Let's Make A Beatdown Cleric

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Koumei
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Let's Make A Beatdown Cleric

Post by Koumei »

Okay, for whatever reason I may be playing a 4E game until I get thoroughly bored with it. I stated the idea of a RustMilker, described her as a healthy farmgirl, complete with freckles, overalls, blonde pigtails and chewing on a piece of straw, and my arch-nemesis actually said there needs to be a game.

So let's do this thing. I don't know exactly what is required for Rust Milking, so I'll need help with that, and I'll draw up my basic Beatdown Cleric idea and... any help is appreciated, I guess.

Starting Ability Scores:
18, 12, 10, 8, 12, 12

Race: Something that gives +Strength, so either "Counts as The +Str Shifter" (encounter power isn't too bad - when bloodied, gain fast healing until you're not, also pick up a bonus to damage), "Counts as Minotaur" (oversized weapons aren't what they used to be, sadly) or "Counts as Dragonborn" (Bullysaurus Powaa) I guess.

Whatever. So this brings the scores to:

Str 20 +5
Dex 12 +1
Con 10 +0
Int 8 -1
Wis 12 +1
Cha 12 +1

And either Con, Wis or Cha also pick up a +2

HP: 22/22 (24/24 if Minotaur)
Surges/Day: 7/7 (8/8 if Minotaur)
Surge Value: 5 (6 if Minotaur)

AC: 17
Fort: 15
Ref: 11
Will: 13

Skills:
Religion +4
Diplomacy +6
Insight +6
Heal +6

Feats:
I don't know. Skill Training (Intimidate)? A Cleric Encounter Power?

Proficiencies:
Cloth, Leather, Hide, Chainmail
Simple Melee, Simple Ranged
Holy Symbol

Features:
Channel Divinity: Divine Fortune
Channel Divinity: Turn Undead (Wis based)
Healing Word

Powers:
W: Righteous Brand (Str based, the good one)
W: Priest's Shield (Str based)
E: Healing Strike (Str) or Wrathful Thunder (Str)?
E: a racial power (healan (no stat), chargan (Str), or breathan (Str))
D: Avenging Flame (Str)

Equipment:
Chainmail (+6 to AC)
Morningstar (+2 to hit (+7 total), 1d10+5, 1d12+5 for a Minotaur)
Holy Symbol
Adventurer's Kit
A small amount of cash left over

---

So, help filling in the blanks there? And with what I'll need for Rust Milking (so that the entire party can always have the range of level-appropriate equipment)?

Aside from feats, gaining levels should not be hard: choose Str-based powers, put points in Str and one other random stat that might be Cha, Wis, Dex or Con. Whatever.

I'm also tempted to take the points out of Wis and put them into Con, for the added HP and Surge, letting Cha handle the Wis load, but I might occasionally find a Wis-based power I want to use, and Str-Con tread on each other's toes. Hmm.
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Post by Username17 »

In order to successfully milk rust monsters you need to have the Heal and Arcana skill, though you don't ever have to make a check in either skill to cast those rituals so your stats can be whatever you want. Now it's pretty standard to go Strength/Wisdom for a Beat Cleric, but honestly you don't really need Wisdom for anything. Literally all of your powers that matter are completely Strength dependent. And since you're going to be required by law to grab a Multiclass feat at some point and take a Paragon class from a different class base, it really doesn't matter. Your second stat could seriously be Dexterity while you invest in Dagger Master or something.

But the most standard Beat Cleric goes Strength/Wisdom and eventually takes Pit Fighter off the Fighter list. The best stats you get off of that is of course the Longtooth Shifter, which among other things gives you the ability to constitutively bypass your lower number of healing surges by regenerating whenever you are bloodied. Technically this is an Encounter power, but since it lasts for the Encounter I honestly have no idea why Longtooth Shifter Shifting Rage Maximum isn't just an always on ability. It doesn't make any difference. If people didn't like that idea, you'd just be a Bullysaurus, or a Human or grab something with stupidly good abilities and a Wisdom mod like Elf or Dwarf. If you were going this route, you'd start at 18 Strength and 14 Wisdom, letting everything else go fuck itself.

But you actually could go for some fucking Paragon path from Martial Power. Like most people in the world I don't have it, but I'm sure Lago could rant something up for you.

