Non-Buff Spells For Melee Clerics

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, I need some spells for my melee cleric to cast that aren't buffs. I find myself the target of upwards of 6-10 dispel magics a combat ... bursts, targets, Spell-Like Abilities, spells, etc. It's become totally obvious there's no way to avoid having every single spell active on my character removed, so I need other spells to cast.

Unfortunately, my character was built to be a combat-cleric, and I've got a bit of MAD (Wisdom only high enough to get access to my higest slots, not much in the way of bonus slots or save DCs) and a lost caster level. The monsters we're facing are hard enough for the caster-focused cleric to put anything over on, and whenever I try to cast a spell that involves a save or SR ... no joy.

It's too late now to take feats, etc, to buff my caster ability, so I have to find SOME sort of spell for a cleric to cast that isn't going to get stripped off in a barrage of Dispels and Greater Dispels, doesn't offer a save and doesn't have to bypass SR.

Any ideas out there beyond stocking up on healing spells?

--fje

 

[Infiniti2000]

Assay resistance will help you bypass SR. (It's way too good IMO.)

 

[mikebr99]

Well, I need some spells for my melee cleric to cast that aren't buffs. I find myself the target of upwards of 6-10 dispel magics a combat ... bursts, targets, Spell-Like Abilities, spells, etc. It's become totally obvious there's no way to avoid having every single spell active on my character removed, so I need other spells to cast.

--fje

Well... you are still contributing a lot to the party's survival. That's 6-10 less damage or save-or-die spells thrown at the party.

Are you continually going up against the same organization... who has some way of scrying on your party, and broadcasting to their members what your favourite tactics and buffing spells are going to be? It kind of sounds like your DM is using a little insider information... YMMV.

You could start dropping Holy Storms (SC:115) around the battlefield... assuming you are a good party... no save, no SR.


Mike

 

[gnfnrf]

You have some options, depending on your level (I assume you must be pretty high level, if you have encounters where you are subject to 6-10 dispel magics)

Use the mass version of the ability buffing spells. That way, they can either target you and you've helped your friends, or area dispel and only clear one effect per person (and you will keep some of your pre-combat/all day buffs). Spread out your buffs among the party, and use other mass buffs (Resist Energy, Heroes' Feast, and so forth) so you aren't the most obvious target for dispels. (Lastly, as tactfully as you can, make sure the DM is running Dispel Magic correctly, and isn't using metaknowledge to target you).

If you can get a Metamagic Rod of Empowering, Inflict spells become useful, because of the high static bonus you recieve. If they save, they save, but, for a 10th level caster with a lesser rod, (3d8+10)*1.5 ~ 17 or 18 on a successful save, 35 or 36 on a failed save.

Similarly, Slay Living does some damage on a successful save. And no matter how good, they can't save ALL the time.

If SR is more your problem, maybe you should dispel them back? Being so magically inclined, they are probably buffed too. Other offensive spells without SR are Earthquake, Insect Plague, Silence (on objects), and Wall of Stone.

Even really good saves get failed, and even really good SR is beatable. So the other thing to do is just do the normal stuff (flamestrike, sound lance, bestow curse), and when it works, be happy. If everything you fight has unbeatable SR and saves, there are things wrong with either your character or (more likely) the game that are bigger than this little discussion.

--
gnfnrf

 

[Korak]

Well, GMW and MV are your three most important buffs (you do have an animated shield, right?). They are on your equipment and not subject to dispell targetted at you. Make suer you have a bead of karma to use before casting those in the morning... death knell, orange ioun stone, divine spell power... pump that caster level. Consider a rod of lesser extension to double duration on your MV. A rod of extension might also be worth if for your GMW. Do you have the quicken spell feat? Keeping 3 or 4 quickened divine favors memorized can help. I don't guess you're using your 5ths for flame strikes since your DCs are so low. So, they can spend an action debuffing you and you can pop it right back on the next round. If you have boots of speed, you can always just re-apply your haste the next round too. The only things you should have trouble keeping up are righteous might and divine power. Invest in a good BoGS.

