[3.5] Summoning cleric options?

[TroubleBrewing]

Recently, after I successfully demonstrated that DMM: Persist clerics make better paladins/fighters/melee types than paladins/fighters/melee types do, my DM ruled that DMM was complete cheese and banned it. Now, he isn't wrong necessarily, but it completely nerfed my character. As a way of making it up to me, he's allowing me to make a new cleric, basically my previous character's son. I've been looking for options for a cleric outside of the basic CoDzilla/Nightsticks/DMM builds I've seen, and I've settled on a summoning cleric. I've never played a summoner build before, but I read Complete Scoundrel a few years ago and recall the Malconvoker class seemed good for that type of thing.

In short: What else is good for cleric-based summoners?

[Kaje]

Cleric of Cthulhu/Alienist

[Tvtyrant]

Malconvoker is an amazing class for summoning; but the summons will do the same thing as a form of obsolescence for your melee members as your persist did. The best Cleric way to do it is to make your stats slightly odd for a Cleric:
Wisdom>Charisma>Strength>Dump. Your going to want to push up Charisma as much as you can without hurting Wisdom, as its going to allow you to make better bluff checks. One of the issues with Cleric as a Malconvoker is that it doesn't have Bluff as a class skill, so you want to get that on your skill list. Strength is better then Dex as your going to deck yourself out in Plate and a Heavy Shield and sit in the back watching your summons mangle the enemy.

[Bang!]

Alienist isn't very good. You lose everything with SLAs and take Wisdom penalties. SLAs are what make Cleric summons worth summoning.

Thaumaturgist from the DMG has some nice abilities focused toward Planar Ally, and tossing in a Leadership-style capstone. It doesn't lose anything important and gives pretty solid abilities at 5/5 levels (assuming you can use retraining or a nice DM to turn Augment Summoning into something else, since you'll probably want it long before it's granted by the class).

Malconvoker is pretty good. The lost CL can be a bit of a downer, but it has more powerful abilities than the Thaumaturgist, which kind of make up for it.

Edit:
Regarding the Cleric's lack of Bluff, the Trickery domain is both incredibly fitting for a Malconvoker and very powerful. Especially with a Cloistered Cleric base, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Kaje]

Alienist isn't very good. You lose everything with SLAs and take Wisdom penalties. SLAs are what make Cleric summons worth summoning.

I know. You'd also have to burn a feat to take advantage of the pseudonatural familiar. But, c'mon, it's a Cleric of Cthulhu!

[Kobold-Bard]

DMM isn't cheese, Persist is silly and combining the two is cheese. DMM itself with almost any other feat is fine.

Sorry OP, needed to vent.

Malconvoker, Summon Domain from Spell Compendium I guess.

[TroubleBrewing]

DMM isn't cheese, Persist is silly and combining the two is cheese. DMM itself with almost any other feat is fine.

Oh, I completely agree. The weird thing is that my DM, whenever he plays, always plays a wizard who abuses PAO. He's got a strange double standard for cheesiness.

[TheGeckoKing]

Yeah, shameless plug. I know. But Cleric of Cthullu just sounds so cool I HAD to

[Psyren]

Malconvoker essentially gives you free Twin Spell on summons. i.e. very powerful. Thaumaturgist gives you lots of nice summoning buffs.You can also fit them both into the same build (only Malconvoker loses a caster level.)

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, the Summoner Domain from SpC is pretty much mandatory. Good secondary domains are Planning and Time. You'll also probably want to be a Cloistered Cleric, so you know what kinds of things are out there to summon.

[Zaq]

Malconvoker essentially gives you free Twin Spell on summons. i.e. very powerful. Thaumaturgist gives you lots of nice summoning buffs.You can also fit them both into the same build (only Malconvoker loses a caster level.)

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, the Summoner Domain from SpC is pretty much mandatory. Good secondary domains are Planning and Time. You'll also probably want to be a Cloistered Cleric, so you know what kinds of things are out there to summon.

If your fluff will allow it, the Dragon Below domain from Eberron gives Augment Summoning for free, bypassing the Spell Focus prereq. I don't remember offhand if the spells it gives are worthwhile, but it can help alleviate feat starvation.

[Gnaeus]

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, the Summoner Domain from SpC is pretty much mandatory.

Combine this with the spontaneous domain casting ACF, and you won't even need to memorize summons for most levels.

Edit: Does it have to be a cleric? Druids and Archivists can do it better.

[Dead_Jester]

Combine this with the spontaneous domain casting ACF, and you won't even need to memorize summons for most levels.

Edit: Does it have to be a cleric? Druids and Archivists can do it better.

Yes, but it isn't worth it for druids to take Malconvoker, and Archivists aren't much better than Cloistered Clerics, especially when you consider that Clerics already have some Cha focus.

[Kobold-Bard]

...

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, the Summoner Domain from SpC is pretty much mandatory. ...

...

Malconvoker, Summon Domain from Spell Compendium I guess.

Ahem...

[Gnaeus]

Yes, but it isn't worth it for druids to take Malconvoker, and Archivists aren't much better than Cloistered Clerics, especially when you consider that Clerics already have some Cha focus.

An archivist can take a ring of the beast, letting them throw summon natures ally spells at one spell slot below spell level. That is as good as or better than free twin spell on summon.