Remember, the only thing that really matters is Righteous Brand, which is basically superior to your Encounter Powers at virtually all levels assuming that you have a melee oriented party. Your at-will causes low-end damage when you're at high level, but then it literally doubles the Fighter's chance to hit. Which means that if it lands, your bonus damage is basically "one extra Fighter turn" - which makes you definitionally the MVP just spamming your At Will power over and over again.

So anything you do on the side is literally on the side. 4e in general does not reward splitting your stats. So if you take a Constitution secondary you should take a Constitution secondary. If you take an Intelligence secondary, Itelligence should be your second biggest stat.

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Koumei
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Post by Koumei »

Thanks. I'll go the Shifter and tweak the numbers a bit. I suppose I could pick up Ritual Casting as the level 1 feat, just to wait until later.

So let me get this straight:
1. You're a ritual caster with Raise Dead, Make Item Out of Fairy Dust, and some ring that halves the cost for rituals? Is this just the actual gold cost, or even the fairy dust for making items that anyone can see is a bad idea?

2. Put a rust monster in a wooden cage.

3. Feed it an item. Kill it. Make the item again, with spare fairy dust.

4. Raise the rust monster. You're still at a substantial profit, fairydust wise.

5. Repeat several times.

6. Sell the excess, items you made, thus gaining actual gold to fulfil the ritual requirements. You're still ahead.

7. ???

8. Profit!
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Post by Username17 »

The magical fairy dust literally is the gold cost, there's no difference. You need gold worth of ritual components equal to the value of the ritual, and the residuum can be used to substitute for any ritual components of equal value. So there's no distinction to be had in the rules.

But yeah, every time you feed a Level 11 item in you get 9000 gp worth of fucking fairy dust. Putting a level 11 item back together requires 4500 gp worth of fairy dust and an item. Literally any fucking item at all. I suggest using rocks or sticks, because it doesn't make any difference and those are free even in 4e. Putting the rust monster back together costs 250 gp worth of fairy dust and the rust monster corpse. At the lowest level you can pull it off, you'll be 8th level. Then you only get 3,400 gp of fairy dust, but you also only pay 1,700 gp to make the item.

So at 8th level you make 1450 gp a day by Rustmilking, and at the high end you make 4250 grp a day at Rustmilking. I am willing to bet that there is a higher level version of Rust Monster that is like blue or something that can be used by higher level characters to Rust Milk for more cash. But the preview one is the bog standard orange model and is capped at a 4250 gp paycheck.

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Lago PARANOIA
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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

You pretty much want to stick with Pit Fighter if damage-dealing is your thing.

If you multiclass with fighter (and you should), snatch these things from the list:

For your multiclassing feat, snag Battle Awareness. Battle Awareness, once per encounter, lets you take a melee basic attack as a free action if an enemy is adjacent to you and shifts or attacks someone other than yourself.
If you're using a hammer then grab Anvil of Doom at level 13.
If you're using a flail, a spear, or a light blade and you are a bugbear or longtooth shifter such that your starting stats are 18 STR, 16 WIS, and 15 DEX then grab Rain of Blows.
If you don't want to use either of these things snag Trip-Up at level 7.
At level 8, grab the Acolyte Power feat and power swap for Pass Forward ASAP. You need this shit.
You don't need to grab a daily fighter power righ away, but when you get to level 15 grab either Unyielding Avalanche or Quicksilver Stance.

Snag the Righteous Wrath of Tempus feat ASAP.

As far as your paragon path goes, you have a couple of choices.

If you just want to straight-up deal filthy amounts of damage, grab Pit Fighter.
If you want to spam encounter attacks like crazy and also have an extra daily, then go Sword Master.
If you want to deal slightly less filthy damage than a Pit Fighter in return for having much more melee control, snag Son of Mercy.
If you want a lot more durability, go Dreadnaught from Martial Power. Seriously, pop one of your damage resistance abilities, throw up a regeneration effect (clerics have a good selection) and tell the monsters to go fuck themselves.
Warpriest is all right, but it's kind of dumb since it requires an implement for two of the powers. Though some battle clerics have implements anyway because of the stat synergy they have with laser clerics. It hands out some nice features and Warpriest's Challenge synergizes very well with Heavy Blade Opportunity. The utility power is quite nice, as well, but unfortunately not very reliable.

