Getting the most out of my Cleric.


Advice

Liberty's Edge

My character is a Aasimar Cleric of Abadar. Noble born she set off with the rest of our group to claim land in the Greenbelt(Kingmaker modules), and restore her family name to glory. I am playing her as very diplomatic, willing to help as many as she can, but with a very unforgiving side to those who are truly unrepentant or evil.

I have been having a great time playing her but I am constantly scratching my head on what to strive for character wise. Her stats reflect someone who has been both raised as nobility and in the church, I actually put my first skill point into Str to reflect her questing around the countryside and general adventuring, I foresee any additional ability points will go into Str as well.

4 levels in and I haven't bought anything yet, other than a set of leather armour which I can barley wear due to my low Str.

Here is a link to my character on Obsidian portal, let me know if you can't see it.

Cleric

Right now I stick pretty close to our Caviler while throwing out buffs and channel healing if needed. but I would like to do more... or do what I can better.

equipment wise I was looking at the

Phylactery of Positive Channeling:

This item allows channelers of positive energy to increase the amount of damage dealt to undead creatures by +2d6. This also increases the amount of damage healed by living creatures.

Another thing I was considering is having a magic item or focus created that would replicate a variant channeling ability, but I don't quite know if that would be broken or how much it might cost to make.

Any suggestions would be helpful.


Quick Channel can be your friend, allowing you to cast or attack and Channel all in the same round.

I'd see if you could buy something to boost your CON or STR.

Liberty's Edge

DrDeth wrote:

Quick Channel can be your friend, allowing you to cast or attack and Channel all in the same round.

I'd see if you could buy something to boost your CON or STR.

Quick channel for sure, I completely forgot that I could get that at lv 5


Don't forget the Summon Monster series.... great for a spell casting Cleric as you seemed to have built. Always helps for damage sponges, damage dealers, and if used with some thought, interesting ways to deal with problems.

Quick Channel is a definite, helps with action economy also.

You could also look into debuff spells, even damage spells, but the issue becomes touch attacks, but for area effects or close spells, you have a great DC.

I recommend summoning, a very powerful addition to your repertoire while costing almost nothing but spell slots.

Item creation.... maybe scribe scroll, expands your spell casting, which is your best ability.


At level 5, you'll get access to "Bestow Curse" which is a really good debuff touch attack spell. As such, I think you'll want to finally get a belt of strength +4 to rid yourself of the -2 to hit you're currently suffering from. A combination of that and Divine Favor might get you back to "respectability" in terms of your roll to hit using touch attacks. A wand of Bull's Strength would be a decent substitute also, but remember they don't stack. The wand would give you the Strength for less money, but will eventually run out of charges. A belt for +4 Str would cost a lot more than the wand, but would be permanent. On the other hand, a belt uses a belt slot, which you might want to use for something else (like Con, or Dex). So it's a tough call. If crafting feats are allowed, I would encourage your entire party to make sure that the PC with the best Spellcraft skill take Craft Wondrous Item at level 5. The vast majority of the really good stuff is Wondrous Items. Cloaks of resistance, boots of speed, all the belts and headbands, the ioun stones, and myriad of other class-specific stuff. To some extent, you'll find decent magic weapons and armor, though you may have issues with who needs what type, etc. Wands are nice, though expensive for a consumable item. As a cleric, you may want to take Craft Wand if nobody else has it. It allows you to make a wand of Cure Light Wounds and/or a wand of Lesser Restoration, both of which would serve you well. The cure wand replaces most of the spell-based curing you'd do during the adventuring day, and Lesser Resoration is an out-of-combat spell, but a good one. You might not need 50 Lesser Restorations by the time the campaign is done, but you'll be happy to not have to prepare it ever again. I also like Quickened Channeling in that it allows you to Channel twice in the same round and take a 5 foot step if needed. Or channel and attack, but I don't know how much attacking you'd be doing. Still Channel + cure spell (or wand cure) is pretty good too.

