Cloistered Cleric - Knowledge, healing build help needed

[Ozzie831]

Hey everyone,

So I posted on here not too long ago looking for help picking out a build for my 3.5 D&D group. I have decided that Id go with a knowledge/healer build with the Cloistered Cleric. My group has no healers, I think the only healing thing we have is 1 wand of cure light wounds..... But the problem is that I have no experience with clerics at all. So if anyone could help me out. That would be great.

If I am not mistaken, Cloistered Clerics get the Knowledge domain for free, which is sweet because I basically want to make him a knowledge skill monkey that heals my party. Since I get that domain for free, this leaves me with 2 open domain slots. I was thinking Healing for one slot and the other Im pretty open.

I have no clue how to build this guy. Even when it comes to the race. But I was eyeballing the Changeling for Able learner, Whisper gnome (for the funsies and darkvision...My dm likes dark areas), or a Warforged for all the immunities and other bonuses.

Again any help would be awesome. I will also be happy to answer any questions.

[Troacctid]

You don't really need much more than that wand. In-combat healing is a bit underpowered in this edition. For most parties, it's better to focus on taking the enemies out of action as quick as possible and wait until after the fight to heal back to full with wands (although lesser vigor is usually better for that than cure light wounds).

If you do want to heal, one of the most effective ways to do it is by using mass lesser vigor with the Persistent Spell metamagic feat from Complete Arcane. That'll give always-on fast healing to your whole party. Just be an illumian (Races of Destiny) with the naenhoon sigils—that'll let you expend six uses of turn undead to apply the metamagic for free.

Other useful ways to boost healing include the Radiant Servant of Pelor prestige class from Complete Divine, and the Touch of Healing and Imbued Healing feats from Complete Champion. Good healing spells include lesser vigor for out-of-combat healing, close wounds for action-efficient healing in combat, and heal, which is very effective just thanks to the massive amount of healing it offers. If you do take the Healing Domain, then consider the Spontaneous Domain Casting variant for it, which is a marginal improvement on your normal spontaneous curing (spontaneous heal is better than spontaneous mass cure moderate wounds). You'll also want to be able to heal conditions, so the Spontaneous Restoration ACF from Dungeonscape is a must, and make sure you have a wand of resurgence (which grants an extra saving throw against ANY magical effect—the perfect all-purpose cleansing spell).

It's important not to go all-in on healing, though. You need to have other stuff to do, especially in combat. Buffs, debuffs, summoning, area control, and utility are the bread and butter of a support caster like a cleric.

[Nifft]

Healing is a bad Domain -- you can do all the healing you need from Cleric slots, or (better) from wands of lesser vigor (11 points per shot at level 1, guaranteed).

You should prep a few lesser vigor spells until you can acquire a wand.


Do you have a god or pantheon, or an ideal you want to worship? What's the setting, and who or what is available?

Knowledge is a fine domain. Plenty of good choices have Knowledge in their portfolio.

The Luck domain power is amazing. The spell list is okay.

I personally like Travel and Trickery as domains. The spells are really good additions to the Cleric list, and having Bluff on your skill list opens up some RP opportunities.

Do you expect to acquire Wizard wands? Is there no Wizard in the party? Then the Magic domain might be okay.

Having the Good domain means you can craft Holy weapons. That might be useful (depends on the monsters you expect to face, and whether you're allowed to buy magic items easily).

[Saintheart]

If your intent is to focus on being a Knowledge skillmonkey, then Human is still a solid choice for the extra skill point per level and the additional feat. If you're going Cloistered Cleric from the start that's basically 6 + INT +1 x4 skill points at first level, i.e. 40 skill points to distribute assuming your INT is a suboptimal 17, and then 10 per level from then on. That's enough to basically keep significant Knowledge skills maxed out and have a bit of change left over for other skills.

One skill trick I highly recommend, though, is Collector of Stories from Complete Scoundrel. 2 skill points to take, which is nothing for the Cloistered Cleric who has skill points falling out of his proverbial, and it gives you an automatic +5 on any Knowledge check to identify a monster's special abilities in combat. Yes, not +5 on one Knowledge skill check, on all of them. This is a ridiculously good investment of skill points for someone who wants to act as the combat know-it-all, and especially if you're using Knowledge Devotion, as set out below.

