Hi guys, I've been tooling around the forums and have had a great time reading and contributing (admittedly, not much yet). So I look to the webs to ask a few questions about what I should do in the predicament I am in.
Here's some background.
Group of 4 PCs, I'm one of them, started Rise of the Runelords. We had been playing for roughly 7-9 sessions, but have had a few breaks in between a few sessions due to RL circumstances. Two weeks ago, our DM sat us down and had a heart to heart, and a round table discussion about how he feels our characters aren't part of the world, have no life, no personalities. Totally true, we all felt like the AP was on rails, that we had no ability to adventure off the path set before us. So he wanted to drop the AP, and head to a homemade campaign, and wanted to add a 5th PC. We all agreed. We discussed class options and what would be available. We needed someone capable of heals, so I volunteered as Cleric. Had a great (in my mind) spellcaster cleric idea, we started at level 3, built him up, and started looking around on the forums for a few pointers...
Boy that build got thrown out fast, I found a link to Brewer's Reach Cleric, and I fell in love with it. Remade the cleric from the ground up following the guide the night before the first new session.
So the next day, we sit down at the table and I found out what everyone else would be playing....
Here goes, best of what I can remember:
Druid Bear Archetype
Custom ARG race based around bears
Bear companion
Uses a longspear, Strength is a 20+ heavy Con. He will self buff.
Monk
Custom Race based on Dwarves
Small, with medium monk damage factored into race points
20 Strength, high Dex and Wis.
Fighter, Archer Archetype
Custom ARG Race, based around riding wolves, small
20 Str, high con, high dex.
Witch Scarred Witch Doctor Archetype
Half orc
Extremely high Con, unknown rest.
took Evil Eye and healing hex
My Cleric
Human HP 26
NG alignment
Domains: Tactics, Fate
Str 17
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 14
Cha 8
Feats: Combat reflexes, improved initiative, Power Attack
Traits: Armor Master, reactionary
Equipment: Masterwork longspear, masterwork chainshirt, one wand of CLW, 5 CLW potions, useful to hand to monk when he scouts. Various scrolls of buffs in case i run out of spells.
Side note, DM has yet to rule on whether to homebrew Sacred summons to include all Good alignment summons, he has been unreachable to discuss one on one for the last few days.
So everything is 20 point buy, standard WBL. With one bad HP roll, I am now the lowest HP character, by 7 hp, iirc.
So now we have 4 melee characters, counting the bear animal companion of the druid. Not only is it crowded in melee, my damage is pitiful even with Power Attack compared to anyone else in Melee. The Fighter gets upset if I buff myself, says it's a waste of an action, that as a cleric I should be buffing the other guys. Ok, I can understand that, but the druid already told me he will buff himself whenever he needs it, has one CLW prepared as an emergency for someone.
The witch took healing hex instead of slumber as everyone thought, she thought it wouldn't hurt to have a back up healer, which is not a bad idea, except we have almost no control besides evil eye, since the druid prepares only self buffs, and has stated that he will summon bears. So my need to summon has dropped immensely, even if Sacred Summons is houseruled.
I fear that the witch and myself are going to be completely irrelevant to the party and just used as healbots/buffbots. And that's what I wanted to avoid by going with the reach cleric, to at least be a contribution to the party.
So I've been thinking that since we lack control, of making a bad touch cleric. Obviously that means a complete overhaul of the character. I'm fine with that, and I will post a possible build of it later in the post.
So on to pertinent questions,
1) what do you think, will I be better to stay the reach cleric or should I change to something else?
2) If I stay the Reach cleric, and the DM rules against Sacred Summons (possible, not probable) what are other ways of gaining relevance to the party? I would like to not do the same thing as everyone else, or at least not feel like it....
Ok, here is my bad cleric build that I am thinking of going. I am basing it off of Tark's build in his guide.
Human Cleric level 3
Domains Protean, Madness
Alignment CG
Stats:
Str 12
Dex 16
Con 13
Int 7
Wis 17 (+2)
Cha 7
Feats: Improved Unarmed Strike, Domain Strike (Touch of Chaos)Weapon Finesse
Traits: Armor Master, Reactionary
Equipment: Masterwork Chain Shirt, Mithral Heavy Shield, Wand CLW, 5 x Potion CLW (to supply scouts with help if needed), and that leaves 700 for scrolls.... what scrolls? I don't know...
The idea behind the character is to play him as if he was touched by pure chaos on accident, maybe hit by a meteor sent by a Protean. He'd be partially mad, talking to himself often, little things to roleplay. He'd be "worshiping" an ideal.
I would take Domain Strike again for Touch of madness, maybe, I see it being viable. What other feat progression would you recommend?
I apologize for the HUGE post. I just have concerns and since my Dm has been unreachable, I turn to you to help.
It's possible my DM will see this post, but I don't know how often he hits the forums.
Some people object to the 'bad touch cleric' name.
Click on this avatar for my version of an offensive debuff cleric for a PbP campaign that is in progress. I'm having a blast with him.
Thinking of changing to Chaotic neutral, to take advantage of some of the better evil debuff spells.
I'm probably going to take several scrolls of owl's wisdom, to up my DCs for some big combat situations.
Does the hold the charge spell make Combat casting almost irrelevant? I know there will be times that I won't be able to cast then move to a target.
Gronk de'Morcaine, thank you. I like your character, especially the story.
@RangerJeff
It's not that we lack ranged, we have a fighter using a composite(+5) longbow, and able to nail some decent damage already at level 3.
