Another cleric question!

[reelroleplayer]

I know, I know, I've been asking quite a few of these cleric questions, but I guess I'm just stymied because I've made so many and still feel like they are not quite optimized. I admit that I enjoy planning builds as much as playing them, though

In terms of domains for a cleric, I took mishimayukio's advice and chose Fire as one of my domains since both of the spells are just downright useful.

I'm pondering the choice of the second domain, however. I've made tons of clerics, and I usually choose Air or Magic just to add some spell variety.

Air is fun, but gets weak 30+. Magic is pretty useless after 20 (except maybe the +1 dodge ac from mage armor). I chose Fire/Trickery for the imp invis in my last cleric iteration, but wasn't sure it was going to be very helpful, either (since imp invis. only gives 35% conceal max, and I suspect most high level mobs will see through it anyway).

Any suggestions on a solid second choice? Is Plant a viable choice past 30, or should I stick with Trickery?

EDIT: Just re-read the spells you get for Magic, and now realize it may not be as useless as I thought, particularly considering stoneskin and mage armor both scale. Maybe my Air/Magic cleric (lvl 33) isn't as hopeless as I thought!

[maljin]

You should consider healing if you like using harms. Healing domain will free up the spell level slots used for harm (level 6) as you'll get healing (the spell) earlier (at level 5).

Magic is nice if you're going with a low wisdom cleric (high constitution instead) as ice storm and negative energy burst (empowered) can do lots of damage without save. (Energy burst has a fort save for half damage, but compared to other spells with saves vs half damage, this one isn't affected by evasion improved evasion). But on this server magic domain isn't quite that useful imho.

Plant is very good choise (creeping doom is one of my favourite spells) and with the improved barkskin you can use an amulett without/low ac bonus.

mal

[Delfestra Ruinvorn]

Sun is also a good choice, because Searing Light is downright useful. With sun, you can have levels 2 and 3 for searing, and levels 4 and 5 for empowered, with level 6 as maximized.

Thats a LOT of divine damage.

Plus you get super turns, which do not suck at lower levels, and may be even better when turn undead is fixed for LLS (and the monsters are fixed to actually *be* undead...oddly the ones in Rhazid's are not)

[hiryuu]

Enemies do not 'see through' conceal, which is what makes Imp Invis so powerful. Air is nice for mixing up your elemental damage, but Magic has Ice Storm and some decent buffs.

[hfb]

Greetings,

I would also put a plug in for Fire for energy buffer and wall of stone (the modified wall of fire spell). Both are quite defensively oriented, but they are real life savers. On par with fire is Earth (sub wall of fire for stoneskin which has been pointed out to be of AWESOME proportions when scaled). The trade off is crowd / arrow control for soak.

I would also like to second Sun's 2-6th lvl searing lights. My cleric's dmg curve / depth would have been greatly increased with that option. I took air and am quite disappointed with it. I took it thinking I sure could use elemental dmg that wasn't fire, but I have found between neg, pos, divine, and instant death all is well in cleric land without electric. Sunbeams at 7th is also a nice touch.

As pointed out earlier, Plant is pretty huge too with very nice balance between rockin' offense and really good defense that also frees up ammie slot and bumps ac at the same time, but this requires at least 2 feat (sp. focus: trans. to pull off well, i.e. with at least +15 nat armor)

If I were building another cleric, these would be the ones from which I would be choosing. Probably would go with Sun and Earth if I had to choose right now.

Cheers,

The Dancer

PS: Regarding Magic Domain: Mage armor scaled or otherwise is not all that helpful after you have UR boots with +16 dodge or a bard around or the ability to use the lute that give mage armor or gear that provides EMA. Ice storm doesn't sport enough dice of dmg for my tastes, though the bludg potential and the lack of save are tempting. Melf's and Neg E. Burst are not part of the equation. Hence the choice is between Ice Storm and Energy Buffer and I like Energy Buffer (w/ 55-60 dr and a lot of pts. of soak is very handy IMO).

[reelroleplayer]

Very good suggestions---I appreciate the input.

I actually thought that TS saw through Imp Invis, but it seems that is not the case. This makes Trickery much more attractive to a melee cleric.

I actually hadn't considered Sun, but I can see it's strong points. The only one I'm really waffling about is Plant---the freed up ammy spot makes it an attractive choice.

Overall, though, I'll either continue playing my Fire/Trickery cleric, or roll up a Fire/Plant. Either seem to hold their value even into LL's (well, plant only if I make the feat investment). That's really all I was shooting for.

Thanks again!

[FunkySwerve]

Just to clarify, creatures with true sight can see creatures with improved invisibility, but the conceal miss % (the important part on HG at the moment) still applies.
Funky

[reelroleplayer]

Thanks for the clarification, Funky--makes sense.