D&D 3E/3.5 Figuring out a role for my 3.5e Cleric

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
Some see Reserve feats as less optimal/underpowered choices, but I think they’re great for flavor and a subtle but useful mechanical advantage that isn’t easily nullified. And they’re a good RP hook as well.

I would only use the Bloodlines for RP reasons. If I’m trying some oddball species, I’d rather just deal with the LA adjustment.

Templates were a good idea, but the designers didn’t do the best job calculating the costs for all of them. Still, they can be a great source of fresh mechanical and role playing experiences, if allowed.
 

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@DarkMoon250 The stats you rolled are equivalent of 34 points. So it's up to you if you want to keep them or not.

Do you know anymore about the campaign? What types of enemies you'll be facing? I assume the fighter and paladin are going to be melee? Can you tell us anything else about your character? Have you settled on a deity?

For races, you really can't go wrong with any of them. As long as you're not taking a hit to Wisdom. The only ones I wouldn't recommend in the PHB are Half-Elf (always thought they were kinda "meh") and Half-Orc (the hit to your mental stats hurts).

I saw that you were allowed Core books (PHB and DMG?) along with Complete Divine and Complete Champion. What about Complete Warrior, Adventurer, Arcane, and Mage?

One of my personal favorites is the Reach Spell feat (Complete Divine) coupled with Divine Metamagic (Also Complete Divine). If the fighter goes down, you don't have to worry about rushing across the battlefield to save him. Big bad monster with a beat stick? Bestow Curse from outside his reach.

I saw that there was talk about about being an archer. Zen Archery (Complete Warrior) would let you use your wisdom to attack with a longbow. However, you're going to need, at a minimum, Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. If you're not an elf, then you need Martial Weapon Proficiency (Longbow) on top of it.

Turning, in my opinion, is useless. You need to find other ways to use those turn attempts. Either Divine Metamagic or the various feats that let you spend a turn attempt for X affect. Divine Metamagic (Persist) is the elephant in the room. If you can use Nightsticks (Libris Mortis) to power Divine Metamagic then the feat is crazy broken. If not, then you probably only have enough turning attempts to persist one spell and it's much more reasonable.

The cleric is a very flexible class. But it also can require a lot of feats. And it is very easy to be feat starved in 3.5. :(

Roles for your cleric:
  • De/Buff Bot - Make your allies even better and your enemies weaker. As you get higher level you can add in Save or Lose/Suck spells to your arsenal. There are many Divine Feats in Complete Warrior and Complete Divine that work great for buffing the party. They give small amounts of fast healing and energy resistance.
  • Summoner - Clerics make great summoners. Some GMs may get overwhelmed with additional combatants added to the field. If you get the Animal Domain, you can expand your summoning options with Summon Nature's Ally. You can also use the Spontaneous Summoner feat (Complete Divine) to give you a little bit of flexibility in how you prepare a spell list. You're going to need Augment Summoning, Spell Focus (Conjuration), and probably Rapid Spell to make the most of being a summoner. For extra craziness, look at Malconvoker in Complete Scoundrel. Summon lots of evil things to fight other evil things!
  • Heal Bot - Be a box of a band aids. It isn't really efficient though and kinda boring. As you level up, monsters will continue to out pace your healing with their damage. For things like Remove Curse/Disease/Blindness, they come up so rarely that you may want to pick up a scroll or potion. If you really want to go down this path, look at Radiant Servant of Pelor in Complete Divine. It makes being a healer viable.
I think we need a little more information from you on character concept or ideas to get the most assistance. Hopefully I can clear the cobwebs off my 3.5 knowledge and be of more help.
 

DarkMoon250

Explorer
@DarkMoon250 The stats you rolled are equivalent of 34 points. So it's up to you if you want to keep them or not.

Do you know anymore about the campaign? What types of enemies you'll be facing? I assume the fighter and paladin are going to be melee? Can you tell us anything else about your character? Have you settled on a deity?

For races, you really can't go wrong with any of them. As long as you're not taking a hit to Wisdom. The only ones I wouldn't recommend in the PHB are Half-Elf (always thought they were kinda "meh") and Half-Orc (the hit to your mental stats hurts).

I saw that you were allowed Core books (PHB and DMG?) along with Complete Divine and Complete Champion. What about Complete Warrior, Adventurer, Arcane, and Mage?

One of my personal favorites is the Reach Spell feat (Complete Divine) coupled with Divine Metamagic (Also Complete Divine). If the fighter goes down, you don't have to worry about rushing across the battlefield to save him. Big bad monster with a beat stick? Bestow Curse from outside his reach.

I saw that there was talk about about being an archer. Zen Archery (Complete Warrior) would let you use your wisdom to attack with a longbow. However, you're going to need, at a minimum, Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. If you're not an elf, then you need Martial Weapon Proficiency (Longbow) on top of it.

