So this is basically an answer in two parts: some general observations about clerics, melee, and so on, which seem relevant to you, and then specific suggestions for your character. I’ve tried to keep the first section brief; feel free
General Observations
Just some things I want to establish first.
Touch attacks are usually really easy
Granted, a −2 penalty from Strength is large, particularly since most people would have a +2 or +3 there, but nonetheless, touch attacks are usually very easy to hit – and they only get easier as you get more BAB, because touch ACs don’t really tend to go up much for most creatures.
So if all you were concerned about was touch attacks, I’d encourage you to just hold off; chances are you’ll be hitting them quite reliably.
Divine power exists
Just so you’re aware, divine power is a ridiculously powerful 4th-level cleric spell that gives you fighter-like BAB as well as a +6 bonus to Strength. That will solve almost all of your troubles. It only lasts 1 round/level, which is problematic, but there are tricks for getting it to last longer.
Your accuracy as a Str 12 character with full BAB will still be fairly mediocre, but it will be more than sufficient to consider touch attacks as good as guaranteed. Your attacks against armor will be sub-par but not embarrassingly so.
You never really need a melee character
3.5 doesn’t go in much for “roles” or even “having a balanced party.” Magic rules everything in 3.5. You look at your party, and realize it’s got two full-casters and a half-caster, and want to improve it? You don’t get a warrior, you don’t get a skillmonkey: you get another spellcaster, because the more magic you have, the better off you are.
Clerics, as it turns out, have some of the best spellcasting in the game. Top 5, easily. Druids, too. (The other three are archivists – who mostly use the cleric spell list anyway – artificers, and wizards.) With a cleric and a druid, you’re actually doing pretty well.
And if one of the full-casters is looking to do more melee, the druid is the far more natural (har.) fit. Once he gets Wild Shape at 5th, he could be a beast (har.) in combat. Natural Spell at 6th is basically what every druid ever should do.
On houserules
Losing inflict doesn’t really matter because those spells are really bad. Inflict light wounds is relatively cheap for repairing undead, but those are evil under the usual rules, so it doesn’t really matter.
That said, other things might be lost that would be quite a bit more painful. How much this affects how your cleric should play depends on exactly what your DM is restricting.
It may not matter, but for what it’s worth I can tell you unequivocally that negative energy is not [Evil], and the inflict spells are perfectly acceptable options for good clerics.
Bonuses don’t stack if they are of the same type. Magic weapon applies an enhancement bonus, the same as a +X weapon, so those normally would not stack; that is not a houserule. Bless does apply a morale bonus that would stack, but it’s a small bonus that isn’t worth your time anyway. I would only worry about this if a bard joins your party (as the morale bonuses from Inspire Courage can be a great deal more significant than bless).
- By the way, because of how this works, the usual response is to make every weapon a +1 whatever special properties weapon, and then cast greater magic weapon on it. Greater magic weapon will not stack with the +1, but it will replace the +1 and let you enjoy a higher enhancement bonus alongside special weapon properties. This is a good thing; special weapon properties are usually better than enhancement bonuses anyway.
Your wealth is not good. Characters are expected, per the Dungeon Master’s Guide, to be worth approximately 2,700 gold pieces by the time they hit 3rd level. Moreover, wealth is expected to be primarily in the form of useful items, not in gold pieces you cannot spend. D&D 3.5 responds very poorly to lower-than-expected wealth. This “houserule” (which it isn’t really; these are just guidelines in the DMG, but they generally should be followed) is really the one I would be concerned about.
- But not as a cleric. Clerics don’t really care, because they can make their own magic. It’s the ranger who should be very worried about this, because rangers only get really pitiful magic and need magic items to shore that up.
Specific suggestions
Basically, I see two routes here for your character: pure spellcaster (the easier and more powerful option, honestly), or, if you really insist on melee, ruby knight vindicator (requires a supplement you may not have, requires adaptation to work for Corellon).
