Clerical Help [Archive] - Wizards Community

Clerical Help [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Bat
07-12-07, 08:46 AM I am playing a Dwarven Cleric of Thor with the Weather domain in an upcoming game. My stats are as follows:

STR:14
DEX: 8
CON: 14
INT: 12
WIS: 16
CHA: 10

I am looking for some good feats that aren't Divine Metamagic. Yes, yes, I know, DMM leads to some of the best cleric builds. I'm not really going for the most uber-powerful cleric build of all time. As it is, I'm short on turning attempts (house ruled class says we get 3 + CHA mod; I don't remember what the PHB version says, but regardless, I'm left at 3 turning attempts). I get two feats at first level; a house rule states that if we take an approved flaw at first level, we gain a free feat. I took the Addiction: Alcohol flaw to gain a free feat.

Our DM has also redone some of the more useless feats in the PHB (like Athletic) into what he calls "Traits". We are allowed to swap 1 feat for two traits. He has redone toughness into a trait, and I have replaced one feat with two instances of Toughness. Maybe not the mechanically best use of a feat, but I want my cleric to survive, and, since we're starting at 2nd level, I can't afford heavy armor, and even if I could, I wouldn't have the STR to carry it.

My HP is at 16 (22 with two Toughnesses), my AC is at 15 (scale mail + large wooden shield). Retraining rules are allowed.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a decent way to go with feats? I'm more than willing to entertain the idea of not trading a feat in for the two Toughness traits. I've looked thru Complete Champion, Divine, Mage and Arcane but couldn't come up with any real good ideas outside of DMM. Any suggestions?
Kouk
07-12-07, 10:23 AM I would say not to go with a 6 hp feat, that is just a bad deal unless your retraining is going to be really easy.

You can boost your armor fairly cheaply with a tower shield (if you don't plan on attacking or doing any kind of physical skills, you don't need proficiency to benefit from the AC).

If you are worried about your defense, you could train your INT to 13 and take Combat Expertise, but generally once you start leveling as a Cleric you will be tough enough.

Turning attempts equal to 3 + your CHA modifier is not a house rule, it is the normal rule. You could take Extra Turning from Complete Divine if you want, but if you don't have Divine Metamagic there will not be much of a demand for Turning attempts, 3 should do you for the most part and you can always buy +CHA items to get a couple more.

There are no right or wrong feats, it depends what you want to do with them. If you can elaborate on how your character will be, it would be much simpler than randomly naming feats.
runestar
07-12-07, 10:38 AM How do you plan to play your cleric? Will he be hanging back to heal almost exclusively, or will he be wading into battle and getting in his fair share of knocks? What did you take for your 2nd domain?

A more combat-oriented build might involve taking war domain for free weapon focus, then spending your 2 feats on power attack and cleave. With bless, you shouldn't be faring too badly in combat, and you can always back off and heal if needed.

I am not familiar with pure-healbot builds, never played them (personal dislike).:P
Toloran
07-12-07, 11:30 AM As metioned by someone else, the 6 HP is nice at first level but rapidly becomes useless as you go higher level. As to the other traits, clerics aren't really a "skilled" class so they aren't particularly useful to you and you are better of taking real feats.

For thematic purposes, I suggest the lightning reserve feat from Complete Mage (I forget what it is actually called though) since it boosts your electricity spells and gives you a magical attack that doesn't require casting spells. After that, I suggest taking the "Air Devotion" feat from Complete Champion (It thematically fits with a weather domain so it would be allowed under the domain equivalency rule) since it gives you some protection against ranged attacks (and is generically useful).

Beyond that, it really depends on how you plan on playing your cleric.

Oh yeah, you wouldn't happen to be playing the cleric from here are you? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootscast.html
Bat
07-12-07, 01:06 PM OK, a bit more about how I plan to play my cleric. I want to be able to wade into battle and do something. I don't want to sit back and just be a healbot. My cleric will consider it against his vows to simply sit back in combat, and will almost always be trying to make his way to the front lines.

Runestar - due to the house-ruled class, I only got 1 domain at 1st level. I won't get another until 10th level, and then it has to be one of Thor's domains. I don't remember if war is one of his or not, but I took weather because it fits well with the backstory. Any time there is a thunderstorm, my cleric is sure to be out in it.

