[3.5] Recommended Prepared Cleric Spells for PVP Arena Battle

[Xaragos]

Need top recommended Cleric spells for each spell level to prepare in a PVP Arena Battle held in a dungeon. IE, everyone starts in different rooms randomly, all with no spells prepped. The character is focused primarily on killing undead, but is also a DMM persist type. The character mostly deals with fighting undead and evil NPCs while healing PCs, so this will be a bit of a change in thought process. Other PCs are caster heavy of all types, but some rogue and fighter types as well.

Character is: CG, worships Sharess
Level: 15
Race: Aasimar
Domains: Charm, Travel
Planar Touchstone Domains: Moon, Pride
Feats: Extra Turning, Extend Spell, Persist Spell, DMM: Persist, Planar Touchstone x2, Disciple of the Sun
Str: 14 Dex: 12 Con: 14 Int: 10 Wis: 20 Cha: 18

Magic Items of note:
1. +1 Adamantine Greatsword Holy Surge 2d6 v. Evil/ Cha.+1 times per day= +3d6 to Evil after successful hit [MIC 36]/Everbright 2/day blinding effect/Truedeath Crystal, least +1d6 v. Undead
2. +1 Heavy Mithril ice shield (Animated/Called/Crystal of Arrow Deflection Greater)
3. Bead of Karma (+4 Caster Level 10 minutes)
4. +1 Sacred [A&A 93] Full Plate (Mithril/Restful Crystal)
5. Phylactery of Undead Turning
6. Anklet of Translocation
7. Ring of protection (+1)
8. Ring of counterspells
9. Reliquary holy symbol
10. Ephod of authority
11. Nightstick (+4 turn attempts)
12. +1 Silver Spiked Armor Defending
13. Cloak of Charisma (+2)

Turns per day: 15 undead, 15 Lycanthropes, 4 Nightstick


Thank you!

X

[GilesTheCleric]

What do you know about the arena? And, what's off-limits (eg teleportation)?

[Xaragos]

What do you know about the arena? And, what's off-limits (eg teleportation)?

That's a great question. There is no rule against it right now. I think worst case, we might only be able to teleport within the confines of the area. Planar travel might be possible, but once again we haven't been given a NO as of yet.

The area itself consists of multiple rooms of various sizes, attached by hallways and doors. Some rooms are normal height, some are very high. The entire complex is interconnected. I believe it is made of stone.

[GilesTheCleric]

There is no rule against it right now.
-snip-
I believe it is made of stone.

Well, there you go. If it's a battle royale, then depending on how the scoring works (last alive wins? Not the most number of kills?), then you either planeshift away, or meld into stone and wait it out.

[Xaragos]

There are too many planar capable casters to make sitting it out and waiting completely viable. I think 5/7 use magic of some sort. What I am looking for are the bread and butter spells for each level that are must haves when every round counts, in this last man/woman standing brawl.

[Anthrowhale]

Why are you going to be given an hour to prepare spells?

[Buufreak]

I think 5/7 use magic of some sort.

I'm fairly certain I have bad news for the other 2...

[sleepyphoenixx]

What level are we talking about here?
Because your stats look really low for level 20.

It'd also help to know what items you have available or if you're allowed to buy anything (and if so, how much/from what sources).
Or how many turn attempts you have - i'm seeing 11, which is enough for only 1 persisted spell, but i'm assuming you have more?

[Dagroth]

You're probably going to end up wanting the Spell Resistance spell persisted.

You're good, so you can't cast the standard Cleric SoDs like Slay Living & Harm... and you don't have a lot of turn attempts, so you're not going to be able to have a bunch of buffs persisted.

I'm assuming level 20... you could Gate in a Half-Celestial, Phrenic Great Wyrm Silver Dragon. If there's any other templates you can think of, throw those on. Control of the creature is based on HD, not CR after all. Anything that boost Charisma is the best, since the save DCs for its SLAs & Sorcerer casting are CHA based.

A Phrenic Great Wyrm Silver Dragon has Power Resistance (thus, SR) 50.

Given it's Manifester Level for its SLAs is 40, it can Ultrablast for 40d6 (DC 31). Psychic Crush for 18d6 if the target saves (DC 29). Energy Current for 40d6 (DC 46). Mind Thrust for 40d10 (DC 44). Psionic Dominate 14 targets of any type (DC 44). Psionic Blast to Stun for 18 rounds (DC 27... meh).