As far as weaponry goes, immediately grab a Bloodclaw Weapon, especially if you're forgoing shields. Your damage will skyrocket. The level 12 version of the weapon adds +12 to your damage roll. Also grab your ass some Iron Armbands of Power; they add +2 damage per tier.

Strength clerics do have some nice encounter attack powers but for the most part you want to stick to your At-Will and the encounter powers you snagged from Fighter--though if you're a Pit Fighter you may occasionally want to use your level 11 encounter ability, it's very nice. Don't bother trying to dish out too much damage. You want to load up on effects that either activate allies' healing surges or inflict status conditions.
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Post by Username17 »

Lago wrote:If you're using a flail, a spear, or a light blade and you are a bugbear or longtooth shifter such that your starting stats are 18 STR, 16 WIS, and 15 DEX then grab Rain of Blows.
Wat?

Look, I know you like Rain of Blows because it does MOAR DAMAGE. But seriously, sit back and listen to yourself talk for a moment. You are seriously advocating hitting one less number, doing one less damage on all attacks, and making everyone you ever bless with Righteous Brand to hit on one less number, and for what? The ability to spend a feat to exchange one of your powers for a different power that does more damage? Are you high? Frankly you are probably just going to take Split The Sky because while it does hardly any damage it quite often buys you a whole round. And if you just wanted to do damage, you'd throw down a Righteous Brand. Again.

And if you did want to spend a feat to get Rain of Blows you wouldn't even be a Strength/Wisdom character because splitting your stats three ways sucks actual asshole out of an ass straw appended to a real ass. You'd just be a Str/Dex guy and go on to being a Swordmaster. And you'd do this without irony because when you attack four times you are actually quite likely to get a crit on something and then you can attack four times again. But most likely if you were playing such a character you wouldn't even bother being a Cleric in the first place because there's no fucking synergy - you'd just be some combination of Fighter and Rogue or Ranger. Because there's some real Str/Dex synergy going on there.

Fucking hell Lago, I expected better of you. I expected you to not be one of those wankers that advocates splitting your stats three ways. And I expected that because doing so is very obviously borderline retarded. The only people who get away with not power maxing their primary stat are the people who pull some kind of massive benefit from the secondary stat that they are bringing up to par in exchange. The people who neglect their prime attribute to increase a third stat that they will never fucking use are called dumb asses because their asses are dumb.

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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

Fucking hell Lago, I expected better of you. I expected you to not be one of those wankers that advocates splitting your stats three ways. And I expected that because doing so is very obviously borderline retarded. The only people who get away with not power maxing their primary stat are the people who pull some kind of massive benefit from the secondary stat that they are bringing up to par in exchange. The people who neglect their prime attribute to increase a third stat that they will never fucking use are called dumb asses because their asses are dumb.
First of all: c'mon, man, don't be a hater. You know I love you.

My original reasoning for starting out with a 15 in dexterity was to qualify for all of the various silly feats that require a good score in that stat. For example, just having Heavy Blade Mastery will up your damage a bit more than a +1 to attack and damage. Not to mention that if your cleric uses a Double-Sword, they can also qualify for Nimble Blade, Heavy Blade Opportunity, Light Blade Precision (after a certain point most of your enemies are large sized anyway), Two-Weapon Fighting and Defense, Chainmail Specialization, and Mobile Warrior (whether it hits or misses after you make an attack with a flail, a heavy blade, a light blade, or a spear you can shift 1 square after resolving the attack). Not to mention that if snag the Martial Recovery, Reckless Attacker, and Epic Resurgence feats you will be spamming this attack left and right.

Still not convinced? Then what if I told you that you can back that ass up in paragon and epic tier with some Agile Armor? What's this shit do? Well my friend when you're not bloodied you gain a +1 bonus to AC per tier as long as your dexterity bonus equals the bonus you should be getting. Oh hell yeahs.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to get at is having this kind of versatility worth the loss of a +1 to your prime attack stat? I think it is. There are very few Pit-Fighter aspiring tempest fighters out there that don't want this array.

Though I am wondering why you are down on the idea of a STR/DEX swordfighter cleric. They should be in the running for primary damage dealer just because they have access the Righteous Wrath of Tempus feat, which guarantees a critical hit if you can just land your next attack.

