Optimization Help!

[GnomishPride]

Heya Playgrounders!
So I'm a total noob to Pathfinder (though I am familiar with 3.x), and I need help making a powerful character. Cheese and high op is encouraged. We start at 11th level, and I think everything non-3rd party is allowed. So far, I think I'm going gnome cleric, generally as a healbot type. Domains I was considering were Trickery and Travel. As far as personality, I was looking for a con man/gambler who hopped from town to town, ripping off the townsfolk and then when they caught on, moving to the next town.
So that's what I have so far. Anything really high op in that general vein would be much appreciated.

[Geddy2112]

You already did? I mean, you could go human or maybe even halfling for a stronger race, but gnome is doable. I would take the eternal hope alt racial trait as defensive training and hatred almost never come up, but +2 for saves against fear and the ability to re roll a natural 1 once a day is sick.

You chose the two best domains in the game, consider the trade and thievery subdomains as they replace the more meh domain powers of their respective domains, and have some good spells. Unless you wanna frontline you can leave con low, extra from your ability mod. Dump strength, max wis, 12 cha is fine, decent dex but you will have armor, then whatever you can spare for INT and skills. For a 15 point buy I would consider 5/12/12/12/17/14, putting your stat increases in wis. You will be at heavy armor speed from full plate anyways, even with a mithral full plate of speed, so don't worry about encumberance. You should also have a handy haversack/bag of holding so no problem. Belt of dex/con headband of wis, ring of protection cloak of resistance, the usual.

Playing a healbot is not really optimized, just use your awesome spells and powers, you have 6th level spells-abuse summon monster, planar ally, you should be fine.Consider sacred summons if you go for a summoning build to get your summons out as a standard action vs a full round.

[avr]

A gnome cleric with the trickery domain probably really wants to go into the veiled illusionist prestige class. I can't make 'healbot' and 'high-op' work together in my head though; which takes precedence?

[GnomishPride]

Thanks for the feedback so far! I guess healbot is lowest priority, and high op should definitely take precedence. 20 point buy if it matters.

[Geddy2112]

For a 20 point buy, I would go 5/14/14/12/17/14, swap something with INT if you wanna be a bit more skill monkey. With a 14 con and not being a frontliner, you can afford to put your favored class bonus in a skill rank instead.

The thing is, you can always healbot if you need, by dumping spare spells for spontaneous cure X spells and using any excess channels. If you need a remove curse, cure blindness, or remove disease, just prepare it that day. However, you are at a level you can summon creatures that can heal for you, in addition to doing all kinds of other cool tricks. As a 6th level spell, you could cast cure moderate wounds, mass or summon a Lillend Azata, which can cast cure serious wounds twice and cure light wounds 5 times. It can also be a bard, fly, fight decently in combat, tank, and use its other spells. You can also planar ally one of these bad boys...

You don't need to be the healbot, you can summon or ally with things that can heal and do all kinds of other things. Even the normal things you summon get resistances to things from the celestial or fiendish template, and the ability to smite good/evil adding a bit extra damage dice.

Focus on summoning, use divination, roleplay, and common sense to know what spells to prepare for situational encounters and you should be fine.

Also, prepare blessings of fervor almost every day-it is haste on crack.

[avr]

Clerics at this level can be pretty good at directly disabling enemies too. Look up the Chains of Light spell, or Terrible Remorse, or get the Dazing Spell metamagic and apply it to some 2nd-3rd level spell which does a little damage. If you're going to do that last a lot then you probably want to pick a spell you'll be using with Dazing Spell often, then get a trait to reduce the cost of metamagic on that spell.

[Florian]

Heya Playgrounders!
So I'm a total noob to Pathfinder (though I am familiar with 3.x), and I need help making a powerful character. Cheese and high op is encouraged. We start at 11th level, and I think everything non-3rd party is allowed. So far, I think I'm going gnome cleric, generally as a healbot type. Domains I was considering were Trickery and Travel. As far as personality, I was looking for a con man/gambler who hopped from town to town, ripping off the townsfolk and then when they caught on, moving to the next town.
So that's what I have so far. Anything really high op in that general vein would be much appreciated.

