Help me build a Cleric!

[MindSculptor]

I'm building a Divine Metamagic, Persistent Spell Human Cleric Buffer. I have rolled and applied my stats as str: 13, dex: 12, con: 15, int: 10, wis: 18, cha: 17. I think I understand how the metamagic works with the persistent but I took some reading outside of the actual feats to ring the bell. I'm mostly looking for feats, equipment, domains, and whatever else I should know...

[Raezeman]

Well, there are extend spell, persistent spell and divine metamagic of course.

Also, have a look at residual magic. What it does is, if you cast a spell enhanced by metamagic, the next turn, you can cast the same spell with the same metamagic enhancement without a rise in spell level. (Might want to check with your DM if you are allowed to use this when not 'normally' using metamagic, but with divine metamagic).

Extra turning might be useful as extra fuel for divine metamagic.

Metamagic school focus let's you decrease the level rise when applying a metamagic feat to a spell 3 times per day for a spell of the school for which you have spell focus.

thats pretty much what immediately jumps to mind.

[AMFV]

If stacking Nightsticks is cool you should grab as many as is feasible, if not you should grab one.

[Totema]

Woah woah woah - there's lots of things you can do with a cleric. Lots. Clerics are so versatile that you might not even need the rest of the party. Give us some ideas on how you wanted to play him: Gish? Support? Healbot? (Please don't say healbot, clerics are better than that.)

We also know barely anything about the adventure you're going to play in. What level are you starting at? What level are you expected to end at? Is there a particular theme that might be relevant to altering a build?

There are a few general tips, though. If you're melee-oriented, grab power attack and divine might as soon as you can. Extra turning is also fine, especially if your DM doesn't allow nightsticks to stack for DMM (and if he's sane, he won't).

[Gwendol]

Planning domain seems like a solid choice for a buffer. You will likely want to branch out into a PrC eventually (Contemplative, Divine Oracle comes to mind) but straight cleric is plenty powerful.

[MindSculptor]

We are starting at first level. I am thinking that I'll be taking extra turning and persistent spell at first level and then Divine MM at third. I want to be a buffer, buff myself and my party for the day and melee like hell and/OR cast cool spells to damage or control. And maybe some heals on the side though I know it's not optimal. I may not heal at all base on what you guys say. Hopefully we will hit at least level 10 if not we aim for 20 like anyone.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Are flaws allowed? If not:

Domains: Undeath, Planning

1: Persistent Spell
Human bonus feat: Divine Metamagic (Persistent Spell)
Domain bonus feats: Extra Turning, Extend Spell

Lets you get DMM online at level 1, with the ability to persist one spell per day. With flaws, take more extra turnings so you can do a second spell each day. Consider being a Cloistered Cleric for the Knowledge Domain so you can trade it out for Knowledge Devotion. Persist Bless and Divine Favor: Everyone gets +1 morale to attack, and you get +1 luck to attack and damage. Alternatively, you can use your flaws to take Extend Spell and Extra Turning so you can pick your domains more freely. If you go this route, I recommend picking up Law so you can trade it for Law Devotion.

You don't *have* to be DMMing at level 1 though: Waiting until level 3 or even level 6 isn't the end of the world, as DMM isn't that good of a trick until mid levels anyways. Don't wait later than 6 though, because Persistent Divine Power is something you want ASAP if you want to be a battle cleric, ESPECIALLY if you go the Cloistered Cleric route.

[MindSculptor]

How am I taking 5 feats at level one?

[MindSculptor]

What alignments would I have to be to use those domains?

[RustyArmor]

Some domains grant bonus feats. And flaws grant bonus feats though ask DM if those are allowed, some don't like them (specially since the flaws are often petty compared to getting a free feat). So two domains, two flaws, and human would be five feats.

[MindSculptor]

Is it even possible for me to take Undeath without being evil?

[Totema]

If you are the deity-following type cleric? No. (At least, I don't think there are any published good deities with Undeath... Could be totally wrong, I'm only really familiar with the core domains.) But if not, then your only true restriction are alignment domains (Good, Evil, Law, Chaos), which you could only pick if you shared that alignment.

[MindSculptor]

Then I just don't understand how I could use Planning and Undeath as my domains to get the feats... I just built my character this way and now I think I need to rethink the path.

