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All,
I'm running a 4th Human Cloistered Cleric of Sarenrae in the Extinction Curse, and I've got to say that I'm not really enjoying it, primarily because it seems to be so ineffective. It pretty much stays at the back of the party and heals the other characters.
My GM allows players to tweak characters up to 5th level, so I'm after a bit of advice on how I can make this more effective.
My current build is as follows:
Str - 10
Dex - 12
Con - 12
Int - 10
Wis - 18
Cha - 16
Ancestry feats - Natural ambition (domain initiate)
Domain Fire & Healing
Background - Barker, Group coercion
Class feats - Directed Channel & Healing hands
General feats - Battle medicine & ward medic
Skill feats - Continual recovery & quick identification.
Spells
0
Daze, detect magic, divine lance, guidance, light
1
Burning hands, fear, Ray of enfeeblement
2
Sound burst x 2, sudden blight.
Focus points 2
Fire ray, Healer's blessing.
Any advice on what I can do to make this a more effective in general game play would be very much appreciated.
Regards
Prux
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Well, what exactly do you want to do?
Your stats basically mean your a pure caster/healbot.
A simple fix would be Adapted Cantrip to get Electric Arc as your go-to attack spell. Alternatively, change Directed Channel to Reach Spell so you can cast Chill Touch at range.
Ray of Enfeeblement is a rather weak spell since it requires an attack roll and allows a save. I'd switch that out for another spell. In general, you might want to focus more on buffs/debuffs than offensive spells. The Divine spell list isn't terrible, but still probably the weakest when it comes to dealing damage.
If you want even more support, you could get bard dedication and inspire Courage at level 8.
Alternatively, Familiar Master Dedication with the familiar conduit feat can give your spells much more range, which can help to use certain spells more easily while still keeping a save distance from the enemy.
Other than that, I'm not sure you can do much without switching your bild around quite a bit. You could get more strength and try to melee or more Dex and use a bow via Archer Dedication.
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Well, what exactly do you want to do?
Your stats basically mean your a pure caster/healbot.
A simple fix would be Adapted Cantrip to get Electric Arc as your go-to attack spell. Alternatively, change Directed Channel to Reach Spell so you can cast Chill Touch at range.
Ray of Enfeeblement is a rather weak spell since it requires an attack roll and allows a save. I'd switch that out for another spell. In general, you might want to focus more on buffs/debuffs than offensive spells. The Divine spell list isn't terrible, but still probably the weakest when it comes to dealing damage.
If you want even more support, you could get bard dedication and inspire Courage at level 8.
Alternatively, Familiar Master Dedication with the familiar conduit feat can give your spells much more range, which can help to use certain spells more easily while still keeping a save distance from the enemy.
Other than that, I'm not sure you can do much without switching your bild around quite a bit. You could get more strength and try to melee or more Dex and use a bow via Archer Dedication.
Hi Blave,
Thanks for responding to my post. I think I'm just frustrated by the lack of offensive capability. I've been playing RPG's for over 35 years and I'm struggling with how much the Cleric has changed in PF2E.
A full rebuild isn't out of the question as the GM is generous up until 5th level. I'm missing the melee action so I probably should have gone with the War Priest from the start.
Prux
Warpriest is a decent option, but can be a bit lacking in the spellcasting department. Its melee abilities aren't completely terrible but if you're used to older editions, you might still end up being disappointed. Do NOT expect to be anywhere near a martial character in physical combat if you're playing a caster base class. That's not going to happen. You will always lack behind by a significant margin.
How does the rest of the party look like?
If you really want to perform well in melee, be another class. Cleric simply isn't meant to do this - even as a Warpriest. Maybe switch to a Liberator of Sarenrae. Could get some Divine Magic going via an Archetype. Cleric Dedication is hard to pull off since you usually don't want much Wisdom early as a Champion. But Sorcerer or Oracle Dedication should work fine.
If you're fine with being a Caster who occasionally swings a weapon when he has nothing better to do - and doesn't expect any stellar results! - you can play something like a Warpriest. Or even a Cloistered Cleric who gets some armor Proficiency from archetypes. Champion Dedication or Sentry Dedication.