If you want to take it further down the frontline combat line, there's the Knowledge Devotion feat. Don't give up the Knowledge domain power, burn the bonus feat from human. Knowledge Devotion has been called the thinking man's Weapon Focus and Power Attack, and you'll see why when you read it. Your Knowledge skill checks add scaling bonuses to your attack and damage. One drawback here is that CC doesn't give you proficiency with heavy armor, so either cast a lot of Luminous Armor for the same and better or take a level in cleric.

In terms of combat-based knowledge, there are six Knowledge skills that cover all monsters in the game: Knowledge Arcana, Nature, Planes, Religion, Local, and Dungeoneering. You can adjust your emphasis on these depending on what you think the DM is going to throw at you, but if you want to just max them and nothing else it'd be a worthy set of skills to have.

[Ozzie831]

Apparently this is a way more difficult than it should be.

Well in my original post I asked for help figuring out what class/build would work with my group. Im fairly new to the game so basically anything with magic confuses the crap out of me, just because I havnt really played any magic users. Long story short, my first character died. He was a Changeling bard with super high disguise and bluff, he was a lot of fun in the RP department but pretty useless in the combat department. But around level 5 or so he died after being 1 shot by a crit from a Werebear... So I made my current character, who is basically a raptoran charger but he is just super boring/repetative and has no personality compared to my first guy.

So my group, level 7:
Monk going towards Drunken master.
Some Fighter who went towards Abjurant champion.
Wizard who has a thing for undead, conjuring centipedes and tossing fireballs.
And a dude that can transform into basically anything (does ass loads of damage and is super tanky....) and is basically the party face.

Half the responses on my post were for a Cloistered Cleric and a couple for Dragonfire adept or a Beguiler. So what do you guys suggest? The only 2 problems that I feel that my group has is almost dying every encounter or not having the knowledge for the **** the DM throws at us. Thus coming to the conclusion of some healer/know it all.

I barely know anything about D&D so hopefully this means something to you guys but our campaign is set in Tal'Dorei. Im pretty sure Tal'Dorei is actually 5th edition but we are playing 3.5 rules, we are just using it for a setting and my DM is just making up his own campaign. We are basically allowed to use any 3.5 book. We just arent allowed a whole lot of cheese. Like I tried to get a Half Mino-Half Ogre. DM didnt let that fly. Also no templates.

So now that you have a little back story. Id appreciate any suggestions.

[Saintheart]

Okay. So what I'm sensing here is that your priority is to just not freaking die, and also deal with a DM who doesn't seem to throw easily-recognisable monsters at you that hit like trucks.

The reason you're being told to pick up items that confer healing rather than make entire classes devoted to it is essentially because you really do get most if not all of the utility of a healer in a few magic items, especially when playing at lower levels like level 5. The other reason they're suggesting items rather than class levels or builds is this: you can be doing so much more with those spell slots than filling them up with Cure spells. Indeed, even if you spontaneously cast healing spells, you're still doing better going for items rather than class levels because spontaneously curing forces you to blow a spell that could have been used to do something either to better protect yourself (Magic Vestment), better attack an enemy (True Strike if you get the right domain), better buff a frontline ally (Bull's Strength), or better attack an opponent at range (Spiritual Weapon).

The general view of combat in D&D is that attack and smashing the hell out of an opponent is a higher priority on the list than healing or amping up defence necessarily. The more sources of incoming damage you remove, and the faster you remove them, the less resources you have to spend on defending yourself or healing up the damage that's done to you. While you're healing, you're not killing what's hurting you. If you can't kill what's hurting you -- and at low levels nobody should be expecting you to be killing things as a cleric -- then make the guy who can kill them better or faster at doing so.

The other reason people are suggesting low-level wands and so forth is because they are very nicely-priced for what they do.

Let's take the Wand of Lesser Vigor, a very popular healing item at these levels. Costs 750 gp for 50 charges of that spell, and heals, in effect, 15 hitpoints (if a Cleric 5 made it) by way of slowly drip-feeding hitpoints back into your body. If you get smacked below 0 hitpoints, it automatically stabilises you and starts plinking hitpoints back into you again.

By comparison, a Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds costs 300 gp and heals you a maximum of maybe 21 hitpoints. See? You get insanely good value for money out of the Wand against the potion because it's 750 hitpoints of healing for 750 gp, i.e. 1 gp per hitpoint, versus paying a good 14 gp for each hitpoint you get back with the potion. And as we've seen, Lesser Vigor regenerates you round by round, making it a good hedge against big stonking crits that take you below 0 but not to -10.

