Post/Author/DateTime	Post
eyelessgame 02-25-07, 06:27 PM	My players have just reached third level and choosing their next feats. I'm trying to advise the human cleric on her next feat: she so far has Scribe Scroll and Combat Casting. She is a cleric of Cuthbert with Strength and Destruction domains. It's a party of six, chosen partly because we all wanted to try something a little different (fighter, rogue, druid, monk, sorcerer). She's been enamored of casting Enlarge Person and wading into combat. She owns a wand of Lesser Vigor to cut down on the number of cure spells she has to cast between fights. Wis 16, Str 16, Cha 14. What might be some feat chains to take, now and for the future? Power Attack is a prereq for many other feats -- but she's acutely aware that over time she'll often need not to be in hand-to-hand, and Power Attack actually works better when you have to-hit plusses to burn; she's having more trouble dialing up attack bonus than damage bonus. Besides, as one of the classes that reaches 9th level spellcasting, she feels "wrong" taking a feat that isn't at all magic-oriented. Domain Spontenaeity (for the Strength domain) is on her list but isn't as useful till high levels; ditto for most metamagic. I've told her she might find herself picking a feat that's more useful later than now, but the discussion turned to what eight feats she might want to end up with by the time she reaches 20th level. Suggestions?
Heresy488 02-25-07, 08:25 PM	Divine Metamagic, Maximize she spends turn undead attempts to cast maximized versions of her spells I have this for my Cleric/Church Inquisitor, and it's awesome. I also took Increaed Turning Feat so I can cast maximized spells more often per day. Case in point, our party was about to be ambushed by a dozen equal lvl warriors, and I had my cleric charge in and cast a maximized energy vortex (acid). I opted to do double dmg, and I wiped the whole group out in 1 blast. It was AWESOME! If you don't have the Complete Divine, the gist of the feat is, pick a metamagic ability, and the number of turn attempts spent is equal to the normal spell level adjustment. Like, Maximize increases spell lvl by 3 (a 2nd lvl spell counts as a 5th lvl spell), so using a Maximized spell would use 3 turning attempts. Each time to you take this feat, you can add a different metamagic ability to which to spend turning attempts on. This is a great feat because there aren't alot of undead in the campaign, so I can make use of turning attempts I normally wouldn't have use for.
Flan 02-25-07, 08:31 PM	At 7th level Divine Metamagic + Maximize will mean she'll start one-shotting monsters with assay spell resistance + sound lance. Holy Storm will do 12 damage/round. When we went through Occipitus between the cleric and the wizard all the encounters were ending in 1 or 2 rounds with the melee doing absolutely nothing. Once she gets bolt of glory the combination becomes simply gross, 12 damage/level with no save... things simply dissapear.
eyelessgame 02-25-07, 10:02 PM	Hm. Yah, maybe. Maximize + Divine Metamagic is usable only once per day for her; twice if she gets a +4 CHA cloak and if she never actually has to turn any undead. Is that in fact the best choice?
navar100 02-25-07, 10:11 PM	Divine Vigor is nice. Spending a Turn Undead attempt, she gets increased speed, useful when wearing heavy armor, and temporary hit points for a bit, useful to stay out of a potential death's door for an extra round.
Flan 02-25-07, 10:43 PM	Hm. Yah, maybe. Maximize + Divine Metamagic is usable only once per day for her; twice if she gets a +4 CHA cloak and if she never actually has to turn any undead. Is that in fact the best choice? Eagle's Splendor will give her 2 more turn attempts during it's duration. Night Sticks from Libris Mortis are 7500 GP and give +4 turn attempts/day each and don't need to be equipped. 2 maximizes/day is pretty potent at low levels. By level 10 thats 2 80-point sound lances/day. And turning undead is a practically worthless ability. If they're weak enough to turn, they're weak enough to beat the crap out of without turning.
NiQil 02-25-07, 10:46 PM	If this cleric is the primary healbot of the party, Augment Healing from Complete Divine is always a solid choice as well...you can never go wrong with more healing.
serow_#R 02-26-07, 12:10 AM	Improved Initiative? Divine Vigor?
furious kender 02-26-07, 12:29 AM	For battle clerics, the two strongest DMM builds are DMM: persistent and DMM: quicken. From her build it sounds like quicken is more viable for her. Take quicken and then dmm: quicken at level 6. That way she can get more buffs on herself quicker or get the CC and direct damage going in a hurry if surpised. It also helps out for casting clerics in the higher levels as well even after turns are gone for the day.
