When do you multiclass fighter as cleric?

[Dong Quixote]

So I'm playing this game for the first time since I was a kid, and I was wondering - if you're doing a generic powerhouse battle cleric, when do you start taking fighter levels? It almost seems like a good idea to take it as my first level up, for the weapon proficiencies and power attacks, but I know its important to go for Cleric spells for the buffs relatively quickly. I also want the stat increases sooner rather than later, to up my strength from 14-16.

If anyone has any general tips for a good battle cleric on top of being able to answer this, I'd appreciate it! Thanks in advance.

[jonnin]

its not set in stone. It depends on what level you want to play well at, whether you are doing campaigns or open worlds and if worlds what magic level, and more.
it depends on whether you want to max out BAB or spells, or MC to a weaponmaster, or what.
it depends on your domains too.
a solid build is 2 levels of fighter (for the feats) and then ride cleric out until you can cast heal (which depends on your domains again). Then you can either be a self-buffbot and stop cleric thereabouts and stick to fighter, or be a caster and splash in more fighter for a few bonus feats.

Remember that level 2 spells gets you bull's strength and flame weapon. at that point, very little can stand before you (for many, many levels, and these will always serve you well unless fire immune), you also have prot-evil and such.

if you pick up the domain with knock, your find traps spell and knock make you almost as good as a rogue. Back that up with a mage-nuke domain (there are a couple) and you can emulate all 4 major classes (healer/fighter/rogue/mage). That means skipping heal domain and taking a couple extra cleric levels, or going hard cleric light fighter...

the 2 fighter then cleric approach is pretty good because the first 3 or 4 levels you don't get hurt much and can manage without healing yourself or buffs very easily.

pay attention to whether you want fighter-only feats -- (some, most, all??) can only be taken if you take a fighter level after unlocking them. If you want those, you need to plan more carefully.

Fighter brings the feats and weapons. So will waiting a bit and doing divine champion. A cleric with martial weapons (or elf!) feat is very good too, without MC at all. Ive got an arcane archer cleric, also quite nasty.

[Dong Quixote]

Originally posted by jonnin:

its not set in stone. It depends on what level you want to play well at, whether you are doing campaigns or open worlds and if worlds what magic level, and more.
it depends on whether you want to max out BAB or spells, or MC to a weaponmaster, or what.
it depends on your domains too.
a solid build is 2 levels of fighter (for the feats) and then ride cleric out until you can cast heal (which depends on your domains again). Then you can either be a self-buffbot and stop cleric thereabouts and stick to fighter, or be a caster and splash in more fighter for a few bonus feats.

Remember that level 2 spells gets you bull's strength and flame weapon. at that point, very little can stand before you (for many, many levels, and these will always serve you well unless fire immune), you also have prot-evil and such.

if you pick up the domain with knock, your find traps spell and knock make you almost as good as a rogue. Back that up with a mage-nuke domain (there are a couple) and you can emulate all 4 major classes (healer/fighter/rogue/mage). That means skipping heal domain and taking a couple extra cleric levels, or going hard cleric light fighter...

the 2 fighter then cleric approach is pretty good because the first 3 or 4 levels you don't get hurt much and can manage without healing yourself or buffs very easily.

pay attention to whether you want fighter-only feats -- (some, most, all??) can only be taken if you take a fighter level after unlocking them. If you want those, you need to plan more carefully.

Fighter brings the feats and weapons. So will waiting a bit and doing divine champion. A cleric with martial weapons (or elf!) feat is very good too, without MC at all. Ive got an arcane archer cleric, also quite nasty.

Thanks! I'm doing the original campaign and I intend to play primarily as a melee cleric with self-buffs, but I like have access to the Cleric spells. I'm war and strength domain, I think, but I'm okay with not having lockpick this playthrough (I'll definitely be using a rogue henchman, I reckon). What I want are the multiple attacks gotten (3 at 18 Cleric/Fighter 2 I think), discipline, and martial weapons feats, since I've heard NWN has a bunch of dope-ass martial weapons and swapping between 2h and 1h/shield gives me basically infinite options as far as equipment goes, which is something I definitely want.

Sounds like what I should do now is take Cleric 2 for Bull's Strength, and then take Fighter levels for 2 levels, then back to Cleric for the forseeable future, as I'll be set to melee with any weapon I want with the level 2 buffs and the ones for my domain. I can't really think of any other fighter-specific feats I might want - I guess I'll just take Power Attack when I take that fighter level? any recommendation you'd make on that front?

