[Build Request/Concept] Ilmatari Healer

[The Pretty Prince of Parties]

Okay! So here's my concept: an Ilmatari Cleric (Healer path) who is willingly subjecting himself to slavery in the UD to lessen the suffering of his fellow slaves; tending to their wounds, sneaking them extra food, et cetera, et cetera. I've already got a "master" in mind for him who has said they would love the contrast he'd provide. Issue is: Healer Clerics be squishy!

The only things I've got in my mind are:
1) Healer Path, one of my domains will be Healing
2) I'd prefer having a decent strength score (at least into the 20's when buffed)
3) Maybe a splash of Monk for added survivability
4) Craft Wand + Scroll as feats
5) Greenfingers as one of my 3 gifts

I'm not looking for something that's absurdly powerful and can solo-roll over everything; just something that's weird, but can survive and be useful in his role (probably back-up, covering what buffing the weavebuffmasters can't, and healing) even into the endgame. Anyone care to lend me a hand?

[William Steele]

sounds like you know exactly what to do from your question. just do it. but, since you seem to be looking for suggestions...

go caster cleric, start on the surface, and orchestrate a (good) metagamed slavery. get a few levels in first, then plan out how/when he will be captured.

the benefits of this include: some experience on the surface, which could be invaluable as IG knowledge for your character. having friends on the surface who know you and know that you're enslaved (or not, as they could find out later) could prove to make some interesting RP, so long as they don't lolrescued you later and ruin the concept too early.

downside: the only real one is the time it will take to come to fruition. you should start early, so that in a week or two, after you have a few levels under your belt and have worked in your personality and quirks (very often, a lot of people including myself, need the first 3-5 levels to figure out what their character is really like), you'll have a more colorful character for the UDers to rp with, rather than yet another blank canvas slave.

[IndifferentPerson]

Healer path, just like every other path, isn't mean for soloing. My choice for Adaeris was to forget about any kind of soloing and stick to skills/support casting. He's pretty useful at lvl 9 even for epics, fashioning +40 heal and Heal(spell). 0 ECL so whenever someone takes me around, it's worth it, positive ECL might make it very annoying if you can't hold your own weight which is bound to happen one time or another as a healer monk unless you go monk(which you already plan to anyway).

Think it like this, a healer cleric is a cleric without armor or fancy weapons, you can go monk and you get to be a generic cleric/monk which is completely do-able. If not, well, you'll need help, lots of it.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Caster cleric.

I'd take the Air Domain, with Domain of choice (sun is always cool to BURN THE UNDEAD). Evo, conj focuses. And now abjuration because clerics just got an insane buff with the removal of the G. Dispelling cap.

I'd argue you wouldn't even need monk. I mean, monk is always nice, but you could add in bard or rogue, if you'd like. CoT at epic levels can be particularly nice with bonus feats, and +saves.

Caster cleric is one of the most powerful (and diverse) paths in the games, and it's typically an under-utilized "role" in Arelith. People 99% of the time see to go a battlecleric or melee-cleric variant.

A caster cleric will play like a wizard or sorcerer, but I think with the abjuration changes, you might be even deadlier than ever.

[KregorRanger]

Clerics of Ilmater don't get Air as one of their possible domains.

Ilmater's available NWN domains are: Good, Healing, or Strength. I'd go for Strength, especially if you're going to put monk in the build. Early Divine Power, plus Stoneskin will be handy.

Healer Cleric + Monk should be a pretty synergistic combo. You won't need the armor and weapon proficiencies with Monk abilities.

[Ecstatic]

Arelith does not have a "clerics must select domains that are on their deity's list" rule. While DMs will certainly have a look at your domains as a cleric, and your RPR may suffer if you have a Lathanderite cleric with the death and evil domains, you will neither be told to delete or remake over it.

Pretty Prince has been around long enough to know this, he can make his own decisions on which domains are appropriate for his character.

That said!

Strength and Healing will make mechanically very useful domains should he decide to go that route. Healing domain allows you to pack something like 5 full spell levels full of nothing but full HP restoration spells (5: Heal, 6: Heal, 7: Greater Restoration, 8: Mass Heal, 9: Quickened Heal). Strength gives stoneskin and all the divine power you could ever want.

I would recommend conjuration highly, and evocation is always useful, though I've always found it fitting on more militant clerics.

Monk, CoT, Ranger, and Rogue are all worth considering as cross-class options, but try not to drop your cleric below 23 levels if you can avoid it, and 26-27 levels is highly advised if you feel you can get away with one multiclass choice.

In particular, Cleric 26/CoT 4 will excel as a caster, with 2 epic bonus feats from cleric, and 2 epic bonus feats from CoT on top of the standard 4 epic feats. This should allow the following loadout in epic levels:

Epic Spell Focus (Conjuration)
Epic Spell Focus (Evocation if that's your thing)
Great Wisdom (To bring you to an even +8 wis from feats and levels)
Autoquicken 1-3 (Useful if you don't plan on having haste)
x2 extra feats: could go more wisdom, could go epic spells, could get epic skill foci.