The Phylactery is a good item, but it takes up a headband slot, which should probably go to a headband of wisdom. Plus you could just take Extra Channeling as a feat instead, if you need it (with a Cha of 18 I think you're fine as it is). Another feat I'd look into, though not at level 5, would be Heighten Spell. This is a metamagic feat that allows you to prepare a low level whammy spell (like Hold Person or Silence) in a higher level slot, thus increasing the DC of the spell in the process. Like I said, not for now, but maybe as a feat at level 9ish or later. Being able to blind, silence, sound burst, hold person, etc with higher DCs isn't bad. That and there aren't a truckload of GREAT level 4 spells for those slots anyway, although Blessing of Fervor is "da bomb" as the kids say, especially if the party doesn't have a caster who can cast Haste. A spell heightened to level 5 would compete against Flame Strike, but could be useful against targets the area attack would likely not bother (hold person a badguy rogue, for example). The 1-round stun you get out of Sound Burst can be really big if the DC is high enough to make it stick, especially against enemy spellcasters with bad Fort saves (I think its a fort save, gotta check that). Even something as useless sounding as Hide from Undead can be awesome if they fail the save against it. Heightened Zone of Truth could be useful out of combat (the old Zone of Truth combo with Speak with Dead is pretty good, but even better when the deceased fails their roll to save against ZoT).

Another feat I feel has its moments for Clerics is Scribe Scroll. The cleric list has a several spells on it that are only situationally useful (like Stone Shape, or the aforementioned Hide from Undead, etc). Scribe Scroll allows you to create a backlog of these sort of spells so that when the opportunity to use one arises, you can go "OOH! I have just the scroll for this! I read a scroll and cast Remove Paralysis."


FrinkiacVII wrote:
At level 5, you'll get access to "Bestow Curse" which is a really good debuff touch attack spell. As such, I think you'll want to finally get a belt of strength +4 to rid yourself of the -2 to hit you're currently suffering from. A combination of that and Divine Favor might get you back to "respectability" in terms of your roll to hit using touch attacks. A wand of Bull's Strength would be a decent substitute also, but remember they don't stack. The wand would give you the Strength for less money, but will eventually run out of charges. A belt for +4 Str would cost a lot more than the wand, but would be permanent.

Bestow Curse is a decent spell. But with a cruddy str and a marginal con, this cleric is best keeping out of close combat. Now sure, he could spend all his gps buying scads of items that will get rid of this “weakness”, but there are so many cool spells on the cleric list, that skipping over “Bestow curse’ and similar are not gonna nerf this PC at all.

I’d max the Wis and CHA, skip the str. Sling spells. Does a Wizard need str?

Sovereign Court

Now that you're getting to a high enough level to consider Metamagic feats, have you looked into Reach Spell? You can apply it to anything you can make a touch with, including the complete line of cure spells.


First, I want to say good job on choosing stats that met your character concept!

As you're character levels up I think you can start putting points in Wisdom instead of Strength, to make your strengths ever stronger. I believe the AP should take a turn to allow that to make sense from a story perspective (at least I think so), but I won't say why due to possible spoilers.

I would recommend some better armor in the short term, you're AC is really bad, and just masterwork chainmail would only be 450 GP. A Heavyload belt or Muleback Cords will help w/ the carrying capacity to make that possible. I just spotted your money, go for Muleback Cords, it's cheaper.

I'm a big fan of summoning w/ clerics, so I would agree w/ what people have said above in that regard. I (possibly) recommend the feat Sacred Summons, but I don't recall what options a LN caster would have...it might be a really bad option but I don't have time to look it up right now, so I'll leave that for someone else to say I'm wrong. :P

Any gear to increase your Wisdom and concentrating on using spells mostly will be your best bet.


Meninite Omishman wrote:

Right now I stick pretty close to our Caviler while throwing out buffs and channel healing if needed. but I would like to do more... or do what I can better.

I would always encourage a healer/buffer type to have something else they can always do besides casting a buff or heal. It can get slow playing the character otherwise.

It appears you have the out of combat covered pretty good, so I'm going to skip that.

For in combat, you'll want to forget weapons of all sorts and focus on using spells. Don't be bashful about casting spells for offense since you have a TON of channels (9 by my count) for healing. There are plenty of spells that are good to cast at level 4 for you that you'll have good DCs versus.

- Sound Burst (stun those enemies)
- Cause Fear (auto debuff even on a failed save, but useful lifespan is dwindling fast)
- Command (usable against all hit dice for a variety of effects)
- Murderous Command (take away a foe's action AND have it attack its ally)
etc.

