4e Making a Core Cleric

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:22 pm

I'm kinda being forced into playing a 4e game and I chose to play a laser cleric. Because, you know, somebody needs to keep the party alive. The other players are mostly unknown but we'll probably have an Archer Ranger and an Orbizard if I have anything to say about it.

We play FR, PHB 1 and 2 only (not even Player's Guide to Faerun) and no errata.

Keeping that in mind I'm going for a human with Lance of Flame, Sacred Flame, Righteous Brand, Cause Fear and Beacon of Hope. My Feats are, um, nothing good that I could find. Weapon Focus and Weapon Proficiency in Warhammer or something.

On the other hand, how much worse is the muscle cleric at healing anyway? Maybe I should go Dragonborn on people's ass.

I've read the Wonder Twins and Shau's Divine Power review so I'm kinda aware of what I should be choosing. All I know about Orbizards is Lago's All You Need To Know:

You are a Gnome. You have Orb Mastery. Your at-wills are Cloud of Daggers and Ray of Frost. Your Daily is Sleep. You have another known spell but t doesn't matter what it is because you will never ever prepare it.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:50 pm

First question: what books/programs are you using to build your character, if you're using the character builder what's the date of the latest build, and what's your group's policy on errata?

I can't meaningfully answer any of those questions until you do. But right now it sounds like you're playing a core-only game.

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 3:56 pm

I am using a copied character sheet from the PHP1 and a pencil. And their opinion on errata is that they are not needed/wanted. I guess that bones us on skill challenges but I also got the impression they nerfed a lot of stuff so... yay?

I might get them to approve of errata if it is all that important but I'd rather not. We will not be using the character builder regardless.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 6:38 pm

The errata seems like it is completely not worth it. I don't even know what the game is like once you try to incorporate errata and it would be a titanic undertaking to include some but not all in an agreeable and sensible manner.

My understanding for core clerics is doing something like Righteous Brand to hit and give bonuses to other people attacking, and multiclass to fighter to use their nice daily attack.

Long ago there were threads on here with 4e cleric builds which are probably germane since that was before most errata had reared its ugly head. I disdained such discussions largely because a hefty amount of character efficiency hinged upon getting the Right™ items to stack bonuses or some crap, but there is likely a fair amount of gold to be sifted out of them if someone can direct ya to em.

[edit: oh snap, you already have the threads linked... doesn't that mostly cover things for ya then?]

shau · Post by **shau** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:12 am

What level are you starting at?

Being a low level laser cleric before divine power is pretty discouraging, although on the plus side you get to apply healer's lore to everything if there is no errata. You spend most of your time firing your at will and every time you do that you are going to have to compare yourself to someone with a real class and feel really small in the pants. Your big deal is the ability to drop two healing words a combat but even then you have to use your crap at will. Your other special deal is healer's word, which is going to give let you heal an eight to to ten extra hp a battle. Now, honestly by 4e standards that is crazy awesome, but it is going to take a while for your expectations to get so low that it feels that way. Your other possible cool trick is cause fear, which can do crazy go nuts damage if you set up attacks of opportunity, but its harder to actually do that than it sounds on paper. Your daily power is pretty shit, but it doesn't matter because you will never actually use for fear you will need it later. You also have to be a human or something, because the Wis/Cha race you need isn't out.

Being a strength cleric at low levels is actually a lot better, especially from a healing perspective. Don't go dragonborn, you want to be that strength/Wis furry race. Wisdom will come up much more than charisma. Put eighteens in strength and wisdom and make charisma your third or even fourth stat after dexterity. You'll spend most of your time with righteous brand, which will give plus four to hit to your best damager. Your healing word is just as strong as a laser cleric's, unless they put a full 20 in wisdom. You also have an encounter power that gives another heal, so you basically have 50 percent more healing per battle over the laser cleric. Even if you dump wisdom, that still puts you way ahead. Sweetening the deal is the fact you have feats available that you may actually want to take, like the ones that improve weapon damage. At level seven you get an area based healing encounter power a full six levels before a laser cleric. However, sometime after level 13 you fall behind due to a combination of the fact that a laser cleric is investing more into his wis score and the fact WotC decided to stop[ giving you good powers.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:07 am

Personally, if I was playing a core-only cleric I would never go laser-cleric. You're a drag on the party because your damage is so low and you don't have any crazy-go-nuts healing powers. Divine Power completely turns this situation around, but if it's just core?