Defensive Precognition gives it +14 AC & +14 to all saves. (+12 if it manifests as a swift action)

+13 AC (even against touch attacks) from Force Screen.

Empty Mind for +21 Will Saves immediate action.

It can heal itself for 19d12 with Body Adjustment.

Tower of Iron Will for 32 rounds, giving PR/SR 42 against mind-affecting.

Oh, and it can Fission itself... so there are 2 of them! One is only 38 HD, so it is slightly less powerful, but who cares?

And all this before you even touch on it's Sorcerer-19 casting!

As for a reward... let it have all the gear of all the other PCs!

Edit: Half-Fey will add another +4 Cha for +2 on save DCs and a total Cha of 42!

[Eldariel]

Mass Lesser Vigor/Vigorous Circle are fine picks for level 3/5; Fast Healing for everyone saves you a lot of trouble. If you plan on fighting, Divine Power (level 4) and Righteous Might (level 5) are really good, as are Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (5?), Recitation (4), Lesser/Holy Transformation (4/7) and Lesser/Greater Visage of the Deity (X/X/9). If you have access to Miracle, you can replicate some of the better Arcane buffs, such as Bite of the Werebear and Draconic Polymorph. Defensively, Favor of the Martyr off the Paladin-list is nice if you can Miracle/Otherwise it. Other than that, stack your own immunities - I don't remember all the good Cleric-spells offhand and I'm away from books at the moment. Team Solar (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?188138-Team-Solars-(Archiving)) has a rather comprehensive listing of useful buffs and their effects so I recommend going through it, depending on your level and access of course.

@Dagroth: Nothing stops good Clerics from casting Slay Living or Harm. They don't have the [Evil] descriptor.

[GilesTheCleric]

Even if the others have teleportation, I think you're still best served by waiting it out. Consider: if the others attempt to also wait it out, you'll need to burn a bunch of spells to go find them. If they search you out, they're the ones wasting slots on Commune and Teleports, and are at the disadvantage when porting in. Further, if you can wait it out for 24 hours, then you can suddenly gain a huge advantage from your DMM, which is probably what you'll need to win.

How about: Planeshift somewhere, perhaps the elemental plane of earth (find a nice lead deposit with Detect Metal and Minerals) -- Wizards don't have Burrow/ Meld Into Stone/ Footsteps of the Divine. Forcing them to waste a polymorph on a Burrow form is a win in itself anyway. There's plenty of other places you could go, too -- eg Anauroch if you want to hide in a dead magic zone. Once you're there, ready an action to cast either Chain Dispel or Truename Dispel on any of the over PVPers you see.

While you're waiting, you can prepare your defenses. You'll want to persist Shield of the Archons (you could either channel an archon with the BoED/ ECS rules, or use Holy Transformation), plus whatever Wish and Word spells look good if being immune to spells isn't good enough. You could also prepare some divination spells ("at what precise location will X person be at Y time tomorrow") and power-building spells (undead, minions, planar allies, traps, etc) in order to prepare for the next day. If you have any persists left, use them to buff your wis to 26+ and get some more 8th level slots.

On the second day, you should be in much better shape -- you'll have your persisted spells still going, but can now fill those high-level slots with some offensive spells. Depending on how cheesy your group gets, you could use any number of approaches to attack your foes. There's an excess of those, so I'll let you pick.

Edit: The plane of mirrors or the plane of dreams are some good picks for places to go, too.

[Xaragos]

Great suggestions so far. I updated the first post to give more details about the character, and he does like to mix it up in melee.

[emeraldstreak]

Mind you, you can planeshift away, but returning with planeshift might be problematic.

[ATHATH]

Keep in mind that as a Good Cleric, you can spontaneously cast Sanctified spells.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I've put together a list of spell prepared for you, mostly copied an "all-purpose/i have no idea what we're up against" list from an old cleric character, adjusted for level/wis bonus and with domain spells substituted accordingly.

If you know for a fact that no enemy will be evil you'll have to replace some of them, but otherwise it should serve you well.
It assumes you'll actually stay and fight instead of porting out and trying to prepare more - that's probably beyond the scope of a PvP arena game.

