Why not fire minions?

[Flickerdart]

Rebuking undead gets loads of attention - raise this, create that, etc.

Conversely, rebuking elemental creatures (through the Fire, Water, Air, and Earth domains) gets no love at all. But unlike undead, it's so easy to clomp the [Fire] subtype (mantle of the fiery spirit) or [Earth] subtype (mineralize warrior) on whatever you want, or pull out planar binding/planar ally/gate and enslave whatever you bring through before you negotiate.

Sure, you can't use all those shiny corpsecrafter feats, but your guys will come out with SLAs, intelligence, and other goodies that zombies and skeletons lack.

Are there any drawbacks to creating a cleric that rebukes an elemental army?

[Inevitability]

Doesn't Mantle of the Icy Soul grant the [cold] subtype?

[Flickerdart]

Right, my bad.

[Troacctid]

Why would you want to make a turning check against a creature that's already working for you? Seems a little redundant.

[Gabrosin]

When I read your question my first thought was, "fire minions out of what?"

[Flickerdart]

Why would you want to make a turning check against a creature that's already working for you? Seems a little redundant.
It's only working for you after you pay it, and even then only for a single task. Or you could have it forever and for free.


When I read your question my first thought was, "fire minions out of what?"
http://art2.3rdcoastcards.com/cards/te/28837.jpg

[nedz]

There are a few feats which you can use with these, but none of them are DMM

Divine Damage Reduction (RoS p137) Ability to Rebuke Earth Creatures
Divine Spellshield Reduction (RoS p137) Ability to Rebuke Earth Creatures
Earth’s Warding (RoS p137) Ability to Rebuke Earth Creatures
Roots of the Mountain ( RoS p143) Ability to Rebuke Earth Creatures
Elemental Healing (CDiv p80) Ability to Rebuke creatures with an Elemental subtype
Elemental Smiting (CDiv p81) Ability to Turn creatures with an Elemental subtype


No Air, Water or Fire specific ones !

Things like Fire Devotion should be powerable by these means, but bizarrely, this is powered by Turn Undead. A houserule here would be eminently sensible.

I have looked at building Clerics which do this and whilst it's quite easy to get to be able to Rebuke or Turn all types of elementals there's not much else you can do with them.

The domain spells themselves tend to be uninteresting, and even using them to power Reserve feats is unimpressive since these are the least useful Reserve feats.

[Flickerdart]

I have looked at building Clerics which do this and whilst it's quite easy to get to be able to Rebuke or Turn all types of elementals there's not much else you can do with them.

Actually, that's a really good point - nothing is stopping a cleric from picking up each of the elemental domains (or just their powers), and commanding four elemental creatures at once.

[Troacctid]

It's only working for you after you pay it, and even then only for a single task. Or you could have it forever and for free.

The real cost of Planar Ally is the xp, not the gold, which you'd still have to pay. If the creature's interests are aligned with your own, it might not even charge you anyway.

Ultimately, the creature was already your minion. Establishing mental control over it is an unnecessary extra step. And don't you need a standard action each time you issue a command to a creature? You'd be nerfing your own action economy.

Furthermore, there is an HD cap to the creatures you can command, so if you're commanding called creatures, you're doing it instead of commanding regular non-called creatures. Considering the xp cost and the fact that you still don't get to choose the type of creature you get, calling a creature just to command it seems suboptimal compared to calling a creature, having it obey you as per the normal terms of the spell, and then commanding an entirely different creature.

[Flickerdart]

I listed plenty of methods that aren't planar ally, if you'd prefer them instead.

[Troacctid]

I listed plenty of methods that aren't planar ally, if you'd prefer them instead.

Oh, stuff that doesn't involve calling creatures is pretty solid, sure. I just don't think calling a creature solely so you can command it is a good strategy.

It isn't a terribly efficient form of minionmancy, due to requiring a standard action to issue commands and only affecting creatures with HD of half your level or lower, but it never hurts to have minions. The main problem with the elemental turning domain powers is that most prestige classes don't advance them.

[WhamBamSam]

One big issue that doesn't seem to have been mentioned yet is that you can't take any PrCs or the like, as the rebuking is based on your Cleric class level.

EDIT: Missed Troacctid's last post. So someone has mentioned the lack of PrC advancement.

You don't really need to spend a standard action to order the fire creature around if it's intelligent though. You can just issue a standing order to follow your verbal commands or something to that effect.

[Grek]

Honestly, once you are able to reliably Command an Efreeti you don't need more Rebuking. If your DM is willing to accept Sun Domain on rebuking (which is thematic for Rebuke Fire, at least) you can do that as early as level 5 with Improved Turning. If not, you need to get as many items that give bonuses to turning levels as feasible.