Toloran - I did not intend to recreate Order of the Stick's cleric, although I realize this is pretty much what I did. I orginally had him as a human, but my general play-style fits with a dwarf very well, so I changed him. All in all though, I don't intend to play OotS cleric. That was never my intent, it just sort of happened that I ended up with a dwarven cleric of Thor who carries a shield and warhammer.
Nephlite
07-12-07, 02:53 PM OK, a bit more about how I plan to play my cleric. I want to be able to wade into battle and do something. I don't want to sit back and just be a healbot. My cleric will consider it against his vows to simply sit back in combat, and will almost always be trying to make his way to the front lines.

Runestar - due to the house-ruled class, I only got 1 domain at 1st level. I won't get another until 10th level, and then it has to be one of Thor's domains. I don't remember if war is one of his or not, but I took weather because it fits well with the backstory. Any time there is a thunderstorm, my cleric is sure to be out in it.

Toloran - I did not intend to recreate Order of the Stick's cleric, although I realize this is pretty much what I did. I orginally had him as a human, but my general play-style fits with a dwarf very well, so I changed him. All in all though, I don't intend to play OotS cleric. That was never my intent, it just sort of happened that I ended up with a dwarven cleric of Thor who carries a shield and warhammer.

Do you have Complete Champion:
Take a Divine Feat: you can power them with turning attempts for additional uses (the feat workds 1/day + 1 per 3 turns used on it).

Your choices are ones similar to your diety (if you worship one and you do of course).
Air Devotion feat (weather is similar in theme pg 53 says it is):
Boosts your AC by 1 and more if higher level. Duration: 1 minute, Also against missile/thrown weapons you have miss chance to be affected.

Not a hige boost at low levels, but as you level the increase improves. Plus, more AC is always useful. You can activate as swift action so you can wait till you need it and not earlier (low level battles can be more than 1 minute depending in rolls).

I'd asssume Thor has Destruction? Destruction devotion= This works 1/day +1 per turn attempt used: For 1 minute, you can reduce armor or natural armor bonuses to AC by 1 with each hit (after 1 minute is over AC returns to normal). Can be useful against high AC people if you hit.

Just ideas.
Kouk
07-12-07, 03:16 PM If your DM did not also house-rule Thor, according to Deities and Demigods his domains are Chaos, Good, Protection, Strength, War, and Weather, favored weapon is of course, Warhammer.

If you can exchange your first level domain for War, a Warhammer would be a significant boost for you, and the domain spells are fairly geared to a strong offense.
OrionNo9
07-15-07, 02:16 PM Bat,
As for feats for your cleric, if you do not want to go the DMM route, I think you should choose some of the Domain Feats form Complete Champion, and then use your turning attempts to get more daily uses out of these feats.
Lady_Dragon
07-16-07, 04:39 AM If you're not interested in anything that boosts your healing (although the Augment Healing feat in Complete Divine is very nice) or Divine Metamagic, just treat your cleric like a fighter and boost THOSE abilities. Climb the Cleave tree or if you use a shield, maybe go with something like Improved Shield Bash, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, and Shield Charge (allows free trip with shield on a charge, found in Complete Warrior). Tower Shield Profiency would probably go nicely with those feats as well.

ETA: Two-Weapon Fighting works great with those feats too. I forgot to mention that.
Elrond Hubbard
07-16-07, 06:49 PM I know you don't want to be a healbot, but Augment Healing is pretty darn useful even so. Bottom line, you will probably be doing a lot of healing no matter what.

Consider Scribe Scroll, depending on the game. Might be worth it if the DM allows any down time.

Depending on your character's combat style, Tower Shield proficiency might be fun.

Also, you might want to consider tweaking your stats so you have a high enough INT to take Combat Expertise and any other feat in that chain. If you're eventually going the high-AC doorstop route, this could be excellent for you.

