3.5 cleric blaster

[Rleonardh]

I never really looked at the blasting side of the cleric before, so need some help.

My build will be a long spear user with gauntlet as close range.
Cast as blast spell and than use aoe when opponents move in within range.

Other than flame strike what ones should I look at?
Or just forget the idea?

[Anthrowhale]

Cleric blasts in a different style than a Wizard/Sorcerer, but there are enough spells that deal damage to function.

As an example, a cleric can use DMM[persist] lesser rod[maximize] Darkfire. Darkfire gets iteratives, so this actually does substantial damage per round. Add in empower spell, searing spell, persistent Holy Power, and persistent Holy Star as you level up. Later, you get access to 'erupt', which is the best nuke approximation in the game.

Some of the cold spells like Boreal Wind, Rod[maximize] Shivering Touch are also good damage dealers.

[Ramza00]

Frost Breath a 2nd level 30-ft. Cone of Cold is Daze attack if they take cold damage which is marginal, and then fail a reflex save.

The problem is the damage is not that much. But 2 feats fix that, the feat tax Spell Focus Evocation and then the Complete Mage Feat Piercing Evocation which makes 10 damage of any evocation spell into untyped damage and thus passes through any resistances or immunities. Now you have a 2nd level spell that at a close range is a reflex save or suck. Good for a Lesser Rod of Quicken or a Circlet of Rapid Casting to now do a save or suck as a quicken swift action for only 5000 gp a pop.

Note this trick is not limited to Clerics for this spell is on the Druid, Sorcerer, and Wizard Spell List as well. Furthermore these two feats work with other evocation spells if you want to go medium or long range. Good 2nd level spell slots here for damage, and higher level spell slots for distance and more damage killing.

The problem with this build is Clerics love 2nd level spell slot buffs already, one can never have too many spell slots.

[KoDT69]

The DMG actually has a chart for creating new direct damage spells. Has columns for Arcane/Divine, Spell level, and Single Target (touch, ray) or Multiple Targets (cone, radius, burst) and all choose your element type. Talk to your DM and develop a handful of Divine evocations from the chart. You'll basically be a step behind arcane version but I really never agreed with that logic. I believe you can also do d8's of holy damage if it's 1d8/2 levels instead of the standard 1d6 per level. Most evocations in the game follow this same setup so new ones shouldn't be an issue. Why not have a Ray of Cold at up to 10d6 for a 4th level spell? Like that would break the game! Lolz!

[Troacctid]

If you worship Gruumsh, you get access to the stone socket of Gruumsh (CC), which adds +1 damage per die to your War domain spells and spells with the evil descriptor, allowing you to do some nice damage with flame strike and blade barrier. If you worship Hextor, you get access to the gauntlets of the blood-lord relic (MIC), which automatically empowers all your melee touch spells of 3rd level or lower.

Personally, though, I'm a fan of fire seeds out of the Fire domain. Those holly bombs are hitting for 8d8+96 damage when you first get the spell at level 11. That's no joke. Another good one on the base cleric list is Boccob's rolling cloud (D338) at 4th level—solid damage, plus a chance to make the enemies skip their turn.

[Rebel7284]

It's slightly more difficult to make a divine blaster both because the game is explicitly designed with a guideline that divine casters do less direct damage. However, with some divine spells breaking the mold and domains giving easy access to many spells (especially when spontaneous domains is involved) you can still make a good one.

IMO your biggest loss is Arcane Thesis. There are ways for divine spells to count as Arcane, but that probably defeats the point of this post. Correct?

Ultimately a lot of it comes down to free metamagic. Divine Metamagic is, of course, great for this, but you need multiple turning pools to keep up. Dweomerkeeper is a great class for any caster Cleric and a blaster is no exception.

Spells: Enervation is a classic and an empowered/maximized/split rayed/twinned enervation will take down anything that isn't immune to it. Damage spells work too, of course.

[Kurald Galain]

Ask your DM if Pathfinder material is on the table. If so, Fire domain gives you the Fireball spell; Theologian archetype gives a free metamagic and can prep domain spells in regular slots; and a one level dip in Sorcerer can give you +2 damage per die on all your fire spells. Oh, and for stylishness add the Burning Amplification feat.

[Kaleph]

Streamers is a nice blast, dealing up to 20d10 damage if directed towards a single target. It has also the chance, admittedly small, of disrupting a spell while cast.

You cast streamers as a standard action in your turn, but the effect stays "dormant" until the enemy initiates any kind of action. As soon as it happens, the streamer attacks its target. You may launch up to 4 streamers with one instance of the spell, each affecting a target and dealing 5d10 unnamed damage with a successful touch attack. You may affect one or multiple targets, your choice.

It's unclear if a single action triggers all streamers' attacks or if you need an action for each one (the latter being my favored interpretation).