Making the Melee Cleric

[Doug McCrae]

The key is a three feat combo - Divine Metamagic (from Complete Divine), Persistent Spell (from Complete Arcane) and Extend Spell (a prerequisite for Persistent). This plus Extra Turning will allow you to keep the short duration self buffs Hong mentioned up all day long. At which point you just win D&D.

 

[wayne62682]

One word: Nightsticks (Libris Mortis, I believe?). If you don't mind being a cheesemonger, get those, use Divine Metamagic - Persistent Spell and you win.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

[hijack]

What is this "win" concept people speak of? Is winning the completion of the story?

[/hijack]

Seriously, though ... outside of nightsticks and Divine Persistant Metamagic (two things that a DM should seriously think about before adding to a campaign) ... the most imoprtant thing is the buffing spells. What you need to do is ask yourself:

"As a cleric of level X, how far am I behind the fighter's BAB at this level? What spell in my arsenal will overcome that differential (and usually surpass it)?"

Combine that with the question:

"What spell can I use effectively to boos my STR?" (This one is not hard to answer)

One you have answered those two questions, you are already well on your way to being the fighter's relative equal - so long as your magic holds out.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Self buffing without DMed Persistent Spell takes time. The arcane caster can really help out here by trapping foes with Web, Solid Fog, Wall of Force and such like. I started to do this as a wizard once I realised the party cleric wouldn't enter the fight until he'd buffed himself at least twice. So we'd go Web, buff, buff, buff, dispel Web, win.

 

[Victim]

Self buffing without DMed Persistent Spell takes time.

Exactly. The buffing cleric is totally different if the PCs routinely have control of when fights start via ambushes or encounters that wait around versus unpredictable encounters. If PCs have control, then they throw some buffs up before kicking in the door thereby possessing both buff benefits and their full alotment of combat actions. Otherwise you need to comprimise between an ideal set of buffs and taking other actions.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Presuming one is in Greyhawk -
Power Melee build.

LN; Cuthbert - domains, Destruction and Strength.

Spells?


Low-level 1st - 5th
Bless (SoP)
Enlarge Person (Str domain)
Domain Powers used in conjunction (for that single SMAAACK)

Multi round "beatdown" 10th -
Divine favor + Divine Power + Righteous Might

 

[drdevoid]

A lot of a cleric meleers ability depends on how many higher level spells they can dedicate and how quickly they can get to and stay in melee.

Being able to use Quicken or Persistent Spell is important, but if you aren't healing effectively those spell slots will get channeled.

I recommend feats like Augment Healing (Comp Divine)and Divine Ward (PHb II) and Sacred Healing (PHb II) that let you heal well, minimize slot expenditure and heal from a distance so that you aren't giving up position.

As for getting into position, Quick March (Spell Comp) is great as is Knight's Move (Spell Comp) and even Updraft (Spell Comp) can be handy for getting up a hill/ledge or trying something silly like tackling a flier. Those swift casting time spells are immensely helpful as is Close Wounds and Delay Death (Spell Comp). Divine Vigor is an excellent feat for granting bonus movement and temp HPs.

As for laying the smack, you need to think of sequences. A swift action spell or ability followed by a standard action ability/spell combo is what you need to look at- if you can find move action ones you are getting into golden territory.

I don't propose wasting anymore than a round for buffing. So a quickened Divine Favor/Righteous Might combo would be good or a quickened Enlarge Person (Strength domain)/Divine Power. Once in combat you can still use a quickened spell here and there if you need the oomph.

Quick March (Spell Comp) and Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (Spell Comp) is the Cleric's "Haste". I highly recommend getting a rod of lesser quicken spell as early as feasible to leverage those low level buffs- divine favor, bull's strength, even shield of faith. If you can use it as a mace or store it in a glove of storing you are good to go.

Here's a sample order of these:

Augment Healing
Divine Vigor - carefully consider how you'd work the sequence with this
Divine Ward
Quicken Spell
Extra Turning
Sacred Healing (the 2 pts per spell level version) or Extra Turning
Extra Slot

 

[Fedifensor]

One round of buffing is definately the way to go, with a possible quickened spell at the start of the 2nd round. Anything more than that, and you're going to get yourself killed waiting to get all your buffs up.

Before 9th level, the best you can pull out via SRD material is one standard-action spell. Divine Favor or Enlarge person at early levels, and Divine Power once you hit 7th. You can get Quicken on your 1st level spells as early as 9th, but given the limited number of 5th level spell slots it may be better holding off until 12th.

