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Sucrose
2009-08-12, 12:48 PM
I have recently begun to play D&D IRL again, after a fairly extended period of serving as DM. As our group (who are playing at 8th level) needed divine casting, I stepped up with a Halfling Cloistered Cleric of Boccob, with high mental stats and only Dexterity above average for physical stats. This feels a bit like a blend between a wizard and a cleric, particularly courtesy of the Magic domain, so I'm having a fair degree of fun with it. The other party members are a Half-Dragon Half-Ogre Barbarian1/Fighter 2 greatsword specialist, and an Elven Psion specializing in cold and Force Missile.

While this is hardly the most optimized of parties, I'm still having trouble contributing to combat efficiently when healing or turning are not required, due to my relative naivete regarding efficient divine spellcasting, or casting from wands. As such, I'd greatly appreciate any advice you of the Playground may have regarding good wizard spells to put in wands for combat, or good clerical spells aside from buffs (we seldom take the time to buff up much. I'm well aware of what poor tactical sense that can make). Most books are available, but I'd like to avoid Shivering Touch levels of cheese, as I don't want to annoy the other players.

vampire2948
2009-08-12, 01:09 PM
Did you consider Archivist (Heroes of Horror, also here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3)) you get a greater spell selection than Cleric, and Dark Knowledge is fairly useful too.

You'd be able to learn blasty or crowd control spells from any domain you wish, so that means lots of arcane spells too, though they'd be cast as divine.

Cloistered Cleric doesn't really work very well, in my opinion... free Knowledge Domain < Loss of melee and armour abilities. imo.

If you are unable to swap to Archivist, let me know, and i'll find some spells that would fit your description given.

Optimystik
2009-08-12, 01:19 PM
The CC should be played like a physically weak bard: you're the party loremaster, and you buff/debuff the others. Leave the swinging to the barb and the blasting to the psion.

What's your third domain? (Besides Knowledge and Magic.)

Sucrose
2009-08-12, 01:30 PM
vampire, I am unable to swap out for Archivist. I lack the book for it, and I'm reasonably sure that the others do as well. Likewise, I'm quite aware that CC is weaker than straight Cleric: after all, it's what a fair number of people advise as a nerf for the original! I'm just hoping I can find a way of being somewhat useful once I've buffed all I have to.

Optimistyk, per Boccob's core domains, the third domain that I've acquired is Trickery. If there are non-core domains that might be more useful, please let me know: odds are decent that my DM would let me swap. Also, I'd be just fine with debuffing or buffing, but I'd like to know what some particularly good divine buffs and debuffs are (both mass and singular in the second case).

RTGoodman
2009-08-12, 01:46 PM
The deity list from Living Greyhawk includes: Force (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/domain.pl?Force) (Complete Divine), Knowledge, Magic, Mind (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/domain.pl?Mind) (CD), Oracle (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/domain.pl?Oracle) (CD), Rune (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/domain.pl?Rune) (Sandstorm), and Trickery.

Sean K. Reynolds, who wrote the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer, also wrote a Greyhawk Deities Expanded Domain List (http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/we/greyhawkdeities.html) on his website, and he says that feels like the following domains from the FRCS could be added: Illusion (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/domain.pl?Illusion), Portal (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/domain.pl?Portal), and Spell (http://realmshelps.dandello.net/cgi-bin/domain.pl?Spell).

TheLogman
2009-08-12, 01:46 PM
Enlarge Person is good for general combat, each of the plus stat buffs (Wisdom, Dexterity, Intelligence, ect.) are all great, Greater Magic Weapon is useful, Spell Immunity, Magic Vestment, Death Ward, Prayer. Wind Wall is really cool.

As for debuffs, Poison is good if you can get the touch, and there's a ton more great 3rd level debuffs, like blindness, bestow curse, contagion.

Plus, you have a lot of "adventuring" spells available, like continual flame, water breathing, freedom of movement, air walk, tounges, for special occasions.

Oh, and to the psion, I homebrewed a class that is basically the fire prestige class for psions, but for water or cold based psions. There are few other mechanical differences, but I tried to make it balanced. Maybe he would be interested?

Hydrokineticist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48851)

It's mostly utility and damage-based cold stuff, but if he's going to be specialized anyway, it could help quite a bit.

And yeah, there is a Cryokineticist in Frostburn, but I have not heard good things about it.

Optimystik
2009-08-12, 01:51 PM
When you're done buffing and summoning, play Divine Archer with a crossbow, like Cadderly does. (I still believe he was the template for all future Cloistered Clerics.)