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Playing a War Priest of Sarenrae in our current campaing also having 5 players (Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger, Wizard) I support the notion to stick with the Cloistered Cleric as a pure caster. Once you reach 5th level and Fireball comes online your offensive problems are mostly gone and once your reach 7th level you will really feel the lack of spellcasting proficiency for DC and also for hitting with Fire Ray.
In between making a weak weapon attacks, raising your shield for additional AC, moving around the battlefield and having to cast and sustain spells my WP is brutally action starved and practically gave up on melee.
If you are looking for defensive options Champion Dedication (needs STR instead of DEX) or Sentry or Bastion dedications are your friends.
Regarding optimisation feats and skills look fine. As advised Reach Spell is really good and unless you feature a undead heavy campaign I would rate it above directed channel as it can also be used for your 2-action Heal, so you don't have to close distance.
Regarding spell selection I ran Command, Fear and Bless for quite some time and for second level Calm Emotions proved quite effective. The first two spell levels are not especially effective for damage and I usually memorized utility spells or buffs/debuffs instead.
Picking up Electric Arc via Adopted Cantrip opening up for True Strike via Adaptive Adept is also worth looking into, especially if Fire Ray is your fallback ranged attack and because level 1st spells loose their appeal very quickly.
Also I dislike Healing domain a little, because the 1st level focus spell while not bad is somewhat lackluster, however the 8th level focus spell is really, really good. However I want to use the opportunity to suggest to not dismiss the Sun domain, where both the level 1 as well as the level 8 spell are quite good.
Skill feats: 1st Battle Medicine (via Field Medic), 2nd Assurance (Medicine), 4th Continual Recovery, 6th Ward Medic, 8th Robust Recovery
Cleric feats: 1st Healing Hand (via Natural Ambition), 2nd Domain Initiate (Sun), 4th Domain Initiate (Fire), 6th Reach Spell, 8th Advanced Domain (Sun)
Ancestry: 1st Natural Ambition, 5th Electric Arc, 9th True Strike
General Feats: 1st Fast Recovery (to help vs poison mainly; if you dont have the CON take Fleet instead, it's brilliant), 3rd Breath Control (because of back story mainly), 7th Canny Acumen (Reflex; because reflex saves are a huge threat to Clerics)
As others have noted, do not go Warpriest if you want to increase your offense. Warpriests sacrifice offense in your main strength, spells, to give you a minor boost in a weak area, weapons, with most of the advantages being defensive. You'd have more of the problem you dislike!
With a Champion in the party and a Fighter helping them, defense shouldn't be so dire an issue though you do have a fragile build.
And Fireball. :)
A Cleric's other offensive options expand at higher levels, though a Heightened Fireball will always be a keeper.
And your 2nd level spells both target Fortitude which is often the highest save for thugs, the kind of targets you'd aim an AoE at. So that might be part of the dissatisfaction.
Also Burning Hands might be too dangerous for its reward since you'd have to get close and your AC & h.p. are horrible.
And Reach Spell is amazing. I'd swap out the Healing Domain for that (via Natural Ambition), not just for Chill Touch (rather than Guidance), but to be able Heal from 60', meaning you can remain more than a move away from most enemies.
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I think that I'll stick with the Cloistered Cleric and adopt some of the suggestions here. Thanks for the advice everyone, it's very much appreciated.
Solid choice and you can thank us later. ;)
Having worse DC and spell attack as a WP is an issue on its own, but what is annoying me most (and what I forgot to mention in my original post) is the fact that as a WP you can counteract equally bad as you can attack with spells.
Starting with level 7 every single dispel magic, remove disease, neutralize poison, i.e. an aweful lot of similar 'conditions-be-gone' spells as well as many protection spells (Globe of Invulnerability, Spell immunity etc) and even some iconic divination spells (e.g. True seeing) will feel as an uphill struggle against the already tight PF2 math, which really is a shame as I consider those to be a Clerics bread and butter spells.
Another suggestion is to take an Archetype Dedication into either Fighter or Mauler to gain access to Martial weapons with Reach. Then you can add some melee offense from behind your Champion or Fighter. Something like the Faulchard would also allow you to trip foes with your reach weapon, setting up AoO's from your Fighter.