Another option along similar-ish lines is the Healing Belt: 750 gp, which has a certain number of charges per day that basically are free Cure Moderate Wounds potions after about the third time you use it.

In practical terms, at low levels use-per-day and 50-charge items are basically unlimited healing. Your spell slots are not unlimited. You only have so many of them per day, and there are lots of good buffing and utility spells that can be put in there in preference to cure spells.

As said, using items as opposed to casting healing spells is roughly the same in terms of how long they take: whether you cast the spell from a wand or cast it from your spell slots, it's still roughly a standard action ... except if you cast from a spell slot, that spell slot is gone for the day, and if you cast healing from that slot, you've also lost a spell that otherwise could be useful in some other way.

In terms of a build, based on what you're saying, I'd be recommending Cloistered Cleric, using Knowledge Domain and Knowledge Devotion to ID threats to the party and relying on mostly wands and healing items to get your healing done. Use your items in preference to your spell slots to heal, though if it comes to it you can still spontaneously heal and save the day that way. Knowledge Devotion doesn't quite make you strong enough to take the front line, but if something gets past the meatshields you can still dish out a bit more whack with the pluses it provides. Otherwise, hang back spellcasting useful spells or using ranged spells like Spiritual Weapon at these levels. At low levels I wouldn't take a Cloistered Cleric into the front line because they aren't proficient with heavy armor (or anything bar simple weapons) and the Cleric March Of Doom doesn't reeeally get going until they've got Divine Power around level 8 or 9, though a cleric can still protect himself pretty damn well with stuff like Luminous Armor out of BoED and Magic Vestment on your clothes.

[Fizban]

The two big feats that boost healing are Augment Healing (Complete Divine), and Imbued Healing [Healing domain] (Complete Champion). These add a bunch of hp and temporary hp to every heal you cast, and while there are other feats that can do the same things possibly a bit better, these are the easiest and most widely applicable. Imbued Healing [Healing] in particular doesn't even care what level the spell is. Touch of Healing (Complete Champion) lets you save on the out of combat healing. The Pool of Healing Alternate Class Feature (Complete Champion yet again) gives you more healing than you would get out of the 4th level slot you trade for it, and you don't waste any.

The second problem is range, because Cure Wounds are touch range, and for some reason people can't fathom the idea of keeping proper formation and positioning in a tactical combat game. What to use for this depends on how often you need it, and can range from feats to spells to consumable items to just picking different spells. There's the complicated Divine Ward feat (PHB2), or the less complicated Reach Spell+Divine Metamagic [Reach Spell] (Complete Divine), both of which cost uses of turn undead. Or you can buy Unicorn Horns (Complete Champion) for 150gp per shot. Or you can cast Greater Status (Book of Exalted Deeds) over most of the party, which will carry 2nd level touch healing spells through it,

However, Cure Wounds is only used for when you need as much as possible right the heck now. Far more useful are a bunch of other spells scattered around various books. Close Wounds (SpC, 2nd) lets you heal people when it's not your turn and possibly prevent them from dying. Stabilize (SpC, 2nd) could also be useful even though it hits everyone, since it's a swift action 50' burst that still delivers Augment and Imbue. Insignia of Healing (Races of Destiny, 3rd) is basically Mass Cure Light but at a lower level, longer range, no need for line of sight, and no limit on number of allied targets. Invest X Protection (PHB2) gives a heal and some DR. Panacea (SpC, 4th) heals a bunch of status effects, but also hp, which triggers those bonuses. At 5th level Complete Champion brings in two major spells: Darts of Life and Healing Circle. Healing Circle just gives a ton of hp because it's four spells in one and Augment Healing applies to each use "as if you had cast it." Darts of Life is just a bunch of ranged healing, but some people's interpretation is that Augment should apply to every dart, making it cure more hp than Heal, at range, and you're able to spread it out- finding out how Augment and Imbue react with Darts of Life before you start using it is pretty important. After that it's basically just Heal at 6th, Mass Heal at 9th, and of course all the various status heals.

But finally and most importantly, is that healing is pointless if you aren't properly buffing. A bunch of idiots running in without AC and energy resistance are going to get killed faster than anyone could ever heal them. Always carry Mass Resist Energy (SpC, 3rd) and Mass Shield of Faith (SpC, 4th) for efficiency, and don't bother trying to heal people that think dumping AC or running into fire before you cast Resist on them is a good idea. Delay Death (SpC, 4th) is the top rescue spell, preventing death from hp damage up to any negative hp total as long as you can heal them up before it ends, Death Ward makes one character virtually immune to scary undead powers, Freedom of Movement makes one character immune to scary grappling monsters, Magic Circle against Alignment makes one person and everyone near them immune to compulsions, etc, etc. Offensively many people with recommend Recitation (SpC, 4th), and it is pretty ridiculous, but it also only lasts for one fight so it's not something to pack all the time at 7th level when your first problem is survival.

