Help me pimp my cleric

[hotrodlincoln]

Okay, so I normally play wizards. Or beeftanks. But mostly wizards. This campaign, however, the party already had a warmage, but lacked a cleric, so I volunteered. I don't often play clerics, as I'm not a big fan of the whole 'warrior priest' archetype that the cleric is, by default. Last time I played a cleric, I did pretty well, as the class is essentially idiot proof.

This time, however, I decided to play my cleric closer to my ideal vision of a cleric. One more focused on spells than on smashing things in the faces with maces. So I decided to play a cloistered cleric, of the god of knowledge (Homebrew campaign setting).

Currently we are at level 7. I have mostly been providing heals and the occasional buff for the party, which is great and all, but it leads to rather boring combats. Half the time, my character isn't contributing anything that useful, until such time as someone is hurt.

So I turn to you, people of the giant's playground. Help me make this character exciting! Dynamic! And above all, capable of keeping me awake during fights! My plan was to take my Cloistered Cleric into the Loremaster prestige class.

My character is as follows:
Human Cloistered Cleric 7
STR 8
DEX 10
CON 10
INT 16
WIS 19
CHA 10

Skills: Essentially all knowledge skills, spellcraft, concentration, heal, and decipher script are maxed out or near to it.

Feats: Skill Focus (Knowledge, Religion) [Necessary to qualify for Loremaster]
Heighten Spell
Scribe Scroll
Extend Spell
Improved Initiative (Bonus Feat, Time Domain)

Gear: Monk's Belt, Wand Of Cure Light Wounds x2, Periapt Of Wisdom +2

Domains: Time (This one allows two of my favorite spells, Contingency and Permanancy), Void (Actually a pathfinder domain that the DM allowed me to have, although we are playing 3.5. I was going for a Time and Space theme), Knowledge


The group's make up, until last session, was a fighter/rogue, bard, warmage, and myself. The fighter/rogue and bard both karked it against an ogre barbarian last session before I could heal them, so those players are now going for a paladin of freedom/cavalier, and a rogue/shadowdancer.

So please. Help me sauce this guy up, so I don't keep falling asleep during game sessions!

[Vaern]

If you want to pimp your cleric, drop the bookworm concept. Take the Destruction and Strength domains. The combination of their domain powers will grant you the dreaded Pimp Slap ability. At level 7, your Pimp Slap will grant you a total of a +7 to hit and +10 damage on a single attack per day.

In addition, you will be starting at a high enough level to take Leadership. Ask the DM if you can own a business, and recruit all of your followers as employees of your brothel. While you're adventuring, your followers will be generating a steady income for you.
Any followers above level 1 should be hired as "security" for the business, and your highest-level follower should be left in charge of managing the business while you are away from the brothel. This follower distribution will require either redistributing some of your ability points to charisma for a higher leadership score, or paying a few silver per day to hire additional employees.

This character's presence in your game will allow the DM to toss a few side quests at your party while you're relaxing in your home town between adventures. Perhaps the local authorities are trying to shut down your business, or perhaps there is competition in town that you must deal with personally. Maybe your employees report that a certain customer has made himself unwelcome in the brothel. The possibilities are endless!

[Eldariel]

Honestly, Time and Spell would probably work better; Spell [Spell Compendium] giving you access to those elusive Wizard spells you will have a hard time replicating with a Warmage (Glitterdust, Black Tentacles, Dimension Door, all the useful stuff). I'd go a step further and take Spontaneous Domain Casting [PHBII] in Spell-domain for extra versatility.

Aside from that, Heighten Spell seems quite pointless. I'd go Divine Spell Power [Complete Divine] instead (too bad about your Charisma, but it's still good). Good way to pump your spell caster level for buffs, and when engaging in any kinds of Dispel combat. Divine Metamagic [Complete Divine] is, of course, also very powerful but it might be too powerful depending on how you go about it.


Either way, if you want to be a caster Cleric, I suggest you focus on Cleric's abilities and build them to make your casting excellent. Domains and Turning can fuel anything; just divert them towards your goal and go from there.

[navar100]

Buffing a party member is contributing. Casting Bull's Strength on the party's warrior allows him to hit easier and do more damage. Casting Protection From Evil on the rogue means he's hit less often and will make his saves easier. These are passive effects, but they do matter. It's not necessary for you to "get the kill". What you're doing is making it easier for others to get the kill, but you are equal in getting the glory.

It's tactical cooperation. With you being more dedicated to party defense, the rest of the party can afford to go more offense. Healing is important and sometimes healing during combat is necessary, but perhaps you don't have to do it as often as you are. Save a PC's life. Prevent a PC from going into Death's Door. Keep a PC conscious so he can use his actions to attack the bad guys. However, if a PC is only down a quarter of his hit points you don't have to heal him right then. Even at half hit points you can probably afford to wait another round to do something else. It could be a buff spell. It could be an attack spell.

