Post/Author/DateTime	Post
servingwench 02-28-08, 11:02 PM	I have been out of game for few years, just getting some new books, and starting out with cleric(Ravenloft campain), and the amount of feats and what they do is mind boggling to start with. what would be the first few feats a cleric should take(human) in that campian setting?
dman11235 02-28-08, 11:07 PM	Well, what do you want to do? I'm not familiar with specific setting or campaigns, I only use homebrew settings and campaigns. Not that it should matter. Good practice here is to spell out as much as you can. What your goal with your character is, stats, existing feats, races, levels, and anything else you can think of. We here are not the Psionics board, and as such cannot read your mind. Not that they would be able to either, you need line of effect. Anyway, I'm pretty proficient with the construction of clerics, so give me all the info you can and I can help you out. EDIT: Welcome to the boards, and I do like that you payed attention to spelling.
JulesCARV 02-28-08, 11:09 PM	Ravenloft, eh? Hmm.... what sort of cleric are you playing (domains, alignment, etc), and what sources, if any, do you have beyond core? You can't go wrong with improved initiative :).
dman11235 02-28-08, 11:39 PM	Can't go wrong but can often go better. Well, what is Ravenloft? Undead heavy? Evil outsider heavy? Rabid fluffy bunny heavy?
Donai 02-28-08, 11:44 PM	I'm playing a cleric (8th) at the moment, though I went a bit more of the martial route (War domain for weapon/focus) and quicken turning along with item creation feats (scroll, wondrous,arms/armor) to tweak my gear. I don't really satisfy many prestige classes without giving something up (spellcasting, undead, etc.).. If I were to do it again from scratch I might have prepared to go Radiant Servant of Pelor, which I think is pretty well received for a simple advancement. It's in the Complete Divine, a book I'm not all that thrilled with, unfortunately. Planning for that (I think 7th is the earliest you can do it) would probably do well by starting with Sun and Healing domains, and taking extra turning now since later feats might have tougher prerequisites). Scribe Scroll is nice as well to pack away the utility spells. Just my 2cp.
dman11235 02-29-08, 12:00 AM	My current cleric is level 16, and focusing on party protection. My build: cleric 5/Divine Oracle 2 (gotta love evasion!)/RSoP 9, planning on RSoP 10/contemplative 1 and then getting the Saint template ASAP. The nice things about this build (or any with RSoP) is that my spell slots have been extended in the healing department due to the massive boost in the amount healed. Augment Healing also helps with this, and so does Persist Spell, and Touch of Healing. CDiv, CArc, and CChamp respectively. Ironically, this makes a fantastic melee build for the same reasons.
ciaran 02-29-08, 01:33 AM	The Augmented Healing feat may help your role as medic. It looks like you have the warrior aspect covered.
Aleolus 02-29-08, 02:32 AM	As would the Pool of Healing class alternate in Complete Champion. You give up one 4th level spell slot to gain access to an ability that functions exactly like the Paladin's Lay on Hands class feature, except it has a number of points in it equal to 5 x (1 + your divine caster level). Since you can't get it until seventh level, that's a minimum of 40 points. When it comes to feats, you have a lot of choices. If you're wanting to go the healer/protection route, I would recommend the Protection Devotion feat. Once per day, you can activate an aura, giving you and all allies within 30 feet a +2 Sacred (if non-evil) or Profane (if evil) bonus to their AC, which goes up by 1 for every 4 character levels, cap of +7. You can take it multiple times, gaining extra uses of it, or you can spend Turn/Rebuke uses to power it. Or there's Touch of Healing. If you have a Conjuration (Healing) spell of second level or higher available to cast (which is almost all the time, for good or most Neutral clerics), you can heal 3 points of damage per level of the highest Conjuration (Healing) spell from any creature you touch as a standard action. Only functions when they're below half their max hit points, but still helpful. Spontanious Domains is always useful, allowing you to leave your Domain slots open to fill when you need them, rather than preparing them ahead of time.
