Building a Cleric

[Reshy]

Alright so my group is a pair of rogues, a druid, a paladin, and a wizard. The wizard has decided that he wants to be a blaster/necromancer (haha), the paladin's trying and failing to be a tank, the druid and the rogues are decent. Now since everything else has been shot down by the DM I decided that I may as well go with Cleric, since that way I'm not one of the classes that already exists. The DM's very strict on what she allows (In terms of race and class) and I'll be starting from level 1 (the others are level 2). I need a good general build for a cleric without emphasis on skills since that's what the rogues are for. Meaning I'd really only need Concentration, Spellcraft, and maybe some knowledge.

The DM has a problem with most races that aren't in the PHB so while you can suggest them make sure that you have a variant of the build that works with a more standard race. I have no intention of being a 'healbot' and instead I'm more interested in being an asset to the team and doing whatever minimal healing is necessary to keep my teammates from dying be it spell casting, tanking, or beating. So a preferred build would be great. One more thing, the DM is using 4d6 DROP for stats so it's unlikely I'll have a consistent amount of stats to work with. The DM also is pretty spare with the money, but says pretty much we can go wild on our starting items so long as they're not magical in nature. I've not played a cleric before but it seems like it could be interesting from what I've read in the Cleric Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=420.0).

[Kennisiou]

Good news about clerics! A number of the best cleric races are already in the PHB! Humans and Dwarves both make great clerics, and Halflings and Gnomes can be solid as well but generally will look at different aspects of Clericing (Dwarves and Humans make good "buff and beat" Clerics, while Halflings and Gnomes basically are "wizard" clerics focusing on staying in the back and casting spells).

I'd suggest straying away from anything in the Cleric handbook that seems too powerful. From the sound of things your group would probably be a little floored by a full out ClericZilla showing up and outpaladining the paladin while also outwizarding the wizard and still being, you know, the guy with the heals. If you want to self buff and beat face Cleric's really good at that, but I'd suggest avoiding divine metamagic persist and instead taking Divine Metamagic: Quicken Spell so that you can be a party buffer or self buffer or battlefield controller more effectively (and you can even prepare some heal spells as quickened so that combat healing is less of a bad idea).

Overall I'd suggest you probably want to go human and get extend spell, quicken spell, and divine metamagic: Quicken. Also, prioritize wis, then con, then cha, then str, then dex. Let int be your dump. Focus on preparing buff and battlefield control spells to make your paladin and rogues more effective.

In the realms of "only minimal healing" make sure you can nab a wand of cure light wounds as quickly as you can. CLW wands are among the cheapest and best means of out of combat healing. For in-combat, the only healing spells you generally want to cast are Close Wounds and when you get high level enough Heal, otherwise you'll find that healing in combat is generally a losing game -- at almost every level you heal less hp per spell than most enemies will do with a single attack. You spend an action not even completely undoing a single enemy's turn. Not worth it compared to just hitting hard and beating the enemies faster to mean they have less time to deal damage. Those two spells manage to be exceptions because Close Wounds is an immediate action, meaning you cast it on turns other than your own, meaning that it can actually kinda cheat death (when someone reaches -10 you can close wounds as an immediate action and it'll heal and stabilize them and the healing registers before the death does -- also, no HP below -10 exists, so even if someone in your party takes enough to drop them to -500, a single close wounds brings them up to at least -9 and stable every time), while heal is just, well, the only healing spell that is ever likely to outpace the attacks you receive in healing vs damage. It also cures a lot of status effects.

For good spells, the handbook you linked has a lot of good suggestions. I definitely suggest spiritual weapon as an early damage spell since in your early encounters it's a great way to get advantage in actions (consider it like getting a free attack every turn, but sometimes you have to spend a move action to have it. Falls off later when move actions get more precious for you as a means of moving, you know, yourself, but early on it's great!).

As for the rest, well... What you want to do with prestiging really does depend on how you like playing the class and what stats you get. Try playing a few games and getting to around level 4 or 5 and then seeing what classes are going to make you better at doing the things you like doing as a cleric.

[iceman10058]

hat source books can you use? if they are an option, CD and complete champion are both good choices for feats. look at spell compendium for good damage and utility spells. i find that the best buff spells are in phb anyways

[Virdish]

Minimal healing?
1.Get DMM persist
2.persist Mass Lesser Vigor.
3.Never heal outside of combat.
4.Profit.


Seriously I use that with a cleric in a game I'm in and it works great. If you go persist another awesome Buff for the party is Recitation. Of course you could persist Divine Power but then you are outpaladining the paladin

[Reshy]

Any suggestions for an alignment, deity, domain?

[iceman10058]

St cuthy gives you a lot of flexibility with what you can and cannot do without going evil, same with wee jas. wee jas gives you the death and magic domains, both of which i really like

[John Longarrow]

A build I've used a couple times that works fantastically well is
Lvl 1-4 Cleric
Lvl 5 - Crusader (Maneuvers to heal in combat/overcome DR)
Lvl 6-15 Radiant Servant of Pelor

Feats generally wind up as
1 - Extend Spell Human bonus - Extra Turning
3 - Extra Turning
6 - Persistent Spell
9 - Divine Metamagic Persistent

This build emphasized Wis->Cha->Con for the top three stats. You get a lot of turnings out of this, but it doesn't really shine till 9th.

I also go wand of lesser vigor over cure light wounds. CLW can get 1d8+1. Vigor gets you 11 every time.

You wind up as an undead killing machine quickly, but you don't overshadow the Paladin all the time.

EDIT sorry, forgot domains. I like Glory and Sun. Go NG and be a really good person!

EDIT for equipment
Go Chain Shirt with Shield and morning star to begin. At 5th you can tank (I like Glaive for reach) and you become pertty good at fighting.
In general this build lends itself to a "Holy Crusader against Undead" background. Very fun if your back story has your death happening during a fight against undead then you get brought back several years later.

[Snowbluff]

Spend all of your feats on Divine and Domain/"Devotion" feats! :smalltongue:

[Rebel7284]

-- also, no HP below -10 exists, so even if someone in your party takes enough to drop them to -500, a single close wounds brings them up to at least -9 and stable every time.

Pretty sure this is not correct. Please add sourcebook. Delay Death, for example, allows you to go as far into the negatives as you want.

[iceman10058]

but when the spell wears off, if it isnt above -10, your gone

[Cloud]

Just chiming in that you can have any number of negative hit points, that bit in Close Wounds is just referring to the fact the healing effectively applies before the damage, so that if you do use it to save someone from dying they don't you know, actually die before the healing is applied. Close Wounds will fail to save someone knocked to -19 or worse for example all the time.

Otherwise the suggestions from everyone else is great, though knowing what sources you can use would help.

[Reshy]

When I ask about domains I'm looking for spells that give a lot of flexibility or allow me to better fill the role as a buffer in the party. I don't know exactly how good these are but here's some I was looking at:

Protection
Strength
Magic
Trickery
Travel
Knowledge
Luck


Which of these is actually decent? I'm more interested in acquiring spells not normally accessible or just really good for helping out the party or utility.


Also should I be a standard Cleric or a Cloistered? We're starting at level one so part of me is thinking more survivability would be best at a lower level.

[iceman10058]

oracle domain (spc) is really cool for a cleric, you will become a better diviner than a wizard if you take it. magic domain is also a really good one.

[atomicwaffle]

Luck, magic, and sun domain are really good. The domain spells are useful, especially in sun and magic, and luck's reroll ability is a lifesaver (literally).