Pure Spellcaster
Melee clerics are usually Strength-based – their ability to use armor while spellcasting means they can safely ditch Dexterity, and Strength leads to better returns on melee. Dexterity-based melee requires more feats for less damage. You don’t have that option, since you have low Strength and high Dexterity, but that Dexterity is put to better use simply pumping your Initiative, and allowing you to cast spells before other people get to go.
Clerics have some of the best buffs in the game. You can make each of your allies count for that much more. They also have solid battlefield control, to prevent enemies from doing the things they’d like to be doing. Choose your spells with these in mind. Don’t worry about damage – the ranger can deal damage with impunity if you pump him up and eliminate enemies’ ability to threaten you.
Ruby Knight Vindicator
Normally, clerics are just about the best melee warriors in the game. Normally, they have persistent divine power on top of a naturally-high Strength score, and swing big, two-handed weapons. You don’t have that option.
You could take advantage of your high Dexterity score by taking Weapon Finesse, but your damage – still based on Strength – will be poor. The best way to use Weapon Finesse is by dual-wielding, but that will make it hard to cast spells and you don’t have any major sources of bonus weapon damage, like Sneak Attack, to make that worthwhile. Ultimately, considering just how powerful you can be by not doing this, it’s really just not worth the headache. It can be done but why bother?
I can think of one exception that would be effective, and a lot of fun. The ruby knight vindicator from Tome of Battle is an awesome and fun prestige class that will make you quite a lot better at melee. It also works out quite neatly for you, because it enables a strong Dex-based option. Things it has going for it:
It progresses your spellcasting fairly well.
It offers martial maneuvers, which are simply the best way to get better at melee.
Problems:
It’s in Tome of Battle; I do not know if you have that book availble
- If you don’t, I strongly recommend it. It is, far and away, the best-designed book Wizards published for 3.5. No other book comes even close in tightness of design.
You have to qualify. That basically means taking a level of crusader
- This isn’t that big a downside; crusader is awesome.
As written, it requires that you worship Wee Jas. The official Adaptation section says you can “easily adapt it to crusaders devoted to almost any other deity,” but you’ll have to take that up with your DM.
If you were going this route, you would want to do Cleric 4/Crusader 1/Ruby Knight Vindicator 10. By taking the crusader level at 5th, your Initiator Level is 3 (it includes half your levels in other classes) – enough to take 2nd-level maneuvers. You get 5 non-stance maneuvers total, and 1 stance; you need 2 Devoted Spirit maneuvers, at least one of which is a stance.
Stance – iron guard’s glare or martial spirit
For stance, then, your options are iron guard’s glare and martial spirit – both are quite good. Iron guard’s glare gives your enemies a −4 penalty to attack your allies – incentivizing them to focus on you, and leave the more fragile party members alone. Martial spirit allows you to heal someone nearby for 2 HP every time you hit an enemy (has to be a real enemy; can’t play-hit an ally to heal up). Both are good options. Don’t get too hung up on it, because ideally at 6th level you’ll assume a Shadow Hand stance and never leave.
Maneuvers – mountain hammer and at least one Devoted Spirit
For non-stance maneuvers, you have a lot of options; you can just pick whatever looks good, and it almost certainly will be. One needs to be Devoted Spirit; crusader’s strike for healing or foehammer for big damage are probably your best bets. Aside from these, mountain hammer is an excellent maneuver that basically every initiator should take, and I rather like battle leader’s charge and tactical strike from White Raven. But really, you can take whatever sounds good to you; it will probably work.
Feats – Weapon Finesse, Shadow Blade are top priority
You should also see if you can retrain your feats. Combat Casting is weak (in a few levels you’ll basically never fail a defensive casting check) and Spell Penetration just doesn’t help that much, particularly if you want to get into melee.
If you’re meleeing, with your stats, you need Weapon Finesse. That comes first no matter what; without it, you are not a melee character, and should see above for how to be a Pure Spellcaster.
At 6th level, when you take your first level of ruby knight vindicator, you gain a stance and Shadow Hand is an option. That means you can take island of blades for awesome flanking, and then you qualify – right at 6th level – for Shadow Blade. Assuming you already have Weapon Finesse, this is your highest priority.
