Advice Needed: Cleric going into Seeker levels (PFS)


Advice

Sovereign Court

Hello all,

I have a PFS character that's about to hit 10th level and I plan on this character being the first one that I take into Seeker levels. I'm highly considering dipping into Monk and could use some suggestions.

Separatist Cleric 5 / Exalted of Irori 6 / Sensai Monk 2:
Race – Human
Alignment – Lawful Neutral
Deity – Irori (Lawful Neutral)

Traits:
• Magical Knack (magic)
• Fate's Favored (faith)

Domains:
• Memory [Knowledge Sub-Domain]
• Tactics [War Sub-Domain, accessed by Separatist]

Exalted Domain:
• Healing

1st lvl stats -
Str: 12
Dex: 14
Con: 14
Int: 12
Wis: 18
Cha: 7

current stats at 9th lvl -
Str: 12
Dex: 14
Con: 16 (+2con belt)
Int: 12
Wis: 24 (+4wis headband)
Cha: 7

1) Cleric 1: Bab +0, Spell Penetration (lvl 1), Focused Study: Knowledge Religion (human)
2) Cleric 2: Bab +1,
3) Cleric 3: Bab +2, Deific Obedience (lvl 3)
4) Cleric 4: Bab +3, +1 Wis
5) Cleric 5: Bab +3, Snake Style (lvl 5)
6) Exalted 1: Bab +3,
7) Exalted 2: Bab +4, Greater Spell Penetration (lvl 7)
8) Exalted 3: Bab +5, Focused Study: Sense Motive, +1 Wis
9) Exalted 4: Bab +6/+1, Snake Sidewind (lvl 9)

future levels -
10) Exalted 5: Bab +6/+1
11) Exalted 6: Bab +7/+2, Snake Fang (lvl 11)
12) Sensei 1: Bab +7/+2, +1 Wis
13) Sensei 2: Bab +8/+3, Additional Traits or Quicken Spell (lvl 11)

Why I want to go Monk?:
Going two levels of Sensei adds:
* Stunning Fist (decent DC with high Wis)
* 10 rounds of Inspire Courage
* Insightful Strike (use Wis for attack/CMB on unarmed and ALL Monk weapons, that's a +7atk/cmb boost for me.)
* All knowledge skills are class skills (Allows me to retrain Memory sub-domain to something else. Would lose Recall knowledge reroll ability, but I'd at least not lose the class skill bonuses)
* Gives Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Perception, Stealth, and Swim as class skills, somewhat useful.
* +3 to fort/reflex/wis saves
* bonus feat & increase to unarmed strike damage (1d3 to 1d6)
* my soon to be +8wis modifier will add +8 to AC and CMD. Increases touch AC defense and vs grapple/etc.

current gear:
Spellguard Bracer
+3 cloak of resistance
+1 amulet of natural armor
+1 ring of protection
+2con belt
+4wis headband
boots of the cat
lesser rod of extend
+1 mithral kikko armor (will need to sell once going monk)
+1 mithral heavy shield (will need to sell once going monk)

Maybe Greater Spell Penetration is overkill and should be retrained? I could grab Additional traits for Wisdom in the Flesh and something else. WitF I could use on Acrobatics or Escape Artist for a +7 boost (not sure which would be a better choice here).

I could buy a +1 Keen Spell Storing Temple Sword for a 1d8 17-20/x2 crit range Monk weapon that'd go off my Wis modifier. Or I could save the money and get Deliquescent Gloves, and a Shocking/Cold AoMF?

With Snake Fang later, I can get free attacks pretty regularly and I use my Sense Motive checks to confirm crits instead. Maybe I should forget buying a +1 Keen Spell Storing Temple Sword and just focus on increasing my unarmed strike damage?

Any thoughts or suggestions?


Just one note - Spell Penetration is worth quite a bit at Seeker levels. You will encounter many more opponents with Spell Resistance, and SRs in the mid- to high 20s is not unusual. This assumes you'll be casting some offensive spells. If that's not part of your plan, then Greater Spell Penetration wouldn't be worth it.


So here's my help.

What's the point of the character?
If the point is to be casting offensive spells, which it seems like you are with the spell penetration feats, then the monk is not helping with that.

Was the point supposed to be a melee guy? If so, your stats are awful for it and you must have had real trouble getting here, and the monk dip won't really be helping with this. Sure getting wis to attack may help you hit, but your AC won't be that great and you'll be doing like no damage.

If the point is to buff, then maybe? Are there no better spells you have/get than what inspire courage would be doing?

