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I wouldn't get too hung up on clerics being "1/3 combat". You can provide a lot of healing and buffs for the party. Life Oracle gives you all kinds of ways to help out. The witch is an ok healer but not as good as cleric/oracle. The fact that witches are good single debuffers makes me thank witch is not the best option for this group. I would take bard over witch just for the party buffing ability.
You mention undead do you expect the campaign to be undead heavy? some more campaign detail might help narrow the field even more.
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If it is an undead heavy campaign, can't go wrong with Wizard or Cleric. Necromancer actually get tools to deal with Undead and Clerics just have good spells to deal with them.
Now looking at your party, taking care of bad conditions and status is essential for survival. Well at least later on in the game, if your campaign is going to be a short one from level 1 to 6-7, might as well just play a wizard and do whatever you want.
If you know your campaign is going high level, you should seriously consider a cleric but I will not lie, cleric until level 5 are very boring and not doing much.
Oracles are more fun to play and very flavorful but still, there is nothing quite like:
"Alright tomorrow, I can prepare x spell to save our party member." when you need it.
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With no divine magic to remove disease, poison, curses, break enchantments, restorations, or other divine magic there's roughly a 100% chance of a total party kill unless the group goes in on a wand of each of the above at appropriate levels.
Put bluntly, 0 divine magic tends to lead to a lots of expenses or death.
No arcane magic hard walls the party sometimes but with no haste your damage outputs will be insignificant.
Just um...wow. OK, let's start somewhere, I guess.
There is not a 100% chance. The chance of a tpk is higher than normal (substantially so) but it is possible to make do without a divine caster or any divine magic. You will just be facing a war of attrition that will take its toll over time. You would need to be smart and make use of alchemical items and, when possible, purchase spellcasting services at temples and such. I ran a campaign with heavily needed divine magic for over a year. Our group had a full caster druid who was weaker than normal due to the needs I had in place. The party still made it to pretty high level once they figured out how to play more tactically.
No haste means nothing. Your damage output will still be awesome whether you have it or not. Haste is not, by any stretch of the imagination, necessary. Haste is a buff that helps increase defenses and damage output. But I can make plenty of builds that don't use haste and can out DPs a hasted DPs character. It all depends on circumstance.
@Pan, a campaign doesn't need to be undead is heavy in the slightest for characters to be concerned about them. Undead exist in many campaign worlds in fair numbers, with 0 focus being on undead at all. Ignoring such a frequently encountered monster type simply because the game has no focus on it is foolhardy. The op is right to be considering undead as an obstacle in general. Holy water and generic DPs may only go so far, after all.
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@ OP, I am in favor of the bard or the cleric archetype with bardic performance. Keep in mind that 3/4 Bab is totally fine. Bards and clerics can still reach very high attack and damage bonuses.
@eltacolibre, I disagree about clerics being boring at low level. I have a low level cleric who is a blast. A hybrid melee/Negative energy channeling cleric of Urgathoa with shatter resolve. He partners with a hybrid negative energy channeling cleric of Zon-Kuthon. It's hilarious fun for everyone, particularly when a paladin is in the group and casts detect evil or a party watches us command undead and heal the undead they are attacking because we want to 'save them for later'.
It is also amusing to listen to allies beg for heals, only for them to realize, 'oh, you're those guys with lots of harmful magic and no restorative stuff prepared like ever'.
Our parties do just fine, BTW.
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I use negative energy on my cleric heh, healing them, has never been an issue and my cleric is level 14 and going to be 15 relatively soon. I just walk around with some wands and the likes. I occasionally cast spells like break enchantment to remove status like petrification.
I found it boring in low levels but that just might might be my personal experience. Since I'm more a summoning kind of cleric, currently have sacred summons and having a blast with it.
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Maybe u can make a Hal Elf Flame Oracle with Ancient Lorekeeper archetype, and u can have the best of both worlds and with paragon surge u can have the extra flexibility u need for the party.
Or a archer Wood Oracle with Ancient Lorekeeper archetype for gravity bow and flame arrow.
Also an Evangelist Cleric will be a blast to play
Actually a hedge witch may work well. Take the healing patron and you will automatically get most of the important condition removal spells. Once you get to 4th level you can spontaneously swap out spells for the cure spell of the same level. All of the summon monster spells are on the witches spell list. Between cure wound spells and summoning you should do fine vs undead. Witches also have at least one direct damage spell for each spell level that will also work against undead. Hexes probably don’t work that well vs undead, but that does not make you totally useless.
You don’t need divine magic as much as healing and condition removal. Buffing and debuffing is also needed, but a witch can also do that quite well.
