The cleric is an important member of
the team. A party without a cleric has less long-term endurance, and
has a harder time dealing with undead. In addition to providing
support to the rest of the party, a cleric can cover a lot of party
needs.
The Basics of the Cleric
Clerics are primarily a support class.
Their primary role is to make the rest of the party better. Clerics
cast divine spells, which are not affected by the spell failure
chance of armor and shields, but do provoke attacks of opportunity.
Clerics can wear heavy armor and can use shields, so they are often
backup melee fighters.
For all of the builds I talk about
here, you want wisdom to be your highest attribute, since it is
needed for your spells. You'll want charisma to be your
second-highest if you want to be able to turn undead well, but if you
aren't as concerned about undead, then you could put a lower
attribute into charisma.
Playing a Melee Cleric
This is probably the most commonly
played cleric I've seen. This seems like an obvious choice for the
cleric, since they can use heavy armor, they tend to have high AC.
To play a melee cleric, you don't need very high dexterity, because
you'll be better off with the heaviest armor you can afford. For a
melee cleric, you'll want a high constitution. Constitution is more
important than strength for a melee cleric, because you want to be
sure you have enough hit points to survive melee combat. As a
cleric, you are probably the party's primary healer, and if you get
defeated in combat, then the party is going to have trouble. It is
for this reason that I don't advise playing a melee cleric. If you
insist on playing a melee cleric anyway, then you will probably want
to choose the destruction, good, or war domain as one of your domain
choices.
The destruction domain will give you a
once-per-day smite ability. This smite works on any enemy, doesn't
care about the target's alignment. It is not dependent on any of your
attributes. It grants you a +4 bonus on the attack roll and adds
your cleric level to damage.
The good domain simply lets you cast
good-aligned spells at 1 higher caster level. For most of these
spells, that means a slightly longer duration. Some of your most
useful low-level buff spells are good-aligned. Protection from evil
grants the target a +2 deflection bonus to AC and a +2 resistance
bonus to saves against any effect from an evil source, plus it
prevents attempts to possess the protected creature, and suppresses
the effects of charm and compulsion for as long as the protection
spell lasts, regardless of the alignment of the source. It also
prevents any non-good summoned creature from even touching the
protected creature, unless the protected creature attacks or touches
the summoned creature.
(Obviously, if you are playing in a
campaign where you are more likely to fight good creatures rather
than evil, then you will want the evil domain.)
The war domain grants you proficiency
with your deity's favored weapon (if you aren't already proficient
with it) and grants you weapon focus with that weapon. This is a
pretty good benefit, especially since all deities of war in the
Player's Handbook have favored weapons with a base d8 damage, however
Corellon and Heironeous are slightly better choices since they use
the longsword as their favored weapon, which gives you a better
critical range, or if you are a follower of Gruumsh, the longspear
will give you reach, allowing you to mitigate some of the threat to
yourself while you are in combat.
Playing a Ranged Cleric
This is my preferred way of playing a
cleric. This keeps the party healer out of melee combat, where they
are most likely to get themselves killed. You will want your
dexterity to be your second or third priority when assigning your
attributes, which means your dexterity will benefit your AC, and will
provide your attack bonus. Because of this, you don't need heavy
armor, so you will want to take armor that allows you to get the most
benefit from your dexterity. The breastplate is the best choice for
you, if your dexterity bonus is less than +4. A chain shirt is your
best bet if you managed a dexterity of +4. You are already
proficient with crossbows, which is fine for a cleric, but if you are
an elf cleric, then you are already proficient with shortbows and
longbows, so splurge and get a longbow when you can afford it. You
won't be using a shield, since you'll need both hands for your
weapon. As a ranged cleric, your choice of domains are not as
important for combat, so you can choose your domains based entirely
on your party's needs.
Domain Choices
When you create a cleric, you will
choose two domains. You domains give you special powers, and give
you a choice of domain spells. As a cleric, when you prepare your
spells each day, you also choose one spell of each spell level from
one of your two domains.
Travel
Any cleric can benefit from the travel
domain. Its granted power allows you to ignore any movement
restrictions for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric
level. The power itself says “as if you were affected by Freedom
of Movement,” which is a 4th level spell. The spell's
description says you may move and attack normally, even under the
effects of magic which would impede movement, including paralysis.
You automatically succeed on a grapple check to resist or escape a
grapple. You can even move normally underwater, including attacking
with slashing or bludgeoning weapons.
The domain's power says it functions
automatically, as you need it. So, did the enemy troll grapple you?
