help! good spells known an UA's spontaneous cleric?

[kanachi]

Hiya all!

One of our players, who has been acting as the cleric, is starting to really struggle with the classes memorisation casting system and has longed to turn the class into a spontaneous caster (he’s working on his phd and has a new child so has little time out of the game to book keep). Anyway, Using the Unearthed Arcana system I was able to work out how many spells at each level ( hes currently at 16th; full caster) his character should know. We came up with the following ideas to fill his “spells known” slots. I was just wondering if you could help us out by taking a look at the spells we have selected and recommend any alterations we should make to get the most out of the spell slots available. I know the UA system is sub optimal but we really want to give it a go and would appreciate any help you can all offer! Thankyou so much!!

Other information you may want to know:
1) His domains are healing and suffering (we are using the UA system for improving healing spells to use d12s rather than d8s). The player in question does not want to change his domains for role-playing purposes, so sorry if that ruins any plans.

2) The party includes: a multiclass scout/psion/elocator (me) who acts as a kind of skillmonkey/utility caster, an insane ranger (who front lines) and a very blaster heavy wizard.

3) Any spells we can find in the spell compendium or phb would be preferable! Oh and though I know this is character optimisation, we aren’t after game breaking here... merely powerful/good.

anyway, here is the spell list thus far:

0-level
none selected as yet!

1st level (he gets 7 of these, 2 are domains):
*Bane (suffering domain)
*Cure Light Wounds (healing domain)
*Updraft
*Sign
*Resurgence
*Conviction
*Inhibit

2nd level (he gets 7 of these, 2 are domains):
*Bear's Endurance (suffering domain)
*Cure Moderate Wounds (healing domain)
*Wave of Grief
*Divine Insight
*Ghost Touch Armour
*Resist Energy
*Zone of Truth

3rd level (he gets 6 of these, 2 are domains):
*Bestow Curse (suffering domain)
*Cure Serious Wounds (healing domain)
*Invisibility Perge
*Girallon's Blessing
*Ice Axe
*Resist Energy, Mass

4th level (he gets 6 of these, 2 are domains):
*Cure Critical Wounds (healing domain)
*Enervation (suffering domain)
*Blindsight, Greater
*Neutralize Poison
*Tongues
*Restoration

5th level (he gets 6 of these, 2 are domains):
*Cure Light Wounds, Mass (healing domain)
*Feeblemind (suffering domain)
*Incorporeal Nova
*Revivify
*Zone of Revelation
*True Seeing

6th level (he gets 5 of these, 2 are domains):
*Harm (suffering domain)
*Heal (healing domain)
*Dispel Magic, Greater
*Cometfall
*Energy Immunity

7th level (he gets 4 of these, 2 are domains):
*Eyebite (suffering domain)
*Regenerate (healing domain)
*Bestow Curse, Greater
*Spell Resistance, Mass

8th level (he gets 3 of these, 2 are domains):
*Cure Critical Wounds, Mass (healing domain)
*Symbol of Pain (suffering domain)
*Stormrage

[FinalJustice]

Why in the hell would he change this domains? The suffering one is great and cure is always useful.

Dude, it lacks Deathward. You want it. Seriously. It's important.
The vigor series (CDivine/SC) are useful. They do miracles for out of combat healing.

PrCing out of cleric to get some more domains seems a powerful option too.

[kanachi]

Why in the hell would he change this domains? The suffering one is great and cure is always useful.

Dude, it lacks Deathward. You want it. Seriously. It's important.
The vigor series (CDivine/SC) are useful. They do miracles for out of combat healing.

PrCing out of cleric to get some more domains seems a powerful option too.

valid points, thankyou for your help.

I don’t think he wants to prc quite yet, he wants to keep things simple but as powerful as possible (without being broken).

I was thinking about vigor as well, but when you use the UA variant for spontaneous casters with healing domain they use d12's instead of d8's. Which reduces the gap between cure and vigour quite a bit. Also because slots for spells known are limited i thought having just the basic cure/heals which come with the healing domain would be enough. I pained over this myself, believe me.

[blue_fenix]

Looks like you've got the right idea here. The healing and suffering domains work great for this as they cover most of your direct damage and healing spells. The rest of the spells should focus on A) Specific healing spells such as Restoration B) Utility Spells that come up often and C) Buffs you want for every/most fights.