[jonnin]

I would focus on caster feats honestly. power attack is a penalty to your BAB that as a cleric, you can't afford later on tougher stuff, and early on, its not needed -- it feels wasteful. Or take a long slow road towards whirlwind attack for that aoe, but its a royal pain to get it, and the stats needed would weaken you a lot.

the fighter specific feats are mostly toward a single weapon class, like weapon specialization line. Those are pretty nice if you are willing to stick to one type of weapon, like greatswords are pretty solid and plentiful. But using anything you find well has a lot of merits too.

this just screams half orc to me. Str / wis/ con and dump the rest. Your cha will make turn undead a little lame, but turn undead is over-rated. Not everone likes being a moron though, that 'me help you' stuff gets a little silly after a bit.

[Dong Quixote]

Hm, thanks. I ended up taking power attack, but I think it will be worth it once I have a few fighter levels and when I have bull's strength, which should get me to a pretty good bonus - if not, oh well, human cleric/fighter has a good number of feats. I'm about two hours in so I think I'm just gonna go with this build and hope it works, I've started this game many times over the years but never really gotten more than ~15 hours in, so I'm gonna try to stick with a character this time. I might eventually do fighter 4 cleric 16 since thats losing a few higher level spells for an extra attack and a higher BAB, which sounds kind of appealing since I'll still have everything up to level 6 or 7 spellwise, where most of the buffs are, I think, but I guess by the time I get to a high level I'll know what I want specifically.

[jonnin]

it will work. Multiclassed clerics are amazing, and you don't need to min/max this game. People do a lot of it, but its not necessary at all.

On top of everything else, you can also summon stuff and buff it. This is fairly potent. Strength is going to net you a stoneskin for self or summons too.

I wish you success!

[Dong Quixote]

Thanks for the help friend! When I was like 13 I got this game in a big foldey disk accordion and formed some pretty fond memories getting through the Peninsula district. I've probably done that ten times in the intervening decade and a half but I've never beaten it, and this time I'm determined to see it through!

[76561198065047447]

Have a geez at this cleric build. It uses Divine Power and Haste to get the full compliment of attacks. I found it to be the easiest caster to play (for me a non caster)

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/NWN-Players/discussions/1/492379159712792293/

[tikei]

You should never, never EVER get max BAB before 20, if you plan on going Cleric heavy. Because clerics have the spell Divine Might, which will give you a fighter BAB, netting you (as long as you have 4 attacks pre-epic) another attack at full AB. So if you get 5 attacks below max BAB, you'll cripple yourself with going 5 APR pre-epic.

Since clerics can buff themselves to oblivion, power attack is not necessary (nor will it hurt your AB much later on)

[Dong Quixote]

Originally posted by Azzanhur:

You should never, never EVER get max BAB before 20, if you plan on going Cleric heavy. Because clerics have the spell Divine Might, which will give you a fighter BAB, netting you (as long as you have 4 attacks pre-epic) another attack at full AB. So if you get 5 attacks below max BAB, you'll cripple yourself with going 5 APR pre-epic.

Since clerics can buff themselves to oblivion, power attack is not necessary (nor will it hurt your AB much later on)

So taking more than 2 levels of fighter wouldn't be worth it? I think 18/2 leaves you at 4 APR at cap, and with access to all cleric spells except level 9 ones, which aren't super important, I thought.

[76561198065047447]

You get 9th lvl cleric spells at 17.

Check out the "Notes" on this spell. You want 3 attacks per round at lvl 20 so that you get a bonus attack from this spell at your highest bonus. Add to that another attack from highest bonus from Haste, and you become a monster. Mine gets up into the 40's by lvl 22. So the schedule might look like +43/+38/+33/+43/+43.

{LINK REMOVED}https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Divine_power

Taking pure cleric until epic ensures you have only 3 APR and gives you some pretty nice spell casting base. And I'm all about that base.

[Shia Luck]

I don't understand the "take a fighter level early" idea that seems so common. I wonder what site is giving out such advice? My instinctive answer to the title is "never"!

Fighter is useful for 3 things. Getting an extra attack (needs 4 ftr lvls), weapon specialisation (needs 4 fighter lvls), or getting feats on a feat starved melee build (F/B/Rdd or WM spring to mind, in which case you will want wpn spec and therefore 4 ftr lvls anyway).

