| Lunchbox3000 |
So as the title suggests I would like to make a Cleric. This is rather specific as the DM informed me it would be very useful to have a strong Channel Energy abilities at least early on. He mentioned that undead will be around quite a bit at the beginning of his campaign. I have not played a cleric any time recently. My last one was during 3.5 and that character lasted a game session before the GM quit. I want to make this cleric some sort of Demon Hunter. I am unsure other than that really where I would want to take him. I did look at a couple of guides and the reach cleric strikes me as a possibility. He has yet to mention a point buy so I will assume 20 for the sake of the board and if he mentions it I will throw it up here. We also stick to strictly Pathfinder material. I look to you guys and your vast knowledge for ideas possible growth ideas for him.
| Pandora's |
I'd go with a human or tiefling. Their favored class bonus gives them a +1 each time they take it against the SR of outsiders. Makes pretty much every spell into SR:No against them. Alignment Channel allows you to damage them with channeling too, which goes well with that channel energy focus your GM mentioned.
| FrinkiacVII |
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Here's what I would do (assuming 20 point buy):
Alignment: any Good
Race: Human
Domains: Healing and Travel
Stats:
Str 12
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 7
Wis 18 (16 buy + 2 racial)
Cha 14
Notes: I left 5 of the stats in a state where you can just ignore them when you get level-up stat points (at level 4, 8, 12 etc) and just put those points into Wisdom instead. If you want, you can instead give yourself maximum flexibility to bump stats up one point each when you hit levels and go with the 13,13,13 split in the physical stat numbers. You could also take a 14, 13, 11 spread if you feel that helps you do what you want to do. Remember you may be able to find a belt that raises one score to a pretty good level, but buffing more than one state via a single item beyond that gets really expensive. I personally don't find attacking melee clerics to be all that great a damage dealer as compared to other classes (which are actually designed for it better). As such I like higher Con and Dex and not so much Strength. That said, you don't want a negative Str mod because it will adversely affect your chances to hit with melee touch spells, like Bestow Curse. I don't recommend ever going below 12 Con with a cleric, since you'll be near the front a lot (you have to touch allies to cast cure spells on them). Dex is a stat that you either try to maximize with a belt or completely ignore and dump a low number in. I like having higher initative and touch AC so I generally go the high-dex route, plus if you want to Searing Light any undead it's nice to have some Dex. As for the Cha, I don't recommend putting any more points into that, despite the amount of Undead you may face. In fact, a 13 might still be more optimal, when you consider that you'll be able to cast Eagle's Splendor on yourself when you need to (even a wand of that wouldn't be a bad way to spend your money). If you do put a 13 in Cha, you can then up your Str and Dex to 13s as well. That said you'd want to put a level-up point into Cha eventually. At lower levels, channel energy is pretty weak as an attack against undead anyway, especially if there's only one undead guy to attack at a time.
The domain combo of Healing and Travel is not allowed by any deity in the main book, so if you MUST pick a deity from the big book, you'd have to go with something else, maybe Sarenrae for Healing and Fire or Sun or something. Note that the Empowered cures you get from the Healing domain do not cause your cure spells to do more damage to undead. Despite this, Healing is probably still the best domain anyway. I personally love Travel, but I can see taking Fire or Sun if you have to. In any event, casting curative spells on undead is a pretty decent way to reliably hit them in melee and also make them take a very respectable amount of damage. Most bosses will make most saves, but your higher damage spells vs undead are your highest DC to save against too, so you've got a puncher's chance. As for the demons, the Cleric spells you get that affect outsiders (like demons) suffer from basically the same drawback as everyone else's spells, namely that demons have Spell Resistance. For this reason you should probably try to eventually work Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration in as feats, but they're not important at low levels. With those feats, you ought to be able to nail demons with all of your great anti-demon spells, which are in the book. Note that they tend to have high saving throws too, which is why we're concentrating level-up points into Wisdom and why we're going to prioritize getting a wisdom-enhancing headband. You might even want to make a Wand of Owl's Wisdom instead and then jump straight to the Headband of Wisdom +4 once the wand runs out.
With the Travel domain, you get a lot of extra movement (you get an extra 10ft at level 1 just for taking the domain and you get the level 1 spell Longstrider which can increase it beyond that). As such you want to stay in light armor (or better yet, magical Mithral Breastplate...) in order to keep your mobility maximized and to not have to worry about a max Dex to AC limit imposed by heavier armor. Longstrider is has a duration of 1 hour/level and with it in effect your move rate is 50ft/round (10 squares!). Increased movement like this can let you cure people who need it during combat as well as get around to flank if needed. At higher levels, the Dimensional Hop ability is awesome.
Feats I recommend include:
Extra Channel Energy
Improved Initiative
Craft Wand
Craft wondrous Item
Scribe Scroll
Craft Magical Arms and Armor
Selective Channel
Toughness
Spell Penetration (and later Greater Spell Penetration)
Quickened Channel
You don't have to take all of the item feats yourself, and your DM might just outright disallow them entirely, but party-wide, your first priority would be Craft Wondrous Item. If nobody else takes that (and the arcane caster probably should) then you might need to. Scribe scroll is nice for those spells you get that are nice to have, but that you don't want to have to prepare every day, like Remove Paralysis, Remove Curse, etc. Quickened Channel is in one of the Ultimate books, I forget which.