Lord Zardoz
Explorer
I see what your concern might be. If you are looking at higher level encounter and daily powers that you want to use, and notice that they are melee based powers keyed off of Strength, then yes. You absolutely have a problem. However, not all melee powers are Strength vs Whatever. I am not that familiar with the Cleric's class abilities, but as long as you stick to combat powers keyed off Wisdom, your character will continue to be effective in combat. If you are realizing that the mechanical build choices you made are not suitable to the type of character you want to play, then you should modify the character.
But I think that there are some false assumptions here about monsters in 4th Edition. With few exceptions, the Reflex, Will and Fort defense scores are always going to be lower then AC. There may be a few Controllers, Artillery and Lurker type monsters that have lower AC then Will / Ref / Fort. A (admittedly very brief) search of MM1 seems to show Reflex being the same as AC for certain Lurkers, but usually at least 2 points lower. Monsters are not defined so much by what they use to attack with (claws vs spells) as much as how their assigned role defines them. A Hobgoblin Archer and a Magma Hurler (type of Magma Beast in MM1 on page 182) are both Artillery types. The Hobgoblin is a level 3 monster, and the Hurler a level 4. The def stats are as follows:
Hobgoblin Archer: AC 17; Fortitude 13, Reflex 15, Will 13
Magma Hurler AC 18; Fortitude 15, Reflex 17, Will 13
If you adjust for level and designer fiat, both these Artillery monsters have a Reflex score lower than AC by 1 or 2 points, and generally have all defense scores lower than AC. One is clearly a magical type of monster. The other is just some Humanoid with a bow. If you compare any two monsters of the same role and level (and make sure you do not compare a Elite, Solo, Minion or Leader type to one that is not the same subtype), the pattern should mostly hold. All defenses will be very close to one another.
The point I am trying to get at is that as long as you remember that the designers expect the PC's to acquire a certain amount of magical gear, there is not much reason for your characters ability to be useful against a given type of monster to dramatically change much. Attack bonus and Def scores scale at roughly the same rate as you level up (by a half point per level, plus the occasional bump from a stat increase, feat, or magic item).
I know this is meant as a rhetorical question, but I will answer it anyway. First, magic items cannot in any way replace the core At Will / Encounter / Daily powers. They add a bit, but they do not have nearly the same impact. You advance in levels for more HP, more feats, and more powers, and so that your overall attack bonus will be able to hit the higher level monsters. At level 1, your not going to hit a level 5 monster very often, but at level 5, you will hit more.
Getting back to more mundane matters, do you only have access to the PHB, or do you also have access to the Divine Power book? You might be able to find powers more suitable for your character in Divine Power.
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