Best Cleric Domain

Considering a ranged Cleric in my next campaign, please share with me your opinion of which Domain is best.

Luck, Travel.

Luck, Travel.

I like it. What are your thoughts on the Trickery domain?

Does your cleric have the extra skill points to also be a rogue?

I also vote for luck and travel. Desna all the way!

Trickery is good, but the extra skills are kind of wasted due to Cleric's 2+Int skill points. Unless you're going for some multiclass/PrC combo that yields you more skill points, that is. But copycat is always amazing and the extra spells are spiffy.

Trickery's good (great even), but if you're asking for the best for a ranged cleric, IMO Travel wins hands down. Having fly and dimension door is awesome, and the extra movement is useful for keeping distance from the enemy.

The Imagination subdomain of Luck lets you add silent image to your spell list. That may sound underwhelming, but make a silent image of obscuring mist surrounding you... then you're an archer no one can see... but you can see everyone else.

The only thing I did well on building my first PFS character was selecting his domains. Travel and Liberation. Travel is praised already, but Liberation is also excellent. At low levels, ignoring difficult terrain for a few rounds is fantastic. At level 8+, Freedom's Call can be huge. Black Tentacles grabbed the whole party? Nope, not the ones within 30 feet of the Liberation cleric.

Luck domain is also great. Who doesn't want to pass around a half dozen re-rolls? But you do need to be adjacent to your party, so it could present some challenges to a ranged character.

Another good option for a range cleric might be the Eagle Domain...but you have to ask your GM cause it's from the Druid domains list.

Hmm ya not planning on Multiclassing just straight Cleric. I'm not really sure how it works, so am I allowed to pick two domains? Or like one domain and one subdomain within that domain?

Hmm ya not planning on Multiclassing just straight Cleric. I'm not really sure how it works, so am I allowed to pick two domains? Or like one domain and one subdomain within that domain?

For most clerics, you pick two domains (there are a few archetypes that limit you to one). If you pick a domain, your second choice can't be a subdomain of that first domain.

So, if you were a cleric of Desna (for example), you could pick Travel and Luck. Or you could pick Exploration (Travel subdomain) and Luck. Or Travel and Imagination (Luck subdomain)... or any combination Desna offers.

EDIT: What Bearserk is talking about is that Druids originally had the option to pick one domain from a subset of the Cleric domain list (Air, Animal, Earth, Fire... and so forth). Later, they added Druid-specific domains like Eagle, that aren't ordinarily accessible to Clerics.

Ahh I see. Would you recommend this is the most powerful form of cleric? I originally had thought of an evil cleric with animate dead/desecrate. Which domains would suit that type of a character? Would like to compare. I really like Luck and Travel along with Tricky for Copycat.

If you're going a ranged cleric another very good option is Erastil. Getting longbow proficiency rocks and riding around on an animal companion gives you LOTS of mobility.

But the answer to any "what domain is best" is ALWAYS travel. It is clearly overpowered. I now refuse to play any more clerics with it in order to force me out of my comfort zone :-)

Travel. Hands down.

Trickery is good, but the extra skills are kind of wasted due to Cleric's 2+Int skill points. Unless you're going for some multiclass/PrC combo that yields you more skill points, that is. But copycat is always amazing and the extra spells are spiffy.

Which extra skills are we referring to? Just learning the cleric sorry

It depends on what you want to do. I find Sun to be a very powerful domain, because it adds a flat bonus to channel to harm undead, plus they don't get channel resistance. If you don't channel to harm undead, it's not helpful.

There are a variety of Domains I like. These are two I've used recently that I recommend.

Feather: bonus to Perception equal to 1/2 your Cleric level; Fly is added to spell list; Animal Companion at 4th level.

Dark Tapestry: once per day free addition of Advanced Template to summoned creature; addition of the Planar Binding group to spell list (Cleric already has Planar Ally, so your ability to summon and control extra planar creatures is dramatically expanded); Fly added to spell list.

Alright so I shall take Travel and one other. I like Deception, gaining Mirror Image is great, is there any other way of gaining that great spell? Sudden shift is also a nice SU.

Normally, if you play in the game setting of Golarion, you are supposed to pick a god that gives access to the domains that you want to take. This makes some combinations impossible.

Or course your DM may simply allow you to pick any domain you want. Depends on your DM.

Ahh I see. Would you recommend this is the most powerful form of cleric?