[Jack Oat]

Cleric(26), Monk(4), Human

STR: 14
DEX: 12
CON: 12 (Gift > 14)
WIS: 16 (Gift > 18) (26)
INT: 14
CHA: 8

Human: (Quick to Master)
01: Cleric(1): Spell Focus: Conjuration, Greater Spell Focus: Conjuration, Domain Travel, Domain Trickery
02: Cleric(2)
03: Cleric(3): Extend Spell
04: Cleric(4): WIS+1, (WIS=19)
05: Cleric(5)
06: Cleric(6): Spell Focus: Enchantment
07: Cleric(7)
08: Cleric(8): WIS+1, (WIS=20)
09: Cleric(9): Maximize Spell
10: Cleric(10)
11: Cleric(11)
12: Cleric(12): WIS+1, Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment, (WIS=21)
13: Cleric(13)
14: Cleric(14)
15: Cleric(15): Spell Focus: Abjuration
16: Cleric(16): WIS+1, (WIS=22)
17: Cleric(17)
18: Monk(1): Greater Spell Focus: Abjuration, {Cleave, Evasion, Improved Unarmed Strike, Stunning Fist}
19: Monk(2): {Deflect Arrows}
20: Monk(3): WIS+1, (WIS=23)
21: Cleric(18): Epic Spell Focus: Conjuration
22: Cleric(19)
23: Cleric(20)
24: Cleric(21): WIS+1, Epic Spell Focus: Enchantment, (WIS=24)
25: Cleric(22)
26: Cleric(23): Epic Spell Focus: Abjuration
27: Cleric(24): Epic Skill Focus: Discipline
28: Cleric(25): WIS+1, (WIS=25)
29: Monk(4)
30: Cleric(26): Epic Skill Focus: Heal, Great Wisdom I, (WIS=26)

Hitpoints: 300
Skillpoints: 173
Saving Throws (Fortitude/Will/Reflex): 20/26/14
Saving Throw bonuses: Spells: +7, Mind Effects: +2

Concentration 33(35), Discipline 32(44), Heal 33(51), Lore 12(14), Spellcraft 33(35), Tumble 30(31)

Recommend CON/WIS/DEX gear or some variation thereof if you can pull it off.

Substitute the Domains as you will, I pretty much copied this from a different build I had and replaced a few things (like Hellball for ESF: Heal cus #Ilmatari)

Conjuration will give you summons to help you in your journey, and in the end to draw comrades to your side (willingly, unlike the collar) and the Storm of Vengeance DC is hilariously awesome, as well.

Abjuration will allow you to defend yourself and others using such fancy things as -ward and -ward_teleport. Also, chug Shield potions to be immune to IGMS spam.

And finally, Enchantment to... I won't even lie, mass produce gear. Preferably for me, please. Also, the Hold Person DC wouldn't be too bad (32).

Allows for LG/LN/LE (but Ilmater doesn't!).

[Jagel]

Quick note: healing domain rocks as it makes all healing spells empowered including potions. So suddenly potions of cure serious/critical wounds become rather viable in the early to mid levels - and even beyond that in some cases.

[KregorRanger]

Arelith does not have a "clerics must select domains that are on their deity's list" rule.

I am fully aware of that, whether I agree with it or not. When I chime in on a build advice for a cleric, I will always suggest canonically appropriate domains, whether the player is allowed to choose differently or not.

It was one of the purposes of the design of 3e D&D, giving clerics access to varying domains as a way of putting into mechanics, "Clerics of X can do this, and clerics of Y can do this." So if the player questioning his direction on domains actually bothers to mention what deity he intends to serve, then I am going to bother to give canon domain advice, not what gives him the best mechanical advantage.

So for future reference, there's no need to pounce and defend when I seem to tromp on your freedom of choice to be canonical, or not. By all means play how you want. I'll play how I want, and I will continue to advocate the lore as it should be treated.

[Ecstatic]

By all means advocate, but please avoid phrasing your opinion on how things ought to be done as a rule on how things must be done. This is how we end up with shadow rules, which I would personally like to avoid having crop up. On matters of taste and build aesthetics, we have DMs to nudge players and encourage them to be rational with their RP, because all such decisions need to be made case by case on the basis of whether it is good for the server's environment.

For the record, I fully agree that air domain would be a silly choice, but mostly on the grounds that a support and healing themed cleric shouldn't pick up a domain that gives two direct damage nukes and nothing else. But there are other cases where a domain makes perfect sense for a character whose deity does not have it: there's nothing I would find objectionable to a cleric of Torm with the War domain, despite only having Good, Protection, Strength, Law, and Healing, because the deity is relatively militant in his opposition to evil.

[Tathkar Eisgrim]

Ilmater himself has the ability to call lightning to punish those who would inflict harm on others and to grant that ability to his followers. So the Air Domain - for certain sects of Ilmater priests - could indeed be deemed appropriate...

[Ecstatic]

And on the flip side of things, the 3e FR faiths and pantheons book lists "suffering" as one of Ilmater's domains, and the list of spells for that domain are ones selected to cause as much pain and misery as possible. The only other deities that have it are Talona and Loviatar. I could never see myself putting that domain on any but a vastly-misguided Ilmater cleric.