Wizard or cleric for small party


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Hey guys,

I have a question about the pros and cons of wizards and clerics. I am playing in party of only two. My partner is a monk. I'm wondering which caster would be a better compliment in this situation.

Also, in general, if you were only going to have one spell caster in normal size party, would you rather it be a cleric or a wizard and why?

Thanks.


I would probably go for a druid. With only one caster you need to be able to cover all bases. Your party is also small so summoning is going to be a big help. With a druid you can convert any spell into s summon natures ally. You also have the cure spells on your list so you can use wands of healing to function as the healer. You have a decent amount of damaging spells, including area of effect spells. Without these swarms are a real pain to deal with.


Mysterious Stranger wrote:
I would probably go for a druid. With only one caster you need to be able to cover all bases. Your party is also small so summoning is going to be a big help. With a druid you can convert any spell into s summon natures ally. You also have the cure spells on your list so you can use wands of healing to function as the healer. You have a decent amount of damaging spells, including area of effect spells. Without these swarms are a real pain to deal with.

Thanks for the response. Can't clerics also be summoners though? I know you wouldn't be able to spontaneously summon, but still. Also, would you say wizard is not viable just due to it's lack of healing?


Druids lack key clerical spells. Having Heal late, reincarnate instead of raise dead/resurrection, and not having restoration or all the remove X spells could hurt.

Wizard, obviously, doesn't have the removes or restores either, except curse.

Witch can get everything with the healing patron so would be an option, but you have another problem: only one front liner. You don't want a 1:1 front to back ratio unless your party is significantly oversized.

Oracle can do the job with pages of spell knowledge, but the weak fortitude save is a serious liability on the front line when you don't have another healer.

There aren't actually any necessary arcane spells. Clerics have teleportation substitutes and invisibility purge can substitute for see invisible in a pinch.

That all points to cleric, either an old style battle cleric or a reach build.

In a normal sized party I'd say healing patron witch. They get all the necessities and a bit of everything and three non-casters is adequate protection for a single squishy unless they're all rogues and melee incompetent archers. Of cleric and wizard I'd still choose cleric. Wizard spells, while they are stronger and tend to have more narrative power are ultimately luxuries. Restoration, the Remove X line, Raise Dead, Breath of Life, and Heal are necessities if they come up.


Atarlost wrote:
That all points to cleric, either an old style battle cleric or a reach build.

Thanks for the response. All good things to consider. Going with cleric, what domains/subdomains would you consider? Being in a two person party, I'll have to be more than just pure support. I'm thinking that will likely affect this choice. Perhaps something that augments summons or at least includes summons as domain spells?

Silver Crusade

With two players the Druid, or Witch are the best choices for full caster. You could also go with a few other options that work well. Hunter, Inquisitor, or Warpriest. You will need some one that can heal. However you will also need some one that can fight. At low to Mid levels the monk will get over run buy bad guys. At higher level the monk can't deal enough damage to be the only front liner. Even if your focus on crowd control. The hit point totals are just to much for most characters to handle.


calagnar wrote:
With two players the Druid, or Witch are the best choices for full caster. You could also go with a few other options that work well. Hunter, Inquisitor, or Warpriest. You will need some one that can heal. However you will also need some one that can fight. At low to Mid levels the monk will get over run buy bad guys. At higher level the monk can't deal enough damage to be the only front liner. Even if your focus on crowd control. The hit point totals are just to much for most characters to handle.

What about using summons to soak some front line damage?


I am fairly noobish but summons seem to be great for soaking up damage and flanking. They tend to be below the power curve though so they are not a reliable output of damage. They are great though because they do not need healing. Low level summons are useful for getting rid of traps.


Both Clerics and Wizards can summon, but they have to memorize the relevant spell. The druids advantage is that he can memorize another combat spell and convert it to a summon natures ally if needed. This means that every spell you can cast is actually also a summon natures ally. This in effect doubles your options. The cleric has a similar advantage when it comes to cure spells, but cure spell are more easily replaced with wands.

