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I'm building my first cleric and I'm surprised by how MAD they seem.
I'd like some advice on a point buy and maybe some fitting feats.
Here's the basics I have so far.
Human Cleric of Groetus Darkness(possibly Night subdomain) & Madness domains
Weapon: Heavy Flail
Is heavy armor proficiency pretty desired or is medium adequate?
So role wise I'm looking for something of a mix between Battle & Bad Touch. I'd like to utilize my domain powers and mix it up in melee.
I'm thinking no archetypes since most of them seem to give up a domain.
Rough draft point buy
Str 13 (enough?)
Dex 14 (drop this?)
Con 12
Int 10 (I can dump this more)
Wis 18 (post-racial, too high?)
Cha 10 (how relevant is channeling?)
Alternate
Str 13
Dex 12
Con 12
Int 7
Wis 18 (post racial)
Cha 15
Feats
I was considering Guided Hand but it wouldn't work with my touch attacks. (Channel Smite pre-req)
Power Attack(using 2handed weapon)
Selective Channel(not unless I increase my cha)
Sacred Summons(useful if I don't focus on summoning?)
Considering channeling negative energy but selective channel and channel in general requires a hefty charisma investment.
I appreciate any feedback.
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If you're getting into melee with a two-handed weapon, you'll want at least 14 in STR and CON. Weapon Finesse would work with touch attacks but otherwise isn't a useful path for you, so there are better uses of points than raising DEX.
High Wisdom gets you bonus spells and higher saving throws on offensive spells. 16 should be ample for what you describe.
I hope you have an idea why the god of ultimate doom and the end of the world wants to help out the Pathfinder Society. Not to drop spoilers, on more than one occasion you may find yourself fighting your co-religionists.
Well classes that do a lot of different things need a lot of different stats.
If you wanna do combat you need combat skills, if you wanna cast you need wisdom, if you wanna face and channel you need cha.
It looks like you wanna cast and then channel. That is a solid idea. Negative channel I would avoid since your dc will be +2 maybe +3 later from yoru cha and that is not as impressive as your spell dcs will be.
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Hmm, but what if a nova face is needed? Hehehehe......
Really depends on what OP wants to do really. Sure, negative channel doesn't seem beneficial, especially because of the lackluster DCs later on, but with variant channel, it could work out, plus since the God is neutral, both heal and harm spells are on the list for, certain applications.
Human
14
10
14
8
12
18
Feats:
Extra Channel
Selective Channel
Traits:
Armor Expert
Indomitable Faith (because save or sucks later on can hurt for a low Wis cleric)
Domains:
Chaos
Loss
Skills:
Diplomacy
Knowledge Religion/Planes
Use Magic Device (high level scrolls need some rolls for the fun divine spells)
I go in each session with a nice burst are, and can smash face or talk people into thinking the world is ending soon... or at least their world is ending soon!
(Edit: Added domains)
Although my Merciful Healer Gnome needs to wipe the dust off his chain shirt and get back in the game, who has high Wis for later fun stuff....
By my experience, the Night subdomain isn't very good at later levels. Most of the things you'd encounter in the dark after level 5 or so have darkvision, and bringing your own darkness for when it isn't dark causes problems for the non-darkvision members of the party. Darkness is better, especially once you can afford a weapon with the conductive property.
14
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14
8
12
18
I am not a fan of this stat array. Your 8 int leaves you 1 skills a level, well 7 int would do that as well and give you 2 more stat buys. With a cleric there is not point to have 8 or 9 unless you plan on rasing your int later and that is usually not worth it.
12 wisdom means you get 2nd level spells only. That is unwise(sorry could not help myself) for a cleric.
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I am not a fan of this stat array. Your 8 int leaves you 1 skills a level, well 7 int would do that as well and give you 2 more stat buys. With a cleric there is not point to have 8 or 9 unless you plan on rasing your int later and that is usually not worth it.
12 wisdom means you get 2nd level spells only. That is unwise(sorry could not help myself) for a cleric.
The skill points would still be 2 per level since the cleric is human, which is why I took the 2 point dump. Now, everything else that is going to be done is to boost Wis, as I'll mainly cast buff spells rather than bad touch. By level 4, with the standard PFS gold pay out, I'll have a +2 headband for Wis, and another +1 for level attribute gain which will bring Wis to 15 for 5th level spells. Is it optimal, not really, but it's quirky and somewhat able to help hold off the other squishies in the group. Besides, who thinks a man running around Absalom with a "The End Is Near!" sign is wise or sane?
my low int alt channel cleric of shax
Now I went with tiefling, but you could do nagaji too.
