5e Veteran Coming to 3.5. I Want to Build a Buff Cleric that makes the Party Stronger

[TuesdayTastic]

I am fairly unfamiliar with 3.5, but I know that if you want to build a character, you can probably build it. And so I want to build a Cleric that buffs the rest of my party, so they do the fighting and I don't. But the problem I am running into is unfamiliarity with the system. I almost know with a certainty that there are spells out there that will do exactly what I want to do, but I just need to find them.

I did notice that there are a lot of personal spells, so I asked my DM if I could homebrew a feat that would allow me to cast personal spells as touch and he said yes. Here is the feat.

Bestow: You may cast a personal spell as a touch spell. To do this you will have to cast the spell at +2 levels.

I don't know 3.5 lingo, but hopefully this makes sense. I have also taken the Divine Metamagic feat, in order to take advantage of my metamagic. (I do intend to take more metamagic feats so this is almost necessary).

Every book is available, afaik. I'm intending to make a 3rd level dwarf with the domains Good, and Sun (Praise the Sun!), but I am willing to change domains if it will make my build more viable.

Thanks in advance for the help! Really appreciate you grognards helping out a noob like me.

Edit: Party composition is Fighter, Rogue and Backline Druid. Rogue may or may not be ranged, but I think he will be melee.

[danielxcutter]

I am fairly unfamiliar with 3.5, but I know that if you want to build a character, you can probably build it. And so I want to build a Cleric that buffs the rest of my party, so they do the fighting and I don't. But the problem I am running into is unfamiliarity with the system. I almost know with a certainty that there are spells out there that will do exactly what I want to do, but I just need to find them.

I did notice that there are a lot of personal spells, so I asked my DM if I could homebrew a feat that would allow me to cast personal spells as touch and he said yes. Here is the feat.

Bestow: You may cast a personal spell as a touch spell. To do this you will have to cast the spell at +2 levels.

I don't know 3.5 lingo, but hopefully this makes sense. I have also taken the Divine Metamagic feat, in order to take advantage of my metamagic. (I do intend to take more metamagic feats so this is almost necessary).

Every book is available, afaik. I'm intending to make a 3rd level dwarf with the domains Good, and Sun (Praise the Sun!), but I am willing to change domains if it will make my build more viable.

Thanks in advance for the help! Really appreciate you grognards helping out a noob like me.

Edit: Party composition is Fighter, Rogue and Backline Druid. Rogue may or may not be ranged, but I think he will be melee.

You'll have a tough time trying to not overshadow the others between you and the Druid - ever heard of "CoDzilla"? And Divine Metamagic isn't too overpowered in a vacuum, but if you have a way to get more turning uses, it gets OP faaaaaast. Optimized Clerics can solo monsters from the Epic Level Handbook. At level 20.

Of course, if the party casters stay on the backlines and focus on casting spells, as opposed to Wildshaping(the Druid) or setting up Righteous Might, Divine Power, and Divine Favor(you) and beating face, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem. But seriously, you could make a half-decent Cleric build by picking feats you qualify for at random.

In conclusion? If you stick with your goal of "use most of my actions to buff my allies", then you'll be okay. But be careful not to make the others feel left out.

[GilesTheCleric]

Welcome to 3.5. The good news is, there's no way to mess up a Cleric, no matter what you do. You can just prepare different/ better spells the next day (and if you make it to higher levels, you can even swap out your feats).

I've got a WIP Cleric quick-build guide that I'd like to link you, but I'll list a few good additional buff spells (the guide is very quick and introductory).

Spoiler

Show

Any of these will do you well; there's no wrong choices.