Turning, in my opinion, is useless. You need to find other ways to use those turn attempts. Either Divine Metamagic or the various feats that let you spend a turn attempt for X affect. Divine Metamagic (Persist) is the elephant in the room. If you can use Nightsticks (Libris Mortis) to power Divine Metamagic then the feat is crazy broken. If not, then you probably only have enough turning attempts to persist one spell and it's much more reasonable.

The cleric is a very flexible class. But it also can require a lot of feats. And it is very easy to be feat starved in 3.5. :(

Roles for your cleric:
  • De/Buff Bot - Make your allies even better and your enemies weaker. As you get higher level you can add in Save or Lose/Suck spells to your arsenal. There are many Divine Feats in Complete Warrior and Complete Divine that work great for buffing the party. They give small amounts of fast healing and energy resistance.
  • Summoner - Clerics make great summoners. Some GMs may get overwhelmed with additional combatants added to the field. If you get the Animal Domain, you can expand your summoning options with Summon Nature's Ally. You can also use the Spontaneous Summoner feat (Complete Divine) to give you a little bit of flexibility in how you prepare a spell list. You're going to need Augment Summoning, Spell Focus (Conjuration), and probably Rapid Spell to make the most of being a summoner. For extra craziness, look at Malconvoker in Complete Scoundrel. Summon lots of evil things to fight other evil things!
  • Heal Bot - Be a box of a band aids. It isn't really efficient though and kinda boring. As you level up, monsters will continue to out pace your healing with their damage. For things like Remove Curse/Disease/Blindness, they come up so rarely that you may want to pick up a scroll or potion. If you really want to go down this path, look at Radiant Servant of Pelor in Complete Divine. It makes being a healer viable.
I think we need a little more information from you on character concept or ideas to get the most assistance. Hopefully I can clear the cobwebs off my 3.5 knowledge and be of more help.
The deities I was hoping for my Cleric to worship are either Selune (if human or aasimar), Sehanine Moonbow (if elven), or Tuilviel Glithien (if raptoran; from Races of the Wild). These are all deities associated with the night sky and the influence of the moon in some form or another, and that's exactly the vibe I was wanting for this character. My character is a member of a church that affirms the unity of all divine powers as emanations of the Allgod, but is working as an independent spiritual guide after becoming suspicious of the motives of some of the more influential members of the High Council.

The campaign is a sandboxy sort, where we get to choose how the campaign progresses. The DM has described the overall shape of it as 25% combat and 75% RP, though. Also, in the setting, there is a country of intelligent undead, which, as far as the outside world knows, could be either a paradise for good and neutral undead, or a global horror show just waiting to happen.

Alongside CD and CC, all other core books are allowed.

Also, raptoran has some substitute levels for Cleric that increase their summoning prowess in regards to air elementals, in exchange for combat prowess and a restriction against other kinds of summons. It also leads into the Skypledged prestige class. Could that possibly be worth looking into?
 

Raptoran:
Raptoran is an interesting race. No LA with a slowly scaling flight speed. Flight can either make things trivial (flying across a pit) or be a pain in the butt (what do you mean I don't have room for my wingspan? I'm a five foot cube!). Sky domain synergizes well with the race, too. The other racial benefits are ok. A boost to jump checks eventually gets replaced with flight. Pact of the Wind Lords gives a boost your caster level for (air) spells but there are very few spells with the air descriptor. I would be surprised if this ever came up. Unerring Direction is a neat roleplay ability but five ranks in survival gives you the same effect. Lastly, you get footbow as a martial weapon instead of an exotic weapon. But clerics don't get martial weapons so it isn't doing you any favors there. If you want a footbow, you're going to need to burn a feat. But if you're burning a feat, you might as well get longbow since you're more likely to find that as loot or be able to buy one in a city somewhere.

The cleric substitution levels are nice and flavorful but they aren't doing you any favors if you take the Skypledged prestige class. Many of the substitution levels' features overlap with the prestige class. I would probably pass on the substitution levels.

Skypledged is a neat prestige class. The spellpool ability would be handy for dealing with situations where you need a spell but don't want to always have it prepared. Things like curses, poison, or disease. Just be sure to have some downtime to repay your debt to the spellpool. The summons are a nice touch and it's always helpful to have a friend you can call on. If you make it all the way and get Cyclonic Doom, be sure to ask your GM if it affects ranged attacks; if enemy, or your, arrows get blown away. Lastly, I don't know how much the Beckon Winds feature will be useful but, again, really nice and flavorful.

The domain choices for Tuilveil are all ok. Nothing great; nothing awful. Sky Domain is the exception since it synergizes well with Raptoran.

