What does a divine caster do when she's not healing?

[Malaqai]

We've all heard the classic "Show your GM what clerics do when they're not healing," usually in response to somebody complaining about cleric healing making encounters too easy. Unfortunately, the campaigns I've only ever played with one PC cleric, and not for very long. To prove that the gods have a sense of humor, I am going to be DMing my first campaign with not one but two divine casters, a cleric and an oracle of bones. I've read through the various resources available online, but I still don't feel like I have an adequate understanding of the divine caster. Would you guys mind helping me out and explaining to me what it is a divine caster does when she's not healing?

[Sir Chuckles]

People complaining about about Cleric healing making an encounter easy?
What?

Clerics have a fairly large amount of options for their casting, significantly more than healing. It may change from specific class to class, but a Cleric, Favored Soul, or even Paladin is a very strong option for a front line beatstick. They could be dealing out the pain, dealing out the buffs, or doing battlefield control.

[shadowseve]

There is a reason the term Codzilla is used to describe clerics. Dmm persist allows for quite a few 24 hour mega buffs that help the cleric bring down the house when needed. They can easily out strip fighters and such with divine power, righteous might, persisted Antimagic field using the extraordinary spell aim feat just to give a few examples. A properly built cleric is so much more than a healbot.

[TandemChelipeds]

Yeah, clerics can also make great summoners, especially with the Dark Tapestry subdomain, which comes with a really nifty ability that basically turns your summons into minor Lovecraftian horrors. Add the Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning feats, and possibly Summon Good Monster or Summon Neutral Monster to expand your selection, and you can have all kinds of enhanced outsiders and celestial or fiendish beasts at your disposal. For extra lulz, negative-energy-channeling clerics can also make really good necromancers; I've never tried summoning and necromancy at the same time(or necromancy at all), but I'd imagine it's possible to command a small army of minions with a well-built cleric. The Evangelist archetype is just gravy, replacing a cleric's spontaneous heal/inflict with enchantment spells and granting a limited version of Bardic Song at the expense of a domain and some energy channeling, allowing them to buff their party and minions alike. As a cleric racks up caster levels and the durations of the relevant spells become practical for use, watch out for the Sanctuary/Summon Monster combo. They may not be able to attack while protected by Sanctuary, but the rules say nothing about summoning and commanding planar beasties, or about healing and buffing teammates.

[Leon]

Buff the Everliving Heck out of the whole party and make them a Adventuring Juggernaut.

Then be a second line balance between the 3rd line casters and the Front line Tough types.

On its on a well played Cleric can be the answer to most things with a lil bit of planing and prep and even without prep and planning if its just the cleric standing and the rest of the party is down things are still looking good.

[adriana]

For extra lulz, negative-energy-channeling clerics can also make really good necromancers; I've never tried summoning and necromancy at the same time(or necromancy at all), but I'd imagine it's possible to command a small army of minions with a well-built cleric.

I love being a necro cleric. With the deathbound domain and the necromancy domain it's easy to have VERY powerful undead following you in addition to other summons and the usual DMM persist cheese. Clerics are just plain beasts. Then there's druids, the other major divine caster. They're just as brutal.

[Malaqai]

Okay, thanks for the explanations. To summarize, clerics are most potent as buffed melee monsters?

I've gotten a lot of great advice on clerics - are oracles just more specialized due to their limited spell selection? And what sort of thing is a cleric of bones going to be doing (my oracle of bones, like me, has never seen a PC cleric in action).

[jaydubs]

You can always read over this guide for ideas. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h6-_4HvPvV-Tt7I67Gi_oPhgHmeDVA5SBl-WrJSgf5s/edit?hl=en&pli=1

Basically, it depends on what you build the character for. The cleric has 3/4 bab, d8 hit die, and a wide choice of domains. This means you can pick up a second focus, while still being a great support caster. Pick feats and attributes to specialize toward that second focus. For instance:

-Melee cleric would have high strength, power attack, possibly toughness and combat reflexes, and put a lot of wealth towards a good weapon.
-Summoner cleric would have spell focus (conj.), augment summoning, the appropriate summon X alignment monster feat, and sacred summons.
-Archer cleric would have high dexterity, PBS, rapid shot, deadly aim, and manyshot.

And those are just a few possibilities. These types of characters retain the ability to heal, buff, restore conditions, and generally act as a full divine caster, while simultaneously having 1 good other trick.

Now, the summoner cleric won't be as good at it as a Summoner. And the melee and archer clerics won't do as much physical damage as a straight fighter. But they can all be very effective at those roles, if they devote stats, feats, and wealth to do so.


Dmm persist allows for quite a few 24 hour mega buffs that help the cleric bring down the house when needed.

DMM did not carry over into pathfinder.

[Leon]

Okay, thanks for the explanations. To summarize, clerics are most potent as buffed melee monsters?


They can be, but a Better player will buff the whole party to make them all Melee Monsters.

[Psyren]

The same activities as any other primary caster - buffing, debuffing/controlling, blasting and summoning. For clerics, blasting might be harder, but all the rest are still there.

[Darth Paul]

My favorite cleric moment was when a friend's character neutralized, then eliminated an enemy spellcaster thusly:

1) Hold Person
2) Silence
3) Coup De Grace (a neck snap)

Best of all was when he came back to the campaign as an undead; and the same 2 spells and a neck-snap got him again. For some reason, the DM could not break a 4 on a saving throw roll with that NPC.

(He never came back again; after the second time, we kept his head in a jar for insurance. The cleric used to Speak With Dead once a month just to ask him, "How's it goin' down there?")

[RolkFlameraven]

My favorite cleric moment was when a friend's character neutralized, then eliminated an enemy spellcaster thusly:

1) Hold Person
2) Silence
3) Coup De Grace (a neck snap)

Best of all was when he came back to the campaign as an undead; and the same 2 spells and a neck-snap got him again. For some reason, the DM could not break a 4 on a saving throw roll with that NPC.

How on earth did Hold Person work on an undead? Or The Coup De Grace for that mater?

[Shining Wrath]

Would you care to take a guess what the root word of "Divination" is?

[I3igAl]

We've all heard the classic "Show your GM what clerics do when they're not healing," usually in response to somebody complaining about cleric healing making encounters too easy. Unfortunately, the campaigns I've only ever played with one PC cleric, and not for very long. To prove that the gods have a sense of humor, I am going to be DMing my first campaign with not one but two divine casters, a cleric and an oracle of bones. I've read through the various resources available online, but I still don't feel like I have an adequate understanding of the divine caster. Would you guys mind helping me out and explaining to me what it is a divine caster does when she's not healing?

Healing won't make encounters easy, since miost other Cleric options will be much stronger.

-Be a melee fighter using your buffs(Persist Divine Metamagic is helpful.).
-Buff the melee Fighter using your buffs.
-Use Hold Person and other Crowd Control spells.
-Use Summon Monster spells.
-Use a Reach Weapon and be a second row fighter, can be combined with all of the above.

[Dr. Cliché]

My favorite cleric moment was when a friend's character neutralized, then eliminated an enemy spellcaster thusly:

1) Hold Person
2) Silence
3) Coup De Grace (a neck snap)


If hold person succeeded, wasn't silence a little redundant? :smalltongue:

[Malaqai]

Okay, thanks for the explanations! The cleric's primarily a support class who can deal out some hurt when she buffs herself, but doesn't come with a lot of blasty options at low levels.

[magwaaf]

our cleric preps like a handful of heals... he is a walking death machine that f's up everything in his path. clerics shouldnt be healing unless they need to be they should just be walking death machines