Why my cleric no zilla?! [ Cleric Optimization ]

[AlisiTyranith]

Alright, lets get down to business.

I recently have joined a campaign that I quickly took on the role of the cleric. The problem is that no one is taking my character seriously and am only looking at me as a heal bot, which is not fully what I wanted to do in the group. So here I am, and I really would love some help with creating a better build than what I already was going after. All and only be 3.0 and 3.5 material but no Dragon Magazine material, and I would prefer little to no cheese please!

Here is what I got :

Female, Lesser Aasimar NN
Cloistered Cleric 5 // Divine War Weaver 5 // x 10 (Currently lvl 4)
Celestian // Oracle, Knowledge and Travel Domains
1st level feat // Imbued Healing - Travel
3rd level feat // Enlarge Spell

Str 12 / Dex 13 / Con 17 / Int 16 / Wis 21 / Cha 16

Edit. I think I will be adding a level in Prestige Pally for the spell list. At some point I will have to change my alignment, but I am unsure as of which yet.

[Tvtyrant]

Alright, lets get down to business.

I recently have joined a campaign that I quickly took on the role of the cleric. The problem is that no one is taking my character seriously and am only looking at me as a heal bot, which is not fully what I wanted to do in the group. So here I am, and I really would love some help with creating a better build than what I already was going after. All and only be 3.0 and 3.5 material but no Dragon Magazine material, and I would prefer little to no cheese please!

Here is what I got :

Female, Lesser Aasimar NN
Cloistered Cleric 5 // Divine War Weaver 5 // x 10 (Currently lvl 4)
Celestian // Oracle, Knowledge and Travel Domains
1st level feat // Imbued Healing
3rd level feat // Enlarge Spell

Str 12 / Dex 13 / Con 17 / Int 16 / Wis 21 / Cha 16
Okay so there are some questions inherent to answering this question.
1. What do you define as cheese? Divine metamagic? Persist spell? Corrupt or Sacred spells?
2. What do you want your Cleric to be good at? Melee, casting, archery? D&D requires focus to really pop.
4. Have you looked into none-slot based healing? Wands of CLW and Lesser Vigor are much better than casting healing spells, just top everyone off after battles.
3. What is the single coolest thing you think a Cleric could do?

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Well for starters you took cloistered cleric and played at a level where you haven't been able to reaquire those proficiencies. You can get defenses from other sources, but people tend to feel diferently about characters in Platemail than they do about characters in Robes.

Worse you took Imbued Healing, which isn't a great feat and it screams "I'm going to cast lots of healing spells". It even disinsentivizes healing from a wand, which is another big thing that seperates healbots from clericzillas.

Also, what is enlarge spell for? I'm guessing to be even better at in combat healing.

The first metamagic feat you want is probably Extend spell. Even if you never get Persist or metamagic reducers, it's huge for grabing all day buffs at low levels.

[AlisiTyranith]

Okay so there are some questions inherent to answering this question.
1. What do you define as cheese? Divine metamagic? Persist spell? Corrupt or Sacred spells?
2. What do you want your Cleric to be good at? Melee, casting, archery? D&D requires focus to really pop.
4. Have you looked into none-slot based healing? Wands of CLW and Lesser Vigor are much better than casting healing spells, just top everyone off after battles.
3. What is the single coolest thing you think a Cleric could do?


1. DMM Persist is good, but anything more is a little much.
2. Pure casting, I am looking to be the main healer of the group but I wish to be more than that.
4. No, the DM is running low wealth by level.
3. Honestly, DMM Persist Divine Power. Its pretty baddonkey, man. Also, Genesis is pretty awesome too.

I know alot of the high power crazy cleric awesomeness, but my main problem is I do not know how to get there properly.

[AlisiTyranith]

Also, what is enlarge spell for? I'm guessing to be even better at in combat healing.


Enlarge spell is a prerequisite for War Weaver.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

1. DMM Persist is good, but anything more is a little much.
2. Pure casting, I am looking to be the main healer of the group but I wish to be more than that.
4. No, the DM is running low wealth by level.
3. Honestly, DMM Persist Divine Power. Its pretty baddonkey, man. Also, Genesis is pretty awesome too.

I know alot of the high power crazy cleric awesomeness, but my main problem is I do not know how to get there properly.

