My first PFS character,please help me make my Cleric Awesome!

[hughnme]

Following on from my wonderful experience playing PFS at Paxaus I was handed Kyra as a pregen and I've decided to play a Cleric for PFS.

Would it be a big ask for someone to build a Cleric of Sarenrae up to level 8 or so with all the stats and spells and whatnot.

Basically what I'm asking is a kick arse Cleric build I can play from the get go with explanations on why you picked certain things at certain levels.

Thanks in advance.

[terry_t_uk]

My recommendaion would be to build the character yourself so you are confident you understand how the abilities you pick up function.
Always have an idea of how you want the character to level but appreciate over the course of your characters life things may change as will your character direction.

[Jack-of-Blades]

Welcome to PFS Organized Play!

If you haven't already been pointed toward it, I recommend checking out the official Guide to Organized Play. Please note that this particular document will be updating in the next couple of weeks, so keep an eye out for when that happens as only the newest and most recent version of the guide is correct and legal.

After that, when you're reading through your source material trying to take inspiration and ideas from things you like, make sure to check the Additional Resources page and look up the particular entry for the product that you're looking at the material from. That will let you know whether or not what you're wanting is currently legal in PFS Organized Play.

If I wasn't falling asleep at the keyboard, I'd do a proper write-up here, but as it is I need to go pass out.

However, I shall try to return and add my own advice and tips to the pool when I wake up in the morning. Ciao!

[Artoo]

There's a lot of ways to play a cleric. What do you want to be able to do?

Do you want to be a healer?

Do you want to make the rest of your party awesome?

Do you want to wade right into the fight and start hitting things?

Do you want to make the enemies all much less impressive?

[Jiggy]

Welcome to PFS!

I could be misinterpreting your post, but it sort of sounds like you mean to jump into PFS with an 8th-level cleric. If so, I'm afraid you can't do that. You've got to start at 1st level (plus the credit for whatever chronicle sheets you got for the scenarios you played).

That in mind, I'll echo Artoo: what do you want your cleric to be good at? The cleric is one of the most pliable classes in the game, able to be built in a wide variety of ways, moreso than most classes. Just based on how many different ways there are to be a cleric, you've probably got something like 2-3 classes worth of possibilities.

So what would you like to do?

[El Baron de los Banditos]

Jiggy wrote:

I could be misinterpreting your post, but it sort of sounds like you mean to jump into PFS with an 8th-level cleric. If so, I'm afraid you can't do that. You've got to start at 1st level (plus the credit for whatever chronicle sheets you got for the scenarios you played).

I think he might be simply looks for a level-by-level synopsis up to 8th to plan ahead a little, though either interpretation may very well be right.

The "What do you want to do, exactly" question is a big one, though". Especially with Clerics.

[hughnme]

Thank you all for your replies and apologies for for my vagueness.Yes,what I was looking for was a level by level PFS legal synopsis of my character so I can plan ahead.

The Clerc I'd like to play should be able to assist the Fighter with a bit of fighting while still being a decent healer.Level 8 was just an arbitrary number I came up with.So,starting stats,favorite spells-anything at all from you guys would be most helpful.

[David_Bross]

If you'd like to be really good at assisting the fighter, you could look into the Evangelist Archetype, which gains a bardic performance ability. You could also look into domains which help support the fighter (Heroism immediately jumps to mind), and the basic cleric abilities will do great here. Good and Healing also are decent domains for what your goal is, with good being more buffing, and healing being for, well...

Most races make decent clerics, I took human on my cleric to get a bonus feat and extra skill ranks (which I still feel starved for). Also note as human you can get more skills which are always nice.

Level 1
You'll have some nice buff spells, as well bardic performance. Don't forget you can't spontaneous cast healing (like most clerics) so you'll want to make sure you keep plenty of slots for those. Pick up scrolls of things that are situational but very useful (remove fear), and wands of things you want to do every combat (bless, CLW)
level 3
You get channel, which I'm sure if one of the abilities you really missed from playing Kyra, but you've been able to keep doing bardic performances and blesses, getting 2nd level cleric spells (Bless weapon, Weapon of Awe, Bull's Strength) will make you even better at making the local fighter a killing machine.
level 5
You'll get 3rd level spells. Prayer is really good for a combat buff (+1 allies/ -1 enemies). Dispel magic is also a great spell and although I've personally never had daylight be effective (the things that cast darkness a lot can also dispel magic...), I've heard good things.
level 7
You have access to lesser planar ally. You can now have a friend, for some gold, to help you get in the thick of things. Blessing of Fervor is lesser haste, but at least you finally got that.

If you'd like to mix it up as well, keep in mind you surely can with the myriad of buffs you have going, but you will not be as tough and you'll need to be aware of that.

[Thomas, the Tiefling Hero!]