IDK, I just want a decent Cleric build. I'm in a group of three. My cleric, a barbarian, and a ranger. Everyone is pretty new to the game and they aren't going to research how to build their characters so I figured I would build mine to buff them and buffer the groups loss of experience in playing. I figured a cleric was the best choice to carry the loose weight. Anyone have some more guidance?

[MindSculptor]

I'm pretty much looking for the cookie cutter Human Buffer cleric that persists spells and takes care of the group.

[Aemoh87]

Is this Max?

[Totema]

One thing that's important to know (and that nearly every cleric user worth their salt takes advantage of) is that cleric's don't actually need to worship a deity. Clerics without deities can theoretically pick any domains, giving them access to lots of domain combinations.

The other thing to point out is, instead of granting you some kind of power or bonus like other domains do, Undeath and Planning simply give you a bonus feat. In fact, if you want Persistent Spell from level 1, Planning is very highly recommended, as it gives you Extend Spell (the prerequisite for Persistent Spell) for free.

[MindSculptor]

Max? Who's Max?

[Schizek]

If you are the deity-following type cleric? No. (At least, I don't think there are any published good deities with Undeath... Could be totally wrong, I'm only really familiar with the core domains.) But if not, then your only true restriction are alignment domains (Good, Evil, Law, Chaos), which you could only pick if you shared that alignment.

Wee Jas have Undeath Domain and you can be Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good. She is pretty interesting one.


The other thing to point out is, instead of granting you some kind of power or bonus like other domains do, Undeath and Planning simply give you a bonus feat. In fact, if you want Persistent Spell from level 1, Planning is very highly recommended, as it gives you Extend Spell (the prerequisite for Persistent Spell) for free.

Sometimes it is better to delay DMM to lvl 3 where you could persist some lvl 2 spells and have domain that could actually have really useful spells like: Travel Domain, Spell Domain, Trickery.


I'm pretty much looking for the cookie cutter Human Buffer cleric that persists spells and takes care of the group.

If you want to be dedicated buffer then Wizard-War Weaver could be also a interesting option.


I'm building a Divine Metamagic, Persistent Spell Human Cleric Buffer. I have rolled and applied my stats as str: 13, dex: 12, con: 15, int: 10, wis: 18, cha: 17. I think I understand how the metamagic works with the persistent but I took some reading outside of the actual feats to ring the bell. I'm mostly looking for feats, equipment, domains, and whatever else I should know...

If you play in Fearun ask your DM for Lesser Aasimar(no LA) from Player Guide To Fearun.


IDK, I just want a decent Cleric build. I'm in a group of three. My cleric, a barbarian, and a ranger. Everyone is pretty new to the game and they aren't going to research how to build their characters so I figured I would build mine to buff them and buffer the groups loss of experience in playing. I figured a cleric was the best choice to carry the loose weight. Anyone have some more guidance?

Cleric-Barbarian-Ranger depends on skills set you might need to have some social skills to become party face.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Then I just don't understand how I could use Planning and Undeath as my domains to get the feats... I just built my character this way and now I think I need to rethink the path.

IDK, I just want a decent Cleric build. I'm in a group of three. My cleric, a barbarian, and a ranger. Everyone is pretty new to the game and they aren't going to research how to build their characters so I figured I would build mine to buff them and buffer the groups loss of experience in playing. I figured a cleric was the best choice to carry the loose weight. Anyone have some more guidance?

That's very noble of you!

Ask your DM about domain selection: Can you be a cleric of a philosophy and pick whatever you want, or do you need to pick a deity? Planning and Undeath are good choices if you can get them, but you don't strictly *need* them: They just help you get your character online more easily.

Basically, if you want to be a DMM: Persist buffing cleric there's two main things you need to look at: Ways to boost your turning attempts, and spells you want to persist. You may also need to worry about boosting your caster level depending on how much your DM likes dispelling your buffs. One warning first though: When using DMM: Persist it's very easy to make a character (or an entire party) that's more or less invincible against level-appropriate enemies, ESPECIALLY if the DM and other players are inexperienced: Being too powerful makes the game less interesting for everyone. Thus while you totally *can* use everything I'm about to tell you about, you're best off using only a subset. I'll let you use your own judgement as to what's too much. Let's look at all three:

Ways to boost your turning attempts: You need 7 of these to persist each spell.

- As said before, nightsticks are worth every penny if they stack: Buy as many of 'em as you can. If they don't stack, then it's still worth it to buy 1.