Ok, you´re painting yourself into a corner right now. You´ve picked up some things and mentioned them, which will automatically trigger some preconceived answers. You should try to avoid that.

Clerics had some of the most subtle but far-reaching changes of all classes with the transition from 3.5 to PF. That´s generally reflected by now picking the overall build first and then going into the appropriate details later. Some of these general builds can be combined, others technically can´t, so that´s a major thing.

Concerning the "Healbot" thing: Other classes are way better at that. A cleric doesn´t come close to the performance a Paladin or Oracle can pull off. Don´t even try. (And a decent Oradin build will make you die in shame by comparison)

I wrote that you painted yourself in a corner because you picked some of the individually strongest options early on but those don´t support the stronger Cleric builds.

Generally speaking, you will want to get on top of the whole economy of actions first.
Clerics are the best class when it comes to Summoning, so going the route of Spell Focus (Conjuration) > Augment Summoning > Sacred Summons > Summon (Alignment) Creature should be a given here.
Being able to only use Medium Armor actually is a blessing in disguise. You´ll want a decent DEX score, use a reach weapon and go Power Attack > Combat Reflexes > Channel Smite > Guided Hand with a Conductive weapon in the long run.

So, deciding on the overall strategy and build will substantially alter the apparent worth of certain rules elements. Being able to channel negative is worth more once Channel Smite comes into play (Unless Undead are a big thing in your campaign).That will be a big factor in either dumping or pushing CHA. Domain power will substantially change their worth once you can start blending them into the overall economy of actions without a loss.

Domain like Trickery and Travel look good at first glance, but what domain like Chaos and Destruction offer simply scale better in the long run.

[Krazzman]

I would recommend Oradin if you want to be the party healer.


Concerning the "Healbot" thing: Other classes are way better at that. A cleric doesn´t come close to the performance a Paladin or Oracle can pull off. Don´t even try. (And a decent Oradin build will make you die in shame by comparison)


This. I know that playing gestalt makes everything wonkier and easier for the players... but! In a party of three (Magus//Slayer, Brawler//Druid and Oracle/Paladin//Ranger) they didn't have downtime due to lack of Health. Seriously Lifelink + Lay on Hands is obscene.


Generally speaking, you will want to get on top of the whole economy of actions first.
Clerics are the best class when it comes to Summoning, so going the route of Spell Focus (Conjuration) > Augment Summoning > Sacred Summons > Summon (Alignment) Creature should be a given here.
Being able to only use Medium Armor actually is a blessing in disguise. You´ll want a decent DEX score, use a reach weapon and go Power Attack > Combat Reflexes > Channel Smite > Guided Hand with a Conductive weapon in the long run.

So, deciding on the overall strategy and build will substantially alter the apparent worth of certain rules elements. Being able to channel negative is worth more once Channel Smite comes into play (Unless Undead are a big thing in your campaign).That will be a big factor in either dumping or pushing CHA. Domain power will substantially change their worth once you can start blending them into the overall economy of actions without a loss.

Domain like Trickery and Travel look good at first glance, but what domain like Chaos and Destruction offer simply scale better in the long run.

Is Cleric Summoning really better than the Summoner?
Also I like Travel mainly for the ability to get Teleport if the Arcane Caster won't get it. (Which I haven't encountered yet, albeit my "sample" size is quite small in groups that reached the level where teleport actually came online.)

[Florian]

Is Cleric Summoning really better than the Summoner?

It is.

Cleric summoning is based on using a standard action now to create the force multiplier while already being in the thick of things and using AoO to deal some hurt, possibly crippling targets when a bad touch build is used.

Summoners act. Clerics act and react. That is their actual power, more so than being able to cast 9th level spells.

Dob´t underestimate this class. It might look a bit bland but can hit like a jackhammer.


I would recommend Oradin if you want to be the party healer.