I'm an 8th-level melee cleric of Iomedae (lots of mechanical overlap with Sarenrae), so clicking my name and checking out some of my stats might give you some ideas to work from. :)

[David Bowles]

hughnme wrote:

Thank you all for your replies and apologies for for my vagueness.Yes,what I was looking for was a level by level PFS legal synopsis of my character so I can plan ahead.

The Clerc I'd like to play should be able to assist the Fighter with a bit of fighting while still being a decent healer.Level 8 was just an arbitrary number I came up with.So,starting stats,favorite spells-anything at all from you guys would be most helpful.

I made a middle of the road cleric. He works pretty well. Base stats:

Str 14
Dex 10
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 16
Cha 14

There's only so much you can do with 20 build points of course. I ended up putting my stat bonuses into Wis.

[KestlerGunner]

Like others have said, you need to have a few ideas about your cleric. Does he/she hold back and blast magic? Or buff up and charge into melee?
Here are just some general recommendations to get those ideas going.
Some awesome feats:

Selective Channeling
Heavy Armour Proficiency (you can cast in armour)
Extra Channel
Quick Channel
Combat Casting

Some awesome spells you want to have handy:

Bless
Liberating Command
Eagle's Splendour (for boosting the all important selective channelling)
Hold Person (if high wisdom)
Spiritual Weapon
Lesser Restoration (preferably in a wand, if you can find one)

[hughnme]

Wonderful work chaps,now to be an even bigger pain,presume I choose the buff up and charge into melee option type Cleric choosing David's base stat allocation-pretend I'm facing a blank character sheet.

What stats do I allocate where,what skills do I choose and what spells and other options do I allocate at each level progression?

If this is too much work for a stranger I completely understand,I figure there is no harm in asking,and once again thanks for all your awesome responses to date.

[Kyrie Ebonblade]

There are a LOT of options out there..

I've seen two dwarven 'Battle Clerics' in my local area. One is a cleric of Adabar and the other of Cayden. Big thing for them was the Travel Domain.

I got two human clerics I play (one 8th and one 3rd (bard/cleric) with different builds.

-Roasa is a True Nuetral Cleric of Pharasma with the Death (Pharasma) and Healing Domains. She's a channeling monster with lots of focus on that. Pure cleric. Does buffs, hands out 50 gp potion 'candy' to others, and then backs it up with spells, scrolls and channeling (and the occasional Antagonize feat)

-Kyra (my version) is a Cleric 2/Bard 1 right now (building towards Theurge) who tosses fire, bardic performances/channels and a lot of buff spells.

I know that another player has an Aasimar with some of the Aasimar specific channeling feats with plans for fun like channel blasting folks into blade barriers and such.

The point I'm trying ot make is there are several difrent ways to do clerics.

-Battle
-Buffer
-Channeller

and more than that if you look through and think things through for a while. Look around the board a while and you'll find a few building guides, some fairly good posts in the Advice section and a lot of folks say what and what doesn't work..

I have fun with clerics but most folks assume there is only one type (the 'Combat Medic') which isn't true.

[Thomas, the Tiefling Hero!]

So you wanna be a melee cleric, eh? Lemme give you some of my own history for a reference point.

I don't know what books you have, but using Blood of Fiends I picked an oni-spawn tiefling (+2 STR/WIS, -2 CHA). If you have the Advanced Race Guide, another good option would be a dual-talent human.

I selected starting stats as follows:

STR 16 (14+2)
DEX 14
CON 13 (bumped at 4th)
INT 12 (yay skill point)
WIS 15 (13+2)
CHA 10 (12-2)

My first feat was Armor of the Pit (tiefling-only) for +2 AC. For a non-tiefling, you'd want Heavy Armor Proficiency instead. Until you can afford your full plate, you'd be using a breastplate, giving you AC of 18 plus whatever shield you use (I use a buckler for easy casting).

If you go the full-plate route, you'll only want 12 DEX, which frees up some points for elsewhere.

Now in my case, I took domains of Glory(Heroism) and Sun. For a melee cleric, Glory(Heroism) is hard to beat. Your second domain could really be anything: Healing means that at 6+ all your cure spells heal +50%, Sun lets your channels really nuke undead, Fire gets you some nifty spells... Or you could even take the Crusader archetype and only get the one domain.

In early levels, you'll be winning fights mostly by virtue of having half-decent AC and a positive STR mod. Once you have 2nd-level spells and your final armor (full plate, unless you do what I did), you'll be able to bull's strength yourself up to STR 20 for +2 attack and +2 damage. Once you hit 5th, you have heroism as a domain spell, which will have you hitting like a fighter and saving like you'd dipped monk for 50 minutes. It's a great "at the front door" buff. At 6th, some key spells scale up, most notably divine favor. It now gives +2 to attacks and damage (just like bull's strength), except it stacks with a STR belt and is only a 1st-level spell. I typically prep three slots of it. Once you get to a high enough level that it's wiser to let the enemy move in than to do so yourself and get full-attacked, divine favor is a great use of that "waiting" round.

Hope that helps!