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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?

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2 Answers 2

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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.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Interesting, great find. Do you think that was the original purpose of Blood Crow Strike? Seems weird that they would make a spell for clerics just so that monks could take it via the Qinggong archetype \$\endgroup\$
    – Kevin
    Mar 23, 2017 at 20:31
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    \$\begingroup\$ Blood Crow Strike was published in Ultimate Magic, which means that the two share the same book. I don't have a physical copy to check page numbers, but I do believe that the spell was certainly designed with the archetype in mind. On another note, I'm going to do a little bit more searching, and see if there's any good Cleric or Oracle setups that might make good use of it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ray of Light
    Mar 23, 2017 at 20:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ I don't see any way to get Flurry of Blows on a Cleric or Oracle without multi-classing, but I might have missed it. I think there's an unarmed Oracle or Cleric build that doesn't use FoB, which would also allow use of this spell. Also, you're welcome to absorb my answer (with credit) and I'll delete it if you do. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ifusaso
    Mar 23, 2017 at 20:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'm not finding any Cleric or Oracle options for FoB. Even the closest Prestige Class I could find, the Iorian Paladin, (Champion of the Enlightened on d20PFSRD,) is a Paladin/Monk mix, and would not have access to the spell. I'm not familiar with the Unarmed build that you mention, though, and would be interested to hear more if you can find more information about it. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ray of Light
    Mar 23, 2017 at 20:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ Correction on above comment: Champion of Irori is the Prestige Class, not Iorian Paladin. There is the Iroran Paladin archetype for Paladin, but that, too, does not gain Flurry of Blows. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ray of Light
    Mar 23, 2017 at 20:59
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This could work perfectly with Gestalt rules from 3.5 that are mechanically compatible with Pathfinder, Monk/Cleric combination being specifically called out to be very effective. With the Blood Crow Strike, it could become even more effective for obvious reasons.

I am not sure if it's the most wise usage of level 4 slot, though.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Interesting idea. I don't play with rules from 3.5 even though they are technically compatible, and haven't played a Gestalt campaign, but for people who do, this would be a good combo \$\endgroup\$
    – Kevin
    Mar 27, 2017 at 15:46

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