Cleric Tweak Options

[InVinoVeritas]

I have the option to recast an old 3e cleric at third level, and I'm looking for the best way to do it. I can't change everything about her, but I know I can make her better.

Some quick stats:
Human
Str 8, Dex 10, Con 8, Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 12
Lawful Good
Available domains: Law, Good, Community, Plant, Protection

Those can't change. I can change class, skills, and feats. Total equipment value will be around 1500gp.

One piece I'm specifically looking at is defense. I've thought of three options, assuming a buffing-healing type cleric:

1. Take SF: Concentration and boost Concentration as high as possible. Pretty standard.

2. Take Tower Shield Proficiency and carry a tower shield. Cover prevents AoO. Alternately, take a level of Fighter, and pick up the proficiency and, say, Blind-Fight as well.

3. Take Spell Focus: Abjuration and use lots of Sanctuary.

What would you design?

 

[Nyaricus]

Hmmm, as an aside, who's your god??

As for this build itself, it's going to be tricky. You don't have great melee stats, which is likely one of the easier ways to optimized a cleric. So, you need something to fight for you.

May I suggest being a summoner? Take Augment Summoning as well as Skill focus: Concentration. Now, you have a bunch of sweet little critters with +2 HP per hit dice and with +2 to hit and damage, which isn't bad. You shoudl stay out of harms way, letting your creatures fight for you, so long as you can keep summoning them. The SKill Focus: Conc is basically a no-brainer for any spellcaster-type. Your character simply does not have the HP or to-hit to be meaningful in battle; with a build like this, you are.

As for domains, I suggest Protection and Plant. Plant gives you Barkskin, which is way better than Protections' Shield Other spell (which rely's on your HP) - the rest of the spells work out really nice in Protection though, all-in-all, since they mostly revolve around keeping your character out of harms way (which is going to be a good idea with those stats )

There's a feat in Complete Divine called Spontaneous Summoner which would fit your character well (spontaeously cast Summon Nature's Ally spells from your class spell list as a druid can a number of days equal to Wis Mod) but requires an alignment containing a neutral component. So, NG or LN. I'd talk with your DM about either simply allowing you this feat, or allowing you to change your alignment. Either way, this isn't overpowered, since you are giving up the ability to cast other spells in exchange for minions which last only a few rounds.

If that doesn't pan out, go for an undead-bashing machine. Take feats from CD and the PHB, etc which make you a more effective Undead-killer, by means of Turning them. There areplenty of ways to go about this, and Sacred Exorcist is a decent PrC to look towards.

Also, if you are intereted in getting more "earthy" you might be able to get into the Geomancer class by a fairly early level, since you have good skills and need at least 3 levels of Wizard. That PrC is in CD as well, and it pretty neat, all-in-all

Hope that helped

cheers,
--N

 

[pawsplay]

Well, with that low a strength, weight is a consideration. My suggestion would be to with Combat Casting, Shielded Caster (Races of Stone), and a divine feat of some kind that boosts defenses (AC, DR, whatever).

 

[Nyaricus]

Well, with that low a strength, weight is a consideration. My suggestion would be to with Combat Casting, Shielded Caster (Races of Stone), and a divine feat of some kind that boosts defenses (AC, DR, whatever).

You also might want to consider taking Great Fortitude, as it now comes to me, especially if you are going to go the undead basher route. Undead force lots of Fort saves, don'tcha know

Lightning Reflexes might be another good choice.

cheers,
--N

 

[InVinoVeritas]

The deity is Merikka, Oeridian goddess of agriculture.

I won't be able to change alignment or get a pass for the feat (although, yeah, it's not overpowered), so Spontaneous Caster is out. I don't own any of the Complete or Races books, so I don't know the details of Shielded Caster or Geomancer. However, a quick check of Defenders of the Faith and Masters of the Wild (which I do have) show that yeah, the Geomancer might just be the way for this sort of character to go.

So, at third level, this is what I'm seeing:

Cleric 3
Plant, Protection Domains
Skills: Concentration, Knowledge(Arcana), Knowledge(Nature), Knowledge(Religion), Spellcraft
Feats: Spell Focus(Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Skill Focus(Concentration).

Future levels will be in Conjurer 3/Geomancer. Geomancer spell levels will be as a Cleric.

Is there a feat that will let me stack my Wizard levels with my Cleric levels to determine my caster level for these spells?

Thanks for all your help!

 

[Nail]

FWIW, you're not likely to use the feat Skill Focus(Concentration) much, as you intend on being out of combat, rather than in the thick of things. Consider instead taking a metamagic feat, with the aim of taking Divine Metamagic for that feat later, at a higher level. DMM:Quicken rocks.

Is there a feat that will let me stack my Wizard levels with my Cleric levels to determine my caster level for these spells?

No.

Your best bet is the feat "Practiced Spellcaster", which allows you to increase the CL of one of your spell casting classes by up to 4 (depending on your total PC level).

Like the Mystic Theurge, the Geomancer's chief problem is lack of high level spells...with CL being a close second. Given your lack of physical stats (and thus an unwillingness to buff then charge in to combat), you may want to re-think multiclassing.

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Hmm... At the very least, it looks like I have to pick up Complete Divine. I don't know what Divine Metamagic is, either...