The wizard does lack healing, and is also very fragile. With such a small party there the wizard is more likely to be in melee combat which puts him at a severe disadvantage. As a druid you get wildshape and after 5th level when you pick up natural spell you can spend your time as a bird and fly above the battle and still cast spells. Or you can use wildshape to turn into a combat capable animal.

Druids do lack some important healing but offer a more in the way of offensive spells than a cleric. With only one spell caster you will need to figure out ways to cover somethings no matter what class.


You could consider an Investigator or Alchemist, probably melee focused given the small party size. They won't be as straight-up powerful as a Cleric but still have good condition-removal and utility extracts as long as you get the Infusion discovery. Both of these also have very solid skill ability, allowing them to contribute more as faces, scouts or sages than the average Cleric. Clerics can be good combatants and good casters, but 2 skill points per level in a class which has INT as a dumpstat limits you.

Playing a sole caster might be a good time to use a Shaman, too. They've got the same survivability as Clerics but a lot more flexibility. If you get a generous point-buy to compensate for the small party they only get better.


Ok in a 2 person party normally I would say cleric without any hesitation, but you are in a party with a monk. Monks benefit especially well with arcane support (mage armor, enlarge person, shield, haste, ect), so I would actually suggest the white mage arcanist. You can heal but you still have access to all those delicious arcane buffs. Witches would also fill this role quite well (and a white haired witch can be an adequate front liner). If you want a little less support and more filling the role yourself I think I agree with hunter or druid. You can front line, you have an AC to front line, and you can still heal everyone as need be.

The best of both worlds is the lunar mystery oracle (duel cursed or spirit guide). You get heals, you get a tiger, you have great armor with the Prophetic Armor revelation, and you have a high charisma so you can UMD those arcane buffs out of wands. With spirit guide you get a little of the versatility of prepared casters (swapping the spirit gives you access to spells you won't need every day like restoration) where as misfortune from duel cursed is a huge help defensively (1 free save reroll/day for both of you, and 1 free reroll/enemy on crits vs you.) and very much appreciated in a 2 person party where if one of you go down the party is half dead. Additionally natural weapons makes for an adequate melee option with very little investment (power attack) so you can save feats for utility to cover all the other rolls.


I don't know how much influence you have over the other player, but a monk is a -terrible- choice for a two person party, and I like monks. They don't do enough damage, don't have a high enough AC, don't have enough hit points, and don't bring any party-useful skills to the table.

I only suggest this because you seem very accommodating about class choice, and your partner seems quite self indulgent.


I believe you're going to have two primary roles in a 2-person party. 1) Battlefield Control
2) Keeping the Monk upright and effective.

After that you're going to look at damaging the opponents, but you can also do that as a side effect of the two primary goals above.

Dare I say it, but you may just want to take a look at bard. UMD with wands or even just scrolls of the cleric condition removal spells you don't have access to, but otherwise you have the best buffer in the game, you are a capable combatant, you have both healing and summoning in addition to buffing/debuffing.


If going with a cleric, you should consider Travel as one of the domains. It will allow your cleric to better keep up with the Monk for overland travel, as well as later proving teleportation.


In a two person party: Master Summoner. Real, tangible bodies that stick around and will take the brunt of the beatings. This is better than any healer. Also, they can heal after combat. They come with a very impressive thief eidolon for free. They get buffs early to make the monk matter more.

In a normal party C v. W, cleric. Clerics make everyone a viable player by canceling the annoying penalties that make play much less fun. Clerics stop the fringe monsters like Shadows from wiping the whole party. Clerics can take hangover and evangelist builds to keep doing stuff all day.

I love wizards and play them frequently, but they start agonizingly slow, get acceptable and interesting and then explode the game and fly to their own demi-plane. They are not a class to do all the things as much as they do their own thing and that thing is often amazing.


Two-player parties are tricky, and invariably involve coordination and compromise to work fully. You can cover some of the bases well, or all of them semi-competently - as long as you work together and avoid overlap where possible. Adapting to the known limitations of the campaign can also be of benefit: Lots of Undead? Choose Knowledge (Religion) and Favored Enemies appropriately.