1
Blessed Aim (SC)
Conviction (SC)
Divine Favor (PHB)
Eyes of the Avoral (BoED)
Magic Weapon (PHB)
Protection from Evil (PHB)
Rhino's Rush (Drag323 65)
Shield of Faith (PHB)
Sign (SC)

2
Shield of Heironeous (Drag354 30)
Bear's Endurance (PHB)
Benediction (CC)
Blade Brothers (PHB2)
Close Wounds (SC)
Divine Insight (FC2)
Elation (BoED)
Insight of Good Fortune (PHB)
Lore of the Gods (CC)
Resistance, Major (SS)
Quick March (SC)
Share Talents (CC)
Shield Other (PHB)
Silence (PHB)
Spider Legs (BoVD)

3
Alter Fortune (PHB2)
Favor of Yathaghera (SM)
Footsteps of Divinity (PHB)
Girallon's Blessing (SC)
Knight's Move (SC)
Magic Circle Against Evil (PHB)
Magic Vestments (PHB)
Redirect Spell (ShS)
Wind Wall (SC)

Edit:

You'll have a tough time trying to not overshadow the others between you and the Druid - ever heard of "CoDzilla"? And Divine Metamagic isn't too overpowered in a vacuum, but if you have a way to get more turning uses, it gets OP faaaaaast. Optimized Clerics can solo monsters from the Epic Level Handbook. At level 20.

Of course, if the party casters stay on the backlines and focus on casting spells, as opposed to Wildshaping(the Druid) or setting up Righteous Might, Divine Power, and Divine Favor(you) and beating face, then there shouldn't be too much of a problem. But seriously, you could make a half-decent Cleric build by picking feats you qualify for at random.

In conclusion? If you stick with your goal of "use most of my actions to buff my allies", then you'll be okay. But be careful not to make the others feel left out.

That's a good point, but so long as you're sticking to buffing, it easy to feel good about your contribution, and your allies don't feel outshown (outshined?). Clerics can solo epic-level foes from level 5 or earlier if your GM is permissive with sources.

Oh, and I'll also mention: I don't think there's flanking, delaying actions, or charging in 5e (correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't played since the playtest and only sometimes read the 5e board). Flanking and charging are both very important combat actions; I do suggest you familiarise yourself with them if you're not already.

[TuesdayTastic]

Thanks for the list of spells, and the guide! This will be a great start. And yeah I am mainly sticking to buffing because I know about the quadratic wizard, linear warrior problem, so that's why I am trying to be a team player. (I also just want to play a buffer, because I think the idea is fun).

But a cleric can solo it from as early as level 5?! I'm not going to try to outshine my other players, but I'm now curious as how that works. (Doesn't it have something to do with a kobold?)

5e does have flanking and charging, but those are optional rules in the DMG. (Granted they are rules that should be in the PHB, but are optional rules none the less). I will familiarize myself with the rules surrounding those though. Except grappling. I know that much at least.

[GilesTheCleric]

Thanks for the list of spells, and the guide! This will be a great start. And yeah I am mainly sticking to buffing because I know about the quadratic wizard, linear warrior problem, so that's why I am trying to be a team player. (I also just want to play a buffer, because I think the idea is fun).

But a cleric can solo it from as early as level 5?! I'm not going to try to outshine my other players, but I'm now curious as how that works. (Doesn't it have something to do with a kobold?)

5e does have flanking and charging, but those are optional rules in the DMG. (Granted they are rules that should be in the PHB, but are optional rules none the less). I will familiarize myself with the rules surrounding those though. Except grappling. I know that much at least.

Welcome. I'm sure plenty of other folks will have other opinions on the subject, too. Let me know if you see anywhere that I could improve the quick guide, or perhaps places where it's not as clear/ precise as it could be.

Nearly any caster can perform in a vastly overpowered manner once you apply enough optimisation to it. Many creatures have huge holes in their defenses, such as stats that are 10 or below even when they're CR 30+, or no ranks in balance, swim, or additional movement methods.

There's a type of spells you could classify as NSjD (No save, just die, contrasted to the more common SoD Save-or-die or SoL save-or-lose spells). Depending on the foe, some NSjD spells can work against them no matter their apparent strength. For example, Summon Swarm, a second level spell, is a NSjD against anything that can't deal AoE/ bludgeoning damage. All swarms automatically deal damage when they're in your square, and Summon Swarm can create a flying swarm (bats, I think), so few things are safe. Others are less obvious, but just as potent. Few things in the game are immune to suffocation, so with judicious use of Create Water (level 0), you can kill most things as well, provided they can't escape some confinement. Another approach relies on your foe rolling a 1 on their save against your CdG; you can make a foe helpless with any number of low-level spells.

