Optimizing a Cleric

[Stille_Nacht]

One of my friends feels like she is seriously underperforming as a cleric, and asked me for help with her build.

she wants to be a healer with offensive (harm/instadeath type) capabilities.

Problem is, I've never played a divine class before, so I only have a vague idea of what to do, can someone give a quick summary of how to optimize a Cleric from lv 1-20?

[Yuki Akuma]

This really depends on what she wants to do. Clerics can be built to be good at anything. Does she want to be a primary spellcaster? A melee monster? A (*shudder*) healbot? A skill monkey?

A few generic tips:

1. Never cast healing spells in combat unless it's the difference between a party member dying or not.

2. Use wands to top up HP between combats. Wands of Lesser Vigor are most cost effective per HP cured.

3. Scrolls. Carry lots of them. Think of a spell that can be handy sometimes, but you don't want to waste a spell slot on maybe getting to cast it? Get it as a scroll. (Or, if it's level 4 or lower, a wand, it's more cost effective.)

4. Clerics can swap out domains for free domain feats. Some domain feats are really awesome - Travel Devotion and Knowledge Devotion are favourites.

[Stille_Nacht]

She sees her main role as healing, but she also wants to know how to abuse offensive stuff like harm/instadeath

[Captnq]

Really?

Seriously?

Just sum up really quick every possible permutation that is possible for a cleric levels 1 to 20. K Thx By?

Okay, look. Bit of advice? Try going to google and type "d20 cleric handbook" Here. Let me help:

Cleric Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1238.0)

Then, after you read that, come back and ask individual questions about what you don't understand in the handbook. See, when asking questions like, "How do I build an X?" there is a good chance someone already worked that out and made it. You just need to search a little. For example. If you happen to have a question about any official spell, check out my sig. If you have a question about any possible weapon you could possibly imagine making in d20, check out my sig. Some of us spend a great deal of time making handbooks because we're insane, have no life, enjoy working on puzzles, or most likely a combination of all three. So take a few minutes to google for a handbook on your chosen topic before you decide to ask such a broad and open ended question. Trust me. They got handbooks on EVERYTHING these days.

[Stille_Nacht]

Really?

Seriously?

Just sum up really quick every possible permutation that is possible for a cleric levels 1 to 20. K Thx By?

Okay, look. Bit of advice? Try going to google and type "d20 cleric handbook" Here. Let me help:

Cleric Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1238.0)

Then, after you read that, come back and ask individual questions about what you don't understand in the handbook. See, when asking questions like, "How do I build an X?" there is a good chance someone already worked that out and made it. You just need to search a little. For example. If you happen to have a question about any official spell, check out my sig. If you have a question about any possible weapon you could possibly imagine making in d20, check out my sig. Some of us spend a great deal of time making handbooks because we're insane, have no life, enjoy working on puzzles, or most likely a combination of all three. So take a few minutes to google for a handbook on your chosen topic before you decide to ask such a broad and open ended question. Trust me. They got handbooks on EVERYTHING these days.

thanks for the pointer, though rudely stated its quite helpful

and as much as i want to read thorugh about 10 pages of text for a character im not playing, i was just seeing if anyone had a concise "look at these few spells" off the top of their heads type thing.

i mean, if someone asked me in general how to build a warblade i could easily say "iron heart, diamond mind, these 4 maneuvers", its not thaaaat hard...

[Stux]

The 'cause wounds' line is not great. If the cleric wants to help with damage, it is much better at doing it indirectly via buffs and debuffs. Particularly at low level, you usually aren't much better off casting cause light wounds than you would be swinging your mace, except you've just lost a casting for the day. Yeah, not so good.

Cleric is a super powerful class, but you need to concentrate on less direct things. Their biggest strength is their utility. Don't just think about straight abstract combat, think about what gives you the best range of options for an array of different encounters.

Once you get a few levels under your belt you can be an absolute melee monster, but it wont be through direct damage. It will be through buffs and debuffs.

[Runeclaw]

3.5, Pathfinder, or Pathfinder with 3.5 content allowed?

What does aspect of her character is underperforming? Healing not keeping up with the damage the party is taking? Enemies making their saves against her spells? Spells she prepares aren't effective?

What level is she now? Can she rebuild or does she just need to tune her sheet moving forward? Can you post her sheet?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Inflict Wounds spells are terrible. The way to deal damage with a Cleric is to get one of the elemental domains (Cold, Air, Storm, and Fire are best), and get the spontaneous domain casting alternate class feature in PH2 for it. That trades your ability to spontaneously convert prepared spells into cure spells for the ability to instead convert prepared spells into spells from that domain's list. If she still wants to be able to spontaneously cure, there's a feat called Spontaneous Healer in Complete Divine.

For save-or-die, nothing beats using Chain Spell (via a Metamagic Rod or Divine Metamagic) with Destruction (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/destruction.htm). Since the spell deals damage on a successful save, it would deal half damage to secondary targets with Chain Spell, and they don't get the reduced save DC because that only happens if the spell can't deal damage at all. So an entire room full of enemies has to save at the full DC, or be destroyed. Note this only works on targeted spells, not touch spells like Slay Living.

