FR cleric advice/help for newb

[Sugarbear007]

Howdy all :P

So I have been playing with friends we are gearing up towards a new campaign. We are switching GM’s again. This is the second switch for us. First game is on hold for now, second one was only supposed to be a few sessions.

Character concept
So the character concept is an oldie but goody. My character has been wronged and is on a quest for vengeance that as of yet cannot be sated for a lack of sufficient power. Red Wizards have killed my characters adopted father who was their enemy in his youth. The character survived the attack and is on a quest to kill all three involved in the attack. They are specialists in their respective fields of necromancy, transmutation, and conjuration. My character couldn’t afford to join a mages college and turns to a church in order to gain power to rival the wizards.

I’ve read a whole bunch of cleric guides before I decided to post some questions and ask for some ideas from the forums. I have a few questions about how they really operate. Most of the guides you see are hard facts, and I don’t have a lot of experience. No one in my group has played one and I’ve got about 6 months or so of sessions under my belt. I was hoping maybe someone with cleric experience could maybe sell me on different styles and strategies that they used first hand.

I’ve read that a cleric can fill all kinds of roles. I figured I’d end up going in as a buffer, and perhaps an archer if that can be done together. The group I’m paired with will be melee heavy but any style really works for me. I think it will be more difficult for my character as far as archery goes without gaining access to the elf domain that seems popular with the archer style. It seems to me that if I have to focus a lot of feats to shoehorn archery in that it may keep my character from accomplishing his goal. Because of that I don’t mind a different style. If I could somehow run around with a great sword there’s no complaints who doesn’t like a giant sword?

Is there any way for a cleric to act like an iconic spellcaster? Like throwing energy bolts or curses or some other no save suckage? I am under the impression that a cleric is a match for a wizard from other threads about who wins here and here. Please note that I’m not trying to turn this into a “who wins in this situation thread.”

One thing that I need help with is picking a deity. It seems that domains are one of the big important choices. Mystra was one I was looking at. I’ve read a lot of people consider it a bit cheesy though for the being able to cast in anti-magic fields though. Other thoughts and suggestions are appreciated here especially.

So if you’d like to add a build, that’s great, thank you for contributing. If you’ve got a guide then thanks as well. I’ve read most of the major ones thrown around but I’ll check them out. If you’ve got practical advice on how to function in a party or perhaps something you’ve done yourself in a session that’s also appreciated. I normally like to come up with my own stuff but I’m feeling a little out of my element.


Must haves and other pertinent information

1) Character must be human

2) Alignment of CG (can switch to NG if necessary for a deity but CG is preferred) looking specifically to be a good guy this run.

3) This is a forgotten realms game so the deity must be chosen from those pantheons.

4) Starting level 5 with 9k gold

5) All official materials are available (no homebrew or dragon magazines)

6) Multiclass penalties have been abolished in our group thanks to my reading of this forum. Good job people :P

7) I have not rolled my stats yet so I can’t give you that information

8) Party (to my knowledge) will consist of a druid that has no focus, a two handed melee guy of some kind probably mundane, a duskblade, and a swift ambusher.

9) Feel free to optimize as much as you like in the given parameters, considering the ultimate goal it seems necessary and the GM can take it.

[Diarmuid]

The difficult part of using archery as a cleric is the lack of feats to make it work.

If you were a elf then you would get proficiency with the bow from race (could be picked up via War domain if you can find a War domain deity with bow as a favored weapon). Being an elf also opens up Elven deities and many of them offer the Elf domain which grants Point Blank Shot as a bonus proficiency. This leaves you only really needing Precise Shot as a feat to make your archery at least usable.

If you want to run around with a greatsword, you're going to spend most of your magic buffing yourself to make yourself effective with it. This is certainly a viable option but you wont really see the benefits until you get to 7th level with things like Divine Power.

But even then, if you're not using DMM to persist or quicken these spells then you're going to be spending the first couple rounds most fights putting up your buffs while the rest of the group is laying the smack down.

[Devils_Advocate]

The god Hoar (Faiths and Pantheons p. 97) fits that backstory and motivation like a glove, optimization concerns and alignment preferences be damned.

I mean, you're of course free to ignore my recommendation here. But to be perfectly frank, most non-evil religions would probably reject the application of a guy who wrote "In order to further my personal quest to kill some dudes" in the "reason for joining" section, know what I'm sayin'? But the Church of Hoar would not only welcome this individual, but do so with open arms. "You're looking for revenge?! COME RIGHT IN, THAT IS EXACTLY THE SERVICE WE PROVIDE."

