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AmberVael
2007-12-17, 02:27 PM
I am crafting a Cleric. This is probably going to be the furthest build from a CoDzilla style cleric EVER, but hey, that's just going to make it that much more interesting.
However, because of the oddness of what I've got planning, and the sheer level of under-optimization it will probably go to, I'm looking for a way to make it playable and passable.

My limits: No cheese. I don't want to be recommended to use nightsticks, people. :smalltongue:
Other than that? Any book and variant. Please do list where things come from, because while I have all the books at my disposal, that doesn't mean I've got them all memorized (yet. Memorization will come later. :smallwink:)

What I've got in my idea of the character so far, and what I'd like to try and stick to are the following:

-Spontaneous Cleric variant from Unearthed Arcana
-A focus on Reserve Feats from Complete Mage/Champion (now, I'm not going to stick to this if I find other options, but the idea of this is unlimited resources. I'm probably going to find myself running close to empty on spells, so I need either something unlimited in use, or a very large source of power. I'd rather not rely on mundane attacks or wands.)
-The ability to be a blaster (terrible, terrible choice for a cleric, but hey, it's what I want to do, so lets see where I can go with that...)
-The ability to heal (though no focus on that, just the ability. Just keep in mind that I'll need the spells known for that)

Things that are not quite so set are the following:
-I'd like to try and be human, possibly a different race, but I don't want to be a Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, or Orc/Half-orc, nor do I want a level adjusted race.
-I'd be very interested in finding a variant that allowed me to switch out Turn/Rebuke attempts for something else, though I suppose using the feats to give other uses for it would be acceptable. Possibly DMM if nothing else, to augment my questionable blasting skills.


Keep in mind that I'm VERY aware how much this departs from the strengths of a cleric (or even a spellcaster), so don't go crazy at me for that. I'm looking for optimization of this idea, not of optimization in general.

Edit: I'm using 32 point buy.

fendrin
2007-12-17, 02:38 PM
As soon as I hear 'blaster cleric' I think Enlightened Spirit (Complete Mage). Warlock(Complete Arcane)/Cleric hybrid. Unlimited resources, stuff to use your turn undead uses on that is neither turning undead nor using a feat (healing blast ftw). Oh, and seeing you have something to use your TU uses, grab a nightstick. One. One is not cheesy, multiple are. :smalltongue:

For a pure cleric, maybe an entropomancer(Complete Divine)? Not nearly as unlimited on resources, but what could be more fun than playing around with Shards of Annihilation?

granted these are both less than optimal, but they do somewhat at least meet your ideas...

I'd give some build specifics, but I don't have my books, and I also lack memorization.

Draz74
2007-12-17, 02:47 PM
Whatever else you do, it sounds like Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) is a better framework to build this character concept on than the standard Cleric. If your DM doesn't like the Cloistered Cleric, offer to drop the free Knowledge Domain and ban the non-domain use of the Divine Power spell.

RandomFellow
2007-12-17, 02:54 PM
Only fails on this part.


...
-I'd like to try and be human, possibly a different race, but I don't want to be a Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, or Orc/Half-orc, nor do I want a level adjusted race.
...


Blaster:
Gnome Cloistered Cleric (Shadow&Illusion Domains) / Shadowcraft Mage (RoS)

All your blasting comes from Domain Spells combined with the 3 feat chain of Earth Sense/Heighten Spell/Earth Spell. Toss in a DMM (Heighten Spell) for kicks if you want. Voila....a blasting cleric with all his spells known for healing, buffing, etc. spells.

AmberVael
2007-12-17, 02:59 PM
Fendrin- Hmmm... Enlightened Spirit might be interesting. I'll look over it in more detail later. Still, it would be best as a pure Warlock.
However, your mentioning of Healing Blast made me realize you were talking about the Eldritch Disciple. Not quite the same thing. I'd prefer to stay away from the dual class type PrCs and builds, but it might work... it WOULD have a good emphasis on blasting like I wanted.
And I'd rather stay away from nightsticks altogether, just because of principles. :smalltongue:

Entropomancer loses waaay too many spellcasting levels... yuk. Maybe a level dip in it or two.

Draz- I was thinking about Cloistered Cleric too, and I still am, but the flavor of the campaign so far makes me wonder just how valuable knowledge and divination spells will actually be (which are one of the few strengths of that variant). I'm thinking I might just go regular cleric for the extra hit points and the armor use. That probably means I need to go more mundane combat oriented to make the most of that though. =/

Randomfellow-
>>
<<
*punts a Gnome*
I'm currently looking for my races of stone book... I'll check out the details of the build once I've found it.

Telonius
2007-12-17, 03:03 PM
Your spell selection will be very important if you want to be a blaster cleric. The most useful blasting spells that a normal cleric can get are: Sound Burst, Searing Light, Flamestrike, Fire Storm, Blade Barrier, Harm, Spiritual Weapon.