To give really good input we need to know more about the monk involved. What are they specialised in? What skills and combat role do they cover?

What sort of campaign is it? If it's intrigue then you might need a "face" character more than condition removal. If your GM is just going to throw half the Bestiary at you then skills could be an afterthought.


In such a small party you need to be a cleric between the two because a cleric has much better survival and can within some limits grab a fair chunk of the wizards best spells. Having channeling for out of combat healing is a big plus as well.


I would use a Cleric with the Animal subdomain, in fact. Or a druid if dont mind playing one instead.

Clerics are also more versatile in the role-filling department...fight or cast comes more naturally as an option to them is what I mean.


Druid.

You start out with an animal companion, you can summon more allies on a whim, can heal and in a few levels, shapeshift.

If you're 100% committed to either cleric or wizard, I'd go cleric.

Grand Lodge

Summoner, as mentioned above, could be an option. They have buff spells, they have an eidolon, and, if the eidolon goes down, they get to cast standard action summon monster spells with minute per level duration instead of round per level. And, as a Charisma casting class, they can do the UMD thing, too.


One problem with a summoner is that their spell list is pretty much strictly buffs. They lack healing, battle field control, and direct damage spells. The druid has all of these. Another thing to consider is the fact that this will be the only spell caster in the party, and the only other character is a monk. This means this character will be the only source of magic. The summoner is a spontaneous caster with a very limited number of spells. The druid knows every spell he is capable of casting. In this respect he is actually even better off than a wizard. The wizard is still limited by the spells that he knows. Chances are he will have a decent number, but it is unlikely he will know all wizard spells. Depending on the books owned a first level druid knows around 70 1st level spells, a summoner can know a maximum of 6 1st level spells.

The animal companion has one advantage over the eidolon. When the summoner is unconscious or sleeping the eidolon goes away. The animal companion can act as a guardian even when the character is asleep, or unconscious.


Okay I'll say it, *shrug* which one do you wish to play?

Dark Archive

Summoner is an excellent choice. Especially Master Summoner. Once you have access to those nice outsiders with their healing spells, you don't need built in healing ability. Especially since your summons last minutes per level, and have lots of their own built in SLAs. Don't forget the Augment feat tree, and the various alignment based summon feats. A good summoner can honestly probably solo things, and carry that monk you're going to be saddled with when it turns out to be awful at what it does.


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You probably need to be a Cleric for the combination of combat ability (hard to make Witch work for this, now that Scarred Witch Doctor got Errata-warped) and status removal (hard to get most fighting types to do this -- Paladin can do it at high levels, but that leaves you hanging for a long time). Be a Reach Cleric if you can, even though it won't take full advantage of your Dwarven weapon selection (see below), because in a party of just 2, action economy is even more important than usual. This will make you MAD, even worse since you are going to be a front-liner in a very small (and thus easily surrounded) party, so be a Dwarf Forgemaster Cleric. This replaces Channel Energy (which is Charisma-dependent), which isn't going to be very good in a party of 2, thereby making you less MAD than a normal Reach Cleric. The replacement is Runeforger, which helps you make your weapons and especially your armor better, although don't go crazy trying to boost this ability (it is Intelligence-dependent instead of Charisma-dependent, although cotrary to the guide linked above you are going to want at least a passable Intelligence to have a decent number of skill ranks per level, again because the party is so small). You also get Craft Magic Arms and Armor as a bonus feat at 3rd level, and Master Smith makes your crafting better starting at 5th level. Unfortunately, you only get the Artifice Domain. Being a Dwarf boosts your Constitution and Wisdom (which you need since you are IT for bad status removal -- best to make sure you don't get bad status in the first place), as well as giving you +2 (+4 with Steel Soul) on Saves versus Spells and Spell-Like Abilities and +4 on your CMD for some of the more common maneuvers, and Stonecunning to partially make up for lack of a trapfinding character, Darkvision, and a decent selection of weapons that Clerics dont normally get proficiency to out of the box. Trade out Greed for Craftsman to make your crafting even better. Trade out Hatred for Fey Thoughts to get more class skills, or for Giant Hunter if you are up against a lot of Giants; you might want to trade out Stonecunning for Rock Stepper (gets you through some of the more common types of Difficult Terrain), although Stonecunning itself is pretty important; also, being in a party of just 2 that lacks an arcane caster, you might consider trading out Hardy for Magic-Resistant (gives you Spell Resistance), althogh you can't improve it with Steel Soul.