Powerful is really a difficult term to decide in Pathfinder. It really depends on what kind of power you're looking for. For example, I played in a campaign where the cleric might have attacked once or twice in the whole campaign. But (out of curiosity) I tracked all of the extra damage that we all got from his powers and spells, and he more than contributed an equal share. And that's not even counting all the benefit the rest of us got from condition removal, luck rerolls, and having a good diplomat in the party.

Check out the various guides to the cleric on this thread for some ideas.

Normally, if you play in the game setting of Golarion, you are supposed to pick a god that gives access to the domains that you want to take. This makes some combinations impossible.

Or course your DM may simply allow you to pick any domain you want. Depends on your DM.

Ahh thanks, didn't know that. Would you be able to link me or tell me where I could find what the possible combinations would be? My GM is pretty proper.

Wheldrake wrote:

Normally, if you play in the game setting of Golarion, you are supposed to pick a god that gives access to the domains that you want to take. This makes some combinations impossible.

Or course your DM may simply allow you to pick any domain you want. Depends on your DM.

Ahh thanks, didn't know that. Would you be able to link me or tell me where I could find what the possible combinations would be? My GM is pretty proper.

Try Archives of Nethys; pretty organized site:

Deities List

Also, the Search function on the site is pretty well done. If I search for "Luck + Travel" and select the Deities to search among, I get the following options:

Desna
Kofusachi
Kurgess
Sinashakti

Atalius wrote:

Hmm ya not planning on Multiclassing just straight Cleric. I'm not really sure how it works, so am I allowed to pick two domains? Or like one domain and one subdomain within that domain?

For most clerics, you pick two domains (there are a few archetypes that limit you to one). If you pick a domain, your second choice can't be a subdomain of that first domain.

So, if you were a cleric of Desna (for example), you could pick Travel and Luck. Or you could pick Exploration (Travel subdomain) and Luck. Or Travel and Imagination (Luck subdomain)... or any combination Desna offers.

EDIT: What Bearserk is talking about is that Druids originally had the option to pick one domain from a subset of the Cleric domain list (Air, Animal, Earth, Fire... and so forth). Later, they added Druid-specific domains like Eagle, that aren't ordinarily accessible to Clerics.

So let's say I chose Freedom would I only get those 2 spells it offers? :O and are those extra spells known or are those extra spells memorized each day I can cast in addition to my normal allotment?

Growth is also amazing. Swift action enlarge persons.

Liberation is awesome. First through seventh level, you have a mini-freedom-of-movement for your cleric. At eighth you can extend that to the party. Wonderful when you face those grabbing creatures that have combat maneuver scores so high that even your melee types have trouble. It's saved our butt a lot.

Liberation looks real nice, only problem i see is that a lot of the spells a Cleric already has on his list unfortunately :( otherwise pretty awesome

Luck Domain seems great, however since I'm a ranged cleric the usefulness is reduced. Maybe Travel and Liberation are the way to go for a ranged cleric?

If you're going a ranged cleric another very good option is Erastil. Getting longbow proficiency rocks and riding around on an animal companion gives you LOTS of mobility.

But the answer to any "what domain is best" is ALWAYS travel. It is clearly overpowered. I now refuse to play any more clerics with it in order to force me out of my comfort zone :-)

what makes it overpowered though?

+20' movement with the ability to bypass difficult terrain as needed in combat is probably OP by itself. Add on a great spell list and Dimension Hop at 8th level and it is by far the most powerful domain for most Clerics.

I would recommend looking to see how your Cleric domain spells overlap.
You will want to make sure that you have at least one good option for each spell level.

I now refuse to play any more clerics with [Travel Domain] in order to force me out of my comfort zone :-)

no doubt.

+20' movement with the ability to bypass difficult terrain as needed in combat is probably OP by itself. Add on a great spell list and Dimension Hop at 8th level and it is by far the most powerful domain for most Clerics.

I would recommend looking to see how your Cleric domain spells overlap.
You will want to make sure that you have at least one good option for each spell level.

How do you get +20? I see the +10 under Granted Powers.

Granted Powers: You are an explorer and find enlightenment in the simple joy of travel, be it by foot or conveyance or magic. Increase your base speed by 10 feet.

oh sorry that would be from the Longstrider I suppose

oh sorry that would be from the Longstrider I suppose

Yup.

I like Community just for what you get at 1st level (which makes it ideal for dipping).

Could someone help me here, I'm going to be creating this character at level 5. How would the Domain spells work, I will most likely be taking Travel and Liberation. Would I get all the SU skills from both Domains and all the spells from both as well? or? It seems to indicate on the Cleric spell chart that he only gets 1 domain spell per level? So if i have 2 good ones I have to decide or? Thanks all for your advice.

