Please Help Me With Cleric Spell Choice

[Amazing Triangle]

Divine Might requires Power Attack, AFAIK.

Bye
Thanee

Oh yeah have to change that feat

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I choose Divine Shield because the DM has cut the 17th level funds to 112,000.

So you're looking to save money. I can understand the motivation, but still...at that level I don't think a +2 bonus to AC is worth a feat and an action to activate.

Healing seemed like a standard choice. I mean I don't want to be the main damage dealer of the party, nor do I want to spend every round buffing or taking care of the party in some way.

One of the reasons Healing is a sub-par choice is that it doesn't grant you access to any new spells. All the spells it gives you are spells on your normal spell list, most of which you can cast spontaneously when you need them, without wasting a slot to prepare them. From an RP pov, it can be acceptable. If you're looking to enter a PrC that requires it, fair enough. But if you have no compelling mechanical or RP reason to take it, it's not a great choice.

IMHO Miracle has its downfall in that you prepare a 9th level slot for a 7th level spell.

If you were preparing a 7th-level cleric spell, you'd be right. The key is that it grants you generous access to other class's spell lists. You can use it to set up a Contingency. You can use it to teleport if you need to escape a bad situation. You can use it to transform your backup weapon into a Holy Sword. Its versatility is unmatched.

With only one 9th level spell other than my domain I would rather prepare something like Summon Elemental Monolith or Storm of Vengence.

That's a valid point of view. But keep in mind that as a cleric, you don't have to permanently choose spells for scribing or learning. You may want to prep Summon Elemental Monolith on your adventuring day...but I'd still recommend you fire off a Miracle beforehand to set up a Contingency, etc.

 

[Amazing Triangle]

What would be good domains to choose from either PHB or SC I really liked Balance (SC pg 271), Celerity (SC 271), Force (SC 274), Time (SC 281), War (PHB 189), and Sun (PHB 188); Are these good domains if so which ones?

 

[seans23]

Well Nail, what domains would you choose? Healing seemed like a standard choice. I mean I don't want to be the main damage dealer of the party, nor do I want to spend every round buffing or taking care of the party in some way. IMHO Miracle has its downfall in that you prepare a 9th level slot for a 7th level spell. With only one 9th level spell other than my domain I would rather prepare something like Summon Elemental Monolith or Storm of Vengence. But I could be wrong.

Take the luck domain, and you'll get miracle as a domain spell. Also, one reroll a day is pretty damn nice.

Take the travel domain, and you'll have access to teleport. Freedom of movement for 10 rounds a day is pretty damn nice.

That Fharlanghn fellow seems like a nice chap...

 

[Nail]

Well Nail, what domains would you choose?

I like Travel, Luck, Sun, Summoning, and War, (in that order) if you're just sticking to Core.

Healing seemed like a standard choice.

Not at all. The benefits are very slight, given spontaneous healing...in fact, the domain wastes the domain slots that could be used for something else. You want your domain slots to be spells that you can't easily get some other way. Glance over the Healing Domain spells from 4th to 9th....of those, only Mass Heal is worth the slot.

.... nor do I want to spend every round buffing or taking care of the party in some way.

That's too bad, 'cause that's EXACTLY what the cleric does best. If you concentrate on helping the party, rather than being your very own self-contained damage machine, you become a very powerful character.

Keep in mind that ""taking care of the party" might also mean limiting the bad guys in some way. Wall of Stone, for example, is a great spell for the cleric to cast....it frees up the wizard to blast, and allows the Fighter to concentrate on few opponents.

IMHO Miracle has its downfall in that you prepare a 9th level slot for a 7th level spell.

But it can cast ANY 7th level spell. Check out the Sor/Wiz spell list, or the Druid spell list, or the Bard spell list.....the options are absolutely amazing. Consider the spell Spellstaff for example!

There are many, many other combos. My favorite is Miracle => Greater Anyspell => Sonorous Hum. Combine with Summon Elemental Monolith, and......

Heh, heh, heh!

With only one 9th level spell other than my domain I would rather prepare something like Summon Elemental Monolith or Storm of Vengence. But I could be wrong.

Storm of Vengence is a waste of time, IMO.

 

[Nail]

What would be good domains to choose from either PHB or SC I really liked Balance (SC pg 271), Celerity (SC 271), Force (SC 274), Time (SC 281), War (PHB 189), and Sun (PHB 188); Are these good domains if so which ones?

My Clr took Time (with a PrC), and loved Time Stop.



....and Contingency, of course. Permanency was nice, since magic items were time-consuming to get sometimes.

 

[Amazing Triangle]

That's too bad, 'cause that's EXACTLY what the cleric does best. If you concentrate on helping the party, rather than being your very own self-contained damage machine, you become a very powerful character.

It is not that I do not want to heal/buff the party, but playing turtle gets boring.

With the comment of shaping the battle field that is a little more offensive. I just don't want to be waiting for something bad to happen so I can have something to do.

There are many, many other combos. My favorite is Miracle => Greater Anyspell => Sonorous Hum. Combine with Summon Elemental Monolith, and.....

Ok so you are casting Miracle to cast Anyspell Gtr. so you can have Sonorous Hum prepared...so you don't get interupted during Elemental Monolith...seems kind of like you are taking the longest road to a short end. I mean the answer is step away from combat cast EM and be done with it...or cast Bear's Endurance then EM so your concentration is higher and your hp is higher. Maybe you could explain it or another combo, I am still not sold on preparing Miracle yet. I hear everyone touting it just I haven't seen any evidence to back up its awesomeness.

 

[seans23]

I mean the answer is step away from combat cast EM and be done with it...or cast Bear's Endurance then EM so your concentration is higher and your hp is higher.

Yes but with sonorous hum you don't need to waste standard actions concentrating each round that the elemental monolith is around.

 

[Amazing Triangle]

I want no one to think I don't want help. I just want an explaination if you plan on giving a nice combo. Personally I have moved to the Luck domain, but both Time and Travel have the same 4th level spell as Luck (Freedom of Movement). As I can't much see myself using it other than on rare occasions I tought that having another domain spell to choose from would be good. Am I wrong in this? Is Freedom of Movement really that awesome of a spell?

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The benefit to the Travel Domain is that you don't have to cast Freedom of Movement at all. The Domain Power grants you the effects of Freedom of Movement when you need it, for as long as you need it (up to your maximum duration.) Travel also has several other nice spells on its domain list, such as Fly, Dimension Door, Teleport, and Greater Teleport. These are all fantastic, extremely useful spells that are not available through the standard cleric spell list.