 

[mikebr99]

You could also try to cancel (counter) the targeted dispels... two rings of counterspells, a bunch of Battlemagic Perception spells (HoB), and a bunch of dispels yourself.

YMMV


Mike

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Currently I've got a Weapon-of-Legacy ability that gives me Mirror Image 3x/day at 10th caster level and a Ring of Counterspells with a DM in it. We're 14th level. The GM ruled that RoCounterspells only works against targeted effects, so when I put the mirrors up we get pounded with bursts nobody can stop. Even if it's targeted effects, the problem is "mooks" with DM at, apparently 10th caster level ... six guys whipping off targeted dispels eats through the defense screen AND all of the spells. Simple math, eventually ... roll often enough (and targeted dispel gets more rolls the more spells you have) and you're going to roll high enough to hit my CL 14. I could, say, ready a counterspell action with my own DM ... where-upon I'd kill one of theirs and get hit with, say, another two or three. Additionally, sometimes it's Sorcerers tossing DMs and sometimes its outsiders using DM SLAs and you can't counterspell or Silence SLAs ... so we have to figure out which type they're using and come prepared. Last time we tried summoning an Avoral to ready Counterspell-Use DM SLAs and got hit with DM SLAs that couldn't be stopped ... this time we didn't bother with the Avoral and it was sorcerers.

It's not purely targeted at me, usually "whoever is fighting" it seems, which, because I'm a melee cleric, means mostly me (I'm also the only 10' tall winged angel with a nimbus of light (Lesser Holy Transformation+Righteous Might+Sunlight). So I'm not calling foul on the DM ... just that the DM has pretty much figured out how to neutralize my particular character. Other people in the party get hit, and the whole party is clerics ... just that my style focuses on buffs while, say, the rogue/cleric uses more Swift spells like Grave Strike or the caster-cleric uses various blasty-spells. The last guy doesn't cast much, he's mostly item-based, only 3 levels of cleric, so he gets annoyed when we get hit with the DM bombs, but all of his combat ability is in place.

And it isn't like targeted dispels KILL us ... they are "wasting" rounds in which they could be casting damage spells. But they're burning out 3rd level slots on half a dozen minor badguys while, say, some Huge tank-monster pounds out 50 points of damage a round ... they're not doing HP damage ... but if I spend 3 rounds buffing and a 6th, 5th, and 4th level slot that they spend 1 round and three 3rd level slots destroying, that's a net gain in their favor. Additionally, we're running up on situations where we NEED certain spells in order to effectively survive or fight. If they can just strip all of our spells every time we show up, we have to retreat, and honestly it comes to a stalemate and is getting really really boring. We've spent three or four entire sessions, each accounting for a game-day of pop in, fight for 13-14 rounds, and pop out with all our spell slots empty and/or dispelled.

I've used Holy Storm in the past, and I'll probably stock up on a few more of those, it just comes down "on you" and I have to be in the middle of the hurt (with my spells all gone). Assay Spell Resistance sounds good ... too-good is probably just-good-enough given that I'm anything but caster-focused. Right now all of the caster-buff items are on the caster-cleric ... all our metamagic rods, the prayer beads, etc.

I've been counting Magic Vestment in the "can be targeted-dispelled" column, but I guess, as it's on my armor, they do have to target that. The floating shield thing ... I don't have one. I SHOULD have one, but 1) I think the visual doesn't appeal to me and 2) I'm a bit wealth-poor. I have a Weapon of Legacy that has resulted in my being passed over for alot of stuff and some of my Wealth being a magical sword that, while cool and cannot be sold for RP reasons, I'm not going to use. Usually I pride myself on my character being item-independant ... most of my juice is spells, and there's not been any difference between my combat prowess and the prowess of the other characters. Until I get riddled with dispels and suddenly I'm wishing my Strength enhancement was in a belt and my flying was in my boots, etc.