[nedz]

Actually, that's a really good point - nothing is stopping a cleric from picking up each of the elemental domains (or just their powers), and commanding four elemental creatures at once.

You just need two domains. Any two — so long as they are not opposing.

E.g.


Granted Power (Su):
Turn or destroy earth creatures as a good Cleric turns undead.
Rebuke, command, or bolster air creatures as an evil Cleric rebukes undead.


Granted Power (Su):
Turn or destroy water creatures as a good Cleric turns undead.
Rebuke, command, or bolster fire creatures as an evil Cleric rebukes undead.

Now you can deal with any elemental; either Turning or Rebuking them.

[kinem]

Fiery minions are not cool.

[Flickerdart]

Now you can deal with any elemental; either Turning or Rebuking them.
You can also deal with any elementals by ordering your other elementals to beat them up, that's not really the idea here.



Fiery minions are not cool.

http://i.imgur.com/PvRkT2a.png

[gadren]

I once had a cleric villain that optimized his elemental domains to control dragons of the appropriate elements.

[mabriss lethe]

There's also a divine feat in Dragon Magic (I think) it converts any sort of elemental turning into a blast that's half fire half holy damage.

[ben-zayb]

The title is indeed confusing, as I thought this would be more of the pink slip variety of firing.


Mostly I find it needlessly complicated. Why not just diplomance them? Why not Charm/Dominate them? Takes fewer standard/full-round actions

[WhamBamSam]

Honestly, once you are able to reliably Command an Efreeti you don't need more Rebuking. If your DM is willing to accept Sun Domain on rebuking (which is thematic for Rebuke Fire, at least) you can do that as early as level 5 with Improved Turning. If not, you need to get as many items that give bonuses to turning levels as feasible.The HD of an individual commanded creature can only be up to half your Cleric level, since it needs to be a creature that you could destroy if you were turning it. Even then, I'm still not sure where you're getting level 5 from. Improved Turning only gets you 1 effective Cleric level and an Eefreeti has 10HD.

[nedz]

You can also deal with any elementals by ordering your other elementals to beat them up, that's not really the idea here.

It's just the concept I started with.

The only one I could get to work was based around Water Devotion, and that's of limited utility. Well you can summon lots of Water Elementals, but it has to be the right campaign for that to be useful.

Now you could use SNA to spam summoning of elementals, but it's hard to get that on a Cleric. Well you can grab some SNA through certain domains, but never enough to spam them — even with the spontaneous Cleric chassis.

Otherwise you are just limited to controlling those elementals which turn up in encounters, which you have no control over.

[Zombulian]

It's just the concept I started with.

The only one I could get to work was based around Water Devotion, and that's of limited utility. Well you can summon lots of Water Elementals, but it has to be the right campaign for that to be useful.

Now you could use SNA to spam summoning of elementals, but it's hard to get that on a Cleric. Well you can grab some SNA through certain domains, but never enough to spam them — even with the spontaneous Cleric chassis.

Otherwise you are just limited to controlling those elementals which turn up in encounters, which you have no control over.

Can you even spam summon water elementals with that feat though? It says once per day...

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can get elemental rebuking for the fire, cold, air and earth subtypes for 7,000gp each with a Khyber Shard Holy Symbol (FoE), so there's no need to take the domains.
Those can also be fueled by any kind of turning, so you can get them on a druid with Initiate of Nature.

If you invest in a few turning boosters (Sacred armor, shield, dastana, ...) you can get a pretty good turning level going even if you take a non-turning PrC.
You don't need all that much, considering there's plenty of low HD creatures with good SLA's or otherwise useful abilities.

There isn't really a downside to it, mechanically. Getting 2 permanent minions for 7,000gp is a steal no matter how you look at it, and boosting turning isn't that expensive if you want stronger minions.
The only problems come from a metagame perspective, both because you can get some pretty ridiculous abilities and because it has the same game-slowing effect any minionmancy has.

[Troacctid]

Can you even spam summon water elementals with that feat though? It says once per day...

You could take the feat multiple times to get more uses, but that seems somewhat inefficient.

[nedz]

Can you even spam summon water elementals with that feat though? It says once per day...

I thought you could power it with TU ?
You can do that with all of the other Devotion feats.

[Troacctid]

I thought you could power it with TU ?
You can do that with all of the other Devotion feats.

You could in the original printing, but subsequent errata removed that clause, so it's once per day per instance of the feat.

[nedz]

You could in the original printing, but subsequent errata removed that clause, so it's once per day per instance of the feat.

Yep — I just got there too.

OK, it seems they deliberately errataed out my build :smallsigh::smallamused:

I didn't even think it was all that good to begin with.