Cleric Spell Combos

[Mikemad]

Hi guys,

The cleric has a massive list of spells and access to the whole list at all times. I feel like there should be a whole bunch of spells that pair particularly well. I thought we might try to compile a master list of all the cool combos we can come up with.

Here are a few examples I threw down off the top of my head:

Protective Ward (Shield of Faith/Ironskin/Defending bone): Uses entirely level 1/2 spells, gives a substantial stack of AC buffs and some DR.

Blessing of Vitality (Aid/Bears Endurance/Blessing of Courage and Life): Stacking effective HP buffs. Grants an effective 2d8+4*CL extra HP. Also gives some minor attack and saves buffs.

Blessing of Immortality (Protective Ward/Blessing of Vitality): Self explanatory.

Summon Banhammer (Ancestral Gift/Greater Magic Weapon/Rags To Riches): Creates a +3 (or higher) bane weapon of your choice for 10 mins/level.

Anti-Undead Shell (Death Ward/Undeath Ward): For when you don't like undead.

Anti-Undead Gigabuff Mk. Ultimate (Anti-Undead Shell/Summon Undead Banhammer/Smite Abomination/Disrupting Weapon): For when you REALLY don't like undead.

Bubble of Non-Interaction (Antilife Shell/Undeath Ward/Spell Resistance/Fickle Winds): Living and undead creatures cannot come within 10 ft of you, immune to ranged attacks, resistant to magic. Becomes phenomenally more powerful with CL buffs.

Blue Flare (Flamestrike/Cold Ice Strike): Give em the ol' 1-2.

Vengeance (Shield of Dawn/Blood Rage/Caustic Blood): Anything that hits you takes a billion damage and buffs you (rather impractical to set up due to the durations).

Gimme your sweet combos (preferably with a sweet name) and I'll add them to the list.

[Magda Luckbender]

This topic may be suitable for its own guide. Opinions?

[Java Man]

There is plenty of meat for such a guide I would say.

[Mikemad]

Magda Luckbender wrote:

This topic may be suitable for its own guide. Opinions?

We could try to put something together depending on what we get here. I have a list somewhere I made a few years back where I went through all the "useful" cleric spells and categorized them with some annotations. If that would be a useful reference, let me know.

[avr]

Here's a few basic ones. Hopefully the names are good enough to be useful mnemonics.

Hellgaze (Doom/cause fear): Once shaken, cause fear will make any valid target at least frightened. Fear conditions stack.

Hellscape (Aura of doom/vision of hell): Aura of doom can be cast in advance, vision of hell can be cast on the spot to get everyone. Fear conditions stack.

Love Me (Tap inner beauty/cultural adaptation/eagle's splendor/enhanced diplomacy): +8 to diplomacy if you can get time to cast them all. Yes, they're all different bonus types. Add tongues if required.

Royal Arms (Magic vestment/greater magic weapon): For hours/level your weapons and armor are better than you can afford.

[Wheldrake]

I haven't gone and checked, but the OP will need to make sure all of those effects do in fact stack. Some may be the same type of bonus, and won't add anything extra. Many will overlap with items the PCs have if they are well-equipped, like natural armor bonuses, and hence won't stack.

Just saying.

[Lanathar]

angeila avalon wrote:

Blessing of Immortality (Protective Ward/Blessing of Vitality): Self explanatory.

i cannot find these spells in neyths，anyone can tell me how to find?

The OP has used Protective Ward and Blessing of Vitality as a name for a group of spells

The advised “Immortalitiy” is a combo of 6 spells. It seems unlikely that you get all these up in time due to duration

[Xiphose]

you need a feat to do this combo but its quite effective.

metamagic: quicken spell

cast cure light wounds as a standard action
cast cure light wounds as a quickened action

bam, twice the healing

[Mikemad]

Everything here stacks, dont worry. With regards to stacking with items, shield of faith/ironskin usually give a substantially higher bonus than the items you can afford at a given level. Even if you have a ring of protection and amulet of natural armor, its often an extra 4-5 AC.