The Cleric's primary job is having all those resistance and immunity buffs to shut down monsters, and no amount of cure wounds spam will ever make up for not doing the first part of your job. No, you can't have all of them all the time, but you can take Scribe Scroll (or get a wizard to collaborate on the crafting to use their feat) and keep a copy or two of the buffs around for emergencies if you think you'll want all your main slots for souped up heals. Of course the cleric can't do their job if the rest of the party just charges straight into everything at all times instead of retreating when it's clear they'll need a particular buff, so. . . yeah. Every party needs at least one spellcaster doing all the back-end spellcaster stuff the game absolutely expects, and it looks like no one in the party is doing that right now. So if you're nominating yourself, you're gonna have to do some work and learn how to Cleric. It's pretty much all there in the PHB aside from the convenient Mass versions.


As for classes, I actually don't recommend Cloistered Cleric, because I find it too cheesy myself- and it also makes you more fragile, when your major complaint is dying all the time. Normal clerics just walk around in heavy armor and shield and probably have better AC than the so-called front line, while never missing out on buffs because they're always in range of their own spells. And as for knowledge skills, well there's another thread going right now about how just because you have a bunch of ranks doesn't mean the DM is actually running knowledge where you can just roll and know everything. Never invest in knowledge skills for anything other than prerequisites until you know what your DM will actually give you for them.

For domains, people like to rag on the Healing domain, but once you realize that you have at most 3 spells of your highest level on those odd levels, and one of those spells is a domain spell, and that domain spell can't be spontaneously converted into a cure, means that a healing cleric has a very good reason to be taking it even before the power of Imbued Healing [Healing]- and if you're taking a weird domain, it's also good to just have something reliable for your other domain for the levels where your weird domain has bad spells. But if you really don't want the Healing domain, you ought to be able to get the Renewal domain (SpC) to qualify for the Healing domain feats in Complete Champion, and it comes with an auto-heal, Charm Person, the much cheaper Reincarnate, and the much broken Polymorph Any Object.

In terms of exact party synergy- the monk is going to be crazy fragile unless the class itself has been buffed. The "fighter into abjurant champion" might be an uber gish, or might just want a few spells, but either way their AC will probably be decent and will only get better with Shield of Faith. The wizard summoning centipedes probably heard that they're good at grappling because they're big, but they're actually pretty terrible in every other possible way, and they want undead because the mere existence of the spell Animate Dead means that every optimized caster must have them :smallsigh: And then it sounds like you have a Master of Many Forms.

A Master of Many Forms, in a party with a Drunken Master. Yup, that's a party the DM has carefully allowed based on their close-knit power levels which will have no problems at all.

[bean illus]

If your DM isn't going to cooperate with Knowledge Devotion then it would be a huge waste. But that would free lots of points for everything else.

As mentioned, cleric uses a lot of buffs. The concept is simple enough; you cast a buff spell on someone with about 1/5 your spell during each encounter. After a few sessions you will start to learn your spell list better.

At 7th you will have 6-5-4-3 spells. Plenty to do. Don't forget to boost your own AC.

Go human.
12, 12, 14 - 12, 16, 12 .. level bonus to Wis(18).
Worship an ideal: (Freedom of Choice!)
Domains Know, Magic, and either Travel/Trickery.

You will get 8 sp per level. Choose 4-6 to keep maxed, and you will have 20+/32 to throw around at 1st, plus a few/level for fun.

Consider maxing UMD, but ask dm first.

There are many prcs that advance casting and grant goodies (like bonus domains which come with domain powers). If you go this route consider the feat "domain spontaneity",

Feats ... ask your dm about scribe scroll and craft wand. Take power attack at 9, where the spell divine power becomes available?

[DdarkED]

Also consider Archivist. int based (mostly) Divine Caster with access to Cleric++ spells (behind a DM wall of approval) with 6+ int skills and class features that are very skilly.

[Ramza00]

Some useful feats.


