What are the best low level clerical spells for use in warfare?

[Elder-Basilisk]

Ummm. No it isn't. 3d6 averages 10.5 damage. If one assumes that bad guys make a mediocre save DC 50% of the time and it's save for half, that's 7.875 damage. If the bad guys make the mediocre save 75% of the time, it's still 6.5625 damage on average. So, 3d6 save for half would be 50-75% more damage than the 1d8 from sound burst. It's not "basically equivalent."

It's a good spell but
A. I think the area of effect is just too small to be useful in large encounters.
B. Short range is very limiting.

Just chiming in in favour of Sound Burst -- it's so good it's positively unbalanced. 4.5 damage with no save -- this is basically the equivalent of 3D6 with a mediocre save DC. The stunning is just an added bonus.

 

[Hussar]

Create Food and Drink is nice, but it simply doesn't create enough, unless you have hordes of 5th level priests. A single spell will only feed 15 people. Sure, that's nice, but, again, if your army features more than a 15:1 mook to priest ratio, then it's not the best thing in the world. However, Purify Food and Drink is a far better spell. You never have to worry about your rations spoiling and you never have to worry about poisoning your own troops with old food. This is a major advantage. You can refill your water reserves with pretty much any mostly water fluid IIYKWIMAITYD. 1 casting can purify 8 gallons of water/level or enough water for eight people for a day. Much better use considering your burning zero level spells instead of the fifth level cleric's strongest spells which could be reserved for summonings, Dispel Magic or, possibly best, Wind Wall.

 

[morbiczer]

IIYKWIMAITYD ????

 

[Turjan]

IIYKWIMAITYD ????

He probably wants to extract the fallen foes .

 

[Arkhandus]

Depending on how many clerics you include in the army, and how many of them are 5th-level or higher, Create Food & Water may or may not be useful enough. At 3rd-level it'll support 9 soldiers a day, with each casting. Most 5th-level clerics will only have 13 or 14 Wisdom (remember 16s, 17s, and 18s are exceptional individuals, not average fellas), so they'll only get 1 CF&W per day. Now, if you have 1 5th-level cleric per 8 other soldiers, you could sustain the army indefinately, if the army has no horses or pack animals to support. However, while this may be useful financially for the army's nation or whatever, it does almost nothing to help the army in actual combat; a well-fed but undergunned or undermanned army is not much use unless they're super-skilled or something.

*5th-level cleric*
0-level: Cure Minor Wounds x2, Purify Food & Drink x3
1st-level: Magic Weapon (D), Bless x2, Bane
2nd-level: Spiritual Weapon (D), Sound Burst, Sound Burst
3rd-level: Magic Vestment (D), Summon Monster III

Summon 1d3 lemures with SM3, and they'll mow down enemy troops with impunity thanks to their damage reduction. Most grunts won't have magic weapons, and most grunts don't have 16+ Str, Power Attack, and a greatsword (or even just one of those).

*3rd-level cleric*
0-level: Cure Minor Wounds x2, Purify Food & Drink x2
1st-level: Magic Weapon (D), Bless, Bane
2nd-level: Spiritual Weapon (D), Sound Burst

Many of the low-level spells aren't so useful in mass combat. Darkness et al requires an object and then you'd have to chuck the object at the enemy, despite the darkness encompassing you at first, plus the enemy formation could just move out of the way on the next round, ultimately making for maybe a 1-round distraction of some troops. Obscuring Mist is centered on the caster, so no help there. Wind Wall would only reach 25 feet high and 50 feet across, so it won't be much impediment to enemy archers (especially since the archers will be firing upward, lobbing arrows over to your troops indirectly from above). Silence just won't help often enough. Calm Emotions ends when the subjects are damaged. Prayer is horribly short on duration and doesn't extend very far, so it's inferior to Bless most of the time. Single-target spells are wasteful in mass combat. Enthrall is broken if the subjects are attacked. Etc.

During transit, of course, the clerics can prepare lots of Create Water, Purify Food & Drink, and Create Food & Water spells. But once the day of battle is nearly upon them, they should prepare to fight. Unless they're evil-aligned or something, they can probably convert spells to Cures when needed.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I've got a 3.0 game so this may not be 100% applicable.

People in the "Spirits of Krinn" campaign better not read the following!

Spoiler

Be sure to include bards in your list of war-buffers. Pipers and drummers have historically proven to be excellent means of communication during battle and when they can rally your troops there's no reason not to cultivate them.

With the exception of the bardic song, all these can be placed in a wand so your cleric1s can fire them off. They only need a half-dozen charges or so to swing a battle.

bard song (concentration+5 rnds) : +1 morale to attack & damage to all within hearing range

(greater) magic weapon: apply to 50 projectiles and distribute among many archers or apply to the best archer using a non-magic bow.

