New spells are a huge class feature. Granted, you don't get access to new spells on even levels, but spells are huge.
What level did you just hit? And what spells are you looking at? Maybe we could point you towards some cool ones.
We leveld up and everyone was getting all these awesome class features every level! And I look at my Cleric and go "I get a 1d6 increase in Channel Energy every other level.."
Well, an even level in cleric also nets you a decent boost to both Fortitude and Will and a small power increase for every spell (and domain power) which scales with half the level. Finally, the second domain power is placed on an even level. Most of this is not exciting, but helpful. If you want exciting, maybe you are better off with cleric's cool cousin, the oracle. Which comes with its own problems...
It's likely a legacy problem. When the full casters from 3.5 got their overhaul, Paizo didn't implement the 'no class feature gap' rule of thumb consequently. Given that 9th level casting is extremely powerful already, I can't blame them - it's difficult to add something significant on top of this class feature without making the class overpowered. Or even more overpowered, if you ask some people here on the boards.
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Problem here is that you're playing a very bland and boring class, the Cleric. Sure, they get full Spell progression, have a solid spell list, and get Channel Energy, they don't get much else. Domains are a thing, but don't offer the unique versatility that things like an Oracle get.
Fighters (pre-Master Handbooks) and Rogues (pre-Unchained) fall under a similar problem, because they level up linearly (Weapon Training and Sneak Attack), and not quadratically like other classes do. While Master Handbooks helped the Fighter immensely, and Unchained made Rogues not complete dog s#!^, they are still ultimately broken classes, and the Cleric isn't much different.
Barbarians getting things like Spell Sunder, or Paladins getting things like Auras, Magi with Spell Recall, Arcanist with Exploits...these are all things that provide powerful options that are unique and interesting, instead of just being assumed to have at certain intervals within the game.
@ SheepishEidolon: There are plenty of ways to make Clerics cool and interesting without making them stupidly overpowered. Gaining Deific Obedience feats as bonus feats, for example, would be pretty cool. Creating new features that give Clerics better quality-of-life options is another solid tactic.
An Unchained Cleric really needs to be done, simply because compared to a Fighter or Rogue (pre-options), a Cleric is perhaps the next most boring class there is.
i wouldn't say that fighters and rogues can'tbe interesting... but that tends to be build specific. often born from archetypes and other specific trade offs.
by default, yeah. they don't have much going on.
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I love Clerics but I aggree they lack the «wow!» factor. I sometimes had the feeling that I wasn't getting cool toys when leveling up but then I started noting the interesting new spells that I had access to and it helped a lot because making a list of the spells I would use made me feel like I was getting a lot of cool tools, and unlike a wizard, I didn't have to choose. I got them all.
Compared with choosing new hexes and spells with my witch, I admit it's not as exciting, but I have the advantage of usually thinking that everything is cool, so I don't have that problem.
«Hey, I'm getting a crappy domain power that I'm never going to use! How cool!» <—That's me.
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«Hey, I'm getting a crappy domain power that I'm never going to use! How cool!» <—That's me.
Another idea they can use for Unchained Cleric is that, instead of having to choose between 2 Domains/Sub-Domains, they take all of the Domain and Sub-Domain options and combine them into overall options they can take (similar to Oracle Mysteries with their Revelations), and split the level 1 and level 8 (or whatever) domain powers into Lesser and Greater Domain Powers, similar to how Warpriests have Minor and Major Blessings.
I'd think choosing Domain Powers at 1st, 4th, and every 3 levels after 4th, with access to the Greater Domain Powers by 10th level, with a lot of the Scaling options requiring multiple selections, would be appropriate for making the class more useful and less boring.
I'd definitely add more relevance for the chosen Domains for Clerics as a way to make them more different.
What I meant is not that the Domain powers are cool/not cool, it was just a way of saying that when my character gains something new I am easily excited about it, no matter if it's not very good, circumstancial or I'm never going to use it. I am easy to conform.
I am all for allowing clerics more interesting options, and I think expanding domains, boons and obediences is a good way to approach it. I would love to see some of these ideas expanded upon.