- A Reliquary Holy Symbol (Magic Item Compendium) are only 500 gp and give you up to 3 turn attempts depending on the requirements: You should be able to get at least 2 of them by default, but the third one's not worth the feat. Note that unlike nightsticks you *definitely* can't stack these, and they don't apply to multiple turning pools. Worth picking up if you have some spare change.

- Extra Turning (Core) is worth every single feat slot you can spare on it, esp. if you get multiple turning pools (see below).

- The Rebuke Dragons ACF (Dragon Magic) counts as turn or rebuke undead for the purposes of feats that utilize it. Note that other turn/rebuke abilities doesn't work this way unless it specifically says that it does (for example the ability to turn/rebuke fire creatures from the Fire domain). This rocks because if you can get turn/rebuke undead from another source, you can get more than one pool of turning attempts. Extra Turning adds 4 turn/rebuke attempts to all of your pools, so if you have 2 of them then each use of the feat gives you 8 attempts. 3 of them gives you 12 attempts with each extra turning.

- Dread Necromancer (Heroes of Horror) gives you Rebuke Undead not dependent upon your alignment: If you turn undead (or have the rebuke dragons ACF) then you can easily get 2 turning pools with a 1 level dip. Note that if you already rebuke then dread necromancer gives you nothing. You lose a caster level, but it's worth the trade. Note that Dread Necromancers can't be good-aligned by RAW, but many DMs ignore alignment restrictions: If you want to do this, ask your DM about it.

- Sacred Exorcist (Complete Divine) gives you Turn Undead: Note that if you have Turn Undead already then this does nothing. Like Dread Necromancer, but doesn't lose any caster levels (mind the skill rank requirements though). Requires Good alignment.

- Any item that boosts your Charisma will also give you more turning attempts. Don't underestimate this, since your CHA bonus applies to all of your turning pools if you have more than one. It'll also boost your turning checks if you go with Divine Spell Power.

Ways to boost caster level. The higher your CL is when you cast your persisted spells, the harder they'll be to dispel:

- A Strand of Prayer Beads (Core) costs 45,800 gp. Use the Bead of Karma that comes attached to it to boost your CL by 4 for 10 minutes: Plenty of time to get your buffs up in the morning. Technically you can find incomplete strands of prayer beads so you might be able to get one with just the bead of karma on it, which is the only one you really need: A strand with just the bead of karma would in theory cost 20,000 gp, but don't be surprised if your DM doesn't let you buy one that way.

- Divine Spell Power (Complete Divine) lets you spend a turning attempt to get a random boost to your caster level for 1 round dependent upon the result of a turning check: Note that it's possible for this check to end up negative, but you don't *have* to cast a spell in a round when you use the feat, you can just try again next round. If you put some work into optimizing your turning checks (you'll have to ask someone else how to do that though) you can theoretically get +4 CL to every spell you're persisting, but that's probably more trouble than it's worth.

- Dweomerkeeper (Complete Divine Web Enhancement) has Supernatural Spell, which allows you to cast up to 4 spells per day as a supernatural ability. While not strictly a CL boost, this is awesome because supernatural abilities cannot be dispelled (though they expire when their duration runs out as normal, and can be suppressed by an antimagic field), and ignore all components (including verbal, somatic, and expensive material, focus, and XP components). This is great because it makes a few important buffs untouchable, and makes persisting spells with a material or XP component a much better proposition. Like Persisting in general though Dweomerkeeper is really easy to abuse: If you break the uses per day limitation to use it with all your spells, or if you use it to get infinite free wishes, your DM has the right to punch you in the mouth.

Spells! Two things I need to mention: First, don't forget that Persistent Spell can only be applied to spells with personal or fixed range. Fixed range means the spell's description gives a static number (30 ft.) instead of a variable number (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels). Touch is not a fixed range officially, but some DMs rule otherwise: Ask about it. Second, note that you can use Reach Spell (complete divine) and Ocular Spell (Lords of Madness) to give a fixed range to nearly any spell and thus Persist them. These open up your options for persisting... quite a lot. Personally I think this is in Major Munchkin territory: Unless you're playing with a killer DM and need every trick in the book you can get, stay away from this. If you're interested in seeing what this can do though (or just need some convincing as to why you should never do it), take a look at The Twice-Betrayer of Shar (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19871166/New_Build_and_Challenge:_The_Twice-Betrayer_of_Shar) and Priya the Prismatic Princess (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=280365). My spell suggestions will be ignoring the possibilities you can gain from these and will focus just on what you can persist normally.