Blessed Aim (60'r, concentration) +2 morale bonus to ranged attacks - Consider using Widen to get more archers

Prayer (50'r, 1round/lvl) +1 luck attack & saves - Widen & Extend are good

Recitation (60'r, 1round/lvl) +2 luck attacks/saves for non-believers, +3 for believers

Bear's Heart (1/lvl, 1rnd/lvl) +4 str, +lvl d4 temp hp, take lvl subdual hp when spell ends. AKA "mini-rage," this spell is great for those people carrying battering rams or scaling ladders as they will be prime targets for defenders' arrows.

 

[Evilhalfling]

really, so most would favor sound burst over silence? I would think that most armies would disperse to avoid terrible losses from area spells, at the very least, leaving lots of space between ranks if not going to a full skirmish pattern.
Silence is one of the few ways to deal with flying mages. or possibly enemy bards.
Bards song only partially stacks with bless, but you could alternate uses of them.

darkness and obscuring mist have that range 0 limitation to deal with. Your troops would have to be trained to work with them.

Protection from X. - A good destraction if you are expecting summoned allies, and if you are fighting a eliet unit, you can probably guess what alignment they will be. On the whole inferior to bless, as it only affect a single target.

I like blessed aim - although the concentration requirement means it shuts down the cleric.
I am not sure how to deal with indirect fire vs windwall - logically it would be less useful than it is, because indirect fire is not covered well by the rules. If you put in in front of a stationary unit it would provide some protection, or at medium range you might be able to drop it in front of the other sides archers, then dissmiss it quickly.

Summon spells are just so short in duration - lemures are slow and not great at hitting things, they are hard to kill, but poor on offense.

Sure Create Food and Water won't solve all your supply problems, but thats 30 lbs of provesions per day that you don't have to buy or carry. I hadn't remembered purify, that would be included as a must have as well.

hmm Adding scrolls of Protection from X and Obscuring mist might be the way to go. Those spells would not be needed in every battle, but they would be great in a pinch.

 

[Sigurd]

How many of your soldiers are clerics????

You have to come up with an idea of how many of your soldiers are clerics???

If every third soldier was a cleric there'd be a whole heap of cures available. At some point you'd have to get an idea of the available power of a diety. I can see some battle where the opposing force works to limit (somehow) the deities access the battlefield so that spells don't work.

I think a travelling army might seek out holy places and divine sources of power first to ensure that their brand of divine power has as much support as possible.

"Your religeous leaders feel a terrible emptyness and question the ablities of their magic...."

From the opposing forces a thundercloud seems to spread toward your forces. All clerics cast spells as if 3 levels lower -- many of your weakest clerics have no spells.


Sigurd

 

[kigmatzomat]

I wouldn't think you'd have enough casters to be 1 in 10. A decent medieval army is several thousand people, which for 1:10 means you have several hundred clerics. Exactly how big of an area did you strip clean to provide for it?

I think you could figure it out using RAW by figuring out how many communities would be stripped bare for the army and using those cities' class distributions. IIRC, the most favorable ratio of mundanes:casters is 1:30.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I like blessed aim - although the concentration requirement means it shuts down the cleric.

Shuts down the cleric?!? The problem with clerics in an actual battle is that they run out of spells in under a minute. Sure, they are decent warriors but you don't want to waste them in combat. So Duration:Concentration spells allow clerics to remain useful for long periods of time while exhausting relatively few resources.

Quick back o' the napkin math: If the two forces consist of 9hp, AC15 warrior 1s that are 120' apart (1 longbow range increment) then blessed aim and bard song are both force multipliers of about 1.3. Assuming each effect targets 200 archers (for easy math)

No bonuses
BAB 1 + 1 dex -2 range = 0 vs. AC 15 = 6/20 hit for 4.5 pts avg damage. = 60 hits equating to about 30 kills/round (9hps per target, 4.5 hps/shot)

Blessed Aim
BAB 1 + 1 dex -2 range +2 morale = +2 vs. AC 15 = 8:20 hit for 4.5 pts avg damage. = 80 hits equating to about 40 kills/round

Bard Song
BAB 1 + 1 dex -2 range +1 song = +1 vs. AC 15 = 7:20 hit for 5.5 pts avg damage. =70 hits. 1/8th of hits will be auto kills (8 on a d8 + 1 damage = 9hp) so 8 kills + 36 kills (62 hits @ 4.5 hp) = 44 kills.

Blessed Aim + Bard Song
BAB 1 + 1 dex -2 range +2 spell= +2 vs. AC 15 = 8:20 hit for 5.5 pts avg damage. =80 hits. 1/8th of hits will be auto kills (8 on a d8 + 1 damage = 9hp) so 10 kills + 35 kills (62 hits @ 4.5 hp) = 45 kills.

Assuming your troops don't need 20+ to hit their targets, it is better to use bard song and blessed aim separately. If you only have one archer cadre, alternate between them or if you have multiple archers you can boost them all to get as many kills as possible early in the fight.