I also don't play with people who would use these ideas to try and make the rest of the party into supporting cast irrelevancies. Well, not any more.
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As Dalindra and I are the only ones in our gaming groups who aren't against playing clerics, I don't have an issue with that kind of clerics either. But I've had the opposite reaction from some players when I was the cleric and I went into melee buffed and enlarged and they asked me why was I doing that when I should be staying in the back healing. Healing what? Everybody was at full HP and I was finishing enemies before they got to harm anyone!
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Killeana
Play your cleric the way you enjoy it.
If another player has strong feelings that clerics must be played a different way, encourage them to play another cleric their way.
One True Way is always wrong.
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People's general attitude towards Clerics is all wobbly in my opinion.
'Why on earth would I heal you? I'm way better at killing things than you are, buy a potion.'
the only problem with that would be that it'd remove the flavour element of getting things tied to how your god works and that you only focus on 2 aspects of them - if you could choose between the various domains and subdomains it might help but there wouldn't be that much choice and it'd probably make them more powerful as more choice usually does
I love playing support and healer clerics, don't get me wrong. But in combat I'd rather be hitting things than healing unless it's really necessary. I buff and cast most of my spells out of combat so I can focus on more combat oriented things when we have to fight.
Give the Cleric deific obedience (or some equivalent obedience) at lvl 2 or 4, and let it kick in at 6 or 8HD, 10 or 12HD and 14 or 16HD, could be a not too powerfull improvement.
What we found to replace clerics are Nanite Hypoguns. Works like a charm and doesn't b+*&! all the time about gods and such. :-)
I played a straight fighter for an entire AP. This was in the early years of PF and we had just come off of 3.5, so we were playing Core only, eventually adding some content from the APG. So I would get jealous of the other players and the way they could do stuff. Just stuff in general. ;)
But, none of them could deal my reliable min damage (edited to add: the Paladin came the closest), and the AP was combat heavy, so it didn't bother me over all. It was a hoot to be able to—more or less—just walk right up to something big and pound it. Every now and then, though, it would have been nice to be able to do something other than "hit thing with object".
Note: I am not interested in another discussion on martial/caster disparity or the shortcomings of straight fighter. I liked playing the character and we had fun.
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As a fan of spellcaster classes I can say that I'd totally play a vanilla Fighter and enjoy it.
I've fallen in love with the build my fellow Fighter in RoW has, it works great and seems very fun to play.
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The worst thing about Sorcerer progression to me is they get their new bloodline spell on odd levels rather than even, I never understood why that was the case.
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Give the Cleric deific obedience (or some equivalent obedience) at lvl 2 or 4, and let it kick in at 6 or 8HD, 10 or 12HD and 14 or 16HD, could be a not too powerfull improvement.I can't recommend the divine paragon cleric archetype enough. ^_^
Yup, I consider it kind of standart for my clerics these days.
Although I still think the cleric could use some kind of "un-chaining" to make it pop out a bit more in players minds...then again it might be more my almost pathological need to fiddle with the minor class feature to make them more, well, more my own ^^.
The worst thing about Sorcerer progression to me is they get their new bloodline spell on odd levels rather than even, I never understood why that was the case.
It's an attempt to give the class less levels with dead features, to be quite honest. Though, some of the bloodline spells are pretty powerful, and otherwise not even accessible to other types of Sorcerers, so it's not like the bloodline spells are all that bad.
To give an example, my PF group have been testing out this general progression table:
1. Feat
2. Feat
3. Feat
4. Ability
5. Feat
6. Ability
7. Feat
8. Ability
9. Feat
10. Feat
11. Feat
12. Ability
13. Feat
14. Ability
15. Feat
16. Ability
17. Feat
18. Feat
19. Feat
20. Ability
It was made mostly to cover for more things getting turned into feats, and because most of my players don't consider ability manuals/tomes to be a thing to hand out (wishes are still okay though).
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The worst thing about Sorcerer progression to me is they get their new bloodline spell on odd levels rather than even, I never understood why that was the case.It's an attempt to give the class less levels with dead features, to be quite honest. Though, some of the bloodline spells are pretty powerful, and otherwise not even accessible to other types of Sorcerers, so it's not like the bloodline spells are all that bad.
