Post/Author/DateTime	Post
TWG_Prometheus 01-16-08, 02:31 PM	I hadn't thought to start any new characters since the end of the campaign was announced, but some of the players in my area are wanting to run more of the Greyhawk Ruins modules as well as some of the lower-APL adapted adventures that are coming out and I wouldn't mind doing them myself. Our local supply of characters that can use even a CLW wand in that APL range has been drying up, however, as other characters advance onward. So...I decided to make a Cleric. I considered going with a Battle Cleric melee route, but I've seen that done enough to suit my tastes. (If I did decide to go back to the Battle Cleric notion, I've got a Cleric of Norebo concept to fit the Greyhawk theme.) I've also seen Clerics that are really quite decent at healing (even without going Radiant Servant) but that were largely useless for anything else...not attractive to me. So, I started considering a caster-type Cleric that would try to maintain some sort of spell-based offense. At the same time I have to conserve spell resources in order to fill the basic healer role, or I might as well use my Hexblade/Bard/Centaur/whatever. The Cleric's spell list in the early tiers is pretty poor for offensive material, so I checked out the Domain spell lists, and the only one that really stood out was Fire. It starts with Burning Hands and Produce Flame, both spells that I consider to be quite solid at lower levels. After a weak 3rd level slot, it kicks up to Wall of Fire, a spell that I really like but rarely get to toy with. Since i intend to be using Fire domain spells heavily for the Cleric's domain spell slots, I'm primarily considering the granted domain power when selecting the second domain. There are a couple of interesting options, but if I had to choose it right now, I'd probably be looking at a Cleric of Moradin with Fire/War. While I don't want to end up making a Battle Cleric necessarily, a little Martial Weapon Proficiency never hurt anyone, and sometimes fire just doesn't work. Concept Build: Home: Domain of Greyhawk Dwarven Cleric of Moradin (Single-Classed Cleric) Domains: Fire and War Str 14, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 6 1st level feat: Improved Turning (for the fire elementals), Improved Initiative, or Improved Toughness 3rd level feat: Fiery Burst or Craft Wondrous Item 6th level feat: Fiery Burst or Craft Wondrous Item I don't know that this Cleric could make it to 9th, so that's as far as I'm planning at the moment. I definitely want the build to be effective at early levels because that's the only reason I'm making him. I like the Fiery Burst feat because it will let me convert my domain fire spells (Produce Flame at 3rd-6th and Wall of Fire at 7th+) into a reliable offense that he can use on any round that the party doesn't need him for support activities and that won't consume spell resources. The problem with Fiery Burst, and the thing that makes me hesitate in regard to it, is that I'm not certain if the feat will provide enough kick to both get rid of the feeling that he isn't contributing to the party's offense and to justify holding on to Produce Flame/Wall of Fire when I could instead be casting them. Even if I make it to 7th level, Fiery Burst is only 14 damage/Reflex Half. The Moradin/War Domain aspect isn't needed at all to make the rest of the concept work, however...only the Fire Domain, so I have a lot of options still. I could go Nola/Sun or Obad-Hai/Plant, for instance. Any thoughts?
JamesMaissen 01-16-08, 04:00 PM	The Moradin/War Domain aspect isn't needed at all to make the rest of the concept work, however...only the Fire Domain, so I have a lot of options still. I could go Nola/Sun or Obad-Hai/Plant, for instance. Any thoughts? If you are going to only have 1 turn attempt I would not purchase feats to augment it. Even then I would never count on elemental turning. As it's based on HD I tend to call it mephit turning. Plant domain is very powerful. Entangle is huge when you're out of doors, and barkskin is a rare buff unless there is a druid at the table. Even if there is a druid they are hard pressed on their 2nd level slots. Clerics though first have to suit their players. Give a bit more thought to what you are wanting here and what you are willing to sacrifice. Spontaneous domain casting (either via feat & turn attempts, or via alternate class feature instead of curing) is something to strongly consider. I would lock down craft wondrous items as your 3rd level feat. When you've seen pearl 1s you can then handle most of the downtime healing through pearls. It will also let you augment the rest of your 1st level spells and the party wizard should it matter. Mainly it lets you have healing without investing much into it. Healing during combat will still be an issue and you should supply it to some extent. Main thing is to go with what suits you though, James
MwaO 01-16-08, 04:37 PM	One of the things I think makes a lot of sense for an offensive cleric to do is to take Spontaneous Domain Caster as the alternate class feature then take Spontaneous Healer. That lets you do the emergency in combat healing while doing damage at will. You can then pick up Domain Spontaneity as your next choice, allowing a wide range of spells at will without requiring a lot of turning attempts.
