The first PFS characters my daughter and I made, a bard and cleric respectively, just hit level 7. I'm looking for ways they can work together effectively. Both start out as core builds, and neither is anywhere near optimized.
Bard: Perform Song and Dance, high Dex and Cha, one level of Oracle (Warsighted) and has an Elven Curved Blade.
Cleric: Liberation and Travel Domains. Wis 20, Cha 10. For combat mostly uses a long spear.
We're just barely combat characters at all - ACs around 20, static bonuses in the 2-5 range, so the focus has been primarily party buffs, plus out-of-combat healing. Both have +2 headbands and will probably upgrade to +4 soon.
Aside from the obvious (Inspire Courage + Bless/Prayer/Blessing of Fervor), how can we tag-team to buff the party, debuff enemies, and generally make ourselves more effective? Recommendations based on spells, class abilities, feats - all welcome. Any PFS-legal source is OK.
Buffs are good, but once you've buffed for a round or 2 you should be able to do something else.
You've not mentioned Summoning, which can be a potent Cleric tool. Built toward it with Augment Summoning, Sacred Summons, Superior Summons etc it's devastating but even just dropping an unenhanced Hound Archon in a flanking position is useful. Chain of Perdition is a surprisingly good spell too.
It would be useful to know a bit about your feat choices for both characters. With your Longspear, Combat Reflexes and Power Attack can make you an AoO threat.
Thanks, Corvino. I haven't worked on Summoning mostly due to the full round casting, but in recent scenarios it seems that time is available. I don't have Spell Focus (conjuration) to get to Augment and Superior, but I can start in that direction. Also, it looks like the big bonus for this CG cleric comes on line at level 9, when Sacred Summons gets him a bralani azata as a standard action.
And yes, Chain of Perdition has proved *very* useful against opposing casters. Using Cleric level + Wis bonus is getting me a +11 for a Trip or Dirty Trick and here's the best part: No miss chance for invisibility! As long as I can tell which square to target, it's good. (Of course, that didn't help Saturday night when on four attempts I rolled 1, 1, 3, 1.)
I'll try to pull the cleric's current stat block and load here tomorrow. My daughter's bard stats are on a different machine, but I'll try to get her to drop them in here as well.
Valthur
Male human (Chelaxian) cleric of Desna 7
CG Medium humanoid (human)
Init +3; Senses Perception +10
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Defense
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AC 20, touch 11, flat-footed 19 (+7 armor, +1 Dex, +2 shield)
hp 57 (7d8+19)
Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +10
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Offense
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Speed 40 ft.
Melee +1 consecrated longspear +7 (1d8+2/×3) or
mwk silver heavy mace +7 (1d8+1) or
starknife +6 (1d4+1/×3)
Ranged light crossbow +6 (1d8/19-20)
Special Attacks channel positive energy 3/day (DC 15, 4d6)
Cleric Spells Prepared (CL 7th; concentration +12)
4th—dimension door[D], spiritual ally[APG], summon monster IV
3rd—chain of perdition[UC], daylight, fly[D], prayer
2nd—align weapon, pilfering hand[UC], remove paralysis[D], lesser restoration, spiritual weapon
1st—bless, liberating command[UC], longstrider[D], moment of greatness[UC], obscuring mist, protection from evil, shield of faith
0 (at will)—detect magic, guidance, mending, stabilize
D Domain spell; Domains Liberation, Travel
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Statistics
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Str 13, Dex 12, Con 15, Int 11, Wis 20, Cha 10
Base Atk +5; CMB +6; CMD 17
Feats Diehard, Endurance, Improved Channel, Survivor[ISWG]
Traits reactionary, starchild
Skills Acrobatics +0 (+4 to jump), Diplomacy +5, Fly +1, Heal +9, Knowledge (arcana) +4, Knowledge (history) +4, Knowledge (nobility) +4, Knowledge (planes) +4, Knowledge (religion) +4, Linguistics +5, Perception +10, Profession (stable master) +9, Sense Motive +13, Survival +6 (+10 to avoid getting lost); Racial Modifiers starchild
Languages Celestial, Common, Halfling
SQ agile feet (8/day), liberation (7 rounds/day)
Combat Gear pearl of power (1st level), potion of cure moderate wounds, potion of invisibility, potion of remove paralysis, scroll of air bubble, scroll of air bubble, scroll of comprehend languages, scroll of endure elements, scroll of lesser restoration, wand of cure light wounds, acid, alchemical grease, alchemist's fire, alkali flask, holy water (2), vermin repellent; Other Gear +1 mithral agile breastplate, darkwood shield, +1 consecrated longspear, crossbow bolts (20), light crossbow, mwk silver heavy mace, starknife, handy haversack, headband of inspired wisdom +2, belt pouch, flint and steel, silver holy symbol of Good, 13,026 gp, 3 sp
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Special Abilities
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Agile Feet (8/day) (Su) For 1 rd, you ignore difficult terrain.
Cleric Channel Positive Energy 4d6 (3/day, DC 15) (Su) Positive energy heals the living and harms the undead; negative has the reverse effect.
Cleric Domain (Liberation) Granted Powers: You are a spirit of freedom and a staunch foe against all who would enslave and oppress.
Cleric Domain (Travel) 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.
Diehard You are stable and can choose how to act when at negative Hp.
Endurance +4 to a variety of fort saves, skill and ability checks. Sleep in L/M armor with no fatigue.
Liberation (7 rounds/day) (Su) Act as if you had freedom of movement for 7 rounds/day.
Starchild +4 survival to avoid becoming lost. Automatically determine north.
Survivor (1/day) +5 to stabilize. You can negate sneak a sneak attack or crit 1/day..
Just spotted one good synergy spell with the bard: Moment of Greatness. I think I'll grab some scrolls of that one so I can toss it out in several fights/day.
