Most fun cleric spells?

[Smaugnolia]

In my time playing pathfidner, I often find the most fun and intereting spells aren't ones that are most mechanically effective that you bust out during combat. An obstruction, a few points of damage, a buff, all very useful, and they make up the majority of my prepared spells so I can deal with combat when it comes, but I usually have the most fun with non-combat spells, things I can do out of combat that have fun applications. This like my wizard picking up her entire wagon and running flying away with it, or using her blood to turn a stick into a masterwork club.
I usually play wizards, to this ends, but more and more I look at clerics and wonder what fun they can have. So, I want to ask, what are the cleric spells that you have the most fun with? What do you enjoy casting the most?

[Ciaran Barnes]

There have been a couple of times as GM when a played cast raise dead, etc. and I role-played out the dead PC's temprary afterlife experience. That was fun. The LN elf wizard's afterlife was him happily reasearching spells in his study while unseen servants served herbal tea and attended to chores, and everything was in it's proper place. When the spell was cast, there was a disruptive knock on his study door and he had to decide wether or not to answer it. Eventually he did. The next time he died, he was back in his study again, but instead of a ceiling he could the stary sky above him where he could see the towering forms of CG Corellon arguing with Corellon's LN daughter on what should become of his spirit.

I know this isn't an in-combat question, but there aren't many opportunities for a cleric to roll a big bunch of dice, so when I have been able cast flame strike or blade barrier, thats a lot of fun. But them, I'm partial to the spell destruction too.

In a campaign where I cast plane shift on a regular basis, I got to RP through some very minor quests to obtain the metal tuning forks for each plane. I know they are free and part of a spell component pouch, but the DM hadn't ever checked the spell so came up with a little challenge when I asked to obtain one of them. It was fun. Also, it gave him some control over which planes we could go to.

[Ashiel]

Magnolial wrote:

In my time playing pathfidner, I often find the most fun and intereting spells aren't ones that are most mechanically effective that you bust out during combat. An obstruction, a few points of damage, a buff, all very useful, and they make up the majority of my prepared spells so I can deal with combat when it comes, but I usually have the most fun with non-combat spells, things I can do out of combat that have fun applications. This like my wizard picking up her entire wagon and running flying away with it, or using her blood to turn a stick into a masterwork club.

I usually play wizards, to this ends, but more and more I look at clerics and wonder what fun they can have. So, I want to ask, what are the cleric spells that you have the most fun with? What do you enjoy casting the most?

For me specifically, my favorite cleric spell is without a doubt animate dead. It changes your entire outlook on the campaign. With undead minions you automatically assume a sort of governing role when outside of combat. You start thinking in terms of pikmen. What can your party, you, and 20 HD worth of undead accomplish?

It changes every encounter in an adventure to one of interest. While most players are dismayed when they fight some big abomination without treasure hordes, to the cleric, the big monster is the treasure. A mighty trophy to sail to even greater heights with.

[pennywit]

I have a soft spot for Enthrall. It's manifestly not a combat spell. But it's a great spell for crowd scenes and for RP. Many years ago, I had a 3.5 PBEM campaign where we came across a village ruled by an evil sheriff and mayor. The people of the town weren't evil themselves, but they were pretty damn apathetic. My cleric of the Spirit of Good stewed over this for a while. When the party went to the tavern, I'd finally had enough. I cast the enthrall spell, jumped up on a table, then (since this was a PBEM) delivered a long sermon about standing up for good, etc., etc. The sermon was to inspire them. The enthrall spell was to make sure people listened.

How it went down:

We ended up spending a few weeks of PBEM time cleaning up the town, driving out the evil sheriff and mayor and their thugs, and setting things to rights. It was really fun. The DM later told us that he had fun, too. He'd just rolled up the village randomly as a place for us to stop, refresh, and head back out for the real adventure.

I like to keep it in my back pocket for clerics; it's a great flavor spell.