How to be a PHB Cleric

[Xeolan]

I'm trying to help one of my friend play his Cleric, he's relatively new to the game, and it's his first character ever, we are currently lvl 15. I don't have much trouble boosting the power of a character outside of core books, but we are limitted to whatever is in use in the PHB and DM handbook, and i don't have any experience with playing a cleric myself.

I've shown him how to achieve godlike power through self-buff, but that involves tons of rounds of buffing and would be hard to pull off.

I've shown him how to achieve nigh infinite damage with a book with Glyph of Warding on every pages, but our DM might now allow it.

Our group is made of a cleric, a wizard(me), a monk and we don't have any budget... literally... we had less than 5k gold and we're freaking lvl 15, WTF DM WTF (and poor poor monk who still believes his character is OP because our DM doesn't know how to make a properly challenging encounter)

I'm mainly trying to find some tips and tricks to help him not feel so useless as he doesn't know how to play his character properly.

[Flickerdart]

Clerics should be fine with no money - spells are that good, even in Core-only.

Caster clerics should prioritize Wisdom above all else. 16 to start with (assuming a low PB), +3 from levels, and +1 from middle age gets you to 20 even without items. A 15th level cleric with 20 Wisdom has 2 8th level spells, 3 7th level spells, 4 6th level spells, 6 5th level spells, 6 4th level spells, 7 2nd level spells, and 8 1st level spells. Note how many low-level spells you have! This will be important for buffing.

Is your cleric Evil? He should be - while Turn Undead is worthless, Rebuke Undead can be used to command undead minions. Animate dead is a great way to make your cleric awesome, especially if cast within the area of desecrate. Focus on a small number of strong undead, rather than many weaklings. If undead aren't your thing, summon monster VIII will help your monk in melee combat.

Is your cleric Good? Don't bother preparing cures. Is he not Good? Still, don't bother. Only prepare heal and never use anything else. Craft wands of cure light wounds to heal between battles.

Control weather is ridiculously amazing. Call down hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes, whatever on the area you plan to attack. These things deal a ton of damage. Prepare wind walk when you need to get somewhere in a hurry. Word of recall is a great panic button, so have one prepared. All your other 6th level slots should be heal.

As you notice, buffs in combat are a stupid idea. Use buffs like heroes' feast or greater magic weapon or magic vestment that last for many hours at a time.

Domain picks matter. The elemental domains or Plant domain can be used to rebuke some unusual creatures like elementals, and have them serve you. But Luck (reroll any roll 1/day) is amazing for obvious reasons, plus it gives you miracle. Travel is great because you get teleport and astral projection and functionally become immune to grapples. Trickery gives you polymorph any object so you can turn the party into dragons.

Caster clerics may be better off getting into Loremaster (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/loremaster.htm) or Thaumaturgist (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/thaumaturgist.htm) because it's not like they have any class features. Obviously, clerics relying on Rebuke Undead will not want to do so.

[Troacctid]

I'd probably build for summoning and minionmancy. Thaumaturgist is a powerful prestige class. Cast a contingent summon spell in between fights, keyed to fire off when you speak a command word. During a fight, you can speak the command word to cast the spell as a free action. You can also use animate dead to get yourself some undead minions, and planar ally to call elementals or outsiders.

I also recommend taking the Trickery domain and using polymorph any object to transform yourself into something big and nasty, like a stone giant or a young red dragon. The spell should last for a week at the minumum, and may even be permanent depending on the form, so you'll never need to spend an action to cast it during combat, and you can even use it on all your allies too. This shouldn't interfere with your spellcasting in any way, so you can continue to cast spells freely while also being an enormous beatstick.

[Karl Aegis]

Get them used to casting spells in combat. Simple spells like Disintegrate (Destruction Domain), Acid Fog (Water Domain), Chain Lightning (Air Domain), Blade Barrier or Harm get the job done well enough. Then you can upgrade them to cooler spells with metamagic like Extended Greater Magic Weapon and Empowered Flamestrike. Eventually, you can teach them how be some sort of uber tier 1 god-being, but that isn't what you want to start out with. Just the basics first.