Try preparing one or two more attack spells than you currently are. If you're currently preparing none, have at least 4. The fighter/rogue and warmage are doing damage, so you don't need damage spells. Use spells that require a will save against warrior bad guys. Use spells that require a fortitude save against spellcaster bad guys. You can have one attack spell that does damage to use against bad guy divine casters who have good fortitude and will to help the warmage in hit point attrition damage. Prepare Dispel Magic. The rest are buffs and remove affliction spells. The remove affliction spells can easily be converted to Cure Wounds should they not be needed otherwise.

[hotrodlincoln]

Divine Spell Power does seem to be a solid choice, and is certainly a good way to get some mileage out of my otherwise useless turn undead. Divine Metamagic is of course, fantastic, but is one of those things I don't think the DM will allow (Especially considering it's banned outright in the games that I run, which said DM has played in). I'm locked into the domains I have, so Spell is a no-go.

Looking over at some of the spells the SpC has to offer, spell focus enchantment is seeming more and more like a solid choice. It's usually my school of choice when I play wizards, so it would be an easy transition for me to make :smalltongue:. Moonbolt also seems to be a really fantastic 4th level spell, as it deals 2d4 points of strength damage, or half that on a succesful save.

If I go down the enchantment route, heighten spell suddenly becomes very useful indeed. Stupor, a 1st level cleric spell, essentially renders the target incapacitated for an hour/level. A bit much for a 1st level spell methinks, but who am I to argue with the books? :smalltongue:

Plus, with an enchantment focus, I could complement the warmage nicely. Preparing direct damage dealing spells is a waste of my time, as the warmage can do them more often, and much better than I. He doesn't have any crowd control whatsoever, however, which would have certainly saved our behinds in the fight against the ogres (Which cost us 2 out of 4 party members! :smalleek:).

[Incanur]

If you want to pimp your cleric, drop the bookworm concept.

Joking and themes aside, caster clerics are at least as powerful as melee clerics by the middle levels if not sooner and more powerful at high level. The 10 Con here makes me cringe, but the domains are awesome for a caster cleric.

For moment, given the party makeup, buffs seem like a strong choice. You've even got access to haste. Hold person at DC 16 isn't as outstanding or as good as it used to be but seems decent for a 2nd-level spell.

[Eldariel]

Buffing a party member is contributing. Casting Bull's Strength on the party's warrior allows him to hit easier and do more damage. Casting Protection From Evil on the rogue means he's hit less often and will make his saves easier. These are passive effects, but they do matter. It's not necessary for you to "get the kill". What you're doing is making it easier for others to get the kill, but you are equal in getting the glory.

With few exceptions tho (Pro-Evil to shake off mind control, Haste with multiple melees, Polymorph in general) it's more effective to crowd control the enemies than to buff the allies simply due to how action economy works.

If you try to play through a fight with Cleric taking buffing actions and then take the same fight with Cleric taking debuffing/disabling actions, the latter will almost always involve the party expending less resources and taking less damage.

Generally, you want to use any possible advance warning (such as your divinations/rogue's scouting/surprise rounds/whatever) to cast buffs and then cast offensive spells when in the actual encounter. This is mostly a factor of the scope of the various buff spells vs. the combat spells tho; combat spells tend to give your team more than the buffs.


Divine Spell Power does seem to be a solid choice, and is certainly a good way to get some mileage out of my otherwise useless turn undead. Divine Metamagic is of course, fantastic, but is one of those things I don't think the DM will allow (Especially considering it's banned outright in the games that I run, which said DM has played in). I'm locked into the domains I have, so Spell is a no-go.

Looking over at some of the spells the SpC has to offer, spell focus enchantment is seeming more and more like a solid choice. It's usually my school of choice when I play wizards, so it would be an easy transition for me to make :smalltongue:. Moonbolt also seems to be a really fantastic 4th level spell, as it deals 2d4 points of strength damage, or half that on a succesful save.

If I go down the enchantment route, heighten spell suddenly becomes very useful indeed. Stupor, a 1st level cleric spell, essentially renders the target incapacitated for an hour/level. A bit much for a 1st level spell methinks, but who am I to argue with the books? :smalltongue:

Heighten Spell is really not very useful for a Cleric. There's always a higher level spell that disables enemies at least equally well, and Clerics know all their spells to start with. I mean, how long a disable do you need anyways? 1 hour/level isn't gonna be much better than 1 min/level unless you fight a fight that takes more than 10 minutes. And higher level options often come with AOE.

Spell Focus is kind of a small bonus for a feat investment; there are generally superior options available. +1 for a feat isn't as good a deal as you can get, and being restricted to a single school hurts more. Spell Penetration would generally be better in my books already, but I'd rather take a look at the Cleric Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1238.0) for instance (it's also good for spell recommendations).

My own instinct is to look at e.g. Craft-feats (especially Craft Wondrous Items, which is a Wondrous Feat), Devotion-feats [Complete Champion], Domain Spontaneity-feat [Complete Divine] (another way to use your Turning), Extra Turning if you're running low (though Nightsticks [Libris Mortis], Reliquary Holy Symbol [Complete Divine], etc. generally offer you plenty), and other metamagic (Chain, Split Ray, Twin Spell, etc.) with or without e.g. Metamagic School Focus [Complete Mage] or Easy Metamagic [Dragon Magazine] to negate some of the costs.