For healing, all she needs to do is get Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, and Divine Metamagic: Persistent Spell, and use that to cast Mass Lesser Vigor so the whole party gets Fast Healing 1 for 24 hours. As soon as the party hits 5th level, that's the only healing spell she'll need to cast unless it's a dire emergency. Defensive spells like Mass Resist Energy before damage happens is better than trying to fix the characters after they're blown up. Casting crowd control spells like Sleet Storm and Hold Person to prevent opponents from being able to harm your party is more useful than letting them act and then healing whoever they attack.

[Gavinfoxx]

The main role of a cleric is buffing themselves up to high heaven, and wading into melee like a god of war.

And then healing after combat with a wand.

If you focus on doing that, you'll do better.

[Irk]

be a cleric with two elemental domains and the turn dragons ACF, then take a level of something that grants you turn undead. Now you have 4 turning pools, and 12 + (4 x cha mod) turning attempts. You have 4 feats, two of which have to be extend spell and persist spell. the other two can be extra turning. THis grants you 44 + (4 x cha mod) turning attempts. Lets assume cha 18. this is 60 turning attempts. take levels of cleric up to the level your playing at. at level three take divine metamagic (or just take it instead of your second extra turning for 48 turn attempts instead). the rest of your feats are extra turning or whatever. alternatively, take undeath and planning domains for free extra turning and extend spell, and find some other way to do it. Now you can persist ALL the things.

[Firechanter]

One of my friends feels like she is seriously underperforming as a cleric, and asked me for help with her build.

she wants to be a healer with offensive (harm/instadeath type) capabilities.

Well yeah, that's her problem right there. Both Spellslot Healing and Harm/SoD are about the most inefficient use of a Cleric's spellcasting power. So this is kind of like a turtle lying on its back, paddling in the air, and wondering why it isn't making any progress.

Some basic pointers how to play an efficient Cleric:
- don't use spellslots to heal HP, use wands.
- don't prep curative spells you are not very likely to need. Use wands, scrolls, or simply prep them only on demand, even if that means a party member has to remain blinded or diseased for 12 hours.
- don't blow out your precious slots with risky SoDs.
- use your slots to buff the party instead, and/or transform yourself into a combat monster (a.k.a. CoDzilla)
- pick one or two efficient uses for your Turn Undead attempts. Top contenders are Divine Metamagic, Devotion Feats, or being a Ruby Knight-Vindicator.

[GilesTheCleric]

If you don't feel like reading through a handbook, and just want spells to use, here's a handy list (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284509).

If you just want one spell per level, try this:
0: create water
1: ice slick
2: divine insight
3: resurgence, mass
4: divination
5: true seeing
6: dispel magic, greater
7: plane shift, greater
8: earthquake
9: gate

One spell for every situation, about by the time you need them. Swap earthquake for discern location if damage is covered.

To do well as a cleric, all you need to do is 1: cast divinations, 2: cast a few buffs. After that, you can do as you please.

[Red Fel]

thanks for the pointer, though rudely stated its quite helpful

and as much as i want to read thorugh about 10 pages of text for a character im not playing, i was just seeing if anyone had a concise "look at these few spells" off the top of their heads type thing.

i mean, if someone asked me in general how to build a warblade i could easily say "iron heart, diamond mind, these 4 maneuvers", its not thaaaat hard...

Here's the problem. Warblades and Maneuvers are from Tome of Battle. It's one book; they never published more ToB material before 3.5 went bye-bye.

Clerics are from the beginning. They have been changed and altered and upgraded and ACF'd. Almost every single book has contained new Cleric spells, new feats, new ACFs and new PrCs. There is an entire universe of material to consider, in 3.5 alone - and that's before you throw in 3.0 material, 4.0 material, PF material, third party sources... That's a lot of ground to cover.

It's not exactly easy to say "take two of these and call me in the morning" with a Cleric.

Moving on to your specific requests, as others have pointed out, heal spells are not the best use of a Cleric's slots; use wands and scrolls to heal. Similarly, harm spells are not so great either. Nor, in my opinion, are "insta-death" spells, because at the level you can start getting Save-or-Lose or Save-or-Die spells, things can start making the saves. What you want are buffs and situational/tactical spells; those are things that can really make a difference in combat.

So let's start from basics. If her goal is primarily casting, and not melee, your friend should consider the Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) variant. (If the character is already made, well, this point is moot.)

The Cleric Handbook mentioned earlier in the thread is an excellent resource; I strongly recommend reading it. Given the emphasis on spellcasting, she might want to invest in Divine Metamagic, perhaps some DMM: Persists for buffs. Also, if she has Protection Domain, consider taking the Protection Devotion feat (which is free if you swap out your domain, otherwise it costs a feat) to give a nice AC bonus aura. As a squishy, she may need it.

[Yuki Akuma]

Why would you add 4e material...? That's like adding GURPS material. Or Dark Heresy material.

Now, while I admit that giving Clerics bolters would be awesome...

[Coidzor]

She sees her main role as healing, but she also wants to know how to abuse offensive stuff like harm/instadeath

Show her the Player's Guide to Healing. (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2710.0) Heck, have the whole group give it at least a once over.

[Xerlith]

Dip Crusader, go RKV. Win the game.

[Coidzor]

I suppose there's also focusing on summoning and going Malconvoker.

There's also Guidance of the Avatar (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/sb/sb20010504a) for any skill check needs.