DnD4e - cleric guidance please

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:04 pm

I know the Divine Power thread is full of goodness, but I need a novice primer on it. I've been asked to generate a Cleric and well... help?

I think the Astral Seal inanity sells pretty well, so I'd like to capitalize on it but I'm basically completely ignorant of 4e. Just a few low-level pointers would help, since I doubt the game will advance past 6th level or so.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:28 pm

Basically:

Clerics have 2 of the best at-wills in the game - Astral Seal and Righteous Brand - you set up to capitalize on spamming one of them a lot. Sadly, you can't really be effective with both.

Astral Seal does no damage, but grants the next of your allies to hit the target a "small" amount of surge-free healing - that you can eventually cheese into a HOLY CRAP! amount of healing.

Righteous Brand is a melee attack that deals a normal amount of damage, but also gives one of your allies a HOLY CRAP! - RNG breaking Power Bonus to all attacks they make against the target within the next round. It's also possible to take the Power of Skill Domain feat to turn this into a melee basic attack and ladel a bunch of basic attack / charge damage bonus feats and items on top of this, to make it do considerable damage itself.

Lago is right in that a cleric abusing the ways to give enemies Radiant Vulnerability is among the most damaging builds in the game with current errata - but that really doesn't kick in much until paragon/epic, so it should not be a build focus for a lvl 1-6 game.

1. Is the rest of the party melee or range oriented? With righteous brand you really want a melee ranger or tempest fighter to capitalize on your setup.

2. Are all books allowed? Longtooth Shifter (PHB2) is one of the best Str cleric options, while Kalhaster (Eberron PG) are the only race to give the Wis/Cha boost that laser clerics want.

3. What level are you walking in at?

4. What item selection method are you using?

5. Are there other PCs capable of healing in the group?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:51 pm

Thanks for the help.

1. PARTY = melee ranger, non-tempest fighter, radiant warlock, wizard, (Leader). I'm replacing a Cleric and so I think they want to maintain that continuity even if everything else changes.

2. I think all sources are allowed.

3. Walking in at level... 1! Hooray.

4. I have no idea, though I assume it'll be malleable to my cajoling.

5. Nope.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:23 pm

A potentially fun option if you don't want to go with the Power of Skill domain feat is the Power of Tyranny domain feat. It causes your Astral Seal to grant a -2 penalty to saving throws against the enemy even if you miss. If your wizard is using the right powers, he's going to love you.

Another option is the Power of Moon domain feat, which causes your Righteous Brand to also grant a -2 penalty to AC until the end of your next turn whenever you hit with it. That's a net +6 to hit in melee for one ally and all the melee guys benefit--even you. And your next Righteous Brand is even more likely to hit, too.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 10:25 pm

My suggestion is that at low level, if you're playing a Razor cleric, don't try to also snag enough things to make yourself an uber-healing surge-free healer. You don't have enough money and you don't have enough expansion options to make Recovery Strike worthwhile until around level 12, which is when Razor Clerics really come into play--their Recovery Strike heals 6 hit points less than Astral Seal but also deals damage and they can also use Righteous Brand.

Even if you elect to grab a razor cleric, your dailies are going to be Consecrated Ground and Moment of Glory even if you don't have a holy symbol and even if you don't have a good wisdom modifier. No debate.

As for your weapon, it doesn't really matter what you grab at low-level now. Grab a Frost Weapon even though it won't really matter (then get a Siberys Shard of Lasting Cold), but if your DM gives you the opportunity to jump for a +2 weapon then go for it. One weapon that you will care about however is the +1 Rhythm Blade spiked shield. That thing is gar. Hand out a +2 bonus to attack and damage? Yes, please.

Since your game is going to end at level 6, there's really no harm in just putting a 20 in strength. It's extra damage, attack, and righteous brand benefit. I also recommend getting an orc or a goliath, that way you can afford scale armor proficiency and maybe even plate armor proficiency.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 10:33 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Since your game is going to end at level 6, there's really no harm in just putting a 20 in strength. It's extra damage, attack, and righteous brand benefit. I also recommend getting an orc or a goliath, that way you can afford scale armor proficiency and maybe even plate armor proficiency.

If you're going to go this route, warforged is also an option. Goliaths have that temporary DR encounter power. Warforged have make a save vs. ongoing damage + small amount of temp HP/HP recovery. Warforged also get a fairly useful +1 to Will defense and +2 to saves vs. ongoing damage. You also quite literally cannot die unless you get hit with a coup de grace since you can take 10 on death saving throws.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 10:34 pm

Okay, you go with Astral Seal then, the defense penalty applies to both ranged and melee, so everyone else gets the joy.

