Cleric Build opinions before tomorrows game

[AmbientRaven]

Hi Guys,

Just looking for some input on 2(4?) cleric builds for a level 2 Cleric in a campaign that will go on for a long time. Want to make sure it is set up now. I will be the primary Buffer and healer of the group.

Cleric of Oghma
Domains: Time, Travel Later: Trickery, Charm (for 2 more turnings)
These domains offer some good spells and utilities, as well as freedom of Movement and Improved Initiative for free. Later allows me Time Stop to set up buffs, Mass Haste and Teleport.

In the spoilers below are my 2 different 32pt stat allocation and feat paths for a Human and a Lesser Aasimar (I am really not sure about these, kind of just winged it, feed back would be great here)
Lesser Aasimar Cleric of Oghma
Str: 12
Dex: 10
Con: 12
Int: 12
Wis: 20
Cha: 12

Level 1: Feat: Extend Spell
Level 3: Feat: Persistant Spell
Level 6: Feat: Divine Metamagic (Persistant Spell)
Level 9: Feat: Zen Archery/Intuitive Strike (depending on what is needed more)
Level 12: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 15: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 18: Feat: Extra Turning

Cleric (7) Contemplative (10) Divine Disciple (3)

Human Cleric of Oghma
Str: 12
Dex: 10
Con: 12
Int: 12
Wis: 18
Cha: 10

Level 1: Feat: Extend Spell
Level 1: Feat: Persistant Spell
Level 3: Feat: Divine Metamagic (Persistant Spell)
Level 6: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 9: Feat: Zen Archery/Intuitive Strike (depending on what is needed more)
Level 12: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 15: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 18: Feat: Extra Turning

Cleric (7) Contemplative (10) Divine Disciple (3)



Cleric of Amaunator
Domains: Planning, Time Later: Sun, Nobility
These domains offer some good utility, giving two early feats. Extend Spell and Improved Initiative. Time grants some good spells (Mass haste ect.) and Planning offers Time stop and some higher end domain abilities. later on nobility offers Inspire Courage once a day as well as the bonuses from Sun if we face undead or law offeres 1-2 good spells.

In the spoilers below are my 2 different 32pt stat allocation and feat paths for a Human and a Lesser Aasimar (I am really not sure about these, kind of just winged it, feed back would be great here)


Cleric (7) Contemplative (10) Divine Disciple (3)
Lesser A Cleric of Amaunator
Str: 12
Dex: 10
Con: 12
Int: 12
Wis: 20
Cha: 12

Level 1: Feat: Servant of the Fallen
Level 3: Feat: Persistant Spell
Level 6: Feat: Divine Metamagic (Persistant Spell)
Level 9: Feat: Intuitive Strike
Level 12: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 15: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 18: Feat: Extra Turning

Cleric (7) Contemplative (10) Divine Disciple (3)

Human Cleric of Amaunator
Str: 12
Dex: 10
Con: 12
Int: 12
Wis: 18
Cha: 10

Level 1: Feat: Servant of the Fallen
Level 1: Feat: Persistant Spell
Level 3: Feat: Divine Metamagic (Persistant Spell)
Level 6: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 9: Feat: Intuitive Strike*
Level 12: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 15: Feat: Extra Turning
Level 18: Feat: Extra Turning



1000gp starting gold (How does this look
Healing Belt 750gp (This allows me to use spell slots to buff early on)
Splintmail -200gp (Best armour I could afford with the money I had)
Heavy Wooden Shield -7gp
Heavy Mace – 12gp
969gp

Question: Is it worth buying a Light Crossbow?

Free starting equipment (I swapped from a Rogue to cleric as we have another rogue but our cleric bailed mid game and won't be back)

Light Horse
Military Saddle
Backpack
2 belt pouches
Holy Symbol, wooden
Fish Hook
Fishing Line
3x Torches
Flint and Tinder
1x Water Skin
2x Rations
10x Writings of Amaunator
1 Thunderstone


Thank you for any Help and feedback :)

[hicegetraenk]

I'd drop persistent spell and thus divine metamagic. Taking persistent spell on lvl 3 is a dead feat, since u simply cannot use it on any spell. That's a pretty big loss considering that you'll have a total of 2 or 3 feats on that lvl (depending on being human or not).
And even on reaching lvl 6, you'd be able to cast it only very few times per day and probably lose all turn attempts. That'd be a heavy loss imo, I've seen that ability save the party's buttocks more than once.

