Build for a Warrior-type Cleric (Core only)
Nifft
Penguin Herder
I too like nittanytbone's stat array. 15 Wisdom is just fine; put every point you get at 4, 8, 12, etc. into Wisdom and you won't lack for bonus spells.
Good is an excellent domain if you take the feat Craft Magic Arms & Armor. Why? Because you can make Holy weapons. This is no small thing.
War is a decent domain. It's not the best one out there, but it's okay. I like access to the power word spells.
Strength domain is fantastic at low levels (enlarge person), good at mid-levels (domain ability becomes useful), and fantastic at high levels (bigby's hand spells). Also, stoneskin.
The Travel domain is great, and necessary if your party can't otherwise teleport.
The Magic domain is good, particularly if your party doesn't have an arcanist to use all the wands and scrolls you'll undoubtedly find. I fear the martial Cleric with the Magic domain and a Wand of mirror image.
Cheers, -- N
Good is an excellent domain if you take the feat Craft Magic Arms & Armor. Why? Because you can make Holy weapons. This is no small thing.
War is a decent domain. It's not the best one out there, but it's okay. I like access to the power word spells.
Strength domain is fantastic at low levels (enlarge person), good at mid-levels (domain ability becomes useful), and fantastic at high levels (bigby's hand spells). Also, stoneskin.
The Travel domain is great, and necessary if your party can't otherwise teleport.
The Magic domain is good, particularly if your party doesn't have an arcanist to use all the wands and scrolls you'll undoubtedly find. I fear the martial Cleric with the Magic domain and a Wand of mirror image.
Cheers, -- N
Elder-Basilisk
First Post
Core only, cleric is a very strong choice. But, core only, you don't have a lot of the more useful or heinously and stupidly broken options (Divine metamagic anything) available to you.
Now, your stats look fine.
God and domains:
Heironeous is not a bad choice and will have a strong tie-in with the age of worms campaign starting point.
For a martially focused cleric, war domain provides a small boost--the only benefit to a longsword over a heavy mace or morning star is 19-20 instead of 20 crit. But weapon focus is nice and a sword has style.
The good domain is also not a bad choice. Protection from evil is a great spell at first level. Aid is a bit weak. Magic circle against evil is a great long term buff. Having the ranged area effect damage of holy smite, flame strike, and blade barrier as options is quite nice too. The best function of the good domain, however is probably the ability to craft the strand of prayer beads and holy weapons, both of which require the holy smite spell.
All that said, there are some other possibilities to consider:
A cleric of St. Cuthbert with destruction Strength domains would probably give a more punchy melee cleric as well as having a very strong buy in to the starting Age of Worms town of Diamond Lake.
The domain power of destruction is a useful and powerful smite and the strength domain power will only get better as you level up. By the time you make it to 12th level, being able to kick off strength domain for +12 strength is enough to give you a devastating full attack--especially if you combine it with your smite and liberal Power Attack. The spells for strength and destruction also provide at least one good option at nearly every level.
Pelor could also provide the strength domain along with sun (great spells, passable domain power), or healing (sometimes it's nice to have the extra healing) domains. He's a good god for fitting into the Greyhawk setting too.
If you wanted an excuse to wield a two-handed weapon and your DM is open to Greyhawk gods that are not in the PHB, Mayheine (War, Law, and Good domains, favored weapon: bastard sword), Kelanen (Travel and war domains, favored weapon: any sword you want), and Xan Yae (Knowledge, Trickery, and War, favored weapon: Falchion) are all good potential choices. That said, following a Baklunish god like Xan Yae would make you an outsider in the parts of Greyhawk that Age of Worms has taken place in up until the part that I am in (our party just hit level 14). You could also take Kord whose (Luck, Strength, Chaos, Good) but you'd need to spend a proficiency on Greatsword then so you could just as easily take Pelor or St. Cuthbert and just spend the same feat.
Equipment: You may not have thought about this too much, but I would recommend using a buckler and longsword or taking a two-handed weapon. Remember, even clerics need a free hand to cast spells and if you have a sword in one hand and a heavy shield in the other, you don't have a free hand. A buckler gives you one point of armor class, leaves a free hand for spellcasting, and lets you wield the sword (or mace if you take my suggestion and go St. Cuthbert) two handed at only a small penalty when you want to take advantage of two-handed power attack.