Quickened Divine Favor/Righteous Might is generally going to be a better combo than Quickened Enlarge Person + Divine Power, especially since you can get that enhancement bonus to Strength from items instead. Righteous Might is definately worth using in round 1.

Now, once you hit 15th level, the best round 1 buff is Quickened Divine Power + Righteous Might. Fighter BAB, +6 enhancement bonus to Strength (assuming you don't already have a Belt of Giant Strength +6), +4 size bonus to Strength, +2 size bonus to Constitution, Large size (which boosts weapon damage), a net +1 to AC (+2 natural armor, -1 size), and DR 9/evil (or good). Add in a Quickened Divine Favor (+3 luck bonus to hit and damage) for the start of round 2, and you can go through the rest of the combat without needing a single spell.

Power Attack and a two-handed weapon are nearly essential for this type of cleric, as is Quicken Spell (as mentioned above). Combat Reflexes is often overlooked, but a useful way to take advantage of your Large size when using Enlarge Person or Righteous Might. For domains, Strength is a useful choice (gives you Enlarge Person early on, and Righteous Might in a domain spell slot), and War is good choice for the free Weapon Focus and Divine Power in a spell slot (remember that the quickened version can go in the 8th level domain slot).

That's the basics. Once you start adding non-SRD stuff, the cheese adds up quick.

 

[drdevoid]

Quickened Divine Favor/Righteous Might is generally going to be a better combo than Quickened Enlarge Person + Divine Power, especially since you can get that enhancement bonus to Strength from items instead. Righteous Might is definately worth using in round 1.

Yeah, Quickened Enlarge Person + Divine Power isn't the best, it's just an example given leftover spells for say combat 3 or 4 in a given day. Creating Sequences that use domain slots is crucial in my opinion for the melee oriented clerics.

Another less optimal approach is to take the healing domain to ease the burden of being the healer. A Pelor cleric with Strength and Healing gets a little situational summoning at high levels, good buffs at low levels, and healing (most notably, Heal and Mass Heal) when the strength spells don't appeal. Also the Vigor spells (Spell Comp) help out of combat healing not deplete you so much.

 

[nittanytbone]

Spells:

Quickened Divine Favor
DMM Persistent Divine Might
Righteous Might (Before that, enlarge person)

Feats:

Power Attack OR Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, maybe Zen Archery (Archer Clerics)
DMM: Persistent Spell (requires extend spell and persistent spell as prereqs)
or
DMM: Quicken Spell (requires Quicken spell as prereq)

Ability Scores: - 28 pt buy

STR - 14 (Gotta qualify for Power Attack)
DEX - 12 (Optimal AC in Plate Mail -- bump to 13 for a Cleric-Archer for Rapid Shot)
CON - 14 (Need HP for a durable warrior type)
INT - 8 (Don't need int unless you're qualifying for a PrC that needs skills)
WIS - 15 (Put all stat boosts into here to cast all spell levels on time)
CHA - 12 (To make DMM Persistent work, you need 7 turn undead attempts: 3 base + 2 charisma + 2 after casting Eagle's Glory does the trick until you can get Nightsticks)

Domains:

Luck (granted power is useful at all levels)
Travel (especially at mid to higher levels)
Strength (especially at lower levels)
Elf (For cleric archers)
Planning & Undeath (For free Extra Turning and Extend Spell feats)

Getting MWP with a good weapon:

Be an elf (mainly for longbows)
Human Paragon (loses a caster level)
Ruathor (only for an elf weapon, mainly for longbows)
Radiant Servant of Pelor (AWESOME -- broken?)
War Domain
Martial Weapon Focus (wastes a feat but saves a caster level)
1 level fighter/paladin/ranger/barb dip (blah, loses a caster level)

Summary

On the face of it, you aren't as tough as a fighter. However, with a bit of thought you'll see how quickly the cleric beats out the fighter assuming good resource management. With Perssitent Spell, by level 7 the cleric has 20 STR all day long and a fighter's BAB and HP. For decent fights he can fire up Quickened Divine Favor for an additional +2 to hit and damage. With NO ROUNDS of buffing, he can be hitting for 2d6+7 STR+2 Divine Favor+1 Magic Weapon+4 PA = 21 damage/hit (assuming -2 PA). If you let him buff, it just gets crazier.

Plus, his Will save is great, a common bane of melee types.

And he's a full caster, able to summon winged monkeys, Fly, do some area control, throw Will save spells at other melee types (Command, Hold Person, etc). This counters the ability of a well built fighter to control the area through tripping and such. He can change his spell loadout by the day to adapt to new situations, whereas the fighter can't really swap out his feats.

And he can drive off the undead if he's not using all his turn attempts to fuel DMM.