Clerical Feats (again)

[greycastle]

What feats should be taken by a good cleric focued on Melee/Spellcasting offensively, in the first 10 levels of their carreer?

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Divine Might is a good one for a melee Cleric. Two-Weapon Fighting is good, too, and goes well with Divine Might.

Shield Expert and the other shield feats make sense, too, if you don't want to wade into battle with twin maces.

As for spellcasting offensively, you don't really want metamagic feats until the later part of your first ten levels, and even then, as a Cleric, your offensive abilities aren't great. Reach Spell might be good.

 

[Pax]

I'll point out the easy one:

Combat Casting.

Earlyon, you'll need it to make those concentration checks. Mid-levels, it'll seem a waste ... but it's a prerequisite for the epic-level Improved Combat Casting, which makes spellcasting NOT provoke AoOs anymore.

Which can be very useful, if you ever get ganged up on by a couple enemies with "Spellcasting Harrier" ... heh.

 

[Li Shenron]

I am playing a Cleric, but I am focused on ranged combat and non-attack spells

Anyway, I would also recommend Divine Might, Power Attack/Cleave and Dodge (if you have Dex13) or Expertise (if you have Int13). Combat Casting is ok, but the 3.5 Skill Focus (Concentration) is better.

The 2WF idea is interesting, but only with a double weapon, and you'll need EWP unless you use a simple quarterstaff, otherwise you don't have a free hand for spells. Better take some Shield specialization feats and use a Buckler for the same reason.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Fair enough. I hadn't thought about keeping a hand free. If you're going double weapon, take Quarterstaff. It doesn't cost you can extra feat to use, and it has almost as much damage potential as a Double Sword-- or the same as two light maces.

The reason I suggested Two Weapon Fighting is that damage bonuses from Divine Might aren't halved, so you'd be roughly doubling the utility of that feat.

 

[green slime]

How many feats do you see this guy getting by level 10?

Clerics do not have a plethora of feats. By level 10, a level 10 cleric is going to have...4 (four) feats. 5 if human.

So:
1) Ambidexterity
Human) Two weapon fighting
3) Power Attack
6) Divine Might
9) Cleave, OR Dodge, OR Expertise, OR Weapon Focus, OR Skill Focus (Concentration, OR...

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

I only suggested four.

 

[niteshade6]

Ambidexterity also currently requires a dex of 15 which I would not expect from a cleric. Given that you also need a high charisma to get much use of divine might, a high strength and con to fight in battle, and a high wisdom for spellcasting, that might be asking a bit too much.

 

[mooby]

Power Attack/Cleave (or Sunder) if you're going to be dealing out a good amount of damage.

I'd suggest Improved Initiative. You want your spells going off first. The initiative might determine whether or not you can get that CLW off before going down!

 

[purple knight]

As a dedicated cleric player, I have found that for combat purposes having devine might and devine shield are VERY effective. The downside is it requires four feats to accomplish due to the prerequisite requirements. The upside is that the prerequisites are not "throw away" feats and are very useful (power attack and improved shield bash). Note though that these are only worth it if you have a charisma bonus of 3 or more (and don't forget to cast Eagles Splendor every day, too).

If you are human, go for scribe scroll. Rather your a combat cleric, healing cleric, or utility cleric, there is nothing more useful than a pile of scrolls, rather they be buff spells or offensive ranged spells, or whatever.