In 4th Edition, especially at this point, it often doesn't matter who is taking the attack now, as long as someone does. A fighter with Brash Strike or a rogue with Piercing Strike does in fact deal more raw, filthy damage than most people, but really not all that much more. Most of the damage right now comes from various idiotic bonuses you ladel up onto the character; your frost/reckless/subtle/bloodclaw/radiant weapons, your Iron Armbands of Power, your soforth. Real damage is done by effects that allow you to take multiple attacks.

So while you still want to have a good righteous brand for when someone else is about to use their big-time knockout ability after you're all out, just using Rain of Blows repeatedly will up your party's damage-per-encounter more than the other stuff.

I can sort of see why you're down on effects that deal raw damage Frank since the multiple-[W] powers are kind of assy, but in 4th Edition there is a definite breakpoint where you can kill a standard enemy in one round if you try. Unfortunately, only rangers and fighters really reach that point, but it is there.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Username17 »

The thing is that you get just as much amazement by taking a melee monster and knocking it 2 squares away and dropping it prone. Woo, it doesn't get a chance to attack on its next round so you get to smack on it some more.

Yes, you can do a lot of damage as a Strength/Dex Warrior with Rain of Blows. I'm not denying that at all. All I'm saying is that there's no reason for such a character to write "Cleric" on their sheet or aspire to Pit Fighter. They should just be a Fighter and possibly grab some Ranger shenanigans on the side. If you aren't milking the Wisdom thing at least as a second stat, you shouldn't be a Cleric. You should be something else.

There are lots of "good" things to be*, and Strength/Dex Blenderator is certainly one of them. But honestly such a character has to spend way too many feats for way too little benefit if they start by writing "Cleric" on their character sheet instead of "Fighter." For fuck's sake you only have Simple Weapon Proficiency.

Let's be real here: if your Dexterity is 17 and your Strength is 21+, you are not a fucking Pit Fighter! That means that you've been dumping level stat bonuses into Strength and Dex, which means by fucking definition you haven't been putting them into Wisdom and the damage bonus from Pit Fighter is going to be underwhelming. Not to mention that a Rain of Blows character by definition isn't going to give a fuck about Heavy Blade Mastery anyway. The Dex requirement of Flail Mastery is even fucking higher.

You get two good stats in this game. Two. Not Three. Not Four. You only get to raise two stats when you level, and if they aren't the same stats over and over again you are a god damn idiot who is going to fall off the RNG. And even if you did decide to dump a bunch of points into tertiary stats, by the time you got to higher tiers you wouldn't even be able to keep up because the prereqs keep rising. Yes, the rules give you a "good deal" on starting with a +3 and two different +2s as your stat mods (vs. having two +3s or a +4 and a +2), but that doesn't matter because having a third good stat is god damn fucking worthless. And you know it.

*: such that anything in 4e is "good."

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Post by Lago PARANOIA »

The thing is that you get just as much amazement by taking a melee monster and knocking it 2 squares away and dropping it prone. Woo, it doesn't get a chance to attack on its next round so you get to smack on it some more.
Well, sure, grab Split the Sky, too. You got three encounter power slots to stick your kuk-razy powers in. So back that ass up with some Split the Sky Action, some RoB action (whichever you want first), and some Awe Strike action. Or if you have money to burn on an implement, some Searing Light or Command.
Let's be real here: if your Dexterity is 17 and your Strength is 21+, you are not a fucking Pit Fighter! That means that you've been dumping level stat bonuses into Strength and Dex, which means by fucking definition you haven't been putting them into Wisdom and the damage bonus from Pit Fighter is going to be underwhelming. Not to mention that a Rain of Blows character by definition isn't going to give a fuck about Heavy Blade Mastery anyway. The Dex requirement of Flail Mastery is even fucking higher.
And that's why you have the double-sword. This thing is ridiculous; it counts as both a light and a heavy blade at the same time. So if you have the correct starting array you don't worry about it.

And if that's not enough, the double-sword also has the 'defensive' property to it as well, which gives you a +1 bonus to AC while you're holding it.

