isn't likely to kill anything you'd be seriously worried about. You could off a Pit Fiend or a Balor, but you could one-round them anyway. It'd let you blow through hordes of mooks, but you could do that with any number of spells, too. Unless you aren't taking Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell is the way to go for Epic, that or uber-calling) and/or Divine Defiance and/or Lightbringer, then sure. It's not a top-tier option, though simply because SR gets crazy-high in Epic levels.

For maneuvers, Strike of Perfect Clarity is absolute crap. It's the second-worst 9th-level maneuver (Inferno Blast is worse due to a poorer damage type). 100 damage is pitiful for a single attack, much less a full attack (which you give up to make the strike). War Master's Charge is infinitely better as a 9th-level maneuver (assuming you have someone else in your party who can melee). Strike of Righteous Vitality is also decent. While the healing will continue to decline in usefulness, heal has a pretty big list of things that it removes, which is nice to have in conjunction with an attack (esp. if you use Greater Divine Surge, then use your belt of battle/White Raven Tactics to restore your Con with Strike of Righteous Vitality). Adamantine Hurricane isn't all that hot, IMO. At that level, attacking 2 targets once is unlikely to get you very far. White Raven Hammer is far better thanks to its no-save stun. Diamond Nightmare Blade can be good if you can lay on the Power Attack/damage modifiers and stack multipliers. A surge of fortune'd scythe delivering a Diamond Nightmare Blade can be pretty scary, I'll grant you. The rest seem like pretty standard fare.

Owl's Insight should be persistable just fine, assuming you're using DMM: Persist.