Edit:

Legio_MCMLXXXVII wrote:
Summoner is an excellent choice. Especially Master Summoner. Once you have access to those nice outsiders with their healing spells, you don't need built in healing ability. Especially since your summons last minutes per level, and have lots of their own built in SLAs. Don't forget the Augment feat tree, and the various alignment based summon feats. A good summoner can honestly probably solo things, and carry that monk you're going to be saddled with when it turns out to be awful at what it does.

If you're going to go the Master Summoner route, focus on summoning Angels, and try to confince your Monk friend to ride a BMX.


Druids are awesome! However, in a two man party, there is no comparison between a Druid and a Summoner, especially a master summoner.

Druids have no depth or staying power compared to Summoners and staying power is what matters in a 2 man group.

tl;dr: drop the monk and take a Druid and Summoner;)

At level one:

healing: summoner gets infernal healing. It's the best level 1 healing spell, with 10 hp of healing. Druid gets a 1d8+2 if they are a Menhir Savant. They prep with berries on their day off. The Druid and Summoner both get no better heals at spell level 2.

Battle field control: Summoner = grease. That's good enough. Druids have more, but the best require plants. At spell level 2, you're comparing Stone Call and Create Pit, both of which are awesome.

Direct damage: Summoners have snowball, which is o.k. Honestly that's what the summons are for. Druids throw flame. Again, a menhir savant get's two throws, so is better here. Flaming sphere for the Druid is the clear win here.

Survival skills: Druid wins via class skills and spell list.

Interaction & puzzle solving: Summoner wins via class skills and pet.

Spells Know: druid wins.

Spells per day: summoner by a factor of 3 to 4. They get a full rack of 7-9 summons and 2 flex spells. druids get 2 spells.

Companion: Summoner wins. Unless the druid is running a pet spinosaurus, the summoner's companion has better stats, better attacks, can run weapons, is sentient, can break traps and can't be killed for longer than a day. It has the option for outrageous skills on demand. It can talk and solve complex tasks on it's own accord. The animal companion makes a better guard while sleeping for one night.

Combat: Druids are slightly behind with a nerfed weapon and armor list, but either way, if you're relying on a 3/4 BAB class to win combat at level 1-4, you're pretty dead.


If you are using Master Summoner the druid animal companion is a lot tougher. The Eidolon is at half his level. The druids animal companion Is as strong in combat as the characters so effectively adds another character. The half strength Eidolon is likely to be killed very easily.

The summon mastery is limited by two things one it has a fixed number of uses and you only gain more uses by increasing your CHA. At lower levels this favors summoner, but at higher level the druid has the advantage. Also If the Eidolon is present you can only have one summon monster spell in affect at one time. The druid can convert every spell he has to a summon and still have his animal companion with him.
The summoner at this level has 5 1st level, 5 2nd level and 3 3rd level spells. The Druid has 5 1st level spells, 4 2nd level spells, 4 3rd level spells and 3 4th level spells. The Druid not only has more spells he is a full level ahead on what he can cast. The Druid maxes out at 9th level spells compared to the summoners 6th. Clearly the druid wins on magic.

The summoner can summon without using spells so this is a bonus for him. The druid on the other hand gets wildshape so at 8th level turns into a Dire Tiger. I figure this is probably a draw.

Druids get medium armor and better weapon choices than the summoner. The can also use dragon hide breastplate, or can sped a feat for heavy armor and use dragon hide plate. A low level druid can use a scimitar and shield. At higher level the druid fights in animal form so clearly wins here as will.