Level 5 stands out to me particularly, since it's when you first get a very powerful SoL, Blindness. Unless your foe can teleport away or cast Break Enchantment, they're pretty much toast if this lands. Shivering Touch, also known as "the dragon killer" comes online at level 5, which 1HKOs anything with a dex of 11 or less (which is a surprising number of things), and all you need for that is a touch attack, which again, is often surprisingly low even for very high-level foes (often 9-10 touch AC, simply because they're so large).

My personal favourite level 3 spell is Glyph of Warding, which lets you just completely break the action economy. There's a bunch of tricks to make this compatible with any spell on your list, which means that you can prepare 20+ glyphs, then send them all at your foe and watch as they inevitably roll a 1 against whatever nasty thing you want to do to them.

All of those strategies are probably higher-op than most tables play at; I know that I don't do any of those things when I'm playing in a real game. They're fun to theorise about, though.

Ah, okay. Lots of rules in 5e are optional, which is a bit of a nice break from 3.5, where it's the GM's job to say what's excluded rather than included.

[Gruftzwerg]

Since you ain't familiar with 3.5 maybe a Bard is a better choice for what you are looking for?
Bards can "perform" Bardic Music to buff the group as needed. They have access to heal & buff spells too. There are some cool PRCs for bards too. Just let us know how fixed you are at cleric, or if you would consider other classes too?

edit: since your intend was to play a dwarf, I imagine now a singing drunk dwarf on the battlefield, while swinging his hammer xD

[ExLibrisMortis]

War Weaver is an arcane class that is really good for buffing without touching Persistent buffstacks. If your DM allows, you can use it with a cleric base; if not, you can perhaps play a buffing wizard (which is much the same as a cleric, especially with a few choice ACFs).

[Fizban]

But a cleric can solo it from as early as level 5?! I'm not going to try to outshine my other players, but I'm now curious as how that works. (Doesn't it have something to do with a kobold?)

Not in any sort of serious game. When in doubt, assume fantastical char-op claims are just what they look like: a bundle of grandiose promises built on a bed of questionable rulings that no DM would actually allow if they didn't specifically want to run lawyers and ledgers. The pun-pun you're referring to is simply one of the furthest examples. Are there overpowered spells that you might run into? Sure, and when you run into a problem you and your DM can deal with it like reasonable people (such as by banning Shivering Touch). There's really no reason to freak out about the scary overpowered casters until you actually have a problem player to deal with. Of course, if you blindly follow a char-op guide for maximum power then that makes you one of the problem players-so when it comes to non-spell parts of your build you should probably run everything past your DM first (and they should be checking it without prompting anyway, etc).

But the problem I am running into is unfamiliarity with the system. I almost know with a certainty that there are spells out there that will do exactly what I want to do, but I just need to find them.

Well that depends on what exactly you want to do, clerics don't do everything any more than wizards do. Coming from 5e I expect your most well-known buff would be Bless, but I'm not sure about what's available at later levels.

In 5e Bless is freakin huge, thanks to bounded accuracy and scarcity of other attack boosts that +1d4 is a lot. Bless exists in 3.5 and is a commonly recommended spell, but it only gives +1 to attacks, and since there's no built in limit on attack bonuses it's much more likely your allies simply won't notice +1.

If you want to buff damage, you're going to be disappointed for a while. Bards have a near monopoly on directly boosting damage, clerics can do so with many of the indirect and non-stacking methods (Greater Magic Weapon, Bull's Strength, Enlarge Person via domains, etc), but otherwise you're mostly waiting for Righteous Wrath of the Faithful (SpC) at 5th.

