CLericless PArties

I am running a one shot game in a couple of weeks and I told everyone to bring a character. I have been getting some replies back and out of a party of 8 people no one is playing a cleric. I was a little suprised.

Now, I don' t consider this a huge deal. I will write in a couple of potions in, someone (a ranger I think) has a wand of CLW and there is no undead. I have done it before but never in 3E or for such a large party. I am not particularly worried about it.

One of the guys I play with his going BANANAS though. He feels that the entire game balance is thrown out of whack in an unbalanced party. I think he is over-reacting.

What do you guys think? I am not a 15 year old kid, I have been playing this game for 3 editions and have a pretty good idea of balance and how the game works (although others on this board disagree about that sometimes). Can good games be run w/o a cleric?

If he feels it's out of whack without a cleric, tell him to play one. Sounds like he wants a cleric in the party but doesn't want to give up his character concept and would rather someone else give up theirs.

I've been in a number of 3e games, and the first one had no Cleric and only one Bard for a short period. We eventually had an NPC cleric (it wasn't necessary) and now finally a PC cleric in a game that's run almost continuously for a year and a half... we've found no lack.

There's certainly an argument to be made that a Cleric is an intrinsic part of the D&D experience, but a player dictating the make-up of the party just yanks my chain in a negative way.

Grumpy Greg

I'm currently running a short Dragonlance campaign to show my players what a good setting it is. It's set before the War of the Lance so there are no clerics/druids/paladins, so no healing.

The players are not worried, they are just being very careful and not wasting any magical healing that they do find.

I am an advocate of a balanced party, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Low-level games can be easily run without a Cleric. As long as you have some healing potions and maybe a wand or two, the party will be fine.

When you get into the higher levels, though, you run into some problems. Clerics aren't just for healing hit points. They have extremely valuable spells which remove curses, end certain conditions, and heal ability damage. What happens if a member of your party gets hit with a Blindness spell, or is drained by a Wraith? You'll have to go running back to town before they can be cured. They'll be spending their hard-earned gold on Cure Disease and Break Enchantment spells at the local temple instead of on that Flaming Burst Greatsword that they've always wanted.

It can be done, but it's a real hassle. But by the time that a Cleric is desperately needed, somebody will most likely be able to take the Leadership feat and get a Cleric cohort.

The group I'm playing in has managed pretty well with just my druid, though it helped a bit to be able to use the Remedy Moderate Wounds spell from Magic of Faerun.

We did have the occasional NPC cleric pop in or out, but were usually on our own.

I'll note, however, that I made full use of my item creation feats to make wands and potions of cure spells (and made sure everyone had a potion or two to heal me back up with so I could use my wands).

I ran a game with only a sorcerer and a psion for awhile. It was fun, and worked out fine. About half the time a person or two would stop by, and usually played barbarians. They found an ioun stone of regeneration, who slept with that floating around them was usually debated before they rested.
It's not a "normal" d&d experience. Who cares! Have fun with it. Getting past the problems of having no rogues/tanks/healers can be fun, if you don't focus on it being frustrating. But, you have to convince him of that...
I'd say just tell him it's an extra challenge for them to overcome. If you want to try something more visible (just to shut him up, really,) try giving a 2% exp bonus for the lack of a cleric.

It can be done, the group just has to realize this limitiation. I ran a group for 3 months or so without a cleric. Then they made a simple, stupid mistake (forgot they were out of healing) and the whole party died.

Heh, I've had a funny idea of starting a game where everyone had to have at least a level of cleric. That sounds fun (aside from when the different religous philosophies are debated)

I'm running a high (13-15) level game with no cleric in a party of 7. They usually do okay, relying a lot on the paladin with charisma-pumpers and wands of curing, but occasionally they run into problems. Two sessions ago, the party rogue failed a save against a wisdom damaging poison, she spent most of the adventure in a stupor. There was nobody who could cure ability damage.

I don't think a cleric is a requirement, but you just have to be conscious of it. I let the party rest long periods with only minimal random encounters if they get in a pickle. This means I can't run adventures that are too intense and time sensitive without an increased chance of casualties. But it's not like you can't run adventrues. I've considered running single class rogue or wizard games, but the way I would run them would be way different than a normal party.

One thing that might work depending on character level is to have one of the players take the leadership feat and take a cleric cohort.

...Yeah, I'm talking about my game. You can phase me out here if you want to.

For a variety of reasons, I banned clerics in the last game I played in, and the party did just fine. Granted, it was low level and they had a paladin along, so I can't tell how it progresses as the party does, but...

First, curative potions are cheap. Curative wands even more so. If the party has someone with a divine spell list or Use Magical Device, give them a CLW wand at the first possible opportunity. If that doesn't work, realize that there will be other clericless parties out there, and let the party buy potions to heal their hit point damage, diseases, poisons, etc. as easily as they could in a CRPG. Hand out more treasure to compensate for the amount they'll have to spend on curing, but I personally think this is a good thing. Make curing a limited resource, and you'll encourage the party to only use it when they have to, instead of turning the cleric into McHealing.

Second, open up the arcane spell lists to pick up some of the spells you'd otherwise lack. I'm going to avoid the "curing wizards" angle for now, but I don't see any good reason for them not to have things like Deeper Darkness, Freedom of Movement, Create Food and Water, or Break Enchantment. Basically, if it doesn't heal wounds, and/or it undoes something that would either take the character out of play indefinately, let the wizard have it. Note for the sake of raising that a simple Limited Wish can mimic Raise Dead or Reincarnate, so don't feel the need to slide those over.

Third, for the love of whatever diety nobody worships, turn any reference to permanent ability drain into temporary ability damage. And lighten up on any "needs a blessed/holy weapon to damage". This shouldn't be too hard, but if anything in your adventure design looks like it's up a cleric's alley, tone it down. And finally, when you bring undead into play, look over the celestial/infernal template, and apply the same kind of CR mod to your now-unturnable undead.