PigFiend 02-29-08, 02:53 AM	My last cleric had an interesting tactic. Divine Vigor. It's an actual good feat from Defenders of the Faith. As a standard action, you can expend a turning attempt to instead increase your speed by 10' and gain 2 temp hp/character lvl for 1 min/lvl. Divine Justice from... Players Handbook II, I think. As a swift action, you can expend a turning attempt to 'mark' on foe. When it strikes you in melee, record that amount of damage and then when after that, you next strike it back in melee, you deal either your weapon damage or the amount that was dealt to you, whichever was higher. (You can't mark a new foe that combat until these conditions have been fulfilled.) So, my cleric was chaotic neutral and opted to spontaneously cast inflict spells. According to Skip Williams' on wizards.com, a touch spell attack roll that overcomes not only the touch AC but the standard AC also deals unarmed damage in addition to the spell effect. So my fire and passion cleric would prepare with temporary hit points and faster speed and a spell like produce flame. In combat, he would quickly engage and mark the baddest enemy slugger. He would rage (as per the passion domain ability) to increase his chance to hit and chance of being hit. After taking a solid chunk of damage (to his temporary hp), he would dish the same weapon damage back with his gauntleted fist plus some fire and inflict wounds spell on top of that. KAPOW!
Fireclave 02-29-08, 04:04 AM	Well, what do you want to do? I'll echo this question. Clerics can wear many hats, and need not be limited to a healing role. They cover nearly any role you want them to. Melee combat, ranged combat, tanking, summoning, blasting, party face...if you can think it, the cleric can probably do it. If not right out of the box, someone on this board will know exactly the right feats, varients and prestige classes you would can use to make your character concept to work.
servingwench 02-29-08, 07:58 AM	Ravenloft would be a heavy evil horror campain, meaning, all areas of land have an evil over lord, most people are good people, with bad things always happening to them. think Van Helsiening. Its a low magic item/low cash, and any evil spell cast you have a chance of getting noticed by evil incarnite. Alignment is weird in realm also(creatures have no alignment till they do something bad thing to you). With a 28 point ablity buy, I ended with 12str,10 dex,12con, 10 int,14wis, 12cha. neutral good alignment, (i can't play play a lawful charater to save my life). Domains are healing and destruction(not casting spells from here), long sword is deity weapon. I don't know what it would take to change religon to the sun god in realm, but there is one. As a roll, was thinking turning undead, but undead have bonuses against turning, and my luck so far has been 1-2 on die rolls in 4 attemps. I was making a character that would be able to turn undead, step up to front line, and be good at healing, but i can chage my tactics and go crowd control, or heal/buffs. I had not realized there was so much to building a character in 3.5. Party has Fighter, Monk, Druid, Sorcerer, and an Artifacer from ebberon. with that party mix, maybe heal/buffage.
rjsilverthorn 02-29-08, 08:42 AM	Yeah, in Ravenloft you will likely be better off using those turn attempts to power divine feats. So I have to ask, why are you burning feats for item creation with an artificer in the party? If its for character reasons thats fine, but otherwise I'd just deal with the Artificer for any gear you want, as he'll be able to do it cheaper and he has pretty much no limits on what he can create. There is a PHB2 web enhancement that deals with sharing XP costs for item creation if thats a concern.
servingwench 02-29-08, 09:13 AM	I think artifacter has some knowledge of realm, so he can make items, but so far we are just starting out campain( just hit 3rd level), i was thinking divine feats and retrain with extra turning, and divine vigor, reach, aug heal, but extend and perminent looks good to. ill need to read phb2 for sharing xp, that would be nice. DM has given use the ablity to retrain skills/feats but I will need to pick up PHB2. The few games I have played, I have never made it passed level 13, so im looking for short term high yeilds. If this toon doesn't last long, going to make a warlock, ill most likely need help with that to.
