What are your favorite cleric domains?

[eyebreaker7]

And if they aren't in the PHB what source are they in. I love clerics and I'm looking at domain spells and bonuses. I thought one of them gave you an animal companion like a druid or ranger? It's not the animal domain like I thought. Maybe I'm just hopeing?

[Quertus]

I like the original 3.0 Madness domain (although I loved it more when I thought it would outpace potential Wisdom gains).

[el minster]

Force domain: Iike it for getting spells usually only given to arcane spellcasters

[eyebreaker7]

The Force Domain looks sweet but it says "This is a Domain not accessible in Faerûn or a specialty domain accessible only by prestige class." How do you get it? Does that mean the only way you CAN get it is through a prestige class? If so what one? I'd definitely be interested in looking that up with those spells.

[Thurbane]

Destiny (RoD p.163) - give an ally a re-roll 1/day.
Hunger (SC p.275) - get a bite attack.
Inquisition (SC p.275) - plus 4 bonus on Dispel checks.
Kobold (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a) -for trapfinding, plus Disable Device and Search added to your skill list.

[Afghanistan]

In no particular order:


Destiny (RoD): Give another ally a re-roll once per day. It's only flaw is that you can't use it on yourself. Spell list is extremely abusive from Cleric 5 onward. Very few deities give this domain and for good reason, it's strong.
Luck (SRD): Give yourself a re-roll once per day. You can take a feat called Third Time's the Charm where you can use your luck feats and luck rerolls to gain additional uses of the Luck domain power. Taking this feat, along with Fortune's Friend, Unbelievable Luck, and Better Lucky Than Good and you've got a mildly decent set up for a Fortune's Friend. The PrC is still god awful, and the mechanic is still just as awful, but you essentially turned all of your luck feat rerolls into generic re-rolls that you can throw out once per round.
Spell (SpC): +2 Concentration, +2 Spellcraft, Mage Armor, Anyspell and Greater Anyspell, Limited Wish as a Cleric? This is THE Domain you take if you want to be a dedicated caster as a Cleric.
Rune (SRD): Scribe Scroll is a feat that is debatable in it's use. As an item creation feat, it is dependent on gaining down time to properly deploy. Enter the Quill of Scribing from Complete Mage, and suddenly that isn't as bad. However, this doesn't negate how bad the list of spells for the Rune Domain is, and furthermore adding a price tag of approx 1,800gp for your feat to be functional in your campaign? And yeah, it's still not that good. If you are looking for a cheap and easy way to qualify for Dweomerkeeper? This is probably the domain you want, but frankly, I'd just pick up Craft Wondrous Items and take the 3rd level feat loss and move on because that is pretty much a default item creation feat for me if item creation is even on the table. However? I enjoy having scrolls. I enjoy using scrolls. I like scrolls. They are low investment additional spell slots that you can pocket from day to day and you are grateful when you have them more often than when you don't.
Planning (SpC): Extend Spell is good and having the gem that is Time Stop as a 9th level spell is amazing all it's own even if the majority of the other spells are lackluster and undesirable.
Magic (Core): All of the spells are okay at best, the domain power is "nice", but generally speaking you will hand the spell to the Sorcerer or Wizard when it comes to casting spells on their list. To be frank, this is only here because it is a requirement for Dweomerkeeper and nothing more. Identify as a Divine spell is really good and makes identifying magic items free.
Knowledge (Core): I love and hate this domain at the same time. For one, it's a bonus domain from Cloistered Cleric, but beyond that the spell list is just screaming "Take me into a dungeon, take me on a quest, lets go DO STUFF". Detect Secret Doors is situation as hell, but anecdotal experience tells me that it is a spell that helps your GM as much as it potentially helps your party. Would I prepare it over say Mage Armor? No. I'd rather just take Spontaneous Domain as a feat and have that all star list of really powerful divination at my finger tips.

[Biggus]

Pride Domain (SpC): you get to reroll 1's on saving throws. Combined with the various Cleric save buffs in that book (Greater/Superior Resistance, (Mass) Conviction, Recitation, and Hand of Divinity too if you really want to go OTT) you can become effectively immune to anything that requires a save.

[el minster]

The Force Domain looks sweet but it says "This is a Domain not accessible in Faerûn or a specialty domain accessible only by prestige class." How do you get it? Does that mean the only way you CAN get it is through a prestige class? If so what one? I'd definitely be interested in looking that up with those spells.

My campaign setting has a deity named Karab who grants it along with destuction and some other cool ones.

[NotASpiderSwarm]

A lot depends on what you're doing. A Dread Necro LOVES the undeath domain, but it's pretty terrible for a non-DMM Cleric.

That said:
Travel Domain (core)
Freedom of Movement at-will for rounds=level per day
Also Fly and a bunch of teleport spells.

Basically one of the "Who needs a wizard" domains. Freedom of Movement is big, but the teleports give you a lot of versatility and relieve a bunch of pressure on your party's arcane caster.