The two biggest buffs to have hanging around that I've seen are Shield of Faith and Resist Energy, or rather their Mass versions found in Spell Compendium. Combat in 3.5 can often go very fast, you don't have time to waste on single-target buffs if you can avoid it, and most of the more commonly recommended buffs only last 1 round/level so they're one fight only (and you're not likely to know for sure if this is the right fight to cast it until the fight's half over). Mass Shield of Faith is the biggest mass AC boosting spell and lasts for 1 min/level, while Mass Resist Energy lasts 10 min/level and stonewalls energy themed monsters like nobody's business. Conviction and Mass Conviction are also popular if you find your saving throws too low, but they're not as important as:

The most important buffs; the immunities. Death Ward and Freedom of Movement, Magic Circle against X (suppresses mind control), and simliar tech like Water Walk, Water Breathing, and Air Walk (much longer duration than Fly on that last one). True Seeing. Resist/Protection/Immunity to Energy. Probably some I'm forgetting.

You'll also want to be familiar with all the bad stuff clerics are expected to cure. Weather or not you intend to heal hp damage, the cleric's role is always being able to prepare the spells that make the bad stuff go away, that's why they have the whole list all the time. Remove Fear, Delay Poison, Lesser Restoration, Remove Paralysis, Remove Disease, Remove Curse, Remove Blindness/Deafness,, Neutralize Poison, Restoration, Panacea (SpC), Break Enchantment, Heal, Greater Restoration, and maybe the occasional Regenerate.

All those immunity buffs and status restores are expected by the game. Unlike in 5e where instant death is all but unheard of and almost everything is temporary IIRC, in 3.5 non-hp attacks and permanent status effects show up as early as CR 1, and it's fair because the game expects you to have a cleric who can personally reverse most of it (as long as the don't get themselves hit by it).

Close Wounds and Delay Death (also SpC, seeing a pattern?) are good to have on hand for preventing death, but don't necessarily need to be personally prepared, a scroll in hand will do fine since scrolls use the same casting time as the spell. Revenance+Revivify is a neat little combo for getting cheaper no-penalty Raise, which can also be scrolled, though obviously you have the original Raise Dead as well, and you can get the cheaper Reincarnate with the Renewal domain (but you already have a Druid so no need). Resurgence is much cheaper than other status removal spells and is good for when someone who was expected to make the save rolled bad the first time, a good one to wand.

There's plenty more spells you always have on the list to ignore the rules of reality of course. Comprehend Languages and Tongues. Silence, Stone Shape, Invisibility Purge, Locate Object, Sending. Divination and Commune if your DM doesn't hose them. Wind Walk is your long-distance travel spell and Word of Recall is the cleric's emergency Teleport. Before you go focusing on some specific thing you should learn what your spells can actually do. The solution to many puzzles is "pray for X tomorrow," but you can't pray for X if you don't even know it's on the menu.

I have also taken the Divine Metamagic feat, in order to take advantage of my metamagic. (I do intend to take more metamagic feats so this is almost necessary).

Every book is available, afaik. I'm intending to make a 3rd level dwarf with the domains Good, and Sun (Praise the Sun!)

What other feats? Divine Metamagic only applies to one chosen metamagic feat, so presumably it's in your lv3 slot and you started with the feat you wanted for Divine Metamagic. In any case, Divine Metamagic abuse is one of the paths towards actually breaking something, so buyer beware. If you're not going nuts, Sudden Empower and Sudden Maximize do the job just fine, the only real need I see for Divine Metamagic that still plays conservatively is to spam Extend Spell on higher level spells where a metamagic rod is annoyingly expensive or say Piercing Cold/Searing Spell on an energy themed cleric.

Alternatively, you could take say, Divine Ward (PHB2), which helps deal with the very real problem of trying to reach people with touch spells. Even if you're trying to stand on the front line you will inevitably find yourself coming up 5' short due to a foe's 5' step, or just having the Rogue and Fighter run in two different directions.