rjsilverthorn 02-29-08, 09:21 AM	I think artifacter has some knowledge of realm, so he can mak items, but so far we are just starting out campain( just hit 3rd level), i was thinking divine feats and retrain with extra turning, and divine vigor, reach, aug heal, but extend and perminent looks good to. ill need to read phb2 for sharing xp, tht would be nice. That would be right here ->http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060526a
Donai 02-29-08, 11:39 AM	Sorry, it looks like a couple people took my post (talking about my martial cleric with item creation feats) as the original poster's. I was just saying what I were to do had I realized how good RSoP looked, though I guess it wouldn't quite be viable in Ravenloft. I've also run into Turn Resistance as well, and it is frustrating with my good bonuses (16 charisma, 5+ ranks in religion for synergy, glory domain) but at least I'm just using free actions with quicken turning to wipe away the easy targets while we eventually take down the vamp by hand.
rjsilverthorn 02-29-08, 11:49 AM	Sorry, it looks like a couple people took my post (talking about my martial cleric with item creation feats) as the original poster's. I was just saying what I were to do had I realized how good RSoP looked, though I guess it wouldn't quite be viable in Ravenloft. I've also run into Turn Resistance as well, and it is frustrating with my good bonuses (16 charisma, 5+ ranks in religion for synergy, glory domain) but at least I'm just using free actions with quicken turning to wipe away the easy targets while we eventually take down the vamp by hand. Whoops, thats the problem with posting from work, can't always take the time to re-read the full thread. Sorry for the confusion there.
dman11235 02-29-08, 02:33 PM	If I were you I'd lower your dex to 8 and unless you REALLY need 3 skill points/level int to 8 as well and put those in wisdom. Also, dump your strength, you don't need it being a healer/buffer. Put that into wisdom to save your int score, and put two points into con. RSoP really helps these types of clerics, letting you use your spell slots for massive buffing and such rather than healing. And the one thing that helps even more is Touch of Healing. Also, the less you have to heal/protect yourself, the more you can heal/protect others. So if possible gaining fast healing would be awesome. Since you are good, and good way to do this would be to become a Saint. +2 LA, but requires massive roleplaying requirements (exalted), and grants some stat boosts (a small amount), wis to AC, immunities to some energies, and fast healing. And some more stuff, but those are the important things. Augment Healing also extends your spell slots, though not as much as Touch of Healing can. But it's worth it. And another thing is Persist Spell. Less time buffing the party means more time that they aren't dying. And more time that you could spend doing other things like melee and spell casting and spell casting suppression (dispel magic is better when used by clerics, due to the fact that the Purification domain (granted by RSoP) gives you +1 CL for abjurations): you can also take various feats to help that if you wish, and debuffing (again: Dispel Magic, and others).
JulesCARV 02-29-08, 04:42 PM	Your ability scores amount to a 22 point buy, but you state that you're using a 28 point buy. Which is correct?
dman11235 02-29-08, 05:04 PM	Good catch Jules, I thought something was off. You could use those spare points to up your Wisdom more.
servingwench 03-01-08, 06:01 PM	sorry, it is a 22 point buy, my bad math, combined with bad english makes make me bad at alot of things. I have a hard time with some things, one is playing a lawful character, two is playing a character with less then average scores. took spell casting prodigy and improved turning at first level, I like to a be able to be ok at alot of things more than being great at one, versitlity would be important in ravenloft.
JulesCARV 03-01-08, 07:18 PM	Divine Vengeance (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/divineFeats.html#divine-vengeance) might be a good feat. If undead are so hard to turn in Ravenloft, in fact, you might consider just giving up on actually turning undead (retrain away improved turning once you get PHB II) in favor of extra turning or the like, and just use your turning attempts for things that don't allow turn resistance.
dman11235 03-01-08, 11:34 PM	You know, Jules, that Divine Might is a strictly better benefit, right? And it applies to any enemy!
JulesCARV 03-01-08, 11:55 PM	You know, Jules, that Divine Might is a strictly better benefit, right? And it applies to any enemy! ??? Servingwench's cleric has 12 charisma. That adds a single point damage to the roll, half of the minimum addition to the roll added by divine vengeance, and 1/7th the average. The cleric also has 12 strength, and thus doesn't meet the power attack feat prerequisite. I fail to see how Divine Might is a "striclty better benefit."
dman11235 03-02-08, 01:13 AM	Doh! I forgot abut that. Yeah, yours is a better feat right now. Generally though, Divine Might is better.