1. Actually build towards DMM Persist instead of picking up feats that improve healing spells.
2. Stop building towards healing. Carry wands, preferably paid for from a party fund.
3. Grab Exend Spell and a Kharma Bead as soon as possible to start the day with level boosted all day buffs.
4. How low? Too low to get 200 gp from each member of a 4 player party for a lvl 1 wand.\


Enlarge spell is a prerequisite for War Weaver.

Fair enough, part of the problem here is still that as I touched on before you've backloaded your build. Cloistered is great, but it's arguably weaker at lower levels and has image issues compared to vanilla cleric. By the same token you probably want something that's powerful at low levels for your level 1,3,6 feats and save Enlarge Spell for your level 9 slot.

[AlisiTyranith]

1. Actually build towards DMM Persist instead of picking up feats that improve healing spells.
2. Stop building towards healing. Carry wands, preferably paid for from a party fund.
3. Grab Exend Spell and a Kharma Bead as soon as possible to start the day with level boosted all day buffs.
4. How low? Too low to get 200 gp from each member of a 4 player party for a lvl 1 wand.


Honestly, yes that is too high for our party.
And I am not built towards healing.. I am built towards healing AND buffing.
If you have not, please look at War Weaver.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Your 20 level build is geared towards buffing, your level 4 build isn't.

[AlisiTyranith]

1. Actually build towards DMM Persist instead of picking up feats that improve healing spells.
2. Stop building towards healing. Carry wands, preferably paid for from a party fund.
3. Grab Exend Spell and a Kharma Bead as soon as possible to start the day with level boosted all day buffs.
4. How low? Too low to get 200 gp from each member of a 4 player party for a lvl 1 wand.\



Fair enough, part of the problem here is still that as I touched on before you've backloaded your build. Cloistered is great, but it's arguably weaker at lower levels and has image issues compared to vanilla cleric. By the same token you probably want something that's powerful at low levels for your level 1,3,6 feats and save Enlarge Spell for your level 9 slot.


War Weaver is a class that I wish to have as soon as possible. Its kind of her schtick.
Which feats do you suggest then? Because the DMM Persist line is three feats and will fit but isn't as useful at early level.

Edit.


Your 20 level build is geared towards buffing, your level 4 build isn't.

So, then what do you suggest?
I am asking for help, and suggestions.

[Wacky89]

War Weaver is a class that I wish to have as soon as possible. Its kind of her schtick.
Which feats do you suggest then? Because the DMM Persist line is three feats and will fit but isn't as useful at early level.

Edit.



So, then what do you suggest?
I am asking for help, and suggestions.

yes it is worth it at low level.
One of the best early level buffs for cleric: Elation from BoED.
+2 Morale bonus to Str & Dex and increases speed by 5ft.
That's something your group would love, you can also use Vigor, Lesser on your party's tank

[Hand_of_Vecna]

yes it is worth it at low level.


You should also use Luminous Armor from BoED at level 5 you can use an extended one. It will get you back your AC and also help with your image problem.


luminous armor resembles a suit of dazzling full plate

[AlisiTyranith]

yes it is worth it at low level.
One of the best early level buffs for cleric: Elation from BoED.
+2 Morale bonus to Str & Dex and increases speed by 5ft.
That's something your group would love, you can also use Vigor, Lesser on your party's tank

Definitely will look into these.
Thank you (:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Start out with DMM: Persist if possible, take two flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) for two extra feats at 1st level if necessary. With that you can put Mass Lesser Vigor on the whole party for 24 hours, giving everyone Fast Healing 1. Just wait a few minutes between encounters and everyone is healed to full, without spending any spells. I would skip War Weaver, go for Divine Oracle or Paragnostic Apostle instead. You can get the feat prerequisite for Divine Oracle from the Frog God's Fane in CS without spending a feat on it, or subtract 2,000 gp from your WBL and say you already did it.

Get the spontaneous domain casting ACF in PH2 instead of spontaneously casting Cure spells. Don't even prepare any Cure spells, especially if you've got Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor, otherwise prepare Lesser Vigor a few times to top people off between encounters. Get everyone to buy a Healing Belt in MIC, including yourself, it's only 750 gp and they can use those to heal themselves for 6d8 hp per day. A Wand of Lesser Vigor is only 750 gp, and it has 50 charges, so for that price it heals 550 hp total, use that to top people off between encounters and they can use their Healing Belt if they need healing during combat.