Sovereign Court

Chess Pwn wrote:

So here's my help.

What's the point of the character?
If the point is to be casting offensive spells, which it seems like you are with the spell penetration feats, then the monk is not helping with that.

Was the point supposed to be a melee guy? If so, your stats are awful for it and you must have had real trouble getting here, and the monk dip won't really be helping with this. Sure getting wis to attack may help you hit, but your AC won't be that great and you'll be doing like no damage.

If the point is to buff, then maybe? Are there no better spells you have/get than what inspire courage would be doing?

The character is a cleric/exalted of Irori so adding monk levels seems appropriate. It's not the best option but it allows me to get into melee if I run into stuff that's immune to magic.

The inspire courage is pretty much there if/when I don't have anything better to do honestly. I have spells options such as: fate's favored, transformation, & righteous might among others. My Sense Motive atm to block 1 attack per round is +22.

What things can I do to help bridge the melee gap?


lv10 vs CR 10

Level EDV To Hit AC
10 65 22 33
32.5 17 28
21.45 13 24

You currently have +7/+2 for 1d8+1 that's EDV of 4.3 with AC 23
That means you need to somehow gain 17 EDV and 1 AC to reach the ORANGE rating for the benchpressing by the numbers mark.

trading your 8 armor bonus for 8 wisdom bonus does little to help. Getting bracers of armor +2 for 4,000 gets your AC up a tiny bit over the 3,000 it costs to upgrade your armor or your shield.

Even getting wisdom to attacks that puts your accuracy at only a +14/+9 for your to hit, but still only doing 1d8+1. Since the enemy has ~130 HP your max damage of like 10 is basically meaningless.

Even spending 1 round for divine favor, another for transformation, and another for righteous might with the magic sword that gets you to +20/+15 for 1d8+9 which is EDV of 25.45. So after 3 rounds of buffs and using up 3 spells you can reach the lowest tier of contribution on round 4, which is hardly enough to be worth the effort doing so.

If there was a quick fix for the "melee gap" then the real melee people would be taking that option a lot of the time and thus there'd no longer be a way to bridge the gap. Personal buffs spells that you mentioned are the bridge for a combat cleric to be a top tier damage member, but for you they are making you go from garbage tier to bad tier.

Sovereign Court

Well,

13th Level numbers:

BAB: +10/+5
STR: +1atk/+1dmg
Divine Power: +5atk/+5dmg
Transformation: +3 BAB, +2atk/+2dmg from STR bonus
Greater Magic Weapon: +3atk/+3dmg
Weapon: "Keen Frost AoMF" (Snake Style = Piercing Unarmed Strikes)
Gloves: Deliquescent Gloves

Keen Frost AoMF Unarmed Strike: 24/24/19/14 for 21.5dmg per hit, 19-20/x2 crit range
Dmg: (1d6+11+1d6cold+1d6acid)
Crit Chance: (Uses +31 sense motive to confirm crits)

AC: 10base + 8wis + 4dex + 4natural + 3mvestment +4shieldofFaith = 33ac

18dex so 5 AoO's - Any attack that misses me while in Snake Style provokes an attack. So that's a possibility of 9 total attacks a round.

Divine Power on turn 1, Transformation on turn 2.
Greater Magic Fang: 13 hours
extended Shield of Faith: 26mins, +4ac.
extended Archon's Aura: 26mins, -2atk,-2ac,-2saves to enemies within 20ft
Aura of Doom: Shaken 130mins, (-2atk,-2saves) to enemies within 20ft

Spells
[Spell slots available] 1st: 6, 2nd: 6, 3rd: 7*, 4th: 6*, 5th: 3, 6th: 2
[Spells used] 1st: 1, 3rd: 2, 4th: 2, 6th: 1
[Spells remaining] 1st: 5, 2nd: 6, 3rd: 5, 4th: 4, 5th: 3, 6th: 1
[Spell slots required for next combat within 30mins]: 4th: 1, 6th: 1 (Divine Power & Transformation)

*covered by domain spells
Retraining Memory subdomain to Fist subdomain (or possibly Self-Realization subdomain?)

Resources used: 16k gold AoMF, 8k gold gloves, 2 feats: Snake Sidewind & Snake Fang
---------------

Just throwing the stats/info out so I can also see how decent it is.

@13th level, after 2 rounds of casting: Approximately 33-37ac, possible 9 max attacks a round.

atk: 24/24/24(aoo)/24(aoo)/24(aoo)/24(aoo)/24(aoo)/19/14, 21.5dmg, 19-20/x2 +31 to confirm crits, d20+31ac to deflect 1 attack a round.

rarely would I ever get 5 extra attacks from enemies missing me, but I'd assume at least 2 attacks on average.

