Help: Human Cleric - which two feats to start

[scampb]

I am creating a Human Cleric. Stats are below. I have no idea where I should start with feats for my first two feats. Any feedback is appreciated.

Also, do the starting abilities and point allocations look good for a cleric?

STR 12
DEX 8
CON 13
INT 8
WIS 17
CHA 14

I put my points as follows:

3 to concentration, total 4
2 to diplomacy, total 4
1 to heal, total 4
2 to jump, total 2

[Blazer]

Mental Toughness and Extend. More SP and the ability to cast double the length of elemental resists/bless/etc (where appropriate, obviously) for your journey through the Harbor/Market quests on N/H/E.

[Cowdenicus]

I would highly advise quicken and maximize for reasons I am not allowed to state on the boards at the present time. I know I am respecing my feat order (not changing the feats) for a reason to be announced later.

That is all.

[moorewr]

I would highly advise quicken and maximize for reasons I am not allowed to state on the boards at the present time. I know I am respecing my feat order (not changing the feats) for a reason to be announced later.

That is all.

Cowdenicus is... VAST and MYSTERIOUS!

What was that about I wonder?

Anyway, quicken is a life saver - it does what combat casting ought to do, and let's you get off that clutch heal without being interrupted. You certainly need it. Maximize or Empower Healing are good choices.. Maximize is a definite if you intend to use Blade Barrier effectively. I keep debating Heighten.. maybe when I'm level 18 so my holds, destructions and banishes rock the house...

addendum: Extend is a must at low levels (I didn't take it on my clerogue and it drives me nuts), but I am thinking of dropping it since un-extended buffs last 16 minutes now...

[moops]

The feats you start with might not be the ones you end with.
Maximize and quicken are great, but really no need for them until higher level content--and you will get a chance to take feats later as well.

I took Mental Toughness and Extend with all 3 of my clerics at the start, and then dropped them later on for quicken/spell focus feats, and one cleric has heighten. . .trying it out.

Luckily, Dragonshards drop enough to change our feats around if we get bored/find a better use for feats, etc.

[Blazer]

As mentioned by other posters, you may/may not keep the feats from the early levels when you cap your character. For the harbor/market stuff you'll be doing, you won't really need any meta feats other than Extend. Feats like Heighten (which you can't take at lvl 1 anyway), Maxmize, etc are most beneficial at the higher levels.

Regarding your other questions: your starting stats look fine. I'm not a huge fan of the Dx enhancement line, so my personal recommendation would be to drop CHA down to 12 (or even 11) and put those points into CON. Your skills are also fine, though I would recommend putting some points into Balance from here on out. Clerics as a class are notorious for having low ACs and low Balance skills, which means when a monster trips/improve trips you, you're going down and are likely to stay down for a bit. I wouldn't bother putting any more points into Heal, it's (sadly) a rather useless class skill.

[QuantumFX]

Another fun combo is Mental Toughness and Spell Focus: Evocation followed up with Greater Spell Focus: Evocation at 3. It won't help your direct damage Evocation spells but it sure is fun to spam Sound Burst early and Holy Smite/Chaos Hammer/Order's Wrath later in life.

[Uska]

For the start I would say mental toughness and extend, later you may wish to have quicken and max or empower.