Help on the religious front

[Mr. Recklessness]

Okay I want to try out cleric, But i have no idea how to build one we have a 20 point buy and where staring at level 4 core only. i want to know what i could do to optimize my character, what gods are fun for roleplaying purpose and what race should i be i usually like playing the more sneaky cutthroat characters if that helps any.

[Weables]

I've always found Cayden Cailean to be a highly entertaining and enjoyable God. He was basically a drunken mercenary before taking the test of the starstone (on a drunken bet) and is now the God of Booze, Good Times, and Freedom.

try to break away from what you usually play, and go for the happy go lucky cleric who's just as happy to put his mace into the face of evil as he is to share a beer with yon wench over there.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

That said, if you want to stick with sneaky cutthroats, Norgerber is their god. He's got 4 distinct personae for political intrigue, thievery, apothecary pursuits, and homicidal mania respectively, so there's a lot of directions you could go. He is Neutral Evil, if that matters at all, but hey! You could be Hannibal Lecter, Machiavelli, The Godfather, even the guy from Breaking Bad!

As far as races go, I daresay you want one with a Wisdom bonus, which in core means that if you don't want to be Human or Half-Human, you want to be a Dwarf - the only snag for Dwarven Clerics is their Charisma penalty. Maybe you should ask whether you want to emphasize spellcasting or channeling. Halflings and Gnomes both get Charisma bonuses, and I can see a lot of fun in one of those races as a negative-channeling Cleric of Norgerber cackling with sadism every time ith kills nearly everyone in a room with a blast of pure darkness.

For ability scores, here's two things I might do:

"Spellcasting Spider at the Heart of the Web"-style Dwarven Priest:

STR 10
DEX 8
CON 10 (8+2)
INT 12
WIS 21 (18+2+1)
CHA 12 (14-2)

OR

"Creeping Death"-style Halfling Channeler:

STR 8 (10-2)
DEX 16 (14+2)
CON 8
INT 10
WIS 16 (15+1)
CHA 18 (16+2)

I'm not too big on Clerics, but there you go, some ideas at least.

[MrSin]

Calistria could be an option. Though I've always seen her assassinations as well thought out and in the name of vengeance.

[BigNorseWolf]

Definitely get the trickery domain. Its half the fun of being a rogue without the level dip.

[Sitri]

While branching out can lead to finding some fun mechanics, and I would support Weables happy go lucky outlook for individuals in real life, I find playing goodies quite boring. Every character I have been connected to has some level of taint, it just makes them more interesting to me.

Plus if you are playing a cleric, negative channel is awesome. Consider an aasimar, they have a few negative channel feats that no one else can get.

If you take Urgathoa as a goddess you can pick up Shatter Resolve, which is pretty awesome.

Prerequisites: Channel negative energy class feature, worshiper of Urgathoa.

Benefit: When you damage a creature by channeling negative energy, you fill it with fear. A creature that is affected by your channel negative energy ability and fails its Will save to halve the damage also becomes shaken for a number of rounds equal to the number of dice used to calculate the damage caused by the channel energy ability (so if you deal 1d6 points of damage, the condition lasts 1 round; if 2d6 points of damage, then 2 rounds, and so on).

[Broken Zenith]

You've checked you the Guide to the Guides - right? There's no fewer than 6 guides on there to peruse.

[pH unbalanced]

What I tend to do is pick one domain that I'm interested in, and then go to the PathfinderWiki to browse the gods that have that domain, to see which ones strike me from an RP perspective. There are *tons* of minor deities out there which are fun and flavorful and, oh yeah, have nice domain synergy.

My favorite that I've played so far was a Skull & Shackles game where I ended up as a Cleric of Naderi (Goddess of Suicide and Doomed Love). Water + Repose domains were fabulous, and an awesome RP hook.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

Something I forgot to mention about worshipping Norgerber: You could take the Secret Knowledge trait, one of the cooler ones for my money.

[soupturtle]

I think firstly, you need to decide whether you want to be primarily a weapon wielding character or primarily a spellcaster. Clerics can be either, and that will heavily influence all your other decisions. Or, you can take a look at the Reach Cleric (it's in the guide to the guides), which is probably the only good way to get some of both.

After you've decided whether you want to be a battle cleric, a caster cleric, an archer cleric or a reach cleric, either find yourself a list of deities and pick a couple of cool gods that you think would make sense in your game, and then check out their domains, or find a couple of cool domains and check out their gods.

Also, if you don't have a bard in your party the Evangelist archetype can be very good, if you like the concept.

After you've done those things, come back here with your combat style / deity / domain ideas and you'll get excellent advice on ability scores and feats in no time. But if you just ask for help with "a cleric" it's hard to give you good advice.

Personally, I like would love to play a battle bleric of Sivanah, a reach cleric ofShelyn, or a caster evangelist Cleric of Milani.

[Saganen Hellheart]

The thing about clerics is that they have so many ways to be build that there is no standard way to play one.
Alot of people say it is the healing class due to the spontaneous casting, which is correct. It gives a very easy way to alot of healing.

But you should never build a cleric up around the concept of healing. NEVER. That is never your main role.

In the Kingmaker AP am I playing a half-orc cleric of Gorum. In the party there is two paladins and a ranger. When I am buffed up, I out damage them all.