With regards to the practicality of casting 6 spells. Yeah not often. However, the blessing of immortality is entirely level 1-2 spells, one is hr/level and the rest are mins/level. It isnt that hard to pull off at mid levels if you have some prep time and dont particularly care about you lower spell slots (a duel, for example).

Now, for real impracticality, see the comical anti-undead combo. Its 7 high level spells, some of which have only round/level durations lol. The only time I would use something like that is if I happened upon a dormant demilich, rested directly in front of it, cast 7 spells directly in front of it, then tapped it on the skull like "uh... hi!".

[Mikemad]

One thing I should mention regarding the combos of low level min/level buffs (Protective Ward/Blessing of Vitality and such). These become much more practical if you sync them with your usual in-combat casting of blessing of fervor.

Here's a situation that comes up often in my games:

I'm level 7-8ish. We are raiding a dungeon/evil lair/castle or something with repeated combat encounters. We run into our first combat encounter. Round 1 I cast blessing of fervor. The fight lasts 3-4 rounds-ish. I still have 3-4 rounds of blessing of fervor. I can use those remaining rounds to cast any level 1 or 2 spells extended, and I know there is going to be more encounters ahead. I cast protective ward under free extend spells (maybe a bless or something as well). For the next 2 or 3 fights, I am significantly harder to kill.

[Magda Luckbender]

Formatting suggestion:

I suggest, for ease of reference, that each combo should list the TYPES of bonuses. Sure, as-is it all stacks, but you know people will want to extend. So list the types.

Something like this:

Melee CODZilla (Divine Favor[LUCK], Bull's Strength[ENHANCEMENT], Weapon of Awe [SACRED], Bless [MORALE]) - Stacks offensive to hit and damage bonuses, turning the Cleric or Druid into CODZilla.

[Dave Justus]

I don't know that I would consider just stacking bonuses or using two effects that don't particularly interact to be a 'combo.' These are just good spells, and more good spells is obviously better than less good spells, if you can get them (spending several rounds to get ready, just in time for the fight to be over isn't a great plan.)

To me, a combo is when the spells together are greater than the sum of there parts, avr fear condition spells being a good example.

[Melkiador]

There are probably some who haven't thought to combine Imbue with Spell Ability and Shield Other to allow your tank to take damage for your squishier teammates. But I guess we don't have a flashy name for it? "Imbue with Sacrifice"?

[Mikemad]

Dave Justus wrote:

I don't know that I would consider just stacking bonuses or using two effects that don't particularly interact to be a 'combo.' These are just good spells, and more good spells is obviously better than less good spells, if you can get them (spending several rounds to get ready, just in time for the fight to be over isn't a great plan.)

To me, a combo is when the spells together are greater than the sum of there parts, avr fear condition spells being a good example.

Fair enough, although it's just an issue of semantics to a certain extent. I would argue that in many cases, stacking effects are better than the sum of their parts, however.

For example, suppose you have 2 spells that add 3 to your AC and they stack. Suppose an opponent currently hits you on an 11, so they hit 50% of the time. You cast one of the 2 spells, he now needs a 14 to hit you. He now has a 35% hit chance against you, you have reduced his damage output by 30%. Now you cast the second one, he now needs a 17 to hit you. He now has a 20% hit chance against you. This one cut his damage by 43%. I.E., the more AC you get, the better individual points of AC are (until the opponent only hits you on a 20).

I would imagine this is part of why the game doesn't like effects stacking. Imagine if I could just cast shield of faith on my barbarian 7 times and they all stacked. He would be completely immune to melee damage. That's WAY better than basically anything else I could do with my first level spells slots, but nobody is complaining that shield of faith by itself is a broken spell.

[Mikemad]

Gonna be honest though, a huge part of why I made this thread was because I thought it'd be fun for us to give sick names to combinations of spells people commonly cast together anyway.

I mean, what's cooler: "I cast (insert 3 spell names)", or "I CAST (INSERT SWEET AF ANIME ATTACK NAME SPELL COMBO TITLE)"?

It just feels thematically appropriate lol.

