Two weapon fighting cleric?

[thegoldenfedora]

Thanks in advance!

I'm looking at making a dhampir cleric, I have never played a cleric before because I have always had a hard time getting into them. The game is carrion crown though so I thought the race and class combo would work nicely for the story.

I found the Divine Paragon archetype which seemed pretty cool so I started building around it. It gets deific obediance which will give a +2 to attack with daggers so I went for a two weapon fighting cleric.

I know two weapon fighting doesn't really help the cleric much, but I was curious if there were options I haven't found to help it out more.

15 point buy, the rest of the party is unknown.

Thanks again!

[Psyren]

The big problem with a TWF Cleric is that the weapons occupy both your hands, preventing you from performing somatic components and thus interfering with your spellcasting. On a primary caster, that's not a great strategy.

You can buff outside of combat of course, but PF lacks Persist Spell which limits your options.

Which deity is giving you the dagger bonus, and is that choice set in stone?

[ArendK]

My suggestion- If you get the +2 to daggers, you're probably worshipping Pharasma; not sure of the best domains and blessings she offers. My suggestion is to check out the warpriest as it is an easier transition into a full caster cleric if you've never done one.

[Eldariel]

15pb is a bit of an issue since TWF adds an extra attribute dependency to a situation where you already have a fair bit (need 15/17/19 for the TWF feats). And yeah, the spellcasting option; down the line you could solve it with Glove of Storing (free action to remove weapon from hand and another free action to put it back in) but for low levels it's a bit of a problem.

Anyways, the usual buffs: Greater Magic Weapon, Magic Vestment, Divine Favor, Righteous Might, Divine Power, etc.

[thegoldenfedora]

Pharasma gives the bonus and was initially chosen because I felt it would make a better character. So not set in stone exactly, but if I were to choose something else I would still want it to play a role in the campaign.

I grabbed spring loaded wrist sheaths figuring that the first turn would be a buff, draw and move then next turn would be a draw and attack

[Geddy2112]

I am going to second warpriest if you want a more martial cleric or to TWF. On daggers in particular, the scaling damage dice of the sacred weapon will shine, as well as free weapon focus and the ability to get fighter feats like weapon specialization, with all the same buff bells and whistles of the cleric spell list. With fervor, swift action healing and swift action divine favor(or divine power at higher levels) turns you into a divine gish monster. Warpriests also get bonus combat feats, while clerics are often feat starved.

The problem with TWF is that it is very MAD and hard as hell on a 15pb, and cleric is MAD as is. Unchained rogue can TWF dex to damage with both weapons at level 3, which is about the only way to get dex to damage on 2 weapons, as well as sneak attack to make TWF shine. Your melee ability will be underpowered, but if you are using it as a secondary it is viable.

Not all is lost though-you can eschew some of your wisdom score if you don't use spells with DC's. A cleric only needs 19 wisdom to cast every spell level, and while extra is nice for DC's and bonus spells, it is not a requirement. If you are casting buff spells only 19 wis is fine. You have to dump charisma and intelligence to be a TWF as well, but again this is doable.

For a TWF cleric on a 15 pt buy, I would go 12/16/12/7/15/8 pre racial mods, season to taste. You won't have flip for skills, so there is no difference between 7 and 9 INT. If you go full martial you can dump cha to 7 and just use your channel for spot healing. Keep in mind as a warpriest you can dump charisma giving you something like 13/16/14/7/14/7.


For your personal build:I figure you want damphir so you can heal yourself with negative energy? Unfortunately your charisma and wis won't be all that high, meaning your damage from negative energy is easily resisted. If you are going pharasma the death domain allows you to heal yourself with negative energy at level 8, so keep that in mind unless you are playing a damphir for flavor reasons. Pharasma has some good domains-death, repose, and knowledge. Death and repose are fairly redundant as far as domain powers and spells, while knowledge is good if you don't have a bard or wizard. You won't have the skill ranks to power the knowledge skills from knowledge domain, but you can touch attack and ID monsters should nobody else be able to. Healing and water are absolutely awful domains though. I would probably go with death/repose and knowledge.

