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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2674773" data-attributes="member: 3146">If you're going to talk about Divine Metamagic, don't ignore spikes, quill blast, Arcane Heirophant, Nature's Favor, etc. And I think Wall of Thorns and fire seeds are pretty competitive with a lot of the broken cleric spells. Maybe not as broken as the alignment word spells combined with all of the broken caster level boosting tricks in every book and something like miracle for a spellstaff spell (hey look a druid spell) to get the bead of karma, candle of invocation, etc. all working at once but it's pretty close.That's why I said replace the barbarian. Lots of damage. Not so much AC. But grappling, etc. will provide an instant win in a lot of combats. That's nothing to sneeze at.Sure. If you have a built-for combat cleric, he's a better combatant than a druid who sacrificed combat ability and just does wildshape. But if your druid is built to take advantage of wildshape, he's easily as good as the cleric.See the analysis later. Your cleric who has a high wisdom and a decent strength, con, and charisma is a 32 point buy character at the minimum. If he wants decent skills as well, he's out of luck without a 36 point or higher build.Special manuevers (like Imp Trip and Combat Reflexes or Shock Trooper or Combat Brute if you want to use non-core) make it easier to lay the beatdown on your enemies without getting beat down yourself. More on that later.The Power Word spells don't strike me as a big deal--it's not like my Wizard uses them... but the reason that domains make a difference is because they can add peak damage output and cut down the prep time for the cleric. A cleric with strength and destruction can start laying the smack down in round 1 by using his domain smite and feat of strength (And a quickened divine favor if he's really worried). Otherwise, it's likely to be round 2 before he does anything constructive. There are lots of good domains, but only some of them make a cleric a better fighter. And the clerics that make people say "this guy's as good as a fighter" are the ones that have those domains.This is one of the points where it becomes obvious that you haven't played a cleric. The first issue here is a "decent weapon." A good fighter should be able to count on a Greater Magic Weapon from the cleric or wizard so Greater Magic Weapon itself won't make up for the difference. If you're level 10 (the level where clerics can really start getting all their mojo working together), the fighter's weapon is probably +1 holy, +1 wounding, or +1 keen flaming. If your cleric's weapon is just +1, you're already at a disadvantage. If you spend as much money on your weapon as the fighter does, you're sacrificing other possibilities (a good periapt of wisdom which is necessary to make your save or dies effective, for instance) and are already designing yourself into the role of a fighter.Second, there is the issue of stats. Since we're talking about decent fighters here, let's offer two options:Mr. Damage: Barbarian 2/Fighter 8 1/2 orc 18 starting strength 12, dex, 14 con--currently 24 (+2 levels, +4 belt) and 28 when raging.Mr Defense: Fighter 10 dwarf with 16 starting strength, 12 dex, 16 con--currently strength 20 (+2 levels, +2 gauntlets), and 18 con (+2 amulet of health)Now, our cleric with Divine Power--let's say that he's built to be melee capable (which involves sacrifices elsewhere as I'll explore later) 14 str, 10 dex, 14 con. With Divine Power, he gets a 20 strength and 1 hp fewer than a 10th level fighter with a 14 con. Which is 25 hit points fewer than the raging Mr. Damage and 21 hp fewer than Mr. Defense. His 20 strength is equal to Mr. Defense but FAR lower than Mr. Damage. But that's just stats. Let's look at how that plays out:Damage output. Both fighters have Greater Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization as well as Improved Critical with their weapons. That means that Mr. Damage has +4 to hit and +5 damage on Mr. Cleric without raging. If he rages, that's +6 to hit and +8 damage. Mr. Defense has +2 to hit and +2 damage on Mr. Cleric.Defense. Everyone is wearing fullplate. We'll assume that Mr. Cleric is forgoing traditional cleric items like a lesser strand of prayer beads because he wants to be able to compete with the fighters and they all have the same +2 fullplate of light fortification. Now, Mr. Cleric has a choice to make. Does he want to be Mr. Cleric Damage and wield a two-handed weapon or Mr. Cleric Defense and go for a one-handed weapon and shield.Let's say he goes for Mr. Cleric damage. In that case, his AC will be one point better than Mr. Damage--when Mr. Damage is raging. (Mr. Damage has a 12 dex to Mr. Cleric Damage's 10). Now, since he's wielding a two-handed weapon, his damage goes up by 2 (gets to add 1.5 str bonus) and he's got about the same AC as Mr. Damage... but