Chelaxian Cleric of Asmodeus

[ArcturusRising]

I'm not familiar with all of the Pathfinder subclasses. I'm interested in creating a Chelaxian Cleric of Asmodeus that specializes in summoning devils and wears light armor or red and black robes. Then someone on Reddit posted a spell list and I realized there are no Gate spells like in DnD, just Summon Animals (it should be renamed). So I was thinking of specializing in summoning fire elementals as a substitute and going with Fire Domain, which is one of Asmodeus' domains. Since I am not going to summon animals the Herald Caller seems less appealing, so I was thinknig of the Ecclesitheurge or standard Cleric and get Spell Focus: Conjuration + Augmented Summoning as feats.

Which is a good 2nd domain, amongst Evil, Trickery, Magic, and Law? Magic seems more utilitarian with Dispel, but Trickery sounds thematically fun and makes Stealth and Trickery as class skills.

Then there is the Inquisitor class,which seem to overlap with the Clerics and I'm not quite sure the distinction is obvious to me (from a lore perspective). Also from a lore perspective, are all of these archetypes available in Cheliax and do any of them make more sense than others, for what I'm trying to build?

[Blackdragon]

For a summoner cleric go Herald Caller. You will get 3 free feats and spontaneous summoning. You lose medium armor prof and get only one domain, but from your fluff that's ok. You can also dip 1 level in Fighter for a ton of proficiencies and 1 extra feat. If you don't like summoning animals, use Animate Dead and extended Animate Dead for levels 3-4, then you start getting decent summon monsters. Bonus for undead summons: you can heal them with negative channel (as well as Jaethal, and yourself if you have death domain, but Asmodeus doesn't have that).

Ecclesitheurge is more like a Divine blaster caster, since he should be able to use regular slots for domain spells (last time I checked this was bugged), at the cost of not being able to cast in armor. It's a very finicky class even if it were working properly, as it makes you very MAD (needs high Wis for casting, high Cha for channeling, high Dex for defence, and a decent Con for hp, so only 2 dump stats).

[Iry]

Herald Caller with Evil or Fire. 1 Level of Fighter if you want heavy armor tanking. 1-2 Levels of Sensei if you want to go Dex + Wisdom and hit things now and then.

But really. Animate Dead + Negative Energy spam is your most effective trick. Crusader can give you that along with heavy armor and no caster level loss.

[ArcturusRising]

Do summoner feats work for Animate Dead in Pathfinder Kingmaker? My impression was they don't, because the wording on the spell is different and it is a necromancy spell, not conjuration. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Blackdragon]

Originally posted by ArcturusRising:

Do summoner feats work for Animate Dead in Pathfinder Kingmaker? My impression was they don't, because the wording on the spell is different and it is a necromancy spell, not conjuration. Thanks for the suggestions.

They should work because Owlcat gutted Animate Dead/Create Undead, making it 1 round/level instead of permanent like in PnP Pathfinder. So the undead are just like a summon now, and summoning feats should apply to them.

However, seeing how much Owlcat has screwed up with the ruleset, I would not be surprised if the summoning feats didn't work for the necromancy spells.

I mean, every place I look in this game, something is screwed up. Like domain spell lists - they do not follow Pathfinder domains. Ecclesitheurge casting is bugged. Crusader casting is bugged (no domain slot if Wisdom too low for bonus spells). Why the hell couldn't they just friggin stay within the rules? Why'd they have to screw so much stuff up, either intentionally or through bugs?

EDIT: Just checked in game, Augment Summoning does NOT apply to skeletal champions from Animate Dead. Had 2 clerics, one regular one herald caller with the feat. NO difference between their skeletons' attack rolls, both get +3 Str bonus.

This is stupid... if you make Animate Dead 1 round/level, then at least make summoning feats applicable? Jeez, even Baldur's Gate did it right 20 years ago!

[ArcturusRising]

Thank you for taking the time to experiment and verify Augment Summoning does not work on Animate Dead. I agree that if you gut the duration of Animate Dead and treat it like a regular summon spell then it should benefit from summoner feats.

Do you know if Herald Caller can spontaneous summon an elemental or is it only the animal spells? I haven't tested it yet, but maybe you have. I currently have a level 10 Necromancer and a level 2 Ecclesitheurge.