Rise Of The Runelords Cleric

[Andrew Johnson 382]

I am creating a cleric for Rise of the Runelords. I would like some feedback on what I have so far. I had another character with which I tried to be able to do too many things and ended up being good at nothing. The party is very squishy so I am focusing on Melee and still want to be able to heal when needed. The character will be a dwarf cleric of Desna. I picked Desna for RP purposes. It just seems to fit the campaign well and I want to have fun with that. I will use a shield and axe. I don't know much about the campaign other than there are a lot of giants and goblins. Other than that I would like to avoid spoilers.

Here are the stats. I tend to not like having a minus to any stats so kept them all at 10 or higher
STR 16
DEX 10
CON 16
INT 10
WIS 15
CHA 10

Feat: Improved initiative

Traits:
Student of faith (we all get 1 "free" trait from Rise of the Runelords)
Reactionary (+2 initiative)
Blooded (Dwarves of Galorian +1 damage against goblins, orcs, and giants)

Dwarf racial traits:
I traded Hardy for Spell resistance
I traded Hatred for Giant hunter

Cleric domains: Travel and Liberation

Thanks for any and all advice

[Tangent101]

Sounds pretty good actually. You going to be the party healer as well? Sadly, your Charisma is too low to allow Selective Channeling, but that's not too bad a thing as you would likely be in the front lines and be able to heal people with Cure spells.

You might look into the Feat line that allows you to Shield Bash (Two-Weapon Fighting as well so you can shield bash with a minimal penalty) as you gain in experience. Mind you, I like how you're doing the more gradual Wisdom increase rather than stack everything in Wisdom all at the start.

[HangarFlying]

Another possibility to consider is taking a one level dip into fighter to allow the use of full plate and the dwarven waraxe without having to spend feats. The downside, obviously, is you would be one level behind in all of your cleric stuff.

[Misroi]

Or warpriest, if you've got the playtest. You're not as good at either job as a dedicated fighter or cleric, but you get the best of both worlds.

[Oserath]

I would drop the strength a bit, just to get a 12 CHA, you could probably even afford to drop some of that CON. I also wouldn't bother with Spell Resistance. You're going to find that +2 to most saves will be better than that low SR.

STR 14 (5)
DEX 10 (0)
CON 13+2 (3)
INT 0 (0)
WIS 14+2 (5)
CHA 15-2 (7)

Level Up increases would go to CHA and then CON, and then WIS after that, in order to cast spells of an appropriate level.

[Andrew Johnson 382]

Thanks all. I have tried to get my CHA up in some builds but that is tough with a dwarf. Also, I do plan on taking 1 level of fighter for the dwarven waraxe and heavy armor. I would love the selective channel but when I build for that I fear I will be ok at a few things but not really good at anything. I figure with the travel Domain I can get to whoever needs healing (40' if I have longstrider cast).

[Chris O'Reilly]

What are the others going to be playing? No man is an island and such. I played a near pure healer cleric through runelords and found myself useless most of the time, but I played with moderately power-gamey people so I kind of expected that.

[Andreas Forster]

I agree that the dwarven spell resistance isn't that much. At SR 5+level, remember that an enemy spellcaster with a caster level equal to your level will only have to roll a 5 on the d20 to overcome your SR.

From what you're saying it seems you're going for quickly ending a fight and after that healing your party members to full health again. In that case, Improved Initiative is ok. In other cases, a healer doesn't need to act very early in a round, so he can react to damage having been dealt by healing his companions during the fight.
If you're the only character capable of healing, you might also want to consider going for Endurance -> Diehard so you will still be able to heal when you're below 0 HP.

And from my experience with Rise of the Runelords, I have to say the Travel domain is a very good choice you made. There will be a lot of situations when you will be thankful for the spells and abilities you get from that domain.

[Nynphaiel]

The cleric on my party, also a dwarf, that goes as a tank and a healer, used the crusader archetype. Takes you away some spells, one domain, leaves you the cannalization, and gives you extra feats (including proficiency with heavy armor). It's almost like multiclassing with fighter, but without losing the cleric level.