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shadowolf
2011-01-26, 09:54 PM
I'm playing cleric, planning to become a thaumaturgist, and usually choose the wrong spells. I'm feeling like a heal-bot.

A player/co-worker threatened to kill my character next session, so I would like to be prepared.

books allowed: PHB, DMG, MM, PHB2, Complete Warrior, Complete Adventurer

my character is a level 4 cleric: feats spell focus: conjuration, rapid spell, extend spell
other player is a level 4 fighter: feats power attack, cleave, weapon focus: scythe (I don't remember what other feats he has)

Elric VIII
2011-01-26, 10:04 PM
A level 4 fighter has a Will save of 1+Wis (probobly a dump stat) your DCs will be in the 14-15 range for a 1st/2nd level spell, assuming that you have at least 16 Wis. This means that he will not be very likely to resist debuffs.

Sanctuary - Will save each time he tries to attack you, fail and he loses that action. Then use your summons to beat on him.

Hold Person - Will save or be paralyzed for CL number of rounds. Use those rounds to beat on him without worries.

Shatter - Blow up his weapon.

Cause Fear - Make him run away, humiliation is a bonus.

In short, I recommend making him regret that low Will save. Use your summons to gain multiple actions to his single action.

EDIT: At level 4 you can afford a Full Plate, Tower Shield(If you're a summoner you don't need to be able to hit things yourself), and cast Shield of Faith. With 12 dex that's an AC of 25, if he has 18 strength he can only hit on a 15+ roll. That's a 25% hit chance, assuming that he rolled the max for his primary stat.

EDIT EDIT: math mistakes

shadowolf
2011-01-26, 10:10 PM
I like shatter. He's proud of himself for crafting his own scythe. That would be a very useful humiliation tactic

Elric VIII
2011-01-26, 10:13 PM
I like shatter. He's proud of himself for crafting his own scythe. That would be a very useful humiliation tactic

Don't forget your AoOs if he tries to attack you unarmed or with non-spiked gauntlets.

Also, if you can stall the fight to level 7, Divine Power makes you a better fighter than he is.

shadowolf
2011-01-26, 10:16 PM
EDIT: At level 4 you can afford a Full Plate, Tower Shield(If you're a summoner you don't need to be able to hit things yourself), and cast Shield of Faith. With 12 dex that's an AC of 25, if he has 18 strength he can only hit on a 15+ roll. That's a 25% hit chance, assuming that he rolled the max for his primary stat.

EDIT EDIT: math mistakes

\|I dumped DEX, it is only 9. Full Plate has not been available to purchase, but I'm wearing banded mail. He does have an 18 STR and rolled well for all stats. I don't think he has anything below 12 and know he doesn't have anything below 10

Elric VIII
2011-01-26, 10:24 PM
\|I dumped DEX, it is only 9. Full Plate has not been available to purchase, but I'm wearing banded mail. He does have an 18 STR and rolled well for all stats. I don't think he has anything below 12 and know he doesn't have anything below 10

Well, even with a 2-3 Will save you have a more than 50% chance of getting a spell to work.

Elric VIII
2011-01-26, 10:40 PM
This (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872758/Mastering_the_Malconvoker?post_id=338474262#338474 262) might help you to decide what to summon if it comes to that.

Sorry for the delay in this, I had to find the guide again. I lost the link somehow.

aboyd
2011-01-27, 12:12 AM
One of the tried & true ways to manipulate D&D for your own victory is to understand the "action economy" and how to play it to your favor. The more actions you can get and the fewer he can get, the better. Being a cleric, you have gooooooood ways to do this.

As others have suggested, summoning monsters means you get more hits in (or, your summons get hits in, which counts). AND he will have to waste hits on them instead of you. That is soooo good.

But more than that, you have access to the PHB 2. That book has the spell, Stay The Hand. This spell is awesome for 3 reasons. First, it's an immediate action, which means you can cast it and still get to cast something else. This is great; it allows you to double-up on spells and you want to get off as many as possible as quickly as possible. But also, because it's immediate, you can cast it when it's not your turn, and if you do it right, the wording of the spell says that not only can he not attack you for the round, but he might lose any spell that was being cast (that doesn't apply to the fighter though, so it's more just a generally good thing). And the second reason it's good is because it targets will, which as others have suggested will mean that any fighter will be fairly likely to fail the save. The third reason? If you cast it right before you start casting a Summon Monster spell, it'll protect you from him interrupting the spell.

I don't know if others have mentioned this, but the Summon spells have a casting time of 1 round. This means you start casting on your turn, but you have to keep casting through other players' turns until your turn comes back up. This is terrible because it means any player can wallop you and you have to make concentration checks or lose the spell. You do not want him blocking your actions. That's the worst thing ever. So you cast Stay the Hand, and start your Summon spell. His turn comes up, but because he lost the Will save, he forfeits the turn. Your next turn comes up, the summon spell is done safely, and now you can cast another spell at him. Hopefully, you can cast another two spells at him, if you make one of them swift or immediate. Maybe even another Stay the Hand spell, so he's just twiddling his thumbs while you're going nova.

Good luck.


Sanctuary - Will save each time he tries to attack you, fail and he loses that action. Then use your summons to beat on him.

Hold Person - Will save or be paralyzed for CL number of rounds. Use those rounds to beat on him without worries.
I suspect that Elric is a pretty savvy D&D player. His first 2 suggestions will starve the fighter of actions. This is exactly what you need.

Also, what domains does your cleric have?