Ehhhh. My recommendation: Go STR/WIS, with a Bugbear. Your stats should look like: STR: 18 CON: 13 WIS: 16 DEX: 13 CHA: 10 INT: 8. Righteous Brand is your money-maker.

Your feat progression looks something like this:
1. Weapon Proficiency: Rapier
2. Nimble Blade
4. Weapon Focus: Light Blades
6. Scale Armor Proficiency, just in time to purchase or obtain an upgrade.
8. Toughness. Yes, you're really starved for feat choices here. Pick up a +2 Frost Weapon at this level, too, and hold onto it even though it won't make a difference for the time being.
10. Student of the Sword (Fighter MC). From this point on, you should be stockpiling as many Symbols of Victory as you can get, until you get four or so.
11. Lasting Frost. Retrain Toughness to Wintertouched. Take the Pit Fighter Paragon Path. It's actually pretty good, as far as 4E paragon paths go.
12. Depending on if you fight in dungeons or in the outdoors a lot, take Back to the Wall. If not, take Toughness again.
14. Light Shield Proficiency
16. Jesus Christ, there's like nothing left to pick, is there? Uh... pick... Two Weapon Fighting and hold a dagger in your 'free' hand. You don't need to attack with it, just hold onto it.

As far as weapons go, hold onto that Frost Rapier for dear life.

I was going to do powers but I can't go on. It's like... damn, I forgot how depressing it is to make a 4E character with just the core rulebook.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:10 am

Aw, damn, I forgot that Nimble Blade has a 15 DEX stat requirement, not 13. Uh... forget about Scale Armor Proficiency. Just pick... I dunno, some Channel Divinity power.

By the way, when I meant hold onto the Frost Weapon for dear life, I meant that you should only do so starting at level 11. Before then, though, you should be doing everything possible in order to get a Frost Weapon and then just hold onto it. Core 4E D&D weapons universally suck and you're just better off going for the best plus or failing that you should just let other players have dibs and try to finagle it into something you want.

I cannot stress enough how depressing min-maxing core 4E D&D was for me. If only you had Martial Power or Divine Power or Adventurer's Vault, at least this wouldn't be causing me to lose my will to live.

Captain_Karzak · Post by **Captain_Karzak** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:24 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Ehhhh. My recommendation: Go STR/WIS, with a Bugbear. Your stats should look like: STR: 18 CON: 13 WIS: 16 DEX: 13 CHA: 10 INT: 8. Righteous Brand is your money-maker.

Aren't 4e bugbears +2 Str/Dex not Str/Wis? I think that the Shifter race is the Str/Wis one. I don't know if that changes things up for you.

Bugbears are neato because pre-errata they got oversized weaponry.'

Um.... one other thing. The striker in your group uses a bow. Will he consistently be able to benefit from Righteous Brand? Isn't there some kinda insipid requirement that you must be within X squares of the target to gain the bonus?

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:23 am

Thanks for the info everyone.

We start at lvl 1 since half the party are complete newbies. This is also the reason given for not being allowed to even look at any other book than PHB 1 and 2. Seriously, I'm supposed to pick where my character is from without knowing what the available choices are.

Bugbears are not in PHB1 or 2 and as such are out. If you meant Longtooth Shifter that's what I'll be going as.

Rapier? Really? I'll try to swing it but I can already see the arguments that I am a powergamer and priests of Tempus are supposed to go Hammer Time on people. Since I can't have Nimble Blade I am not terribly bothered about that.