If you're rolling stats and you get a roll with good/decent stats all around then take a cleric. If you get a roll with one very good stat but bad/mediocre in everything else then take a witch. If you're using point buy then that's up to you, do you want the AoE d6 heals of channel energy and 2 spells (plus one domain spell), or do you want to have one cure light wounds for every party member with 3 other spells? As you go on you get more toys to play with of course but this .
No matter which way you go, make sure you have something to do other than healing. At the absolute least you should have a light crossbow since that does not penalize you for having a low strength score.
The witch can be ok even in an undead campaign. You just have to choose your spells more carefully. I would suggests the time patron since that gives you haste IIRC.
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Have you heard about the Shaman, because it sounds like exactly what you need.
If you weren't lacking magic entirely I'd suggest bard, since their buffs would be amazingly useful. You could probably still make them work with some of the bard's restorative magic and maybe UMD scrolls.
Haste isn't going to kill you if you don't have it, and clerics get Blessing of Fervor at level 7 anyway. Picking the right domain/archetype with cleric/oracle could net you some of the more useful arcane spells.
I want to emphasize the mystic theurge suggestion, this seems like an excellent place for one. If you can't finagle early entry with race shenanigans, try just talking with your GM to make the PrC a little more viable (like reducing the entry requirements or adding abilities/feats to keep some extra class features scaling -- I did this with a homebrew cleric/MT channeling feat once). Prepared spellcasters would benefit from versatile spell choices and get spells earlier, but I don't think you could work off the same casting stat for both classes without a sorcerer archetype. It takes some balancing.
Shaman? Good "tailor to taste" class.
I like to write, so I have generally GMed in the past. I own all of the non-campaign based Pathfinder books, so I'm familiar with how to create powerful characters. Because of this, I like to create and roleplay characters that are powerful, but generally background. I don't like to be the face of the group, and I like to follow other players' suggestions even if they're dumb. I don't play clerics or druids (though I might have to in this campaign) because my characters have universally low wisdom so I can play absent-minded, happy-go-lucky characters. I basically don't want to dominate the game.
The witch seems more your style then as many of their spells/hexes either provide valuable buffs like Fortune's free rerolls and Ward's bonus to AC or are great debuffs like Evil Eye which can be spammed to hell and back and Slumber which is pretty much save or get coup-de-graced. You can also have a low wisdom score and still cast effectively unlike any devine caster that is not the oracle.
This seems like one of the few situations a Mystic Theurge could be just what the party ordered, but they're pretty hard to build right.
I haven't looked into the Shaman much but as I recall they can dip and pick and choose select spells from multiple spell lists depending on spirits, so that could be helpful.
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I agree that evangalist cleric looks like what your party need. A Classic is to Pick the heroism subdomæneregistreringer. That will make you a fantastic buffer and a character that the rest of the team want to be next to in every battle.
A cleric would be your best option. The 1/3 fighter thing is almost entirely dependant on your choices throughout the campaign. Trust me, a party needs divine magic or your gonna end up with TPKs and weak healing. You can also use planar ally to provide a temp fighter if one of your fighters is put out of if. I group will struggle without arcane magic but at least it's surmountable. Without reviving spells and the like you'll be scrounging together cash to get your buddies fixed up and you won't be able to recover effectively between battles. Clerics also provide buffs nearly equal to those of a witch or wizard.
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Here's an attempt to answer the OP from the perspective of Tark's Forge of Combat. This presumes the original question is not so much 'which is more powerful' as 'which is better suited to my party'.
Hammer = Inflict HP Damage
Anvil = Battlefield Control
Arm = Support
The party consists of a barbarian, a fighter, a samurai, and a rogue.
barbarian => Hammer
fighter => Hammer
samurai => Hammer
rogue => Hammer
The current party has four Hammers, but covers neither the Arm nor the Anvil role.
Groups without Anvils: Groups without anvils typically end up having an overabundance of hammers with one or two members playing the part of arms. These groups typically have fast, furious fights where the group takes a lot of damage. In these situations the arms often take on a reactive role providing healing and buffs as able while the hammers frantically try to end the encounter quickly. Depending on the nature of the hammers this often drains the arms very quickly of resources or forces the hammers into more and more defensive roles draining overall resources more as the group is not ending encounters efficiently enough.
Groups without Arms: Perhaps the most forgiving of the three major imbalances. These groups usually spend more resources than necessary to finish an encounter. When they don’t they exist on a razor’s edge where an enemies passed save or a characters failed save can mean the difference between failure and victory. This is much worse in groups that lack the means to magically heal themselves and are thus forced into shorter adventuring days or burning wealth on tons of cure light wound wands.
