Battle Cleric of Zon-Kuthon

[Luecian]

So the new Season of PFS is starting up soon and I was asked by a GM to make a cleric or Paladin. I am settling on Cleric for the moment

For Feats since I am first level I was thinking of
Toughness
Heavy Armor Proficiency

Combat Expertise
Improved Trip

Domains
???
I have no opinion other than Destruction seems pretty good.

I am just not sure if I want to go for the wrecking ball of clerical pain or more of a Combat Maneuver using cleric. If I did wrecking ball of pain the trip feats would not be as helpful.

Basically, some general feat tips for the first few levels.

The reason I choose Zon-Kuthon is I kind of want to used to Spiked Chain even though it is no longer the beast of a weapon it used to be.

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Either something along those lines or I may play a Dervish Paladin.

[darkwarriorkarg]

Darkness domain is apparently quite nice

[SunsetPsychosis]

Half-orcs can get access to spiked chain proficiency with a racial trait, so you don't have to go for Zon-Kuthon, if there's a deity that has better domains.

[Victor Zajic]

Though ZK is a pretty awesome god to worship.

Have you considered War Priest from the ACG

[scootalol]

Well, if it's for PFS, then you're stuck rolling with Chaotic neutral... With a crazy pain-worshiping sadist god who expects you - his messenger! To carry through.

So... Unless you're into that (and having played a CN cleric of lamashtu, i can't say boo if you are), you might want to just take exotic weapon proficiency at level 3 for your chain; even with the half-orc alternate trait, it would be a martial weapon and thus outside of your range as a cleric without a feat, without Zon-Kuthon.

if you're really cinched on going spiked chain with divine spells, I would suggest going half-orc Paladin or Warpriest, or maybe even Battle Oracle with the Skill at Arms revelation (this will net you all martial weapons and heavy armor).

As for the Destruction Domain, looks like all the gods that offer it are nutbars. if you're looking for 1st-levle powers, then Strength and War give similar boosts, as do the Demon and Ferocity subdomains; You could get Strength and War off (relatively) sane deities - Strength also gives you Enlarge Person at level 1, and War gives you Magic Weapon; both, I think, better options than True Strike, as they both consistently improve your damage for a number of rounds, rather than just improving your hit for a single attack - plus they can both be applied to help your allies.

if you're really out to crush face and don't care what insane god you go with, I would actually recommend Lamashtu - She gives you Chaos, Evil, Madness, Strength, and Trickery to choose from... All of which have very good combat options. Plus proficiency in the Falchion, which isn't a slouch as weapons go. Granted, Lamashtu is probably the only deity that can be even creepier than hellraiserrrr, i mean Lord Zedd... Zon Kuthon, whatever.

[Arksangiel]

Luecian wrote:

So the new Season of PFS is starting up soon and I was asked by a GM to make a cleric or Paladin. I am settling on Cleric <of> Zon-Kuthon.

Well, he's got a ton of really nice feats like bleed damage if you merely threaten a critical, checking if they are PFS legal...but I wouldn't take toughness (edit: yes, I did anyway because it fit) and heavy armor proficiency, I'd just grab one level of fighter (unbreakable) to start.

Human Cleric of Zon Kuthon (Destruction, Death)
Fighter 1: Toughness, Diehard FB, Endurance FB, Fast Healer HB
Cleric 1:
Cleric 2: Blood-letting*
Cleric 3:
Cleric 4: Cruelty*
Cleric 5:
Cleric 6: Power Attack
Cleric 7:
Cleric 8: Quick Channel (so you can heal yourself twice while mangling everything around you)

*feats are only for worshippers of Zon-Kuthon. He's got some neat stuff for nonlethal, but I don't see it used enough in APs to really justify using them.

Synergies:
Keen 'high-threat range' conductive weapon. Bloodletting + Cruelty = 1 bleed and +2 morale to attack and damage rolls every time you *threaten* a critical, and if you don't just use your domain power to get the bonus +2 to attack and damage anyway. Also, your 8th level domain ability will make threats auto-confirm anyway...ouch.

Infernal healing is your friend. Try to get a +4 con bonus so it's a first level spell slot for 30hp to you.

Uberawesomesuper? No. Fun to maximize the torture and pain aspect of the deity? Yes.

[Broxxigan]

You can also get EWP: Spiked Chain playing a half-elf with the Ancestral Arms alternate racial trait.

The aforementioned Warpriest from ACG is an excellent option, having a much more martial flair to it than the vanilla Cleric.

Personally, my Kuthite build is Fighter 5/Sentinel 7 (from Inner Sea Gods) and gets his Deific Obedience and first 2 boons at lvl 5/8/11. Granted, he lacks spells, however, he has higher hp, bab and a plethora of extra combat feat slots.

For a trip build, there's a few feats you may want to look into from "Cheliax, Empire of Devils" including Fury's Fall (to also add your Dex mod to trips), and Cornugon Throw/Cornugon Shield for some flexibility/defensive boosts.

Trait wise, Bred for War from "Humans of Golarion" gives you +1 CMB (available to half-orcs, half-elves, tieflings and aasimars as well). Chain Master from "Blood of Fiends" gives you +2 to Trip with spiked chains (though you would have to pick this up via Adopted social trait now that Tieflings are not creatable). Which you takes depends on how trip focused you want to be (Disarm and Dirty Tricks are good backups).

Also of note is that when you use a weapon to perform trip/disarm/sunder cm's, you add your enhancement bonuses to weapon as well as traits/feats/spells that boost your +att with that weapon (weapon focus, weapon training, symbolic weapon, etc) to your CMB.

scootalol wrote:

Well, if it's for PFS, then you're stuck rolling with Chaotic neutral... With a crazy pain-worshiping sadist god who expects you - his messenger! To carry through.

You would actually have to be Lawful Neutral since ZK is a Lawful Evil god.

[Bigdaddyjug]

I'm particularly fond of the Tactics (one of War's subdomains} myself. I rolled up an inquisitor of Szuriel with that domain and he's pretty fun to play.

If you're going to worship an evil deity, you should definitely look into the Channel Smite feat. It will let use your channel negative energy into your weapon and add the channel dice to your damage, and it multiplies on a critical hit.