The Clericless Cleric...

[JohnnyArkham]

This is a direct spinoff of this thread

The more I converse with this Player, the more I realize that he doesn't really want to play a Cleric. In fact, I'm uncertain as to why he chose that role in the first place...and we're now 2 games in.
I'm flexible enough to allow a total class change at this point; many characters are still a little fluid.

But I'm not sure where to take him.
He wants to be able to heal the party. That part he digs.
But he really envisions himself as more of a combat medic than a Cleric...and the Paladin didn't seem to interest him at all, oddly enough.
I think it might be the Lawful GOOD thing.
He's really into the Law aspect and has embraced that wholeheartedly, but doesn't seem the character as fully GOOD.

He's also taken a stance with the Warforged as being bland and lacking in personality; Low charisma. Thus even the party-boosting/Healing of the Bard makes little sense.

He's way too militant for the Healer base class...and Favored Soul seems at odds with his vanilla personality.

I'm running out of options.

Anyone have any ideas that might help?

Thanks so much

The Desperate Mr. Arkham

[BRC]

Re-Fluff the cleric IMO. Let him pick a pair of random domains and describe himself as a mage-medic instead of a cleric. Maybe he was a special-built medical warforged built to channel positive energy (Representing his heal spells)

[MammonAzrael]

I didn't read the whole other thread, just the original post, so sorry if you covered this already. Have him go Crusader from Tome of Battle. It's a great militant healer, what the Paladin should have been, without the alignment restrictions. And it's healing abilities are Extraordinary, and thus work at fully power on Warforged.

[Chronicled]

Yeah, Crusader seems a good fit. Otherwise, I don't recall reading that Favored Souls HAD to have interesting personalities.

[Tempest Fennac]

They need high Cha to cast spells, though. Don't Crusaders need Cha as well, though? (The concept of a FS Warforged is interresting, though).

[Chronicled]

They need high Cha to cast spells, though. Don't Crusaders need Cha as well, though? (The concept of a FS Warforged is interresting, though).

It's quite helpful but not needed. All the ToB classes have a mental stat that works like that.

[Tempest Fennac]

Thaks for telling me (I've only seen the stats for Warblades, so I don't know much about Swordsages or Crusaders).

[RTGoodman]

It's quite helpful but not needed. All the ToB classes have a mental stat that works like that.

Specifically, they get Indomitable Will (Cha modifier to Will saves, but doesn't stack with the Paladin's Divine Grace ability), Smite (+Cha attack, +level damage, I think), and some maneuvers may have some Charisma synergy (though not any of the low-levels ones that I've seen). You can get away with mostly Str and Con, but Cha and Wis can't hurt. All of your healing is just basically "you or an ally heals 2 damage" or "you or an ally heals Xd6 damage +1 per initiator level," and as MammonAzrael said it's all Extraordinary (meaning Warforged benefit from it fully).

[Xuincherguixe]

Is it the Cleric class itself, or the Cleric fluff? If it's the Fluff, you can always drop that. They could be casting "like" a Cleric, but not actually be a Cleric. Maybe the warforged stumbled across the mathmatical formula that describes god(s), and is therefore able to cast divine spells. For added fun, they might not believe in gods.

Archivist might work. It's int casting too. Though I've heard they can be overpowered. But you can keep the especially nasty spells out of their reach. You could even go so far as to make it basically an int casting cleric. Going so far as to say that the PC can only use scrolls of domains they pick.


Psions can buff and heal a bit. Psychic Robot? What's not to love? They might not be good enough at healing at buffing though. They can be be versatile though.

[Tempest Fennac]

For Archivists, I had the idea of letting them use Int for bonus spells while limiting them to normal Cleric spells and spells from 2 Domains which fit with their beliefs/personalty. That would stop them from getting spells at lower levels (eg: Lesser Restoration and Heal) while learning pretty much every spell in the game.

[Xuincherguixe]

For Archivists, I had the idea of letting them use Int for bonus spells while limiting them to normal Cleric spells and spells from 2 Domains which fit with their beliefs/personalty. That would stop them from getting spells at lower levels (eg: Lesser Restoration and Heal) while learning pretty much every spell in the game.

... What I had in mind, but much more concise.

[Tempest Fennac]

Thanks. My idea is that they would still have some room for flavour/versatillity, but they are now much less likely to break the game.

[Curmudgeon]

I'd still recommend Favored Soul, because that makes for a militant healer type pretty readily. You could spice it up by having him be an Aasimar, which provides bonuses that dovetail nicely with the class stats.

[Tempest Fennac]

It also has an LA, and it isn't a Warforged, so it doesn't really fit with what the player in question wants.

[Eldariel]

My personal method for using Archivist is to give them access to all Divine spells, but force them to use the Cleric-version is available, followed by Favored Soul, Druid, and then the half-caster classes. That effectively means, he won't learn any spells under their normal level, but has a more varied list compared to a Cleric (but with the burden of limited spells known and the need for acquiring scrolls).

There was actually a list for "priorities of sources between casters" in some book which tells in which order to use the versions of a spell available to X. I cannot seem to find it, but I found it handy for the Archivist (so no überlow level stuff from Adept, for example).


Anyways, Archivist (Int-based casting could actually work), just plain ol' Cleric (they kick ass and chew bubblegum in combat if they happen to feel like it, so the 'militant'-part is covered), Crusader (actual martial character) and Psionics could work; Psionics offer decent amount of self-healing with combat abilities thrown in (Binder and Incarnum-stuff could work there too).

[Tempest Fennac]

That sounds like an interresting Archivist fix. Don't Favoured Souls and Clerics use the same spell list, though?

