First time Cleric, help! What are the best spells for me to cast to buff our Crusader

[Tatsel_Ganav]

I just joined a game as the cleric. My party's best damage dealer is the Crusader - makes three attacks per round, four when the wizard hastes him. He wants to be Divine Metamagic Persist a buff spell on him.. The best buff I've found for the whole party to persist is Prayer :/ What buffs should I persist on my party or other people? Are any buff spells worth casting during combat? How about level 1-3 buffs, so I can use a lesser quicken rod on them? There are so many cleric spells, I'm a bit overwhelmed.

[Zaq]

It's very hard to Persist spells on other people, since Persist requires that the spell in question be either Personal or have a fixed range. The general consensus is that "touch" is not a fixed range (since it varies with your size), and of course anything with a range that scales with level (so Close, Medium, etc.) is right out. If you're looking to use DMM to get buffs on allies without much fuss, you might have better luck using DMM Quicken instead. (Yes, Persist is better for spells that it works with, but there are a lot of spells it doesn't work with, and again, it's not great for buffing your allies most of the time.)

Beyond that, what level are you? What are your feats and your domains? What books do you have open? You mention DMM, but how many turn attempts do you have in order to fuel it? Are you looking at doing anything other than buffing (either wading into melee yourself once you're buffed, casting spells that aren't buffs, or something else)? You mentioned a Lesser Metamagic (Quicken) Rod—do you have any other tricks up your sleeve that change how you cast your spells? How many people in the party need buffs—is this Crusader the only attack-focused character, or do you have other partymates that need some magical boosting?

There's not that much help that we can give you in a vacuum. I can gather from your post that you've got a fair bit of trickery available (the fact that you're starting out with DMM Persist puts you in a very different place than, say, someone with just the PHB), but without knowing what your resources are (and ideally a little more about what your goals are), there's not a ton of useful advice to give.

[Tatsel_Ganav]

Pretty much whatever books I want, none have been explicitly banned and I prefer asking forgiveness to permission. Let me answer in order.

1. I think he is allowing me to use touch range because we have been discussing persisting Spell Resistance and Disruptive Weapon, or whatever that spell that bones undead is called. It's 5th level.
2. I'm wading into melee after buffing, thus why I took persist in the first place.
3. No other relevant feats, domains are subdomains (pathfinder thing) of War, Trickery, Destruction, Chaos, and Healing. Due to the subdomain thing I've also got Invisibility, Ethereal Jaunt, Wall of Thorns, Vampiric Touch, Hero's Feast, Good Hope.. I think that's it... Level 13 for casting, right now my gear is limited to... basically nothing interesting.
4. There's also a monk/barbarian thingy, it's called a Brawler. It rages and punches things a bunch. Nobody else needs the combat buffs, but I could take advantage of any party-wide stuff too.
5. As of current, I do not even know any tricks to modify how I cast my spells, other than the rods.

Goal is to know some good spells to persist, so that when the time comes I'm ready for various possibilities. I greatly appreciate the help, there is just so much to learn for cleric casting.

[Jack_Simth]

Spells for DMM(Persist) on the entire party:
Elation (Book of Exalted Deeds): 2nd level: +5 foot move, +2 Morale to Strength and Dex (not much, I know, but it stacks with pretty much everything except itself).
Mass Lesser Vigor (Spell compendium: Fast healing 1 for most of the party all day): 3rd level - it's got bigger brothers of Mass Vigor and Vigorous Circle which are also worth a look. Everyone auto-stabilizes when below 0 hp, and you don't have to worry about non-combat healing anymore.
Recitation (Spell Compendium: Luck bonus to attack rolls, AC, and saves, of +2 or +3, see the description): 4th level. Again: Not much, but stacks with pretty much everything and applies to a lot.
Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (also Spell Compendium): 5th level: +3 Morale to attack and damage, extra attack as per Haste (does not stack with Haste or similar). The extra attack doesn't stack with Haste, but everything else does.
Heroes Feast (core): 6th level: Not technically something to persist, as it lasts 12 hours natively, but +1 Morale to Will saves, +1 Morale to attack rolls, temp HP, and immunity to fear and poison are nothing to sneeze at. Also gives effective immunity to mundane diseases if you use it daily, simply because it'll cure them all before the effects come into play. The +1 Morale to attack doesn't stack with Righteous Wrath of the Faithful. Oh well.
Holy Aura (Core): 8th level: +4 Deflection to AC, +4 Resistance to saves, and has a nasty effect on Evil critters that try to attack a warded subject. There's also the other ones for other alignments.

Edit:
Even without Persistent Spell, though, many of those are worth a combat action... however: HOW worthwhile they are depends entirely on the party makeup. If you've got someone that's Summoning hordes of minions, a spell that grants +3 attack/damage, plus an extra attack, to all of them is VERY worthwhile (ditto if you've got three meatshields in the party) even as a standard action cast. If you've only got one meatshield in the party, though, it's a lot less valuable in battle.
If you've got a lot of people who'll have to make saving throws (because you're fighting a caster, say), then Recitation probably becomes worth the combat action.
Something like Lion's Roar (Spell Compendium: Cleric-8) which does a small amount of damage to foes, has a small action denial effect on foes (1 round Stun, Fort Negates), and grants your teammates some Temp HP... is VERY worthwhile (especially on hordes of mooks, as the 120 foot burst will likely get rid of a rather lot of them all at once).

[Twurps]

you can use the 'reach spell' metamagic to change touch spells into rays, so that's one less thing to worry about.

Lesser vigor mass is a low-level spell that you all can benefit from. Though if I ever get both DMM and Persistant spell OK-ed, I'll probably be in a game where that one is on the low end of the spectrum. Sheltered vitality can give nice immunities to stuff that might come up a lot, or might never come up at all, depending on setting, DM-style, etc.

There's to many unknowns, so good advise is difficult. If it's just for the crusader, why don't you just ask him what he wants?