Lawful-only, but Hoar does specifically teach that it's the spirit of the law that's important, not the letter.

[Sugarbear007]

That Hoar is pretty well perfect actually. Good call. I was mostly concerned with getting the correct set of domains available to the cleric. Are domains not as important as the basic cleric spell list?

Also does anyone have suggestions for PrC's?

[Devils_Advocate]

Well, I did say optimization concerns be damned. :P That said, while I'm not an expert, Fate and Travel seem pretty good to me? It's not like I recommended Yondalla for a Core-only Cleric or something like that.

Let's see, according to The 3.5 Cleric Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1238), the Fate and Travel domains (and Travel devotion) are quite good. And Retribution and Law are pretty lackluster, so it seems like a pretty straightforward choice.

Also, Hoar's favored weapon is the javelin, so you can carry a +1 Returning Javelin to chuck at people in lieu of bow and arrow, plus a Javelin of Lightning or two to use in case things get extra real. So that covers ranged attacks and energy bolts! Maybe a longspear for melee...

But mostly it was a matter of me seeing your character concept and going "Ooh! I know exactly the right FR deity for that! I just hope I can find the right one..."

Anyway, yeah, the Cleric spell list is great. The above-linked guide has a list of suggested spells (along with a bunch of other suggestions about various things). Really, the strength of the class is automagically being able to prepare anything off of the whole list, which is just a great big ol' grab bag of various potentially useful stuff. Being allowed to do pretty much anything due to the lack of a distinct functional niche is not good game design in terms of either balance or coherence of theme, but it is the main thing that the most powerful spellcasting classes have going for them, and Cleric is certainly one of those classes.

[jedipotter]

Sune and Tymora are the big CG powers, but you also have Valkur, Gond, Lathander, Mystra, Oghma, Selune, Shaundakul, Tempus and Ahanur to pick from as ''allow CG clerics''.

Domains are important for the domain power and the spells. A lot of the domain powers are a bit flat, you get like a +1 CL for good spells. And while not 'bad', it is not as nice as having an ability. And a lot of domains just have the PH cleric spells, and that is boring to get access to the spells you already have. So looking for domains with unique spells is good.

Tymora: The Luck reroll is nice and the bunch of protection spells are not bad. and Travel gives the the freedom of movement ability and lots of movement spells like fly and teleport.

Sune: Charm is her more unique domain, but it is just a chr boost and a bunch of charm spells.

Valkur: Air: turning earth creatures and weather/air spells...but get chain lightning. Ocean: water breathing and some sea/water spells.

Gond: Fire: turn water, eh. But you get a bunch of blasty fire spells. Craft is ok, fantastic machine is fun. Metal: er and hammer and spells you already get Planning: Extend spell feat for free! And, er, some spells.

Lathander: Sun: greater turning, eh. But lots of blasty fire spells. Strength: nice boost for melee and ok spells. Renewal: the fight after 0 hp is nice for a melee build, but the spells are eh. Nobility has a nice group buff, but the spells are eh.

Oghma: can give you Travel and Luck, but also Trickery and a bunch of class skills and arcane trickery spells are nice.

Selune: Travel, and Moon: turn werestuff, eh. But moon has a couple unique spells.

Shaundakul: Air and Travel, Portal lets you detect portals and has lot of dimensional movement spells. Trade gives you detect though and some ok spells.

Tempus: Strength and war, for melee and armies

Mystra: Magic:Bland, Spell get you +2 to concentration, silence and anyspell. Rune: scribe scroll and some runeish wizard spells. Illusion: eh, bunch of illusions.

Anhur: Strgenth, War and Storm: electricity resistance and some storm spells like call lightning.


So Gond is nice for fire blasty spells and the Extend spell feat.
Lathander gets you fire blasty spells and buffs
Tempus is nice for all melee.

[Gwendol]

Hoar looks just great: and Retribution is not a bad domain either...
Maybe go church inquisitor next? Or sacred exorcist (favored enemy: arcanists).

[Mnemnosyne]

Hoar actually seems like a very solid choice domain wise, and is unquestionably exactly right, thematically speaking. Travel is a pretty solid domain, giving fly, dimension door, and both teleports. It could also be traded for free Travel Devotion if you prefer that.

Fate is also pretty solid, granting uncanny dodge, moment of prescience, and foresight, along with true strike. All occasionally useful.