However, Domains offer some customization and other blasting options.
Air: Lightning.
Destruction: just about everything.
Earth: Spike Stones
Fire: just about everything.
Good: Holy Smite
Sun: just about everything.
Water: Ice Storm, Cone of Cold, Horrid Wilting.

Becuase you're going with the Spontaneous Casting variant, you won't need to take Domain Spontaneity.

Anything that can get you an extra domain is something you definitely want. It will give you immediate access to all of the domain spells, increasing your versatility. Because of that, I would strongly advise you to consider PrCing into Contemplative, Church Inquisitor, Divine Oracle, and/or Seeker of the Misty Isle. More Domains = more spells known.

Draz74
2007-12-17, 03:06 PM
Draz- I was thinking about Cloistered Cleric too, and I still am, but the flavor of the campaign so far makes me wonder just how valuable knowledge and divination spells will actually be (which are one of the few strengths of that variant).

See, in my book, the main advantage of Cloistered Cleric is neither of these; it's simply the 6+Int skill points. But then, I'm a big fan of skilled characters.

And in my experience, it's a strange campaign where you can't find a use for the Bardic Knowledge-esque ability. But I guess it could happen.

Oh, it's also easy for a Cloistered Cleric to get into Loremaster, whose Secrets are nice (but not amazing).

AmberVael
2007-12-17, 03:14 PM
Telonius- Yes, I'd been thinking about the domains. My main idea was the Fire Domain, just because burning things can't go wrong. :smallbiggrin:
I was definitely planning on a Divine Oracle dip, at the very least, and it was one of the reasons I was heavily debating cloistered cleric despite my want for the HP and Armor proficiency.
As a random note, Divine Oracle + Cloistered Cleric = lots and lots of awesome divination spells. The unfortunate part of this is that divination is the thing I want least in this campaign. :smallsigh:
I'll take a look at the other PrCs you mentioned.


See, in my book, the main advantage of Cloistered Cleric is neither of these; it's simply the 6+Int skill points. But then, I'm a big fan of skilled characters.

And in my experience, it's a strange campaign where you can't find a use for the Bardic Knowledge-esque ability. But I guess it could happen.

Oh, it's also easy for a Cloistered Cleric to get into Loremaster, whose Secrets are nice (but not amazing).
Mmm. That's a good point about skills.
*is fond of skilled characters as well*

The campaign is sort of a tactical, mass combat game. I'm thinking I'll be mostly running around forts to prepare them for battle, or gooshing baddies. That's why I'm wondering about the usefulness of bardic knowledge.
Normally, yeah, Bardic knowledge is really nice.
Loremaster is a fair PrC though.

fendrin
2007-12-17, 03:17 PM
Fendrin- Hmmm... Enlightened Spirit might be interesting. I'll look over it in more detail later. Still, it would be best as a pure Warlock.
However, your mentioning of Healing Blast made me realize you were talking about the Eldritch Disciple. Not quite the same thing. I'd prefer to stay away from the dual class type PrCs and builds, but it might work... it WOULD have a good emphasis on blasting like I wanted.
And I'd rather stay away from nightsticks altogether, just because of principles. :smalltongue:

Entropomancer loses waaay too many spellcasting levels... yuk. Maybe a level dip in it or two.

Erm yeah, Eldritch Disciple is what I meant :smalleek:
I always think of the E.Spirit when I mean E.Disciple. E.Spirit is a weakened, choice-less warlock. Only good from a flavor perspective. Oh, and I completely understand about the whole nightstick thing. :smallwink:

I forgot that entropomancers lost a lot of casting. I think the one time I played one it was houseruled.

EDIT: the great thing about warlock dual-progressions is that with the right build, a warlock doesn't require any feats or high abilities to be effective. This means that an E.Disciple can be a mostly cleric build with a minimal investment in warlock and still be very effective. In fact, if you ignore the turn undead abilities (which really are the icing, not the cake), you can even dump CHA.

jameswilliamogle
2007-12-17, 03:18 PM
Race: Human
Class: Cloistered Cleric 10 / Sacred Exorcist 10
Domains: Earth and Fire
Spontaneous Domain: Fire
Feats: Spontaneous Healing, Extra Turning, Fiery Burst, Touch of Healing, Improved Turning, Spontaneous Domain: Earth, Knowledge Devotion (lots more Faerunian specific feats boost Fire spells)
Alternative Class Features: Pool of Healing

Lets you Turn/Rebuke everything with an elemental descriptor (thats every dragon, elemental, and quite a few outsiders), gives you some blasting via spontaneous Fire spells, regains some lost healing ability via feats and alt. class features. Sacred Exorcist gives some alternative features w/o losing Turning ability (any PrC that advances turning could be taken).

Easy, not cheesey, and fun.

Keld Denar
2007-12-17, 03:19 PM
If you really want to do the cleric blaster thing, you need to make up for the spell selection with domains. The fire and sun domains grant a nice array of the typical blasty type spells. Air gets Lightning Bolt and a few others I think. Cold from CD I think gives you Cone of Cold and a few others. Worship a god of primal elemental destruction (Talos in FR comes to mind).