The problem is when a bloodline gives you the first spell you'd want to pick for your level later than the level you get access to the spell.
For example where an elemental bloodline sorc doing fire who wants scorching ray at 4.
Someone in your thread made an interesting suggestion, that they gain access to their bloodline spell when Wizards get their spell level, so they get scorching ray at 3, so they get their bloodline spell earlier than any spells they get to choose. I think that would be pretty kewl, maybe with just one spell slot of that level per day+ stat bonuses.
It happened to me with the Witch. I'd got Haste and Teleport as soon as I could, but I got it a level later. Haste wasn't a problem, as it wouldn't have been in my Witch spell list if it wasn't in my Patron spells. But I'd loved to get Teleport a level sooner. Fortunately our Wizard did so we could Teleport anyway.
As for the original question... there's nothing quite as tragic as gaining your second level of sorcerer.
I've got one better - a ley line guardian witch. Witch hexes are spaced so that they alternate with new levels of spells...on the witch's normal prepared casting progression where they get new spell levels on odd character levels. The ley line guardian uses a sorcerer progression, where they get new spell levels at even character levels. So even levels add to both their main class features (new spell levels and new hexes) and every odd level except the first is nothing but BAB/save/HP/skill point increases and feats, a.k.a. what every single other character gets.
I have mad love for my ley line guardian, but those levels are a bit mournful. And I even went with a VMC on mine, which means that half my feats are already prescribed, thus taking away my only real choice on every other odd level. (It's turned out to be sort of a good thing, though, as I'm usually so busy helping groupmates to level that I run out of time to dwell on it anyway.)
No, I never have. I've always been pretty happy with what I've played, no matter who I gamed with alongside.
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No, I never have. I've always been pretty happy with what I've played, no matter who I gamed with alongside.
I envy your lack of compulsion, to micro-manage any game system, you've gotten your hands Cal ^^.
Its really something I would be happy, to able to turn off, once I get into creating a character.
the other thing is I tend to know what people are going to get at each new level before we level which makes it harder to feel jealous, because I tend to know what I'm getting into.
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First time I played I was a 3.5 wizard. We started at level one, and only for a couple sessions.
Regretted my choice when I almost killed someone with a coup de Gras, and the barbarian killed three enemies in as many rounds...
It seems to me that the issue is more the build than the character itself. Can you post your ability scores and feats? Maybe we can help you to get something interesting out of it.
I've built 2 melee clerics lately (both NPCs) and they worked kinda fine. Both focused on status removal, buffing and healing out of combat while dealing a good damage in melee (divine favor, divine power and righteous might were some of my favorite self buffs, and I loved using Blessing of Fervor too).
Are you able to walk into some fights prepared or does the GM throw the enemies without giving time to cast a single spell in advance? Because that can make a difference between making the cleric a good melee fighter or a poor one. Clerics need preparation to deal good damage (a single turn is often enough). If you can get some buffs previous to battle, I'd invest in level 1 pearls of power and try to have divine favor casted on most battles. That will allow you to power attack without missing a lot of hits.
Your stats look pretty solid, but I'd definitely revise that feats. Power attack is a must if you plan getting into melee. Self sufficient is probably not being very useful.
If you want to craft, inscribe scroll is an awesome feat for a cleric so you don't have to prepare status removal or conditional spells.
Restoration? Scroll. Remove curse? Scroll. Delay poison? Scroll. Deathward? Scroll. Etc.
At this levels Iron Will is probably not being that useful, as you have a good Will save and high Wis score. I'd definitely drop it and take it later in the game of you have free feats.
Heavy armor proficiency feels almost like a must have. You have the perfect dexterity to wear the heaviest armor possible and it would help a lot at surviving.
About your spell selection, self buffs will be your best friends in combat. Don't even bother about damage spells. I usually prepare a spiritual weapon to deal some damage to incorporeals and that's it.
Communal protection and buff long lasting spells are also awesome.
About gear, pearls of power are great and a good weapon also helps, even though you can also cast magic weapon. To save some gold I usually skipped enchanting my armor entirely and went with magic vestment.