Now double-weapons end up being disadvantaged in the damage department at later levels for two-weapon strikers since you only get a weapon enhancement on one end. But clerics don't have to worry about it since none of their powers (inc. RoB) need an off-hand weapon.
You get two good stats in this game. Two. Not Three. Not Four. You only get to raise two stats when you level, and if they aren't the same stats over and over again you are a god damn idiot who is going to fall off the RNG. And even if you did decide to dump a bunch of points into tertiary stats, by the time you got to higher tiers you wouldn't even be able to keep up because the prereqs keep rising. Yes, the rules give you a "good deal" on starting with a +3 and two different +2s as your stat mods (vs. having two +3s or a +4 and a +2), but that doesn't matter because having a third good stat is god damn fucking worthless. And you know it.
The idea is that you start out with a 18 STR, 16 WIS, and a 15 DEX and never put another stat gain into dexterity. You just coast your way to qualifying for dexterity-based feats and bump strength and wisdom since you automatically get a boost to dexterity (and every other stat) when you advance to the next tier.

So when it's time for you to get your Dirty Fighting action on, your stats should look like 22 STR, 20 WIS, 16 DEX, 10 INT, and 8 CHA.
Last edited by Lago PARANOIA on Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:54 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Orion »

Trollman -- your statement that tertiary stats are ass if largely unjustified.

Consider: Most games I've seen use the standard array, meaning that you're getting a 13 in your tertiary stat absolutely free. Now, it's not always possible to get a racial +2 to both your primary and secondary stats, especially if you're not allowed to use monster manual. Picking up a racial +2 to a tertiary instead is totally reasonable. This means you start with a 15 and end up with a 17, which is enough to qualify for all kinds of weird feats and items.

This is especially reasonable if you are in a class with only one attack stat. If your secondary stat doesn't actually add +to hit, you can certainly afford to be a +1 down for valuable other concerns, and potentially even afford to throw one or two levelup points into the tertiary if there's a compelling reason. It has the benefit of evening out your defenses, too.
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Post by Josh_Kablack »

I think I've actually played more 4e clerics than anyone on this thread so here goes:

1. Wisdom is not a dump stat for you. Even though your only wisdom power ever is going to be Sacred Flame, at low levels, Healers Lore fucking matters. Righteous brand is a standard action, Healing word is a minor - you will use both in the same turn a lot. If you do plan on going with Pit Fighter (which is unlikely unless the game starts at paragon), it's worth having wisdom as your secondary stat priority.

2. Your schtick is Righteous Brand. You want things that make your Righteous Brand work more often, you want things that keep you around to use more righteous brand, and you want things that help the party's real melee damage up to benefit from Righteous Brand

Things that make Righteous Brand work more often
ALL POSSIBLE TO HIT BONUSES!!!!!. This means you are going to either use a Dagger or spend a feat slot on proficiency with some other +3 proficiency bonus. This means the only weapon enhancement you will ever care about is Inescapable (AV). This means you seriously consider feats like Nimble Blade (although the Dex req seriously Mearls you, but maybe you got to roll well or found a dex/str race or something) and Back to the Wall. This means you are going to multiclass into Fighter for the once per encounter +1 - which you are going to stack with your Channel Divinity bonus just as soon as you can flank with the fighter.

Things that keep you around to use Righteous Brand
Higher defenses, more HP and ways to heal and remove status conditions. For defenses and HP, it may be worth being a Human and taking Toughness / Human Perseverance and/or Action Resurgance. Of course, being human saddles you with another useless at will so it's arguable. You're going to take mostly healing powers - they are what you use when you can't effectively Righteous Brand and they keep you and your beatstick around longer.

Things that keep the fighter up longer
Healing Powers. Note action type and ranges on all of these.
Sacred Flame - fuck the damage, this should read "standard action, grant an ally a save so long as there is any object (like walls, ground, etc) within 5" of you"
Belt of Sacrifice: This is extra healing every time you heal someone, which is more than twice a fight.

3. There are all of two skills in 4e that are trained-only. Arcana and the falling-damage reduction use of Acrobatics (plus some suggestions that the DM may hose you on Theivery). Rituals may require skill checks, but you may be able to make those without training, so you don't even need to take Heal to do the Rust-Milking, you can just have the ritual, and Clerics start with ritual caster free, so that part is pretty easy.
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