The combination of these to feats won't be of much use til higher lvls. I'd pick something like divine vengeance / vigor.

For the rest of the build(s):
Stats for a cleric are ok, since wisdom is the only thing you really need and everything else is personal preference and can be compensated by magic easily.

PrC: Not dropping any lvls as caster is the deal, and I like the contemplative a lot. There might be better combinations to max out a cleric, but those are often broken (cleric is already a strong class) and look very workshopped / unnatural.

Gear: Dropping the healing belt and picking up masterwork weapons / armor would be my choice. And yes, having a light crossbow is very useful. Low levels don't let you spam your enemies with spells from a save distance, and even though a cleric is intended to be able to "tank" damage, it's better to not be in the middle of attacks of opportunities and such in every single encounter. ;)

[eggynack]

I'd drop persistent spell and thus divine metamagic. Taking persistent spell on lvl 3 is a dead feat, since u simply cannot use it on any spell. That's a pretty big loss considering that you'll have a total of 2 or 3 feats on that lvl (depending on being human or not).
And even on reaching lvl 6, you'd be able to cast it only very few times per day and probably lose all turn attempts. That'd be a heavy loss imo, I've seen that ability save the party's buttocks more than once.

This seems untrue. I'd much rather just get access to the whole shebang at an earlier level, rather than skip the whole thing. The human build is nice, because it picks up DMM persist by level three, but it can be done faster with the planning domain. It's thus completely possible to pick up DMM persist by first level, and if you worship an ideal of some kind, you can also pick up the undeath domain for extra turning. It's a solid move in general. Anyways, people have faced worse feat taxes to get worse things. Taking a hit of a single feat for tons of persistent spells is ultra worth it. Clerics are never useless, even with dead feats.

[AmbientRaven]

@hicegetraenk
Our campaign wont be very Undead heavy until the teen levels.
How about the domain combinations? That is the part I am having the most issue deciding between.

The reason I went for Persist and Divine is for the simple fact we have no buffers. So will be nice to be able to Persist spells at start of the day, freeing some spell slots for healing where required, as opposed to having to carry more buffs for the encounters. That is my reasoning behind Persist

Also I don't believe the PrC's will have me lose any caster levels and are based around my planned character development more then power gaming abuse

@eggynack
I believe the DM wants me to pick a deity as the campaign is focused heavily around the gods. And to stop abusing domains heavily (Planning, Undeath, Time, X)

[avr]

Unless you want to be sniped to death from the treetops, definitely buy a light crossbow.

I'd go with the human cleric of Oghma as being the best balance between getting the DMM up early and having interesting domains.

[eggynack]

@eggynack
I believe the DM wants me to pick a deity as the campaign is focused heavily around the gods. And to stop abusing domains heavily (Planning, Undeath, Time, X)
Fair enough. You only really need planning to pull it off, if that's what you're aiming for so you might want to pack the whole setup into first level, and see what other options you can pick up. The extra turning is definitely nice, but it's not strictly necessary. You need seven turning attempts to get to one persist, so you probably need some external source to pick up a spell, but there isn't that much to persist until third level anyways. I mean, if you can somehow manage like 18 charisma, that'll get there on its own, but it doesn't seem worth it.

[hicegetraenk]

I do know the power of DMM, but tell me, of what use is it on lvl 6? You'll burn through 6 turn attempts in order to get yourself a bull's strength for a day? Silence someone for 24h?

The good cleric buffs on low levels are those like bless, which you can cast when you need them and they always last for a full fight. No need to get you 2 feats to make it last 24h a day while not needing it 23,9 hours.

The real deal starts with divine power, haste, bla bla bla, starting lvl 9. Get those feats when u really need them and they're worth using.

The fact that your campaign won't be undead heavy until a certain level does diminish the use of turn, though I find it strange to be given such information before playing starts.

Time Domain is baller. So are travel and trickery. Excellent choices.

[Gavinfoxx]

Well, there are ways of getting extra DMM, even at low levels... starting with destroy undead, and going for sacred exorcist ASAP, and making your neck slot/holy symbol magical and masterwork and such... there's lots of things to do!

[eggynack]

I do know the power of DMM, but tell me, of what use is it on lvl 6? You'll burn through 6 turn attempts in order to get yourself a bull's strength for a day? Silence someone for 24h?

The good cleric buffs on low levels are those like bless, which you can cast when you need them and they always last for a full fight. No need to get you 2 feats to make it last 24h a day while not needing it 23,9 hours.

