# Help with Cleric Build, share expertise please!



## Vicon (Jul 1, 2012)

Hey there Everyone! First time post, but I've been reading about and I am impressed by the strength of the rulebook "kung-fu" exhibited in some of these threads. I'm getting back into D&D soon (Playing Pathfinder "Carrion Crown" -- and the last time I played D&D was 2nd edition. So I have a grasp of a lot of the concepts but it's been a LONG TIME and a LOT has changed based on what I've been finding online and in the Rulebook and APG. 

Basically I would like your best counsel on helping me decide between two ideas I had for Clerics domain/deity (which do you think is more powerful/fun to play/any other concerns) as well as how to not only start my character, but what is your best advice for progression choices. 

I was most attracted to creating a Cleric of Pharasma with Knowledge/Repose as my domains, or Desna with Luck/Good or Luck/Liberty. 
The Knowledge/Repose build was my first idea with the objective of trading knowledge domain for knowledge devotion and using that to gain huge bonuses against most creatures -- but as I can't seem to find Knowledge Devotion in the Core Rulebook or APG that ship may have sailed, but it still might be interesting/helpful to be the guy who (with lore keeper) can identify creatures and their powers/vulnerabilities -- either in combat with a touch attack (which seems dangerous with things like spectres) or perhaps examining things posthumously. The stagger ability in Repose (which if done to foes already staggered causes sleep) might be a useful way to help the front liners do their jobs an hopefully get coup-de-grace kills. I am starting to get the impression that even with all the knowledge skills clerics don't get enough skill points to actually be very effective in developing such broad knowledge skills. If there is a way around this or ways to mitigate it (I have to have sense motive, spellcraft, and diplomacy covered as well!)

I am growing more attracted to the Desna cleric because I think Luck/Good will give me the ability to Improve the party's overall performance by providing ample re-rolls with "bit of luck" & "Touch of Good" -- I was also wondering if it was worth it to trade my "Good Fortune" to take the Fate Subdomain, as Good fortune only enables me to re-roll my own dice, whereas the Fate power (Tugging strands) would allow me to force enemies to reroll who might be landing a final blow or other badness , and thus enable me to protect the party better.

I am wondering if Luck/Liberty would be better though, as starting with freedom of movement seems spiffy (enabling me to get where I need to be to buff/heal/whatever best) as well as when I get Freedom's call it would help me remedy a whole lot of conditions for the party when needed. 

A downside is the preferred weapons for these gods (dagger or Starknife) seem pretty lousy. If I had my way I'd be using a spiked chain, but I just don't see room for it in a build that one could call optimized. (the reach/adjacent capability seems really great, and I was attracted to the idea of tripping foes to aid the front-line in laying them out) any advice on weapon choice and how far to take them would be richly appreciated -- it would be nice if the above was attainable, or I could still use a reach weapon. I would like to function in melee as well as possible, but I want to spell cast and support the party most of all. If the skill point issue can be navigated I'd like to be able to make all those knowledge rolls to glean info for the party, and our paladin will likely end up being the face of the party, but if my diplomacy and sense motive can be high enough I'd love to be able to play that role as well, or better if logistically possible.

The skills I'd like to have for either build are: Sense motive, Spellcraft, Diplomacy, Heal, Scribe Scroll, and Combat Casting (if people think I will need it)
If I went the Pharasma Route I'd have to be able to pump some or hopefully as many of those knowledges to a level that would be worth it and reliable. Without Knowledge I'd still like to Have Religion and Arcana Knowledge to know (and know how to deal with) Outsiders and Undead.

If you have recommendations for the best traits for the above builds I'd love to hear that too -- it would help me round out the character and save me heaps of research and cross-referencing.

So I have 50 points to spend (which I realize is a lot) and I'd like to be human and be able to wear plate mail (which I realize is not the norm with clerics in pathfinder.) So beyond what your preferences for the above, how would you spec out your stats, what feats do you suggest and in what progression, and any other advice you would be so gracious to render would be infinitely appreciated! It will take me forever to learn enough to "reinvent the wheel" on what some of y'all seem to know front-to-back, and I know with proper counsel my party and I will have a much better time. 

Thank you for your time reading this, and especially if you have a word to throw in the hat. I've done a lot of research before posting here, but an authoritative word is worth weeks of sweat! 

Glad to be here,

Vicon


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## Wycen (Jul 1, 2012)

Before getting too deep into ideas, let me ask for clarification.