*Note I could pickup the "Inevitable Fist" boon at 14th level from Evangelist list via Diverse Obedience for: free action, rnds/HD axiomatic + fists deal dmg 1 size larger. Extra dmg vs Chaotic creatures. I was planning on getting Diverse Obedience later anyways to get Runic Form boon at 18th level for all the free SLA's. The perma levitate boon seemed pretty crappy.

That up there is about the best I could do, with maybe 14rnds of "Inevitable Fists" @14th and 11rnds of "Wooden Fists" domain ability for +3 damage @14th lvl. Thoughts on whether the numbers are decent enough to make it work?


Sure that gets you to a pretty good spot. Let's see here though

that allows for 2 fights a day at that level, and uses up a ton of spells to get you to that spot, and if a fight is over a half-hour apart then you need to drop more spells.
Also 2 full rounds of buffing at the start of a fight before you're good. Again, that means you're doing nothing till round 3 when you can finally start helping, and that's the point when the fight has usually been decided already. And DR 10 really cripples you since you don't have a way to bypass any DR types.

I'm struggling to understand why you're suddenly wanting to take this character that's seems to clearly have not been a melee guy, and suddenly try to make him okay at melee.

Sovereign Court

Chess Pwn wrote:

I'm struggling to understand why you're suddenly wanting to take this character that's seems to clearly have not been a melee guy, and suddenly try to make him okay at melee.

It adds flavor to worshiping a monk-like deity and to the concept of this character training her physical body along with her mind.

So, how about this? It seems Snake Style doesn't require a free hand to use and it says that enemies that miss me while I'm in Snake Style provoke "Unarmed Strikes" and according to the entry for Unarmed Strike under Monk it says I can use head,knees,feet etc to use an Unarmed Strike while my hands are full....So it seems like I could use a 2handed Monk weapon, which I previously thought would stop my from making Unarmed Strikes when enemies provoked.

Or I could drop Snake Sidewind and Snake Fang and pickup "Weapon Proficiency Sansetsukon" and Power Attack. Transformation + PA will net me a decent amount of damage.

I really liked the idea of Snake Fang allowing me to get free attacks on enemies that miss me, but it seems Unarmed Strikes just aren't the way to go on this character.

Rnd1: Quicken Divine Favor, Righteous Might
Rnd2: Transformation
Weapon: +1 Adamantine Impact Sansetsukon 2d8, (with enlarged goes to 3d8)
Greater Magic Weapon: upgrades weapon to +3

Atk: 24/19/14 (with power attack: 20/15/10)
Dmg: 3d8 +11 +1d6acid +12pa = 3d8+23+1d6acid

Would Impact, Holy, or just straight +enhancement bonuses be the way to go?

Sovereign Court

Kysune wrote:
Chess Pwn wrote:

I'm struggling to understand why you're suddenly wanting to take this character that's seems to clearly have not been a melee guy, and suddenly try to make him okay at melee.

Weapon: +1 Adamantine Impact Sansetsukon

Not sure why I didn't think of it but I'd be way better off just going with the Temple Sword since I get free proficiency with it and making it Keen for a 17-20/x2 crit chance and 2handing it with power attack. So feel free to give me your thoughts, replacing Sansetsukon with Temple Sword.

Sovereign Court

Bump, also just recently remembered that I can still wear my armor and shield as sensei since I don't gain fast movement and flurry. So, I could continue in the account boosts and enchantments of my armor. Any suggestions for good armor and shield enchantments? Probably using magic vestment to bump the +modifier for both.


This might just be because I'm new to melee or because I'm unused to your class, but doesn't power attack require 13 in strength? And I'm also curious about how you plan on two handing your sword and still use a shield.

Sovereign Court

Sagiso wrote:
This might just be because I'm new to melee or because I'm unused to your class, but doesn't power attack require 13 in strength? And I'm also curious about how you plan on two handing your sword and still use a shield.

I'd have to swap to a +2str/+2con belt and sell my shield and buy a buckler, I'd lose ac bonus and take a -1 to attacks but I'd be able to 2hand when I need to. Both aren't too hard of fixes.

Shadow Lodge

Quick question: what do you see your role in a party?

Grand Lodge

I feel like you're trying to do everything, and it never works out, particularly in Seeker play, because the opening rounds of combat are so incredibly vital. You need to specialize and rely on your party at that level to cover other avenues of attack/defense.