You're a "laser" cleric - in that your lasers hit stuff as far away as 5 squares. Get used to being a melee character who has to shift away from melee a lot. Also, get used to not doing damage yourself. heck, call yourself a "pacifist" while your allies pummel people and feel free to point out the uselessness of the Pacifist Healer Feat.
Important to remember that penalties stack so long as they are not from the same power - you'll be handing out loads of them.

Race: Human (for the defense add and bonus feat) or Kalashter (get Cha add, but you will likely use your racial ability no more than twice in the first 6 levels)

Stat Priorities: MUST max wisdom, Cha is your second priority, and you may want to swing a 13 int for feat preqs (but seeing as you only get up to 5 feats in this game, you may be better off going straightforward) Then you want Con for your own healing surges - as you are now the only member of the party who needs those. You flat out do not care about Str or Dex (despite Lago's obsession with "razor" builds - few games happen at level where they are viable)

Class: Cleric
Class Feature: Take Healer's Mercy (DP) over Turn Undead.

Feats - in the rough order you want them:

Ritual Caster - this doesn't matter, but you get it free as a cleric
Implement Expertise(PHB2) This gives you a +1 to hit with everything you will ever do.
Power of Life, Domain feat (DP) This lets you give an ally 3 temp HP each time you hit with Astral Seal
Melora's Tide (PHB, channel divinity feat) - this combos with something later to provide infinite out-of-combat healing if your DM gets their panties in a bunch about just using Astral Seal on your horse to do that. If your DM allows the horse-zapping, then skip this.
Healer's Implement (DP) adds implement's enhancement to all healing - worth at least +1 point per astral seal
Mark of Healing (EPG) - whenever you use a healing power on an ally, that ally also gets to make a save. Since this lacks the "target" requirement you may be able to weasel it combining with Power of Life to grant the save to the guy you give the temp HP to.
Artificer Multiclass Feat (EPG) - this requires the Int 13 and you don't care about the additonal inferior healing word, but is is a prereq for
Potent Restorables (EPG) - this increases all your [healing] powers by 2 points, +1 point per 5 levels after first. It's a must in even moderately higher level games, but spending 2 feats to get +2 healing with astral seal is less good than having Astral Seal hit in the first place and getting 3 temp HP for only 1 feat, so I find spreading the stats to meet the prereqs questionable in games of this level.
Other stuff that boosts your own durability and/or
Other domain feats that you can tack on to Astral Seal (Knowledge, Tyranny, etc) - this depends on how your DM feels about re-assigning domains to patron deities and whether you want to argue about worshiping multiple similar gods.

Powers:
At Wills:
ASTRAL SEAL
Sacred Flame - this grants an ally a save, sadly it does damage
Human: your mum - you'll never use this anyway

Encounter
1st level. Bane (DP) or Exacting Utterance (DP) or maybe Cause Fear (PHB)
generally I recommend Bane, but the Vulnerability 5/all granted by Exacting Utterance can combo well if your ranger took twin strike and your wizard took cloud of daggers - in that case the 5 per hit stacks up to an extra 20 damage for just those two chars with their at-wills. Added hurt here even if the fighter is stuck with the nerfed post-errata Rain of Blows at 3rd level.

3rd level:
Command (PHB) or Hymn of Resurgance (DP). Command buys you a round by telling an enemy to "sit", and can be hilarious when climbing is involved, but Hymn of Resurgence grants multiple allies a save and also imposes a defense penalty that does not end by current wording. Remember that penalties from different powers stack, so this combos with Astral Seal.

Utility:

If you can't get infinite surgeless healing by horse-zapping, get Life Transference (DP) - which lets you take damage to heal allies by twice that amount as an encounter power. Between combats use this three times (once per 5 min as per short rest rules), then use Melora's tide once. Then alternate between using this twice and Melora's Tide once repeatedly until everyone else is healed to full and you are just above bloodied.

Heck the other L2 utility options are so bad you likely take this even if you can horse-zap.

L6: Spirit of Healing
Another daily with crazy healing. Since it has the [Healing] tag, Healer's lore applies and it heals double your Wis mod + whatever cheese you have on top.

