in the Golarion pantheon, Sarenrae, Asmodeus and Gorum
On the rare occasion I'm forced to play a cleric, I go Desna if I'm going casty/buffy cleric or Gorum if I'm going beaty/killy cleric.
I'll play an Oracle by preference, though.
|
I have quite a few divine casters in PFS, worshiping a wide variety of gods.
Besmara and Sun Wukong are chaotic neutral gods with fun personalities and good domains for a "bad touch" cleric. Milani is always fun for a freedom fighter type (with the Liberation domain, of course). Desna, as mentioned above, is good for luck. Shelyn gives you a reach weapon as her favored weapon. Calistria gives whip proficiency, but clerics don't have enough feats to do anything with it - that works better on a warpriest, if you want to focus on the weapon.
I've seen a few other obscure ones in the books that have caught my eye as interesting personalities, but haven't gotten around to finding a good mechanical build for them yet. Alseta's probably top of that list, but Tsukiyo is another one that looks interesting.
And if I was specifically looking to make another typical buff/heal cleric, I think I'd seriously consider Qi Zhong for some interesting variety. I've done the Luck buffer thing before, but have you ever looked at the Divine subdomain of the Magic domain? And he's a healing god, so Healing domain is an obvious choice that works for buff/heal types.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I prefer Oracles, Shamans, Witches, Druids because they "feel" like people who have an intimate relationship to the divine rather than being the officiant of a religion....like clerics tend to by default.
For example, Joan of Arc feels like a NG Battle Oracle with a campaign specific "wrong gender" curse to me. Her relationship with the divine is speaking with Saints and Angels.
The cleric's "default" relationship feels like four years of seminary.
So I tend to play clerics who break this up and doesn't go with "the default". My PFS cleric is a Cleric of Groteus. He has the profession: beggar and carries a wooden holy symbol in the form a a piece of plywood tied by rope around his neck saying "the end is near".
My theoretical cleric of Erastil is the town matchmaker, makes a mean pie (Clerics need more skills) and is friendly everyone and has bit of a country feel to her and who has been training her whole life rather than getting a "fancy" education. She could also be a rural cleric of Sheyln.
So my answer is, any god who helps me break the mold and whose structure for the clerics doesn't feel too pre-defined.
So Asmodeus, Besmara, and Iomedae are out, at least for me.
Groteus, Sheyln, Erastil seem very 'open concept'.
Desna, Cayden Caylen, and Milani seem somewhere in the middle of this continuum.
Hope that makes sense.
I'm still trying to pull together a good Cleric concept. The class seems powerful, but boring. Finding a way to break the mold in a way that I like sounds like a good idea -- I just haven't figured it out yet.
For cleric specifically, Gorum. Negative energy channel, channel smite, guided hand, destruction domain, ferocity subdomain. Also attack with a greatsword, based on wisdom.
I never played a cleric but I've played a few characters that were priests/religious representatives.
Investigator, Milani defender of the down trodden guy.
Inquisitor, Shelyn, lover of art guy.
Pharasma, Priestess and seer Oracle gal.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I had fun playing a cleric of Cayden Cailean in a Skull & Shackles campaign. Of course, to stay in character, I was doing shots of rum. I did a shot at the start of the game, a shot when someone crit, when someone fumbled, when someone made someone laugh (even me), when we accomplished something... Anyway, we were all drinking grog and doing shots. I just did more to stay in character. I wasn't a powerful character. Highest stat was 15 in Wisdom or DEX, I don't remember which. Funny thing is, I'm the only one who never died and I pulled off some amazing crap. LOL But, that's my vote for a fun cleric.
Bokrug. Having a lot of fun with my elder mythos cultist cleric in Skull & Shackles. Then again, our party isn't good so it works well to be the crazy one.
I remember something about sneaking on a ship that we had to get our ship past. We had to disable it so it couldn't chase us. The plan was just to sneak into the gear room and cut the ropes so they couldn't steer their ship... I think. I was drunk. All I remember was we got into a fight there and I did something to start a huge fire in there then we jumped out the window and swam away. I think we were just supposed to delay them for a few hours, but they were stuck for quite some time.
I want to do a cleric of a god of magic...maybe warpriest honestly, but the whole Hand of the accolyte thing...
I strongly prefer Oracles, but if I had to play a Cleric tonight, I would probably roll up a Cleric of Ng, because I like the "super mysterious fey" angle, his(?) portfolio, and Travel & Thought are domains I like.
|
Milani is the best god. Good hope is my favourite spell.
I have a super fun negative energy channeling cleric of nethys. They get amazing domains and spells. Perfect for a home game.
I'm building a negative energy channeling cleric of urgathoa for Pfs. Gonna have amazing fun with her.
Finally a chivalry inquisition fire or healing cleric of sarenre. Cavalier mount with a 9th level caster? Healing with mobility? Yaaassss.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My favorite is perfectly tailored for "dipping" by martial classes, especially barbarians who, for one reason or another, don't use the Scarred Rager "rage-cycle" trick: Kurgess, of whom a single level Cleric dip with the Travel and the Community domains grants the martial character:
* Move+10, and Longstrider on the spell list for another +10 (so buy a wand and be +20 most of the time). Clerics of Kurgess can also cast Expeditious Retreat and Jump, per Inner Sea Faiths.
* Travel domain's Agile Feet permits ignoring difficult terrain 3+WIS/day.
* Bump to the ol' will save never hurts.
* Aside from the usual healing and divine item access, a channel saved for emergency ally-stabilization at-range.
* Community domain-power Calming Touch gets rid of fatigue, shaken, and sickened all simultaneously, and heals a bit of nonlethal as well.
* +3 bump to both Diplomacy and Sense Motive as they become class skills (assuming you're a barbarian).
* In any chatting-it-up-with-NPCs type situation, let the GM know that you're "readied" to cast Bless if it goes sideways.
Dipping a level of Kurgess cleric is especially good in barbarian/multiclass builds played from 1st, when taken at 2nd level., and particularly so if the situation (or your inclination) results in an even spread of attributes, i.e., no dump stats (or at least not more than one, if you dump intelligence). In point-buy settings such as PFS, it'll let your baby-oil beefcake BSF get some mileage out of his 12 or 14 wisdom score that is otherwise just sitting there doing nothing (aside from Perception checks) except waiting for the odd will save check.
(If you're wondering "Why not the Strength domain for Enlarge Person?", it's because there's several different ways in the game to drink potions as a move action, whereas casting the spell is a standard action.)