Grand Lodge

What about a Paladin? You can team up in melee with your monk friend, you can heal, you can restore stat damage with lesser restoration spells. At level 5, you will almost certainly want to get the mount option and have the animal to help out.

Another interesting option might be bard, who kind of bridges the gap between arcane and divine. You just have to build it to be combat effective. either with a high dex and be an archer, or high strength to melee with your monk friend.


Bit_Squid wrote:
Atarlost wrote:
That all points to cleric, either an old style battle cleric or a reach build.
Thanks for the response. All good things to consider. Going with cleric, what domains/subdomains would you consider? Being in a two person party, I'll have to be more than just pure support. I'm thinking that will likely affect this choice. Perhaps something that augments summons or at least includes summons as domain spells?

The travel domain is probably the best. Liberation and Luck are very good (Desna). I think liberation is probably the better of the two for a two person party. If you expect to be mostly fighting evil the good domain (Caiden or Desna) is pretty good. The Caves subdomain (Abadar) provides some lower level battlefield control.


So you want a cleric, and you want a summoner... try out the Herald Caller. You lose one domain and medium armor proficiency. In exchange you get:
- Spontaneous summon monster spells
- Augment Summoning and Superior Summoning as bonus feats
- A few miscellaneous buffs to your interactions with your summons

Pick up Sacred Summons so you can summon as a standard action and you're looking at the framework for a pretty solid reach cleric.


Druids are awesome!

tl;dr: Druids take better care of themselves. A Master Summoner is better for a two man with a monk. Both are powerful, awesome classes.

In depth:

There is no question that the Druid is the better overall spell caster in terms of more levels of spells sooner and more selections. The Druid wins more combats with their immediate spells effects and can benefit much more from metamagic, which is HUGE. They are a 9 level progression as compared to the psuedo-9 of the summoner.

By mid levels the druid is the better melee combatant and remains so for the rest of the game. Wild shape is awesome, despite the nerfs to it, and is a huge advantage, but forces MAD pretty badly, because you no longer get the stats of the creature. It is the best way to get around ever (EARTHGLIDE!).

However, at your spell level, the summoner has 7-9 additional druid-max-level summon SLA's, which cast in a single standard action and last minutes per level in addition to their spells. That's still superior to the druid's total spell volume.

The summoner has superior spell effect volume for the entire game, as well as the most max level "spell" slots of any character at every level. All they do is summon or gate, but that's basically the second best spell effect set in the game after wish.

As well, SM>SNA, because SM summons cast more spells themselves and have strong feat and item support, like Neutral Summoning and better affinity rings.

Master Summoners also have a nova strike that is unparalleled in action-economy and power. Bringing 30-40 creatures to the board for several minutes is plain crazy in a game centered around 5 weaker actions (PCs) vs. 1-4 stronger actions (NPCs) per round.

The summoner is the better wizard/crafter. They have the feat space and spells to support it.

An animal companion is not equivalent to a character at any level other than 1st and the growth level (e.g. 4th for apes). They have poor hp for a tank and are hard to replace mid-adventure. The CR calculations for an AC never get much higher than 12 at level 20.

An animal companion is a better combat character than the Master summoner's eidolon, but the MS eidolon is a much better party member, because he can trapfind, scout and act independently. He takes the smashing traps and poisons that would kill party members and AC's.

The AC heals naturally though, which is handy if you can prevent them from dying. The 24 hour replacement, plus correct environment, can make in place replacements very hard.

If the question was "Which one do I want in a normal party?", either class is awesome. I've run both (although not a regular summoner yet) and love them both and they both do a ton.

If the question is which one is the better teammate in a 2-man with a monk, the Master Summoner is better, because he helps the monk more, has more total casting depth and brings a passable thief along with him, which the druid, MS and monk all badly need. Druid is still a great choice, and should be selected first if it's a mostly nature oriented campaign.


As for being a cleric, consider a hangover cleric. Those dazes will be really helpful in mitigating your small teams' action economy.


Herald Caller Cleric. Can spontaneously summon and cure/inflict, is a 9-level caster, and still channels and such. Gets a couple necessary summoning feats, and some skill points too. Gives up medium armor, shields, your special weapon and a domain, which is worth it for what you get.