You can only prepare one domain spell. Each time you prepare spells, you can pick one of the two spells from your domains to prepare in each of your "domain slots" (you get one domain slot for each level of spells you can cast). You can change that the next time you prepare spells. You can't, in most cases, prepare the domain spells in regular slots (unless they're already on your class list, or you have an archetype that allows that).

So for instance, if you took Travel and Liberation, you could decide to prepare longstrider or remove fear in your domain slot. Since remove fear is also on the cleric list, you could prepare it using your regular slots as well if you wanted, but you could not do that with longstrider.

I like Community just for what you get at 1st level (which makes it ideal for dipping).

The ability to remove fatigue is handy if you've got a barbarian buddy, that's for sure!

Note also that you can't use domain spells for spontaneous conversion to cure spells.

Slim Jim wrote:

I like Community just for what you get at 1st level (which makes it ideal for dipping).

The ability to remove fatigue is handy if you've got a barbarian buddy, that's for sure!

It's especially good when you are the barbarian: drop rage at end of fight, next round your fatigue is gone.

Tactics. It helps you go first, and going first means winning. Even better, it helps your allies go first too.

Tactics. It helps you go first, and going first means winning. Even better, it helps your allies go first too.

The Animal (Feather) domain will give a straight +2 to initiative as well as a cleric 1/2 bonus to Perception. (That's in addition to getting an animal companion, and Fly and Feather Fall.)

Combine any of the list below:

Bad touch:
1. Madness
2. Repose

All rounder :.
1. Exploration or trade is almost a must
2. Heroism for the heroism buff
3. Feather

Spells:
1. Healing for the empower
2. Fire for fire balls

I've come to the realization I will be better served being a melee cleric, is Travel and Luck/or Liberation the way to go for that? Or would you consider a different option?

Travel is great for a melee cleric: 30 ft movement instead of 20 in medium armor.

How do you intend to fight? High Str characters with two handed weapons benefit greatly from the Growth subdomain. A sword and board cleric might be better off with Defense or something else that compliments his one-handed weapon.

I like liberation more than luck. Luck lets you reroll a miss attack or failed save a couple times a day. Liberation lets you suppress a number of debilitating effects, with no chance of failure, on multiple people simultaneously.

How do you intend to fight? High Str characters with two handed weapons benefit greatly from the Growth subdomain. A sword and board cleric might be better off with Defense or something else that compliments his one-handed weapon.

I intend on replacing a high STR with a high WIS via Guided Hand. My two highest stats will be WIS and CON, everything else will probably be around 10. Str will be 13 just so I can take Power attack. Cha will be 10 most likely since Channel Energy healing isn't my priority and nor is it a very strong ability it appears. Later I will increase my damage by getting a Guided Enchantment on my weapon. Which weapon is best if I'm a melee cleric of Desna planning on sword and board? Can i still cast spells with a sword and board in hand? I would like to be able to occasionally land melee touch spells like Bestow Curse to finish bosses.

I agree with previous posters that Travel is the best domain. Luck and Travel is a good combination (Desna) and Nobility and Travel (Abadar) is also a solid choice.

Luck domain best domain, especially if you are a halfling to spam it.

Fits thematically too.

The cleric class is powerful, no discussion about that. The problem is that to actually be the best in the party at anything, you really need to specialize. If what you want to do is smash stuff with a greataxe, sure, you can do that, but unless you devote your entire build to it, a poorly optimized barbarian will outshine you. The trick is to know what to give up, and understand well that buffing is generally a poor strategy, because it loses actions and rounds. Most combats last 3 rounds or less. Of those, the first round is the most important. Use it for buffing, unless the spell is amazing (powerful effect on entire party), and you're losing effectiveness.

Luck domain best domain, especially if you are a halfling to spam it.

Fits thematically too.

"Best" is hard to determine, the domain that thematically and mechanically complement your build is the best. Could be Sun for evocation clerics, could be Solitude subdomain for bad touch clerics. Could be Travel for general pure awesomeness or luck for halflings as you said.

But for raw damage and straight up increase in power level, I don't see how any domain can compete with a feat+nature (preferably feather) domain for a full progression animal companion.

Since Dinosaur companions are quite nice, Saurian subdomain is up there also.

There are more good ones also.
Sun domain for fireball throwing clerics.
Heroism subdomain grants swift action mass heroism.
Healing domain makes you a better healbot.
Plains domain grants pounce (druid only).
Cave domain grants darkvision and tremorsense (druid only).