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Cleric with unfortunate ability score rolls

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I'm joining an evil campaign at level 1 as a CE cleric. My original concept of the character was a middle-aged warpriest who believes the world has become soft and weak. So he intends to cut the weakness out of the world himself.

Then I roll for my ability scores and my concept quickly looks silly. We rolled 4d6 drop the lowest, seven times taking the best six. I rolled 3, 7, 7, 9, 11, 15, 17. Now I am kind of at a loss on how to make this character work... Can I get some advice from the community?

Make him have delusions of grandeur, perhaps making the CE God's gifts actually hinder him as some sort of sick joke.

If your DM doesn't let you reroll those, he wants you to die.

Your total ability bonus adds up to an astonishing -4.
There's no advice that can make this work, honestly.

Yea, I haven'y played with this DM yet but I'm honestly surprised he hasn't told me to reroll yet...
Grand Lodge

If no reroll(kinda a dick move), then go Half-Orc Scarred Witch Doctor.

Go Str 9 Dex 15 Con 17 Int 7 Wis 11 Cha 3, the put your +2 into Con, bringing it to 19.

How come you have 7 rolls?

Can you drop the 3?

If so, put the other 7 into Cha.

If you don't want to run a suicide gauntlet, try to bring up the innkeeper rule and hopefully get a reroll. I thought you wanted to run the character.

Else maybe ask for a point-buy.

His ability score mods actually net zero. There's a drop lowest in there, so that 3 isn't going to mean anything.

Throw one 7 into Cha; take an archetype that replaces Channel Energy. Divine Strategist maybe.

Throw the other 7 into Int. You're gonna suck at skills. That's how it is. Clerics already suck at skills, so no huge loss.

The 9 can go in Str, the 11 in Dex (maybe switch these two if it opens up an armor you like), the 15 in Con, the 17 in Wis.

That gives you a capable casting stat, some HP, and at least decent defenses-- your Reflex save sucks, but hey.

It's a pretty awful set of stats, but it's actually not unplayable for a Cleric.
blackbloodtroll wrote:

How come you have 7 rolls?

Can you drop the 3?

If so, put the other 7 into Cha.

its seven rolls and then drop the lowest. so I have 7,7,9,11,15,17 to work with, unless i really wanted a 3 which i don't lol I'll ask him for a reroll or to switch classes.

Honestly, I just wanted to see if anyone had anything that's made these stats work for a cleric because I was at a loss.
Grand Lodge

I see the issue, this oracle thinks it is a cleric.

Go bones, pick up a slightly used pet and focus on casting.

7
15
11
9
7
17

Stay away from the front lines as best as possible. Grab Divine Protection Feat (if GM allows it) and then cross your fingers and pray to your lunatic god for a miracle. The stats are bad, but play safe and with a little luck, you might make it to level 2.

Divine Protection requires 2nd level divine spells.

So, that's out.
Grand Lodge

You can make it work.

Just go Scarred Witch Doctor Witch, and give yourself some Cleric flavor.

You will be using Con for casting, be a great debuffer, and even have a bit of healing.

Okay, I talked to the DM and I've settled on using these stats but as a scarred witch doctor. I figure since he won't be intelligent or charismatic that i'd play him as having very animalistic tendencies. possibly like an evil Scooby Doo that likes to eat people. If I make him Orc it'd look like this:

Str 11 (+4)=15
Dex 9
Con 17
Int 7 (-2)=5
Wis 15 (-2)=13
Cha 7 (-2)=5

Warpriest the class would work fine.

INT & CHR can be dump scores to take the 7s. and you really only need WIS to hit 16 for 6th level spells. A headband can cover putting the 15 there, and you can even get by putting the 11 there since you only need a 12 at level 4 and get an ability point just from leveling at level 4, then grab a headband by level 7 for level 3 spells. Putting the 11 in WIS will cut fervor out as a major option, the number of spells, and lower save DCs, but if you concentrate on being a self-buffing type none of that will cripple the character.

Then comes the only real choice, ranged (in which case the 9 goes into CON) or melee (in which case the 9 goes into DEX). Melee, load up on heavy armor and just suck up the -1 to AC from DEX, and build a bruiser. Ranged, grab a bow and go to town.
Grand Lodge

You can go Scarred Witch Doctor, as a Half-Orc.

I recommend this, as you will have no stat penalties.