After these, you want Exotic Weapon Proficiency, and then Power Attack. Yes, Power Attack – if you want damage, this is how you get it, and you should have the accuracy to support it. Plus, you should be getting 2:1 returns, because...
Exotic weapon – Spiked Chain
That Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat is for the spiked chain – a two-handed finesse weapon associated with Shadow Hand. That list just hit every major point we needed. You get 2:1 returns from Power Attack, you get to use Dexterity for both attack and damage rolls. Plus it has continuous reach, which is just about the best property a weapon can have. In other words, this is an absolutely perfect weapon for you. Since it can trip, you should consider Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, and Knock-down later on.
Without retraining – Weapon Finesse and Shadow Blade ASAP
If you cannot retrain, take Weapon Finesse at 6th and Shadow Blade at 9th. You can take Exotic Weapon Proficiency at 12th and Power Attack at 15th if you want, but getting your Dexterity into play is your top priority.
Best Answer
First, ask your DM if you can qualify for abjurant champion with an exotic weapon; you don’t need proficiency in any martial weapons to take Exotic Weapon Proficiency, and there are some better options for exotic weapons.
If exotic weapons are not allowed: Longbow
There’s not a whole lot of point to getting any martial weapon; any situation where attacking with a weapon is a better option than spellcasting, the fight is either already won and you’re conserving resources, or else you would be better off getting out of there.
Therefore, you might as well take something you can trivially and safely plink at enemies with: the longbow is that. A crossbow of any stripe is awful without Rapid Reload, which you don’t want to spend a feat on. Either really wants Precise Shot, which is not an awful feat for a spellcaster, but still not really worth it. Particularly when it requires Point-blank Shot and you can just buy a rod of magical precision to cover your spells’ precision needs.
Attach a least crystal of return from Magic Item Compendium to it, because most of the time you’d probably rather have a wand or rod in hand; the few cases where you want it, you might as well be able to use it the turn you want it, and 300 gp is a paltry sum for Quick Draw.
If exotic weapons are allowed...
This gets more interesting. There are a number of exotic weapons with useful properties.
As general notes:
Good Exotic Weapons discussion
Haberdash the Masked – A build for a master of masks, which has an option, the gladiator mask, to gain proficiency with all weapons. Includes a thorough list of exotic weapons worth considering.
Dungeon Master’s Guide II has the Feycraft weapon template. For 1500 gp, a one-handed melee weapon can be made eligible for Weapon Finesse, or a light melee weapon can be made to use Dexterity even if you don’t actually have Weapon Finesse. Considering your stats, Feycraft should be applied to any melee weapon that qualifies.
A least crystal of return is still a good idea. I seriously tend to put one of these on every weapon or weapon-like item I ever buy, because free actions are so very nice.
...a braid blade gives free attacks (Dungeon vol. 120)
When you full-attack, and are wielding a braid blade, you get to make a free attack with it. This is a no-caveats, no-penalties, no-feats, stacks-with-everything extra attack à la haste or Rapid Shot. You’ll want something else for your other attacks, most likely; a quarterstaff or dagger is fine.
...a gnomish calculus lets you hurl alchemical weapons (Arms & Equipment Guide)
Also, it’s one of the most ridiculous (and ridiculously-cool) weapons ever printed, and has by far the best name of any weapon. The gnomish calculus allows you to hurl alchemical weapons like tanglefoot bags much farther than you otherwise could.
This is mostly pointless; alchemical weapons mostly stop being useful at like, level 3. But it’s still cool.
Gets massively better (but still mediocre) if your DM rules that, as ammunition for the calculus, your alchemical items get any weapon properties applied to the calculus. This is arguably RAW (the alchemical items are referred to as ammunition, and no exception to the usual rules for projectile weapons imparting their enhancements on their ammunition is made), but it’s an unusual enough situation that I would ask.
Finally, it’s described as a fancy sling. Gnomish or not, halflings are better with these than anyone else.
...a greatbow outdamages a longbow (Complete Warrior)
For the dead-simple upgrade to the martial suggestion.