Just don't whip out the spindle-disks :smalltongue:

Milskidasith
2009-08-12, 01:52 PM
Wait, isn't CC supposed to be stronger than the normal clerics? The knowledge domain is useful, and increased skillpoints allow you to dump intelligence while still getting into all the PrCs you could ever need.

TheLogman
2009-08-12, 01:53 PM
The trade-off is in exchange for better skills and more skill points and an extra domain, you get less weapons and armor proficiencies, which means the CC can't do combat quite like a regular one can.

Tempest Fennac
2009-08-12, 01:55 PM
I remember starting a thread which was better ages ago, and some people said that Divine Metamagic and armour proficiency feats meant CCs are much better then normal Clerics (I didn't think that would be the case due to how many feats you'd need to get DMM and heavy armour proficiency combined with my view that they didn't make much sense from a fluff perspective).

ZeroNumerous
2009-08-12, 02:00 PM
The trade-off is in exchange for better skills and more skill points and an extra domain, you get less weapons and armor proficiencies, which means the CC can't do combat quite like a regular one can.

The only thing you lose is heavy armor prof(clerics only get Simple Weapons anyway). This is easily fixed with a level dip in any base class that gets heavy armor prof. Or just dump a feat for Medium Armor Prof and pick up a set of Mithril Full Plate. But since you're already dumping a feat for it, get Gnome Twistcloth instead.

There's no real downside to playing a Cloistered Cleric versus a regular one. In fact, there's actually an upside as now you have 3 domains(or retain 2 domains if you dump one for any ACF that loses a domain), better skill points and lose nothing from your cleric abilities to gain those.

Tempest Fennac
2009-08-12, 02:11 PM
CCs also have poorer BAB (I'd consider having to spend feats to wear better armour to be a problem due to how I'd sooner use my feats for other things, and being limited skillwise to getting Knowledge skills unless Domains which grant other skills doesn't seem worth it to me when a Wizard gets Knowledge skills for free). Admittedly, I think Clerics are best used in melee due to their limited Cure range*).


*I've often found that healing in combat is essential for stopping allies from dying.

Gnaeus
2009-08-12, 02:14 PM
Enlarge Person is good for general combat, each of the plus stat buffs (Wisdom, Dexterity, Intelligence, ect.) are all great, Greater Magic Weapon is useful, Spell Immunity, Magic Vestment, Death Ward, Prayer. Wind Wall is really cool.

Enlarge Person won't work on his tank, and neither he nor the Psion will want it. The stat buffs are good at low levels, but at level 8 I would assume that they already have items to cover their key stats. Likewise, the tank certainly has a magic weapon, so GMW is only giving a +1.

The cleric handbook has a good list of generally good cleric spells (and feats, equipment, etc).
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=420.0

For finding wizard spells, I suggest
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=394.0

Optimystik
2009-08-12, 02:15 PM
They also get downgraded to d6 instead of d8 hit dice, making frontlining a pipe dream (which is why I suggested Divine Archer.) Grab Zen Archery at level 6 and you're good to go.

Gnaeus
2009-08-12, 02:20 PM
The only thing you lose is heavy armor prof(clerics only get Simple Weapons anyway). This is easily fixed with a level dip in any base class that gets heavy armor prof. Or just dump a feat for Medium Armor Prof and pick up a set of Mithril Full Plate. But since you're already dumping a feat for it, get Gnome Twistcloth instead.

There's no real downside to playing a Cloistered Cleric versus a regular one. In fact, there's actually an upside as now you have 3 domains(or retain 2 domains if you dump one for any ACF that loses a domain), better skill points and lose nothing from your cleric abilities to gain those.

You do also lose some hit points (d8>d6) and your medium BAB. Trading the Knowledge domain for the Knowledge Devotion (complete champion) really makes it a win.

Argh! Partial ninjas.

Milskidasith
2009-08-12, 02:22 PM
BAB doesn't really matter when a cleric has multiple ways to boost their strength and BAB up to the same as the parties best melee character.

Kylarra
2009-08-12, 02:22 PM
CCs also have poorer BAB (I'd consider having to spend feats to wear better armour to be a problem due to how I'd sooner use my feats for other things, and being limited skillwise to getting Knowledge skills unless Domains which grant other skills doesn't seem worth it to me when a Wizard gets Knowledge skills for free). Admittedly, I think Clerics are best used in melee due to their limited Cure range*).


*I've often found that healing in combat is essential for stopping allies from dying.divine power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/divinepower.htm) makes the BAB decrease pretty much irrelevant.