With cleric tho, 4 ftr pre epic is normally a bad idea as has been pointed out above. Especially when you have Strength domain. That gives you Divine power at lvl 3 (tho some of those are gone with extended ability buffs from lvl2) and 4, so you have lvl 3 , extended to 4 and extended to 5. (aka extend spell is a must for clerics). That;s a good route to go whether you are caster cleric increasing wis or melee cleric increasing str or stopping at 17 WIS for buffs and heals alone.

(Some of the numbers in this thread seem to be assuming perma haste which might be confusing things. Pure cleric will end at 3 APR, C18/F2 is 3 APR, CL16/F4 is 4 APR. DIv power adds an extra attack at full AB if APR is less than 4 pre epic and Haste adds an extra attack at full AB in all cases).

I'd go expertise (to boost AC while casting in combat) rather than Power attack (unless it is a divine might build) and not really bother with wpn feats unless you know the gear in the module/PW intimately.) Blind fight will be more useful to a melee cleric than wpn focus in something that may or may not drop.

If you want to multiclass a cleric, do it with a class that has tumble for the AC. Monk springs to mind, no? *grin* Discipline, tumble, monk boots and even wear a robe and use a kama if you want. Oh, free evasion and cleave if you go 18/2. ;)

Have fun :)

[Dong Quixote]

I get what you're saying, but I specifically wanted fighter for free martial weapons, discipline, and (most especially) cleave, so I've been pretty stoked on it so far!

[76561198065047447]

I hate playing casters, as I always forget to cast.. With that being said, I love when my friends play them. I've also played "Blood and Faith" build on every server I've found in the past 5 years. It's a superior all around Melee Cleric build Cleric 26/Bard 4/RDD 10. You get UMD and Tumble from the Bard, lots of cheesy gloriousness from the RDD. And clerics are just limburger. I usually take Travel & Trickery domains unless I know perma-haste is available. That means I always have some Haste for the big bad guys. Right now I'm playing on a mid-magic world that belongs to a friend (so +5 max gear). I can crank my AB up to 46, so 46/41/36/46/46.

You never NEED any class. And if you want to pepper some fighter into your build, man have fun. A lot of these builds have been gone over and over, though, and there is a really decent repository here:

{LINK REMOVED}http://world-of-greyhawk.github.io/buildsearch/index.html

Just put in the class combo you think you might want, and start reading.

[Shia Luck]

Oh RP and much more importantly, your image of your character beats min/maxing everytime for fun.

(Compared to monk tho you gained free martial weapons and lost tumble AC. The feats work out the same. Pal 1 would give you martial weapons (and better saves unless you are scaring people with your charisma *grin*). Pal early for saves and martial wpns and Monk around 7 or after so hitting tumble DC of 15 isn't too hard and topping up discipline before enemies start KDing you.)

But I am just throwing ideas around. OC is to lvl 17 IIRC sooo cna't do extreme multiclass builds.

Have fun :)

[tikei]

As it was already pointed out, my assumption on the perma haste might have caused some confusion.

Ftr should only be taken in combination with cleric if you intend to pick up Weapon spec feat and epic weapon spec feats, or if you're feat starved in very specific builds. In any other case it is not worth it, as the character is stronger without the combination of these classes. Also: There's other class combinations with cleric, that will make the toon stronger (combat wise) than combining cleric with fighter.

E.G.
Your attack progression with 4 ftr / 16 cleric will be: X / X-5 / X-10 / X-15
As with 20 Cleric it will be: X / X-5 / X-10

At first glance, it looks like 4 ftr / 16 cleric is so much better as it has an additional attack. However, buffing yourself with divine might changes this completly:

20 Cleric + Divine Might: X / X-5 / X-10 / X

Same attack progression, but 20 Cleric will have his 4th attack with full AB while ftr / cleric suffers -15 on that.


If you need some deep insight into the cleric's class, what's useful, good and what is not, the this is for you:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/nwnecbguild/an-insight-into-the-cleric-class-t515461.html

If you want discipline and cleave, you should pick the monk class for that. Why? Monk get cleave for free and discipline is a class skill. in addition, monks add their wisdom bonus to their armor class while wearing a robe. Depending on the module and its items (e.g. wisdom enhancing items up to +12) your AC can become higher while wearing a robe instead of full plate armor and shield.

You can always pick the martial weapon feat to use martial weapons. However, if you pick monk, you should use a kama instead, for the monks unarmed attack progression. Since the cleric has access to a lot of sick dmg boosts, the more attacks you have, the more dmg you can dish out.

Want a sick melee build that is a lot of fun? https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/nwnecbguild/the-shadow-priest-cleric-26-monk-9-sd5-t515430.html

Destroys everything in melee