A friend of mine has decided to run "Tomb of the Iron Medusa" and has been taking dots for interest on characters. Eager as always, I approached him with the idea of a Cleric of Asmodeus. I'm not sure if I wanna be a battle cleric, summoner, or diabolist - but would anybody have any suggestions?
As for race, I'll most likely be human.
In regards to team comp - its still early so I've first pick.
4d6, Drop Lowest
Level 14
Human
That high level I'd skip battle cleric and go straight for summoning evangelist.
Praise the glories of the dark lord while ushering forth an infernal army to serve your black masters shadowy will and infinite guile.
Aid your team, drop devils on fools, and open yourself up to some great debuffs. No way you can do bad while bein bad.
Domain wise I'd go trickery for the full repertoire of great defensive abilities.
What he said.
maybe even Augment Summons?
Reach Cleric with Sacred Summons fun... Lawful Evil gets some good ones. Magic and Trickery domains? Fire is fun, just to toss Fireballs.
Curious, is there a way to have druid like relationship with a devil? Like I'm imagining a devil companion you can work with? ( sorry, i played warlock in WoW and it kind inspired this char idea).
A friend of mine has decided to run "Tomb of the Iron Medusa" and has been taking dots for interest on characters. Eager as always, I approached him with the idea of a Cleric of Asmodeus. I'm not sure if I wanna be a battle cleric, summoner, or diabolist - but would anybody have any suggestions?
As for race, I'll most likely be human.
In regards to team comp - its still early so I've first pick.
4d6, Drop Lowest
Level 14
Human
Variant channel feature for Asmodeus can get you Daze effect on negative channel.
Intersting.
Aside from Battle Cleric, Evangelist and Healer - Are there any other player styles for a cleric?
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The Cleric of Asmodeus I'm playing in WotR is a heretic (i think that's the archetype...) taking Iomedae's Glory Domain and the Devil subdomain. Basically the concept was a Paladin of Iomedae who was rejected (not fallen) by Iomedae due to demonic taint on his soul for backstory reasons... he used to be a great hero, but was perma-drained down to level 1 and left Iomedae's service by making a bargain with Asmodeus himself and became a cleric thereof, vowing to bring Asmodeus the glory of a sealed Worldwound. Asmodeus accepted, and granted him mental ability scores at the price of never having higher than 12 (even by magic) in any physical ability score.
Sorry about gushing my character concept... I'm gonna do a bit more. Hope all goes well with your Asmodean!
If you'll be facing a lot of Good Aligned characters look at the Fiendish Vessel archetype. You have to be a Tiefling though.
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Intersting.
Aside from Battle Cleric, Evangelist and Healer - Are there any other player styles for a cleric?
I suggest you check out the Class Guides for Cleric. There are a few other play styles for clerics e.g. Necromancer, Channeler, Bad Touch, Hangover. Cathulhu pointed out that Asmodeus is an excellent deity for a Reach Cleric, which is a very strong build. The reach cleric build emphasizes action efficiency, which isn't flashy but is effective.
Here's how that build would work for a cleric of Asmodeus:
Since you're building your PC at high level you might choose to emphasize summoning at the expense of personal martial ability. Good domains are Smoke and Trickery. Smoke lets you cast fireball, and also has a decent battlefield control ability. If you choose the Evangelist archetype you lose a domain but all your summoned critters get the benefit of bard song (inspire courage) bonus, which is huge. Perhaps check whether your group already has a bard, or not.
Useful feats might include:
Combat Reflexes[1], Improved Initiative[human], Power Attack[3], Sacred Summons[5], Skill Focus(Conjuration)[7], Augment Summons[9], Divine Interference[11], Superior Summons[13]
Your stats don't matter much, since you are a bada$$ summoner. This style summoner is at least as powerful as the Master Summoner archetype. Your wisdom just needs to be high enough to cast your highest level spells, and you want lots of HP. If you want to also inflict a lot of martial damage via AoOs then decent DEX and high STR are helpful. Your buffs are very potent, so you want to pre-buff whenever possible.
In the first round of combat you might typically do the following:
1. For your move action you start Bardsong Inspire Courage and then 5' step to a position where you will hopefully get AoOs. You already positioned yourself in a smart tactical location(right!), so a 5' step will do it.
2. For your Standard Action use Sacred Summons for your best Summon Monster spell. You might choose one powerful summons, but you are often better off with 2-4 or 3-6 weaker summons. Your Sacred Summons are mostly devils. You will want to learn the Spell Like abilities of all your Sacred Summons options, so you can summon the right ally for the right situation.
3. Use your Swift Action to cast a quickened spell, probably a group buff like Prayer or Bless. This stacks with bard song and Augment Summons.
4. Your summoned devils use their various standard actions to cast assorted spells, or possibly attack using the approximately +6 +6 enhancement bonus you give them (Augment Summons + Bardsong + maybe Prayer).
5. End your turn. Hopefully you (and possibly your devils[s]) get AoOs and inflict martial damage during enemy movement.
With this build your martial abilities are a bit weaker than a dedicated two-handed weapon melee Fighter of the same level, but your powerful summons and full spellcasting ability more than compensate. If you are going to summon multiple monsters it's polite to share them out to the other players. It works well to pass out 3x5 note cards that describe your summoned creatures, so the other players have a convenient guide to the monster. This build does not make for a strong in-combat healer, but you are still a cleric ...
Getting lots of AoOs takes practice and cooperation from your team. It won't always work. Clumsy, tactically inept team members can generally prevent your AoOs. Sometimes AoOs are not in the cards. On those occasions when you get all your AoOs (when you positioned correctly and are charged by multiple foes) you can score an impressive damage nova.
That's how a Reach Cleric of Asmodeus might be built. Have fun figuring out what sort of cleric you want to play!
Magda's advice is good.
to answer FratManCy's question, yes- the summoner class is pretty much designed around that idea (the eidolon is an extraplanar animal companion), or eldritch heritage [arcane] and improved familiar lets you get an imp (or one of several other LE outsiders) as a familiar.
if you're interested in playing a summoner who worships Asmodeus (and isn't actually a cleric, though you could present yourself as one), most of Magda's advice is still good. you'd lose the bardsong buff (which is handy) but a well built eidolon has impressive damage output.
depending on your party (both players and characters) you mileage from AoOs can vary enormously... if you're not personally worried about the AoOs (because there's a ton of melee damage in the party already, you don't want to invest in the survivability to be in melee, or don't trust your party to let you get many AoOs) then either cleric or summoner would benefit from getting the devil familiar as i mentioned above- those 2 feats will cut into your melee ability (since you do not want to drop summoning feats) but its thematically cool and gives you an extra round worth of actions (since your familiar gets to act too). if you have the Int and can spare a 3rd feat (which would basically mean you're completely foregoing any melee) you could pick up Evolved Familiar for Skilled [Use Magic Device] and then your familiar can easily use wands for all kinds of buffs (or even heals) while you use your actions for more important things.