Divine Ward feat Player's Handbook II, p. 88. For some turn attemps your touch ranged spells can have close range for your allies.
Imbued Healing Complete Champion, p. 60, depending on your domains your healing spells give additional benefits. Healing domain gives some temp hit points per HD (1 per character hit dice.)
Invigorating Spellcaster Dragon 311 / Dragon Compedium by adding a verbal component to your healing spell (aka no silent spell, this also works if the healing spell already has a verbal component) any cures HP damage spell also removes dazed, exhausted, fatigued, sickened, and stunned.
Cloudy Conjuration (feat) - prereq Spell Focus (conjuration) - Add 5' radius cloud of sickening smoke in your space, target's space, or adjacent to either. Lasts 1 round. Sickens as a poison effect.
Augment Healing ( Complete Divine, p. 79) add the spell level * 2 to the damage healed.


(Note there are far more healing feats that I did not mentioned, I tried to focus on the best bang for your buck since you have a limited amount of feat choices.)


In addition being familiar of the various spells and other class options can help.

Close Wounds (Spell Compendium, p. 48) Cleric 2,
Immediate Action, Close Range 1d4+CL (up to 5). 1 Target but you do not need to touch it due to the close range.

Combine this Spell Close Wounds with Imbued Healing Feat, and Invigorating Spellcaster and you can do most forms of healing as an immediate action while you reserve your other spell slots and actions to actually kill the enemy. But note you can also add healing lorecall to this effect. (See below.)

Healing Lorecall Spell (Cleric 2), 10 min / level.

A caster with 5 or more ranks in Heal can, when casting a conjuration (healing) spell, choose to remove any one of the following conditions affecting the subject of the spell, in addition to the spell's normal effects: dazed, dazzled, or fatigued.
A caster with 10 or more ranks in Heal can choose from the following conditions in addition to those above: exhausted, nauseated, or sickened.


The Community Domain in the srd has this great spell (Note there are other versions of this domain that does not have greater status.)

Greater Status (Community 4)
As status, but you can also cast a limited selection of spells through the link, as if you were touching the target. You can cast any spell that meets the following conditions:

Level: 0, 1st, or 2nd
Range: Touch
Target: Creature touched
Saving Throw: harmless
For example, if you become aware (through the greater status spell) that one of your linked companions is dying, you can cast cure moderate wounds to try to revive her.

Panacea is also useful. Cleric 4, spell compedium.

Panacea removes blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, frightened, nauseated, panicked, paralyzed, shaken, sickened, and stunned. It negates sleep effects and the effect of the feeblemind spell, and ends any additional effects from poison, as the neutralize poison spell. It also cures 1d8 points of damage + 1 point per caster level (maximum +20).

Panacea does not remove ability damage, negative levels, or drained levels.

----

Also Divine Restoration Substitution Class Feature at cleric 3. Lose a domain class feature (choose knowledge domain for cloistered clerics get its knowledge skills from its class.) You gain the ability to spontaneously cast lesser restoration, restoration, or greater restoration by sacrificing a prepared spell of the same level.

[animewatcha]

Something that can help conjuration healing spells pack a bigger punch is bard's healing hymn. Adds perform ranks to healed amount. On something like darts of life, that means it is added to each dart. Melodic casting so you can cast while singing it. There should also be a feat ( can't remember if dragon mag or not ) that allows for cleri and bard to stack for bardic music progression. So you can inspire courage while buffing.

[Zaq]

A knowledge-monkey who can refill HP? Sounds like a Truen—


Im fairly new to the game so basically anything with magic confuses the crap out of me

—please forget I said anything.

For serious though, a non-Cloistered Cleric (staying non-Cloistered to keep armor proficiency) with the Knowledge domain will never, ever have enough skill points, but you also don’t have to max all your Knowledge skills. You can find miscellaneous bonuses here and there (for four racial examples, illumians with that Naen sigil [RoD] get +2 on all INT checks including Knowledges, dwarves can take the Ancestral Knowledge feat [RoS] to use WIS instead of INT on Knowledge checks, gnomes can take the Trivial Knowledge feat [RoS] for double rolls, and killoren in “ancient” mode [RotW] get +YES on K:Nature), and you can sometimes also use divination spells to learn things. Divination to learn things in combat is rarely wise, but it’s great between fights.