The real deal starts with divine power, haste, bla bla bla, starting lvl 9. Get those feats when u really need them and they're worth using.

The fact that your campaign won't be undead heavy until a certain level does diminish the use of turn, though I find it strange to be given such information before playing starts.

Time Domain is baller. So are travel and trickery. Excellent choices.
First off, it's seven turn attempts rather than six, so if you're going to disparage one of the most powerful feats in the game, go all the way. Second, why would you want bless to last for a whole fight, when it can last for a whole day? In a standard adventuring day, you're facing approximately four encounters, so you're basically quadrupling the power of one of your spells. It's actually more than that, because the action cost of in combat buffing is a high one. Third, divine power and haste come at level seven, not nine. That's a lot closer to where we are. Fourth, there's a bunch of neat stuff you can do with DMM persist at low levels. Here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=7468.0) is a decent, and possibly complete list. You seem to be limiting your argument to core, and that is illogical. Fifth, as Gavinfoxx notes, there's more than one way to boost turning attempts, so you can often persist more than one spell. Ultimately, DMM persist is a great feat that gets better as you level, so you're going to pick it up sooner or later. The way I figure it, sooner is better.

[hicegetraenk]

Okay, I give in since I messed up levels and gaining new spell levels. Sorry. Given the fact you get the good stuff 1 lvl after getting the feat makes it worth while indeed.
Also, I think this thread need not turn into a DMM discussion because I seem to lack knowledge of synergy with certain content. Reading through various cleric related threads and your link, I guess I've missed quite a lot on this subject. ;)

[AmbientRaven]

Thanks guys, I will defiantly do a fast-track to DMM persist as I see it as beneficial. It is better at higher level, but even at lower levels it is still useful (Bless, Aid ect.)

How about the races? Both seem very strong. +2Wis +2Cha is nothing to sneeze at, as well as the dark vision being useful. An extra feat and skills though is nothing to sneeze at either (resulting basically in +4 turnings by max level)

Domains: Both seem good. Both will have grant me Time Stop. Amaunator's (Time, Planning, Nobility sun or Justice) domain leads me to haste, Improved Initiative, Bard Song once a day (more buffing) and Sun or Law offers me some minor utility. Oghma (Luck, Travel, Trickery, Charm(?)) will give me Freedom of Movement, the teleport spells utilities, and an extra turning per day, and not to mention the utilities of Luck and the re-roll.

Does one leap ahead of the other significantly? I tthink I think for the buff support roll Amaunator offers me more?



Gear: Dropping the healing belt and picking up masterwork weapons / armor would be my choice. And yes, having a light crossbow is very useful. Low levels don't let you spam your enemies with spells from a save distance, and even though a cleric is intended to be able to "tank" damage, it's better to not be in the middle of attacks of opportunities and such in every single encounter. ;)

Is the +1hit/Damage/-1armour check really worth dropping the ability to use my casts to buff in the early levels as opposed to saving them for heals?

[hicegetraenk]

Race:

Yes, +2 Wis +2 Ch is very valuable for any cleric, but, considering you want to be a buffer, I guess the human extra feat thus 4 more turn attempts for more DMM does the trick a bit better. You might suffer from a little loss in extra spells / day due to less Wis, but the loss in decreased DC doesn't mind you very much.

Plus, I am a great fan of skill points. You'd gain 1 more per level, which can be seen as one maxed usefull skill (diplomacy, knowledge(?)) more than otherwise. Assuming you really wanna go contemplative, you'll need to acquire 13 ranks of knowledge (religion), and I guess you'd wanna go for max. Concentration, there's 2/3 of your Aasimar skill points gone. You could argue that a cleric doesn't really need any more skills, besides Diplomacy, which is totally broken if played by the rules, and could be fine.

Regarding darkvision - well, as a cleric, you have access to various spells that enlighten your surroundings. And you can combo them with persistent spell, if really necessary. But on the other hand, darkvision saves you these uses - given your allies can cope with darkness as well.
It's nice to have, but nothing you couldn't live without.