TWG_Prometheus 01-16-08, 04:37 PM	If you are going to only have 1 turn attempt I would not purchase feats to augment it. Even then I would never count on elemental turning. As it's based on HD I tend to call it mephit turning. Oh...right. I'd forgotten in the process of drawing all of this out that turning attempt counts got so low when your Charisma dropped. That's likely an artifact of when I was toying with a non-Dwarf fire Cleric. That's OK, though...Improved Toughness and Improved Initiative are both quite competitive for the same feat slot. I spent a bit considering whether CWI would be worth it over Fiery Burst at 3rd level if I hadn't seen crafting access for Pearls of Power by that point, but I think it still does. If nothing else, I could make inexpensive Gauntlets of Ogre Strength without having to worry about the gold loss when I sold them back later on, and that'd be a big boost for any Fighter-types I'd have around. I like the Plant domain a lot as well, and it might be a good choice for the 2nd level domain spell slot as the character gets higher in level. In the 3rd to 6th level range, however, I'd need Produce Flame to either support the Fiery Burst strategy or just to give my Cleric the offensive spellpower I'm looking for.
UMiskatonic 01-16-08, 06:46 PM	I like the Moradin Fire/War combo. a) Moradin likes to forge things. Forges require fire. Forges produce the things of battle. It's conceptually strong. b) I'd take Firey Burst at 3rd, because there isn't a whole lot that you can craft from levels 3-6. While pearls are nice, you won't need them as badly with firey burst, since you'll generally have spells left over. c) Contribute to combat? Throw fire if it's far, but remember you're a dwarf with a waraxe when it's close. Just smash it to pieces. I'd consider Power Attack as a feat somewhere down the line. d) For a guy with a big con and full plate, who can also heal himself, improved toughness seems like a huge waste. e) Imp. Initiative is also a sub-par choice, you'll be fine going last, and your dex will prevent you from being really quick. f) ask your usual judge if produce flame works with iterative attacks and rapid shot. It should, in my opinion. We have a druid archer in our group that does wonders with this spell, and remember it can be empowered too. Have fun with my 2cents Rudy
TWG_Prometheus 01-17-08, 03:11 PM	c) Contribute to combat? Throw fire if it's far, but remember you're a dwarf with a waraxe when it's close. Just smash it to pieces. I'd consider Power Attack as a feat somewhere down the line. d) For a guy with a big con and full plate, who can also heal himself, improved toughness seems like a huge waste. e) Imp. Initiative is also a sub-par choice, you'll be fine going last, and your dex will prevent you from being really quick. c) Just a minor point...Moradin's favored weapon is a warhammer. d) I disagree. A casting Cleric shouldn't be taking as much damage as most of the frontliners in the party, but they do take damage. If a Cleric has to heal others in combat, it means that it's probably a tough fight. If they have to use a standard action heal themselves while a fight is ongoing, something has gone horribly wrong. Having a large HP buffer so that you don't have to heal yourself in the middle of a fight is a good thing. e) Again, I disagree. Many Clerics say that they have problems finding things to do if they go before the enemy and their allies aren't hurt. In my experience, however, that's the perfect opportunity to use a buff spell...Bless or Magic Circle against Evil or Shield of Faith. Making a Cleric that's interested in casting Burning Hands or Produce Flame only makes them more hungry for standard actions. If you have Fiery Burst, you'll almost never have a dead action so going earlier is a great thing.
Istaran 01-17-08, 05:58 PM	Fiery burst gets even better when you have domain spontenaiety, as you then just need to keep a high enough level spell of any kind open to use it. At level one prep lesser vigors in most of your 1st level slots and spont. cast burning hands when you want to. Quickly get a hold of a clw wand and your need to prep healing will diminish. Keep in mind, too, that spont domain casting will mean you will want your second domain to have useful spells to prep. You're making a DoG character; might as well use that extra alt-class feature option while you've got it. (btw, I have a DoG cleric w/ spont Strength domain casting. I've never missed spont healing, and no one ever complains about the free-flowing Bull's Strengths.)