I'll toss in that a +22 in Sense Motive isn't going to do you much as you enter Seeker level play. It'll help from time to time, but it isn't worth the 3 feat investment if you aren't using skill focus and Inquisitor's Monocle, and possibly getting alertness through the ioun stone too. My brawler which uses the full Snake Style tree had been around +35 entering seeker level play, and hits +42 or so at level 15... and that sometimes isn't enough. He has fairly similar attack bonuses (a little higher since he has a couple levels on you), but he also can drop 6-7 attacks a round, and do the same amount of damage as you're doing with a 2-handed weapon (and has been able since he started being a Seeker).

In short, if you're serious about seeker play, consider this... Seekers are the cream of the crop, they specialize and rely on their team's specializations to get them through things. You can't be the whole party and be good enough to keep up at that level. I'd recommend finding something you want to focus on and pushing HARD at it, maybe retrain a little bit to help narrow your focus if you want to take this character into Seeker levels. Even as nice as my seeker is, it isn't uncommon for me to scrape by in some fights. Otherwise you're going to start running into combats fairly regularly where you just can't make much of an impact.

Shadow Lodge

A lot of other posters have posted the numbers and criticism, so here's my take:

The game changes as you move into higher levels. Your character was build around a caster-stat array and you're working all-too-hard to change it into a fairly poor martial. I know you're thinking, "but I have X & Y buffs" before the fight--so will the other martials. "But if I buff for Z number of rounds at the top of the fight..." -- the other martials will either have started clearing stuff out AND be party buffed as well.

Example at L12:

Round 1: Wizard standard action casts a control spell, maybe even a swift action quickened spell to boot. Barbarian free action uses his Boots of Speed and gains self-haste, rages, pounces and attacks a monster 4 times. Ranger rapid shot/many shot/deadly aim full attacks. You're buffing.

Round 2: Wizard casts a save or suck. Barbarian 5' steps or pounces and full attacks another creature. Ranger takes out another creature. You're still buffing.

Round 3: Wizard casts a damage spell. Barbarian 5' steps or pounces yet another creature. Ranger machine guns down another hapless foe. You're finally ready to fight...fully buffed to help with mop up.

In regular fights, the other characters don't need your help and in big fights, you've taken yourself out of combat for 2 rounds to buff...if you even get those rounds to buff.

Yes, I cherry picked a top tier caster, melee and ranger...but as player who's GMd and played L13+ in PFS, I've seen players with underperforming builds not have any fun when at the table with PCs with solid (not OP, just solid) builds. Not only did they burn their one-time play of that module, they did it with a character they weren't having much fun with. You could have swapped the above with any solid caster, DPS and ranged and only difference would be perhaps you'd get maybe a round or two to do something.

On the positive side, Eyes of the Ten and post-L12 modules were built with 4 players in mind. I honestly believe you would struggle if you were considered one of the main DPS of a 4-person party, but you'd be fine as the fifth or sixth person in a larger party (as there would be less pressure on you to contribute).

It's your character, play what you want to play, but imho unless you do a serious retrain spend, this isn't a character you want to waste as a melee in Seeker play.

Sovereign Court

Divvox2 wrote:
...if you aren't using skill focus and Inquisitor's Monocle, and possibly getting alertness through the ioun stone too....

Thanks for those mentions. I just hit lvl 10 and I'm at a +29 now with Skill Focus: Sense Motive. I'll have to pickup the monocle and the ioun stone sometime soon which should add another +9.

So I'm in agreement with you guys on what has been said. I was just curious if it would even work as a pseudo melee with the additional spells that Irori granted.

Is it possible for me to beef up my AC to be pretty defensive? Part of the reasoning I was thinking for the full Snake chain was to punish enemies that targeted me, which Clerics sometimes can get focused on as they're the backbone to the party. I think with the monocle and the ioun stone my Sense Motive should reach a decent number, but I'll want to retrain Snake Sidewind to something else.

I'm probably good to focus as a caster and keep the spell penetration and greater spell penetration. I just picked up a +6 wisdom headband so I'm sitting at 26 wisdom score now.