The healing belt is nice indeed, but I think it starts to get worse on second sight. Bonus is, if really needed, you can heal someone to full hp (on lvl 2) in the middle of the fight without dropping one of your spells.
But when healing in between fights, I think you'll notice that so few charges are used up very quickly. And as soon as that happened, you'll have to use your slots anyway.
I guess a simple wand of curing lesser wounds for 750g with 50 charges 1d8+1 each is more efficient.
Masterwork gear means easier upgrading into magic gear on soon level advancements. But you could also just buy the stuff all new and then mw when you get the next bunch of gold coins.
A +1 on attack is a huge difference on low levels though. -1 armor penalty may be the difference of getting owned by grease or not.


For me the human wins, but the lesser Aasimar is not really worse. It depends on your playstyle.

[eggynack]

Thanks guys, I will defiantly do a fast-track to DMM persist as I see it as beneficial. It is better at higher level, but even at lower levels it is still useful (Bless, Aid ect.)

How about the races? Both seem very strong. +2Wis +2Cha is nothing to sneeze at, as well as the dark vision being useful. An extra feat and skills though is nothing to sneeze at either (resulting basically in +4 turnings by max level)

Domains: Both seem good. Both will have grant me Time Stop. Amaunator's (Time, Planning, Nobility sun or Justice) domain leads me to haste, Improved Initiative, Bard Song once a day (more buffing) and Sun or Law offers me some minor utility. Oghma (Luck, Travel, Trickery, Charm(?)) will give me Freedom of Movement, the teleport spells utilities, and an extra turning per day, and not to mention the utilities of Luck and the re-roll.

Does one leap ahead of the other significantly? I tthink I think for the buff support roll Amaunator offers me more?



Is the +1hit/Damage/-1armour check really worth dropping the ability to use my casts to buff in the early levels as opposed to saving them for heals?
Well, between lesser aasimar and human, it really depends on how long you're willing to wait to persist stuff. If you can hit seven turning attempts at first level, then you're picking up the ability at first rather than third. If you need extra turning, you're getting it at third rather than sixth. Lesser aasimar obviously helps in getting to seven attempts, so that could theoretically change the math a bit, but the choice between the two is ultimately based on timing. In a vacuum, lesser aasimar seems a bit more powerful, though it's really a preference thing. If you've got big feat based plans, obviously the human is a better option.

After that, the big issue is domain choice. Logically, if the DMM route is the one you're taking, you're going to want planning. That makes deity choice a bit rigid, and grants some decent guidelines for the rest of your domains. I've never been a big fan of sun, and it doesn't seem good with DMM, so it's mostly down to time and nobility. Between those, time seems generally better. Nobility is only pulling demand onto your list, while everything on time, outside of gentle repose and FoM, is off list. That's just a clear advantage from time's perspective. Furthermore, the nobility ability seems both significantly worse than inspire courage, and far harder to boost and abuse. It's not called inspire courage, so you probably don't get all of the crazy stuff that pushes IC to the next level, and it doesn't last nearly as long as inspire courage, so it's unlikely to last the whole combat. Honestly, I'd just cast haste instead, because that spell is neat.

For items, healing belts are pretty sweet, but on a shorter term healing basis, a wand of lesser vigor might be worth looking into. CLW is getting 5.5 HP per charge, while lesser vigor is getting 11HP per charge. It's basic out of combat healing math, though in combat healing could be more tricky. Still, in combat healing is basically never worth it, so it's better to just use the wand. My general healing reasoning is that you pick that up, and then pick up a healing belt to augment it in the long term. My favorite in combat healing spell is cure minor wounds, because the only way I'm healing in combat is if the guy is on death's doorstep, and cure minor stops the guy from being on death's doorstep. I'd use spontaneous cure conversions sparingly, but there can be some places where they're valuable, and extra versatility is never a bad thing.

[AmbientRaven]

@eggynack
Thank you for the input!
The Aasimar gets 1 extra turning from racial stats, the human gets 4 extra from the extra feat slot though.
At 20 (sans stat based items and presuming all stat points go into wisdom) a Lesser Aasimar will have 16 turnings, the human will have 20
So a difference of 4 turnings for a +2Wisdom modifier. (as the int change/Cha difference balances out skill points)
Humans get DMM by 3, Aasimar's by 6.

Human Cleric vs Aasimar cleric
Str: 12 Str: 12
Dex: 10 Dex: 10
Con: 12 Con: 12
Int: 10 Int: 12
Wis: 18 Wis: 20
Cha: 12 Cha 12

So One extra caster level vs 4 extra turnings (Or, the ability to persist a 5th level buff)

With the domains nobility is one added on later from a prestige granting extra domains.
Its Time/Planning/Nobility vs Travel/Luck/Trickery