If nothing else, I would guess that you would find Improved Initiative to be more useful in the short and long-term than Toughness x2, esp. since you can heal yourself now.
runestar
07-16-07, 11:07 PM Scrap scribe scroll if there is already a wizard in your party. You can always use his feat to scribe your own divine scrolls.:)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Bat 07-12-07, 08:46 AM	I am playing a Dwarven Cleric of Thor with the Weather domain in an upcoming game. My stats are as follows: STR:14 DEX: 8 CON: 14 INT: 12 WIS: 16 CHA: 10 I am looking for some good feats that aren't Divine Metamagic. Yes, yes, I know, DMM leads to some of the best cleric builds. I'm not really going for the most uber-powerful cleric build of all time. As it is, I'm short on turning attempts (house ruled class says we get 3 + CHA mod; I don't remember what the PHB version says, but regardless, I'm left at 3 turning attempts). I get two feats at first level; a house rule states that if we take an approved flaw at first level, we gain a free feat. I took the Addiction: Alcohol flaw to gain a free feat. Our DM has also redone some of the more useless feats in the PHB (like Athletic) into what he calls "Traits". We are allowed to swap 1 feat for two traits. He has redone toughness into a trait, and I have replaced one feat with two instances of Toughness. Maybe not the mechanically best use of a feat, but I want my cleric to survive, and, since we're starting at 2nd level, I can't afford heavy armor, and even if I could, I wouldn't have the STR to carry it. My HP is at 16 (22 with two Toughnesses), my AC is at 15 (scale mail + large wooden shield). Retraining rules are allowed. Does anyone have any suggestions for a decent way to go with feats? I'm more than willing to entertain the idea of not trading a feat in for the two Toughness traits. I've looked thru Complete Champion, Divine, Mage and Arcane but couldn't come up with any real good ideas outside of DMM. Any suggestions?
Kouk 07-12-07, 10:23 AM	I would say not to go with a 6 hp feat, that is just a bad deal unless your retraining is going to be really easy. You can boost your armor fairly cheaply with a tower shield (if you don't plan on attacking or doing any kind of physical skills, you don't need proficiency to benefit from the AC). If you are worried about your defense, you could train your INT to 13 and take Combat Expertise, but generally once you start leveling as a Cleric you will be tough enough. Turning attempts equal to 3 + your CHA modifier is not a house rule, it is the normal rule. You could take Extra Turning from Complete Divine if you want, but if you don't have Divine Metamagic there will not be much of a demand for Turning attempts, 3 should do you for the most part and you can always buy +CHA items to get a couple more. There are no right or wrong feats, it depends what you want to do with them. If you can elaborate on how your character will be, it would be much simpler than randomly naming feats.
runestar 07-12-07, 10:38 AM	How do you plan to play your cleric? Will he be hanging back to heal almost exclusively, or will he be wading into battle and getting in his fair share of knocks? What did you take for your 2nd domain? A more combat-oriented build might involve taking war domain for free weapon focus, then spending your 2 feats on power attack and cleave. With bless, you shouldn't be faring too badly in combat, and you can always back off and heal if needed. I am not familiar with pure-healbot builds, never played them (personal dislike).:P
Toloran 07-12-07, 11:30 AM	As metioned by someone else, the 6 HP is nice at first level but rapidly becomes useless as you go higher level. As to the other traits, clerics aren't really a "skilled" class so they aren't particularly useful to you and you are better of taking real feats. For thematic purposes, I suggest the lightning reserve feat from Complete Mage (I forget what it is actually called though) since it boosts your electricity spells and gives you a magical attack that doesn't require casting spells. After that, I suggest taking the "Air Devotion" feat from Complete Champion (It thematically fits with a weather domain so it would be allowed under the domain equivalency rule) since it gives you some protection against ranged attacks (and is generically useful). Beyond that, it really depends on how you plan on playing your cleric. Oh yeah, you wouldn't happen to be playing the cleric from here are you? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/ootscast.html