[Dave Justus]

Mikemad wrote:

For example, suppose you have 2 spells that add 3 to your AC and they stack. Suppose an opponent currently hits you on an 11, so they hit 50% of the time. You cast one of the 2 spells, he now needs a 14 to hit you. He now has a 35% hit chance against you, you have reduced his damage output by 30%. Now you cast the second one, he now needs a 17 to hit you. He now has a 20% hit chance against you. This one cut his damage by 43%. I.E., the more AC you get, the better individual points of AC are (until the opponent only hits you on a 20)

Those percentages are accurate, but misleading, as the subsequent reductions are a higher percentage of a smaller amount.

Using your example, and saying that a hit would do 100 points, and only one attack a round (just to make the math easy) with no spells active you would expect to take an average of 50 points each round (of course it would actually be 100 or 0, but that doesn't matter for the explanation). We'll also continue to avoid any critical rolls.

After casting your first spell, you would now expect to take an average of 35 points each round, which is indeed 70% of 50, so 30% less. It is also 15 points less.

After the second spell, you would expect to take 20 points of damage each round. This is 57% of the previous 35 points, so your 43% less is also accurate. What is important though is that it is also 15 points less damage.

The first spell reduced your expected damage by 15 points. The second spell reduced it by 15 points. Together they reduced it by 30 points, not syngergizing at all.

This is because the d20 roll is a flat roll. Moving the target up by 1 will have the same mathematical reduction of damage regardless of whether you are changing the required target from a 5 to 6 or from a 15 to a 16.

[Mikemad]

Dave Justus wrote:

Those percentages are accurate, but misleading, as the subsequent reductions are a higher percentage of a smaller amount.

Using your example, and saying that a hit would do 100 points, and only one attack a round (just to make the math easy) with no spells active you would expect to take an average of 50 points each round (of course it would actually be 100 or 0, but that doesn't matter for the explanation). We'll also continue to avoid any critical rolls.

After casting your first spell, you would now expect to take an average of 35 points each round, which is indeed 70% of 50, so 30% less. It is also 15 points less.

After the second spell, you would expect to take 20 points of damage each round. This is 57% of the previous 35 points, so your 43% less is also accurate. What is important though is that it is also 15 points less damage.

The first spell reduced your expected damage by 15 points. The second spell reduced it by 15 points. Together they reduced it by 30 points, not syngergizing at all.

This is because the d20 roll is a flat roll. Moving the target up by 1 will have the same mathematical reduction of damage regardless of whether you are changing the required target from a 5 to 6 or from a 15 to a 16.

If you want to measure "tankiness" by the average damage you take per swing of the opponent, then you are correct; there is no difference.

I think that's a weird way of looking at it though. Ultimately, what I care about is how many times the BBEG can swing his fist at me and I stay standing. In this regard, casting both spells lets me stay standing for more than twice the extra turns either individual spell would give me. If the boss hits you on a 2, adding 1 AC basically changes nothing even though, yeah, it reduces the average expected damage per hit by X amount. However, if the boss needs a 19 to hit me, adding an extra AC literally doubles the time he takes to kill me even though it still technically reduced the amount of damage I take on average per hit by the same X amount.

This is why every wizard player I talk to thinks AC is bad. They don't have enough base armor for buffing their AC to really matter. Everything is going to hit them regardless.

[Melkiador]

Mikemad wrote:

Gonna be honest though, a huge part of why I made this thread was because I thought it'd be fun for us to give sick names to combinations of spells people commonly cast together anyway.

I mean, what's cooler: "I cast (insert 3 spell names)", or "I CAST (INSERT SWEET AF ANIME ATTACK NAME SPELL COMBO TITLE)"?

It just feels thematically appropriate lol.

I think it's a good idea. Naming combo moves.

[Dave Justus]

Mikemad wrote:

If you want to measure "tankiness" by the average damage you take per swing of the opponent, then you are correct; there is no difference.

Well, the amount of damage I take per round of the opponent combined with the amount of damage I can take and still stay up is indeed how I measure 'tankiness.' I am not sure how else you would. And the math works out the same here, absent the below 2 and above 19 cases whether it is one swing for 100 or 5 swings for 20 although the real life 5 swing version would make each individual round closer to the prediction.