Feats:
I would say that the following core feats are essential to a melee cleric:
Power Attack, Quicken Spell
There will always be situations where you need to deal lots of damage, whether to get through DR or to have a chance to eliminate foes more quickly and there will frequently be situations (especially if you are using the strength domain and destruction domain powers in tandem) where you have more attack bonus than you need. Power Attack, if judiciously used, can be a major boost to your damage.
Quicken spell addresses another major challenge facing melee clerics: getting buff spells off in time to be able to lay some smack down before the combat is over. You really don't want to ever spend more than one round preparing to fight--or maybe two if the combat is slow to develop. More than that and you will frequently find that either the combat is already over by the time you're ready to fight or that, in the absence of you doing anything useful for the first and most essential rounds of the fight your party has managed to get mauled to the point where your (now oversized) contribution is only just enough to get the party back to par rather than letting your party romp all over difficult fights. (Incidentally, this is why I like the strength and destruction domains as well--they give you the ability to put out some very nice damage in round 1 so if the bad guy surprises your party and is mauling your wizard in the first round of combat, you have the capability to possibly eliminate or at least badly hurt said bad guy before he gets another action.)
Other good feats:
Weapon Focus: If you don't hit, you don't do damage
Craft Wondrous Item: Sooner or later, you will want belts of strength, periapts of wisdom, pearls of power, a cloak of resistance, and a strand of prayer beads--maybe even a phylactery of undead turning. This, the most flexible of the item creation feats is a great choice.
Empower Spell: This is quite nice at higher levels. An empowered flamestrike is a great seventh level offensive spell. And, when you want big single target healing and don't have a heal spell prepped, Empower Spell gives you more efficient options than the mass spells. (Mass cure mod at level 11=20 points of healing each; empowered cure critical wounds=43 points of healing). Also, some Empowered lower level mass cures are also better than the higher level ones (at clvl 15, mass cure critical=33 points, empowered mass cure moderate: 36; at caster level 20, mass cure serious is 33.5 and empowered mass cure light is 36.5--note that this is not true at caster level 13; I think clvl 15 is the break point on this).
Craft Magic Arms and Armor: This can be useful if you have a lot of weapon using warrior types in your party. If you do go this route, you want the Good domain.
Leadership: A cohort is always a good addition to the party. You can't argue with Leadership if your DM allows it.
Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration: These are less useful for a martial cleric than for other clerics since you'll probably be doing damage primarily with your sword or mace rather than through casting flame strike, but it's always nice to have the flame strike option and these feats make it a more credible one.
Martial Weapon Proficiency: If you want to go the two handed weapon route using a greatsword, greataxe, or falchion instead of a spear or longspear is worth style points. . . and the greatsword nets you a bigger damage increase than you would get if you could somehow take weapon specialization without being a fighter.
Lightning Reflexes: Reflex saves are the traditional weakness of a cleric. +2 isn't a lot, but every bit helps.
Improved Critical: This is a much better feat for the sword wielder than for the mace wielder and is better for the falchion wielder than for either. There are a whole lot of things that can't be critted but it's pretty good if you're fighting some of the things that can be.
Feats that are poor IMO:
Combat Casting: +4 is nice, but by mid levels, the casting defensively check is almost automatic anyway. Furthermore it doesn't help you when you most need it--when being damaged by an opponent when you cast your spell (because they were readying an action to disrupt your spellcasting). If you must take a concentration boosting feat take Skill Focus Concentration instead, but you really don't need either.
Toughness: This is a terrible feat. 3 hp is good at first level but by the time you're 15th level and are walking around with 123hp or so, is 126 really that much better? I didn't think so. Heck by 6th level, it's mostly lost its lustre.
Extra Turning and Improved Turning: With a 10 charisma, you're not going to be very good at turning anyway. Since in a core only game you don't have anything other than turning undead to do with the ability... and turning undead itself becomes largely ineffective at high levels unless you have a phylactery of undead turning, it's not worth it. And, if you do get a phylactery your standard three turning attempts are probably enough.
