Cleric questions, a new player.


Advice


Good afternoon!

I've played a very short game as a fighter, and that's it - for any RPG; The fighter was pretty simple, and I had no problems. For our next longer game we are already heavy on the melee and we have a range and a wizard. I figured I'd go with a Cleric, but there's a hell of a lot more in the core rule book for the Cleric than there was for the Fighter. We're only using the CRB.

I don't really want to sit back and channel positive energy and casting heal, because that sounds awful - but at the same time, I know our GM isn't going to pull his punches. I'm not aiming to make the most powerful Cleric, just something I might enjoy and be adequate in propping people up.

My character is going to be neutral - his outlook on life being to preserve life where survival is probable, and hasten demise where it is otherwise. Channelling seems like it's a really strong attack/heal, and I'm attracted to the notion of negative energy. Is it viable to channel negative energy for an attack, while keeping team-mates alive with heal spells? I was thinking of taking the Death and Healing domains.

If I'm using negative energy over a wide area, I'm going to be covering my four allies in damage, so I'd need selective channelling to save them. A +4 WIS modifier will eat a lot of my 15 points, and I'm worried I'll make myself inadequate elsewhere. To complicate things further, I was quite keen on the idea of a Scythe as a weapon (farming ties), but that would require a bit of strength and the Martial Weapons feat.

I think this is a case of wanting too much from one character, but I'd really appreciate some advice on how I could structure my build. If I have to sacrifice the two handed weapon and some melee to make it viable - that's not the end of the world.


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You're totaly right that just healing is boring. It's better to prevent damage than heal, meaning buff/debuff spells.

The best thing about the Cleric is that you don't need to be a healing machine, you can do lots of other things. Like being usefull in melee and buff/debuff.

My general tip is to not go for a +4 WIS modifier, that's way to expensiv for its' returns. In general, a Cleric uses her WIS for bonus spells per day, amount of Domain Abilite's uses per day and save DCs on their spells (only debuffing spells needs a high save DC). Not much more. Keeping it at +3 is well enough, you can even manage to start with a +2.
With a 15-point buy you're going with, you could do something like 14 STR, CON and WIS with 10 DEX, INT and CHA (pre racial modifier and no dump-stat).

As for weapon, I wouldn't go for a Scythe by the MWP feat. I'd stick to a long spear (with reach). If I'm not misstaken you have Pharasma as your deity (the only one I can recall having both Death and Healing), unfortunalty she doesn't grant you proficency in a new better weapon (only dagger).

In general I wouldn't pick negative energy to channel, you'll need to watch out to not hurt your party members (or they'll hate you for it). But if you want to channel negative energi, you need the Selective Channeling feat.
This choice also effects your spontaneous casting. And positive spontaneous casting is better than the negative. With positive you'll have access to enough healing, meaning you won't have to pick the healing domain (it's not a very good one).

EDIT: Rewrote some stuff.

Sovereign Court

For healing frankly just invest into a wand of cure light wound as soon as possible, well tell your teammates to cheap in. For the cheap price of 750 gp, you can cast clw 50 times!.


Channel positive energy before/after combat. Don't forget divine spell don't have arcane armor penalties so you can be a tank. Pharasma for deity? She doesn't allow some of the dead domain spells to be very effective (don't tell your gm) while the evil domains don't allow positive channeling


Most of the time, Healing in combat is very ineffective. Channeling after combat and use CLW wands for healing.

Silver Crusade

I have a friend who did a cleric of Pharasma with Channel Smite, so she focused her channel damage through her weapon. It's only single target that way, but it lets you hurt bad guys with it, without worrying about hurting your allies.


Hi guys, and thank you for quick and helpful responses.

I was originally going with Pharasma, but I had no idea I could choose a deity other than my alignment - it looks like I can choose a deity up to one step away from my alignment, is that correct?

Urgathoa seems like a really nice way to have my cake and eat it regarding saving a feat. I can't really take Selective Channelling as we're all picking out characters out of the CRB. I suppose I'd still need a reasonable CHA to exclude non-undead enemies from channelled positive energy. I can see why you suggest channelling before or after combat. From my understanding, you're either hurting undead OR helping the living with any one channel.

I do love the potential massive damage from negative energy, but I think I might have to suck this one up and use positive energy - resorting to melee for damage. To be honest I'm not even that bothered about being melee, I just wanted the scythe; we're already heavy on melee with a fighter, barbarian and rogue.

I didn't even see Urgathoa in the book, when I was checking out domains!


With core only rules you can't pick versatile channeling so if you want to use your channels to smite you have to pick negative energy and you can't heal anymore. Versatile channeling is from ultimate magic.
Is cool for melee, your choice

Edit: got ninja'd. Consult your GM before you choose an evil deity, a lot of gm's don't allow this (depents on the campaign he build) if you aren't going to use your weapon, trade it for a wand.


