How martial should the Cleric be?

[Doug McCrae]

There was a recent article about the cleric which seemed to indicate they're going with 'all of the above'. You'll be able to create a platemailed mace-wielding martial cleric, a bow-wielding leather wearing cleric, perhaps even a squishy priest style cleric.

This would mean a lot of options. Presumably, for balance, the priest-style cleric has substantially better spellcasting than the martial cleric.

In fact this could mean the sorcerer-isation of all casters, something I'd like to see. What I mean by this is that during char gen, each character has a lot of options, but once char gen is done, the character has become much more tightly defined and only has a small number of powers. No 1e-3e type 'omni casters', with huge spell lists that can be switched every day.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'd much rather dissociate character mechanics from Diety. Let the players build something that literally reflects their diety if they want to, or not, if they don't want to.

I don't think there should be specific gods in the PHB, as there were in 4e. Better if they just use terms like 'god of war', 'god of merchants', etc. Admittedly this does have the drawback of being less flavorful, but the advantage of being less world-specific. There are so many D&D worlds now, we can't afford to be too specific.

 

[drothgery]

I think it really depends on whether you're using the paladin as a champion of any deity / alignment / cause class, or just the pre-4e (and 3.5 UA) rule of LG champions of LG/LN/NG deities (with a few campaign-specific exceptions). If paladins don't have strict alignment restrictions, then they should be the generic heavily armored holy warrior class and the cleric more of a caster. If they do, you might want the cleric in the holy warrior role and a priest class for the lightly armored / caster / holy sage type.

 

[BobTheNob]

IMHO. Not martial at all.

Any semblance of martial capability should come from multiclassing with fighter or by integrating martially oriented Backgrounds and themes.

One should be ABLE to re-produce the classic D&D cleric in effect, but the "vanilla cleric"(the priest) should not be a martial type in the slightest.

My two cents

(p.s. same goes for alot of the old D&D archtypes like the ranger and barbarian)

 

[Minigiant]

As martial as an aristocrat.

A cleric is just a devout nobleman-equivalent religious scholar who can cast divine spells.

As good a warrior as a rich guy who practices fighting/hits the gym a little during his free time.

 

[tlantl]

I really think that if the cleric is going to have spells that increase their combat ability so that it is comparable to the fighter then they are too powerful. If a cleric can routinely buff themselves in combat to be more effective then they should be on par with the rogue before taking advantage of their combat increase spells.

If the power level of a class is easily increased to the point where they are arguably better than the class that is designed to be the best in combat then the design team failed to make that class stand out in it's particular niche.
If the fighter becomes second fiddle to the cleric because of the cleric's ability to use his spells then the cleric is too strong. If the druid is able to drag along another combatant to double it's combat effectiveness and can increase her ability ( and that of the creature she commands) to fight to levels above the fighter then it's too strong.

I really think that the cleric should either lose all of it's ability to buff in a fight or lose the ability to use those buffs on themselves.

Perhaps it's best to return the cleric to the role of party healer and remove all of the cool from the class. There's no need for a group to force a player to take the cleric as a character for the purpose of group healing, they merely need to hire a henchman or add an npc cleric to the party to be played by the dungeon master. I do it all the time so players can choose other options.

 

[Dausuul]

Optionally martial. The cleric should be competent bashing heads with a mace, and equally effective casting spells/using granted powers. Pick which one you want to use most; you can cast all the time, bash all the time, or split down the middle.

 

[ren1999]

I've returned to the old DOS video games for inspiration and it seems that the SSI Gold Box games are very well done and balanced.

Perhaps you are right in that we need to return the Cleric to an earlier time. I would even say that Clerics should be restricted to these spells.

Cure () Wounds
" Poison
" Disease
Remove "
Bless
Turn (Undead)
Sleep
Hold ()
Charm ()
Summon ()
and a few other prayers that just heal, bless or control

Then restrict the Cleric to 8 hit points while Rouge's and Fighters get higher hit points.

Restrict the Cleric to bludgeoning weapons and nothing higher than chain mail.

I try to urge players not to use spells and prayers of light, acid, and sound because I force players to roll 1d4 damage on themselves if they are in the range of acid -- or they most roll a reflex save or be blinded, and all party members a automatically deafened by sound based attacks.

So the cleric types in my game don't chose 4th edition type light prayers but rather fire.

 

[Ramen]

I say make it deity or philosophy based with general archetypical examples in the core.

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[Grimmjow]

i think they should be able to do a lot of things. Martial with divine buffs, and range divine magic.