So, my recommendations for feats:
1. Power Attack, Cleave
3. Craft Wondrous Item
6. Leadership
9. Quicken Spell
12. Spell Penetration
15. Empower Spell
18. Greater Spell Penetration
If you take my suggestion and go with St. Cuthbert for Strength and Destruction domains,
1. Power Attack, Cleave
3. Weapon Focus
6. Craft Wondrous Item
9. Quicken Spell
12. Leadership
15. Empower Spell
18. Spell Penetration
Of course, everything except Power Attack, Quicken Spell, and Weapon Focus is really secondary, so any feats from my list of good feats in any sensible order is probably fine. (Though if you get Cleave you want it early where you'll get the most use out of it, if you take Martial Weapon Proficiency to get a good two-handed weapon, you want that at first level so that you can stick with the same weapon type throught your career. Spell Penetration should be a later choice since it's only useful against higher CR creatures, and Empower Spell isn't really useful until 12th or 15th level. Quicken Spell likewise isn't useful until 9th level. If you're going to get Leadership, you should probably do so at 6th level so your cohort has a chance to grow along with you.
Now, your stats look fine.
God and domains:
Heironeous is not a bad choice and will have a strong tie-in with the age of worms campaign starting point.
For a martially focused cleric, war domain provides a small boost--the only benefit to a longsword over a heavy mace or morning star is 19-20 instead of 20 crit. But weapon focus is nice and a sword has style.
The good domain is also not a bad choice. Protection from evil is a great spell at first level. Aid is a bit weak. Magic circle against evil is a great long term buff. Having the ranged area effect damage of holy smite, flame strike, and blade barrier as options is quite nice too. The best function of the good domain, however is probably the ability to craft the strand of prayer beads and holy weapons, both of which require the holy smite spell.
All that said, there are some other possibilities to consider:
A cleric of St. Cuthbert with destruction Strength domains would probably give a more punchy melee cleric as well as having a very strong buy in to the starting Age of Worms town of Diamond Lake.
The domain power of destruction is a useful and powerful smite and the strength domain power will only get better as you level up. By the time you make it to 12th level, being able to kick off strength domain for +12 strength is enough to give you a devastating full attack--especially if you combine it with your smite and liberal Power Attack. The spells for strength and destruction also provide at least one good option at nearly every level.
Pelor could also provide the strength domain along with sun (great spells, passable domain power), or healing (sometimes it's nice to have the extra healing) domains. He's a good god for fitting into the Greyhawk setting too.
If you wanted an excuse to wield a two-handed weapon and your DM is open to Greyhawk gods that are not in the PHB, Mayheine (War, Law, and Good domains, favored weapon: bastard sword), Kelanen (Travel and war domains, favored weapon: any sword you want), and Xan Yae (Knowledge, Trickery, and War, favored weapon: Falchion) are all good potential choices. That said, following a Baklunish god like Xan Yae would make you an outsider in the parts of Greyhawk that Age of Worms has taken place in up until the part that I am in (our party just hit level 14). You could also take Kord whose (Luck, Strength, Chaos, Good) but you'd need to spend a proficiency on Greatsword then so you could just as easily take Pelor or St. Cuthbert and just spend the same feat.
Equipment: You may not have thought about this too much, but I would recommend using a buckler and longsword or taking a two-handed weapon. Remember, even clerics need a free hand to cast spells and if you have a sword in one hand and a heavy shield in the other, you don't have a free hand. A buckler gives you one point of armor class, leaves a free hand for spellcasting, and lets you wield the sword (or mace if you take my suggestion and go St. Cuthbert) two handed at only a small penalty when you want to take advantage of two-handed power attack.
Feats:
I would say that the following core feats are essential to a melee cleric:
Power Attack, Quicken Spell
There will always be situations where you need to deal lots of damage, whether to get through DR or to have a chance to eliminate foes more quickly and there will frequently be situations (especially if you are using the strength domain and destruction domain powers in tandem) where you have more attack bonus than you need. Power Attack, if judiciously used, can be a major boost to your damage.
Quicken spell addresses another major challenge facing melee clerics: getting buff spells off in time to be able to lay some smack down before the combat is over. You really don't want to ever spend more than one round preparing to fight--or maybe two if the combat is slow to develop. More than that and you will frequently find that either the combat is already over by the time you're ready to fight or that, in the absence of you doing anything useful for the first and most essential rounds of the fight your party has managed to get mauled to the point where your (now oversized) contribution is only just enough to get the party back to par rather than letting your party romp all over difficult fights. (Incidentally, this is why I like the strength and destruction domains as well--they give you the ability to put out some very nice damage in round 1 so if the bad guy surprises your party and is mauling your wizard in the first round of combat, you have the capability to possibly eliminate or at least badly hurt said bad guy before he gets another action.)