Flan 02-26-07, 12:45 AM	For battle clerics, the two strongest DMM builds are DMM: persistent and DMM: quicken. Persistant requires a 3 feat combo and a ton of night sticks. It's not really a viable option at low levels. It's something you retrain to when you're getting closer to 20.
Coridan 02-26-07, 12:53 AM	Augment healing, use Faith's Healing (spell in Complete Divine/Spell Compendium) and make everyone else convert to your god.
eyelessgame 02-26-07, 12:45 PM	Night Sticks from Libris Mortis are 7500 GP and give +4 turn attempts/day each and don't need to be equipped. And turning undead is a practically worthless ability. If they're weak enough to turn, they're weak enough to beat the crap out of without turning. Wow. I don't have Libris Mortis. I agree, that's potent. Given the increased worth of undead turning with all these feats, those are unbalancing items. (7500 to duplicate a clerical feat?) I disagree about it being practically worthless. It's a pretty potent battlefield control power against incorporeals. Turning undead can cut in half the number of shadows or spectres or wraiths the party faces at a time. Stat-draining incorporeals with touch attacks scare the crap out of my players.
crowclub 02-26-07, 02:02 PM	There is always Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack. Allows you to get into-and-out-of combat so you're ready to Heal the needy when necessary. 13 Dex is a must however...
Jaisin 02-26-07, 02:27 PM	Combat Casting? Please, as the DM, for the love of God, let her replace that with Skill Focus (Concentration) if she really wants the bonus to her Concentration Skill. Combat Casting is useful in only two situations: You are casting defensively, or you are grappled. The Skill Focus feat gives +3 all the time, even in these situations, but swings the door wide open for all the other uses of Concentration (like maintaining the ability to cast a spell when an opponent hits you with a readied attack, something Combat Casting doesn't apply to for some unknown reason). Combat Casting is required for some PrC's (who knows why), but it doesn't sound like she's going to be taking any of those PrC's, so its a wasted feat. Scribe Scroll. . . becomes less and less useful as she advances in level, and is heavily dependent on the proper amount of downtime. For instance, at level 7, it will take her 1,008 minutes, or 16.8 hours to scribe 1 level 4 spell at its minimum caster level. It is a better use of time and resources to simply purchase the scrolls that are needed, since she might not have the time later (or now) in the campaign to devote to scribing them. Alternately, it only takes 36 minutes for her to scribe a level 1 spell right now, for 12.5gp and 1 XP. Something she can be doing with her extra time before resting with the spells she didn't use for the day (provided she has time and resources to do so). Ultimately, the feat loses its usefulness around 5th level when it takes many hours to scribe the scrolls for less and less of a benefit. Power Attack becomes a better option when she can cast divine might at 7th level, which increases her BAB to be equal to her character level, and increases her rates of attack as well. Divine Vigor and Augmented Healing are both good, but it doesn't sound like she's playing the Band-Aid often enough for Augmented Healing. A Cleric's feat choice is more forgiving than any other class, as it doesn't really matter - there's really no way to screw up the class or its progression by taking bad feats - the class itself makes up for it. Leadership at 6th level is a GREAT option - have her 1st level followers constantly making scrolls for her each day, and her cohort a wizard to buff her before battle, or a tank that can help protect her while she casts spells. You can't go wrong with Leadership. However, this 3rd level feat choice should be something immediately useful and have long-term usefulness. In order of preference: 1- Divine Vigor 2- Extra Turning 3- Any of the +2 to Saving Throw feats 4- Empower Spell 5- Augment Summoning Remember - 6th = Leadership. Also, open her up to the possibility of using the attack options like Bull Rush and Trip and Overrun during combat. They are especially useful, and mathematically on her side for the cost of an AoO (heavy armor = less chance of that AoO succeeding) for a huge benefit if her party mates are helping out. Hope that helps.
furious kender 02-26-07, 06:54 PM	Persistant requires a 3 feat combo and a ton of night sticks. It's not really a viable option at low levels. It's something you retrain to when you're getting closer to 20. I have made a human DMM: persistent cleric with 2 persists by level 6 without flaws and nightsticks. Cha 16, planning domain, persistent, DMM: persist, extra turning x2. Nightsticks just makes it worse. They are unneeded. However, for this build, quicken + dmm: quicken, divine power, or divine might probably would be better. If going for mid to late game power, quicken +dmm: quicken is the best. I also second leadership if it fits into her rp concept. It is a great and powerful feat.
