[Pathfinder] What to do with a Cleric?

[Cheesegear]

So, very recently, I've started playing D&D again. Our group goes off and on with the amount of players that show up, but it's generally always three that show up;

Human Cleric (me, because I said I'd heal).
Half-Orc Barbarian, playing kick-in-the-door style.
Half-Elf Summoner, who appears to be living out his Pokemon fantasy.

With these guys coming intermittently;
Half-Orc Druid (spellcaster)
Human Fighter, similar to the Barbarian.

So far, we're level 5. And I don't know if Clerics are just bad at it, or whether I'm doing something wrong, but I've just spent the last four levels at "I roll attacks." except I'm worse at it than the Fighter and Barbarian so why should I bother?

Is there any specific spells I should be picking that don't suck?
Is there any specific feats that I should be picking up that don't suck?

I just keep wondering how much better being a Paladin would be. I'm not even close to coming to using all my spells every day - not even for spontaneous healing.

For the record, we're running off Pathfinder Core and APG. With sources not-those needing to be run by the DM, and most of the things that I liked doing in 3.5 have been vetoed so far. So, yeah. Pathfinder Core Cleric? What to do...

[Talentless]

Everything a 3.5 cleric can do without DMM shenanigans?

Cast Hold Person and Coup de Grace?

Or you could load up your spells with ones that allow you to beef up the Barbarians kick-in-the-door-itude.

What domains do you have anyways?

[Zeikstraal]

Don't waste your spells with Healing. Unless realy necassary, like if someone is dying. Just take some cool buffs, Magic Weapon, Enlarge Person if you have the Strength domain, which you schould not have:P Magic Vestment, Bull's Strenght. If you have the chance to cast them before combat on yourself if you wanna have fun. Otherwise buff the barbarian with some extra strength.
I had a cleric too half a year back. I had the Trickery and Travel Domain. I only wasted my spells with healing when someone was dying, or just on the brink of dying. I didn't wage myself in melee often, We already had an 2 weapon fighting Rogue, a Barbarian, a Monk and a Fighter. So it wasn't necassary. I just summoned a Flanking buddy for our rogue, provided a buff here and there. And mostly (is that even a word?:P) the combat didn't last longer than 3 rounds.
And I had great fun, I was more Charismatic so I told everyone I was the leader, and they where just my peons. Well, not with those words, but they bought it:P. And I told them that I could cast spells and had the Divine Might of the Gods with me. So that if they would turn against me, they would see the true power of my characterXD.

Long story short. Prepare more buff and maybe a summon monster or 2. And if you can't cause of your build, ask your DM if you can rebuild him, and take Trickery, Travel, Luck or Liberation domains. I think those are the most versatile and handy in the game.

You can always rebuild it to get more strength, use a bulls Strength on yourself, Power Attack and your ready. Later with Righteus Might, altough he got nerfed, it will become realy fun.

[Unseenmal]

Clerics in Pathfinder should also not be using spells to heal unless it is absolutely necessary....Channel Energy is huge for saving your spells for buffs and the like as Zeikstraal said. However, pick up the Selective Channel feat so you can choose to ignore the bad guys otherwise it's a radius burst and everyone gets it including the baddies. Unless they are undead...then it bad news for them...

Rogue Eidolon's PFSRD Cleric Domain Guide (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/rogue-eidolon-s-lab/rogue-eidolon-s-guide-to-clerics)

Since you have a barbarian...look at the Community domain, Calming Touch can remove the fatigued from them so they can rage again quicker. But that's all in Rogue Eidolon's Guide

However, I also agree with Zeikstraal on the domains...Liberation and Luck being my favorites. (My 1st PF char was Cleric of Desna) But Trickery and Travel are great choices. Don't forget the wonderful abilities they give besides the spells.

IMO, a PF cleric has more option available because you don't have to worry too much about spontaneous casting heal spells becasue of the channel energy ability

Spoilered Walls O'Text that I compiled from my research on Cleric Spells that were good to use for various situations. Others may disagree but I found these lists to help me in my spell selection

Defense and Buff Spells
Level 1
Bless: Not amazing, but every bonus is a bonus. The more characters, the better.
Endure Elements: Eh, obvious utility.
Magic Stone: Handy buff for Sling-users. Note that sling is a solid ranged level 1 weapon for high Str types, being quite light, almost free and adding Str to damage.
Magic Weapon: Handy buff for anyone. If a bit small.
Protection from Alignment: Great buff stops all mind control in addition to solid Deflection/Resistance.
Sanctuary: Obvious utility, you aren't attacking anyways, so... Also can be used to protect another, who's about to go down.
Shield of Faith: Touch-spell that grants nice Deflection-bonus to AC.

