Cleric: Good spells for a small party

[Wrain]

Sometimes your party will be composed by only 2-3 brave heroes.

What do you think are the cleric spells that benefit the most of a small party size?

One that easily come to my mind is Doomtide since in a party of 2 you are both immune to the spell effect.

[Eldariel]

Any non-team buffs, really? It really depends on the sources you have available. Particularly you need AOE for bigger enemy hordes, personal/single-target buffs get better and there's more need to handle more than one role per character. Thus, everything Clerics excel at anyways.

Thus, a solid listing like this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?514702-good-cleric-spells&p=21691649&postcount=5#post21691649) has you covered on most accounts. I'd add a mention that Summon-spells are fairly good and something Clerics are fairly proficient and in a smaller party, they can help you make up for the lack of actions.

But yeah, Cleric as a skill monkey through perhaps Cloistered Cleric, Divine Insight, Guidance of the Avatar and potentially any skill list expanding feats and domains.

Cleric as a warrior with Divine Favor, Divine Power, Righteous Might, etc.

Cleric as a controller with Ice Slick, Dark Way, Silence, Nauseating Breath, etc.

Cleric as an action bot/damage dealer with Conjure Ice Beast X, Summon Monster X, etc.

Cleric as a buffer with Magic Vestment, Greater Magic Weapon, etc.


Cleric covering all the necessary roles can help the party tremendously.

[Goaty14]

Mass Lesser Vigor might work, given that the two/three of you are more likely to be in close proximity of each other. Any buff spell affected by the chain metamagic for the same reason.

[tiercel]

I agree with Eldariel about the multi-function aspect of the cleric being all the more important in a small party.

It is worth noting that being multifunction will likely drain spells faster, so having extra sources (scrolls, wands, etc) will likely be better than in a “normal” game.

Summoning was about the first option that seemed stronger, but it should also be noted that being in a smaller party means you are potentially more vulnerable than normal to interruptions of your casting time: 1 full round than you might otherwise be, unless you can pretty much always summon in advance or you have specialized into the summoning role enough to have picked up a feat or class feature or item that will let you summon as a standard action.

Depending on how your DM adjusts encounters for a smaller party, again as Eldariel has pointed out, direct offense AoE spells may be even better than normal too, just because you are more likely to be on the wrong end of the action economy (i.e. outnumbered) than in a “regular size” party. In particular, stronger removal (sufficient hp damage to kill foes, or sufficient fear or status effects to remove them altogether from the fight) will likely matter proportionally more than hindering debuffs (e.g. sickening, entangling, even blinding) since you have less “mop up” potential than a larger party typically would.

Another aspect: while a lot of folks (with some justification) sneer at in-combat healing — because actions that prevent the need for healing are generally stronger — emergency healing, at least, becomes more important if your party just went from 2 members to 1 when someone drops unconscious (cf. if your party size drops from 5 to 4). This doesn’t mean “concentrate on combat healing” as much as “somebody dropping is a bigger emergency” that you need to be prepared for. (Not least of all if it’s the cleric who drops.)