Heresy488 02-26-07, 08:54 PM	At 7th level Divine Metamagic + Maximize will mean she'll start one-shotting monsters with assay spell resistance + sound lance. Holy Storm will do 12 damage/round. When we went through Occipitus between the cleric and the wizard all the encounters were ending in 1 or 2 rounds with the melee doing absolutely nothing. Once she gets bolt of glory the combination becomes simply gross, 12 damage/level with no save... things simply dissapear. Wow wow wow guys, I just checked Complete Divine and Spell Compendium, all Assay does is increase caster level to overcome spell resist and Sound Lance does 1d8 sonic dmg (max 10d8), so at 10th lvl a Cleric could do 80 dmg. And this is assuming of course that there aren't ppl dying that need the health more! As it stands, my Cleric casts Cure Serious Wounds for maximum health, and that is a heck of a lot more useful to the party especially when we have dps casters present. Holy Storm does 2d6/round to evil ppls (4d6 to evil outsiders). So at the minimum level to cast the spell (lvl 5) that's 2d6 for 5 rounds = 60dmg within a 20ft cylinder extending 20ft high. Bolt of Glory (do you even use the spells out of PHB?) is a 6th lvl spell (Cleric lvl 13) is a ray doing 1d12 (max 15d12) to evil outsiders, undead, and natives to the negative energy plane. All others take 1d12/2 caster lvls, max 7d12. Now at lvl 13, true most enemies are going to be more exotic than kobolds and orcs, but by that time wizards are going to be casting god-knows-what, and suddenly this spell isn't so impressive. The point is, where most classes are hit where it hurts regarding metamagic feats (increased spell level in their prepared spell lists) Clerics can prepare their spells as normal and suddenly maximize it using an ability that is typically forgotten. I mean let's be honest, a Cleric is either going to turn alot of undead, or turn none at all. Utilizing turning attempts for increasing spell potential is incredibly useful.
Flan 02-26-07, 09:44 PM	Wow wow wow guys, I just checked Complete Divine and Spell Compendium, all Assay does is increase caster level to overcome spell resist and Sound Lance does 1d8 sonic dmg (max 10d8), so at 10th lvl a Cleric could do 80 dmg. Assay spell resistance typicall turns a 50% chance of a spell having no effect into a 100% chance. Thats no small thing. By level 10 you will start facing things that will commonly have spell resistance. And this is assuming of course that there aren't ppl dying that need the health more! Um? Combat is over in the first or second round, who the heck is getting hurt? OP asked specifically about the shackled city, I'll give you an example from there. We went through occipitus, after clearing the field of cysts we found the dragon, thanks to it making some saves, it took 2 rounds of sound lances from the wizard and the cleric to kill it, the ranger had just finished cats gracing himself and ended up doing nothing, the barbarian did a leap attack and missed, doing nothing. We finally rested at this point. Next day we came upon the Rakasha and the Fire Giant. The Rakasha exploded into kitty sized chunks from the wizard's assayed empowered sound lance on round 1 (would have been the cleric, but wizard won initiative). The fire giant took a couple hits from a melee than sucked a held maximized + combat casted pair of inflict criticals from the cleric and fell over dead on round 2. Next up was some lich that summoned some monsters. Wizard + cleric sound lanced and it died on round 1 or 2, forget. So, pretty much every combat was 2 rounds or less. The cleric accounted for about as much damage as the wizard, which is to say about half the entire damage the party did. The rogue, ranger and barbarian did... well... nothing but soak XP. Bolt of Glory (do you even use the spells out of PHB?) is a 6th lvl spell (Cleric lvl 13) is a ray doing 1d12 (max 15d12) to evil outsiders, undead, and natives to the negative energy plane. All others take 1d12/2 caster lvls, max 7d12. Now at lvl 13, true most enemies are going to be more exotic than kobolds and orcs, but by that time wizards are going to be casting god-knows-what, and suddenly this spell isn't so impressive. d12 no save isn't impressive? I'm not sure what you're smoking. When a 15th level cleric 1-shots a CR 20 dracolich on the first round of combat, or when Kyuss gets bent over violated by a couple clerics in 2 rounds for the "big dramatic fight" of the age of worms campaign, yeah. Not impressive. :rolleyes: Maximized + Empowered bolt of glory WITH NO SAVE averages 225 damage on undead, devils, demons etc. and it can crit, albeit rarely, for over 500. Quickened + maximized and maximized + empowered = 405 damage in one round with no save. Bolt of Glory is gross, metamagic rods are gross, divine metamagic is gross. Combine them and what do you have? Instant free XP!