Help Me Fix The Cleric

[ptolemy18]

Your using the wrong terminology (or at the very least confusing). A 'Defender' character protects their other party members by blocking a path to them, or by making themselves a bigger threat. If you want to play a divine defender the paladin works just fine, and is not boring at all. A defender is one of the Four core roles.

At the risk of being confusing, I was using the term "defender" (as opposed to the core role Defender) in the sense of "not fighting in the front lines all the time, and not attacking on every round." There's 8 classes in the PHB; if people don't want to play a character like this, then they can choose the other 7 classes.

 

[SaffroN]

There are plenty of hard choices to make in 4e.

They are just different choices now. You may save the heal for a different party member, choose to make them use a second wind instead. Or maybe you will use healing strike letting you hit as well as heal in the same action, however if you miss the heal doesn't take, making the action risky.

Plenty of options there, and they all allow me to attack in the same turn.

 

[ptolemy18]

There are plenty of hard choices to make in 4e.

They are just different choices now. You may save the heal for a different party member, choose to make them use a second wind instead. Or maybe you will use healing strike letting you hit as well as heal in the same action, however if you miss the heal doesn't take, making the action risky.

Plenty of options there, and they all allow me to attack in the same turn.

Yes, because obviously the 4E design philosophy is that players will get bored, throw their dice down, say "Man! This game sucks!" and leave the table if they aren't allowed to make an attack EVERY ROUND.

Combat is supposed to have some roots... really, really distant roots, but still roots... in "reality", right? Have the designers of 4E never watched a war movie where some dude is lying injured and the medic runs over to help them, while their comrades lay down covering fire? That's drama. That's an archetypal moment. That's excitement. Just because it's a fantasy game world and the cleric *can* heal an ally by hitting an enemy with their mace, because it's fantasy, doesn't mean it "feels" right. If they come out with 4E Modern, are they going to have special gunmen who fire Healing Bullets that, when they hit an enemy, splash their allies with Healing? ~_~ "For each Nazi that I mow down, an adjacent ally gets a Healing Surge!"

I mean, give me a break. Fine -- I've figured out my first 4E character -- a pacifist cleric who prefers not to directly attack enemies, who would rather spend their actions healing & supporting allies, and is thus IMPOSSIBLE TO CREATE according to the 4E rules. ~_~

Oh well, maybe when they come to their senses they'll make a "Healer" or "Priest" core class in one of the later PHBs.

 

[drothgery]

I mean, give me a break. Fine -- I've figured out my first 4E character -- a pacifist cleric who prefers not to directly attack enemies, who would rather spend their actions healing & supporting allies, and is thus IMPOSSIBLE TO CREATE according to the 4E rules. ~_~

Oh well, maybe when they come to their senses they'll make a "Healer" or "Priest" core class in one of the later PHBs.

I don't think WotC will give you what you want any time soon. I won't say that no one enjoys characters like that -- clearly you do, and so does a friend of mine from college -- but not many people do. Pure support characters are too reactive / passive for most people; the major reason why CoDzilla existed in 3.x was to give people incentive to play the healer.

Besides, what's a pacificist doing hanging around with a group of people that routinely settle problems with violence and finance their high-flying existence by killing their enemies and taking their stuff?

 

[SaffroN]

I'm just trying to help out, ptolemy18. I just wasn't quite sure what you wanted out of your Cleric. Their are plenty of indirect 'attack' powers for the cleric that could greatly help allies. These coupled with the modified healing word power and the warlords at-will 'Commander’s Strike' could hopefully get you the character that you want until some other class rolls around.

An example power selection for a Core level 10 Cleric that deals absolutely no damage by itself. (at-wills excluded)

Encounter 1 Cause Fear
Daily 1 Beacon of Hope
Daily 1 Guardian of Faith (kinda)
All Utility 2 powers
Encounter 3 Command
Daily 5 Rune of Peace
Daily 5 Consecrated Ground (kinda)
All Utility 6 powers
Encounter 7 NONE
Daily 9 Astral Defenders
Daily 9 Blade Barrier (kinda)
All Utility 10 powers

It is unfortunate that there are only damaging at-wills. However with the adaptation of Healers word and the use of Commander's strike that only leaves one at-will and one encounter level 7 missing to create completely a pacifist cleric (at least up to level ten).

At-will powers are supposed to be attacks. We can't have that when we are trying to make a character who doesn't attack now can we?

Divine Fortification Cleric Attack 1
You beseech your deity to strengthen you or one of your allies resilience.
At-Will ✦ Divine
Standard Action Ranged 5
Target: You or one ally
Effect: The target gains temporary hit points equal to your Wisdom modifier.
Increase healing to 2 * Wisdom modifier at 21st level.

I'm not exactly sure how to scale this with rising level...

I hope this helps

 

[cdrcjsn]

I saw this thread this morning and whipped up the Priest class in about an hour or so. It's very rough, but I think it might meet some of the issues you have with not having to do damage to help the party.


Priest Class

I added a few Channel Divinity feats just for fun because I don't like the flavor of some of them. Sehanine's Reversal in the PHB for example is a pretty poor power, something that will come up about once per 5 levels (if that).