You have 50 points to spend on character stats, using the default cost from the book?  Or some other rule?  50 points is a TON.  With that many points for stats you can build whatever the heck you want and almost not worry about feats, etc.


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## Vicon (Jul 1, 2012)

Wycen said:


> Before getting too deep into ideas, let me ask for clarification.
> 
> You have 50 points to spend on character stats, using the default cost from the book?  Or some other rule?  50 points is a TON.  With that many points for stats you can build whatever the heck you want and almost not worry about feats, etc.




The DM says "Let's use point buy method from pages 15 & 16 of the Pathfinder main rulebook." -- So yeah, I think we're talking about the same thing? 

Maybe the party are supposed to be uber-menches or chosen ones or whatnot -- I haven't played with this DM before, nor have I used the pathfinder character creation system before. It seems generous, but it doesn't de-complicate my choices any relating to domains, etc.

I'm also putting Travel on the table as one of the domains for Desna -- so I basically am hoping to get advice on what combination of Luck/Good/Liberty/Travel would be the best to employ.

Also If anybody knows -- what spells, early or late in a build, would be best choices to improve with the "Missionary" trait?


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## Varthol (Jul 1, 2012)

If you do pick Desna pick travel domain at all costs . Liberty has kind of bad spell choices but has an amazing low-level power. Otherwise go with travel and luck.

Great offensive spells for clerics include summoning, enchantment (command, greater command, waves of ecstacy, etc), evocation but at a somewhat later level (flame strike, cold ice strike, etc). Necromancy is a great choice especially when you have an associated domain but skeletal minions probably don't match Desna that much .

But since your feats are limited you can't really focus too much on more than one of these. So think which one fits your character theme better and build on that .


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## milo (Jul 1, 2012)

I have played a cleric of Desna before, I went with the Travel and Liberation domains.  If you go with light armor you move at 40, can ignore difficult terrain, and the freedom of movement from liberation is great.

With 50 points to spend on stats you can have a 16 in Str, Dex, Con, and Wis with a 14 in Int and Cha.  Racial bonus from human into Wis for an 18.


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## Herobizkit (Jul 1, 2012)

Are you permitted to use class variants?

Since the answer in your case isn't Bard, the next best choice is  Inquisitor for being a more martial, skill-savvy, plate-wearing uber-mensch.

Failing that, I'd suggest upping your lore side and taking the  Cloistered Cleric option.  It's not as snazzy as the 3.5 version but focuses on upping your Lore.

Failing that... you're only level 1.  Don't overthink it TOO much.


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## Vicon (Jul 1, 2012)

Its hard not to over think it when I know I'll be pigeon-holed if the character winds up gimped or works really well in the group but is still somewhat un-fun to play.

I'm presently toying with the idea of taking flag bearer as a feat for a free constant buff, maybe use a reach weapon behind the front lines, and thinking about Enchantment/Summoning/Evocation to get the job done... 

What are the best feats to maximize those three spell groups respectively, for a cleric?
What Metamagic feats do you think are essential?

Do I really need to take selective channeling if I want to heal my group with it in combat? can I use my travel abilities to fall back and only get my pals in the AoE? 

Insight appreciated.


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## Ramaster (Jul 2, 2012)

Travel domain is considered by many (myself included) to be a Tier 1 domain. Te vanilla version is the best one, but the sub-domains aren't too bad either. As for the other domain... depending on the party composition (i.e. if you are the only source of healing on a big party) Healing is great too, the Restoration sub-domain is a little better than the vanilla one.

Something I usually do is pick two domains that I like for my character and THEN I check to see if there is any God that has them both. If no one does, I just come up with a new deity that has them.

As for the pointbuy... really, as other people said before, 50 points of standard Pathfinder pointbuy is A LOT. I might suggest going melee, since you can afford a high stating STR score. Mine would look something like this:

STR 20 = 18 +2 (racial) 
CON 14
DEX 14
INT 11
WIS 18
CHA 14

Grab a two handed weapon and break skulls. If you are set on being a human, it might be worth to take a Weapon Prf. feat for a cool two handed weapon, such a Falchion or a Greatsword. Switching your race to half-orc gives you the proficiency with the falcon, but little else, while being a half-elf gives you prof. with any martial/exotic weapon (via Ancestral Arms) and some other cool stuff too (like +2 on perception and the ability to take both elven and human feats). 