[Thespianus]

Is there a Druid or Cleric version of the Rapid Summoner ACF for Conjuration Wizards?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Be chaotic good aligned, get Thaumaturgist, and at level 12 get a Ghaele Eladrin as your planar cohort.

[Greenish]

Recently, after I successfully demonstrated that DMM: Persist clerics make better paladins/fighters/melee types than paladins/fighters/melee types do, my DM ruled that DMM was complete cheese and banned it.

Non-DMM persist clerics can also make better paladins/fighters/melee types than paladins/fighters/melee types do.

[Coidzor]

Non-DMM persist clerics can also make better paladins/fighters/melee types than paladins/fighters/melee types do.

Though having feat slots taken up by banned feats is pretty crippling. :/ Which is one of the bigger objections to BoED IIRC, the alignment as a straitjacket 2: now you'll lose feat slots irreparably if you ever get forced into a lose-lose situation by the DM.

[FMArthur]

You can also do the same thing for two spells a day as an Illumian, without needing DMM.

[Psyren]

Ahem...

It's not a ninja if you spell the domain wrong

Yes, but it isn't worth it for druids to take Malconvoker, and Archivists aren't much better than Cloistered Clerics, especially when you consider that Clerics already have some Cha focus.

Archivists can not only enter Malconvoker themselves, they can also pick up Druid-specific summoning aids like Greenbound Summoning and Rashemi Elemental Summoning. (RES is region-based, but GS is not - and arguably, an Archivist is actually more likely to learn GS than even a Druid is, from a fluff perspective.) Combined with Paragnostic Apostle, they will have extremely durable and plentiful summons, and double nicely as the party Lore-machine.

[Bang!]

Why Summoner Domain? All the spells are already on the Cleric list and the CL boost doesn't do much once your summons are hanging around for 3+ rounds. Or are you meant to use retraining/Domain Substitution to swap it out when you get 2nd level spells? (Actually, the timing with DS would be pretty elegant.)

The Demonic domain has always seemed like a better staple for Cleric summoners, namely for providing the Planar Binding line, but also for the other quirky unique spells it grabs. The benefits are mostly lost on a Malconvoker, but for an evil summoner, it seems almost mandatory.

It's a shame about DMM: Rapid though.

[RndmNumGen]

So... question about Alienist. Is there another version of the Pseudonatural template? Because the one in the SRD is completely insane, and it seems that even a 1-level dip of Alienist would be horribly OP when your summon's hp, speed, AC and attacks more than double.

[Keld Denar]

Yea, check Complete Arcane, the source of Alienist. It has the rules for the Pseudonatural template in the back with the monsters. The one in the SRD is an epic template.

The stat adjustments are MUCH lower, somewhere around a +6 net score adjustment, and then the 1/day true strike effect and the crappy standard action to give a foe -1 on all offensive abilities against that one pseudonatural creature.

[Toliudar]

Why Summoner Domain? All the spells are already on the Cleric list and the CL boost doesn't do much once your summons are hanging around for 3+ rounds. Or are you meant to use retraining/Domain Substitution to swap it out when you get 2nd level spells? (Actually, the timing with DS would be pretty elegant.)

That would indeed work, although my cleric Malconvoker used the Spontaneous Domain Casting ACF from the PH2, so that she could pick and choose which of her spells to convert to summons.

[Ernir]

Is there a Druid or Cleric version of the Rapid Summoner ACF for Conjuration Wizards?

There's the Rapid Spell metamagic feat in Complete Divine, but ACFs? None that I know of.

Why Summoner Domain? All the spells are already on the Cleric list and the CL boost doesn't do much once your summons are hanging around for 3+ rounds. Or are you meant to use retraining/Domain Substitution to swap it out when you get 2nd level spells? (Actually, the timing with DS would be pretty elegant.)

You might want to keep the Summoner domain due to the increased resiliency vs. Dispels and such. Caster level increases are usually worth it.

Also, Spontaneous Domain Casting should be very handy here.

[Psyren]

the CL boost doesn't do much once your summons are hanging around for 3+ rounds.

That's not true at all. For the caster, CL is life, and yours factors into preventing Dispel Magic, Dismissal, and Banishment from affecting your minions.

So... question about Alienist. Is there another version of the Pseudonatural template? Because the one in the SRD is completely insane, and it seems that even a 1-level dip of Alienist would be horribly OP when your summon's hp, speed, AC and attacks more than double.

The Alienist's problem isn't the pseudonatural template (it's actually not too shabby, as it (a) doesn't overwrite the base creature's abilities and (b) makes them outsiders, in addition to the other benefits); the problem with the Alienist is how many utility creatures it simply peels off your list. Most of the things with SLAs become verboten leaving you with a pile of dumb bruisers.

Zceryll also adds pseuonatural to everything she summons, but she doesn't restrict your list in any way. So you end up with pseudonatural Djinni, pseudonatural Babau, pseudonatural Hezrou, and other useful things that Alienists can't summon.

[Fitz10019]

Familiarize yourself with mephits, as there a lots of varieties, and often you can use one that suits a given situation. I like to use a 6th level summon monster to get 1d4+1 mephits, and have them multicast Glitterdust. The DC is low, but anyone can fail if they have to roll the same save 1d4+1 times.

Note the errata on Imbue Summoning (PHB2). It clarifies that the imbued spell applies to multiple summoned creatures (when all summoned by one spell). In the case of the 1d4+1 mephits, I could imbue them all with Eagle's Splendor and that Glitterdust DC increases by 2.