In order to use those spells more than once a day, look to the PHBII domain spontinaity alt class feature. You give up spontanious healing, but you can cast your domain spells instead.

Something kind of cheesy, that takes a little bit of a liberal reading of the rules, is to use divine feats like Divine Metamagic and fuel them with the alternate turning pool you gain from the elemental domains. Fire Domain gets the ability to turn water elementals and rebuke fire elementals. These are specifically from a seperate pool of turn attemts as your standard turn undead attempts. So, if you nab 2 elemental domains (fire and air for example) you get 3 different turn pools. You could then use DMM: Empower all day long, drawing from each of these pools.

The real cheese comes in when you take the feat Extra Turning. It adds 4 attempts to ALL of your turn undead pools. That means you gain 12 extra turn attempts to channel into DMM, or 4 extra DMM:Empowers per day.

Take levels in Contemplative (CD) as soon as you can, and grab a couple more elemental domains (cold, water, earth) and you get even more elemental turning attempts to channel into DMM, and abuse the Extra Turning feat some more.

Of course, this all factors into whether or not your DM will allow you do use turn elemental attemts to fuel DMM. Its cheesy, but then again, a blasting cleric is suboptimal so it might be possible to convince him.

Wordmiser
2007-12-17, 03:24 PM
Since you want the Spontaneous variant, extra domains may be a nice boost. Off my head, Cloistered Cleric 3/Church Inquisitor 6/Divine Oracle 1/Contemplative 10 gives 7 domains, 3 required to be Divination-centric, 4 open for blasting or whatever else it is you want with your character.

RandomFellow
2007-12-17, 03:25 PM
...

Randomfellow-
>>
<<
*punts a Gnome*
I'm currently looking for my races of stone book... I'll check out the details of the build once I've found it.

Basically all your blasting comes from Silent Image (a domain spell) + those feats. You can duplicate anything a Shadow Evocation or Shadow Conjuration can. Cloistered Cleric is not vital. I just toss it since I like the bonus domain + skill points.

And...you get a cheesy bonus of Spell Level-1 Caster Level plus the Shadow Evo or Conjuration is of Spell Level+1.

(e.g. Heighten Silent Image to 9th, is effectively a 10th level spell for DCs and can emulate things like Meteor Swarm. Get a +8 to Caster Level.)

fendrin
2007-12-17, 03:26 PM
Out of curiosity, what is the starting level? That can make a big difference in effectiveness.

AmberVael
2007-12-17, 03:28 PM
Ah, should have stated that in the beginning. My bad.
I'm starting out at ECL 6.

Random Fellow- If I choose that build, I'll see if the DM doesn't mind using Shadow Craft mage with another race...

RandomFellow
2007-12-17, 03:33 PM
'tis a point....my build suggestion really requires level 10 to be 'good'. It's blasting is almost non-existent until that point.

Cloistered Cleric 7 / ScM 3

Another thought if your DM accepts homebrewed stuff:
High Priest of Asmodeus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3657451#post3657451)

Another thought is:
Arcane Disciple from Dragon 311 (or here: CrystalKeep (http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Classes-Base.pdf))

Telonius
2007-12-17, 04:09 PM
'tis a point....my build suggestion really requires level 10 to be 'good'. It's blasting is almost non-existent until that point.

Cloistered Cleric 7 / ScM 3

Another thought if your DM accepts homebrewed stuff:
High Priest of Asmodeus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3657451#post3657451)

Another thought is:
Arcane Disciple from Dragon 311 (or here: CrystalKeep (http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.5Index-Classes-Base.pdf))

... for that matter, the "Evangelist" variant from Dragon 311 (also listed on Crystalkeep) gives you bonus domains - you'd have 6 total domains by 20th level. I would liberally apply rules 0-500 to the skull of any player that suggested using that with spontaneous cleric, but your DM might have other ideas.

RandomFellow
2007-12-17, 04:21 PM
He asked for optimization not sanity. =)



... for that matter, the "Evangelist" variant from Dragon 311 (also listed on Crystalkeep) gives you bonus domains - you'd have 6 total domains by 20th level. I would liberally apply rules 0-500 to the skull of any player that suggested using that with spontaneous cleric, but your DM might have other ideas.

Trading 20 arcane spells for 18 domain spells + domain powers is being compared to 54 spells + 6 domain powers? o0

nerulean
2007-12-17, 04:37 PM
I've got to put in that I absolutely loved playing an Eldritch Disciple recently. In terms of damage output I sucked most mightily, but I could just keep blasting and blasting and that was fun, not to mention the fact that being able to cast shatter at will is like Christmas come early.

I only lost two levels of cleric and the healing blast was more than enough to make up for it, and by taking the level of warlock at 1st it works quite nicely fluff-wise in terms of a redemption story.

If you go this route, grab a chasuble of fell power (MIC) as soon as you can to bolster up your slightly sub-par blasting.

At 6th level, the class is really only just getting started, but if the game is running for any particular length of time or your DM levels you fast, you'll definitely get some fun out of the character.