Spring loaded wrist sheaths are good to draw after casting, as well as quickly drawing a weapon at low levels. Swift for one sheath, move for the other, standard action cast.

For feats, you need two weapon fighting and weapon finesse ASAP. You might be better off using finesse and a single dagger at level 1, waiting to level 3 to TWF. Your deific boon will offset the TWF penalty, making it somewhat viable to use daggers. Pharasma has a couple really awesome feats-eerie sense and fateful channel. You can take eerie sense at any level, which auto pings if an undead is within 60ft of you. Useful for undead sneaking up on you at night/in dungeons, and knowing if the NPC is secretly a lich. Fateful channel requires 3d6 channel dice and channeling positive energy, but gives out a single roll twice pick highest to all of your buddies, making channeling a useful in combat buff.
If you go the channeling route, you have access to versatile channeler to use positive and negative energy. Selective channel is good if you have the charisma, and improved channel is good to use it as a weapon, partiuclarly for negative energy.

I still think you are much better served going with warpriest, as you can still be a man of the cloth but much more effective as a melee brute. For blessings, death is alright, while healing and repose become very strong if you use positive energy. Knowledge is about the same, and water still sucks.

[Psyren]

The problem with TWF is that it is very MAD and hard as hell on a 15pb, and cleric is MAD as is. Unchained rogue can TWF dex to damage with both weapons at level 3, which is about the only way to get dex to damage on 2 weapons, as well as sneak attack to make TWF shine. Your melee ability will be underpowered, but if you are using it as a secondary it is viable.


While I agree with you that Warpriest is good, two things:

1) The Agile property lets a lot of classes get dex to damage with TWF daggers.
2) He seems to want the Deific Obedience feat/boons from the archetype. While you can get boons just from the feat, they end up being different so he'd need to evaluate whether they're what he wants.

Personally I would still go Warpriest as suggested but PrC into Evangelist, which will grant Divine Obedience and still progress the Warpriest class features 9/10. But he'll need to check the Evangelist boons and see if they're what he wants.

[Kurald Galain]

Another option is to dip a level of monk and take Crusader's Flurry. There are cleric archetypes that get WF for free so it's pretty cheap. Instead of attacking with two different weapons, attack with the same weapon twice; it saves your spellcasting and is easier to get bonuses for.

[Psyren]

Sacred Fist Warpriest + Ascetic Style works too.

[thegoldenfedora]

Lots of good thoughts and things here, thanks a bunch!

[Florian]

So, this is for Carrion Crown... did you actually read the Players Guide for it? Clerics, especially of Pharasma, are extremely important in this AP, especially the ability to channel energy early on, as well as wielding a heavy mace (well, you know, undead-heavy AP, DR and such...)

[thegoldenfedora]

So, this is for Carrion Crown... did you actually read the Players Guide for it? Clerics, especially of Pharasma, are extremely important in this AP, especially the ability to channel energy early on, as well as wielding a heavy mace (well, you know, undead-heavy AP, DR and such...)

I think I'm not following what you're asking here. The decision to play a dhampir cleric of pharasma all came from reading the players guide.

[Florian]

I think I'm not following what you're asking here. The decision to play a dhampir cleric of pharasma all came from reading the players guide.

My post was also aiming at people trying to help, to keep in mind that this is about a specific AP and help should include what´ll happen and be needed in and for that AP, included that without trying to spoiler anything. That includes certain class abilities at the right level, hinting at some spells that´re going to be overly useful and maybe pointing out that certain weapons should be preferred.

Assuming your gm does the AP by the book and with no great modifications:
- Forget the archetype and anything to do with Deific Obeisance, the story is often tight and fast-paced and you won´t have the time for it.
- Channel Energy is crucial in this AP, beginning with lvl1, that rules out Warpriest.
- If you want to TWF, stick with basic TWF and Improved Shield Bash, don´t focus on daggers.
- Psychopomp (Repose) and Thought (Knowledge) are good domains
- Extra Channel and Channel Smite are overly good for pharasmin clerics in this AP
- Psychopomps are very useful. Keep in mind that you add Nosoi and Vanth to SM III and IV before going deeper into summoning.