Iswald 01-18-08, 11:26 AM	That's OK, though...Improved Toughness and Improved Initiative are both quite competitive for the same feat slot. Oook. When I was into Neverwinter Nights, I used to joke that I'd rather let my character die than waste a feat on toughness. Of course, I could always reload my last save too. ;) Now, you can at least retrain it later. But, there are so many feats that will let you do more things that it really is a waste to take either toughness or improved toughness. I tend to place my dwarven cleric behind the tank or behind and to the side in battle. Near enough that I can heal if needed or make some attacks with a reach weapon if nothing else is going on. There are undoubtedly some occasions where it would have helped to have a few more HPs. But, he's managed to survive so far, 12th level. Try to keep your cleric from becoming the primary target so that he doesn't get hit. Using some tactical skill will let you pick a different feat. I'm sure that many people will deride this suggestion. However, if you are going to be taking a cleric into melee range and casting spells at low levels, then skill focus [concentration] and combat casting are not bad options. They only become problematic at high levels where they don't matter. Improved initiative is not a bad choice for a casting cleric. You can either cast an offensive spell or buff the party in the first round if you go before everyone else. There are fighter types who will delay for a haste spell. Getting some other kind of buff (bless, prayer, recitation) before that is beneficial. Heck, even doing insignia of healing after the box text attacks you isn't bad either. Then again, my cleric mainly does buffing and healing. The last few levels, he's started to pick up offensive spells since there aren't wizards around to fill that role (being weird wizard/melee multiclassed freaks ;) ). If you do indeed make this character for the Greyhawk Ruins mods, then picking Spontaneous Domain Caster as the alternate class feature along with Spontaneous Healer is a very good idea.
Timlagor 01-18-08, 01:27 PM	Pretty certain you don't qualify for Improved Toughness at 1st level (doens't it require base Fort +3?) Augment Healing would be a good idea if you plan to heal much. I wouldn't take Fiery Burst. It looks very weak to me though I can see the attraction at very low levels.
MwaO 01-18-08, 01:33 PM	I wouldn't take Fiery Burst. It looks very weak to me though I can see the attraction at very low levels. The one nice element of Fiery Burst to me is a Cleric Cohort-type who is either: Casting a buff Healing the party Casting some sort of "In case of Emergency, cast spell X" And often doesn't really have any of those as necessary options. At that point, tossing a 3d6-5d6 Fiery Burst might not be worldchanging, but it saves the player of the cohort from having to keep track of the cohort.
magebeast 01-18-08, 02:03 PM	I wouldn't take Fiery Burst. It looks very weak to me though I can see the attraction at very low levels. I have a caster cleric friend who uses it to great effect. We tend to run caster heavy lately and we're at sort of a weird point where we haven't quite reached totally inexhaustible resources so he tends to use it on mooks and the like in order to avoid burning up all our resources on small encounters. Being able to throw 5d6 fire damage just whenever may not be really powerful but isn't awful either. He also tends to double as our tank, so it gives him a source of damage to keep them focused on him that doesn't require him to swing with his abysmal strength or risk not quite making the concentration check on a spell.
UMiskatonic 01-18-08, 04:17 PM	I think this comes down to how you plan to play the character. IF you want to contribute to party success, then many of the options above are valuable. IF you would rather be more of a self-sufficient character, your needs and therefore build should change. ----------------------------------------------------------- I would also remind you that the first option is more powerful, as long as your allies are competent. If you play with the same people a lot, it's more useful still. If you play with tactically weak players, or people you don't know, or muster a lot of strange tables with halfling barbarians and bard/druids, then I'd go with the second option.
TWG_Prometheus 01-21-08, 04:05 PM	Pretty certain you don't qualify for Improved Toughness at 1st level (doens't it require base Fort +3?) I remember the prerequisite being base Fortitude save +2, but I'll check.
MatteBlack 01-22-08, 02:56 AM	If you are going to only have 1 turn attempt I would not purchase feats to augment it. Even then I would never count on elemental turning. As it's based on HD I tend to call it mephit turning. If you are looking for something useful but different look into what the elemental turning can actuall turn. It's more than just elementals, it can also turn many giants and dragons. You don't have to go whole hog, straight cleric levels and a 12 CHA can pay off. If you want to take it a bit further some spend feats, raise the CHA and take Obad-hai and fire and either air or earth to turn/rebuke all 4 elements and undead as usual.
JamesMaissen 01-22-08, 03:07 PM	If you are looking for something useful but different look into what the elemental turning can actuall turn. It's more than just elementals, it can also turn many giants and dragons. But in 3.0 turning is based off of HD. If it were based off of CR it might be useful. But when are you going to see a DRAGON with less HD than you? Or even close? -James
magebeast 01-22-08, 04:25 PM	But in 3.0 turning is based off of HD. If it were based off of CR it might be useful. But when are you going to see a DRAGON with less HD than you? Or even close? -James This is really the issue. If elemental turning was affected by all the turn-enhancing feats, it might be worth it at that point.
MatteBlack 01-23-08, 12:28 AM	But in 3.0 turning is based off of HD. If it were based off of CR it might be useful. But when are you going to see a DRAGON with less HD than you? Or even close? -James First off, you can get 3 levels over with a good roll and occasionally you will find yourself above the APL. That makes one or two over worth the try. I have actually played encounters where there were a pair of dragons that were 1 level up (my character wears their heads as trophy gauntlets) and they were a tough fight that could have been helped greatly by turning just one of which both were mathematically possible for a character at APL. Even if it only sends a few grunt types packing in a big fight, that can be a big help.