What I am truly worried about regardless of what character I end up playing, which will either be a reach cleric or a debuff cleric, is being relegated to just healing after battles. everything we have faced so far (hasn't been too much yet, I think the DM is just testing the waters) hasn't had more than one round alive before the three melee monsters have it killed.
Yeah, I should wait a few more sessions before switching, but, counting the animal companion, at our level, we have 4 people doing the exact same thing the same round, and nothing lives. Cool, but I usually give my reroll for initiative to the druid, so I'm acting almost last compared to the melee, (I've rolled poorly for intiative every time so far). I just don't want to be the heal monkey, I tried to avoid it by going the reach cleric to be at least effective, now I'm redundant. I don't like it, it makes me sad that the DM allowed some (imo) broken min/maxed races, but such is life, not my call. I'm just trying to make my place in the group something relevant.
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My suggestion Bard. It can cover all the holes you need filled.
Why play a Bard?
Because your the best support class.
Because your the best party face.
Because your one of the best skill monkeys.
Because you can heal and cast arcane spells.
Of course I'm in the group of people. That think all groups do better with a bard in them. And for the most part it is true.
Update:
I have been in touch with my DM, but things are still unresolved.... I don't think things will change, I don't think I was able to make my case clearly in the very short time we talked.
Calagnar, if I did go bard, would you recommend any builds or archetypes to follow? I'm not saying I will go bard, but I will explore the option.
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There are things to understand with bards. They are built in buffers. So the best combat option for melee is two weapon fighting. This provides them the most use of there inspire courage, & good hope. Verse the two handed weapon benefits most from inspire courage, & haste. Now there are a lot of people that feel this is a feet sink. However it has worked very well for me. Made level 8 with this build in PFSP. It has not let me down. For I understand the main focus of this build.
What this build is made for.
1: Going first to start buffing before the party acts. So when they do act it is with bard buffs.
2: Fighting effectively at range and melee combat. The down side is dose not become good at melee combat until after level 7. Dose not become powerful melee combatant until after level 9. Due to spending feet's like Lingering Performance, Improved Initiative, and Quick Draw. All used to make you a better Bard. Not taken to make you better at melee.
3: Being the party face, knowledge, and disable device skill monkey.
4: The ability to heal. And use wands that remove effect damage using UMD. (IE. My PFSP Bard has wands of cure light wounds, and lesser restoration.)
What this build can not do.
1: Function as a full caster, or a full BAB class.
2: Function as a heavy hitter by him self. He dose need allies to function as his best. With out a good group to support. He is not even close to full effective.
3: I do not expect him to function as a full divine caster. He can and has done a good job of healing out of combat. He dose lack a few critical spells for effect removal. So buying wands can get expensive. With the right wands he can replace a cleric but at a much higher GP cost.
Str 14
Dex 17 (15+2human) All level increases here.
Con 14
Int 12
Wis 7
Cha 14
Skill's 9ranks/level ( Favored Class Bonus +1 Skill point.) Thes are the skills you want to put points in to. Acrobatics, Disable Device, Knowledge arcana, history, local, nobility, planes, religion. Linguistics, Perception, Perform Oratory, Act. Stealth, Use Magic Device
Feet's
Human:Weapon Finesses
1:Lingering Performance
3:Improved Initiative
5:Quick Draw
7:Two Weapon Fighting
9:Improved Two Weapon Fighting
11:Discordant Voice
Traits
Reactionary
Vagabond Child : Skill Disable Device
I say go with an arcane caster to get some battlefield control, if you really want to heal go human sorcerer, take the alternate racial trait focused study and choose UMD for your free skill focus, at level 3 your UMD skill will be 9+chr (thus the reason for sorc, high chr) and it only take a 20 to activate a wand, so there's your heals, you can even use your other free skill focuses later on to grab the prereq for an arcane heritage and steal some powers from an alternate bloodline
Ok, the DM won't allow me to change classes. He is undecided about me overhauling my cleric.
So I pose another question.
With Brewer's Guide to Reach Clerics, if I am unable to rewrite my cleric, what path, or paths should I look into to try to be unique but not losing power.... Sacred summons will probably be ruled against my favor, due to being very clear in the writing.
Since you do not have a high wisdom, you do not want to be casting offensive spells. The target will make the save too often.
Use your spells to buff you and your allies then go melee.
Exactly the point that I was trying to make to my DM, hence the undecided value on rewriting a cleric, Calagnar. My DM is usually fair, but I don't know what else I could do to persuade him.
If he does allow a rewrite, I will almost for sure go with debuff cleric, which will allow the witch and I to work off of each other and control the field better.
The more I look at it, the more I feel Domain Strike isn't good, needing IUA as a prereq, and the damage from unarmed strike is horrible at any level unless I start taking monk levels.
I was instead thinking of taking weapon finesse, building a high wisdom, decent dex, using a spiked gauntlet, if my DM rules that lease a hand from for casting.... Saves two feats at 3rd level, one for combat casting, and I don't know what the other feat would be, any suggestions.
The stat build out would look like this:
Human Cleric level 3
Domains Protean, Madness
Alignment CG
Stats:
Str 12
Dex 16
Con 13
Int 7
Wis 17 (+2)
Cha 7
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Combat Casting, Unknown.
Traits: Focused Mind, Reactionary
Equipment: Mithril Heavy Shield, Masterwork spiked gauntlet, Masterwork Chain Shirt, wand of cure light, various buff potions, various debuff scrolls. the scrolls and potions will be chosen later. Haven't decided whether to channel positive or negative.
Let me know your opinions.