Another direction: do you have access to Tome of Battle? Make a Crusader with the Education feat [ECS]. (Education gives all Knowledge skills as permanent class skills. If you can’t swing that, you can work around it by going human, taking Able Learner [RoD] at first level, and taking a quick dip in some form of Cleric with the Knowledge domain, which will also open up the use of Cleric wands without UMD.) Then just dump all your skill points into various Knowledges, lean hard into Devoted Spirit maneuvers, and get your heal on that way. Knowledge Devotion is optional. Sure, Crusader isn’t the ToB class with an INT focus, but who cares? They’re super tanky, super fun, and pretty good at healing in combat.

Back to Cleric—it won’t be a primary technique, but you could look into the Magic of the Land feat in RotW. If you’re in a “natural setting,” it can add healing to your buff spells, which is fun.

Archivists are full casters with access to the Cleric list out of the box and a heavy Knowledge focus, but they’re hard to play and hard to build. I wouldn’t try one until you’re really comfortable with how magic works in 3.5.

Just had another brainstorm: Ardent [CPsi]. It's psionic rather than divine, but they still get interesting healing powers if you dive into the Life mantle, they already get all Knowledge skills as class skills (and the Knowledge mantle makes them way better at that sort of thing even with their low skill points), they already have heavy armor proficiency, and most importantly, psionics is easier than magic. It's way easier (IMO) to say "okay, I've got this many PP left, and I can use them as healing or as other effects as needed" than it is to keep track of which spell slots you want to devote to healing and which prepped spell to sacrifice for a Cure and which buffs you're going to prepare today and all that crap. If you're new to the game, prepared spellcasting is a nightmare.

If you do go with an Ardent, you can take Touch of Health for a direct healing effect (easily usable in combat if needed), and you can also take Empathic Transfer and Vigor for a more efficient (and also weird and interesting) method of healing. You can also take Expanded Knowledge for Body Adjustment to pair with Empathic Transfer. (If you wanted to get really fancy, you could even then mix in a little bit of Incarnate, take advantage of the Therapeutic Mantle and the Lifebond Vestments, and go into Soul Manifester, but that's probably a little complex if you're new to the system.)

[Troacctid]

One option that might be of interest is the Paragnostic Apostle prestige class. It has some nice Knowledge-based abilities.

[bean illus]

... a non-Cloistered Cleric ( to keep armor proficiency) with the Knowledge domain will never, ever have enough skill points, ...

But if you drop KD ...
I was trying to think of ways to do this.


You can find racial examples, illumians dwarves can take the Ancestral Knowledge feat [RoS] to use WIS instead of INT on Knowledge checks, gnomes can take the Trivial Knowledge feat [RoS] for double rolls ...

Archivists are ... but they’re hard to play ...

Dwarf, earth
14, 14, 14 - 10, 16,10
16, 12, 16 - 10, 16, 8

Cloistered Cleric/Fighter1/CC++

1. CC1: Ancestral Knowledge
2. F1: XX
3. CC: XX
6. CC: XX
9. CC: Power Attack

The Dwarven Armored Cloistered Cleric. Decent hp, bab, fully martial, and more skillz than the average rogue.

I think it would be fun to play. Skip know devo, and have fun maxing listen/spot/search/hide/etc. Never walk past treasure again.

A fun feat in CA is Quick Reconnoiter, which gives a FREE listen AND spot check every round, as well as a +2 to initiative. It's not optimal on a caster focused character, but would be great fun on this, and increase your characters survivability

[ericgrau]

1. Wand of CLW, which you have. A 2nd one in the future might be nice, they burn fast even with your leftover spell slots.
2. At high optimization in combat healing is useless. In your group it might be pretty handy though. Unlike the enemy attacks your cure spells always hit, so in spite of popular myth you can more than keep up with enemy damage. And it's way better than a PC death even if you couldn't: Hurting the party overall to save 1 ally is worth it. Only when there's a risk of TPK is it not worth it, but that's rare. BUT only cure with your highest level or maybe 2nd highest level spell. A low or mid level spell is wasting your time and then I agree you're much better off killing a foe to prevent future attacks. And if no ally is in serious trouble, likewise cast something else.
3. Search forums for good cleric spell choices. Ditto for domains. If focusing on casting, then Wis>Con>Dex>Cha>whatever. Yeah I know cha powers turning, but even when turning does come up it is super forgiving of a low cha.
4. Get a bunch of level 1 scrolls of remove X so you can cheaply fix minor conditions mid-combat rather than resting for the night. Eventually get level 2 scrolls. General purpose fix-it spells like lesser restoration and panacea are often good to prepare later on, just not using your highest level spell slots.

That should mostly cover it. After you pick your spells and ability scores, get whatever feats and race helps you with the above.