Advice on a cleric feat please.
- Thread starter Clumsy Bob
- Start date
jgsugden
Legend
Wow. I have a large number of points to make. Sorry.
How good is II?
Remember 3.0 haste? The big problem with 3.0 haste was that it gave you an extra action. The most important limiting factor in D&D is the limitation on the number of actions that may be performed.
When II puts your initiative ahead of a foes, it effectively gives you an extra action. This is a *huge* benefit. Some combats last a single round (for instance, a cleric facing off against a bunch of undead). If the enemy goes before you, you're going to take on attacks that you could completely avoid. In addition, those that go first dictate the positioning of the battle. They can take the best defensive positions or ready an attack to disrupt casting.
How often will it have an impact? That depends on the combat situation, but between 15 and 20% of the time is a good estimate against one foe and much more often against multiple foes with separate initiatives. I consider this a *must have* feat for spellcasters with low dexterities. If the dex is high enough, it may not be a must have, but it is still useful.
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The one feat suggestion that people seem to be ignoring is cleave. This is a *key* feat for any melee specialist. It may not be useful if your DM tends to throw only single monsters at your party, but if he throws groups at you, this feat will make a huge difference. Don't overlook it. My melee cleric massively increased his average damage per round after taking this feat.
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As for persistent spell: The cost is huge, but the benefit is also large. Divine Favor is a strong spell. Making it last far beyond the intended duration makes it an incredibly strong spell. Unfortunately, this has diminishing returns as you advance.
First, you begin to have more control over when a combat begins. If you know when the combat is to begin, you can cast divine favor right before combat and have it for 10 rounds ... enough time to end most combats.
Secondly, luck bonuses can come from other sources. There are not many, but if you find something else that gives a luck bonus to attack/damage, you lose some of the benefit of that new aquisition.
Third, The higher you advance, the more likely you are to face antimagic (as in the spell or a beholder's main eye), dispel magic (as per the spell or the special ability of many outsiders) or the dreadful MD.
What does this mean? That it has a high cost that prevents you from getting it at low levels. By the time you get it and can use it, the benefit of using it begins to run up against serious drawbacks. It has a strong effect at the mid-levels, but once you get to high levels, it is not worth it.
On the other hand, it is an excellent spell for a time priest to use with contingency ...
How good is II?
Remember 3.0 haste? The big problem with 3.0 haste was that it gave you an extra action. The most important limiting factor in D&D is the limitation on the number of actions that may be performed.
When II puts your initiative ahead of a foes, it effectively gives you an extra action. This is a *huge* benefit. Some combats last a single round (for instance, a cleric facing off against a bunch of undead). If the enemy goes before you, you're going to take on attacks that you could completely avoid. In addition, those that go first dictate the positioning of the battle. They can take the best defensive positions or ready an attack to disrupt casting.
How often will it have an impact? That depends on the combat situation, but between 15 and 20% of the time is a good estimate against one foe and much more often against multiple foes with separate initiatives. I consider this a *must have* feat for spellcasters with low dexterities. If the dex is high enough, it may not be a must have, but it is still useful.
********
The one feat suggestion that people seem to be ignoring is cleave. This is a *key* feat for any melee specialist. It may not be useful if your DM tends to throw only single monsters at your party, but if he throws groups at you, this feat will make a huge difference. Don't overlook it. My melee cleric massively increased his average damage per round after taking this feat.
*********
As for persistent spell: The cost is huge, but the benefit is also large. Divine Favor is a strong spell. Making it last far beyond the intended duration makes it an incredibly strong spell. Unfortunately, this has diminishing returns as you advance.
First, you begin to have more control over when a combat begins. If you know when the combat is to begin, you can cast divine favor right before combat and have it for 10 rounds ... enough time to end most combats.
Secondly, luck bonuses can come from other sources. There are not many, but if you find something else that gives a luck bonus to attack/damage, you lose some of the benefit of that new aquisition.
Third, The higher you advance, the more likely you are to face antimagic (as in the spell or a beholder's main eye), dispel magic (as per the spell or the special ability of many outsiders) or the dreadful MD.
What does this mean? That it has a high cost that prevents you from getting it at low levels. By the time you get it and can use it, the benefit of using it begins to run up against serious drawbacks. It has a strong effect at the mid-levels, but once you get to high levels, it is not worth it.
On the other hand, it is an excellent spell for a time priest to use with contingency ...
Darklone
Registered User
Not necessarily true... Barbarians charging with 3.5 Power Attack into the middle of as many dudes as possible (eating several AoOs on the way in) and cleaving through dudes with 50+ damage per hit... made charge worth it again.Nail said:
As for Cleave: Wouldn't take it as Cleric.
Thanee
First Post
Yes Power Attack and Cleave are both very good feats.
Divine Might as well (given a decent Charisma) and Improved Initiative.
Extend Spell, Persistant Spell and maybe Quicken Spell are also powerful additions.
Those are the ones I would consider first for a melee dedicated cleric.
Bye
Thanee
Divine Might as well (given a decent Charisma) and Improved Initiative.
Extend Spell, Persistant Spell and maybe Quicken Spell are also powerful additions.
Those are the ones I would consider first for a melee dedicated cleric.
Bye
Thanee
Larcen
Explorer
two said:
Ok Two, our group played last night and here are my observations when I kept initiative in mind.
We only had one battle last night, and as luck would have it, it was against a ghost. Everyone was entering a narrow staircase in a trap door on the floor. Before our trailing wizard could enter the shaft, the ghost showed up and started to toss him around with telekinesis. Being the only cleric in the party, and since I wasn't far down the staircase, I rushed back up the stairs to help out. Well, my initiative turned out to be lower than the ghosts and let me tell you it was not fun to have to wait for the ghost to take his turn, and slam the wizard, before I could make my turn roll. To be honest I kept failing my turn roll anyway, but it was painful to have to keep waiting until AFTER the ghost took his turn before I could even try.
So I guess by your reckoning, initiative didn't matter much in this battle because I kept missing my roll. But by my reckoning, I still would have liked to go before that ghost did. It would have been nice to reroll every round in this case. As it was, I was stuck with my low roll. Which led me to think of something else:
You implied that since the Imp. Init. bonus only applies once to a battle that it may not be so great. But when you think about it, the fact that you roll initiative only once makes it that much MORE important to make sure you get a good roll! In fact, I would go so far as to say if initiative was rerolled every round, Imp Init would be LESS important...but not by much. Remember, randomness favors the underdog.
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ForceUser
Explorer
Improved Initiative and Skill Focus (Concentration). As an obvious warrior-cleric you'll need to be able to cast spells while in melee, so skill focus helps by allowing you to instantly make Concentration checks to cast defensively without needing to drop a die. For instance, if you want to cast righteous might to lay the smack down in melee, you'd need to succeed at a DC 20 Concentration check. If you have a +19 Concentration, you need not roll a die - you succeed automatically, even on a roll of 1. Taking Skill Focus (Concentration) is the same thing as being a cleric of 3 levels higher for the purposes of casting defensively. And unlike Combat Casting, it is useful in every situation you need to make a Concentration check, not just combat.Clumsy Bob said:
Improved Initiative is a must simply because, in the higher level game, being able to act before your opponent is sometimes the difference between a loss and a win, living or dying.
I took both of these feats with my combat cleric and they are awesome to have.