Also, you can take the Sacred Tattoo alternate racial trait, and with the Fate's Favored trait, you will have a flat +2 Luck Bonus to all saves.

I would also stick that 9 into strength.

If you really want some melee abilities, you can nab the Prehensile Hair Hex, which will give you a 10ft reach Primary Slam attack, that uses your Con for attack, and x1.5 Con for damage.
blackbloodtroll wrote:

You can go Scarred Witch Doctor, as a Half-Orc.

I recommend this, as you will have no stat penalties.

Also, you can take the Sacred Tattoo alternate racial trait, and with the Fate's Favored trait, you will have a flat +2 Luck Bonus to all saves.

I would also stick that 9 into strength.

If you really want some melee abilities, you can nab the Prehensile Hair Hex, which will give you a 10ft reach Primary Slam attack, that uses your Con for attack, and x1.5 Con for damage.

hmm... i like that. I'll do that

Grand Lodge

Focusing on Slumber, Misfortune, Evil Eye, with Cackle support to them, will keep you relevant, and powerful.

Being able to Coup de Grace unconscious opponents, will be your best bet for keeping the "martial" aspect, in a meaningful way.

I thought Kestral's suggestion (below) was quite strong, especially if you actually go middle-aged as you mentioned at the top. All those odd stats get neatly tucked into even stats, including an 18 Wisdom, 20 if you put your +2 there. Also would be a fantastic concept as a dwarf, which would double-down on your good stats.

kestral287 wrote:

His ability score mods actually net zero. There's a drop lowest in there, so that 3 isn't going to mean anything.

Throw one 7 into Cha; take an archetype that replaces Channel Energy. Divine Strategist maybe.

Throw the other 7 into Int. You're gonna suck at skills. That's how it is. Clerics already suck at skills, so no huge loss.

The 9 can go in Str, the 11 in Dex (maybe switch these two if it opens up an armor you like), the 15 in Con, the 17 in Wis.

That gives you a capable casting stat, some HP, and at least decent defenses-- your Reflex save sucks, but hey.

It's a pretty awful set of stats, but it's actually not unplayable for a Cleric.

psst... don't feed the troll

as a cleric these stats are not great but you can be spectacular within certain builds. the only hard part is what kind of cleric do you want to be?

there are a number of clerics that only need one attribute to be strong and effective. Theologians can blast with that 17+2 quite well. Any battle cleric could be decent with guided hand feat with that same 17+2. conversion inquisition makes you a powerful mouth. Demon subdomain (Mr CE :-)) makes you decent as a melee character. A debuffer based on bestow curse and madness domain is very doable with these stats, twice over if you have a deity whose favored weapon is a reach weapon for conductive property. Shivaska and Zura offer insanely good packages for a CE cleric. Darkness, madness, demon, and death between them is potent.

trust me you don't need to change the mission statement. a cleric can work with any stats. Just need to identify how you want to do that voodoo that you do, so well.

A casting focused cleric would most likely be your best bet.

Depending on what kind of cleric you think the party needs of course.

A dwarf ecclesitheurge with the updates from the blog that actually gives him the blessing of the faithful ability, with Healing as his primary domain can serve as a very strong healer, and not need too much extra help.

I personally like the Defense Domain coupled with Friendship.

Stats will be 7 11 17 7 19 7.

Take Scribe Scroll.
Grand Lodge
Majuba wrote:

psst... don't feed the troll

Is that a jab at me?

Back in 3.0 if you rolled a summed bonus from all stats below +3 that roll was invalid. Don't know how it is in pathfinder , but I'd negotiate with the GM for a total reroll or at least rerolling one of those 7s until your summed bonus gets to at least +3

Seriously, that character is not PC-suited on stats, the total bonus is +0 - that's a commoner and what germqns call "fachidiot" - someone who can do one thing good, but fails big time at everything else.clike that kid who won every math contest his elders would plant him in, but didn't know how to use a sled

Put your 7 in CON and get killed in the first game.

Reroll your character and try again.

And really...what is your GM gunna do about it?
Grand Lodge

If you really, really want the Cleric feel, then you can nab the False Focus feat.

This will allow you to use a Divine Focus, instead of a material component, up to 100gp.

If you choose the Plague Patron, and use Animate Dead with False Focus to create free Skeletons or Zombie, up to 4HD.

Just surround yourself with literal meat shields.

Witches be crazy yo.

If the chance of rolling up stats like that is right, i'm happy to be wrong....
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