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Hi there. I am playing a Cleric in a Kingmaker campaign and I need some advice.
The party of 5 is lv 6 now and as the Cleric in the party I find myself strictly healing in combat.
If I am lucky I get to cast prayer and bless in combat, but most of the time, I end up rushing to channel a positive burst or a healing spell.
Combats are sudden and we hardly get any preparation time. So buffs have to be done in combat.
I feel like a HEALBOT... even thought my character is a casting cleric, he is not build as a dedicated healer.
Cleric is a Dwarf with Domains of Love and Travel, highest stat is 18 wis at lv 1, its 21 now due to an item and 1 point add.
Some facts, I hardly use the charm domain spells, due to we having a bard that specialize in charm/enchanting spells, and I rarely is able to use spells like spiritual weapon, due to the constant need for healing.
Damage to the party often comes a huge single bursts. Meaning someone will get like half his/her life chopped off and I need to heal him/her or she is going to go down the next round.
What should I do to improve my character pass just healing? Please advice.
It sounds as if your party is playing recklessly and expecting you to pick up the pieces. Your best bet might be to talk to the group, let them know that you feel frustrated with your role, and figure out ways for the group to work together in order to take less damage and down your foes more quickly.
First thing to do is talk to the GM. Express your thoughts and feelings and make sure the GM knows you want to do more than just heal he/she should adjust the encounters to include you more. Maybe even switch out the love domain for something else?
Second, talk to your group. Make them aware that you want to me be more than a healbot. They probably don't realize that they are treating you as such.
Third, Be brave and rush into combat. If you don't cast cure while in combat, you won't be a healbot. Most encounters (esp in Kingmaker) won't kill the party on an average day. So they can wait to be healed until after the fight.
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If one of the characters tends to take the lion's share of the damage (and you have decent hit points), throw shield other on them, and halve your workload.
I prefer, as a cleric, to use shield other on whoever takes the most damage, and, when possible, summon some celestial dogs or eagles to do some flanking / damage contribution, toss bless or dispel magic or invibility purge as necessary, and otherwise heal (often with wands) or bonk people with my morningstar.
I do find that shield other does make it more likely that I'll get interrupted while trying to cast summon monster, so you'll want to delay your action until after the monsters have hit whomever you have shielded, before starting casting on that, so as not to lose your spell.
Once combat is over, a channel energy can heal yourself and your shielded ally of damage, and seems like it was designed for that sort of thing, taking care of smaller amounts of damage spread across multiple PCs, instead of truckloads applied to only a single PC.
Remind them of the Withdraw action, and say your god gave you an epiphany that you were not being used to your full potential.
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If you don't want to heal in combat, don't heal in combat. Honestly, it's more efficient to spend your in-combat rounds contributing to ending the fight, and leave the healing for later (preferably via the hyper-efficient wand of cure light wounds).
You say you're level six? Okay, so you have access to spells of up to third level. If your fighter just lost half his HP, then it's not in your best interest to use up both your turn (your most precious resource) and your highest-level spell slot just to undo that hit (or less than undo it, if you only have level 1 or 2 spells remaining).
Instead, focus on winning the fight and then healing afterwards. You can use that third level spell to cast searing light and blast the bad guy to bits, or maybe wind wall to stop an archery-based ambush in its tracks, or hit someone with blindness and effectively remove them from the fight right then and there.
Similarly, use your second-level spells on things like hold person to slow them down (even better if someone's close enough to Coup de Grace the target once they fail their save), use silence to shut down a spellcaster, or cast spiritual weapon to practically add a whole new fighter to the party.
Remember: there's no requirement that everyone be healthy when the last baddie drops. The other four people can all be lying on the ground bleeding out their arses and you still win, as long as you can tap them each with the aforementioned wand before they hit negative CON mod HP.
You're only a healbot because you're consenting to be.
It sounds like you have a bunch of glass cannons in your party. I would explain to them that you are tired of patching them up every fight and that if they dont start making an effort to protect themselves in the next fight you will just let them go down and heal them after the fight is over.
Start with damage prevention. Lvl 3 Archon's Aura has been a thorn in my side as GM. Especially when combined with sanctuary.
Bestow Curse with a reach rod - disgusting.
Obscuring Mist is a great friend of mine
Shield Other has a nice durration and is also a good candidate for a reach rod. It will help increase your effectiveness with heals, giving you more options for doing other stuff.
edit: Ok, after just noticing the fact that damage is coming at you in bursts - Shield Other is definetely a good way to go. It is amasing at that.
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spiritual weapon to practically add a whole new fighter to the party.
