[RPG] How to effectively use Blood Crow Strike

pathfinder-1espells

For those who are unfamiliar with it, the spell Blood Crow Strike allows you to make unarmed attacks or a flurry of blows at medium range against the target of the spell, rather than just within your reach. It also makes the damage apply as half fire and half negative energy, but that isn't the focus of my question.

It specifically calls out Flurry of Blows in the text of the spell, which indicates that it is meant to be used by monks, but it is a 4th level cleric/oracle spell, which means that you have to either be heavily multi-classed (not a good option for flurry of blows), or you have to get this as a scroll or wand. Given that monks typically have bad charisma, and therefore a bad Use Magic Device score, that makes it even more difficult to use. But it seems strange to me to have a spell that is only useful as a scroll or wand, and not for the original class.

Normally I would expect a spell like this to have the target be an ally, with some kind of duration that would allow that ally to then use their unarmed strikes at range. For example, Magic Weapon targets a weapon which can then be used against enemies, and Enlarge Person targets a humanoid, which would then be able to use the benefits of the spell during their combat. That wouldn't necessarily be a great use of a spell, but it would fill a useful niche.

Am I misunderstanding or misreading this spell? If not, is there a way that this would ever be useful for a cleric or oracle to cast?

Best Answer

May I introduce to you, the Qinggong Monk archetype from Ultimate Magic.

The archetype allows the monk to trade specific Monk class features for various Ki Powers, which can be activated using Ki Points. For instance, a 4th Qinggong Monk could trade his Slow Fall class feature for the ability to cast Barkskin as a caster of his monk level for 1 Ki Point.

The manner in which this interacts with your question is that the Qinggong Monk can trade a class feature at or after 14th level for the ability to cast Blood Crow Strike for 2 Ki Points per activation. Because of this, a monk is capable of casting the spell, and can use his Flurry of Blows in conjunction with the spell as specified in the spell text.

After further investigation, I cannot find any Cleric or Oracle archetypes that grant the capability to Flurry of Blows. There is, as @Ifusaso pointed out, the Sacred Fist archetype of the Warpriest, which possess both Flurry of Blows and Cleric Spellcasting at a 6/9 progression.

Important to note, however, is that the Warprist and the Sacred Fist archetype were released in the Advanced Class Guide, published nearly Three (3) years after Ultimate Magic. It appears that the original intent of the spell's construction was to be used in conjunction with the Qinggong Monk.