You know, the more I read of 4e, the more constricted I feel. Choosing between shit and crap is not a meaningful choice.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 9:51 am

Some of those choices are in the Monster Manual 1. There's an appendix at the end with quasi-playable versions of a bunch of races.

-Username17

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:26 pm

shirak wrote:their opinion on errata is that they are not needed/wanted. I guess that bones us on skill challenges but I also got the impression they nerfed a lot of stuff so... yay?

4e errata is a bunch of piddly changes that slightly nerf things, while generally not changing anything (D8 to D6 damage on a spell). Its best to ignore it.

They never errata skill challenges to work, and most published adventures don't use a consistant version anyway.

Oh the errata also makes magic missile auto hit agin. .

4e healing is pretty plentiful (especially level 3 onwards when padded sumo kicks in), so if you are a cleric I wouldn't bother prepping any encounter/daily's that heal and just get by on your healing word. Especially if you have any dwarves/paladins/warlords in the group. With that in mind, if you want ranged go laser (but its boring) or strength (which is less boring).

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:20 pm

shirak wrote:Rapier? Really? I'll try to swing it but I can already see the arguments that I am a powergamer and priests of Tempus are supposed to go Hammer Time on people. Since I can't have Nimble Blade I am not terribly bothered about that.

Then put a 16 in STR, 15 in DEX, and 14 in WIS. You're a Righteous Brand using cleric. Anything that adds to +hit is a boon for you and since there are so few feats with just the PHB and PHB2 available you're pretty much railroaded into grabbing a light blade. If you're going into the Epic Levels you can switch out to a Heavy Blade and pick up Heavy Blade Mastery, but I doubt your game is going to get that far.

Hammers are thus completely out of the question. Change your deity if it's going to be that big of a deal.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:39 pm

Why is a light blade so sweet, an extra bonus to hit?

Ugh. I hate being railroaded into a particular weapon for a schtick that isn't in any way weapon based.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:00 pm

Because Nimble Blade only works with Light Blades and with the Wintertouched + Lasting Frost combo you'll be getting constant CA -- but you're so starved for to-hit in 4E D&D that you should be trying your damnedest to get CA anyway, usually through flanking.

If you're using expansion material, there are lots of reason to use other weapons. Hammers are sickeningly effective at higher levels. The Mace of Healing combined with other +healing geegaw if you're not using errata is the tits, especially since there's a +3 prof. mace in the Dark Sun manual. Heavy Blades are worth their weight in sex with the right combination of feats. If you're playing a fighter that has access to Adventurer's Vault and Martial Power, you can rock peoples' faces off with a polearm. In fact, the Greatspear from the Adventurer's Vault is so good (reach, +3 proficiency, polearm for Polearm Momentum/Gamble, 1d10 base damage) that if shirak had access to that book I'd tell him to ditch the rapier and go with the Greatspear. Hell, even the Monk's Unarmed Strike is worthwhile because it's a massive cost-savings on a decent melee weapon.

But if you're just going with the basic book with no expansion material, it's Rapier, Spiked Chain, Bow, Glaive, or bust. If you're starting at epic levels a Bastard Sword can serve you pretty okay if you don't have the dexterity prerequisite for Light Blade Mastery but do have enough for Heavy Blade Mastery. It's only a slight aggregate damage bonus though: improved criticals and a bigger damage roll, but less to-hit. Nothing to get excited about. If you're playing a CHA/WIS paladin heavy blades can serve you well because you can grab the vital Heavy Blade Opportunity, but then again if you're playing a CHA/WIS paladin out of the basic book you have personal problems.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:34 pm

I guess I am just disgusted that feat options could have been stuff like granting cool powers, but instead the optimal choices are crap like +1 or 2 with a particular type of weapon which does not feel character defining at all.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:46 pm

erik wrote:I guess I am just disgusted that feat options could have been stuff like granting cool powers, but instead the optimal choices are crap like +1 or 2 with a particular type of weapon which does not feel character defining at all.