And then there is all the buffing spells, which you probably have covered in aces.

You're kind of stuck with a low strength and dex, making any strategy that uses those stats to hit pretty terrible. So, ditch the STR and DEX to hit avenues and embrace using WIS to hit in the form of Spiritual Weapon and eventually Spiritual Ally (level 4 spell). At level 4, you'll have a +7 to hit for 1d8+1 damage with Spiritual Weapon. This gains to hit with Bless, Prayer, Inspire Courage, etc. Further, you'll get lots of spell casting stamina as you'll get to use it for 4 rounds at level 4.

As for AC, your DEX is low and your STR is abysmalm so your AC will only ever be mediocre without a LOT of resources. Sorry for the bad news, but it's better to face the facts. The only thing I can see for you to do is get mithril armor and/or use the Ant Haul spell often. You may be stuck at 20 ft movement for a while if you want a "decent" (not great) AC. You can use a heavy shield and forego using a weapon to get a +2 AC shield and still be able to cast spells. You won't be able to give flanking bonuses, but it is an extra +1 AC if you really want it.

Suggested Items for the Wishlist:

- Handy Haversack
- Mithril Chain Shirt (eventually a Mithril Breastplate)
- Mithril Buckler (or Mithril Heavy Shield)
- Scrolls of Cause Fear, Shield of Faith, Protection From Evil (not too many)
- Wand of Bless
- Wand of Longstrider
- Wand of Cause Fear (maybe)
- Wand of Ant Haul (maybe)


Skip the mulepack cords, cast ant haul on yourself and wear a +1 breastplate. That will be 8 hours of being able to carry stuff which should be more than enough and the duration rises quickly with level. You can get a pearl of power to recast it if you are worried about it being dispelled or running out. Do not forget that you can us a buckler without penalty with your crossbow so get one of those too. Headband of wisdom is a must next level, nothing is better than boosting your casting stat. I agree that if your GM allows crafting take craft wondrous item as your level 5 feat and go crazy with items. If not you might think about taking heavy armor proficiency for full plate which you will be able to handle with ant haul, in that case just get a regular breastplate now and save your money for the plate. Offensive channeling is interesting because you have so many channels and a high DC but the damage is not that good and it only works on a very specific set of encounters. I do not think it is worth a feat but maybe a custom magic item if you take crafting but I would put it as a lower priority than a headband and basic defensive items.

Do not be concerned that you are not doing enough. A full caster often casts a good spell the first round, maybe throws out a lesser spell the second and then does basically nothing as the party finishes up. You are still at a level where you can fire your crossbow to do something in the off rounds but in a few more levels you will not have a lot of options. Are you going to take leadership at level 7? If not you should ask to be allowed take the martyr subdomain which will at least give you something. If you are taking leadership you will have plenty to do on your turn with two characters.

Summoning is great and if you are not taking leadership you might consider spell focus (conjuration) so you can take augment summoning which will be a huge boost to your summons. The spell focus is a wasted feat for you and you could talk to your GM and see if you could take something else such as sacred summons as the prerequisite.

Sovereign Court

My highest level PFS character is a "buff/heal" cleric and as noted above, I ran into the "what do I do when I'm not buffing or healing" around level 5. I started to take a lot of spells that mess with (debuff) the enemy at that point, such as:

Murderous Command
Hold Person
Terrible Remorse (one of my favorites)

Also I mentioned reach spell above, one of my favorites is reach spell combined with touch of idiocy.


I like Reach Spell too, "plus one" that idea. You can use it to turn Bestow Curse into a ranged attack (thus using your Dex to hit instead of Str, which is relevant, because a belt of Dex or wand of cat's grace would up your ranged attacks, AC, and Initiative). I personally wouldn't make a wand of Longstrider. It's your best level 1 domain spell, so just cast it once every day. When you're level 6, it will last for 6 hours.


Ignore Sacred Summons as I suggested above. It doesn't do anything for a lawful neutral caster.

Soporific Lotus wrote:
Skip the mulepack cords, cast ant haul on yourself and wear a +1 breastplate. That will be 8 hours of being able to carry stuff which should be more than enough and the duration rises quickly with level. You can get a pearl of power to recast it if you are worried about it being dispelled or running out.