I'm not sure what your 'twice extra turns means' but I think you are doing the math wrong on that. Reducing the amount of damage you can expect will extend how long you can stay active. How much that is, depends on a) how much damage the opponent can deal out and b) how much you can take, not something you can measure in 'extra turns' without knowing those factors. Reducing the expected damage by 90% doesn't really help you if that last 10% still takes you down after all, no extra turns at all there.

As far as the 'wizards don't want AC' argument, sometimes they are just wrong. People don't always act in a logical manner after all, but often they are up against the outside the bounds problem. If you increase your AC by 3 and they still need a 2 to hit, you indeed haven't helped yourself. There is also the question of how to spend resources, AC isn't the only defense in the world and there are other ways to achieve it.

[Mikemad]

Dave Justus wrote:

Mikemad wrote:

If you want to measure "tankiness" by the average damage you take per swing of the opponent, then you are correct; there is no difference.

Well, the amount of damage I take per round of the opponent combined with the amount of damage I can take and still stay up is indeed how I measure 'tankiness.' I am not sure how else you would. And the math works out the same here, absent the below 2 and above 19 cases whether it is one swing for 100 or 5 swings for 20 although the real life 5 swing version would make each individual round closer to the prediction.

I'm not sure what your 'twice extra turns means' but I think you are doing the math wrong on that. Reducing the amount of damage you can expect will extend how long you can stay active. How much that is, depends on a) how much damage the opponent can deal out and b) how much you can take, not something you can measure in 'extra turns' without knowing those factors. Reducing the expected damage by 90% doesn't really help you if that last 10% still takes you down after all, no extra turns at all there.

As far as the 'wizards don't want AC' argument, sometimes they are just wrong. People don't always act in a logical manner after all, but often they are up against the outside the bounds problem. If you increase your AC by 3 and they still need a 2 to hit, you indeed haven't helped yourself. There is also the question of how to spend resources, AC isn't the only defense in the world and there are other ways to achieve it.

This is what I mean, and I'll make the example as extreme as possible just for clarity. Suppose I have 200 HP, the boss deals 100 damage per hit and attacks once per round. He hits me on a 2 (exactly), so I only last about 2 rounds against him. I now cast a spell that raises my AC by 10. He now needs a 12 to hit me, so I last about 4 rounds against him. By adding 10 to my AC, I have doubled the amount of time I stay standing against him.

Now suppose he originally needed an 11 to hit me. He kills me in roughly 4 rounds. I now cast a spell that adds 10 to my AC. He now needs a 20 to hit me, so he takes 40 rounds to kill me now. I have gained 36 extra rounds against him, and multiplied the time he takes to kill me by 10.

The AC buff on a low AC PC made him mildly more annoying to kill. The AC buff on a mid AC PC made him completely unkillable. That's what I'm talking about.

[Dave Justus]

Actually, in most fights I have been part of, going from 2 rounds to 4 is the difference between life and death. Going from 4 rounds to 40 is a waste, since the fight probably ended by the 4 anyway, particularly if I didn't spend my turn gaining 36 useless rounds of life and instead did something to bring down the bad guy faster.

Whether increasing your AC is good or bad in a circumstance and worth it depends on a ton of factors, but saying low AC to mid AC is always a waste and mid AC to high AC is always great is simply wrong.

Anyway, I have derailed this thread more than enough and I apologize for that.

[Mikemad]

Dave Justus wrote:

Actually, in most fights I have been part of, going from 2 rounds to 4 is the difference between life and death. Going from 4 rounds to 40 is a waste, since the fight probably ended by the 4 anyway, particularly if I didn't spend my turn gaining 36 useless rounds of life and instead did something to bring down the bad guy faster.

Whether increasing your AC is good or bad in a circumstance and worth it depends on a ton of factors, but saying low AC to mid AC is always a waste and mid AC to high AC is always great is simply wrong.

Anyway, I have derailed this thread more than enough and I apologize for that.

The example was extreme just to show the math. I understand going from 4 to 40 isn't usually the biggest deal. All I'm really trying to say is that gaining AC has differing levels of benefit depending on where you start. Your original point was that there is no difference between going from 30-33 AC and going from 33-36 AC (assuming we don't end up in edge cases). That's what I'm arguing against. I make no judgements regarding whether going from 30-36 is the best plan.