Oh, and one more thing: The Spell Domain has the spells Anyspell and Greater Anyspell, which allow you to prepare any sorcerer/wizard spell from a spellbook (doesn't need to be one you've written yourself!) of 2nd-level or lower into your 3rd-level domain slot, and any 5th-level or lower spell into your 6th-level domain slot. There are questionable tricks you can use to break the domain slot limitation (and thus get as many 5th-level or lower wizard spells as you want), but just the two of them you can get without tricks can be extremely useful if you pick the right spells. I'm going to ignore the possibilities here too, but take a look at Malachei's Incantatrix Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12256669&postcount=4) if you want to go this route and want some ideas as to what toys the wizard list can give you. So without further ado, spells! (Everything is either Core or Spell Compendium unless otherwise noted.)

0th: Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Read Magic
1st: Bless, Blessed Aim, Detect Alignment, Detect Fire (Frostburn), Divine Favor, Sign (Discharges after use, but worth persisting anyway. If you can get it, the Miniatures Handbook version is even more awesome.)
2nd: Balor Nimbus, Cloud of Knives, Elation (Book of Exalted Deeds), Find Traps (pfft who needs rogues anyway)
3rd: Battlemagic Perception, Blessed Sight (Book of Exalted Deeds), Inspired Aim, Invisibility Purge, Lesser Visage of the Deity, Mass Conviction, Mass Lesser Vigor, Prayer, Lesser Telepathic Bond (Complete Divine lists it as a cleric spell, but the Spell Compendium update removes it from the cleric list. Officially, Spell Compendium overrides earlier sources, but ask your DM about it as it's a very handy spell.)
4th: Divine Power, Freedom of Movement, Lesser Holy Transformation, Recitation, True Prayer of the Chosen (Tome of Magic)
5th: Divine Agility, Righteous Might, Righteous Wrath of the Faithful
6th: Antilife Shell, Crown of Brilliance (Book of Exalted Deeds, 100 gp material component), Stone Body, Vigorous Circle, Visage of the Deity
7th: Holy Star, Holy Transformation, Righteous Glare (BoED, not very good against level-appropriate enemies but HILARIOUS when you're just walking through town), Shield of the Archons (BoED)
8th: Holy Aura, Stormrage, Antimagic Field (w/Initiate of Mystra or Selective Spell)
9th: Greater Visage of the Deity

(Unfortunately there's no compiled list of persistable spells above 6th level, so I'm probably missing several good ones between 7th and 9th.)

[MindSculptor]

- The Rebuke Dragons ACF (Dragon Magic) counts as turn or rebuke undead for the purposes of feats that utilize it. Note that other turn/rebuke abilities doesn't work this way unless it specifically says that it does (for example the ability to turn/rebuke fire creatures from the Fire domain). This rocks because if you can get turn/rebuke undead from another source, you can get more than one pool of turning attempts. Extra Turning adds 4 turn/rebuke attempts to all of your pools, so if you have 2 of them then each use of the feat gives you 8 attempts. 3 of them gives you 12 attempts with each extra turning.

Doesn't this replace my turn/rebuke undead attempts and therefore I still only have one pool? I am reading it from the book.

[MindSculptor]

OH! I think I see now... Rebuke Dragons replaces my class granted turn undead attempts, Then I pick up the Dread Necro to replace my undead rebukes in a separate pool and then pick up Sacred exorcist to replace my turn attempts in another separate pool... Now (whala!) I have 3 pools of turning that can be boosted with Extra turning...

Please don't slap me if I am interpreting this wrong.

[Craft (Cheese)]

OH! I think I see now... Rebuke Dragons replaces my class granted turn undead attempts, Then I pick up the Dread Necro to replace my undead rebukes in a separate pool and then pick up Sacred exorcist to replace my turn attempts in another separate pool... Now (whala!) I have 3 pools of turning that can be boosted with Extra turning...

Please don't slap me if I am interpreting this wrong.

Nope, that's exactly right! 3 turning pools with 16 CHA and 1 Extra turning feat is 30 turn attempts, enough for 4 spells (and 2 left over); With another extra turning feat, you've got 42 attempts, or enough for 6 persistent spells. There might be ways to get even more turning pools, but you'd have to ask someone who knows the system better than I do.