What to do with my Cleric?

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It seems to me that Clerics gain little at high levels besides increased spell duration. There are a few extra spells -- L23 gets you another Resurrection, L24 Mass Heal/Tremor, L26 Gate. But it is certainly pointless to go beyond 26.

My party consists of two sorcerers (squatting at level 12) and a deep gnome cleric (level 21 plus two more levels squatted). We're in the goblin fortress in Act 1 HOF. The sorcs buff the party (invisibility, stoneskin, pro arrows, pro evil) and the cleric summons demons and undead. In the larger battles the sorcs also toss skull traps, acid storm, and cone of cold.

The cleric has maxed DEX, CON, WIS, minimum INT and CHA, and 12 STR. I'm going to get two Monk levels for the Evasion and Deflect Arrows, but after that I don't know what to do. Three Druid levels would get me 6 castings of Entangle (is that any good?) and 5 castings of Charm Person Or Animal, but that still doesn't take me to level 30.

Help?

 

I wouldn't waste the two levels on monk, high level DG spell resistants is better than evasion and deflect arrows isn't all that. With your 3 man party, I assume the cleric is your frontliner. Why not fight for better BAB and weapon selection. Or barbarian for weapons and rage. Or if LG, paladin for weapons, saves, extra healing, and use of the holy avenger. You could go ranger for duel wield, but with clerics armor options, I assume you have heavy armor and shield for max AC.
Even in HOF, you still need someone to take the opponets punch, and I am sure you do't want the socerers out front.

 

Dont bother with Deflect Arrows. It only works if you are weilding a single-hand melee weapon with no sheild. So a single level of Monk for Evasion and +2 to all saves sounds good.
Since you are considering Monk, I guess you can't take Barbarian.
In that case why not take Fighter or Paladin levels?

The problem with all of this is ofcourse the XP penalty. So why not take Illusionist levels. Afterall, being able to cast Sheild and Mirror Image once in a while can only be useful.
Also if you take a Monk level and try for the high AC route using Monk Wis AC bonus and buffs, you wont even have to worry about casting failures.

If my recollection is correct then a Cleric[21]/Monk[1]/Fighter[2]/Illusionist[6] will only get 20% XP penalty. (Monk[1] for evasion & +2 saves and Fighter[2] for 2 free feats).

 

I don't think my cleric can get a HOF-meaningful AC, but if I was going to do that I think the right way would be naked Monk AC plus Spirit Armor plus Ghost Armor. I let summons do the tanking -- the demon from Gate is especially good, as long as I bring in a few animated dead or boring beetles so he doesn't get completely surrounded. I read that Shades gets really good at level 27; we'll see how that works out.

Multiclassing to Sorc or Wiz is not an option, since those are my dump stats. Neither is Paladin; I'm LN.

Four fighter levels looks good but I'll take those last so I can wait to see what weapon I should specialize in.

Nobody objected to three druid levels, so I'll take those next. I calculate that I'll have 36 WIS by the end, plus greater spell focus, plus the Dreadmaster bonus = DC 30 Charm Person or Animal.

As far as shields go, the ones in ItemList.txt are very non-impressive, unless I overlooked one. I currently am using the one that gives Protection from Arrows (10 less damage from each arrow) for free. Negating one arrow per round is probably better than that but not a lot better. Still, the second Monk level gives +1 to all saves and +1 to BAB, which is more than a 5th fighter level gives.

So: Cleric[21]/Druid[3]/Monk[2]/Fighter[4]