Buy a wand of cure light wounds so you don't have to use your own spells to heal and have free spell slots for useful spells. (Talk to your party to buy the wand as a communal good, as you will all be benefitting from it)
Well, I'm sorry if I couldn't provide a very extensive advice (there are people here that sure will make it a lot better than I) but I hope I was of use.
Of course, I don't know if some of your feats were chosen for roleplaying reasons and you feel you should have them. My advice is merely about mechanics so if you want to keep some of your feats for a roleplaying reason go for it
Lets see here, I have Str 17, Dex 13, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 16, Cha 10. I'm a human and my feats are Iron Will, Self Sufficient, Extra Channeling and Craft Magic Arms and Armor. We only just gt out of a dungeon where enemies would pounce us ocasionaly when we enterd a new room, And ocasionaly not. We dident realy know when we would be attacked.. But in combat if it seemed dangerous I'd throw up Bless and maybe a Summon monster and save the rest for if I needed to heal someone.
We are level 6, Arent super rich (Though we did just get a bunch of money from the dungeon)and have yet to visit a big town.
Rolls equivalent to 33 point buy? With stats like that, you should have no trouble(*). The only feat I would say is inadvisable is Extra Channel, since you don't have very good Channeling with Charisma 10. You have awesome enough physical stats that if you can get your Dexterity boosted even by 1 point(*), you can make Combat Reflexes (preferably with a Reach weapon, and get it at level 7) good, and even make Combat Maneuvers pretty good on top of that. Then you cast more spells that do stuff other than heal with your Standard Actions (get Sacred Summons at level 9 if you want to summon monsters as a Standard Action, but keep in mind that if you want to go the summoning route on a regular basis you will need a whole string of feats to make it good -- with your build, you might want to cast other spells with your Standard Actions). Since you already have Craft Magic Arms and Armor, you could craft yourself an awesome weapon for making Attacks of Opportunity (for instance, Elven Branched Spear and/or the Fortuitous property, plus whatever else would be really good in your campaign, the former giving you +2 on Attacks of Opportunity but requiring you to get Exotic Weapon Proficiency for it, and the latter giving you an extra attack on one of your Attacks of Opportunity).
(*)However, you are also going to need to boost your Wisdom so that you don't end up unable to cast your higher level spells starting at 13th level, so don't ignore this.
I wouldn't normally recommend Power Attack on a 3/4 BAB class that has no bonus feats, unless you somehow manage to get Blade Tutor's Spirit onto your spell list, or unless you know that many of your enemies aren't going to have very good armor class.
Whether Iron Will is good for you depends upon how hard you are getting hit with effects that have a Will Save. Those are often the worst to fail at, and just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean they're not out to get you . . . .
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I wouldn't normally recommend Power Attack on a 3/4 BAB class that has no bonus feats, unless you somehow manage to get Blade Tutor's Spirit onto your spell list, or unless you know that many of your enemies aren't going to have very good armor class.
You might be right. I have always got it to work but I have to admit my experience comes from group with bards or characters who were able to lower the enemy's AC so Power Attacking was pretty solid.
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As for the original question... there's nothing quite as tragic as gaining your second level of sorcerer.
Honest, I think it so silly Oracles get their first mystery spell at 2nd while the Sorcerer still get their's at 3rd. Oracles are not lacking for powerful features either.
^And Oracles get their following mystery spells at the same time as they become high enough level to cast them, whereas Sorcerers get their following Bloodlines spells 1 level behind. Yes, we need a Sorcerer Unchained (although I would still argue that more than tweaks to the class features, we need a cleaning up of the Bloodlines, which are all over the place in quality, and of terrible organization).
Did someone say, "Cleric?" WorldsMostInterestingConfirmation
LOL. I'm in it for the role.
Clerics have never been memorable. Let me take you back...back in time...no, much further...yes to the three original classes. See the Rogue? You can't. It's not that she's hiding. It's that rogues weren't invented yet. But the cleric has always been there.
What we found to replace clerics are Nanite Hypoguns. Works like a charm and doesn't b+!&~ all the time about gods and such. :-)
I think what you meant to say was "Nanomachines, son!"