Other good feats:
Weapon Focus: If you don't hit, you don't do damage
Craft Wondrous Item: Sooner or later, you will want belts of strength, periapts of wisdom, pearls of power, a cloak of resistance, and a strand of prayer beads--maybe even a phylactery of undead turning. This, the most flexible of the item creation feats is a great choice.
Empower Spell: This is quite nice at higher levels. An empowered flamestrike is a great seventh level offensive spell. And, when you want big single target healing and don't have a heal spell prepped, Empower Spell gives you more efficient options than the mass spells. (Mass cure mod at level 11=20 points of healing each; empowered cure critical wounds=43 points of healing). Also, some Empowered lower level mass cures are also better than the higher level ones (at clvl 15, mass cure critical=33 points, empowered mass cure moderate: 36; at caster level 20, mass cure serious is 33.5 and empowered mass cure light is 36.5--note that this is not true at caster level 13; I think clvl 15 is the break point on this).
Craft Magic Arms and Armor: This can be useful if you have a lot of weapon using warrior types in your party. If you do go this route, you want the Good domain.
Leadership: A cohort is always a good addition to the party. You can't argue with Leadership if your DM allows it.
Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration: These are less useful for a martial cleric than for other clerics since you'll probably be doing damage primarily with your sword or mace rather than through casting flame strike, but it's always nice to have the flame strike option and these feats make it a more credible one.
Martial Weapon Proficiency: If you want to go the two handed weapon route using a greatsword, greataxe, or falchion instead of a spear or longspear is worth style points. . . and the greatsword nets you a bigger damage increase than you would get if you could somehow take weapon specialization without being a fighter.
Lightning Reflexes: Reflex saves are the traditional weakness of a cleric. +2 isn't a lot, but every bit helps.
Improved Critical: This is a much better feat for the sword wielder than for the mace wielder and is better for the falchion wielder than for either. There are a whole lot of things that can't be critted but it's pretty good if you're fighting some of the things that can be.
Feats that are poor IMO:
Combat Casting: +4 is nice, but by mid levels, the casting defensively check is almost automatic anyway. Furthermore it doesn't help you when you most need it--when being damaged by an opponent when you cast your spell (because they were readying an action to disrupt your spellcasting). If you must take a concentration boosting feat take Skill Focus Concentration instead, but you really don't need either.
Toughness: This is a terrible feat. 3 hp is good at first level but by the time you're 15th level and are walking around with 123hp or so, is 126 really that much better? I didn't think so. Heck by 6th level, it's mostly lost its lustre.
Extra Turning and Improved Turning: With a 10 charisma, you're not going to be very good at turning anyway. Since in a core only game you don't have anything other than turning undead to do with the ability... and turning undead itself becomes largely ineffective at high levels unless you have a phylactery of undead turning, it's not worth it. And, if you do get a phylactery your standard three turning attempts are probably enough.
So, my recommendations for feats:
1. Power Attack, Cleave
3. Craft Wondrous Item
6. Leadership
9. Quicken Spell
12. Spell Penetration
15. Empower Spell
18. Greater Spell Penetration
If you take my suggestion and go with St. Cuthbert for Strength and Destruction domains,
1. Power Attack, Cleave
3. Weapon Focus
6. Craft Wondrous Item
9. Quicken Spell
12. Leadership
15. Empower Spell
18. Spell Penetration
Of course, everything except Power Attack, Quicken Spell, and Weapon Focus is really secondary, so any feats from my list of good feats in any sensible order is probably fine. (Though if you get Cleave you want it early where you'll get the most use out of it, if you take Martial Weapon Proficiency to get a good two-handed weapon, you want that at first level so that you can stick with the same weapon type throught your career. Spell Penetration should be a later choice since it's only useful against higher CR creatures, and Empower Spell isn't really useful until 12th or 15th level. Quicken Spell likewise isn't useful until 9th level. If you're going to get Leadership, you should probably do so at 6th level so your cohort has a chance to grow along with you.
dnd3dm said:
Wow. Lots of good suggestions. Huge thanks to all, especially Elder-Basilisk, Nifft (I wanna penguin too!), Arkhandus, and nittanytbone.
I will take Power Attack and Cleave at 1st and see how that works out. I was initially hesitant about Power Attack because I can't use it until 2nd (+1 BAB), but I understand that Cleave is highly useful when fighting lots of small fry at the low levels.