Level 2
Aid: Mostly just Bless with few additional Temp HP. Pretty weak beyond the first levels.
Align Weapon: Occasionally absolutely crucial with early opponents packing some pesky DRs.
Bull's Strength & al.: Handy early on.
Resist Energy: Great vs. casters and energy-based creatures and just environment.

Level 3
Magic Circle against Alignment: Like Protection, except area-of-effect and stops summoned creatures and such. Handy. 10' area.
Magic Vestment: One of the best buffs in the game, allows you to, especially in conjunction with Animated Shields and such, give everyone decent AC. Use with caster level boosters for early +5s all day.
Meld into Stone: Fine "Invisibility"-substitute that's not trumped by most spells. It's hard to detect your presence without heavy magical scanning.
Prayer: Short-duration Bless (with Luck-bonus though) and a penalty to enemies. Meh.
Protection from Energy: Like Resist Energy except complete immunity to certain threshold. I prefer Resist Energy though sometimes, when taking huge blazing balls of fire, this is better.
Water Breathing: Too obvious.
Water Walk: Yeah.

Level 4
Air Walk: Obvious. Notably, you still walk so stuff depending on jumping and such should work normally. Nice duration, though not 1h/level. Touch.
Imbue with Spell Ability: Divine Favor is a nice one, for example. Personal spells in general.
Greater Magic Weapon: Like Magic Vestment, except for weapons. The nice part is that Clerics can buff their CL like crazy so you'll have +5s in the mid-teens. Close range.
Spell Immunity: Stuff such as Enervation and such is very solid to protect people from. Touch.

Level 5
Disrupting Weapon: Kills undead. Handy in Undead-heavy scenarios. With iteratives, it amounts to a whole ton of SoDs vs. Undead. Touch-range.
Spell Resistance: 12+CL is a nice amount, without cap, especially for a Cleric. It's Touch so it can be used to ward the entire party and it's nice 10 min/level (if it only were 1 hour/level...).
True Seeing: Too obvious.

Level 6
Mass Bull's Strength & al.: When you have hordes of servants/underlings/whatever, these can be worthwhile. Party will just buy gear.
Heroes' Feast: Extend it for 24-hour Fear-immunity and Morale-bonus to Hit and Will-saves. One is enough to feed the entire party and then some. Should be staple once you get it given the DCs of the fear auras some creatures have.
Wind Walk: Kind of like your version of Teleport. Nice travel-spell if actual Teleportation is not available.
Word of Recall: Solid replication of one function of Teleportation. Nice overall.

Level 7
Ethereal Jaunt: Decent escape spell though only 1 round/level and Personal.
Refuge: Nice "Oh ****"-Contingency to give to e.g. party Rogue or someone else bound to get into trouble alone.

Level 8
Cloak of Chaos/Holy Aura/Shield of Law/Unholy Aura: Decent defensive alignment-buffs, though they unfortunately don't stack with common protective items. There's still the "successful attack requires will-save vs. Confusion" and multi-targeting going on for it though. Again, very solid if you have unequipped underlings.
Greater Spell Immunity: Good for the same reason Spell Immunity is good.

Level 9
Astral Projection: You pay some for effective immortality, especially combined with Plane Shift. Basically, you create a clone of yourself, for which dying doesn't make any difference. It's great how Plane Shift is a level 5 spell for Clerics. Multitarget.
Miracle: It does everything, most without XP cost. Just about the best level 9 spell in the game.
Etherealness: Handy for bypassing places and spying on things and killing ethereal issues and so on. And for staying out. I don't like spending level 9 slots on this though.


Field Alteration and Summoning
Level 1
Obscuring Mist: Nice way to stop annoying targeted spells, archery and such. Gives melee full miss chance though. Limits yourself too though. Personal range.
Summon Monster I: Find something good to summon

Level 2
Darkness: Older version of Darkness. Touch range, can toss the object or such.
Summon Monster II: Find something good to summon

Level 3
Animate Dead: Material components are kind of meh. Eternally usable and faithful underlings are pretty handy though, if you can afford them.
Daylight: Mostly when dealing with Underdark races, Undead and such. Touch like Darkness.
Deeper Darkness: Sort of like Darkness. Unfortunately, it's not as Dark as it should be. Fogs >>> Darkness. Touch like Darkness.
Stone Shape: I don't honestly need to state in how many ways morphing stone can be useful, do I? Touch.
Summon Monster III: Find something good to summon
Wind Wall: Pretty nice especially in larger conflicts where large squads of archers are a concern. There are pretty few ways archers can by RAW shoot through this, though you could argue that big enough bows and force projectiles would.

