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Say I want to play a cleric who isn't a mace-wielding, armour-wearing, self-buffing front-line combatant. Where's the archetype? You'd think this would be an easy one: Lower the BAB, drop the medium armour, lose the favoured weapon, and pick up better spellcasting, a bonus to domain abilities, maybe even a third domain? Frankly, I'm surprised Paizo hasn't done this yet. I expected to see it in Ultimate Magic, and when it wasn't there I thought they'd stick it into Inner Sea Magic, but I just picked that up and... nope.
the priests of the world are the experts and adepts that care for the spiritual need of the people. but there are some archetypies that play this kind of role, like the UM cloistered cleric(that nobody liked) and the UC evangelist(witch is actually pretty interesting)
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First of all battle clerics shouldn't use a mace but either a morningstar or the good weapon their deity grants them prof. for (if the selected gives a good weapon).
Now to answer your question:
Either use the evangelist archetype or re-do the cloistered cleric archetype.
Here is my recommendation for a quick re-do:
1) Lower BAB to 1/2
2) Scratch the one domain crap, maybe give them a third domain.
3) Reverse the diminished spellcasting (effectively giving them one more spell per spell level).
4) Give them 6+INT skill points.
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As Leo 1925 suggested, there is, from the Unearthed Arcana, 3.5, the "cloistered cleric" variant.This idea was taken and published twice as a character class called the priest in third party books: the book of Good, by AEG for 3.0 D&D , and in the Tome of Secrets, by Adamant Entertainment for Pathfinder.
The priest in the Tome of secrets basically has what Leo1925 suggested
-d6 hit points
-poor base attack bonus
-proficient in light armor and simple weapons
-6+int modifier
-bardic knowledge class feature.
-Domains 2 + knowledge domain
-spell casting: as cleric + two domain slots, Spontaneously cast spells from 1 domain, spontaneously cast
cure/ inflict spells
-channel energy as cleric except d8
Now I would probably trim back the spontaneous domain casting, and the d8 to a d6 for channel energy.
One of the reasons why i disliked the cloistered cleric archtype, is well because of the limitations of an archtype. Archtypes don't change hit dice, nor base attack bonus, they just change the class features slightly. The designers had no place to go, in order to add some knowledge stuff, they had to cut somewhere, and the only place for them to cut was a domain. They couldn't cut into the BAB or the hit dice. if you did so, then you would have a new class. I think the "priest" does a much better job expressing the character concept of a scholarly monk then the cloistered cleric archtype does. It does cut into the Base attack bonus, Hit dice, armor proficiency, and replaces it with a bit more magic, skill points, and a bardic lore ability.
Juccasaba, i will have to check out the evangelist. that looks interesting.
I hope this helps
Having played a high level cloistered cleric (UA version), one thing I found was that there's a need for more variety in the spells you can cast. The cleric spell list is often times reactive, not proactive, in nature. You heal damage and cure conditions after they're inflicted, for example. At high levels, that got really aggravating; I often filled my 7th level spell slots with 6th level spells in that campaign. At least till we regularly fought outsiders, where holy word was the only spell I'd prep in that level. Given the opportunity, I'd have given up one of my domains to use the optional clerical feature from Complete Mage where you can add one spell to your spell list at each level from the wizard spell list, but that spell had to come from the abjuration, divination, or necromancy schools.
Now that someone mentioned it, could someone tell us about the evangelist? I'm curious and I likely won't see a copy of UC for a while.
Having played a high level cloistered cleric (UA version), one thing I found was that there's a need for more variety in the spells you can cast. The cleric spell list is often times reactive, not proactive, in nature. You heal damage and cure conditions after they're inflicted, for example. At high levels, that got really aggravating; I often filled my 7th level spell slots with 6th level spells in that campaign. At least till we regularly fought outsiders, where holy word was the only spell I'd prep in that level. Given the opportunity, I'd have given up one of my domains to use the optional clerical feature from Complete Mage where you can add one spell to your spell list at each level from the wizard spell list, but that spell had to come from the abjuration, divination, or necromancy schools.
Now that someone mentioned it, could someone tell us about the evangelist? I'm curious and I likely won't see a copy of UC for a while.
I am playing a UA cloistered cleric as well. We are level 15 with a cr1 template. Things have gotten grim. My character apparently has the most deaths of anyone else in the game. The fewer hit points and poor fort save has not made it easy as the demand for a cleric to move up and cure in combat is always there. Reach meta-magic has helped A LOT, but has not gotten access to it via rod till the last few levels.
So while you get really nice utility things like an extra domain and the bardic knowledge ability, I think it is well balanced.
Now that someone mentioned it, could someone tell us about the evangelist? I'm curious and I likely won't see a copy of UC for a while.
The evangelist gives up a domain and a couple dice of channel energy and gains "sermonic performance" (a limited bardic performance) for use with the perform (oratory) skill (now a class skill). Instead of spontaneous cure/inflicts, they can spontaneously cast a slew of enchantment spells, one per level.
d20pfsrd has a description HERE
I dont think paizo is going to create an archetype that changes things as basic as BAB or spell progression. I think that is too much of a fundamental change to manage properly with a paizo archetype. Like others have said the Tome of secrets priest is pretty much what you are looking for. I dont think paizo will in the near future put forward the concept on their own because it required a whole new class not an archetype.
Well... in all fairness, there's that variant that allows the cleric to gain d10 and Full BAB in exchange of some spells and a domain, or something like that.
I believe it's in the APG.
*runs for the APG*
EDIT: It's actually in the Pathfinder Chronicles, it's called Holy Warrior, and it removes both domains from the Cleric.
I know it's not that radical a change, but I see precedent, taking that ability is like a mini-archetype, the Holy Warrior instead of a normal Cleric, he can use his deity's favored weapon with ease in combat, charging through the hordes first in line, showing them the might of Sarenrae with steel and doom instead of prayer.
I don't know, it would be like the inverse of the Holy Warrior variant, not that hard to do IMHO.
@ The Captain: In our campaign, I died once, the shadowdancer died once, so I was tied for first for most deaths. I didn't have a poor Fort save, however, but we really didn't see a lot of Fort saves. When we did, I did well. The need to get into melee to heal was a problem, as were my poor Reflex saves. I just had consistent problems finding useful things to do in combat besides healing the others and later holy word. I also did manage to run low on spells fairly often (at least for my higher level spells), not because I was doing the classic nova, but because we'd take a lot of punishment and I'd burn spells to heal people and keep them up to finish the fight. That's a matter of party composition and tactics among other things.
@Herken: Thanks! I like the evangelist.
@Dapifer: Nope, that's the holy warrior variant from the original Golarion campaign setting book (whose name I've forgotten); remove domains completely to get d10 hd and full BAB. I believe the good people of Paizo considered it too powerful. The APG had no archetypes whatsoever, which was a major gripe around here.
I am not sure who ninja'd who here, but you are correct, it's not in the APG, and I didn't know it was considered too powerful, personally, I don't see it but I like my Clerics less martial and more supportive, so I wouldn't have payed attention to that variant anyways.
I still believe it's not that hard to do, but apparently that Priest class looks like Uriel222 is looking for.