1st:7+1 - Conviction, Detect Evil, Ebon Eyes, Resurgence x2, Ray of Resurgence, Snowshoes - Charm Person
Conviction grants a +5 morale bonus to saves for 10 min/level, Detect Evil to see if your evil-specific spells work, Ebon Eyes to counter darkness, Resurgence lets you reroll saves to ongoing effects so it's an all-purpose counter for nasty stuff like Bestow Curse, Ray of Resurgence to heal ability damage from sanctified spells, Snowshoes for +10ft speed.
Keep in mind you can also spontaneously cast Vision of Punishment - a swift action save or nauseated, but only against evil targets. This is what Detect Evil is for (unless you know everyones alignment already.
Charm Person is kinda wimpy, but it's better than Longstrider.

2nd:6+1 - Freedom of Breath, Obscuring Snow, Lesser Restoration x2, Tyche's Touch x2 - Calm Emotions
Freedom of Breath counters Stinking Cloud and the like, Obscuring Snow for miss chance, Lesser Restoration for non-strength ability damage (from sacrifice or otherwise), Tyche's Touch for a sacred safe bonus.
Again the domain spell is for lack of a better option.

3rd:6+1 - Alter Fortune, Hesitate, Dispel Magic, Sheltered Vitality, Invisibility Purge, Laogzed's Breath - Fly
Alter Fortune for the reroll, Hesitate because immediate action action denial (it's mind-affecting, but from your build and gear i assume only wizards will have Mind Blank. And you have Dispel).
Dispel Magic is useless against casters, but it will still strip buffs from items or suppress magic items. Sheltered Vitality against ability drain/damage, Invisibility Purge for obvious reasons, Laogzed's Breath is cone-shaped Stinking Cloud. Fly is obvious.
You can also spontaneously cast Brilliant Emanation (AoE blind against evil), Celestial Aspect (probably only for the wings) and Hammer of Righteousness (fort save for half uncapped force damage),

4th:5+1 - Delay Death, Divine Power, Greater Magic Weapon, Mark of the Enlightened Soul, Moon Bolt - Good Hope
Delay Death for anything that deals hp damage - it's an immediate action. Divine Power is obvious. GMW is obvious. Mark of the Enlightened Soul empowers Hammer of Righteousness against evil. Moon Bolt is a SoL against anything that doesn't pump strength.
You can also spontaneously cast Holy Fire Shield (as Fire Shield, may come up but probably won't).
Again your domain spell sucks. You could prepare Dimension Door, but i've calculated in using Forbiddance at the start because it'll benefit you more than it hurts if you're up against wizards.

5th:5+1 - Superior Resistance, Streamers x2, Surge of Fortune, True Seeing - Charm Monster
Superior Resistance for saving throws, Streamers does awesome damage, Surge of Fortune for the auto-20, True Seeing to counter illusions.
Charm Monster may be useful if target lacks Mind Blank (fighter type?)

6th:3+1 - Greater Dispel Magic, Forbiddance, Mummify - Charm Monster
GDM against casters because you only have 1 Chain Dispel, Forbiddance to block teleport/ethereal shenanigans, Mummify as a wizard killer (it's not a death effect).
Charm Monster again because the 6th level domain spell selection sucks otherwise. I suggest using it to spontaneously cast Exalted Raiment.
You can also spontaneously cast Exalted Raiment (good boni, might not work with armor, ask your DM), Storm of Shards (damage + blind, evil only), Valiant Steed (Unicorn can be useful for Sla's), Benign Projection.

7th:2+1 - Holy Transformation, Shield of the Archons - Insanity
Holy Tranformation is needed for Shield of the Archons because of the archon component. SotA is incredibly good defense. Persist it.

8th:1+1 - Chain Dispel - Demand
Chain Dispel is your primary caster killer. Target him and all his items. Then follow with Hesitate (immediate action ftw) or Vision of Punishment if evil.
Demand can be used to put on enemy against another without putting yourself in danger. "Reasonable" suggestions vary from DM to DM but even a strict interpretation should let you make someone waste a few spell slots at least.

[Dagroth]

Sadly, Lycanthrope Turning won't help for DMM. :(

Level 15 means no Gate spell. :( I was so looking forward to you telling us how your Half-Fay, Half-Celestial, Phrenic Great Wyrm Silver Dragon walked all over everyone.

Planar Ally, Greater gets you an 18HD ally... which can be pretty powerful, but I've got no specific ideas for you, sorry.