A Cleric would be a strong choice, because in your two-member system, you have to be the healer... or the holder of wands. I would recommend Druid for the singular flavor, and the animal companion is a welcome additional "member" to have on the field to keep you from getting swamped (Cleric spell list is nice, but casting unmolested still as a tier 9 is even better), plus the eventual Wildshape would give you an additional option. The Monk is pretty low-maintenance and a good companion, though I hope they would have a ranged option just in case the problem cannot be solved by melee.

If I was DMing this, I would highly advise being able to take Leadership at 7 to allow your pair to fairly challenge regular encounters.

Without traits, the DM may need to factor in your lack of Rogue abilities in the group, so hopefully they convert the traps into Haunts or something your Divine caster can handle.

Option three... Oracle? It can focus better than a Cleric but remains a primary healer if your willing to cope with a "disability" early on.

A Monk and an Oracle embarking on a Mystery/Journey. Maybe to the West...

P.S. The advice above about Summoner is something to be considered. Done right, its like having a pet Fighter (one that doesn't argue about being a meat shield) while still having Tier 6 Arcane and early access to some of the best spells in the game ahead of a Wizard. A Level 7 Summoner with a single mythic path ability of Crusader from Champion (Dual Path assuming you go Archmage) would effectively have an Eidelon, and two Level 5 Companions. Between your four and the Monk's one, you conceivably match a regular 4-member party.


Also check out soe of the suggestions in this thread.


Avaricious wrote:

A Cleric would be a strong choice, because in your two-member system, you have to be the healer... or the holder of wands. I would recommend Druid for the singular flavor, and the animal companion is a welcome additional "member" to have on the field to keep you from getting swamped (Cleric spell list is nice, but casting unmolested still as a tier 9 is even better), plus the eventual Wildshape would give you an additional option. The Monk is pretty low-maintenance and a good companion, though I hope they would have a ranged option just in case the problem cannot be solved by melee.

If I was DMing this, I would highly advise being able to take Leadership at 7 to allow your pair to fairly challenge regular encounters.

Without traits, the DM may need to factor in your lack of Rogue abilities in the group, so hopefully they convert the traps into Haunts or something your Divine caster can handle.

Option three... Oracle? It can focus better than a Cleric but remains a primary healer if your willing to cope with a "disability" early on.

A Monk and an Oracle embarking on a Mystery/Journey. Maybe to the West...

P.S. The advice above about Summoner is something to be considered. Done right, its like having a pet Fighter (one that doesn't argue about being a meat shield) while still having Tier 6 Arcane and early access to some of the best spells in the game ahead of a Wizard. A Level 7 Summoner with a single mythic path ability of Crusader from Champion (Dual Path assuming you go Archmage) would effectively have an Eidelon, and two Level 5 Companions. Between your four and the Monk's one, you conceivably match a regular 4-member party.

Druids are missing key condition removal spells, lack breath of life, and are late to heal. Oracles have poor fortitude saves. You really don't want your only healer to have a poor fortitude save when he has to double as a front liner due to the small party size. Also, scrolls are not a good solution to the spells known bottleneck: several condition removers have caster level checks. You have to use pages of spell knowledge and they're a less common item.


Good points Atarlost. I just got lost in seeing their strengths, lol. Single-Save kinda crips the Oracle, but I hate seeing someone get reverted to a healbot with tertiary damaging abilities. Kinda makes the Paladin recommendations more attractive. Both characters have awesome saves then, and the Paladin will stay up long enough to heal through the pain.


Healing is not the only thing that is needed. This character is going to be the sole source of magic for the group. It needs to be able to cover as much magic as possible. The druid has one of the most diverse spell lists out there. The have a little bit of everything on their list. While they may not be the best at everything, or even anything the fact is they can do just about everything.