Worshiping St. Cuthbert is very tempting, but I don't want to play another LG character. The last four or five characters that I've played have been standard "buff 'n' heal" LG clerics or paladins. My character is NG and worshiping Heironious. He won't let us use deities outside the PHB without very special permission, and no non-PHB domains.
As for stats, dropping Wis would actually put me behind in bonus spells by 8th level (17 Wis, +3 mod, bonus spells 1 1st, 1 2nd, 1 3rd). I wouldn't get the bonus 4th until 12th. Dropping Strength to 15 and putting the 2 points in Charisma is very tempting, and I may end up doing that. I'd like a higher Dex, but don't know where to pull the points from, since it looks like I may need turning. I don't want to drop Int any lower because I don't like playing dull or slow characters, and I kinda need the few skill points I do have.
The DM is actually scaling up Concentration checks, and making them opposed between my check and the attacker's BAB. I'm not exactly sure how that's gonna work, but we'll see today in the first game. I may take Skill Focus: Concentration later instead of Combat Casting. I can see Scribe Scroll, Craft Wonderous Item, Craft Arms and Armor, Spell Penetration, and Quicken Spell as musts for the upper levels. I don't know if the DM will allow Leadership -- I'll have to ask him at the game today.
The party consists of:
Cleric (ranged specialist) (of Procan, he got special permission, because of a PrC he wants)
Cleric (front-line fighter) of Heironeous (me)
Paladin (of Heironeous)
Ranger (ranged specialist)
Rogue (becoming a barbarian after 1st level)
Rogue (becoming a sorcerer later)
Wizard
We are allowed to pick PrCs out of other books, but they all must be DM-approved and can't have a prerequisite like a feat or ability that is not in the PHB. I'm thinking of making up my own or having him make me a custom PrC. The things I want most are +1 level of existing divine spellclasting class every level, and I'd like +1 BAB every level, but no PrC offers both. I looked at Warpriest and Shining Blade, but neither was quite what I wanted. Any PrC suggestions?
I'll let you all know how it went tomorrow.
I will take Power Attack and Cleave at 1st and see how that works out. I was initially hesitant about Power Attack because I can't use it until 2nd (+1 BAB), but I understand that Cleave is highly useful when fighting lots of small fry at the low levels.
Worshiping St. Cuthbert is very tempting, but I don't want to play another LG character. The last four or five characters that I've played have been standard "buff 'n' heal" LG clerics or paladins. My character is NG and worshiping Heironious. He won't let us use deities outside the PHB without very special permission, and no non-PHB domains.
As for stats, dropping Wis would actually put me behind in bonus spells by 8th level (17 Wis, +3 mod, bonus spells 1 1st, 1 2nd, 1 3rd). I wouldn't get the bonus 4th until 12th. Dropping Strength to 15 and putting the 2 points in Charisma is very tempting, and I may end up doing that. I'd like a higher Dex, but don't know where to pull the points from, since it looks like I may need turning. I don't want to drop Int any lower because I don't like playing dull or slow characters, and I kinda need the few skill points I do have.
The DM is actually scaling up Concentration checks, and making them opposed between my check and the attacker's BAB. I'm not exactly sure how that's gonna work, but we'll see today in the first game. I may take Skill Focus: Concentration later instead of Combat Casting. I can see Scribe Scroll, Craft Wonderous Item, Craft Arms and Armor, Spell Penetration, and Quicken Spell as musts for the upper levels. I don't know if the DM will allow Leadership -- I'll have to ask him at the game today.
The party consists of:
Cleric (ranged specialist) (of Procan, he got special permission, because of a PrC he wants)
Cleric (front-line fighter) of Heironeous (me)
Paladin (of Heironeous)
Ranger (ranged specialist)
Rogue (becoming a barbarian after 1st level)
Rogue (becoming a sorcerer later)
Wizard
We are allowed to pick PrCs out of other books, but they all must be DM-approved and can't have a prerequisite like a feat or ability that is not in the PHB. I'm thinking of making up my own or having him make me a custom PrC. The things I want most are +1 level of existing divine spellclasting class every level, and I'd like +1 BAB every level, but no PrC offers both. I looked at Warpriest and Shining Blade, but neither was quite what I wanted. Any PrC suggestions?
I'll let you all know how it went tomorrow.
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