The Advantage of a Non-Combat Character

Last night was Steve's Shackled City campaign.  I'm playing an old halfling cleric named Nathaniel Pennywhistle.  Technically Nathaniel died in Jared's Rise of the Runelords campaign, but because I was needing a new character in a pinch, I dusted him off, and Jared helped me retcon him into the world.

As an old halfling, Nathaniel has a strength (STR) of 2.  He uses muleback cords and it allows him to carry gear as though he had a much higher strength.  (I'm imagining Larry King's suspenders).  But with a STR of 2, and a DEX of 6, he's not meant to stand in any front line.  He's pretty much a pure caster.

Which brings me to last night.  After spending almost two hours hanging out with Jeff and Jared, it was game time.  And I went to get out my character sheet.  And of course, it was nowhere to be found.  I even searched my jeep, and found nada.  So I set about remaking my character while we were starting combat almost immediately.

I pretty much remembered his stats.  I knew STR 2, Dex 6, taking a 7 in each, and applying racial (+2 Cha, Dex, -2 Str) and age (-3 Str,Dex,Con, +2 Int, Wis, Cha) modifiers.  I also knew that I'd maxed out WIS, and taken 16 int, 14 charisma.  So I fiddled the numbers to bring it up to 20 build points, and I was pretty sure I at least had all of his modifiers down correctly.

Nathaniel was 4th level, and I remembered that I had taken Quick Channeling (actually Quicken Turning from 3.5, pathfinderized to channeling), and Selective Channel as his two feats.  I also remembered his traits (Dangerously Curious to give UMD as a class skill, and Warden which minimizes any ability damage).

I also remembered his domains (Knowledge, Rune(Language), and Magic(Divine)).  This gave me his domain powers (which I ended up relying on later).

All I really needed to run Nathaniel now were spells.  Since clerics simply pick the spells they want each day, and we had just finished resting,  I just went though the core spell list and picked out some spells that seemed appropriate.

I didn't bother with weapon, or armor.  I just figured that if anything swung at me, and didn't roll a 1, it would hit.  That's why I generally stay somewhere in the middle back, out of melee range.

So I was ready to roll!

As it turned out, we faced a vampire and its minions.  I provided some support with healing bursts, but our new paladin in the party had a bless effect in place, so I didn't even need to bless the party.  I thought the combat would be pretty  boring, until the fighter types brought the vampire down low, and it went into gaseous form, and then traveled right to me.

And suddenly I had something to do.  I spent a couple of rounds healing the party with my channel energy, and placing runes in the only real path the vampire would have, and spent action points to boost other party members, and rode my riding dog to chase it down.  And, I was able to help bring a vampire down, with my little non-combat support cleric.

Fun times.

Beaucoup treasure.

We all made level 5.

It was a fun Thursday.

Tonight - Homelands/Fallen Empires Draft at the Gopher!!!