[Anthrowhale]

The Transformation domain (Eberron) has Alter Self/Polymorph/Shapechange making it amazing. You need to have the shapechanger subtype to use it.

The Demonic domain (I forget where?) grants the planar binding line.

[Eladrinblade]

Strength is my personal favorite. Next, I like war, sun, travel, and liberation, followed by magic and trickery. Trithereon is my bro.

[Ruethgar]

Improved Magic domain. Nix your other domain, your turn attempts, a feat and an item to get 2xCleric level in wand/staff charges free per day.

Edit: Also Craft and Artifice domains for their synergy, I’ve had more than one build greatly benefit from three extra CL for conjuration.

[Aegis013]

Pride Domain (SpC): you get to reroll 1's on saving throws. Combined with the various Cleric save buffs in that book (Greater/Superior Resistance, (Mass) Conviction, Recitation, and Hand of Divinity too if you really want to go OTT) you can become effectively immune to anything that requires a save.

Seconded.

If I'm playing something with cleric casting, I'd want one domain with good spells and one domain with a good ability.
If it's just a dip, the domain abilities are the only important aspect.

Pride domain's ability is absolutely bonkers, and unless you're doing a specific strategy based around a different domain's ability, I think it's easily a contender for the best domain ability in first party material, possibly the best.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I often find myself taking the incarnum domain from magic of incarnum. I really like the whole incarnum subsystem and try to use it whenever I can and the domain has some lovely effects to go with that. Soulboon is the big one but incarnum apotheosis is pretty sweet if you can get that far. Incarnum spellshaping as a bonus feat is a nice bit of gravy too.

[el minster]

if you use Arcane Disciple from Complete Divine you will find entirely different stuff useful

[radthemad4]

I thought one of them gave you an animal companion like a druid or ranger? It's not the animal domain like I thought. Maybe I'm just hopeing?You might be thinking of the Pathfinder Animal Domain (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/cleric/domains/paizo-domains/animal-domain/)

[el minster]

is healing ok?

[ExLibrisMortis]

I like Inquisition, and I'll second Incarnum, too. Other than that, a few generic nice ones--Planning, Time, Undeath.

There are a few wizard ACFs that let you cast all spells with an alignment descriptor, which is pretty fun with the corresponding domain.

[SirNibbles]

The Force Domain looks sweet but it says "This is a Domain not accessible in Faerûn or a specialty domain accessible only by prestige class." How do you get it? Does that mean the only way you CAN get it is through a prestige class? If so what one? I'd definitely be interested in looking that up with those spells.

Complete Divine, pages 123 and 138: You can get it if you're a cleric of Tharizdun (neutral evil), or:

"If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies." - SRD

[NotASpiderSwarm]

I like Inquisition, and I'll second Incarnum, too. Other than that, a few generic nice ones--Planning, Time, Undeath.

There are a few wizard ACFs that let you cast all spells with an alignment descriptor, which is pretty fun with the corresponding domain.For non-cheese, Undeath is actually really good on Dread Necromancers. You get Desecrate and Animate Dead as a 3rd lvl spell. Clerics get nothing but Turn Attempts, of course.

El Minster, Healing in 3.5 is generally terrible, so spending a domain slot on +1 to your CL for healing spells is just bad, especially since you can already cast all those healing spells anyway. The only time it's valuable is if you're already devoted to being a healbot for char concept reasons. In that case, you take the Healing Domain and the Spontaneous Domain ACF from PHBII, which gives you the same substitution except that you can spontaneously cast Heal at 6th lvl instead of Mass Cure Moderate Wounds. It's still terrible, but it's at least it's something.

[el minster]

thanks but i specifically don't wnt my character to be optimised

[thorr-kan]

Luck's been spoken for.

I enjoyed Strength for my Cleric of Kord, way back in World's Largest Dungeon days.

For obscurity, poke through the Dragonlance Campaign Setting book, the only one of the DL books published by WotC. I've become quite fond of the Necromancy domain: rebuke/control undead for casters who normally cannot. Need to find a way to combine with Undeath (Libris Mortis) and Necormancer (Eberron) for full-on undead-spawning fun.

Planning's been spoken for; free metamagic always is good.

I like Domination; free Spell Focus (Enchantment) has it's uses.

Summoning gives some really good spells.

ETA: Corrected Tyranny for Domination. Though Tyranny's +1 to some Enchantment spell save DCs synergizes nicely with Domination.

[Powerdork]

The warforged domain is pretty snazzy. Spells that help extend the service life of made beings, and a pool of rebuke/command/bolster uses you can use on constructs (like an evil cleric with undead). The book (Faiths of Eberron) doesn't offer guidance on its use, but it's a natural fit in a world with warforged.

[darkdragoon]

War is very thematic.
Nobility has solid if not particularly spectacular buffs.


Fate (Spell Compendium)- Uncanny Dodge