This really depends on your table. I have played in games where only being able to wear your armor at restricted times would have gotten my character killed. It really depends on if you want a shoulder slot (cloak of resistance!) and if you would rather use that 1st level slot for something else. My suggestion comes from a deep paranoia that I blame on my GM. I'll leave it for the OP to determine which option is best, b/c both are valid and viable, depending on situation and GM ruthlessness. :)

Liberty's Edge

First of all thanks for all the suggestions, I appreciate it.
I am going to try and go down the list of suggestions and give some input.

Quick Channel - I feel that this will be a huge asset and a primary source of healing more below

FrinkiacVII wrote:
The Phylactery is a good item, but it takes up a headband slot, which should probably go to a headband of wisdom. Plus you could just take Extra Channeling as a feat instead, if you need it (with a Cha of 18 I think you're fine as it is).

The Phylactery adds +2d6 to the channel dice. Looking at the math if I were to have it at LV 5 (unlikely but possible)

It would be 5d6 (10d6 with quick channel) to all in 30 feet
the average of a heal would be 17.5 or 35 depending on quicken.

CSW has an average of 13 + caster Lv(min 5) to One target and is range touch.

CCW Average is 18 + CL(min 7)

I could do 3 mass heals or 9 normal heals(more with increased stats), This seems really good.

Am I missing something in my calculations? Also I seem to remember that a magic item can be crafted to fill another slot for an extra fee.
so a gloves of of Positive Channeling might be an option.

Strannik wrote:
I would recommend some better armor in the short term, you're AC is really bad, and just masterwork chainmail would only be 450 GP. A Heavyload belt or Muleback Cords will help w/ the carrying capacity to make that possible. I just spotted your money, go for Muleback Cords, it's cheaper.

I did not know about Muleback Cords I think I will get these ASAP, casting Ant Haul is not a great option as we are usually traveling for weeks at a time and I would not like it if we get 8 hours into a day and I fall over because my armour is crushing me.

Rory wrote:
You may be stuck at 20 ft movement for a while if you want a "decent" (not great) AC.

I have the travel domain will it be 30 feet in medium armour?

A question to you all, some of the variant channeling abilities look very good

Bravery/Valor: Heal—Creatures affected by fear may attempt another saving throw and receive a channel bonus on the roll. A creature unaffected by fear gains a channel bonus to its Armor Class until the end of your next turn and on its attack roll if it makes a charge attack before your next turn. Harm—This works like a standard channel (not halved).

What do you think? Could a magical item be made to give me the variant? how much would it cost, I'm thinking since it's so specific between 5000-8000 gold to buy.

Or

Would a feat work instead - variant channel - Choose one of the alternative channeling abilities this can be taken multiple times. each time choose a different alternative channeling ability

Thanks


You will have movement of 30ft medium armor w/ the travel domain.

You should speak to your GM about making custom items/feats for specific abilities (ie, variant channeling/positive channeling). We can say whatever we want here, but it's your GM that's going to make that call. I've had GMs call it both ways.

Sovereign Court

Meninite Omishman wrote:


Am I missing something in my calculations? Also I seem to remember that a magic item can be crafted to fill another slot for an extra fee.
so a gloves of of Positive Channeling might be an option.

You're not missing anything, just have to remember that at a certain level, unless you're taking all the feats/traits/cheese possible for channeling, it's going to be more of an out-of-combat thing. I play a 13th level cleric and he has the +wisdom headband on most of the time because it increases will saves and spell DCs in addition to a few extra spells. If the party camps for the night and there's still damage he'll take off the +wisdom headband and put on the phylactory, this allowing his channel to do an extra 2d6.

It's a toss up - if you're not casting spells with save DCs and you're ok with your will save being a bit lower, by all means go for the phylactory.


You might want to consider ant haul when you get into higher levels and can have it up all day as a cloak of resistance is a pretty good item to have. How long does your group travel in game? With a level 1 pearl, which costs the same as the cords, you will have 16 hours active and 20 hours next level. Eventually you can use the pearl for something else or just sell it.