Just slip out on your turn, or just choose to not be grappled. Were
you paralyzed? Not this turn. Enemy druid cast Entangle? Just walk
through it. For a total number of rounds each day equal to your
cleric level, you ignore all effects that would stop your movement,
and it turns on and off at-will. This is probably the single most
awesome domain power available to the cleric.
Alignment Domains
These domains all allow you to cast
spells of the appropriate alignment at +1 caster level. This isn't
huge, but choosing the law or good domains in most campaigns means
that your protection spells are more effective. Especially good at
low levels.
Elemental Domains
These domains give you the ability to
turn creatures with a certain elemental sub-type the same way you
could turn undead. It also lets you bolster creatures of a certain
elemental sub-type the same way an evil cleric can bolster undead.
The bolstering effect might be the more useful ability here. Summon
a creature, bolster it. Turning creatures of certain types can be
useful, but I'd say this isn't as useful as some other domains,
simply because you don't know how often you will encounter those
creatures. Take one of these domains if you, or your party's druid
or wizard, plans to do a lot of summoning.
Animal and Plant Domains
If your party doesn't have a druid, you
can substitute for the druid. Neat.
Knowledge and Trickery Domains
If your party doesn't have a rogue,
you... still can't substitute for the rogue, but you can get close.
Sun Domain
Once per day, instead of turning
undead, you destroy them. Neat, but not really useful. For the most
part, a turned undead isn't much of a threat anymore, and if you
waste your one use of destruction on undead that are too powerful, oh
well.
Strength Domain
Once per day, you can make the party
barbarian or fighter feel inadequate. This domain does give you
access to some useful spells such as Stoneskin and Bigsby's Hands,
which are spells otherwise only available to sorcerers and wizards.
If your party contains a wizard who specialized and gave up
evocation, you might want this domain just to get the hand spells at
later levels.
Magic Domain
If your party doesn't have a wizard,
you can kind of substitute for the wizard. Well, technically, this
domain lets you use scrolls, wands, and and spell-trigger items as if
you were a wizard of half your cleric level. Some of the domain
spells are useful, but some are pretty pointless.
Luck Domain
Once per day, you can reroll any one
d20 roll you just made. You do have to use this before you find out
if you succeeded. This can be useful, especially if you're in a
save-or-die situation. In fact, you should probably always save this
ability for a situation when failing a save will result in death, or
at least significant drawback that would cause you a lot of damage or
burn a lot of resources to mitigate.
Healing Domain
You cast healing spells at +1 caster
level. Meh. You don't need this.
Death Domain
Just no. Don't ever take this domain.
Even if you're evil. There are better, more useful choices.
The Cleric's Tactics
As a cleric, you should focus more on
preventing the party from taking damage, rather than trying to heal.
If you play your cleric as a healer, you will always be playing
catch-up, and will always be running out of spells. To accomplish
this, you will need to choose the right spells. I shall discuss the
best 1st level spells below. In a later guide, I'll go
over higher-level cleric spells.
Bless
This is a great 1st level
spell. It gives multiple characters a +1 morale bonus on attack
rolls and saves against fear for 1 minute per caster level. Even as
a level 1 cleric, this will last you 10 rounds.
Divine Favor
This spell only affects yourself, and
only lasts for one minute, however it grants you a +1 luck bonus on
all attack rolls and weapon damage, and increases by +1 for every
three cleric levels, up to a maximum of +6. This is good if your
party is lacking in combat ability, but at lower levels, you should
prioritize Bless over Divine Favor, simply because Bless will affect
several characters, and even if you only have yourself and one other
attacker, giving two characters a +1 is better than giving just
yourself a +1. Don't start preparing Divine Favor until about level
6 or so.
Entropic Shield
Use this if you're playing a ranged
cleric.
Magic Weapon
Prepare this at least once a day, every
day, until your party gets their hands on actual magic weapons.
Until then, you give your party's primary fighter a magic weapon for
one minute per cleric level. This not only grants a +1 enhancement
bonus on attack and damage, but since the weapon gains an enhancement
bonus, it bypasses the damage reduction of any creature that is
overcome by magic. Keep in mind, enhancement bonuses replace
masterwork bonuses, so this is best when cast on mundane weapons.
Obscuring Mist
Great defensive spell. Use this to
block off areas of the battlefield. This grants concealment to an
area, making all attacks in that area less likely to hit. Keep in
mind, this works both ways.
Protection
This is probably the best defensive
spell you will have for a long time. Cast this on your party's
primary melee fighter at the start of a big battle. You should
prepare at least one of these every day for the rest of your life.
In part 2 of my cleric guide, I'll discuss most spell options for higher levels, and strategies for spell effects.