If some of those Hammers use reach tactics, or some other mechanic that limits enemy movement, they may qualify as secondary Anvils. Hopefully some of the martial PCs who can assume a secondary Anvil role choose to do so! If two or more use such tactics, which is unlikely but possible, the Anvil role is covered. Note that none of the existing PCs can magically heal, so this group faces the worst-case version of 'Groups without Arms'.
Clearly the team needs a PC who covers the Arm role, as it's the big gap. It would be nice if this PC could also fill the Anvil role as a secondary role. Some suggestions people have put forward:
1. A mystic theurge, with both divine and arcane magic, is a natural to fill both the Arm and Anvil roles. The stronger version is the early entry mystic theurge. However, as the only spell caster with a group of Tier III-V martial PCs, you might consider playing the much weaker traditional mystic theurge. At 10th level the early entry MT might cast as a 9th level Wizard and 8th level Cleric. At 10th level the traditional MT casts as a 7th level wizard and 7th level cleric. That's a huge difference, and might serve to counter the martial-caster gap your MT will eventually experience.
2. An evangelist cleric fills the Arm role with elan, and also makes a strong Anvil. The Arm role is a natural, with both bardic Inspire Courage and standard cleric casting. An evangelist cleric can simultaneously fill the Anvil role at least three different ways:
Way 1 (weakest option and a poor choice in a group with 4 martials) : Use reach tactics. Magda is an Evangelist Cleric who does this. Free to do, though!
Way 2 (powerful and effective option, good choice here) : Summoning. With Inspire Courage always up the summons are powerful. Magda sometimes does this. With summoning feats these might be Inspired Augmented Superior Sacred Summons.
Way 3 (super-powerful option that may overshadow the martial PCs, so probably a poor choice): Variant Channeling negative energy (Rulership) for a huge AoE daze-and-damage effect from level 3 onward. Requires Selective Channel feat and 16+ CHA. When this type of PC performs a quick selective improved variant negative channel (rulership) to harm and daze living foes within 30', as a move action, it's comparable to a quick selective dazing fireball, which is an 8th+ level spell. This option is available to a cleric of either Horus or Ra. First Round combat actions for a high-level Evangelist Cleric of Horus might be: 1. full animal companion mount moves and attacks 2. start Inspire Courage (w/ Flagbearer & Banner) as a Swift action to give +6 to hit/+6 damage to all allies; 3. selectively quick channel negative energy to daze and damage all nearby foes (DC 27+ will save) as a Move action; 4. cast a spell as a Standard Action; 5. PC and mount both fish for tactical AoOs. This approach quickly gets over-the-top, and is best reserved for highly optimized groups of other Tier I casters.
3. A Witch naturally fills the Anvil/Arm role. Witches are terrific Anvils, and also make pretty decent Arms. An all-around good choice for this situation.
4. A Bard would be a fine and reasonable choice and a solid Arm. A bard generally will not overshadow the other PCs. People always underestimate bards, until they realize that a bard raises the effective level of the entire party. A reach-style bard would be a secondary Anvil.
5. Some types of Oracle are great at filling both the Anvil and Arm roles. E.g. A Heaven's Oracle, with super-powered Color Spray, makes a terrific Anvil and a solid Arm. E.g. A Life Oracle is is a magnificent healer and can have some solid Anvil-style tricks.
Mystic Theurge?
Seconding this idea, if you're up for the paperwork. Just don't skimp on your Constitution - you have to be alive to heal/buff.
Straight Bard would also be great.
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Consider Leadership (if allowed) to grab a cleric/wizard buddy and round out your group.
I made a "jack of all trades" half orc shaman a little while back. It needs a high point buy to work well, but I found taking flame and lore as your wandering and regular spirit gave a lot of flexibility (without and special degree of specialization). You would probably want to rebuilt to make it more of a "buffing" character, but throwing it out there all the same.
Talk to the DM about auto granting Leadership at CL7 to everyone who actively recruits a cohort. This grants lots of support NPCs.
Then go traditional as in late entry MT. The others being low tier this should be a great opportunity. Maybe a non traditional MT like Arcanist/Oracle ?
I'd go a Cleric, the weakness of a martial party is swarms and debilitating effects. The Cleric is pretty much the only class with enough flex to deal with all those status effects and dispel magic/remove paralysis/patch the team up *after* the fight.
Swarms however will be a pain.
Yes Bards/Oracles can do this also but their limited spell range will be apparent when your whole team comes down with mixed status effects.
You don't need Haste when the Cleric has Blessing of Fervor
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/b/blessing-of-fervor
While the Evangelist is pretty damn awesome, losing the ability to spontaneously cast healing spells is a huge negative. Also losing medium AC and shield proficiency is a really odd drawback.