Level 4
Control Water: Very nice when water is available for drowning places, killing water breathing creatures in shallow waters and such. Just, useful. Long range.
Giant Vermin: You shouldn't really bother with anything less than Gargantuan, but with CL buffs those are available pretty quickly and particularly Colossal Scorpion is very efficient even against CR 20 challenges as long as the area is thus that they cannot just fly away (you can help with that); they have very high Attack-stats and the poisons are extremely potent.
Lesser Planar Ally: Solid allies, even if it's expensive to call. Try to call them when it falls under the "strongly ties to creature's ethos"; that's free and the XP cost isn't really that major. And Outsiders are pretty darn good allies.
Summon Monster IV: Find something good to summon

Level 5
Insect Plague: Swarms are hardy, but unfortunately not very damaging at this point anymore. The Distraction-function is handy, but beyond that it's not very good. Long range though.
Summon Monster V: Find something good to summon
Wall of Stone: One of Wizard's best battlefield control spells is no worse for Cleric. Isolate enemies, buy time, block entries, make death prisons, whatever. Reflex if used to encase people. Medium range.

Level 6
Animate Object: Unfortunately Animated Objects have horrible BAB and such so they don't hit much. The special attacks are somewhat usable though. Generally best with Permanency. Medium range.
Antilife Shell: A very strong defensive buff, here because you can morph the battlefield with it. Living creatures simply can't approach the area around you. NO SAVE! 10' radius.
Create Undead: Some of the undead are very useful. This is an expensive spell, but as the undead can multiply, provided it's not against your alignment, this can be very handy.
Planar Ally: See Lesser Planar Ally.
Summon Monster VI: Find something good to summon

Level 7
Control Weather: Slow to cast, but great for demolishing armies, cities and such. Not quite as strong as the 5th level Druid-spell Control Winds, but much more versatile.
Repulsion: Like Antilife Shell vs. anything, but with Will-save to negate. I don't like it nearly as much.
Summon Monster VII: Find something good to summon

Level 8
Antimagic Field: Magic's good, all that jazz. Also, Initiate of Mystra makes this the most one-sided, unfair spell ever. 10' radius (suggest Widening; see Rules Compendium for relevant stuff regarding rules on this, it always confuses people).
Create Greater Undead: See Create Undead.
Summon Monster VIII: Find something good to summon

Level 9
Miracle: It does everything, most without XP cost. Just about the best level 9 spell in the game.
Gate: Solars are good.
Summon Monster IX: Find something good to summon


Offense Spells
Level 1
Cause Fear: Nice Will Save-or-Lose as long as the HD limit isn't a problem; unfortunately single-target. Close range.
Command: Nice Will Save-or-Suck. Again, though, single-target. Close range.

Level 2
Hold Person: Humanoid SoL. Handy. Medium range.
Shatter: Destroy weapons, armor, etc. Nice combination with Dispels and such. Close range.
Silence: Caster Will SoL, or no-save effect if you have some control effects to prevent opponent from leaving the covered area. Also, nice readied action to screw spellcasting. Long range (!!) multi-target.
Sound Burst: Meh damage, with Fort-or-Stun. If you have someone to CDG the stunned guy, it's alright. The damage isn't the reason to pick it. Close range multi-target.
Spiritual Weapon: It's a decent damage spell, especially since Cleric BAB is pretty good; it'll keep attacking for effectively the entire combat and it takes only a move action to redirect.

Level 3
Bestow Curse: Will SoS. Clerics have lots of these. Good for debuffing Planar Bound creatures or such. Touch range.
Blindness/Deafness: Blindness is an excellent debuff. Fort SoS basically. Medium range.
Dispel Magic: Magic is very powerful, so ability to stop magic is absolutely incredible. Disable Fighter's gear, remove buffbots buffs, save your allies from variety of SoLs, infinitely powerful. Medium range multi-target.
Invisibility Purge: Well, not really offense, but still. 5'/level range.
Searing Light: Deals crap damage to living or slightly less crap damage to undead. Yuck. Medium range ray.

Level 4
Dimensional Anchor: Well, only way you'll ever kill those outsiders. Medium range.
Dismissal: Basically amounts to a limited Will SoD. Close range. It's nice 'cause you can make it notably harder than normal spell of yours to resist by using stuff the target hates with the spell.
Poison: Fort Save-or-BeHurtBad. Meh. Touch range. Yuck.

Level 5
Greater Command: Multitarget Command that lasts until they make a save. Pretty useful, if high level. Close range, 30' between victims, mind-affecting.
Plane Shift: Everyone knows of the spells transportation capabilities, but as long as your target cannot Plane Shift, sending someone to say...Positive Energy Plane is a very good way of killing people. Basically a Will SoD with Touch Range.
Slay Living: Fort SoD with some consolation damage. Touch.
Symbol of Pain: Symbols are fun. Paint a bunch of them on some item, reveal it and watch opposition roll saves. Rubber balls are pretty nice, for example. Your armor is a good place too. This one is practically a SoS.
Symbol of Sleep: See above. Nice little slumber party here. Though Mind-Affecting begins to be a problem on these levels.