I'd get a domain with some good crowd controls, such as the Cold or Slime domain. Cold gets Chill Metal, which can be used to get an enemy to drop their weapon (Heat Metal worked on Aragorn in Fangorn Forest), and it gets Sleet Storm, Ice Storm, and Wall of Ice. You can also prepare Ice Slick from Frostburn, which is basically Grease but can only be cast on the ground. The Slime domain gets Grease, Black Tentacles, Transmute Rock to Mud, and several other great spells. Use spontaneous domain casting for whichever of those you choose. Also consider trading one of your domain powers (Knowledge) for the Divine Restoration ACF in Dungeonscape, you can get that at 3rd level and it allows you to spontaneously cast spells with Restoration in the name, you only give up a domain's granted power for it, not the domain spell list.

[AlisiTyranith]

You should also use Luminous Armor from BoED at level 5 you can use an extended one. It will get you back your AC and also help with your image problem.


luminous armor resembles a suit of dazzling full plate


The "image" thing isn't truly the problem.
Group wanted a heal bot, but I wish to do more than just that.
And I am well aware you can do both.. as in healing and also bringing some rain.
I honestly just need some help doing so.
She isn't going to be the "up in the fray and beating the crap out of that guy" cleric.
Her schtick is to be in the back healing and doing the cleric equivalent of Meteor Swarm.

[AlisiTyranith]

Start out with DMM: Persist if possible, take two flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm) for two extra feats at 1st level if necessary. With that you can put Mass Lesser Vigor on the whole party for 24 hours, giving everyone Fast Healing 1. Just wait a few minutes between encounters and everyone is healed to full, without spending any spells. I would skip War Weaver, go for Divine Oracle or Paragnostic Apostle instead. You can get the feat prerequisite for Divine Oracle from the Frog God's Fane in CS without spending a feat on it, or subtract 2,000 gp from your WBL and say you already did it.

Get the spontaneous domain casting ACF in PH2 instead of spontaneously casting Cure spells. Don't even prepare any Cure spells, especially if you've got Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor, otherwise prepare Lesser Vigor a few times to top people off between encounters. Get everyone to buy a Healing Belt in MIC, including yourself, it's only 750 gp and they can use those to heal themselves for 6d8 hp per day. A Wand of Lesser Vigor is only 750 gp, and it has 50 charges, so for that price it heals 550 hp total, use that to top people off between encounters and they can use their Healing Belt if they need healing during combat.

I'd get a domain with some good crowd controls, such as the Cold or Slime domain. Cold gets Chill Metal, which can be used to get an enemy to drop their weapon (Heat Metal worked on Aragorn in Fangorn Forest), and it gets Sleet Storm, Ice Storm, and Wall of Ice. You can also prepare Ice Slick from Frostburn, which is basically Grease but can only be cast on the ground. The Slime domain gets Grease, Black Tentacles, Transmute Rock to Mud, and several other great spells. Use spontaneous domain casting for whichever of those you choose. Also consider trading one of your domain powers (Knowledge) for the Divine Restoration ACF in Dungeonscape, you can get that at 3rd level and it allows you to spontaneously cast spells with Restoration in the name, you only give up a domain's granted power for it, not the domain spell list.


Thank you.
This is amazing advice, but the problem is that our DM isn't doing wealth by level very well.

Do you have any suggestions on things that do not cost gold?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Thank you.
This is amazing advice, but the problem is that our DM isn't doing wealth by level very well.

Do you have any suggestions on things that do not cost gold?

You're currently 4th level, characters at this level should have 5,400 gp worth of gear. Something like a Wand of Lesser Vigor or a Healing Belt is trivial at this level, and a DM who inhibits WBL so severely that you can't even get basic survival items like these is nothing short of screwing over the party. If not using WBL, then just say you visited the Frog God's Fane already since your character must have spent his wealth somewhere.