Also, if you're going to summon monsters, consider the riding dog for the trip action he can do (forcing your enemy to waste actions to stand up, or take penalties from remaining on the ground), or the celestial giant bee for the poison sting. What's so great about the poison is that even if you lose, he might die anyway, because after a minute he has to save again or lose even more points of constitution. If you die, it's a nice consolation prize to say, "You got stung 3 times. Now that the battle is over, you have to make 3 more saves, or take 3d4 more points of Constitution damage."

(Note: I've heard something about ability damage not being able to reduce a stat below 1, but I can't find that text anywhere. If it's true, you won't be able to kill him that way. But if it's not true, then doing Con damage is a lovely backup.)

Combat Reflexes
2011-01-27, 03:53 AM
One spell: Levitate.

All those Scythe-focused feats will count for very little if you're 60 ft. up in the air :smallcool:

Also, Hold Person +1. You have to come very close, but if he fails his Will save, he's paralyzed.
Paralyzed = Helpless
Helpless = Coup-de-Grace.

Killer Angel
2011-01-27, 04:29 AM
I'm playing cleric, planning to become a thaumaturgist, and usually choose the wrong spells. I'm feeling like a heal-bot.

A player/co-worker threatened to kill my character next session, so I would like to be prepared.


OK, this is unrelated to your immediate problem, but: why on Earth a fighter should kill a Healbot cleric? It's almost a delayed suicide...

shadowolf
2011-01-27, 08:23 AM
OK, this is unrelated to your immediate problem, but: why on Earth a fighter should kill a Healbot cleric? It's almost a delayed suicide...

It was an out of character decision on his part. Also, his character thinks of himself as a god.

@*****: I didn't think that the Giant Bee would be very useful, since it has to be recast after each successful attack. 3 hits would mean 3 summons. Plus stay the hand twice? I don' think that I have that many level 2 spells. My domains are law and magic. I intend to use the law domains level 1 law domain spell, because I think that he is chaotic.

@Combat Reflexes:...hmm...levitate

Amnestic
2011-01-27, 08:59 AM
The SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm) says that you can reduce them to zero, and in the case of CON Damage, kill them with it.

Yora
2011-01-27, 09:06 AM
But you should also find a way of dealing with a player who just wants to kill other characters just for the fun of it. If you kill his character, he will simply make a new one and then probably try to kill other characters again.
This would be quite annoying, so see if you can do something against that as well.

Last Laugh
2011-01-27, 10:01 AM
But you should also find a way of dealing with a player who just wants to kill other characters just for the fun of it. If you kill his character, he will simply make a new one and then probably try to kill other characters again.
This would be quite annoying, so see if you can do something against that as well.

What is his in-character motivation? Do you worship opposing gods? or does he just want to kill the class capable of healing him? I have a feeling this isn't well thought out on his part.

Yora
2011-01-27, 12:11 PM
It was an out of character decision on his part.
This is what would get me worried.

shadowolf
2011-01-27, 08:26 PM
But you should also find a way of dealing with a player who just wants to kill other characters just for the fun of it. If you kill his character, he will simply make a new one and then probably try to kill other characters again.
This would be quite annoying, so see if you can do something against that as well.

I angered him at work and he said it in anger, so I expect him to have changed his mind by Saturday. I want to be prepared if he doesn't.

@Last Laugh: His in character reason could be the fact that he thinks he's a god and want me to worship him. There has been tension between our to characters from the beginning.

On a different note, what are good spells to prepare for generic adventuring? I can get spells from other sources, but have to clear them with the DM first.


One spell: Levitate.

All those Scythe-focused feats will count for very little if you're 60 ft. up in the air :smallcool:

Also, Hold Person +1. You have to come very close, but if he fails his Will save, he's paralyzed.
Paralyzed = Helpless
Helpless = Coup-de-Grace.

Levitate is a level 2 arcane spell. I don't know if I can use level 2 arcane scrolls yet.

Combat Reflexes
2011-01-28, 07:01 PM
Levitate is a level 2 arcane spell. I don't know if I can use level 2 arcane scrolls yet.

You're right, I forgot about that. But you had the Magic domain, didn't you?

Also, if your DM allows the Spell Compendium, I believe there is an 1st level cleric spell called Updraft. Can't remember the rules but it was something along the lines of levitate.

Lastly, a few useful spells to help you in your quest to kill your <teammate>:
-Balor Nimbus: a second level spell that deals 6d6!! fire damage to any creature unfortunate enough to be grappling you. Grappletastic.
-the Sign spell, to give you a neat +4 bonus to initiative.

HopeThisHelps:smallsmile:

@V: Um, they're all from the SpellCompendium :smallsigh:

But don't panic! There are some great PH cleric spells:
-Shatter that weapon of his! No bigger way to piss him off than destroying his precious scythe (doesn't work if it's magical, tho)
-Calm Emotions in the 1st round. Poor fighter cannot take aggressive actions for 4 rounds, giving you the time to buff yourself - or flee:smallbiggrin:

shadowolf
2011-01-28, 09:06 PM
You're right, I forgot about that. But you had the Magic domain, didn't you?

Also, if your DM allows the Spell Compendium, I believe there is an 1st level cleric spell called Updraft. Can't remember the rules but it was something along the lines of levitate.

Lastly, a few useful spells to help you in your quest to kill your <teammate>:
-Balor Nimbus: a second level spell that deals 6d6!! fire damage to any creature unfortunate enough to be grappling you. Grappletastic.
-the Sign spell, to give you a neat +4 bonus to initiative.

HopeThisHelps:smallsmile:

Yes, I have the magic domain, but would have to purchase a scroll. I doubt that I would get the opportunity. Spell Compendium spells would mean that I'd have to check with the DM first, so they wouldn't be available next session. I will check the PHB2 for the other 2 spells.

[EDIT] Thanks for the help. The player didn't follow through with his threat and hold person was very effective in stopping a bar fight.