Some things to consider are 1) Special case spells that are very important but might not get cast very often should be picked up as scrolls or wands, freeing up more slots for spells that get used every single day, a good example might be Stone to Flesh. 2)You don't have to get every version of a multi-level spell. If you have Restoration already, Lesser Restoration might not be such a good choice 3) If the limit on spells known seems to be too low, consider allowing a feat that gives 2 or 3 extra spells known of a level at least 1 lower than the highest he can cast.

[kanachi]

Looks like you've got the right idea here. The healing and suffering domains work great for this as they cover most of your direct damage and healing spells. The rest of the spells should focus on A) Specific healing spells such as Restoration B) Utility Spells that come up often and C) Buffs you want for every/most fights.

Some things to consider are 1) Special case spells that are very important but might not get cast very often should be picked up as scrolls or wands, freeing up more slots for spells that get used every single day, a good example might be Stone to Flesh. 2)You don't have to get every version of a multi-level spell. If you have Restoration already, Lesser Restoration might not be such a good choice 3) If the limit on spells known seems to be too low, consider allowing a feat that gives 2 or 3 extra spells known of a level at least 1 lower than the highest he can cast.

Awesome thanks!

My friend is quite a new player and i've never played a cleric before so its hard to know whats best to take when we have a small budget of spells known to choose from. Still we really want to give this a go and try out a spontaneous cleric which we think will speed the game up and make his life easyer. So its good to know i've not made totally stupid choices thus far!

[kanachi]

any further ideas?

[CASTLEMIKE]

It depends on how summonings and spell effects work in your game. Fast Healing versions will still heal more than Cures on the average even using D12 it will just take a little longer and low level wands of Cure light wounds and Fast Healing 1 are cheap at 750 gp, plus everyone could have a Belt of Healing for emergency healing from MIC.

I'd really consider losing the Healing Domain despite his reservations with the limited known spells the PC is duplicating way to many of the same type of spells IMO because he can always use a higher level spell slot for a lower level spell.

He should really go for something with a little more Utility like Spells, Summoning (Check out one of the WOTC Summoning threads for all the spell-like abilities and available creatures), Travel or other domain to personal taste.

Really how often do the PCs need Regenerate Limb? Miracle is coming up shortly. Since he appears resistant to that a level dip in Contemplative for an additional domain will do pretty much the same thing. A level dip in Divine Oracle would be nice for some more divination spells. Going with the Cloistered Cleric variant (D6, 6 skill points, Bardic Knowledge, Poor BAB) will pick the PC the Knowledge domain as a bonus 3rd domain.

Heal is nice at these levels and maybe Mass Fast Healing 1 and a few Wands of Fast Healing 1 at 750 gp will address most Healing issues for the party.

Determine how summoning works in your campaign (It doesn't work exactly the same in all games). If a PC summoned a movanic deva from the Fiend Folio with a SM7 and creates food and water for staving dehydrated people just to have it disappear negating any benefits for consuming it the caster should consider LPA (Summoning Domain) which qualifies for Thaumaturgist (Makes the calling less expensive and buffing the summonings) and bumping it up to Planar Ally (with out the Summoning Domain). Nice for calling a Noble Djinni for a Wish or two when needed in emergencies.

Summon Monster 7 mainly for a 6 HD Movanic Deva (6HD) from the Fiend Folio because of all the spell-like abilites it has: aid, consecrate, continual flame,create food and water, death ward, detect evil, discern lies, ploymorph self, prayer, protection from arrows, atonement, bless weapon, cure serious wounds, daylight, divination, etheral jaunt, hallow, holy smite, neutralize poison, planeshift, remove curse, remove disease, remove fear, commune, raise dead. The reason to take the Summoning domain is it has interesting spells like Lesser Planar Ally and Planar Ally nice without a Thaumaturgist level dip but even better with one or more levels.

Possibly Anyspell for Anyspell Greater for a little more utility with a spell or prayer book depending on party makeup (Spell Domain) which opens up so many more options with a little down time.

Edit: The main reason I like the Summoning domain over the Healing domain is the options each spell will provide at each level so it isn't so specialized and limited in theme like many domains (Several of the summoned creatures can perform healing or use spell-like abilities for spells the caster doesn't know).