Str 16
dex 12
con 12
int 5
Wis 14
cha 18
I took the two feats for dark sight to see in magical darkness. So that slowed me down in my feats. But by level 5 using and seeing in deeper darkness is awesome with my sister that can see in it to.(plus i took separatist to have repose with her so we can touch people to put the to sleep)
The channel dc can be bumps with a trait sacred conduit. There is a feat that raises it too.
I took envy alt channel, as it gives the glory to my team when they get AoOs for being stolen from. Plus I find DMs usually enjoy having this done to their bad guys.
Being a separatist i only worship the envy side of Shax so I am not into the murder bit. But i joined the pathfinder society because they go around and steal stuff! He thinks that is where Shax would want him.
I bought a headband of cha, and ioune stone of wis. I took buff and no save spells like silence and deeper darkness. Since i can not rely on the 16 wis to make the saves worthwhile.(Shatter the racial SPA uses Cha though!)
Since Speak with Dead is one of my domain spells. His battle cry is "Keep their jaws intact!"
I agree with Finlanderboy on int, from a maximising perspective. Either drop to 7 or keep it at 10. 8-9 is just bad on a 2 skill/level class.
Even if you go face/channel cleric your Wisdom should probably be at least 14 with a firm plan to get it to 16 before 11th level and 19 by 16th. If you start lower than 14 you need a plan to get your Wisdom to 11+1/2 your level, or you really lose out on the spells you can cast.
Just don't try to cast spells on bad guys, your DC will be poor.
In PFS the combination of base 2 skill ranks per level and low Int means you should prepare to feel useless on some missions.
I would reduce Dex to get more Strength and Constitution. That will make more of a difference in your ability to melee than Dex. If you do this, then Heavy Armor may be worthwhile around 3rd to 5th level, once you can afford it.
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Alright, so here's where I'm at so far.
Str 14
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 7 (min 1 skill point/level +1 human +1 favored class?)
Wis 16+2racial
Cha 12
Feats
1st: Blind-Fight(domain), Channel Smite, Guided Hand
3rd: Heavy Armor Proficiency? or Power Attack
I'm thinking since I'll have channel smite anyway I could use it to deliver half of my negative energy channel(since they'll probably make their save anyway) without having to invest in selective channel.
Stick with the vanilla Darkness & Madness domains and pump Wisom as I level.
Can 2handing with power attack make up for not more heavily investing with Str?
The - to hit from power attack can be punishing on a 3/4 BAB class. Combat reflexes and a longspear might be better.
For a cleric, pick one thing you want to do really well -- and then support it with your stat distribution and your feat choices. You don't have enough of those to really be good at multiple things at once. Flexibility comes from your spell choices for the day.
Be a summoner.
Be a melee dude.
Be an archer.
Be a buffer.
Be a healer (though a lot of that is situational/post-combat).
Be a debuffer.
Be a face character.
But don't try to be all (or most) of them at the same time. You can maybe pull off two of them at once, and three if you really push it and use your spell/domain selections cleverly.
If you're not investing in channel, and you're not planning to use any Cha-based skills, then a good spot for your charisma is "as low as I can go" and put the points into Str (if you're melee) or Wis (for high DCs and extra spells) or Con (for general survivability).
Note that you can be a good debuffer with a relatively low Wis -- just pick spells or domain powers that don't have saving throws. If you're going to have ones with saving throws, try to have some different spells which require different saving throws, so you can use the appropriate one for the job.
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For a cleric, pick one thing you want to do really well -- and then support it with your stat distribution and your feat choices. You don't have enough of those to really be good at multiple things at once. Flexibility comes from your spell choices for the day.
....
I will give you a few more specific on this idea. You can do multiple things. Though, you have to realize how much investment each takes.
Melee
- 18STR, Power Attack, a few spells (Divine Favor, Shield of Faith, other buffs high level)
Buffer
- Enough CHA to cast the spells (14 + item), Bless, Prayer, Blessing of Fervor
Summoner
- Spell Focus Conjuration, Augmented summoning, spell slots.
Healer (out of combat)
- Wand of CLW
Healer in Combat
- Shield Other, High CON, Selective Channel, Fey Foundling, High CHA
Debuffer
- 18 or 20 WIS, most of your spells (targeting different saves single and multi-target) feats to increase DCs.
