Why Is the Cleric Unfun?

Driddle said:

Wow. I didn't realize that's what the DM must be doing. Thanks for opening my eyes.
And to think I used to imagine we were intelligent and played well together ...

Suddenly the game is much less fun. I might as well go play WoW where the terms "win" and "lose" are so much more clearly defined and we don't have to worry about the program code "cheating" on our behalf.

Dang it.

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Sorry, I don't mean to be rude and I wasn't saying you were playing the wrong way or anything. I'm honestly just confused. Since I've played Living Greyhawk in at least 6 different regions with a good 30 or 40 different DMs plus I've played under a good 15 or so DMs in home games. I've never encountered a game where we thought there was even a small chance of escaping an encounter that was going badly...well, maybe we could get away with only 1 or 2 deaths. At higher level when we could teleport and stuff we knew we had an exit, but most other times...we knew it was likely a TPK.

I'm not even being sarcastic when I say what kind of encounters are you having where there is a large middle ground between win and lose? Even when we do get away, we consider it a loss. Normally getting away means we didn't get past the monster and not getting past the monster means not accomplishing our mission. What types of encounters are you having where there are all these ways to defeat the enemies without a cleric?

Majoru Oakheart said:

I've never encountered a game where we thought there was even a small chance of escaping an encounter that was going badly...well, maybe we could get away with only 1 or 2 deaths. At higher level when we could teleport and stuff we knew we had an exit, but most other times...we knew it was likely a TPK.

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Running away is one of the hardest things in the early game to accomplish, I agree. Without fast transport methods, it's very hard to get away from worgs and other such things.

I suspect use of area control spells would help buy time for retreat, which helps once you get sleet storm and entangle.

What types of encounters are you having where there are all these ways to defeat the enemies without a cleric?

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In my group's case, it's in encounters where something is not going to tear us a new one in one hit. Without an enemy that pulses great gobs of damage, it's relatively easy to get through the fight and have a chance to pour gold into our wounds. Also, you'd want to pay a lot more attention to your defenses, stacking up saves and AC as much as you can to slow down what damage comes in. Alternately, burn them down faster.

Brad

Grog said:

I'll take a stab at it:

The cleric is unfun because a great deal of the time, you don't get to decide when to use your own spells. The decision is often forced upon you by other players, the DM, or even random dice rolls.

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Yes, but this can also be attributed to the player not sticking up for his character. The group I play with has seen clerics that only heal wounds of the faithful, or only heal those wounds that were inflicted in combat (damage from traps were not worthy of healing).

The game I'm running has limited cleric abilities, using the spontaneous casting from the UA. The initial party didn't even have a cleric (paladin, monk, rogue, psychic warrior), so the paladin was the main source of healing, and the psychic warrior helped out. When my next player joined, he took a cleric. With his limited selection of spells, he didn't take and of the cure spells, but instead took mass lesser vigor. When the party would get hurt, he would decide if it was enough to benefit from the spell, and at higher levels, if enough of the party was hurt to benefit from the spell. He has picked up a cure spell since then (but is just as likely to cast it on undead as the party), but most of his spells are battlefield control and buff. The paladin still does a large amount of healing, and has the party's highest heal skill.

Skaven13

clerics do more than heal

Let me explain one of my bad experiences with playing a cleric. I was in a 6th level adventure and was playing a cleric of Tempus. The dictate of a war god would be that you be in the middle of combat IMO, so that is what i did. The other players had an issue with this.

Also, they expected healing at the end of the fight. I really dont see a problem with this as a rule, but when they are whining about having lost 4 hit points when their max is close to 50, it really annoyed me.

My idea was simply to save my spells, including healing for when it was really needed. Its called resource management. A cleric has a limited number of spells to cast in a day. As an addition defense to this thought, there were a number of times when i was down a few hit points and didnt heal myself either.

It is not that the class itself is not fun, it is the way others percieve the class that makes it a pain to play. Clerics can be an awesome addition to any party, but the players (both the one playing the cleric and others) need to realize that the clerics entire purpose is NOT to be at the beck and call of everyone else. A certain amount is teamwork is definitely needed, i agree, but oftentimes it is carried too far in the case of the preist.