JamesMaissen 01-23-08, 03:30 AM	First off, you can get 3 levels over with a good roll and occasionally you will find yourself above the APL. That makes one or two over worth the try. Let's compare a Red Dragon's HD to it's CR. Age category CR; HD Wyrmling 4; 7 very young 5; 10 young 7; 13 juvenile 10; 16 young adult 13; 19 adult 15; 22 mature adult 18; 25 old 20; 28 very old 21; 31 ancient 23; 34 wyrm 24; 37 great wyrm 26; 40 So as you see it's on average about 6 HD over it's CR in the mid-levels. So assuming that you're fighting an APL+0 encounter with a Dragon (or more likely an APL+2 encounter with a pair of them) you would need to be 2 levels over APL and roll a modified 22 turn check to get it (and likely would only get 1 of them in a paired encounter). And honestly at that point the dragon is better off running away from you. Moreover you likely have better actions to do to the poor thing. -James
MatteBlack 01-23-08, 11:26 AM	Clearly there are more powerful combos. The OP didn't appear like he would be going much beyond APL 8. I find elemental-based turning fun and useful enough through the first 10 levels or so.
JamesMaissen 01-23-08, 03:48 PM	Clearly there are more powerful combos. The OP didn't appear like he would be going much beyond APL 8. I find elemental-based turning fun and useful enough through the first 10 levels or so. I just wanted to make sure that in the last year of the campaign he didn't build something thinking it was going to do something else... I've seen enough people disappointed by how elemental turning works out to at least give a heads up. If he's happy with how the numbers look that's awesome. But if he didn't really look through the numbers, then he could have a big disappointment ahead of him. -James
copperwyrmling 01-23-08, 05:38 PM	Clearly there are more powerful combos. The OP didn't appear like he would be going much beyond APL 8. I find elemental-based turning fun and useful enough through the first 10 levels or so. I have a 15th-level cleric with the Fire domain and I think I've used it four times in her entire adventuring career. It was a good use of the action two times out of four. That's not a good record, and I wouldn't recommend the tactic to a new player. She has never fought a [Water] creature, and probably less than ten encounters with [Fire] creatures in ~100 ARs. They're just not that common. (The two times it was useful were both at APL 6. The first time she managed to Command two magmins, and we sent them ahead as scouts / trapspringers for the rest of the adventure. The second time she rebuked a salamander, which was about 1/3 of the encounter.)
TWG_Prometheus 01-23-08, 05:50 PM	Clearly there are more powerful combos. The OP didn't appear like he would be going much beyond APL 8. I find elemental-based turning fun and useful enough through the first 10 levels or so. No, I don't envision taking the character above level 8 to 9 or so. He might participate in Expedition to Castle Greyhawk at the top end, but that's it. I also don't see the need to take a Cleric into the 'more powerful combos' category even though I'm quite aware that there are some out there. A baseline Cleric is plenty strong enough even without Domains or Feats if you don't botch up your spell selection. In regard to the Fire Domain granted ability, I've created the character now going with the Moradin War/Fire combination discussed earlier. I used a Fire Rebuke in his first game, trivializing the entire encounter before anyone else got to act. It's amusing what the dice can do to a game sometimes.
JamesMaissen 01-23-08, 08:52 PM	I also don't see the need to take a Cleric into the 'more powerful combos' category even though I'm quite aware that there are some out there. A baseline Cleric is plenty strong enough even without Domains or Feats if you don't botch up your spell selection. Clerics can be strong and can survive fairly well with suboptimal domains or feats. I just wanted to make sure you didn't think you were buying something other than what you're getting. That can be very frustrating and it builds as time passes. -James
Hariman 01-28-08, 02:18 AM	Clerics can be strong and can survive fairly well with suboptimal domains or feats. I just wanted to make sure you didn't think you were buying something other than what you're getting. That can be very frustrating and it builds as time passes. -James Like a Kobold Cleric with STR 12 and both the Magic and Strength Domains? Personally, I say if you want to play a cleric with the Fire and War domains (or fire and another domain), go for it. Although my personal thought on the build would be to drop intelligence and dex by 2 each and use the extra points to bump up either Strength or Wisdom. With Strength 16 you'll have that much easier of a time jumping into melee. Alternatively, wisdom 16 is nice to have right off of the starting line. I wouldn't worry much about turning anything. You're unlikely to encounter a massive amount of fire subtype creatures. AND the majority of undead (beyond mook skeletons and zombies) have turn resistance and possibly items and terrain that makes it harder to turn them. Just carry a scroll of Eagle's Splendor to add a little to your turning if you need it.