Take Ancestral Relic as your 3rd level feat, make it an Elvencraft Longbow (RotW) that's Masterwork three times with three Wand Chambers from Dungeonscape in it. That's an entirely mundane item so far, which counts as both a bow and a quarterstaff, hence it's counted as three separate weapons for upgrades, but it's a single item as your Ancestral Relic. When the party finds anything of value that you shouldn't be able to loot, such as a statue, a fountain, marble columns, an entire castle, etc. you can cast Consecrate and meditate to sacrifice it to your ancestral relic, adding its entire value into the relic. Use that to make it a magical staff with charges of healing spells, and use those healing spells on the party. Its value will go down every time you use a charge, but you can just upgrade it back up again.

[Flickerdart]

Consider Divine Spell Power - it can be taken before Beads of Karma come online, and helps you squeeze just a little bit extra out of buffs that depend on CL.

[PraxisVetli]

This thread my be of service.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?366292-Cleric-buffing-without-DMM-Persist

[Rubik]

Take Ancestral Relic as your 3rd level featAnd don't forget Item Familiar.

Also, I'd learn how to use every single cp's worth of value from everything around you, from the nails in the dungeon's floorboards to the harvested corpses of enemies.

Prepare Wall of Salt (cleric 4, Sandstorm) in every 4th level slot you've got, as soon as you can (and buy scrolls of it beforehand). It might as well be renamed Wall of Silver, since salt can be traded as though it were currency, and salt is literally worth its weight in silver.

[Giddonihah]

And don't forget Item Familiar.

Also, I'd learn how to use every single cp's worth of value from everything around you, from the nails in the dungeon's floorboards to the harvested corpses of enemies.

Prepare Wall of Salt (cleric 4, Sandstorm) in every 4th level slot you've got, as soon as you can (and buy scrolls of it beforehand). It might as well be renamed Wall of Silver, since salt can be traded as though it were currency, and salt is literally worth its weight in silver.

Or alternatively ignore advice that would make the Gm dislike you. If a game is low gold, the solution isn't to break out broken gold production methods or encourage munchkin Murder Hoboing.

The most economical healing items are healing belts and wands, get those when you can afford them, otherwise consider preparing less buffs and more control spells for these early levels. Sound burst, Hold Person and Command will help a great deal more to change peoples image of you, then after a few levels when you get your stronger buffs you can get respect as a Buffbot instead of a Healbot.

[JusticeZero]

Eh. Things like Wall of Salt are realistically restricted by the inability of local markets to absorb the amount of product, so it really just represents an auxiliary revenue stream. You can sell it and make some extra cash, but you can only make so much cash that way. And it tends to be less aggravating when you are explicitly putting the profit into the group fund. I can attest that it can be hard to discipline yourself to put down WBL in treasure, because it feels like a very Tippy high rate of gear in enemy groups that aren't supposed to have that much. It isn't always that the GM is TRYING to make the party poor.

[Rubik]

Eh. Things like Wall of Salt are realistically restricted by the inability of local markets to absorb the amount of product, so it really just represents an auxiliary revenue stream.Considering that silver can be spent exactly like silver, you're basically saying the same thing about silver, and I don't think there's a limit to the amount you can actually spend until everything that you want to buy is gone.


You can sell it and make some extra cash, but you can only make so much cash that way.You don't "sell" salt. You spend salt like money. Literally. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/wealthAndMoney.htm)

Just do it when the group really needs money and the DM isn't giving you any. I'm sure the other players will have trouble seeing you as nothing but a healbot then.

[torrasque666]

Considering that silver can be spent exactly like silver, you're basically saying the same thing about silver, and I don't think there's a limit to the amount you can actually spend until everything that you want to buy is gone.

Nope. DMG 137 says otherwise. Each settlement size has a limit on how much a settlement can buy/sell. Its (half the GP limit) x (1/10 the population.) They can only buy so much, and only have so much to buy. The limit works either way.

There are exceptions, but it advises them to be limited.

[Rubik]

Nope. DMG 137 says otherwise. Each settlement size has a limit on how much a settlement can buy/sell. Its (half the GP limit) x (1/10 the population.) They can only buy so much, and only have so much to buy. The limit works either way.

There are exceptions, but it advises them to be limited.Like I said, "until everything that you want to buy is gone."

Basically you're conjuring something that's worth its weight in silver, which can be used exactly like silver. If you can't buy something with salt, you can't buy it with silver, either.