...halfling skiprocks are allow you to attack twice as much (Races of the Wild)
If you hit someone with a skiprock, you get to make a free attack against anyone within 5 ft. of the first target at a −2 penalty. Requires tight enemy clustering, but can potentially double your number of attacks.
Plus, they count as ammunition, and therefore cost 1/50 to magically enhance compared to other weapons. So you can get dirt-cheap weapon properties, particularly stuff that don’t actually involve attacking like eager, warning, or defending. Honestly, you don’t need proficiency for this, but your DM might feel a little bit better about the cheesiness if you are proficient.
...harpoons let you apply some mundane battlefield control (Frostburn)
The guy you impale with this moves at half speed, and cannot run or charge. For a lot of enemies, that’s tantamount to saying they have no offense; you can do a lot worse with a weapon. They can remove it as a full-round action – but it deals its damage again, and they just wasted their turn. If an enemy actually does that, you should thank them for it.
Also conveniently a thrown weapon, which is takes advantage of your being a halfling.
...a long staff can make you impossible to flank (Complete Adventurer)
You have to use the Total Defense option, or take Combat Expertise, but still, you get the option of eliminating flanking. If you’re hurting, just need to survive a round, and have a pair of rogues on you, this is effectively a huge boost to AC plus totally wrecking their damage output. It’s niche as hell, but man is it awesome when it does work.
Then again, you should almost-definitely be getting heavy fortitude on that feycraft armor or on a mithral buckler sooner rather than later. (Soulfire from Book of Exalted Deeds is your other priority, if you were wondering; having a +1 soulfire feycraft mithral chain shirt and a +1 heavy fortitude mithral buckler is my usual goal for armor.)
...a rope dart (meteor hammer) has the best reach (Dragon vol. 319)
This thing is ridiculous: 15-ft. continuous reach, à la the whip, but none of that nonsense about not threatening or failing against armor. Two-handed, but it can be finessed by default; ask your DM if you can apply feycraft to it and if so, whether it works as it does on light weapons. RAW, neither is true.
There are actually two weapons presented in Dragon vol. 319: the rope dart, which is described in detail, and then the meteor hammer, which is exactly like a rope dart except that it deals bludgeoning damage. Proficiency in one counts for the other.
...or a whip-dagger (Arms & Equipment Guide, Dragon vol. 353, Dungeon vol. 134)
If you don’t get to apply feycraft to the meteor hammer, you can ask after the whip-dagger instead: same reach, one-handed-but-finesseable weapon instead. No threatening with that one, but at least you can attack armored foes with it.
...or kusari-gama (Dungeon Master’s Guide)
If that doesn’t fly, the kusari-gama from the Dungeon Master’s Guide is a sure thing: it’s a light weapon that is otherwise a lower-damage spiked chain (in complete defiance of reality, I should add). Less reach on it, though.
...a razor net annoys enemies (Dragon Compendium)
This is basically a net that deals 1d6 damage, cuz why not. Nets can pretty much shut someone down; that’s highly useful.
Feel free to grab the regular net if Dragon Compendium isn’t available; the 1d6 damage is minuscule anyway.
Actually, consider grabbing (razor) nets even if you don’t take proficiency in them. They’re a touch attack anyway; even at −4 you can reliably hit that on some enemies. Plus, thrown weapon, so you’re already starting at +1.
...a Xen’drik boomerang qualifies for Boomerang Daze (Races of Eberron)
I know, it’s another feat. It’s also absolutely ridiculous. You get to push a hard Fortitude save versus daze on every single attack. This is so good that it will be better than casting a spell fairly often. Nothing else on this list is even close to claiming that. Daze is a status condition that very-nearly-no-one is immune to. Favor of the martyr is a 4th-level paladin spell that provides immunity to daze for 1 round/level – and it is just about the only thing that does that, so shenanigans to get it onto non-paladin spell lists are common. Anyone who hasn’t engaged in shenanigans (and isn’t a high-level paladin) is otherwise vulnerable to this.
If you want double-down on this, and spend another feat, Boomerang Ricochet can allow you to daze two people per attack.
Also, it’s thrown, so your halfling bonus applies.