--fje

 

[Korak]

3 10th level sorcerors just to dispell...

Wow. I mean, wow. Your DM is regularly adding 3 level 10 sorcerors or verious other similar creatures that just spend their actions dispelling you? Well, at least the xp should be good. I mean, bringing that kind of firepower to the encounter and just dispelling seems to be an xp gift to the players. Your animated heavy steel shield +1 will only cost 9170gp? Add in the MV and that's the cheapest 6 to 7 ac you can get.

The boots of speed are 12k. Virtually dispell proof. I mean, you'll lose the +1AC on their turn, but when your turn comes up again, just reactivate as a free action. Yeah, the stat items are just that good in this edition. That mirror image should be a good benefit for you. Any attempts at hitting you with a targetted dispell might only hit one of your images instead. Either that, or they have to resort to area dispells which can only get one of your buffs at most... and those are checked in order of caster level... so you can deliberately lower the caster level of your imprtnant buffs by one and perhaps even load up on a few lower level buffs at your normal caster level... or get some lower level pearls of power and have the casting cleric load you up with some lower level hour/level buffs at enhanced caster level in the morning when he uses his bead of kharma.

Hmm.. also your arcane caster could drop walls of force down to block line of effect and segregate the dispellers from the "real action."

Good luck man

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, we have no arcane caster, which is a problem. The wizard got killed, oh, about lvl5 and the player (my wife) left the game for time reasons. Since then it's a Barbarian/Cleric (me) and a Cleric/Contemplative and a Rogue/Cleric and a ... fighter/paladin/cleric/occult-slayer. All clerics.

So, as clerics, much of our powerful stuff is buffs ... so dispel is a great counterattack against us because much of our stuff is so subject to it. An arcane caster could load up on the Boom-Boom and burn these guys out, but we have to buff up and beat them to death with weapons. The Cleric/Contemplative takes quite a bit of blasty magic, but it's rather ... inefficient ... to say the least. But it's all we've got.

We're playing Age of Worms, so I can't say that the GM is putting these things in there specifically to nullify my character ... probably the designers of the modules who figured we'd have a sorcerer to throw a dozen fireballs while the dispellers eat the clerics for breakfast. Unfortunately ... and I'm particularly vulnerable.

The math on Dispel Magic is obviously balanced from a PC perspective ... you cast a targeted dispel on a badguy, you'd like a reasonable chance of taking out something he has on him. And one dispel on one character would be: "Aw man, got my Death Ward." But three or four or six and eventually they WILL roll high enough times to get every ... single ... spell. The more spells you have, the more rolls they get, the more likely each one will get something.

We've used it ourselves, since it's so effective on us, and usually we'll get one thing if there's spells active on the badguy ... but we aren't fighting humanoids with class levels, we're fighting undead and aberrations and outsiders who have all of their junk as "special abilities" so there's nothing really TO dispel.

And that's the thing ... you can give a CR 6 monster an SLA of 10th level caster Dispel Magic, so it doesn't have to be a huge XP boost ... just strap "Casts As A Sorcerer" on there without actually increasing the CR and rock and roll.

Next time we go up I'm going to get the flying shield. I need places to stick spells other than myself.

--fje

 

[Machiavelli]

Sounds like a mismatch between your characters and their campaign. Your party is hardcore cleric-centric, which can be cool for thematic purposes, but they just so happen to be walking into the most boring-sounding battles ever, almost specifically taylored to make everythig that's cool about a cleric suddenly... not. Dispelling and buffing back and forth, back and forth... it's faithful to the rules, and perhaps even faithful to the mathematical optimization of your combat abilities, but it does, in short, suck. Next battle, do whatever seems like fun (for a change). If your character dies, so what? Either get a cleric buddy to resurrect him, or re-roll a warmage.

If the DM doesn't like it, tough shi.... noogies.

(I usually like to argue both sides of the issue, and don't actualy whole-heartedly advocate picking a fight with a GM. GM's take a lot of unnecessary crap from players, too.)