A feat is worth about 4000-5000 gold if it is not a slotless item. The dark blue rhomboid ioun stone gives alertness and costs 8000 and the opalescent white pyramid gives weapon proficiency and costs 10000. Of course, that is entirely up to the GM. However, variant channel cannot be gained as a feat; it is something you choose when you create the character so I would say that granting a class ability would be much more expensive. I had thought you meant one of the alignment or elemental channel feats before. Also, a character cannot normally switch back and forth between full normal healing and variant channeling so I would say that a feat or item that let you do both would be too good. Such an item would be very powerful in that you could take the item off and give full healing between fights and then put the item back on and have access to the variant in fights. Maybe if you talk to your GM he or she will just let you permanently switch to one of the variant channels when you reach next level as if you had selected it when you made the character.

I do not know how your games have been going but in my experience it is not necessary for the cleric to be so focused on healing, especially in combat. Our cleric would often have channel energy uses left after adventuring for the day so a phylactery was not needed.

Yes, your speed would reduce to 30 in medium armor or heavy armor.

If you take off the wisdom headband, put on the phylactory, and then put the wisdom headband back on the stat bonus counts as temporary so you would not get bonus spells the next time you prepare spells.

Silver Crusade

The Human Diversion wrote:

I play a 13th level cleric and he has the +wisdom headband on most of the time because it increases will saves and spell DCs in addition to a few extra spells. If the party camps for the night and there's still damage he'll take off the +wisdom headband and put on the phylactory, this allowing his channel to do an extra 2d6.

It's a toss up - if you're not casting spells with save DCs and you're ok with your will save being a bit lower, by all means go for the phylactory.

This might be a very dangerous things to do, since it resets your bonuses for wisdom and takes 24 hours for some to come back (link):

PRD wrote:

HEADBAND OF INSPIRED WISDOM

Aura moderate transmutation; CL 8th
Slot headband; Price 4,000 gp (+2), 16,000 gp (+4), 36,000 gp (+6); Weight 1 lb.
DESCRIPTION
This simple bronze headband is decorated with an intricate pattern of small green gemstones. The headband grants the wearer an enhancement bonus to Wisdom of +2, +4, or +6. Treat this as a temporary ability bonus for the first 24 hours the headband is worn.

CONSTRUCTION
Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, owl's wisdom; Cost 2,000 gp (+2), 8,000 gp (+4), 18,000 gp (+6)


Divine Favor into Spiritual Weapon works on any cleric with a high wisdom. The to hit and damage get applied to the weapon and you can always cast two Weapons during tougher encounters. This only gets better as you level up, but the spell is a blessing for those clerics without the STR and DEX to use melee or ranged weapons effectively.

As an added benefit, it is a force effect and thus works fantastically against incorporeal creatures and anyone with DR.

Sovereign Court

DesolateHarmony wrote:
This might be a very dangerous things to do, since it resets your bonuses for wisdom and takes 24 hours for some to come back

Your point is appreciated! I'm actually aware of this, I have only done the switch-out once, and even then it was done because party resources were low and said character had already burned through the bonus spell slots that the extra wisdom granted.


Just to clarify my original post, I never meant to imply that the Extra Channeling feat would get you as much extra healing as the Phylactery would give. I only meant to say that the Phylactery uses up a more valuable slot (the headband slot) than the Feat would (although, there are a decent number of feats you could take too, so it's not like you have infinite feats either...).
I would also like to point out that there are ways of doing more healing that don't require a feat OR a headband, Wand of Cure Light Wounds being the main one there. For a measly 375gp, you get 50 charges of 1d8+1 cure each. You are allowed to artificially set the caster level of a wand you make to whatever the minimum would be for the spell in question, which for CLW is level 1. It makes the DC lower, but in the case of cure wands, that doesn't matter, as long as you don't intend to attack undead with it. And you can probably afford to make 2 or three. It's a small price to pay for the amount of healing you get, and doesn't require a body slot but does require a feat. If someone else in the party already has Craft Wand, you can collaborate with them to make wands of your spells, and if you have Craft Wand, you can team up to make wands of other people's spells for them you use. You could even give a cure wand to the Rogue, or anyone who has Use Magic Device skills, making them the emergency healer for occasions when you get knocked out or fail a save etc.
As for Extra Channeling, I think in your case (Cha bonus of +4) you're fine with the 7/day you currently have. I said that parenthetically above, but I'm more solidly in favor of NOT taking Extra Channeling now that I've thought about it more.

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