Elf:
Elf is always a solid pick but you have to be careful with that -2 Con. Elves automatically get longbow proficiency and the elf domain would give you point blank shot for free, too. Pick up Precise Shot at Level 1 and you're an effective archer! Pew pew pew! If you want to be an archer, you're pretty much pushed into this race/deity.

Elf domain does have some nice spells in it, adding variety to the cleric spell list. However, true strike is a bit of a trap. Spend this turn to hit something next turn. Maybe if you're setting up an ambush would that be useful. Sehanine also has Travel and Trickery domains, which are awesome! Repose is basically a non-evil death domain. Moon would be great for fighting werewolves. Knowledge and Oracle are very similar in granted abilities and spell lists. I would pass on Dream Domain, too. Immunity to fear is easy to come by otherwise, especially if you're starting at high(er) level.

Human:
What to say about human? Extra feats and skill points are always welcome.

Aasimar:
If you're not using level adjustment buy off, I would avoid Aasimar. Giving up caster levels is not always a good idea. The paladin's spell list is going to be very limited. And the sorcerer is going to be limited by spells known. Cleric allows you to be versatile with spell selection. But the question is, do you want to get the next level of spells a level up later?

With that being said, the bump to Wisdom and Charisma works well for cleric. You can cast light once a day but also have darkvision. So that's kind of a moot point. Elemental resistances are nice but you will be able to surpass them quickly enough when you get things like Resist Energy, Mass. One neat thing though is that if go somewhere extremely cold, those resistances will let you avoid making saves vs cold damage from the environment. (See Frostburn!) As a native outsider, you can avoid things like Charm Person but you also can't benefit from things like Enlarge Person. Sadly, I don't think there is an Enlarge Monster spell. So, maybe a slight advantage in your favor.

For Human or Aasimar, I like the Chastity Domain from Selune. The Night domain gives Human some nice bonuses but not so much to the Aasimar. The spell selection on Night Domain is good, too. Lastly, Selune has Travel Domain, which I am a fan of.

All of these are solid options. I think I would break it down like this:

Do I want to fly around? - Raptoran Cleric of Tuilveil (And maybe prestige into Skypledged)
Do I want to be an archer? - Elf cleric of Sehanine
Neither of those? Human Cleric of Selune (Summoner or whatever)

In the end, remember this is YOUR character. Pick what you think is going to be fun and interesting. You don't have to listen to the random ravings of some guy on the internet. ;) But I really do hope this helped you make a decision. :)
 

DarkMoon250

Explorer
Raptoran:
Raptoran is an interesting race. No LA with a slowly scaling flight speed. Flight can either make things trivial (flying across a pit) or be a pain in the butt (what do you mean I don't have room for my wingspan? I'm a five foot cube!). Sky domain synergizes well with the race, too. The other racial benefits are ok. A boost to jump checks eventually gets replaced with flight. Pact of the Wind Lords gives a boost your caster level for (air) spells but there are very few spells with the air descriptor. I would be surprised if this ever came up. Unerring Direction is a neat roleplay ability but five ranks in survival gives you the same effect. Lastly, you get footbow as a martial weapon instead of an exotic weapon. But clerics don't get martial weapons so it isn't doing you any favors there. If you want a footbow, you're going to need to burn a feat. But if you're burning a feat, you might as well get longbow since you're more likely to find that as loot or be able to buy one in a city somewhere.

The cleric substitution levels are nice and flavorful but they aren't doing you any favors if you take the Skypledged prestige class. Many of the substitution levels' features overlap with the prestige class. I would probably pass on the substitution levels.

Skypledged is a neat prestige class. The spellpool ability would be handy for dealing with situations where you need a spell but don't want to always have it prepared. Things like curses, poison, or disease. Just be sure to have some downtime to repay your debt to the spellpool. The summons are a nice touch and it's always helpful to have a friend you can call on. If you make it all the way and get Cyclonic Doom, be sure to ask your GM if it affects ranged attacks; if enemy, or your, arrows get blown away. Lastly, I don't know how much the Beckon Winds feature will be useful but, again, really nice and flavorful.

The domain choices for Tuilveil are all ok. Nothing great; nothing awful. Sky Domain is the exception since it synergizes well with Raptoran.

Elf:
Elf is always a solid pick but you have to be careful with that -2 Con. Elves automatically get longbow proficiency and the elf domain would give you point blank shot for free, too. Pick up Precise Shot at Level 1 and you're an effective archer! Pew pew pew! If you want to be an archer, you're pretty much pushed into this race/deity.

Elf domain does have some nice spells in it, adding variety to the cleric spell list. However, true strike is a bit of a trap. Spend this turn to hit something next turn. Maybe if you're setting up an ambush would that be useful. Sehanine also has Travel and Trickery domains, which are awesome! Repose is basically a non-evil death domain. Moon would be great for fighting werewolves. Knowledge and Oracle are very similar in granted abilities and spell lists. I would pass on Dream Domain, too. Immunity to fear is easy to come by otherwise, especially if you're starting at high(er) level.