[Eldariel]

I mean, buffing and fighting is still fine vs. small fry, and a convenient auxiliary vs. tougher foes. Quickened Divine Favor + Righteous Might followed by Quickened Divine Power + full attack is pretty solid in conjunction with your all-day buffs like Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestment, Heroes' Feast and company (hopefully Polymorph Any Object!). All-day buffs can be cast on caster level 20 if you get Beads of Karma (if you could get any) and Orange Prism Ioun Stone (if you could get any), and Extended so you only need to cast them about once every two days (saving slots most of the days). You can offer buffs for the whole party though ask them for Pearls of Power (if you could get any) in compensation so you don't have to burn all your slots to do it. Extending can be done with Metamagic Rods (if you could get any) or the feat.

Oh, and the low-level slots can mostly be used to keep up various 10 min/level buffs; stuff like Resist Energy, Magic Circle Against Evil (and Chaos/Law should you so desire), Status, Comprehend Languages, Deathwatch, etc. Just convenient basic stuff from spells you otherwise probably don't want too much of (though level 2-3 has occasionally useful spells like Silence, Shatter, Zone of Truth, Augury & Find Traps so might want to prepare some of those too; level 1 mostly has Divine Favor and Detects/Hide from Undead/Sanctuary, which can be convenient.

Note the awe-inspiring power of the Holy Word-line of spells if you do pump your caster level too (though you only get 10 mins out of a single Beads of Karma so if you use it for morning buffs, it's less likely to last you that long); most HD 14- enemies (those not immune to paralysis) are just out, and very low HD (9-) enemies are instantly vaporized. And most things you might face are dazed and weakened.


Also, keep a tally of the combat options. Clerics get save-or-dies (Plane Shift for Will, Destruction & co. for Fort), battlefield control (e.g. Wall of Stone and Antilife Shell are excellent), and some limited mobility (Word of Recall, Wind Walk, etc.). Their summons are pretty good particularly with the mentioned Thaumaturgist essentially getting you Contingency, a spell you'll otherwise need to wait for Miracle to get access to (Malconvoker Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2791.0) does a good job of breaking down the various Summon-spells available).

Also note, domains can contribute some key spells. On these levels, Trickery is indeed amazing. Polymorph Any Object is both, an amazing combat spell and an amazing all-life buff spell that can be used on the entire party. Great utility too. Then there's stuff like Invisibility and Confusion which can both be very convenient at times, though less so on these levels. Next level Time Stop is obviously absolutely awesome.

Other good domains include Luck (good granted power, Moment of Prescience), Travel (great granted power, lots of very, very, very useful spells that are missing from the Cleric-list) and Animal (just and only for Shapechange; the cheese stands alone, that spell alone has the power of most classes in the game combined). If your party lacked a Wizard, Magic-domain contains Disjunction (really brutal spell that might be necessary vs. some more broken opponents) and Protection-domain has Mind Blank - that is not the case here of course. Remember to use Pearls of Power to get multiple uses of the particularly useful domain-spells and prepare lower level ones in the higher level slots if you feel some levels have no useful options.

On these levels, I'd ideally pick Trickery and Travel though Trickery and Animal is very tempting. Whatever you do, pick Trickery and you can't go too wrong. Teleports are really good both tactically and strategically though so having to jump through hoops for them is just meh, particularly since summoned creatures can't use their teleportation powers (Planar Allied ones can though).


In short:
- Give him clear options. Buff & Fight, Summon, Save-or-Die, Holy Word or shape the battlefield. Show him the spells that accomplish each of those.
- Show him the strategic-level options. Control Weather, Earthquake, etc. The tremendously powerful gameworld changing spells that can be used to open up entirely new strategies or to solve some bigger matters.

Whatever the case, permanent Stone Giantism is probably a good starting point. Rest can mostly be done with spells even if you have absolutely no items (though you do want at least a piece of armor, a shield and a weapon to enhance).