Good Feat Choices For A Cleric

[Olaf the Stout]

I have a new player in my game that is playing a Cleric. He's about to hit 3rd level and isn't sure on what feat to take. Having never played a Cleric in 3.xE, I can only help him a bit. Since I haven't played the class myself I don't know it well enough to know what are must have feats and which ones he should avoid.

You can assume that the PHB and various Complete Books are all fair game.

At the moment he is leaning towards the Touch of Healing feat from Complete Champion. However I don't think it is a good choice for him as there is also a Favoured Soul (with the Augmented Healing feat) in the party. The Touch of Healing feat would just be healing overload in my opinion and won't get used as often as it might in other parties.

So what would you suggest?

Olaf the Stout

 

[Aus_Snow]

Divine Might or Divine Vigor, maybe? If he's into hitting things and stuff. Decent Cha helps, mind you.

 

[theredrobedwizard]

The Devotion feats from Complete Champion are nice; especially if he picks one in line with his domains. The Good and Knowledge devotions are nice, as is the Death devotion (again, if it fits in line with his deity's portfolio).

-TRRW

 

[Elephant]

Brew Potion is decent. Otherwise, if there are any prestige classes the player might like to use, a feat that leads to one of those would be good.

If he's built as a melee cleric, Power Attack isn't bad, either.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Just for some added info, he is a Cleric of Heironeous with the Good and War domains.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Corsair]

How is his charisma? Divine might?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I can't remember off the top of my head, but we used 30 point buy to generate stats. I'm thinking that he has a Charisma of 14 but it could be 12 (or possibly even 10).

Olaf the Stout

 

[Angel Tarragon]

If you know there is going to be undead running around amok, then Extra Turning is a no brainer.

 

[drdevoid]

Just for some added info, he is a Cleric of Heironeous with the Good and War domains.

Olaf the Stout

Good Devotion from Complete Champion is excellent. Grant DR and Align Weapons as, I believe, an immediate action. Sold.

 

[Peni Griffin]

So much depends on the character concept and the realities of the campaign. The lack of class features and bonus feats makes picking feats a crucial decision for clerics. Due to the way feats are structured, it's often best to decide on a specialty earlyin your career. I usually focus on magic item creation feats as it's good to have items customized to your need and for storing those spells that you don't need often, but need really badly when you do need them; however, this would be a bad choice in a treasure-rich campaign with little downtime between adventures. In such a situation, focusing on metamagic feats might make sense, to improve the effectiveness of spells and/or broaden the circumstances in which you can cast them. Since wizards and clerics can work together to create magic items, splitting up the magic item creation feats between casters in a party can be very effective and can free up slots in each for other kinds of feats such as Extra Turning and (eventually) Spell Penetration.

Do you want a combat cleric, a healing cleric, a spellslinging cleric, or a diplomatic cleric? Does the setting have a lot of undead? Is there a prestige class that looks good to the player? Is there a wizard in the party with whom he can coordinate? How can he and the favored soul best cooperate to maximize divine effectiveness? These are the kinds of questions the player should ask himself.

If you think he's going for a suboptimum feat choice, let him know your reasoning and encourage him to think about his place in the overall campaign, but if he really wants that feat - don't sweat it. Let him make his choice and live with it. That's how we learn. And you might be wrong, you know.