Level 6
Banishment: Like Dismissal, except stronger.
Blade Barrier: Meh, it's a solid battlefield morphing ability that's also Ref-or-Take-Some-Damage. Not bad. Medium range.
Greater Dispel Magic: See Dispel Magic.
Harm: Fort or Take Damage. Meh. Fine for e.g. channeling though. Touch.
Symbol of Fear: See Symbol of Pain. Basically SoL version. Annoyingly Mind-Affecting.
Symbol of Persuasion: See Symbol of Pain. Basically SoL version. Annoyingly Mind-Affecting.
Undeath to Death: Great for killing undead. Medium range 40' bunch.

Level 7
Blasphemy/Dictum/Holy Word/Word of Chaos: Boost your caster level and world will tremble. No-save death or at least be screwed depending on your CL. Only SR can save people here (and with your buffed CL, rarely).
Destruction: Fort SoD. Close range. Nice 10d6 consolation damage.
Dimensional Lock: Like Dimensional Anchor, except got to somehow restrict opponent's movement, but it offers no save.
Symbol of Stunning: See Symbol of Pain, SoL version.
Symbol of Weakness: See Symbol of Pain, SoS version (most characters can't carry their stuff after that Fort-damage).

Level 8
Earthquake: A rather versatile offense spell that can be used to lock down opponents or such depending on terrain. Damage isn't impressive but the conditions it can impose, often without save, are. Also nicely stops activity while it's going. If DM says the save stops the Pinned-condition too, it becomes much worse.
Fire Storm: Deals a bunch of damage. Meh.
Symbol of Death: See Symbol of Pain, SoD version.
Symbol of Insanity: See Symbol of Pain, Will SoD version. Meh at mind-affecting.

Level 9
Miracle: It does everything, most without XP cost. Just about the best level 9 spell in the game.
Gate: Solars are good.
Implosion: Boom Boom. Kind of expensive, but at least it can kill multiple folks.


This list does come from 3.5 but you can easily find the PF equivalents.

[Cheesegear]

However, pick up the Selective Channel feat so you can choose to ignore the bad guys otherwise it's a radius burst and everyone gets it including the baddies.

Incredibly lucky for me, the DM changed the requirement to Wis, rather than Cha. Because basing it off Charisma didn't make any sense when it is an otherwise Wis-based ability.
...My Charisma was only 12. :smallannoyed:


Rogue Eidolon's PFSRD Cleric Domain Guide (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/rogue-eidolon-s-lab/rogue-eidolon-s-guide-to-clerics)

That's...Incredibly helpful. Due to the DM screwing me around, when I asked "What's the campaign like?" he said "You're on a boat.", so I picked up Weather and Destruction, and I wanted to make a Cleric of Storms or somesuch. Since the first ten minutes of the first session, we've not been anywhere near water.

My DM is allowing me to change Domains, and I'm thinking I might go Travel and Trickery (it's sort of in-charcter, and we have no rogue). While I am a big fan of the Darkness domain (free Blind-Fight, and later abilities to see in the dark - as a Human - seemed pretty good), but DM said it was out of character.


But Trickery and Travel are great choices. Don't forget the wonderful abilities they give besides the spells.

Heh. As per usual, my way of pressing Post Reply and then 'responding as I read', rather than read the whole thing then Post Reply has come back and made me look silly.


Spoilered Walls O'Text that I compiled from my research on Cleric Spells that were good to use for various situations. Others may disagree but I found these lists to help me in my spell selection

[Spell Lists]

That's...Incredibly helpful. Thank you so very, very much.

One issue I found;


Summon Monster I: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster II: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster III: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster IV: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster V: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster VI: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster VII: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster VIII: Find something good to summon
Summon Monster IX: Find something good to summon


So...Err. Like what?

Last but not least, aside from Selective Channeling (which I only got because of DM Fiat), are there any other Feats that I really need to have?

[W3bDragon]

The problem with picking buff spells at early levels is how long it takes to deploy them. With concentration checks being what they are in pathfinder, its usually not a smart idea to spend the first few rounds buffing while combat is going on. Even if you can make the checks, you have to measure the difference in buffing for 3 rounds and attacking for 4 rounds versus attacking unbuffed for 7 rounds (7 chosen at random for an average fight). The quicker you can deploy your buffs, the better.

With that in mind, since quicken spell is still far out of reach for being usable at your level, I'd take a look at cascade spell (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/super-genius-games/metamagic-feats/cascade-spell-metamagic) feat. Its 3rd party, so it'll require approval, but it should help you shorten your buffing time. At your level, you can use a 3rd level slot to memorize a cascaded divine favor+shield of faith and cast them together as one standard action. Not too shabby.