Also with a party this small they are going to have to readjust their tactics. The standard attack the enemies’ tactics are going to be dangerous. Probably the best way to deal with a lot of encounters will be to avoid them. The monk has pretty good stealth and perception so this should not be a problem for him. A cleric does not have many skill points and lacks most of the skills to avoid encounters. The Druid gets more skills and the only skill that is not a class skill he needs is stealth. A single trait can get this as a class skill.

The cleric wearing medium armor and carrying a shield is going to fairly obvious. A peasant (Monk) with a dog (Druid) may be ignored by a lot of things. By 8th level the druid can turn into a huge animal which means he can take the form of a Roc. This would be a pretty good way to travel.

The Exchange

Unfortunately stealth only works when the GM decides to allow it to. And the pathfinder system is not meant for sneaking around. Most GMs do not care for you sneaking around avoiding encounters anyway. Id actually do half elven lunar oracle, use ancient lorekeeper archtype to pick wizard spells (mage armor, invisibility etc.).

Human fcb improves the number of spells known. Later, lunar oracles can wildshape too, lol. Unfortunately a lack of any way to get natural spell will screw your casting over.


If your GM is such a jerk as to not allow you to use Stealth, you're hosed anýway.

Granted, a peasant with a dog or a pair of peasants might not be the stealthiest/least noticed combination everywhere, but this will be a stealthier combination over a larger geographic area than most other things.


A Herald Caller cleric with either the Fire(Ash) or Animal(Feather) domain..... Ash domain gives you some extra blasts and a great de-buff, Wall of Ash

Feather domain has some good bonuses and access to a fully powered animal companion via Boon Companion

Cleric spell list is overall better than the Druids and with Herald Caller, you get your summons very nicely ramped and with +4 skill points. Monster Summoning is massively helpful with a small party and the Herald Caller is possibly one of the very best there is when it comes to summoning..... go unaligned cleric, choose the best alignment and finally gets some decent mileage out of sacred summons!


^From my own inspection, I would say that this is true overall, but Druid gets better battlefield control in some situations (Entangle), and Summon Nature's Ally, despite summoning generally weaker allies, does have one strength, which is that your enemies can't cripple your summons with Protection/Magic Circle Against {Whatever Alignment} (which you might not be able to dispel, or at least have to waste one or possibly more standard actions dispelling -- this is partially alleviated if you can summon multiple things that have their own Dispel Magic, although off the top of my head I can't think of which summons do this).

Still, I have to say Herald Caller looks pretty good, even if you don't get the extended duration summons of a Summoner.


Battle power might be the most important thing, but don't forget the other core problem in dungeons: Traps. You need to have a way to get through these. Then you'll run into magical effects, without a way to dispell them you'll probably have trouble. Clw-wand takes care of healing HP but you should have a way to heal stat dmg.


Bit_Squid wrote:

Hey guys,

I have a question about the pros and cons of wizards and clerics. I am playing in party of only two. My partner is a monk. I'm wondering which caster would be a better compliment in this situation.

Also, in general, if you were only going to have one spell caster in normal size party, would you rather it be a cleric or a wizard and why?

Thanks.

Spell Sage Wizard.

You cast wizard spells.
Spell Sage archetype lets you also cast Druid, Cleric and Bard spells, although limited numbers of times per day. However, considering the trend in Pathfinder is to out damage instead of out heal, this isn't a major problem.

Alternatively, there is the Witch or the unlettered arcanist (this one lets you use exploits as offense if you want).


I'd make an abyssal or serpentine sorcerer; because they sound like fun. I think wizards are better because they have better spells.


My suggestion - whichever one appeals to you. Then, get Use Magic Device and a few scrolls and you're fine.


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A warpriest may work in place of a cleric; or better yet, a sacred fist in place of the monk (possibly a sohei 1/sacred fist, to wear armor for the first couple levels).

For the second character, a bard might be a better choice than a summoner for the extra skills; arcane duelist for combat emphasis or archivist works well as a rogue replacement (since Magic Lore allows disarming of magical traps; a dwarf gains pseudo-Trap Spotter in most dungeons with Stonecunning), although archaeologist can do both (but can't buff allies with Bardic Performance). Similarly, a hunter might be better than a druid, if you really want a "pet" class; divine hunter gains a domain in place of teamwork feats, feral hunter trades the animal companion for Wild Shape and a bit more utility with summon nature's ally, and primal companion hunter allows the character to apply evolutions to the animal companion.