[kamikasei]

But I'm not sure where to take him.
He wants to be able to heal the party. That part he digs.
But he really envisions himself as more of a combat medic than a Cleric...and the Paladin didn't seem to interest him at all, oddly enough.
I think it might be the Lawful GOOD thing.

What does that actually mean? What's stopping him from playing a cleric as a combat medic? Does he want to be heavier on the combat (clerics can do that perfectly well) or on the medic? Is it the religious side of the class that bothers him? In Eberron it's easy enough to say he's just devoted to healing others and doesn't much care or consider where his spells are being granted from.

[Eldariel]

That sounds like an interresting Archivist fix. Don't Favoured Souls and Clerics use the same spell list, though?

I recall there may have been some FS-only spells although I could remember wrong. If I am, obviously one is free to remove it from the list.

[JeminiZero]

And now for something uttely insane...

Have the entire party take Tomb Tainted Soul. Make your Warforged 1 commoner / 6 Warlock with Chicken Infested, Dead Walk and Corpse Crafter/Destructive Retribution.

Shove bags of holding full of chicken corpses. Pull them out and animate them when the party needs healing.

OK, now for something not so insane. Does he really want Warforged that badly? You could have him use a Pseudo Warforged by taking a couple of levels in Renegade Mastermaker. Less stat penalties, at the cost of lost Caster levels. Might work better than Warforged for something Wis/Cha based.

[Tempest Fennac]

What does Chicken Infested do exactly, and how would it help with healing the party?

[JeminiZero]

Its a whole bunch of stuff together really.

Tomb Tainted Soul: You are healed by negative energy and hurt by positive energy.

Dead Walk: Warlock power that animates undead... for free, no black onyx needed, for the first few minutes at least.

Destructive Retribution: Undead you animate explode and deal 1d6 negative energy when killed. Add on Tomb Tainted soul, and your allies will be healed by this burst.

Chicken Infested: Commoner flaw that grants you a limitless supply of chickens, and hence chicken corpses to animate with Dead Walk.

[Tempest Fennac]

Thanks for explaining. How is Chicken Infested a flaw? It sounds like it would be useful for a Commoner. The problem with that build is that it's not useful for the first few levels, and it can't really help with negative conditions (UMD could help with that, though). Also, it doesn't look that useful for in-combat healing.

[JeminiZero]

Thanks for explaining. How is Chicken Infested a flaw? It sounds like it would be useful for a Commoner.

The flaw is that the chickens appear at random, 50/50 chance everytime you draw something out of a container. Say you were dying and reaching for that potion. You pull out a chicken instead. The next round, the enemy finishes you off with magic missle.

Of course, there are lots of abuses for it. Limitless chickens = limitless cash if you ignore the laws of supply and demand. Less abusive builds use Vow of Poverty and Drunken Master improvised weapon proficiency, to use the chickens as magic weapons.

Also, it doesn't look that useful for in-combat healing.

A Warlock can animate 2x his Invoker Level worth of undead per casting of Dead Walk. Chicken skellies are 1/4 HD, so a Warlock can animate 8 per invoker level.

Imagine the party is cornered and down to its last legs. What to do? The 1 commoner/6 warlock turns his BoH inside out and drops 48+ chicken corpses, and animates them all at once. Then the Fighter uses Great Cleave to slash through all of them. Or the Cleric spends a Turn undead to turn them into dust. Or the Wizard then drops some area spell to kill them all at once.

Anyway, the chickens die in a massive 48d6 negative energy explosion. The living enemies closest to you probably drop dead out right. Your party on the other hand, returns to full health. And you can repeat this every round, so long as you have your chicken corpses.

[Tempest Fennac]

i never thought about it like that (I assumed you could only use 1 chicken corpse/round). That would be cheesy.

[Hal]

Thanks for explaining. How is Chicken Infested a flaw? It sounds like it would be useful for a Commoner. The problem with that build is that it's not useful for the first few levels, and it can't really help with negative conditions (UMD could help with that, though). Also, it doesn't look that useful for in-combat healing.

I believe it's because in combat, if you try to pull a weapon or other object, you'll randomly pull a chicken instead.

Is multiclassing an option? There are various combinations you can do with cleric (such as rogue or fighter) that work nicely. As someone said above, Crusader is a decent option as well.

Alternatively, he could be a bard. Bards a bit harder to effectively turn into combat machines, but with the right combination he can be pretty effective (Snowflake Wardance + High Inspire Courage bonus), and bards have healing spells on their class list.

I might try to get him to figure out what he wants, though. Clerics can totally be combat medics, and good isn't a problem (St. Cuthbert is LN, after all). He wants to heal, but doesn't dig all the major healing classes.

[JohnnyArkham]

The Chicken thing was an interesting diversion....

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. It's given me a few things to think about, research, and submit to the Player.

I'm sure I'll be back with more...

Peace!

[valadil]

Is multiclassing an option? There are various combinations you can do with cleric (such as rogue or fighter) that work nicely. As someone said above, Crusader is a decent option as well.

I was gonna suggest that too. A combat healer who is too into fighting to be a cleric should be a fighter cleric or paladin cleric. I'm sure there's a PrC out there that your friend can aim for. I've always been a fan of mighty contender of Kord. Half casting (which makes sense for this guy) and it boosts the hell out of your strength domain ability.

[Flickerdart]

For the awesome chicken thing, you can just use a spell component pouch, because taking a component out (or dropping it) is a free action. So you get as many chickens as your heart desires, before the Fighter Great Cleaves them all and you have as many chicken corpses as you desire. Then next turn you raise them and he kills them again. A turn slower, but you don't need to cart around smelly chicken corpses.

[Xuincherguixe]

... That chicken abuse is awesome.

[mikeejimbo]

... That chicken abuse is awesome.

That kind of thing is what I miss now that my group has gone 4e.