As you can see different roles require more or less investment compared to others. Some roles work better together. For example, buffing goes well with melee or summoning, but not with debuffing because of the stat requirement are to high to do both well.
That should work, though you won't be as effective at melee as an 18-STR character.
Heavy armor also slows you down, which may be important tactically, but more AC is often worth it. It's just that clerics have so few feats.
One thing I have found incredibly useful for almost any cleric is Scribe Scroll -- there are loads of cleric spells that you only need once in a blue moon, but when you do you need them badly (particularly if you're the one incapacitated by them, so loan a few of these to your friends). Scribe Scroll leverages off your freedom to select from your entire spell list -- you can put any cleric spell you can cast into a scroll.
I will stipulate it's probably better for the flexible buffer/debuffer type cleric than some of the combat builds -- archers and reach clerics need all the feats they can get for combat, to the point of maybe wanting to dip a fighter level just for heavy armor proficiency and the extra feat -- but it's almost always a worthwhile selection.
Tank caster is another option.... dont concern yourself with hitting things just load up with full plate and shield and save your free hand for rods, scrolls... etc
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It sound like you want a melee Heavy Cleric
Id suggest...
str - 14 -- extra damage on 2-handed weapons
dex - 10 -- get the heavy armor later
con - 10 -- you are healing (channeling
wis - 18 -- main state spells, powers, attack
int - 10 --
cha - 14 -- channel
Feats
Channel Smite - prereq for guided hand
Guided Hand -- Use your wisdom bonus instead of str or dex with your deity's favored weapon
I hope this makes clerics less mad
The stats suggested by Souphin seem awful for a melee cleric. That high of a wis is for a caster cleric, not a melee cleric. Having no con bonus seems scary.
I GM'd a PFS scenario. lv5 cleric with a 10 con and pretty good AC. A large enemy got a crit and took him from FULL HP to DEAD DEAD. Wasn't even crazy high damage rolls.
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The key to clerics is to not try to do too much with one character. You can do two of the three main cleric "activities" well, which are 1)melee combat, 2) spellcasting, 3) channel-healing. Trying to be good at all three spreads the character out too much, IMO.
As far as focusing your build, channeling is a great power, but it requires significant investment to optimize it for in-combat use. You are going to need a charisma of 14 and preferably 16 and the selective channeling feat to be able to avoid healing enough enemies. While channeling can save resources out of combat, CLW wands are too cheap to make this a worthwhile consideration. As such, if you do not intend to specialize in channeling, go with a 7 CHA.
As far as good cleric builds, some ideas might be obtained from a thread I started a few months back:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ti1y?Advice-on-PFS-BattleSupport-Cleric#26
One of the tips that I found helpful was the availability of the conductive weapon property for clerics with a bad touch ability. Also keep in mind that domain selection (and hence deity selection) are exceptionally important. Domains literally range from utterly worthless to utterly awesome.
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Feather gets you an animal companion and some decent domain spells.
Defense gets you Barkskin, so you can use your neck slot for something else.
Travel gets you +10 movement and some nice teleportation spells.
Growth gets you swift action enlarge person.
Liberation gets you and your allies out of grapples.
Those are my personal favorites.
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Feather gets you an animal companion and some decent domain spells.
Defense gets you Barkskin, so you can use your neck slot for something else.
Travel gets you +10 movement and some nice teleportation spells.
Growth gets you swift action enlarge person.
Liberation gets you and your allies out of grapples.
Those are my personal favorites.
These are some of the best. I'm inclined to add Luck to this list.
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TriOmegaZero lists some great domains, I have a few more.
The heroism subdomain is one of my personal favorites. Not only does it give you heroism and greater heroism as domain spells, at 8th level it allows you to use a swift action to affect all allies within 30' as if the heroism spell had been cast upon them. The 1st level power is also very useful to improve social interactions.
The archon subdomain at 8th level has a great -2 debuff for most enemy combat statistics (including AC) to all enemies within 30', no saving throw. This can combine with the heroism domain 8th level power to give all friends within 30' an effective +4 to hit all enemies within 30' in just a single round's worth of actions. The 1st level "good touch" can also be a useful action to help support an ally.
Madness is worth mentioning because it has a very powerful 1st level touch ability that can be used as a buff or debuff. Also, the 8th level ability can be battle-changing.
Honorable mentions include the restoration subdomain for its status removing power as well as empowered healing at 6th, rage subdomain for its allowance of use of rage (useful for very specialized melee cleric builds), and the tactics subdomain for useful domain spells and it's team-oriented initiative changing power.