The Envy domain is also situationally good, since it grants access to Limited Wish and Wish, thus giving you access to the cleric spell list. Unfortunately, Hoar can't qualify you for Dweomerkeeper (no Magic domain) so you can't get those xp-free supernatural wishes, but then that's probably too much anyway. Note that the Envy domain was listed as being granted by Hoar in Dragon #323, and the domain itself was reprinted in the Spell Compendium, so it's fully official. I'm not sure if any other book references Hoar granting this domain. In any case, since the domain itself is in Spell Compendium, it should hopefully not be too hard to convince your DM that Hoar should grant it.

So I'd go with Travel and Fate as domains, and if you need wishes sometime for something you can't accomplish with miracles, you can use the substitute domain spell from Complete Champion to temporarily gain access to any other domain that your god provides (this also applies to Hoar's other domains, but I personally find them considerably less worthwhile).

Also, if you go the Cloistered Cleric route and rely on Divine Power to keep your BAB up, you can pick up the Knowledge domain from CC's class features. You lose plate armor and such, but since you're going to be Good, you probably want to just be casting luminous armor or greater luminous armor anyway since it's way better than plate. Don't forget that Cloistered Clerics only get all Knowledge skills as class skills because of their Knowledge domain. If you trade it away for Knowledge Devotion, then you lose the Knowledges as class skills.

[Sugarbear007]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I appreciate the time you took. I was reading about different prestige classes. How much less power would this cleric have if he went with the cleric 4/ crusader 1/ ruby knight vindicator 10 rout? If I took the rest of the levels as something with full caster and take that practiced caster feat that gives you +3 caster levels.

I postpone spells which I'm sure makes you less powerful, and in the end I'd only get 1 9th level spell and a domain unless i had super amounts of wisdom... which I possibly would have. Still. I read about a kind of broken ability they have to trade turning attempts for actions. I know that would get nailed down to once a round for sure.

Rambling. Anyway is RKV a significant drop in power?

[Jurai]

RKV is great. Another feat to look into is Intuitive Attack or Zen Archery, for all your SAD needs.

[Callin]

If you wanted to go the divine route but still bookish and like the idea of searching out spells like a wizard the Archivist with a 1 lvl dip into cloistered cleric would be a good fit. Depending on how many divine scrolls from other classes the dm will throw out in loot and allow you to buy. It works with your background pretty well and you work in the whole revenge thing pretty easily.

[Rebel7284]

RKV lose caster progression for a good increase to tanking ability and a super powerful ability at RKV 7. Great for beating down things with a reach weapon.

If you want to be a cleric caster though, I would recommend:

Silverbrow Human Cloistered Cleric of Mystra 5/Dweomerkeeper 4/Sacred Exorcist 1/X2/Dweomerkeeper +6/Y2

Take the Magical Training feat to qualify as casting arcane spells.

Take Initiate of Mystra to laugh at silly antimagic fields and have the ability to cast in your own if necessary.

Take Divine Metamagic[Persistent Spell] to have your buffs last all day.

If you want to focus on killing casters, I would get the two feat combo that allows to counterspell as an immediate action by using turn attempts.

One feat: You can use 1 turn attempt to counterspell as an immediate action.
Second Feat: you can use X turn attempts to counterspell something instead of using a prepared spell/dispel magic. I like it because unlike dispel magic, no caster level check is needed.

Regardless, all of these suggestions use a lot of turn attempts for amazing power, so ask your DM if you can purchase Nightsticks from Libris Mortis.

[Sugarbear007]

If you want to focus on killing casters, I would get the two feat combo that allows to counterspell as an immediate action by using turn attempts.

One feat: You can use 1 turn attempt to counterspell as an immediate action.
Second Feat: you can use X turn attempts to counterspell something instead of using a prepared spell/dispel magic. I like it because unlike dispel magic, no caster level check is needed.


I found one you're talking about Divine Defiance. What is the other one you're talking about?

Had some hardware problems so i wasn't able to respond. Hoer will work out. Its too bad that i can't use inquisitor with him, but I like Hoers interpretation of law more than say Tyr. Plus his faiths structure lets me be beholden to nobody or at least not many so not so many restrictions.

I'm looking at Divine oracle and divine disciple for PRC's that fit within alignment and such. maybe 5 cleric / 10 oracle / 5 disciple. Think that fits levels wise I may have missed something as far as prerequisites go.

Switching out some back story elements. Gonna have a old master vampire instead of some mages. Saw an interesting feat Vampire hunter. Not sure how useful it would be since its a persistent campaign could be vampires but there's a whole world. Works flavor wise anyway.

Asides from a few things like divine metamagic, quicken and persist spells what do most people take? just a metric crapload of extra turning?