Odhanan said:

To answer the OP, the Cleric is perceived as "unfun" because he is perceived as a support character with a passive role within the group: healing people, buffing them. He doesn't "do" the stuff at his best: he helps others do it better.

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If you add my additions in bold, I agree with you completely. It is that second perception that I rail against as it is simply not true.

I also find the argument funny that the cleric must run around healing even scratches after every round because the monster has the capability to "drop the tank in one round", well if he does that then the cleric is not going to be much use anyway now is he?

PC1: "I have 35 HP at full strength"
DM: "You take 49 points of damage"
PC2: "CLERIC!"
PC3: (cleric): "What the hell do you expect me to do?"

And finally, how come nobody wants to fix the HP recovery system instead of dictating how cleric players "play" their characters? HP loss are not wounds after all, they are a loss of stamina more than anything else, so just HR to recover them in other faster ways. The 1 HP tank is just as much a tank as the 100 HP tank.

Driddle said:

And a great many aren't.
(shrug)

Good grief, what kind of DMs have some of you been playing against?! I can't remember the last time the DM tried to beat us into submission with a scenario we couldn't overcome or otherwise work around ... clerically or otherwise. And even when things are tough and we're getting slapped silly, it's still not a matter or "win" or "lose."

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Well, when I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, we played 80 sessions. I killed 27 PC's. I roll all my rolls in the open and you can see everything we did. I have transcripts posted somewhere or other. In any case, I whacked a PC every 3 sessions playing entirely fairly. About half were traps or save or die, the other half were straight up damage.

How do you work around the ogre with a greataxe critting you for 50 points of damage when you only have 30?

cougent said:

If you add my additions in bold, I agree with you completely. It is that second perception that I rail against as it is simply not true.

I also find the argument funny that the cleric must run around healing even scratches after every round because the monster has the capability to "drop the tank in one round", well if he does that then the cleric is not going to be much use anyway now is he?

PC1: "I have 35 HP at full strength"
DM: "You take 49 points of damage"
PC2: "CLERIC!"
PC3: (cleric): "What the hell do you expect me to do?"

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After my player claims that I was gunning for their character ( ), the party usually works out a way to extract the character quickly, but there's not much call for the cleric unless the member hasn't stabilized.

Cougent - note, I said "Capability" not guarantee. If I'm at full hp's, the chances of me getting whacked in a single round are fairly low. That chance only increases with damage. So, in effect, by not healing the nickel and dime stuff, you are increasing the lethality of an encounter.

Generally not something other players are going to be happy with.

Cleric PC: Naw, you're only down 10 hp. Suck it up, I'm saving this Command spell.
DM: You take 47 damage. You have 47 hp's right?
Fighter PC: When I'm at full I do... :\

Hussar said:

Well, when I ran the World's Largest Dungeon, we played 80 sessions. I killed 27 PC's. I roll all my rolls in the open and you can see everything we did. I have transcripts posted somewhere or other. In any case, I whacked a PC every 3 sessions playing entirely fairly. About half were traps or save or die, the other half were straight up damage.

How do you work around the ogre with a greataxe critting you for 50 points of damage when you only have 30?

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Was that a TPK?

If not the party worked around it.

And to answer some of the poeple asking how do you run when the monster is faster.

Wall Spells
Cloud spells
Illusions
Summons
Entangle
slow
the super cheap evards

Outside the PH there are some feats/class abilities that slow people like hamstring, or heck again the super cheap tangelfoot bag.

What I'll freely admit sucks is the vast majority of these abilities are magic, non magic types have very limited options when it comes to escape and even more limited options in helping the party escape.

Henry said:

I've noticed several comments about the weakness of clerics in AD&D, and I really didn't see it - but then, we were always cautious about our progress, and never went more in an in-game day than we felt we could handle, which meant I could pack a couple of "high damage" spells on the 4th, 6th, and 7th level spells. Clerics could do more damage than the fighters, rangers, and paladins if they used their spells to good effect.

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I never noticed clerics in AD&d being weak either. Heck in my last AD&D game everyone except one player followed the same religion, our cleric was probably the most powerful character due to spells like recitation and righteous wrath of the faithful. I was temped to mellee in those fights and I was playing a wizard.