Human:
What to say about human? Extra feats and skill points are always welcome.

Aasimar:
If you're not using level adjustment buy off, I would avoid Aasimar. Giving up caster levels is not always a good idea. The paladin's spell list is going to be very limited. And the sorcerer is going to be limited by spells known. Cleric allows you to be versatile with spell selection. But the question is, do you want to get the next level of spells a level up later?

With that being said, the bump to Wisdom and Charisma works well for cleric. You can cast light once a day but also have darkvision. So that's kind of a moot point. Elemental resistances are nice but you will be able to surpass them quickly enough when you get things like Resist Energy, Mass. One neat thing though is that if go somewhere extremely cold, those resistances will let you avoid making saves vs cold damage from the environment. (See Frostburn!) As a native outsider, you can avoid things like Charm Person but you also can't benefit from things like Enlarge Person. Sadly, I don't think there is an Enlarge Monster spell. So, maybe a slight advantage in your favor.

For Human or Aasimar, I like the Chastity Domain from Selune. The Night domain gives Human some nice bonuses but not so much to the Aasimar. The spell selection on Night Domain is good, too. Lastly, Selune has Travel Domain, which I am a fan of.

All of these are solid options. I think I would break it down like this:

Do I want to fly around? - Raptoran Cleric of Tuilveil (And maybe prestige into Skypledged)
Do I want to be an archer? - Elf cleric of Sehanine
Neither of those? Human Cleric of Selune (Summoner or whatever)

In the end, remember this is YOUR character. Pick what you think is going to be fun and interesting. You don't have to listen to the random ravings of some guy on the internet. ;) But I really do hope this helped you make a decision. :)
This was very helpful! Thank you very much!
Also, we are using LA buyoff, in case that affects your opinion about the aasimar.
 

What level are you starting at? I saw you have a hefty amount of gold to play with so I'm assuming higher than first level.

If you can start off with your Level Adjustment already gone, then Aasmir is a lot more appealing (Less bookkeeping ;) ). Even if you can't, assuming you start a level behind everyone else, you'll rapidly catch up after "paying" for your level adjustment. The stat boosts work well with cleric since you'll need wisdom for spells and charisma for turning. And if the game is going to have a lot of social interaction, having a good charisma score will definitely help. The other racial bits are neat as I said earlier. With the exception of Light 1/day. Just seems silly to add that on when you have darkvision. Plus, you get that celestial flavor to go with your PC!

EDIT:
So it turns out you get Daylight and not Light. I was wrong there. Daylight is much more useful.

Also, ask your GM. As a Native Outsider, you may also get automatic proficiency in all simple and martial weapons, armor, and shields. You get the armor and shields from cleric, but maybe you can wield a longsword now. Or a longbow. ;) It's kind of a nebulous gray area since Aasimar don't have racial hit dice. But it never hurts to ask.
 
Last edited:

DarkMoon250

Explorer
What level are you starting at? I saw you have a hefty amount of gold to play with so I'm assuming higher than first level.

If you can start off with your Level Adjustment already gone, then Aasmir is a lot more appealing (Less bookkeeping ;) ). Even if you can't, assuming you start a level behind everyone else, you'll rapidly catch up after "paying" for your level adjustment. The stat boosts work well with cleric since you'll need wisdom for spells and charisma for turning. And if the game is going to have a lot of social interaction, having a good charisma score will definitely help. The other racial bits are neat as I said earlier. With the exception of Light 1/day. Just seems silly to add that on when you have darkvision. Plus, you get that celestial flavor to go with your PC!

EDIT:
So it turns out you get Daylight and not Light. I was wrong there. Daylight is much more useful.

Also, ask your GM. As a Native Outsider, you may also get automatic proficiency in all simple and martial weapons, armor, and shields. You get the armor and shields from cleric, but maybe you can wield a longsword now. Or a longbow. ;) It's kind of a nebulous gray area since Aasimar don't have racial hit dice. But it never hurts to ask.
Our starting level is 5.

Also, do you have any idea of what kind of stats an elf archer Cleric would want to have, just in case I go that route? We are currently lacking any ranged character, so I'm still considering that route.
 

Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
A ranged attacking cleric needs Dex, Wis, and Cha as his main stats, and should probably take Reach Spell ASAP. Not only will that feat let you deliver touch range attack/debuff spells, but also touch buff/heal spells as well. That maximizes the time you spend out of harm’s way.

From an optimizing standpoint, that kind of build almost demands you should go Elf or Human for the benefits of the Elf Domain or bonus feats.

And that brings me back to the suggestion I made in your prior thread about the Knowledge Domain and the Knowledge Devotion feat. Being able to pump your Att/Dam +1-+5 for almost every opponent you face is nothing to sneeze at.
 

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