For this duo, if the options are cleric and wizard, I would choose cleric. You have decent melee capability, good armor options, and excellent support spells as you gain levels. In a four person group---assuming the other PCs have no casting---I'd prefer wizard. Wizard is more pro-active and can potentially buff the group, throw out some battlefield control and deal area damage.

All that said, I would avoid playing a cleric or wizard in either group if the main reason is "I need the most powerful caster possible because I'll be carrying this team".

Monks pair nicely with rogues (mobile combatant, stealthy, skilled,lots of chances for UMD), druids (fight/cast/sneak/summon without turning into a heal-bot), bards (buffing, archery or melee, UMD). Even fighter or ranger would be decent. You can debate how much cooler you are, run away from swarms together and bicker on how it was their turn to buy potions.

tl;dr: pick your class based on what would be fun.


Between the two choices I'd go with the cleric even though I agree that druid and witch would be stronger choices. In a small party encounters are going to last longer, which means you'll get more actions per encounter. As a wizard you will quickly deplete your spells and then be a crappy crossbowman. As a cleric you can at least still be a decent melee combatant. The same would go for the druid but the druid list provides in my opinion more flexibility and so does wild shape. The witch has its hexes which do not use resources. Just my 2c...


If you're interested in the Herald Caller cleric archetype, you should also consider the Monster Tactician, an Inquisitor archetype that gets the Summoner's Summon Monster ability. In combat, the Monster Tactician has a few advantages:
1. It can summon as a standard action rather than a full-round action. A cleric can do this as well with Sacred Summons, but only with creatures whose alignment subtype–not their alignment–exactly matches your aura. I can't find a list of options that qualify for Sacred Summons, but to my understanding, the list would be small.
2. Your summons will gain access to one or more of your teamwork feats. For example, you could give them Outflank or Precise Strike to increase their accuracy or damage when flanking.
3. An Inquisitor adds his wisdom modifier to his initiative. Going first can mean grappling the enemy wizard before he tries to blind you.
4. If you want to mix it up yourself, you can add Bane to your weapon starting at fifth level.

Outside of combat, the Inquisitor has six skill points a level, a broader class skill list, a scaling bonus to Sense Motive and Intimidate, and a spell list that includes Invisibility and its ken.

Summoning can be fun, but it also takes preparation to do well. It might also overshadow the monk, so it might not be the best fit for the game, even if it's a strong option.


A Witch is too squishy for a party this small. Pre-Errata Scarred Witch Doctor would have been good for this mini-party, but the recent Errata changed it into more or less a standard Witch, being too squishy for a party this small, but overpowered for a standard-sized party (seems like the developers forgot that Half-Orcs can put their ability score bonus anywhere). Hexcrafter Magus, on the other hand, could do some serious damage, although again bad status removal will be problematic. With Magus in a party this small, you also have to be careful not to put too many spellcasting development eggs into one basket, because if you come up against enemies that are immune or even just highly resistant to one pony trick, you are in more trouble than if this happened in a larger party, where you have more than 1 other character to cover for your improper preparation.

A Bard that doesn't trade out buffing performances isn't going to do so well in a party this small, due to the small number of party members to buff.

A Summoner initially has trouble with bad status removal, but I could have sworn that eventually some of the summons have bad status removal capability of their own.

Speaking of bad status removal and also needing trap removal? Investigator is right up your (dark) alley, although the bad status removal comes online rather late.

Need more study, but Mesmerist might work, although you are going to need UMD and a CLW or Infernal Healing Wand for healing and eventually a few Remove Disease/Poison Scrolls, and again the bad status removal, while available other than the exceptions just noted, comes online late.

Need more study, but Occultist might work, although you are going to need UMD and a Lesser Restoration Wand and eventually a few Break Enchantment/Remove Curse Scrolls.

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