The beauty of the cleric is that it's an incredibly flexible class.
Many people enjoy dealing damage in this game, but derive little to no satisfaction from the knowledge that their team wrecked a demon because the protection from evil spell they cast shut down the demon's dominate human spell. If you're this type of person, the cleric may be a poor choice, as the vast majority of spells are going to be proactive (e.g. protection from evil), or reactionary (e.g. dispel magic). The exception to this is the summon monster spells, which can be really powerful options for a cleric.

Archer clerics can be relatively effective too. Most people have abandoned this style of play since the inquisitor makes a better archer, but in a core-rule-book-only game it can be very effective. You can focus primarily on Dex, grab the necessary archery feats early, and then spray arrows after you set up buffs and debuffs for the team.

If you're not dead-set on a cleric there are other options. The Druid comes to mind as a solid spell caster that gets a tough animal companion as his buddy, which will let you make those attack roles more often. The large cats (core rule book), and the Roc (core Bestary, so I feel like that should count), are really powerful. You also get a good mix of spells on your list. This includes debuffs like entangle, buffs for your animal companion like magic fang, blasts like call lightning, and some of the good healing and protection spells you'd get as a cleric (though typically not available until a later level). The other bonus is that druids aren't as dependent on multiple ability scores as Clerics are. You can build a solid melee bruiser who uses wild shape, or you can make use of wild shape to keep you soaring above the battlefield while you rain down spells from above. Plus, you get Scythe proficiency for free.

I would definitely not focus on channeling negative energy. It takes a high CHA score and the selective channel feat just to avoid nuking your party, you don't gain extra uses of it with levels, targets get a save for half damage, and it only gets 1d6 per two levels, where most blast spells, like fireball for instance, get 1d6 every level.


Hi there,

I'm reasonably set on the Cleric for this game, but I think I'll get most of the entertainment out of the RP - so if I don't really enjoy the class, it won't break my game.

I'll ditch negative energy and aim for a small WIS bonus to exclude one or two enemies, just in case everyone has received some damage. If I choose Urgathoa then I can wield the weapon of my choice; I'll just have to reconsider the domains.


Cleric spells are generally better at making your allies awesome, preventing harm (better than fixing it afterwards), and making your enemies less awesome, than they are at taking enemies down directly. So it's important to have loyal friends or sacrificial minions around rather than trying to oneshot enemies yourself.

Exception: you have some very good save-or-suck spells. Just make sure to target them on your opponents' weak saves.

And figure out what you want to do, then specialize your feats for that. MYou are going to be very short of feats so make sure each one fits into what you want to do. (I like boosting my save -- you have two good saves, Will and Fort, and Wis and Con are good choices for high stats, so add feats to boost those and you will be very very hard to affect with save-or-lose spells.) m

Or you could go for Augment Summons and work very well with that, especially if you're a cleric of a neutral deity like, say, Pharasma.

Silver Crusade

You can't channel positive energy if you worship Urgathoa. Evil gods always give their clerics negative energy. You only have the choice if you and your god(dess) are both neutral. If either of you are evil, it's negative energy, and if either are good, then it's positive.


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Well, if you choose Urgathoa, you HAVE TO take negative energy channeling. Only neutral cleric of neutral deities have the choice between positive and negative. (edit : ninja-ed)

Tell your DM about this before making any choice : Urgathoa is an evil deity and having a PC cleric of an evil deity could have a deep impact on your DM's campaign.

My advice : keep Pharasma, take positive energy and take the death domain + another domain of your choice. But be aware that you are not allowed to create an undead in Pharasma's church. There's an issue in the corerulebook between crunch and fluff with allowing death domain to clerics of Pharasma : "communicate with deads" should replace "animate deads" and "antilife shield" should replace "create undead" on the death domain bonus spells list (as written in the Dragon Empires Gazetteer and somewhere on this website paizo's blog).


Slacker2010 wrote:
Most of the time, Healing in combat is very ineffective. Channeling after combat and use CLW wands for healing.

We have had tons of lengthy debates on this, and many disagree. The point is running around and doing nothing but being a heal-bot who tops people off every time they get hit *IS* boring and ineffective. Healing them when they are about to go down is VERY effective.

Clerics are great buffers, decent battlefield controls, and have plenty of cool abilities like condition removal.

Channeling is great- take selective channel and a decent CHA. It's so much fun to have the BBEG toss fireball, then you channel and reverse most of what he did.

Negative Channeling is not as useful I find.


Eltacolibre wrote:
For healing frankly just invest into a wand of cure light wound as soon as possible, well tell your teammates to cheap in. For the cheap price of 750 gp, you can cast clw 50 times!.

Wands of Infernal Healing are better. They heal more and are not inconsistent. And the spell is on the Cleric's list anyways.


That's great into and recommendations, thank you. :)


Infernal healing isn't core. It's from the inner sea world guide (I think)

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