That's a good one. Better than summon monster, in some cases, because it can't be blocked by protection from X and it doesn't take a full-round-action to cast.
Note that spiritual weapon is most fun if you are a cleric of Cayden, Lamashtu or Sarenrae (rapier, kukri or scimitar for that 18-20 crit range) or Urgathoa (scythe for that x4 crit multiplier). [With Charm/Love and Travel, I'm guessing Cayden is your diety? If so, good for you! 18-20 crit range it is!]
I'd never bother with something like searing light, myself, but a lucky sound burst can cost the bad-guys an action with the stun effect, and save you that round worth of damage.
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Replying to some questions:
The party is not really reckless. It seems more due to the fact that we lack a dedicated tanker-like character.
Party consist of, Ranger(Melee), Alchemist(Range), Wizard(Universal), Bard(Magician) and me the Cleric(Caster). Oh and a pet pf the ranger.
We all don't have much hp. This is due to some players coming and then leaving the group, taking away some of the roles.
So ANY damage could eat a chunk out of anyone of us.
I think I will have a good talk with the DM. I am feeling more and more detached to my character.
On Summoning for Divine characters, is Argument Summoning a must? Or just taking Sacred Summons good enough?
How can I be good in summoning as a Cleric?
On Prep time, we try to "scout"... but its more like roll init rolls and then prepare for surprise round or straight into combat. I just don't have spells that last hours, as the monsters pop out of the forest to attack. Its Kingmaker...
Leave them bleeding... I may wan to... but lets say that the players... its better not to.
We got about 4-5 CLW wands among us... ... lol
Yap we... I mean most of my other party members, the Wizard, Bard are kinds like glass cannons.
spiritual weapon to practically add a whole new fighter to the party.That's a good one. Better than summon monster, in some cases, because it can't be blocked by protection from X and it doesn't take a full-round-action to cast.
I'd never bother with something like searing light, myself, but a lucky sound burst can cost the bad-guys an action with the stun effect, and save you that round worth of damage.
I'v enever particularly liked spiritual weapon or searing light. The first is irrelivant damage (usually misses) for too much action economy (move action to target), and the second a single burst for mediocre damage. Just my personal preference though, I suppose.
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I do get to cast spiritual weapon. Problem is the weapon has no hit points and enemies have no reason to attack it... meaning its not a meat shield and I end up having to stop casting more SWs as healing is needed.
Lvl 3 Archon's Aura - I worship Cayden Cailean, but I am NG can I cast a spell that is LG?
Our Bard is a Magician, which means he boost our caster levels and does not have Inspire Courage.
Which brings me to summoning monster spells, is taking a feat like Sacred Summons useful for a Cleric like me?
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On Summoning for Divine characters, is Argument Summoning a must? Or just taking Sacred Summons good enough?
How can I be good in summoning as a Cleric?
I always take Augment Summoning, but mainly because there are, IMO, crap all for decent cleric feats. (My first five feats always seem to be Spell Focus (conj), Augment Summoning, Improved Initiative, Toughness and Craft Wondrous Item...)
If you don't want to eat the (mostly useless to clerics) Spell Focus (conjuration) to get Augment Summoning, I'd stick to casting spiritual hammer, sound burst, silence, hold person, command and cause fear for 'soft-control' effects. (Command and cause fear can also open up those affected to a boat-load of attacks-of-opportunity, if you cause a person to run away from (or past) your melee people. It's almost as good as haste, in that it gives your allies an extra attack, if positioned well!)
Note that even an un-Augmented Small Earth Elemental, Dretch or Lantern Archon can be handy, so you might still find the occasional use for summon monster, even if you don't want to eat the feats.
We got about 4-5 CLW wands among us... ... lol
Good stuff. The Ranger, Alchemist *and* Bard all have cure light wounds on their spell lists, so you should let take their lives in their hands, from time to time.
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I'd never bother with something like searing light, myself, but a lucky sound burst can cost the bad-guys an action with the stun effect, and save you that round worth of damage.
Agreed.
Extended Sounded Burst is a level 3 spell that can take out a small group of enemies for 2 rounds and disarm them.
Ooh, that's hot. Thanks for the tip!
Good stuff. The Ranger, Alchemist *and* Bard all have cure light wounds on their spell lists, so you should let take their lives in their hands, from time to time.
Or all the time until they are at negative HP.
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I just finished getting hammered on several other threads for posting about my "Defensive" Cleric who sounds like he could be your twin.
Dwarf 5th lvl cleric with Domains Love and Travel.You say you lack a tank? My Cleric tends to be the tank in the groups he play's in. Think about becomeing the tank.