Bat 07-12-07, 01:06 PM	OK, a bit more about how I plan to play my cleric. I want to be able to wade into battle and do something. I don't want to sit back and just be a healbot. My cleric will consider it against his vows to simply sit back in combat, and will almost always be trying to make his way to the front lines. Runestar - due to the house-ruled class, I only got 1 domain at 1st level. I won't get another until 10th level, and then it has to be one of Thor's domains. I don't remember if war is one of his or not, but I took weather because it fits well with the backstory. Any time there is a thunderstorm, my cleric is sure to be out in it. Toloran - I did not intend to recreate Order of the Stick's cleric, although I realize this is pretty much what I did. I orginally had him as a human, but my general play-style fits with a dwarf very well, so I changed him. All in all though, I don't intend to play OotS cleric. That was never my intent, it just sort of happened that I ended up with a dwarven cleric of Thor who carries a shield and warhammer.
Nephlite 07-12-07, 02:53 PM	OK, a bit more about how I plan to play my cleric. I want to be able to wade into battle and do something. I don't want to sit back and just be a healbot. My cleric will consider it against his vows to simply sit back in combat, and will almost always be trying to make his way to the front lines. Runestar - due to the house-ruled class, I only got 1 domain at 1st level. I won't get another until 10th level, and then it has to be one of Thor's domains. I don't remember if war is one of his or not, but I took weather because it fits well with the backstory. Any time there is a thunderstorm, my cleric is sure to be out in it. Toloran - I did not intend to recreate Order of the Stick's cleric, although I realize this is pretty much what I did. I orginally had him as a human, but my general play-style fits with a dwarf very well, so I changed him. All in all though, I don't intend to play OotS cleric. That was never my intent, it just sort of happened that I ended up with a dwarven cleric of Thor who carries a shield and warhammer. Do you have Complete Champion: Take a Divine Feat: you can power them with turning attempts for additional uses (the feat workds 1/day + 1 per 3 turns used on it). Your choices are ones similar to your diety (if you worship one and you do of course). Air Devotion feat (weather is similar in theme pg 53 says it is): Boosts your AC by 1 and more if higher level. Duration: 1 minute, Also against missile/thrown weapons you have miss chance to be affected. Not a hige boost at low levels, but as you level the increase improves. Plus, more AC is always useful. You can activate as swift action so you can wait till you need it and not earlier (low level battles can be more than 1 minute depending in rolls). I'd asssume Thor has Destruction? Destruction devotion= This works 1/day +1 per turn attempt used: For 1 minute, you can reduce armor or natural armor bonuses to AC by 1 with each hit (after 1 minute is over AC returns to normal). Can be useful against high AC people if you hit. Just ideas.
Kouk 07-12-07, 03:16 PM	If your DM did not also house-rule Thor, according to Deities and Demigods his domains are Chaos, Good, Protection, Strength, War, and Weather, favored weapon is of course, Warhammer. If you can exchange your first level domain for War, a Warhammer would be a significant boost for you, and the domain spells are fairly geared to a strong offense.
OrionNo9 07-15-07, 02:16 PM	Bat, As for feats for your cleric, if you do not want to go the DMM route, I think you should choose some of the Domain Feats form Complete Champion, and then use your turning attempts to get more daily uses out of these feats.
Lady_Dragon 07-16-07, 04:39 AM	If you're not interested in anything that boosts your healing (although the Augment Healing feat in Complete Divine is very nice) or Divine Metamagic, just treat your cleric like a fighter and boost THOSE abilities. Climb the Cleave tree or if you use a shield, maybe go with something like Improved Shield Bash, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, Improved Trip, and Shield Charge (allows free trip with shield on a charge, found in Complete Warrior). Tower Shield Profiency would probably go nicely with those feats as well. ETA: Two-Weapon Fighting works great with those feats too. I forgot to mention that.
Elrond Hubbard 07-16-07, 06:49 PM	I know you don't want to be a healbot, but Augment Healing is pretty darn useful even so. Bottom line, you will probably be doing a lot of healing no matter what. Consider Scribe Scroll, depending on the game. Might be worth it if the DM allows any down time. Depending on your character's combat style, Tower Shield proficiency might be fun. Also, you might want to consider tweaking your stats so you have a high enough INT to take Combat Expertise and any other feat in that chain. If you're eventually going the high-AC doorstop route, this could be excellent for you. If nothing else, I would guess that you would find Improved Initiative to be more useful in the short and long-term than Toughness x2, esp. since you can heal yourself now.
runestar 07-16-07, 11:07 PM	Scrap scribe scroll if there is already a wizard in your party. You can always use his feat to scribe your own divine scrolls.:)