Also, the plan was never to cast these in combat. See my previous responses. The whole idea of the combo was to cast it between consecutive fights when you still have a few rounds of free extend spells from blessing of fervor.

[Commercial Grade Woodpecker]

Dave Justus wrote:

Mikemad wrote:

If you want to measure "tankiness" by the average damage you take per swing of the opponent, then you are correct; there is no difference.

Well, the amount of damage I take per round of the opponent combined with the amount of damage I can take and still stay up is indeed how I measure 'tankiness.' I am not sure how else you would. And the math works out the same here, absent the below 2 and above 19 cases whether it is one swing for 100 or 5 swings for 20 although the real life 5 swing version would make each individual round closer to the prediction.

I'm not sure what your 'twice extra turns means' but I think you are doing the math wrong on that. Reducing the amount of damage you can expect will extend how long you can stay active. How much that is, depends on a) how much damage the opponent can deal out and b) how much you can take, not something you can measure in 'extra turns' without knowing those factors. Reducing the expected damage by 90% doesn't really help you if that last 10% still takes you down after all, no extra turns at all there.

As far as the 'wizards don't want AC' argument, sometimes they are just wrong. People don't always act in a logical manner after all, but often they are up against the outside the bounds problem. If you increase your AC by 3 and they still need a 2 to hit, you indeed haven't helped yourself. There is also the question of how to spend resources, AC isn't the only defense in the world and there are other ways to achieve it.

What.

Anywho,

Hulk smash - quickened divine favor/ enlarge person. This is for if someone REALLY pisses you off and they’re really dangerous or you’re on low buffs

Polymorph: know it all - page bound epiphany/ ancestral communion. Who needs skill ranks anyway?

Free Upgrades: Greater Magic Weapon/ magic vestment / defending bone (+ shield of faith/ironskin/bull’s strength). This combo of spells mean you dont have to buy any of the usual big stuff other than a stat belt and a cloak of resistence (owl’s wisdom/cha spell of course dont give you the spells/day buff so the item is still nice)

[MrCharisma]

Commercial Grade Woodpecker wrote:

Hulk smash - quickened divine favor/ enlarge person. This is for if someone REALLY pisses you off and they’re really dangerous or you’re on low buffs

You're better off going quickened Enlarge Person/Divine Favor (also not all Clerics get access to Enlarge Person, but you can get it from domains).

[Commercial Grade Woodpecker]

MrCharisma wrote:

Commercial Grade Woodpecker wrote:

Hulk smash - quickened divine favor/ enlarge person. This is for if someone REALLY pisses you off and they’re really dangerous or you’re on low buffs

You're better off going quickened Enlarge Person/Divine Favor (also not all Clerics get access to Enlarge Person, but you can get it from domains).

I've found divine favor to be more universally useful. I've ended up in a lot of locations where enlargement would be inconvenient. Gaining pretty much a full BAB is never inconvenient, and is VERY useful in combats where you need to act fully round one as a fighter, not as a caster (usually when I'm playing "gank the wizard" - a situation where I want to ensure I can hit him to prevent his spell from going off, not a situation where I want to maximize damage). Also I'm limited to the single domain slot cast of Enlarge - and since I like to run the two metamagic cost reduction feats, I actually have reason to prepare (or cast as an oracle) quickened divine favor more than once since it's only a 3rd level spell.

also having divine favor as the quickened means I can cast it and righteous might on the same turn + have haste boot activation as a free action.

[Cevah]

Say Goodnight Gracie (SGG): Lucky Number [1] + Endure Elements [1] (or Life Bubble [5])
Spells to cast with open slots at the end of the day

Good Morning Golarion (GMG): Ant Haul [1] + Longstrider [1] + Defending Bone [2] + Magic Vestment [3] (armor) + Magic Vestment [3] (shield) + Greater Magic Weapon [4] + Eaglesoul [6]
Spells to cast at the start of the day

Some spells can switch from GMG to SGG when the durations get large enough.

Getting a Lesset Rod of Extend will let you double three spells of 1st to 3rd, for 3,000 gp. This can help with SGG.

/cevah