Love Domain means they have to roll a will save to swing at you (once per round). My guy took Hvy armor and Tower shield and got them both enchanted (+1), so his AC is 26+(depending on spells). Also check out the Adventurers Armory for the Sacred items - if you have a Channel left at the end of the day you can dump it into an item to give you an advantage the next day (24 hour durations on items that give an AC boost or a little healing to go round).
Mean time, if you get a chance check out the thread for "Best defense is a good offense, myth" (sorry, I'd put in a link here but I don't know how to do that yet).
And tell your team to move over - you're moving up to the front line (and they can try to keep you alive for a change, see how they like that!)
Good Luck! Nice to see another traveling Dwarven Love Machine!
! Did you spend the feats for the heavy armor and tower shield? Or did you Multi-class to get them?
I need to decided what to spend my up coming lv 7 and my current lv 5 feat on. (I have yet to fill them up.)
For lv 5 I am thinking Script Scrolls, for lv 7 I am thinking, Heavy armor proficiency, Extra Channel, Sacred Summons or Extended spell.
What should I take?
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Our Bard is a Magician, which means he boost our caster levels and does not have Inspire Courage.The bard still adds +2 to hit with your spells. Spiritual Weapon is a spell so should get that +2 to hit. That would make it +10 to hit for 1d8+2 damage.
It also lasts for 6 rounds at level 6, so on average you probably only need to cast one per combat to attack the entire fight. Multiple castings is not necessary, just fun.
And at 7th level, just 1 away, you can cast Spiritual Ally and actually have a pseudo-warrior to move around and play.
Your right! I just read the lines on Spiritual Weapon. It strikes as a Spell!
Thanks for pointing this out to me!Someone please help answer my questions in the previous posts? Thank you.
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I'm not great with divine magic but there's a few suggestions I can make.
First, do you have anyone doing controlling? If not you might try branching out there, actively prevent the damage rather than try and heal it after the fact. Summon monsters can help with that, not only by drawing attacks but also blocking charging lanes and killing enemies.
I'm sure you already do, but just in case, try and heal up after combat as much as possible.
This.
Preventing damage is usually more efficient than healing it after the fact.
Here's some spells on the Cleric list that can help with that:
Level 1:
Obscuring Mist
Command
Cause fear
Level 2:
Darkness (For a dwarven cleric - I would call this a "must have")
Shatter
Soundburst
Level 3:
Summon Monster III (Cheetah is a good choice for tripping fun)
Blindness/Deafness (blindness, not deafness!)
Dispel Magic
Wind Wall
Finally, if you don't have Improved Initiative, get it! Your best chance to prevent damage is to go first!
One level of fighter gives you proficiency with heavy armor, tower shield, dwarven waraxe as well an extra feat. Though I'm not a fan of tower shield because of the loss of accuracy.
The drawback to this approach is that you still won't have time to cast many spells. You will be busy tanking instead of busy healing.
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One level of fighter gives you proficiency with heavy armor, tower shield, dwarven waraxe as well an extra feat. Though I'm not a fan of tower shield because of the loss of accuracy.
The drawback to this approach is that you still won't have time to cast many spells. You will be busy tanking instead of busy healing.
While I don't see myself as the front-line tanker, would having heavy armor help, if I am a backup/2nd-line tanker?
Cos I really need to decide what feats to get for lv 5 and what I will get at lv 7.
Shortlisted are, Script Scrolls, Heavy armor proficiency, Extra Channel, Sacred Summons or Extended spell
If a level of fighter is not beneficial, would spending a feat for the heavy armor be worth it?
Said stuff.
Huh, never noticed that Darkvision works in Darkness.
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One level of fighter gives you proficiency with heavy armor, tower shield, dwarven waraxe as well an extra feat. Though I'm not a fan of tower shield because of the loss of accuracy.
The drawback to this approach is that you still won't have time to cast many spells. You will be busy tanking instead of busy healing.
While I don't see myself as the front-line tanker, would having heavy armor help, if I am a backup/2nd-line tanker?
Cos I really need to decide what feats to get for lv 5 and what I will get at lv 7.
Shortlisted are, Script Scrolls, Heavy armor proficiency, Extra Channel, Sacred Summons or Extended spellIf a level of fighter is not beneficial, would spending a feat for the heavy armor be worth it?
Meh, unless you've got abysmal DEX, medium armor is plenty. A breastplate and a buckler (bucklers leave your hand open for spellcasting) gives you a 17 AC plus whatever your DEX mod is. For 2,000gp, you can put a +1 each on your buckler and armor, giving you 19+DEX for your AC. That should be plenty for a "second-line" type, and I would hope you can afford it at level 6.