ZeroNumerous
2009-08-12, 02:22 PM
On BAB: Irrelevant. CCs can get full BAB with a spell.

On HP: Granted, but the difference between a d6 and a d8 is 22 HP at 20th, or 2+1/level at any given level.

There's nothing the base cleric can do that the cloistered version can't do just as well or better.

EDIT: Double partial ninja.

only1doug
2009-08-12, 02:27 PM
You do also lose some hit points (d8>d6) and your medium BAB. Trading the Knowledge domain for the Knowledge Devotion (complete champion) really makes it a win.

Argh! Partial ninjas.

as Gnaeus says, Knowledge devotion from complete champion will give your party a free buff in combat by identifying your enemies weaknessess (bonus to hit and damage based on knowledge roll).

Thorin
2009-08-12, 02:28 PM
You should consider Reserve feats.

As long as you have prepared an spell of X (illusion, darness, fire, etc, depending on the reserve feat), you can, at-will, do a minor effect (for example, summon a flanking elemental, toss fire orbs, daze some enemies, etc).

Complete Champion and complete mage have a bunch of those

EDIT: Normally the effect you make is better according to the level of the spell (of subtype X) you have prepared

Lord Loss
2009-08-12, 02:47 PM
Uh, guys? What is a cloistered cleric?

Thorin
2009-08-12, 02:48 PM
Is a variant from the normal cleric. Less tank, more nerd

Here you go (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric)

RTGoodman
2009-08-12, 02:48 PM
This (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric). WhiteText

Sucrose
2009-08-12, 03:08 PM
Wow, whole lotta feedback. I'm not going to be responding to any of the comments regarding the melee viability of Cloistered Clerics. I cannot attain the power that other CCs may be able to, due to stat distribution, race, and unwillingness to waste feats on armor proficiencies when I'm trying to portray an academic.

Many thanks to those who have offered suggestions regarding feats, spells, and alternate class features. Also thanks to Gnaeus for pointing out handbooks for more of those. I'll look into them when I have a bit more time.

greenknight
2009-08-12, 05:00 PM
I cannot attain the power that other CCs may be able to, due to stat distribution, race, and unwillingness to waste feats on armor proficiencies when I'm trying to portray an academic.

If you're willing to do it, Polymorph cheese solves most of those issues, and a Monk's Belt solves the rest. Combined with Divine Favor, Divine Power and Righteous Might, you can be the best melee combatant of the group. Although without Divine Metamagic, you won't really hit your stride for that until around 10th level.

quick_comment
2009-08-12, 05:06 PM
Why is CC any worse in melee than the regular cleric?

Wow, they cant wear armor, so what? Between knowledge devotion, divine power and the huge number of AC buffs that clerics get, its not a problem.

vampire2948
2009-08-12, 05:10 PM
Why is CC any worse in melee than the regular cleric?

Wow, they cant wear armor, so what? Between knowledge devotion, divine power and the huge number of AC buffs that clerics get, its not a problem.

They've got one grade less HD, and lack martial weapon proficiencies.

So they're pretty much as good in Melee, sans buffs, as a sorceror or similar. Oh, and then they have the same BAB as a wizard. So... they are effectively wizards in combat.

Woot Spitum
2009-08-12, 05:17 PM
Here are some of my favorite spells to use as a caster cleric:

Obscuring Mist, Darkness, Deeper Darkness-Need to shut down a ranged threat quickly? Toss one of these at your enemy. None allow saves, so they are useful even at high levels. They are also useful for protecting yourself while casting buff spells.

Wall of Stone-Any time you can force your foes to do something other than attack (in this case climbing, moving around, or breaking down your wall) is basically an extra round for all your allies to act unhindered. Preventing enemies from attacking your allies in the first place beats healing every time. You can even use this to encircle foes. Does not allow a save.

Blindness/Deafness-50% miss chance on melee attacks, the inability to use ranged attacks or spells that require a target, and the need to make successful listen checks just to locate the party make blindness an excellent debuff. Add deafness on top of blindness against single powerful foes to make them essentially helpless. Allows a will save, so some enemies are resistant. You will also need the Heighten Spell feat for this to be useful at higher levels.

Hold Person-Paralyzing a single enemy is always useful. This is less useful if you don't regularly fight humanoids, but in campaigns where humanoids are the primary foe this is amazing. Once again, this allows a will save, and needs heighten spell to be useful at higher levels.

Air Walk:Flying will protect you from damage far more than AC ever will.

