"Anti-Caster" Cleric

[Insain Dragoon]

A friend of mine wants to run an "Anti-caster" character who will fight casters by "Debuffing, Dispeling, and reducing the enemies ability to cast."

I told him Cleric was probably the best fit and he wants some help building the character next week.

I'm not too familiar with all the options available to Cleric as I've never played one. If someone could point me in the direction of some spells, archetypes, and domains that would be great.

[AbsolutGrndZer0]

Actually, you want an anti-caster check this out...

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/inquisitor/archetypes/paizo--- inquisitor-archetypes/spellbreaker

It's a Inquisitor archetype called the "Spellbreaker"

Or, for a different focus, but still anti-caster there is this other Inquisitor archetype...

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/inquisitor/archetypes/paizo--- inquisitor-archetypes/witch-hunter

But, note that due to both of them replacing "Monster Lore" they are not compatible with each other.

Then as far as spells go, Inquisitors get a lot of debuffs that while they are not all caster-specific, they still will mess up a caster when he's sickened or such. Then they do end up getting Silence later on, which is great for anti-casters as most spells have verbal components.

EDIT: For some reason, the forums break the d20pfsrd links, you will need to remove the space that it insists on putting after "paizo---"

[Bandw2]

there's also teh spell warrior skald, which is REALLY good at counter spelling. for instance he gains improved counter spell at level one.

then

Quote:

At 5th level, the spell warrior gains increased versatility when attempting to counteract enemy spellcasting. When counterspelling, he can expend two skald spell slots of the same level or higher than the opponent's spell, regardless of the school of that spell.

At 11th level, when counterspelling an opponent's spell, the spell warrior only has to expend one skald spell slot of the level of the spell being cast.

At 17th level, the spell warrior gains Parry Spell as a bonus feat. The skald does not have to meet the prerequisites for this feat.

This ability replaces spell kenning.

remember he has to ready actions to counter spell.

flavor as you want, yada yada.

[DominusMegadeus]

Well, the Dispel spells, first of all. Curse of Magic Negation is funny if they don't have Spell Penetration. -6 INT Bestow Curse and Forbid Action: Cast are other good anti-caster spells if you can beat their Will save. Murderous Command is great if the caster has a very strong, very poor-Will-save friend.

Fort saves are nice to target on most casters. Blindness-Deafness especially can destroy a caster.

Summon Monster and Planar Ally spells usually have something good to offer not just for caster attacking, but in general.

[Insain Dragoon]

Counter spelling is generally a weak mechanic for players as their own spells are more valuable and limited than that of the enemy. Also that the counter spelling is hard to pull off if the enemy is casting higher level spells than you.

If it matter the player will be in an evil campaign with mostly good aligned enemies.

He will likely Pick Asmodeus as his deity.

Thanks for those explanations Dominus!

[Bandw2]

yeah, then if he's going to debuff route, dominus has it covered.

[Renegadeshepherd]

My choice of flavor for such a cleric is a bad touch cleric based on madness. My chosen route was conductive reach weapon to hit em with madness domains debuff, then hit em with my quickened (at reduced meta cost) bestow curse in one round. After that hit with a save or die like phantasmic killer or something equally fun :)

Another variant is to take darkness domain and keep them in the dark that even magic will not pierce. From there just hammer them in whatever way you think will serve you best. My only problem is that its very hard to coordinate this with your group but you can take care of a whole encounter with this power honestly.

Also there is variant channeling. Despite casters having a good will save progression their will isn't that great, exception clerics and Druids. So you could channel madness, rulership, or others to daze, confuse, or otherwise disable them. Your channeling will scale at the same pace their will progression will unless they are wisdom casters so it remains a useful tool to the end of game.

Add on: all this that I proposed could actually be included into a single character. Ecclisitheurge would have the easisest time integrating all of it but your far from limited to that alone.