Dailies:
L1: Either Beacon of Hope (PHB) which increases your astral seal healing for the rest of the encounter or Moment of Glory (DP) which grants your whole party DR 5/all for as long as they stay in formation and you burn a minor action each round. I prefer Moment of Glory - just remember not to trigger it until after the dragon uses frightful presence, since you getting Stunned makes it go away

L5: Consecrated Ground if you want to win D&D. Anything else if you prefer annoying Shau. Note that it gets the [healing] tag, so effectively you and all bloodied allies in the zone regen 1+Cha+Wis per round (which will be like 6-9 points) and you damage nearby enemies and you sustain with just a minor.
For crazy, burn all your dallies at once: sustain this and spirit of healing while throwing an astral seal a round - after you opened with beacon of hope. The dude next to you heals 18+ 5x your Wis Bonus + 2x your Cha Bonus each round so long as he manages to hit the enemy you designated. And that's not counting the temp HP from power of life or the tripled bonuses from feats or items, and he does better if he can multihit (your ranger did take twin strike right?)

Items:
Biggest +X holy symbol you can get. This makes you hit more often and also powers Healer's implement
Symbol of Divine Reach (AV, Lvl 3) increases your astral seal range to 6.
Healer's Brooch (AV, Lvl 4)) - this adds an enhancement bonus to your heals. Apparently, sloppy wording makes it stack with Healer's Implement.
Best +N chainmail you can get - there's a healer's chainmail in some book I don't have (AV2 maybe?)
Anything that resists poison by level 5 - this has nothing to do with the specific build, but is mandatory because half the level 5 monsters in the game poison you.

Stuff you probably won't be able to get, but that could add further:

Mace of the Healer (AV, Lvl 8+)
Healers Sash (AV Lvl 11+)
Gloves of the Healer (AV, Lvl 12+)

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:07 pm

Addendums:

If you have a spare feat in your build, Weapon Proficiency: Spiked Shield is pretty geary keen. If you drop the 360 gold needed for a +1 Rhythm Blade spiked shield you can have a whupass +2 bonus to AC and reflex, which you will sorely needed because you're apparently planning to run around in chainmail.

Cause Fear is a great encounter power in a melee-heavy party. It's so good that it just might displace Healing Strike (which you'll get at level 3 instead). You don't have a melee heavy party, so I'd stick with Bane.

Shield of Faith would actually be a very good utility power if you were able to grab the Mark of Warding, too. But you want Mark of Healing, so, bollocks to that.

One other feat you might consider is Divine Channeler: Paladin (DP, 144). This gives you access to the totally rad-to-the-max Channel Divinity Power Divine Mettle, which as a minor action in a close burst 10 gives someone in the burst (including you) a saving throw with a bonus equal to charisma. It really depends on how many monsters with (save ends) attacks the DM throws at you. If the DM cackles and mentions something about ghouls, get this power. It does take up your ability to use healer's mercy, unfortunately, but the life you save may be your own.

I wouldn't take Pacifistic Healer, for no other reason than it completely wrecks Consecrated Ground. If you're not planning on using Consecrated Ground because your DM has been giving you a dirty look, then go for it. It heals a LOT of extra hit points.

Don't be afraid to hit the panic button with your healing-surge activating powers. Not only do you stretch them out further than any other healer, but at low levels you and your friends can very easily get gangbanged. Between Astral Seal, Moment of Glory, and Consecrated Ground you WILL be drawing hate like crazy.

Have I mentioned how much I hate playing low-level D&D?

shau · Post by **shau** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:42 am

Go Lasers. Righteous brand is a crazy at will and it gets better as you go along, but at first level Astral Sign is just nuts. You should be healing for 10 hp at first level. For comparison sake remember you will only have 22 hp at first level. There are many "healer" classes that can only heal twice for less than that, and even that is generally enough.

Josh Kablack has a good build, I don't have much to add. You're hardest choice is at 2nd level, when you have to choose between taking Power of life and having a OMFG Astral Sign (13 hp at second level) or Melora's tide and combining it and Life Transference for limitless healing. I would probably go with Power of life, because with your astral sign you probably won't run out of healing surges. Level 3 I would strongly recommend Hymn of Resurgence, since you don't have Mark of Healing. Even if you just use it for 20 temp hp, that's still pretty good at 3rd level. Don't worry about trying to get into artificer, you won't need that until level 8 and it won't pay off into level 10.

Gameplay is pretty simple for you. Drop a Astral Sign on the enemy that looks like they will be easiest to destroy, then tell your team to gangbang it. Heal the guy who is hurt the most. Use a healing word if anybody drops below half or so. Use Healer's Mercy if the whole team is hurt. Watch out for the ranger, they tend to have outstanding offense, low defense, and low healing surges. You won't use your encounters a lot, by your dallies pretty much end the fight when used. I would suggest going astral sign action point moment of glory in the beginning so that it is likely to hit. There is nothing quite as cruel in 4e as watching your one daily miss. When you get consecrated ground and spirit of healing you can use either one to just ruin an encounter.

