What school to Spell Focus for a cleric?


Advice

Grand Lodge

I feel like the save-or-X spells on the cleric list are pretty evenly distributed between schools. This will be my 9th level slot, so I'm getting 5th level spells (pure cleric, Madness/Deception domains) but I can't really think of a good school to focus.

If nothing stands out, I'll likely either go for Lightning Reflexes or Dodge.

Scarab Sages

You domains favor illusion, but there are very little illusion spells on the core cleric list.

Personally, I'd say skip it, and use vision of madness to give a no save massive penalty to saves and attacks before you cast a SoS spell.


Enchantment.

At 9th level you pick up Greater Command, which is an Enchantment, and effectively an AoE Hold Person. Confusion is a 4th level domain spell from both your domains and another excellent (and hilarious) AoE control spell, Terrible Remorse is an excellent single target control spell at 4th, Serenity is a decent AoE control spell.

So many Cleric control spells are Enchantments, that's a good spell focus for them. Greater Command is one of my favorite spells in the game.

Imbicatus: Isn't there a feat that allows you to channel your touch range domain abilities through a weapon? I've always wanted to do that with Vision of Madness but my Madness domain cleric has a 5 Str. >.>

Grand Lodge

Akerlof wrote:

Enchantment.

At 9th level you pick up Greater Command, which is an Enchantment, and effectively an AoE Hold Person. Confusion is a 4th level domain spell from both your domains and another excellent (and hilarious) AoE control spell, Terrible Remorse is an excellent single target control spell at 4th, Serenity is a decent AoE control spell.

So many Cleric control spells are Enchantments, that's a good spell focus for them. Greater Command is one of my favorite spells in the game.

Imbicatus: Isn't there a feat that allows you to channel your touch range domain abilities through a weapon? I've always wanted to do that with Vision of Madness but my Madness domain cleric has a 5 Str. >.>

Great suggestion. Also, I don't know about feats, but the Conductive weapon property works. Keep in mind though, you now aren't hitting to touch, so unless weapon damage is super important to you, skip it.

Oh, and I do vision of Madness things before debuffing. It is my Joie de Vivre. Still, stuff rolls high.


Enchantment is really good. Most of your SoD spells are enchantment.

Necromancery has some great de-buffs, too, as far as I remember.


Imho 2 best schools for cleric are conjuration and necromancy.
Conjuration - summon monsters, plane shift your opponents, open a hole to abyss for your opponents to fall, wall of stone for environment control.
Necromancy - what can be better than army of undead minions, also great spells like harm, destruction, curses, wail of the banshee.
Enchantment is nice, but many opponents are immune to mind affecting effects. AFAIK 90% of high level "bosses" are immune to them.


TheTheos wrote:

Imho 2 best schools for cleric are conjuration and necromancy.

Conjuration - summon monsters, plane shift your opponents, open a hole to abyss for your opponents to fall, wall of stone for environment control.
Necromancy - what can be better than army of undead minions, also great spells like harm, destruction, curses, wail of the banshee.
Enchantment is nice, but many opponents are immune to mind affecting effects. AFAIK 90% of high level "bosses" are immune to them.

"spell focus".

Conjuration is good in part because most of it is no save.

Nearly all the enchantment clerics can do is save or suck.


Conjuration opens up Varisian Tattoo(Conjuration) for +1 caster level to all Conjuration spells(a small boost for Cure X Wounds) and Augment Summoning.

Silver Crusade

I'd probably go for none-of-the-above. Spell Focus is a required prerequisite for some good feats (e.g. Spell Focus[Conjuration] -> Augment Summons), but is rarely worthwhile by itself. Is an entire feat worth +1 DC to a spell school? If you decide 'yes' then enchantment is probably your best bet, unless you want to augment your summons, in which case you must focus on Conjuration. Summoning is one of the best tools in the cleric arsenal, and is one way a cleric can be quite effective at battlefield control.

Presumably you are an all-caster cleric. For your 11th level feat you'll want Divine Interference. Here are some other useful feats for a 9th level caster cleric: Quicken Spell, Extend Spell, Quick Channel, Sacred Summons (depends on deity alignment). Note that all those feats improve Action Efficiency, which is where a 9th level cleric has the biggest room for improvement.

Grand Lodge

For a cleric you can focus on conjuration to get augmented summoning.

You can also focus on enchantment...evanglist archetype goes well with either focuses.

You could go with necromancy for blindness, bestow curse, and other debuffs...works well on a bad touch cleric.

Those are the best 3 spell focuses for a cleric.

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