Among the good exotic choices, you can get Fauchard (a two-handed with 1d10, crits on an 18 and has both reach and trip) and the most deadly Katana (a handed with 1d8, crtis on an 18 and is, literally, DEADLY).

As for the traits, there are a couple ones (one of them asks that you are an elf, the other is social, I think) that give you a +2 on initiative checks. Going first is valuable with this build, since it lets you buff yourself and close the distance with the enemies before unleashing your deadly full attacks.

The feat is a tricky one, since like rogues; you don't have a BAB of +1 on lvl 1. This prevents you from getting the best combat feats from the get-go. 

If you are concerned about your survivability, Toughness will give you additional HP (plus, taking it on lvl 1 is the optimal moment, if ever), Dodge more AC that applies to the hard-to-get-yet-immensely-useful Touch AC, Improved initiative (especially if combined with the trait) sends you to the first place on the battle order consistently, Combat Casting lets you pull off our spells easily (keep in mind that you will be on the front lines most of the time, with this build), Selective Channeling allows you to heal from the front line and Heavy armor prof lets you further drop your DEX to 12-13 (depending on whether or not you want to take Dodge at some point) and bumps your total possible AC to 10 (9 from the full plate and 1 from dex) compared to 8 (6 for the Breast plate and 2 from dex). As you can see, there is quite a lot of room to maneuver frem here.

Your preferred spells would likely be Buffs for the whole party and yourself. Bless is great on lvl one, so is Divine Favour. On second level you get the all-mighty "+4 to one stat for 10 minutes/levels) spells and Prayer and it just gets better from then on.

The awesome thing about clerics is the amazing flexibility they provide. The ONLY area where they lack a little is on the feat department and the prestige classes.​


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## Traveon Wyvernspur (Jul 2, 2012)

I know you say you want to be human, but I'd suggest going with a Dwarf instead. 

Just look at all their nice racial traits, they work really well for a cleric. You can be magic resistant as an alternate trait if you want to go that route, they get good saves to begin with, can see in the dark, and movement that works really well with the travel domain.  You can wear your full plate mail w/o being encumbered as dwarves can carry heavy loads and their movement is never impaired, though they only have 20ft to start with. This would also give you a bit more con and wis, which would be nice for your cleric to be a bit tougher and have more spells per day. Another thing is that if you go with a dwarf you can use any weapons with the word dwarf in them such as the Dwarven Waraxe or this really cool 2h weapon - the Dwarven Dorn Dergar - which might fit your flavor of someone who can stand back with a chained weapon to trip and hit his opponents at reach instead of wading up to within 5ft melee. 

I agree that travel is one of the best domains and I even suggest looking into following Cayden Cailean as your deity. This way you get a deity that likes drink as much as dwarves usually do, you have access to the travel domain and I'd suggest the Good Domain as well. The good domain gives you some nice spells for protection and some pretty sweet special abilities (note Touch of Good).

As far as feats go, this will depend on what you want to do with your cleric, as your number of feats are limited. Do you want to build a tripping cleric who buffs his allies? Do you want to build a defensive cleric who debuffs his enemies? Do you want to build a cleric who wades into combat and tries to cast while in the fight?

Personally, I like standing back and buffing, debuffing, and healing - but that is my personal preference when I play a cleric. Some people like to wade in as a badass battle cleric who does almost as much damage as a fighter. So you really need to figure out what your style will be because you can't do everything really well, you can do a thing or two really well.


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## Ramaster (Jul 2, 2012)

Traveon Wyvernspur said:


> (...) Another thing is that if you go with a dwarf you can use any weapons with the word dwarf in them such as the Dwarven Waraxe or this really cool 2h weapon - the Dwarven Dorn Dergar




Actually, they just treat them as Martial weapons (as a cleric, you don't get access to those, by default). What they DO get is prof. with the battleaxe, heavy pick, and warhammer, which are ok weapons.

Dwarves are pretty cool, indeed. Slow and Steady means that your speed will be the same as anyone with 30' as a base and medium+ armor. The +2 Wisdom is wicked good, so is the +2 Constitution, for obvious reasons. The thing is that the -2 CHA hurts your channeling and you can't get a +2 STR that human-born characters get (Bloody muggles!).

I must say that, yes, Hardy is probably the most powerful racial feature on the game (the second being, probably, the extra feat humans get).