Exalted:

Domains:
• Memory [Knowledge Sub-Domain]
• Tactics [War Sub-Domain, accessed by Separatist]
• Healing [Exalted domain]

Stats at level 10
Str: 12
Dex: 14
Con: 16 (+2con belt)
Int: 12
Wis: 26 (+6wis headband)
Cha: 7

HP: 88
AC: 23 (6armor+ 3shield+ 2dex+ 1natural+ 1deflection)

SAVES: Fort[14], Reflex[8], Will[18]

1) Cleric 1: Bab +0, Spell Penetration (lvl 1), Focused Study: Knowledge Religion (human)
2) Cleric 2: Bab +1,
3) Cleric 3: Bab +2, Deific Obedience (lvl 3)
4) Cleric 4: Bab +3,
5) Cleric 5: Bab +3, Snake Style (lvl 5)
6) Exalted 1: Bab +3,
7) Exalted 2: Bab +4, Greater Spell Penetration (lvl 7)
8) Exalted 3: Bab +5, Focused Study: Sense Motive
9) Exalted 4: Bab +6/+1, Snake Sidewind* (lvl 9)
10) Exalted 5: Bab +6/+1

Upcoming levels
11) Exalted 6: Bab +7/+2, FREE (lvl 11)
12) Exalted 7: Bab +8/+3, +1 Wis
13) Exalted 8: Bab +9/+4, FREE (lvl 11)

*Snake Sidewind needs retrained to something else.

Gear/Items:
Spellguard Bracer
+3 cloak of resistance
+1 amulet of natural armor
+1 ring of protection
+2con belt
+6wis headband
boots of the cat
lesser rod of extend
+1 mithral kikko armor
+1 mithral heavy shield
Gold: 4,764

Upcoming levels:

I just got 1/day SLA's of all domain spells from the Healing domain. So that's 1/day - CLW, CMD, CSW, CCW, & Breath of Life for now.

At 11th level, due to the 2nd Irori Boon, I'll have 3/day uses to turn a Breath of Life or etc into a "Close" (50ft or so) range spell, which I felt that + the "Healer's Blessing" ability from the Healing domain was a stronger option that if I had went the Pharasma route and got 1/day Raise Dead or even Ressurection at 13th. The empowered heals and ability to reach people with Breath of Life or heals when I couldn't otherwise should keep the need for Raise Dead or etc from having to be used.

At Exalted 7th I'll get perma Protection from Chaos and Exalted 8th at-will Detect Chaos. Exalted 9th seems pretty meh to have perma Levitate, but maybe I'm missing the glory of this ability as my initial thoughts are it's a pretty weak boon. Exalted 10th (Lvl 15) I'll have 1/day Perform Miracle, which should be a great capstone.

I'll later be picking up 1/day SLA's of Heal, Regenerate (meh?), Mass CCW, and Mass Heal. So with all the healing SLA's, Empowered Healing, and the ability to spontaneously convert spells to healing I should be more than capable to keep people on their toes.

Spells I often prepare: Haste, Plane Shift, Dismissal, Breath of Life, Spiritual Weapon, Holy Smite, Flame Strike, Communal Resist Energy, Daylight, Invisibility Purge, Shield Other, Silence, Grace, Freedom of Movement, and leaving some slots open also for flexibility.

I could really use some suggestions on increasing my defenses and expand my role as an offensive divine caster over the upcoming levels. So now that we have ruled the melee route out completely, what can we do to improve the divine spell casting role that I have?

Shadow Lodge

The problem with Snake Style is that you're dependent on the foes' actions. Non-mindless NPCs, once they've seen your schtick once or twice in combat, will ignore you...and if they did attack you, your return melee damage is a tickle (another reason to ignore you). As a caster, you want to be investing in Spell Focus feats to boost DCs (if you cast save or sucks or control spells) and resources into things like metamagic rods. A Reach rod or Quicken rod are two key purchases.

The problem with investing in AC is that unless you go all in and expend significant resources to get to something like (20 + Level or more), it's throwing money away for a non-melee because you WILL get hit at higher levels--high AC is to prevent iteratives from hitting.

A feat to consider is Divine Interference--you will have a surplus of L1 spells you never cast and having the ability to reroll a crit is clutch.

If you're sure that you're definitely going to be playing L15+, you want to consider which 3 metamagic feats you will take so you qualify for Spell Perfection.

Start building out your scroll library of situational spells that you wouldn't need to use a spell slot on, but would be good to have if the occasion arises.

Sovereign Court

What is the best Spell Focus to pick for a Divine caster?
Any good suggestions for Spell Perfection?
Also, instead of trying to ramp AC should I try to add "Fortification (heavy)" to my shield or something else?
Any other suggestions?

Shadow Lodge

Heavy is a +5 modification. If you are going full caster and your life depends on the Heavy Fortification enchantment on your shield, the encounter has already gone sideways.

As for Cleric spells, I'd just suggest looking at the various Cleric guides that focus on caster Clerics and/or the Cleric spell list. There's a lot to cover.

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