Sponaneous Domain Casting: Interesting character options?

[RexDart]

(Inspired by the PHB2 reading club thread)

Are there any particularly good (or just interesting) cleric character concepts that heavily lean into the Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF?

[Inevitability]

The Greed domain has lots of off-list spells that won't be useful every day and which combine to make a really interesting sort of warder-thief concept.

Ooze lets you make Grease and Web your go-to low-level combat spells, creating a bit of a controller role that clerics otherwise struggle to fill as well as wizards. Plant can do something similar via Entangle.

Spite lets you make Vampiric Touch your to-go melee attack, which is pretty nifty for builds willing to optimize its damage.

Storm turns your cleric into a blaster/controller with Sleet Storm and Call Lightning.

Strength makes you a really good low-level buffer with Enlarge Person, though it falters a bit later on.

The Summoner Domain, especially at low levels, lets you pull a druid and turn any stray spell slot into a summon.

Travel is part of any 'best domains' list and this is no different; you get to buff the entire party with Fly or Longstrider when that becomes necessary and spam Dimension Door if multiple people need to be ferried somewhere. Again, the higher-level spells are a bit less spammable.

Trickery is interesting for letting you put Invisibility or Nondetection on everyone should the situation call for it, and Confusion is a decent combat spell to spam.

Winter gives you Snowsight on speed dial, letting you load everyone in the party up with it (and renew it when it runs out) and then wreck havoc using the cleric list's access to Obscuring Snow.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I made a Shadowcraft Mage with a Cloistered Cleric using spontaneous Illusion or Gnome domain (either works, I forget which I had), it was pretty fun. Between access to the entire cleric spell list and spontaneously pulling up half of the conjuration and most of the evocations of the wizard/sorc, had a ton of versatility in exchange for lacking the raw power of the Gnome Illusionist (+1 spell level of heightening boons).
You just need your other domain to be Shadow or be allowed access to obscure books that have 4th level shadow spells for clerics.


Travel or Celerity are just generally useful to have on the fly for spells.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Spontaneously casting from the Healing domain is better than spontaneously casting Cure spells.

The Slime domain gets some decent crowd control spells.

Wrath gets you Rhino's Rush more often than one domain slot per day, if you make a charger Cleric.

Cold gets some decent spells, you can advance Cleric casting with Frost Mage but will likely need to multiclass one level to qualify.

[pabelfly]

The Divine Restoration ACF lets you spontaneously cast Restoration spells as well, if you want to expand on what you can spontaneously cast.

Planar Domains have twice as many spells you could spontaneously cast with the Spontaneous Domain ACF.

These would let you have the advantages of prepared casting (instead of just going full Spontaneous Cleric) but also give you more advantages from your spontaneous casting ability.

[Troacctid]

Spontaneous domain casting makes every cleric more interesting pretty much across the board, IMO.

[Tohron]

Spell Domain would let you pull out regular and greater Anyspell spontaneously. You will still be imitating spells 1 level or more below the slot used, but the ability to prepare any spell 5th level or below in a 6th level slot, spontaneously, is pretty hard to beat in terms of versatility. And you can take advantage of things like Dimension Door being a 2nd level Trapsmith spell to prepare it through regular Anyspell.

Rary's Mnemonic Enhancer and Limited Wish add even more versatility options.

[RexDart]

Cold gets some decent spells, you can advance Cleric casting with Frost Mage but will likely need to multiclass one level to qualify.

Oh, that's interesting. One of my recent characters was a Frost Mage (or was to become one - the campaign didn't get too far), but it might be fun to try that concept again as a (mostly) divine caster.

[Anthrowhale]

The Transformation domain is plausibly one of the best domains for spells. All of them are off-list, 4 are top-10, 3 are decent, and 2 are lemons.

[RexDart]

Oh, that's interesting. One of my recent characters was a Frost Mage (or was to become one - the campaign didn't get too far), but it might be fun to try that concept again as a (mostly) divine caster.

Following up on this, what would be a good 1-level arcane casting dip that wouldn't effectively be a dead level? I'm thinking Sorcerer, learning only spells without Somatic (there are some OK options), and maybe one of the Sorcerer ACFs that give a martial weapon proficiency.

[Darg]

Spontaneous domain casting makes every cleric more interesting pretty much across the board, IMO.

Domain Spontaneity is my favorite feat from complete divine for this reason.

[pabelfly]

Following up on this, what would be a good 1-level arcane casting dip that wouldn't effectively be a dead level? I'm thinking Sorcerer, learning only spells without Somatic (there are some OK options), and maybe one of the Sorcerer ACFs that give a martial weapon proficiency.

I'd go Sorcerer with Dragonblood Sorcerer ACF (you need a dragonblooded race for this). This will give you Draconic Heritage as a bonus feat. With that, take Draconic Aura (Cold) feat and get a scaling +1 to +4 bonus to your spell DC for Cold spells.

[Inevitability]

Following up on this, what would be a good 1-level arcane casting dip that wouldn't effectively be a dead level? I'm thinking Sorcerer, learning only spells without Somatic (there are some OK options), and maybe one of the Sorcerer ACFs that give a martial weapon proficiency.

Wu Jen for free metamagic seems good if you're going the blaster route. Wizard 1 for a familiar/immediate magic and a fighter bonus feat of your choice (which can fulfill a prereq or just give +4 initiative) is also pretty good.

Death Master from dragon compendium can cast in armor if it does some blood sacrifice first, and its list isn't terrible.

Beguiler 1 would give you trapfinding and Search is a Frost Mage class skill so if the party desperately needs someone to cover that, well, it's an option.