These spells are mostly accessible early on, and a single feat makes the few that allow saves useful even at later levels.

Oh, and always carry at least two wands of cure light wounds. Never prepare healing spells if you can spontaneously cast them.

I have probably played clerics more than any other class, and I can say from experience that caster clerics are much stronger than melee clerics.

Set
2009-08-12, 05:19 PM
Sounds like you have the Magic Domain. Use that to use scrolls and wands of whatever wizard spells you want. Between a plethora of Clerical spells, and pretty much any Sor/Wiz spell you want (as a Wizard of 1/2 your Cleric level), you've got access to just about any spell in the game.

quick_comment
2009-08-12, 05:30 PM
They've got one grade less HD, and lack martial weapon proficiencies.

So they're pretty much as good in Melee, sans buffs, as a sorceror or similar. Oh, and then they have the same BAB as a wizard. So... they are effectively wizards in combat.

Divine power gives them the same BAB as fighters, along with a strength enhancement and extra hp.

Knowledge devotion gives increased attack and damage.

Optimystik
2009-08-12, 06:27 PM
Divine power gives them the same BAB as fighters, along with a strength enhancement and extra hp.

And one dispel makes them bards again. They are much safer as archers.

greenknight
2009-08-12, 06:34 PM
And one dispel makes them bards again. They are much safer as archers.

If the Dispel works - which can be difficult given how easy it is for a Cleric (or CC) to boost Caster Level. And the Dispel won't affect a Monk's Belt, which improves the CC's touch AC by Wis mod + 1.

Disjunction is much more reliable, but it's also much less common.

Kylarra
2009-08-12, 06:36 PM
Disjunction is much more reliable, but it's also much less common.Disjunction is also generally avoided by gentleman's agreement or physical agreement.

ZeroNumerous
2009-08-12, 06:37 PM
They've got one grade less HD, and lack martial weapon proficiencies.


Clerics are proficient with all simple weapons, with all types of armor (light, medium, and heavy), and with shields (except tower shields).

Emphasis mine.

Clerics never got martial weapon prof. And why did people suddenly forget the Holy Trinity of CoDZilla? Divine Power, Righteous Might and Shield of Faith.

Gnaeus
2009-08-12, 06:49 PM
Emphasis mine.

Clerics never got martial weapon prof. And why did people suddenly forget the Holy Trinity of CoDZilla? Divine Power, Righteous Might and Shield of Faith.

We didn't forget it. We are dealing with a character with low physical stats, d6 hp/level, and light armor. With that as a base, Divine Power and Righteous Might will make him a mediocre fighter, when he could be a good caster. Just because he could melee, doesn't mean he should.

ZeroNumerous
2009-08-12, 06:50 PM
We are dealing with a character ...

I wasn't talking about the character, I was talking about the idea that Cloistered Clerics are weaker than regular clerics.

quick_comment
2009-08-12, 07:01 PM
And one dispel makes them bards again. They are much safer as archers.

Divine counterspell. Ankh of ascension, dispelling cord, candle of invocation, orange ioun stone.

ColdSepp
2009-08-12, 07:10 PM
Also, if you are going DDM, you likely have the Extra Turning feat, which is prerequisite for RSoP.


Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Radiant servants of
Pelor are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all armor, and with shields.

Now, it doesn't matter in this case, but as a general dip for Cloistered Clerics....

Tempest Fennac
2009-08-13, 12:15 AM
I know Divine Power gives full BAB. The problem is that keeping it up all day is going to take a lot of feats which would probably be more useful for other things based on how CCs aren't designed to be frontline fighters (I don't think things like DMM Divine Power really fit from a fluff perspective either). Also, one problem with mentioning ways of countering the problems is that not everyone has access to the books in question, and the information may not be available for free online.

Optimystik
2009-08-13, 12:43 AM
Divine counterspell. Ankh of ascension, dispelling cord, candle of invocation, orange ioun stone.

And while he's readying actions to counterspell, he's not meleeing, so what's the point? Leave him as a caster.

Kylarra
2009-08-13, 12:55 AM
I don't think debating the merits of clericzilla or potential lacks thereof is within the scope of this thread. It's fine for you guys to disagree with the potential power of a clericzilla, but the major point that I, and pretty much everyone else that I can see, are defending is that Cloistered Clerics aren't any worse at meleeing than the original cleric, as the only major difference is D8 HD -> D6, averaging out to 1 less hp/lvl.

oxinabox
2009-08-13, 01:00 AM
um...
assuming cloister cleric still has simple weapon proficiency (i've been looking everywhere for the book but can't find which one it's from...)
Weild a Large Longspear (or pollarm of prefence if you have martial)
And always stand behind the fighter/meatsheild.
There is a Magic item that makes you large for like only 500gp.
Can't remember what it is, one of my players used it.
and I was like:
Broken much?