he's dealing the same damage as Mr. Defense (only Mr. Defense has +2 atk vis a vis Mr. Cleric Damage). I wouldn't call that competitive with Mr. Damage.Let's say he goes for Mr. Cleric defense. In that case, he'll be wielding a light shield or buckler in order to be able to cast spells while keeping a weapon in hand. Now, Mr. Defense, being Mr. Defense has invested in some defensive feats: Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, etc and having tower shield proficiency uses it. Now that knocks Mr. Defense's attack bonus down by two bringing them even, but Mr. Defense still does two points more damage per hit and has an AC four points higher than Mr. Cleric defense--as well as a lot more options in combat that can increase his damage ouput and reduce the damage he takes.Now, then let's add in that Mr. Cleric never felt the need to take Power Attack. (You are maintaining that a cleric needs no feats in order to fill the role of a fighter IIRC). Now, in normal situations, optimal power attack will only add a bit to the characters' damage--4 points per hit here, 6 points there. But Power Attack is also the pre-req for Cleave. So, if they're fighting zombies, Mr. Damage is in heaven. He can Power Attack for full and still hit and deal 30-40 points of damage per hit. Since he has Great Cleave (he's Mr. Damage after all) he can clear an entire room of ogre zombies in one or two rounds. Mr Defense can also stow his shield, grab his waraxe in two hands and power attack to his heart's content. He's only going to cleave once per round, but he'll still be dropping 33 hit point mooks in one shot.Mr Cleric (either version) will take two or three shots to drop each zombie and won't be able to cleave into another. Mr. Cleric is not competitive with the real fighters.Tacking Divine Favor on as well really makes a difference for Mr. Cleric (though he still at least needs Power Attack), but unless he has Quicken Spell, that's two rounds of buffing. Mr. Damage will have killed all the bad guys by then.And of course, this assumes that Mr. Cleric started with that 14 strength, 10 dex, 14 con that I mentioned. If Mr. Cleric thinks he can get away with a 10 or 12 strength or a lower Con, even Divine Power and Divine Favor and Righteous Might won't make him competitive.Yeah.... you can do DP and RM in the same round (provided you spend an 8th level slot on quickend DP) and that you have the Quicken Spell feat. Without Quicken Spell, you're not going to do it. However, as I pointed out in the last paragraph, if Mr. Cleric wants to be competitive with the fighters, he's going to need to have at least DP and Divine Favor running. So, he needs to be designed to be able to compete with the fighters. Without taking the right feats (Quicken Spell and Power Attack at a minimum) and buying the right items (a good weapon--which isn't cheap, good armor, an ioun stone for Constitution, etc), Mr. Cleric is not competitive with Mr. Fighter.Two words: Point Buy.For an effective heavy armor melee character, 14 strength, 10 dex, and 14 con are pretty much the minimum. (Lightly armored characters need more dex).If you're playing 25 point buy, that leaves you with 11 points for your other three stats. So, you could play 9 int, 16 wis, 8 cha, (Which is a decent spellcasting stat but not a particularly impressive one and is very weak in both Int (no skill points after taking Concentration unless you're human and then only 1/level) and Cha (2 turns/day and at penalties).On 28 point buy, you're a bit better off. You could have a 17 wisdom (pretty good) 9 int, 8 cha or a 10 int, 16 wis, and 10 cha.If you go to 32 point buy, you can keep your melee capability at the minimum level and have a 12 int, 16 wis, 12 cha, or buy a 12 dex and go for 10 int, 16 wis, 12 cha.So, you've got options. But, if you want to have good skillpoints (for instance as a Knowledge domain cleric or a Church Inquisitor) or an impressive charisma, you're going to have to sacrifice some combat ability. Similarly, even under 32 point buy, if you want to really maximize the effectiveness of your offensive spellcasting by starting with a 17 or 18 wisdom, you have to sacrifice some of your abilities. So, a 28 point buy turning and spellcasting focussed cleric might be Str 8, dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 17, Cha 13The bottom line is that, unless you're playing with more than a 32 point buy system, you're going to have to sacrifice your combat ability for the combination of very good wisdom and moderate-good charisma. And on lower point buys, you'll have to sacrifice in order to get better than a 15 wisdom. For reasons described above, however, it's not as much of a sacrifice as you seem to think. Depending upon what you spend your feats and gold on, it might well be a situation where you were never going to be good at melee combat anyway.</blockquote>

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