[gorfnab]

Another handbook suggestion: The 3.5 Cleric Handbook

If you're going with the Sun domain you might as well consider the Radiant Servant (CD) prestige class.

As others have stated, Bard is actually a good buffer (see Inspire Courage) and a decent healer (Healing Hyman ACF). It can also be combined with the War Weaver prestige class for more spell based buffing as well.
Bard Handbooks
Inspire Courage Handbook
War Weaver Handbook

[Ruethgar]

If you also want to keep the flavor of a Cleric, there is a Divine Bard ACF that is called out as occasionally replacing Adepts and Clerics in the religious role. Plus singing hymns to empower your flock seems so much more priestly than the cleric's somewhat impersonal spells.

Also you can dip a little Warblade for White Raven maneuvers which are great at helping allies and synergizes well with Song of the White Raven. For information on this build search for Bardblade.

[Malroth]

Theyr're not reccominding bard because cleric is a bad buffer. Cleric is an incredible buffer especially with a well chosen domain mixed with domain spontainety. The reason why they're reccomending Cleric is because their huge spell list and prepared spells can be difficult for a newer player and the fact that if you do it right you'll make any Fighters/Rogues/Monks/Rangers/Paladins completely redundant.

[SirNibbles]

There are a few ways to cast Personal range spells on your party.

1. Spellguard of Silverymoon (Arcane only, defensive spells only, where defensive means you're increasing AC, saves, or HP in some way. Alternate Source Spell allows you to cast any spell as Arcane). This is also a campaign-specific PrC but perhaps your DM will allow you to ignore the fluff.
2. Familiar's Share Spell + Chain Spell Metamagic

I'm sure there are others that I've forgotten.
__

If you are willing to play Archivist instead of Cleric, I would highly recommend it for a buffer. You'll have access to all divine spells, not just Cleric spells.

Most of the buffing spells you want aren't that high level anyhow, so a Theurge build could work too. 9 levels worth of Wizard+Theurge gets you Triple Strike (level 5 spell). The highest level Divine buffing spells I could think you'd want would be Shield of Lathander, Greater and Aura of Vitality (both at 7th level).

Archivist + Battle Blessing can cast Quickened Paladin Spells for free- this is useful if you need to toss our some buffs in the heat of battle.

__

If you're going to be using a lot of Transmutation buffs, make sure to pick up the Ability Enhancer feat to boost all the stat buffs by +2 each. (Divine Agility would give +12 DEX enhancement instead of +10, Aura of Vitality would give +6 STR/CON/DEX morale bonus instead of +4, etc).

__

Being able to Persist spells may be very useful. Here are some tricks:

Reach Spell converts a touch spell to a fixed range of 30 feet, allowing it to be Persisted. Combine with Chain Spell or a Lens of Ray Widening to buff your entire party in one casting.
Ocular Spell converts a non-personal spell to a fixed ranged of 60 feet, allowing it to be Persisted. Combine with Chain Spell or a Lens of Ray Widening to buff your entire party in one casting. (This option is better for Persisting buffs but less versatile for converting touch spells to range spells in short-term combat situations).
Divine Metamagic allows you to expend Turn Undead uses to reduce metamagic costs.

[Gruftzwerg]

There are a few ways to cast Personal range spells on your party.

1. Spellguard of Silverymoon (Arcane only, defensive spells only, where defensive means you're increasing AC, saves, or HP in some way. Alternate Source Spell allows you to cast any spell as Arcane). This is also a campaign-specific PrC but perhaps your DM will allow you to ignore the fluff.
2. Familiar's Share Spell + Chain Spell Metamagic

Chain Spell doesn't work. It requires the spells target(s) to be greater than touch range. This excludes personal range spells sadly..

[SirNibbles]

Chain Spell doesn't work. It requires the spells target(s) to be greater than touch range. This excludes personal range spells sadly..

I forgot to mention that you need Reach/Ocular or Reach from Hierophant/Archmage for that as well.

Familiar turns Personal/You into Touch/Creature Touched. Reach Spell turns the range from Touch into 30 feet.