Doc Roc
2009-08-13, 01:52 AM
vampire, I am unable to swap out for Archivist. I lack the book for it, and I'm reasonably sure that the others do as well. Likewise, I'm quite aware that CC is weaker than straight Cleric: after all, it's what a fair number of people advise as a nerf for the original! I'm just hoping I can find a way of being somewhat useful once I've buffed all I have to.

339 generally considers CC stronger than base cleric, thanks to DMM:Persist + Divine Power. I tend to agree for a variety of other reasons. While ToS demands that you use CC clerics, it's actually due to some of the other nerfs which help hurt cleric power in such a way to make CC less desirable.

I'm very tired of people trying to adjudicate character power based on their personal house rules or their perception of the fluff. Until you know the OP's table-rules, you should stick as best as you can to the rules of the game itself. Those rules favor strongly DMM:Persist for a wide ranging variety of reasons. If flaws are allowed, there is virtually no reason* not to run DMM:Persist, particularly as a cloistered cleric.

What would you do with those feats instead?
Clericzilla may be beyond the scope of the thread. A useful and elegant counter-proposal for a build is not.


If martial weapons are a necessity for your day-to-day life, play an aasimar. They make superb clerics anyway, and you can and should buy off the LA if it is allowed. If LA buy-off is not allowed, Aasimar become lack-luster options, unfortunately.




*Other than sanity, and a love for puppies and kittens.

On dispelling:
It's doable, but less easy than people happily presume. DC is 11+CL of target effect. Worse, dispel magic and most similar effects cap either at +10 or +20, both of which are pathetically low. Interestingly, this means that relics are GREAT early game, as all relics have CL20. Neat, huh? But more importantly, it means that with a couple of light buffs to your caster level, it's trivial to make your buffs very-difficult to dispel. Further, you can and should be carrying a ring of spellbattle. Once per day, re-target a spell. Yeeepp......

Curmudgeon
2009-08-13, 02:31 AM
The Cloistered Cleric is better for melee than a regular Cleric if you take advantage of the strengths while patching the weaknesses.

The strengths are: Knowledge domain, more spells known, and more skill points. To leverage these things you'll want the Knowledge Devotion feat (Complete Champion). If you look at this, you'll realize there are exactly 6 Knowledges you need to put ranks into to get benefits (to hit and damage) versus all creature types. And the CC gets 6 + INT mod skill points. So if you're playing a human with a 14 INT you'll be able to max out these 6 Knowledge Devotion skills, plus Spellcraft, Concentration, and Spot -- basically all the skills you'll need.

The weaknesses are: lack of heavy armor, d6 hit dice, and poor BAB. Divine Power fixes the BAB. Attacking with Vampiric Touch (which you'll be able to wand thanks to the Magic domain) will fix your low HP issue. And Clerics can take advantage of a nifty rules exploit for armor, as follows.

1) Start with the right clothing.
Scholar’s Outfit

Perfect for a scholar, this outfit includes a robe, a belt, a cap, soft shoes, and possibly a cloak.2) Next, enhance the robe with an armor bonus (up to +8), as per Magic Item Compendium page 234. This works exactly the same as Bracers of Armor; the "Adding/Improving Common Item Effects" table allows armor bonuses in both Arms (bracers) and Body (robe) slots.

3) Next, you can add an armor enhancement bonus on top of the armor bonus with Magic Vestment:
You imbue a suit of armor or a shield with an enhancement bonus of +1 per four caster levels (maximum +5 at 20th level).

An outfit of regular clothing counts as armor that grants no AC bonus for the purpose of this spell.4) Finally, realize that your armor boost (up to +13) isn't from actual armor at all, and thus you can still wear a Monk's Belt to get (1 + WIS bonus) more AC!

riddles
2009-08-13, 03:24 AM
zen archery. rapid reload or a +1 quickloading (MIC) light crossbow. maybe rapid shot if you have the dex.

then your standard cleric buffs (divine favour etc.) can result in steady damage in combat, alongside your other buffing and battlefield control spells.

Curmudgeon
2009-08-13, 04:32 AM
zen archery. rapid reload or a +1 quickloading (MIC) light crossbow.
Or just be an elf Cloistered Cleric, and get longbow proficiency from your race.