It is an interesting point, though: my character's strength is completely in spells. My combat skills are poor, and my turning skills are okay, but my spell skills are terrific.

Since I'm not in combat myself, the spells I should focus on are the buffer-healer-summoner types. More about environmental control than me getting into the thick of things with the PCs.

To maximize spell ability, the important skills are Concentration, Spellcraft, Knowledge(Arcana), and to a lesser extent, Knowledge(Religion). I've got that covered. On the feat side, SF: Conjuration and Augment Summoning are good choices, as are metamagic. SF: Abjuration would be the other decent spell focus for a cleric. Would Improved Counterspell be useful? Spontaeously cast a healing spell to counter a monster summoning spell?

Extra note: Considering the importance of spells with this character, I'm thinking that I should take Brew Potion instead of SF(Concentration) so that the rest of the party can benefit from my spells whenever they need it without waiting for my opportunity to cast it. How does that sound?

 

[Herobizkit]

Heclk, I'd multi- into Mage and start taking advantage of that Int score. Mages have all sorts of protective and other useful spells that would suit your character nicely.

Mind you, multi-classing is my solution for every character issue.

 

[nittanytbone]

Build One: Generic Well Rounded Cleric

If you can, shuffle scores as such:
Str 12, Dex 8, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 14

You'll need the con in 3.5 to survive, the Str to carry heavy armor, and the Wis/Cha for spells and to turn undead. Dex and Int are the only cleric dump stats.

Domains: You don't have many good ones to pick from there. If you can, see if your DM will let you pick up Luck or Travel -- both are good for "wandering adventurer" types of any god. If you can't, then Law & Good are nice at low levels for the +1 CL on Summoning spells, but crappy otherwise. The Protection Granted power and spells are pretty worthless. Maybe you'll get some mileage out of Community or Plant if the campaign allows you to take advantage of those?

Feats: Extend Spell, Persistent Spell, Divine Metamagic Persistent Spell.
You'll need to cast Eagle's Splendor to get this off. For now, Persist Divine Favor all day long for +1 to hit and +1 damage. At level 7, Divine Might makes you better than the party fighter. Power Attack at level 6 (feat) is key for doing damage.

Build Two: The Intellectual Weenie Cleric

If you can't shuffle your stats around so much or use so many external sources, then try this.

Str 8, Dex 8, Con 10 (swap with 12 in cha if you can), Int 14, Wis 18, Cha 12

Use the Cloistered Cleric from UA (available on the online SRD at D20SRD.ORG). You won't be in melee so, you're not missing out on anything.

You'll have a nice class skill list and plenty of points to use, so you can be a knowledge and social character. The added spells to your class spell list almost make you a utility mage, so that'll allow your party wizard to focus on blowing stuff up.

Feats: Spell Focus (Conjuration), Augment Summoning, Skill Focus (Concentration)
You want to be far from the fighting, so summon lots of stuff to help out. Skill Focus Concentration is nice, especially at lower levels, combined with maxed out concentration. Even as a non-melee character you'll need to cast spells. If non-core sources are allowed in, you might want to take a Divine Feat from Complete Warrior or Complete Divine instead; I like Divine Vigor for low level characters (+2 temp HP, +10' move speed for 1 min per charisma bonus point). Item creation (especially Craft Wondrous Item) is handy too.

General Notes

Note that in 3.5, turning is of highly questionable usefulness. Turn undead exists (A) to clear out mooks that you could easily kill anyways like skeletons and zombies and (B) to power Divine Feats.

Don't bother with the Tower Shield stuff. Your strength is too low to carry one and clerics are short on feats. Don't waste one on tower shield prof.

Don't waste feats on Great Fortitude or Iron Will. You already have good saves in those areas. Friends don't let friends take Toughness. Improved Toughness, from CW, is good, though.

Your best one handed simple weapon is a morningstar (1d8 damage, P/B). Longspears are your best reach weapon. Combine a Longspear with a Spiked Gauntlet and you can threaten all the spaces around you. Be sure to get silver and cold iron weapons.

Do not multiclass your cleric. The benefit you get out of higher spells almost always outweighs the potential benefit of a fighter bonus feat or some mage spells. Mystic Theurge looks attractive, but its not. The only core PrC I'd steer you towards is perhaps Thaumaturgist, in which case you want to hold off on your summoning shtick for awhile and take Spell Focus Conjuration at level 6 or 9 (as it is worthless without Augment Summoning, so you might as well delay it).

Stat boosts should continually boost your prime casting stat to keep DCs high. MAYBE in con if you need the HP that badly and can't get them from anywhere else.

Use a masterwork light shield with either build. You can hold your weapon in your shield hand while casting and then shuffle it back, and there is a -0 non prof penalty (if you're the Cloistered Cleric).

 

[Nail]

I disagree with bits and pieces of what nittanybone suggests, but for this part I couldn't agree more:

Do not multiclass your cleric. The benefit you get out of higher spells almost always outweighs the potential benefit of a fighter bonus feat or some mage spells. Mystic Theurge looks attractive, but its not.

You want to have the highest level spells and the highest CL possible, bar none. (If you were going to be a "melee cleric" build, then that's not necessarily true, BTW.)

....and yes, you want Complete Divine, and Spell Compendium.