Well this is 4e. It's built around the principle of "I waste it with MAH CROSSBOW", and their philosophy of design is that only powers are allowed to do anything cool.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:25 pm

There are feats that in fact grant powers, so they had that design concept at least. It's just that they are shitty powers and since the range is in such lockstep getting a few extra + bonuses is required to stay on the rails, and most powers depend upon those attack bonuses so you are mechanically better off expanding vertically than horizontally.

Since the monsters are supposed to stay in lockstep with PCs there's really no good reason for the numbers to be getting higher at all when you level. Fuck that. You could start with a block of HP ~ 35-50-75 depending upon how meaty their class is supposed to be, and give a +/- modifier to rolls made by monsters for each level difference they have compared to the a player they are rolling against. BAM. No reason to level up bonuses anymore. You curb stomp lower level monsters. Range is so much easier to stay on if that is what they really wanted. Battles are so much easier to fit in a predictable time frame. Powers can be added to do new cool things.

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 6:33 pm

Just got back from CharGen. The bad news, I was told straight up that Battle Clerics use heavy blades and similar weapons. So no Rapier for me. I got a Bastard Sword since it seemed the least stupid choice available. I may or may not get a shield.

The good news, we rolled for stats and I got really lucky:

STR 18, WIS 18, CHA 17, DEX INT and CON 15

Before the Shifter Bonuses. How's that for a stat line?

The rest of the party so far is a Goliath (I think) Warden, Eladrin TB Ranger, Half Elf Rogue, Elf Druid, Gnome (maybe) Wizard and a Human Battle Cleric.

Lago, thanks for the analysis, I'll keep it in mind as I level. We'll probably be allowed the AVs and Powers books eventually and I promise to grab a Greatspear and Power of Skill as soon as we do.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:09 pm

shirak wrote:The bad news, I was told straight up that Battle Clerics use heavy blades and similar weapons.

I was going to recommend a bard alternative that especially started rocking face at paragon tier, but:

1.) If other books are going to be filtered in eventually there's no use getting too attached to anything. The metagame can change very hardcore with the addition or subtraction of but one book. A holding pattern of Weapon Expertise + Weapon Focus + Weapon Proficiency + Armor Proficiency: Scale should tide you over until the metagame settles. Yes, 4E D&D characters are seriously that boring and cookie cutter at low levels. Fuck Andy Collins and his 'problem with the math? That's a feat' bullshit.

2.) Battle Clerics use heavy blades and similar weapons?! What the fuck? What does that even mean? Unless you count scythes, Clerics are familiar with shit like daggers and sickles. Not longswords.

Ah, whatever. Greatspear is a decent alternative if your DM is going to sperg that hard. And you can get Spear Expertise at epic levels anyway (not that you're going to be playing that long) with a minimal stat shift.

3.) If your DM lets you use one unerrata'd book, go for Adventurer's Vault. Though the power creep in that book is so huge that unless you have an agreement with everyone else in the party that with what your DM sounds like he'll probably flip out and go on a nerf spree.

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:14 pm

Lago, are you seriously suggesting that in a disparity between the crunch and last edition's fluff we should support the crunch? What a ridiculous idea.

Man, I was one vote away from DMing a Tome game and now... this.

shau · Post by **shau** » Sun Feb 19, 2012 11:11 pm

shirak wrote:Just got back from CharGen. The bad news, I was told straight up that Battle Clerics use heavy blades and similar weapons. So no Rapier for me. I got a Bastard Sword since it seemed the least stupid choice available. I may or may not get a shield.

The good news, we rolled for stats and I got really lucky:

STR 18, WIS 18, CHA 17, DEX INT and CON 15

Before the Shifter Bonuses. How's that for a stat line?

The rest of the party so far is a Goliath (I think) Warden, Eladrin TB Ranger, Half Elf Rogue, Elf Druid, Gnome (maybe) Wizard and a Human Battle Cleric.

Lago, thanks for the analysis, I'll keep it in mind as I level. We'll probably be allowed the AVs and Powers books eventually and I promise to grab a Greatspear and Power of Skill as soon as we do.