Also note that spells with a long duration (10 min/level, 1 hour/level, or extended versions of the above) can often be cast well before encounters start, freeing you up to do other things during the encounter. Even 1 minute/level spells can be cast before moving in, if you have decent scouting.
_Resist energy_ is an excellent example of such a spell, though of course it's only useful if you're likely to be running up against particular types of energy damage. But that's very common...
Definitely see if you can do some scouting, or perhaps _augury_ spells, and figure out what you're likely to be facing before the enemy pulls something on you.
Said stuff.Huh, never noticed that Darkvision works in Darkness.
It's a nice combo. You have to be selective in its use though, a lot of creatures have darkvision.
I'd suggest having a summoning spell or two ready to go every day. Its an easy fix for your problem. Cast it in the first round and it gives you something to do in addition to healing if you have to. Augmented Summoning is not necessary, it just makes them a little tougher. Unless you want to be a dedicated summoner, or simply have no other options for feats, I wouldn't spend the feats on it. You're short list of feats has all good feats on it...I wouldn't mess with augmented summoning unless you plan to summon all the time.
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I'd suggest having a summoning spell or two ready to go every day. Its an easy fix for your problem. Cast it in the first round and it gives you something to do in addition to healing if you have to. Augmented Summoning is not necessary, it just makes them a little tougher. Unless you want to be a dedicated summoner, or simply have no other options for feats, I wouldn't spend the feats on it. You're short list of feats has all good feats on it...I wouldn't mess with augmented summoning unless you plan to summon all the time.
I'll vouch for that. Last campaign, one of my players ran a summoning cleric - terrible Strength, but she didn't need it since the party had some close-quarters types and she invested in Augment Summoning early on. She did very well by acting more like a wizard than a cleric... though she was helped a lot by my decision that Weapon Finesse (since it works for unarmed strikes) also applied to touch-spells. (I never did check to see if that was legal. Is it?)
Thanks for the input on Summoning.
I think I will be getting Scared Summons for level 5. That would get me all my animal summons as standard actions. (No Lantern Archon... Its LG and my god is CG... but hey you win some you lose some.)
It should help my party by providing some extra targets for foes and help keep the need for healing off my back.
The last campaign I was in, I was the designated tank. I regularly ran to the cleric for healing during combat and expressed many of the same frustrations you are and this was his solution: For about 1 game, he refused to heal me at all. This forced me to start thinking smart and not charging in every time there was a little evil guy to stomp. A cleric's best role is in damage prevention by the following spells:
1) protection from ..... +2 AC
2) aid - temp hit points and + to hit
3) resist energy
4) the ultimate summon monster (not only provides flanking bonus for partner but absorbs damage that is not going into PC and you get to play him
5) prayer
6) magic vestmentyou get great debuffs too (too numerous to mention)
Many people in this thread mentioned Shield Other and that almost killed our cleric a few times, especially if he was fighting some creatures himself. You are so much more than a band aid.
Humm... I get what you mean. I will get Extended Spell at lv 7, that will give me buffs that last long enough to help the party.
And thanks for the list above. There are so many spells, I keep losing track of what spells do what. Thanks again!
I think I will be getting Scared Summons for level 5. That would get me all my animal summons as standard actions. (No Lantern Archon... Its LG and my god is CG... but hey you win some you lose some.)
It should help my party by providing some extra targets for foes and help keep the need for healing off my back.
2 things on Sacred Summons:
- I think you mentioned that you are NG and worship Cayden? If so, Sacred Summons doesn't work for you AT ALL. It works only on creatures with an alignment subtype that match your aura. Your aura, however, is based on your deity (CG) while the summoned animals will have your alignment (NG).- Should your aura and alignment be the same, check with your GM if he allows Sacred Summons to work with summoned animals. Because it doesn't work that way by RAW. See this topic for more information. The feat is nealry useless as written.
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My DM seems to be cool with it, its not broken or anything.
Just want to say thanks again to everyone for your help.
Played through my last game summoning up a bunch of Celestial riding dogs. They worked great as a meat shield. holding off a bunch of wolves long enough for my Wizard to get a fireball on them and helped my Ranger with getting flank on some Mons later.
While its just 1 game, going summoning seems like the best choice for my character so far.
It solves one of the biggest problems my group has been facing, namely the lack of a proper tank/s.
Now I can support the party without just rushing to heal. I only had to heal the ranger due to him being ganged by 2+ mobs. The wizard can cast his spells properly and I am not in panic mode all the time.
Thanks again!