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## Traveon Wyvernspur (Jul 2, 2012)

Ramaster said:


> Actually, they just treat them as Martial weapons (as a cleric, you don't get access to those, by default). What they DO get is prof. with the battleaxe, heavy pick, and warhammer, which are ok weapons.
> 
> Dwarves are pretty cool, indeed. Slow and Steady means that your speed will be the same as anyone with 30' as a base and medium+ armor. The +2 Wisdom is wicked good, so is the +2 Constitution, for obvious reasons. The thing is that the -2 CHA hurts your channeling and you can't get a +2 STR that human-born characters get (Bloody muggles!).
> 
> I must say that, yes, Hardy is probably the most powerful racial feature on the game (the second being, probably, the extra feat humans get).



That's what I meant with the Dwarven weapons, he wouldn't have to take the exotic weapon proficiency. The main reason I brought it up was because of the Dwarven Dorn Dergar (which would give the OP the flavor he wanted).

I agree, the channeling thing isn't the greatest if he's a dwarf, but he can fix that a bit with the extra channeling feat, which gives 2 additional channels. Lets not forget that Dwarves also get to (as a favored class alternative) select one domain power granted at 1st level that is normally usable for a number of times per day equal to 3 + the cleric’s Wisdom modifier. The cleric adds 1/2 to the number of uses per day of that domain power, which is also pretty nice.


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## Vicon (Jul 2, 2012)

You guys are awesome. This is really great help, and my character has done a lot to take shape as a result of this thread. (When I started the task seemed insurmountable!)

The reasons for dwarf are very compelling, even without the martial weapons, though my personality and characterization-range makes RPing a dwarf kind of a stretch for me. 

I especially like hearing the ideas for feats, and the implication that you can still have fun hanging back buffing and doing support. Medic was my Favorite Class in TF2, so that speaks to me. That idea alone pushes me more in the direction of full caster -- which was a concern of mine. 

I think I'll still go with heavy armor, but do you think it would be a better idea to have a Longspear or a Morningstar and shield as my simple weapon setup? 

I like the idea of being shielded right behind the front line making reach attacks, but the hit to AC w/o a shield makes me wonder. 

The idea of taking reactionary trait and improved initiative +6 init is very appealing also. I'm presently AGONIZING over the other trait I need to take -- I was thinking Deft Dodger (for +1 reflex that I know I'll be lacking) or Missionary, (which I am leery to take because since I haven't tried all the spells I'm not sure which three would be the best to improve -- also, I am not sure if I should pick 3 spells I have or will soon have, or if there are spells way up my progress tree that would benefit the best from the improvements missionary provides... any thoughts on this? (pick three spells that function at +1 caster level, and they have +1 DC -- which I interpret to mean they are one level more effective, and easier to land than they would otherwise be.) 

Thanks again!


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## Traveon Wyvernspur (Jul 2, 2012)

I've always loved the flavor of dwarves personally, but they aren't for everyone. I'm usually the stereotypical binge-drinking guy who likes to crack jokes at the other PC's expenses, then get down and dirty with a good fight against evil doers, I always have my friends' backs and am very loyal. 

Well if you want reach, I'd go with the Spear and poke at the beasties from afar instead of getting up in their grills. This gives you a bit of an added buffer (distance 10 ft) as you would be able to get an AoO off on them if you are using a reach weapon (more AoOs if you took Combat Reflexes, but that's more for a melee-based character). 

Reactionary is a great trait and I'd highly recommend it. Basically the way you want to look at combat is that the casters should be trying to go first to get the buffs/debuffs off and healing topped off at the beginning of the later rounds. 

A couple other good traits to consider:
Exalted of the Society, Cleric - Have to be a member of the Pathfinder Society to get this though so check with your GM.
Birthmark - Can have a tattoo as your holy symbol so you can wield your 2h weapon (spear) and you get added bonus of +2 to some saves.
Glory of Old - If you decide to go dwarf (I LOVE THIS TRAIT = total of +3's on some resistances).

Take a look at some more of the religious traits, they are pretty powerful. Missionary sounds pretty decent, I haven't done that one before though. 

Spells: you want to take things like bless, protection from evil, and things that buff or debuff well. Don't grab any healing spells as you can spontaneously cast a spell you have on hand to cast the healing spells, grab a wand of cure light wounds as soon as you can so that you can save your spells out of combat.

If you need some more advice, I'd look to some of the guides on the Paizo forum site. The forums over there are very active as well.


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