Shit, with those stats you are doing way more than you would with a rapier and point buy. You have two twenties there. That doesn't mean shit in 3e but in 4e core it puts you at the top of the heap no matter what else you do. I wouldn't worry about what might be in your future and instead use everything you have right now.

You'll be rocking face at level one although it may not be immediately obvious. Take weapon proficiency bastard sword at level one because you can't actually use a heavy blade and it is better than a rapier if we ignore nimble blade. Your at will is is righteous brand and whatever other one makes you happy. Thanks to your obscene strength score, you are probably doing something near striker damage, when we factor in the effect of your buff. Your encounter power is healing strike. Your daily power doesn't matter because they are all pretty terrible and the need for something that is only marginally better than your normal shit and extremely limited is so low it probably never actually gets used. All you do at this level is hit things with righteous brand and give your buff to the best melee guy in the party, and bust out your heals when someone drops below fifty percent hp. You have the wisdom a laser cleric dreams of and healing strike gives you a whole new heal for some reason, so you are pretty much game breaking on the healing front.

The next three levels aren't anything interesting. Take weapon expertise: heavy blade, because plus one to hit is golden. Then I would suggest ignoring weapon focus and stocking up on the armor feats. Your first utility power is either shield of faith or cure light wounds. Shield of faith is probably better, but harder to remember to use and interferes with any other power to AC bonuses you might have. Level 3 will give you split the sky, which can work like a stun if your mates move the right way, which they probably won't. Level four is another point of strength and wisdom.

The next three levels are back to being awesome. Level 5 is consecrated ground, which lets save the day once a day. Level 6 is bastion of health, which is better than healer's word and lets you use your stupidly high charisma bonus. This also bring you up to four heals an encounter, all with your wisdom bonus on top. Since things are already moving towards padded sumo land, the odds of anybody chewing through all that healing are pretty slim. You're also up to plate mail if you are taking armor feats like I suggested. Level seven gets you strengthen the faithful, which is an encounter based area heal.

The next three levels are pretty lame. Level eight is another point of strength and wisdom and a shield. Level nine is actually a difficult choice. You can either have blade barrier, and become king murder pinball, or take divine power, and become effectively invulnerable. Note that divine power totally has the healing tag, and since you don't use errata you are seriously regenerating 11 hp a round. Level ten is mass cure light wounds due to a failure of anything else to be interesting.

That's pretty much good enough to make you a defensive titan until paragon, when you take pitfighter and the game more or less completely becomes padded sumo. Start fights with either split the sky or righteous brand to buff someone else's encounter power. Use a healing encounter attack power if anyone loses half their health, then start using your three minor action healing powers. You will have five encounter heals before dipping into your daily powers, all of which have a plus six thanks to your wisdom and one of which can hit multiple allies. You also have one super plus awesome daily power in consecrated ground. Offensively you are not terrible, because the bastard sword is accurate and your strength is way too high. Take winter touched if you think a frost bastard sword is actually obtainable. You also have defenses a defender will envy thanks to all your armor and your high stats.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 4:12 am

erik wrote:I guess I am just disgusted that feat options could have been stuff like granting cool powers, but instead the optimal choices are crap like +1 or 2 with a particular type of weapon which does not feel character defining at all.

skill powers can be acquired by feats
There's also stuff like "disappear in a puff of snow and reappear concealed" in later books.

and no reason to not pick up a multiclass feat.

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:18 am

Heh, "reappear concealed" seems counter-productive. Hopefully you don't actually require snow to use that power.

I know that there are powers you can get by feats, just most of them look like they are balls, and also most attack types are still relying on you boosting that universal attack if you want to ever be useful. So horizontal expansion of powers is greatly discouraged in 4e if it ever comes at a cost to pure vertical enhancement of piling up your best "+" bonuses.

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:01 am

Thanks for the analysis shau. The armor idea seems cool so I'll do that. One question though: Why not Cause Fear?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:59 pm

Cause Fear is an awesome power and is a great argument for playing a laser cleric with the proper party. Key word here being 'proper party'.