Best cleric 'special powers'

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Bad example, I'd say. *Drow's* Faerie Fire is insta-casting, so you can pull it off very quickly, if you feel there is no risk you will need healing in the next 6 seconds (which in Normal mode should be pretty safe to estimate, but HoF mode might be more tricky). It isn't stopped by saving throws or even Spell resistance (while the regular Faerie Fire spell can be stopped by both). It's an advantage that can be applied to even the toughest opponents, where most other spells wouldn't help you out. The effects aren't massive, but a little AC penalty to a difficult enemy is rarely useless.

 

"As the game progresses," so yeah, I'm thinking of HoF mode. At that point the opportunity cost (not being able to cast a spell for six seconds, plus the hassle of clicking) feels like it outweighs the small decrease in the number of blows it takes the kill the target.

It's not that I am constantly casting spells, in fact I mostly rely on ranged combat--but I like to keep open the option of almost-instantly casting Greater Command/Invisibility/Otiluke's Resilient Sphere/Heal/Symbol of Hopelessness/etc., and there is no one in my parties who does not have access to such spells. If I had a drow Barbarian or some such low-magic class the calculation would probably be different.

 

The only reason I don't use Drow's Faerie Fire, is because I frequently forget that the special abilities sometimes contain useful stuff. -2AC on a boss can be a big difference, when your melee is important. Heart of Fury mode makes most of the offensive magic useless, with the exception of some debuffs. Mostly you'll be buffing up your team, and diving into ranged/melee. Then all your attacks in a round count. But if you have 4 attacks per round, your 4th will be at -15 attack bonus compared to the 1st attack. It will frequently miss, and that -2AC will make a difference, believe me.

I stand by my endorsement of Drow's innate Faerie Fire. It's a mild cheese!

 

WT..? @ the axe feat? I choose the morningstar feat sometimes only for RP reasons, not because I actually find the weapon useful or powerful. Is there some axe in the game that's gives clerics special bonus'?

 

I think you're missing the point. Battleguards of Tempus get 2 *free* weapon feats from the start. It sorta ties them down to axe weapons, but the feats are very useful nonetheless.

 

Not to mention one of the best weapons in the game is an axe. Or rather, a throwing version of one.

 

Holy Thread Necromancy, Batman!

All that to comment on Haft Over Head aka Dullcobble's Axe?

 

Counting domains Oghma has great domain spells. A lot of the spells have like a 8th level spell in a 6th level domain slot. Check it out.

 

That's not unique. My personal favourite, Bane, can cast Gate as lvl7 domain spell.

 

I think Domain-wise Talos and Lathander, in that order, take the cake. Clerics with such high-level wizard spells are almost too powerful.

Power-wise, it almost doesn't matter, because the domain spells are infinitely more useful than the powers. But if I had to choose, I would probably go for the Tyrant's Dictum.

 

Isn't Tyrant's Dictum bugged? I heard it does not work correctly. I'll check it when I get home, I just need to find a suitable spell and victim, I mean subject.

That being said.... if Tyrant's Dictum works, does it combine with spells given by other sources? I mean, would a Wizard 15/Dreadmaster 1 receive a bonus to any spells cast as a wizard?

 

afaik Tyrant's Dictum works only with his domain spells. And not even with the same spell as a normal spell.

 

What a pity! Seems worthless then.

 

Tyrants dictim, great because you will never stop using it, passive activation and it always improves the thing you always picked a bane cleric to do in the first place.
Selfish power but that's excatly what you'd expect from them.


Tempus strength, trash, any cleric of any domain has bulls/champion strength which are just as usable on caster and non-caster alike.

Helms are hard to separate but I think they are globally good and unique powers, all parties care about S.T and A.C, neither arguably lose value in normal or H.O.F.
Stronger ways exist to boost ST/AC but these stack with them just fine.


1 free identify per day, i'm just imaging someone resting 5 times just to get 5 things identified over just shoving them in a bag of holding if their party really did just lack knowledge arcana that hard. 7 votes, crikey!


Selune's freedom, another who designed these suppossedly unique god specific worshiping powers to do something any cleric could do for 10x longer durations and not limited to just 1 person per day, blegh!

 

You get it much earlier than Free Action, meaning you can use it to enable your fighters to ignore Grease, and Entangle right out of the gate. Also to counter Hold Person, but you rarely get hit by that. Later it works against Web, one of the more useful battlefield control spells even late in the game.
Once you get Free Action, it's far less useful, but the real advantage of that power is that you can use it before 7th level.
While that doesn't take too long in this game, it still takes some time, probably in the Horde Fortress. BG1 ended around 7th level, and 7th level comes half way through IWD1.

 

I had considering the lower level availability but for single use single target and bad low level duration I found these types of things as unreliable, Helm has okayish ones as general ST/AC is rare and isn't fighting against any alternatives

a paladin divine grace at +8 cha is another +2 with helm or a 25% bigger bonus

we have these things for the entire game so i'd lean more towards ones with long term benefits