Here's a couple character sheets. Note that if the game was going longer you would want to begin with 18 wis 18 cha to get the artificer MC but here 20 wis 16 cha makes more sense. Also note I ignored items.

Level 1

Mean Liar, level 1
Kalashtar, Cleric
Kalashtar: Perception Bonus

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 10, Int 11, Wis 20, Cha 16.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 10, Int 11, Wis 18, Cha 14.

AC: 10 Fort: 10 Reflex: 10 Will: 17
HP: 22 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 5

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +5, Arcana +5, Diplomacy +8, Heal +10

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics, Bluff +3, Dungeoneering +5, Endurance, History, Insight +7, Intimidate +3, Nature +5, Perception +7, Stealth, Streetwise +3, Thievery, Athletics -1

FEATS
Cleric: Ritual Caster
Level 1: Implement Expertise (holy symbol)

POWERS
Channel Divinity: Healer's Mercy
Cleric at-will 1: Sacred Flame
Cleric at-will 1: Astral Seal
Cleric encounter 1: Bane
Cleric daily 1: Moment of Glory

Level 6
Mean Liar, level 6
Kalashtar, Cleric
Kalashtar: Perception Bonus

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 10, Int 11, Wis 21, Cha 17.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 8, Con 10, Dex 10, Int 11, Wis 18, Cha 14.

AC: 13 Fort: 13 Reflex: 13 Will: 20
HP: 47 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 11

TRAINED SKILLS
Religion +8, Arcana +8, Diplomacy +11, Heal +15

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +3, Bluff +6, Dungeoneering +8, Endurance +3, History +3, Insight +10, Intimidate +6, Nature +8, Perception +10, Stealth +3, Streetwise +6, Thievery +3, Athletics +2

FEATS
Cleric: Ritual Caster
Level 1: Implement Expertise (holy symbol)
Level 2: Power of Life
Level 4: Melora's Tide
Level 6: Healer's Implement

POWERS
Channel Divinity: Healer's Mercy
Cleric at-will 1: Astral Seal
Cleric at-will 1: Sacred Flame
Cleric encounter 1: Bane
Cleric daily 1: Moment of Glory
Cleric utility 2: Life Transference
Cleric encounter 3: Hymn of Resurgence
Cleric daily 5: Consecrated Ground
Cleric utility 6: Spirit of Healing

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:05 am

I would suggest going astral sign action point moment of glory in the beginning so that it is likely to hit.

Ideally you want to stack penalties, so the best case is something like

Round 1: Astral Seal (imposes -2 to victim's defenses until end of your next turn
Round 2: Bane (imposes -1-CHA (-4 with Shau's build) ) penalty to victim's defenses until end of your next turn. ACTION POINT - <power you want to hit with> against enemy at -6 to all defenses.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:00 pm

Thanks all - lots of good stuff here and I'll be sure to use most of it. I need to warp my head around it a little to give more direct praise, but thanks all the same.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Nov 24, 2009 5:37 pm

Yeah 4e does take some wrapping ones head around.

It's a very different game from prior editions - many of the terms and ideas are the same, but the power scale was intended to be a lot lower across the board. You'll run in to stuff like "why the hell is improved critical an EPIC feat now? Heck it isn't even as good as the 3e version" and "What? I can only use six healing potions a day?!?! a lot as you learn the system.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 6:26 pm

My major hurdle was not giving a damn enough to follow all the releases and erratas; I had a decent grasp with the initial release but that's all gone to shit now. I think the hybrid classes was when I finally stopped even my half-assed and failing "trying to keep up" routine.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:14 pm

Speaking of which, what book was Hybrid in? I thought it was coming in PHB 3, but PHB 3 ain't out and evidently Hybrid is.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Nov 30, 2009 7:26 pm

The playtest rules for Hybrid classing were in Dragon #375, and have since been incorporated into the character builder.

I'm guessing we'll get the finalized rules (with no more than minor tweaks) in the PHB3.

And in general, my group uses the same material allowed system we used in 3e - The core three books, and then each player can bring in any one additional book for everyone in the group to use material from. This generally provides a decent amount of flexibility for folks while keeping dumpster-diving manageable and allowing folks who are doing a less than half-assed job of keeping up to still make competitive characters.