You can have decent Oradin archery-based builds based on Human Paladin VMC Life-Oracle without going Gestalt at all. The result is equally obscene when it comes to sheer efficiency and healing.


Also I like Travel mainly for the ability to get Teleport if the Arcane Caster won't get it. (Which I haven't encountered yet, albeit my "sample" size is quite small in groups that reached the level where teleport actually came online.)

The general problem here is that for whatever reason, gaining automatic cross-class access to spells and being able to replace common magic items gains a high rating, based on being versatile.
Invest in UMD and get a scrolls of Teleport, for what that´s worth.

Domains like Chaos or Luck don´t have any intrinsic worth beyond the basic math of them being equivalent to +5/-5. What they do is scale in power with the actual ability they enable or enforce a reroll.

[Ahus]

You asked for cheese...

Half-elf Arcanist for access to Paragon Surge

Feats
Extra Arcanist Exploit (Metamagic Knowledge [Extend])
Toppling Spell

Arcanist Exploits
Dimensional Slide
Quick Study
Familiar (Valet)
Consume Magic items
Meta mixing

Greater Exploit
Greater Metamagic Knowledge

Skills
Max Use Magic Device, Spellcraft, Sleight of Hand

Items
Decoy Ring
Ring of Continuation

Spells
Blood Money (Cheese Ahead)
Tattoo Potion
Transfer Tattoo
Paragon Surge (More Cheese)
Pilfering Hand
Infernal/Celestial Healing
Marionette Possession (Magic Jar or any of the other possession spells Makes Blood Money Cheese more convenient)

Cheese
Unlimited Magical Tattoos of 1-3rd level spells / Unlimited Arcane Reservoir
1) Use Blood Money to replace the material components on Tattoo Potion netting magical tattoo of any spell Third level or lower in your chest slot, for the cost of 2 Str damage each.
2) Transfer Tattoo your familiar/friend and then back making the tattoo slotless in the process.
3) Use Lesser restoration to fix on average 2.5 Str damage / casting. Since each tattoo potion is dealing 2 damage during creation and each restoration is fixing 2.5, after a few cycles you will have a few extra unused Lesser Restorations Which can go to fixing damage caused by creating other types of potions.
4) Consume Magic Items

Blood Money + Permanency = Almost Any combination of Permanency effects.

Blood Money + Fabricate + Masterwork Transformation = free masterwork tools for all skills, base weapons and armor for enchanting (see below)

Continuation + Paragon Surge = Any/All item creation feats for down time. (The ring is not technically needed due to the crafting while adventuring mechanics, and won't work if the SRD version of the ring is used due to 10 min/ level vs 1 minute/level discrepancy. However, having the ring makes it a lot cleaner...)

Paragon Surge + Skill Focus (Knowledge [Any]) = Eldrich Heritage (Arcane) -> Arcane Bonded Item -> Any Spell in your Spell Book

Throw in the Keep Watch spell and a one level dip in Oracle with the Lame Curse and never run out of spells again as Keep Watch says that you get the benefit of a full nights sleep including refreshing spells, and healing but makes you fatigued I'd you are active during the duration. As Lame Oracles are immune to Fatigue you don't have that problem. Also nowhere is it restricted to once per day. 1) Almost out of spells, 2) Cast Keep Watch, 3) Meditate for an hour, 4) continue adventuring with a full complement of spells

Less Cheese
Celestial/Infernal healing fast healing 1 and gives a good or evil aura which can trick anyone trying to sense your aura.

Pilfering Hand makes an awesome Debuff in combat i.e. The archer 75' (25 + 5/level) away is a lot less dangerous when his bow is in your hands. For Melee characters Disarm is usually a waste of an action but not for a caster who can do it at range. Also out of combat pilfering hand as a sleight of hand or disable device is not an attack so it shouldn't break invisibility.

Having whatever 1st-3rd spells you want whenever you want should take care of the Heal-Bot needs. Invisibility, Disguise Self, Pilfering hand (not an attack spell) and Dimensional Slide should let you steal about anything not nailed down and get away with it. None of this requires anything more than a few second / third level spells...