D&D 5E Do Cleric/Druid players just ignore a large portion of their spells list?

MonkeezOnFire · Sep 24, 2018

I find a lot of casters develop their own style which spell choice is very much a part of. Players evaluate things and favour things differently. Some people prefer to buff and heal, others like to deal damage and debuff, some people like having just the spell for a given situation.

There are also spell choices for RP reasons. For example many good aligned clerics will avoid using the evil-feeling spells, the most obvious of which is animate dead.

It's usually the players that value flexibility that are the ones that change up their lists a lot. And even then with the relatively small selection and with some spells being clear all stars their choices may not change very drastically. But that is a conscious balance decision. I believe the Elemental Evil guide even specifically says to use caution when introducing new cleric and druid spells as their inherent flexibility makes these options go a bit farther than for other characters.

iserith · Sep 24, 2018

I pick the spells that suit my idiotic concept character with the punny name and rarely change them unless we're in a pinch and a particular spell would be of great use.

Mistwell · Sep 24, 2018

ccs said:
Nothing has ever prevented me from using a 2nd+ piece of paper & a staple/paper clip....

Sorry. Memes are on my mind lately.

Rhenny · Sep 24, 2018

Actually, I’ve been playing a few clerics over the past few years, and come to think of it, I rarely swap out spells. Sometimes I have to force myself to remember that I can have my PCs pray for different spells each prayer time.

Hussar · Sep 24, 2018

Note, when I said "Cast like a sorcerer", I meant that they pick and choose from their spells known as needed. But, their spells known don't change. IOW, they have every spell of whatever levels they can access accessible.

I remember actually doing this in 2e and it worked great. 99% of the time, I simply cast the normal stuff, and that 1% of the time, I'd actually use spells that no one at the table had ever seen. Snakes to Sticks (the reverse of Sticks to Snakes) was a particularly memorable example.

Zardnaar · Sep 25, 2018

Rhenny said:
Actually, I’ve been playing a few clerics over the past few years, and come to think of it, I rarely swap out spells. Sometimes I have to force myself to remember that I can have my PCs pray for different spells each prayer time.

The cleric spell list in particular has a lot of spells that are so good you are kind of an idiot if you don't take them. Bless, some fo the healing spells, Spiritual Weapon/Guardians etc. This may vary by domain I would not take a few of them as a light cleric for example.

I have heard some players are struggling with Druids as well as as you either go wildshaped but the others are kind of half way between a cleric and wizard in terms of healing and blasting. Outside of the Moon Druid the Druid is never really going to be any good in a fight but every cleric can cast spiritual guardians although the Druid is better at range (except some domains).

MNblockhead · Sep 25, 2018

Spell cards and electronic character sheets like D&D Beyond having led to the use of more clerical spells IME. Easier to switch them, so players do.

Charlaquin · Sep 25, 2018

Cleric, Druid, Wizard, doesn’t matter. In my experience, players pick their favorite spells and prepare them every time unless they somehow know they will specifically need a different one. For example, a Cleric might never prepare Zone of Truth, until the party captures an NPC and plan to interrogate them. Then the Cleric will request they wait a day so he can prepare Zone of Truth.

I have considered implementing a house rule where you don’t prepare spells at the beginning of the day, but you can’t cast more unique spells in one day than you could normally prepare. Basically just deciding retroactively which spells you had prepared that day. It would remove the need to plan ahead, but no one does anyway, and it might open up a lot more variety in what spells actually get cast, and/or eliminate the “”let’s take a long rest before we do that so I can prepare the spell I would need for it” phenomenon.

guachi · Sep 25, 2018

People ignoring most of the spell list is similar to why I'm not impressed when some D&D book advertises "dozens of new monsters". Most will be ignored during actual play. At least if new monsters appear in a module you know they'll actually be used.

I'm sure someone has done this, but it'd be interesting to go through printed modules and see what monsters get used and how often they show up.

Hussar · Sep 25, 2018

Zardnaar said:
The cleric spell list in particular has a lot of spells that are so good you are kind of an idiot if you don't take them. Bless, some fo the healing spells, Spiritual Weapon/Guardians etc. This may vary by domain I would not take a few of them as a light cleric for example.

I have heard some players are struggling with Druids as well as as you either go wildshaped but the others are kind of half way between a cleric and wizard in terms of healing and blasting. Outside of the Moon Druid the Druid is never really going to be any good in a fight but every cleric can cast spiritual guardians although the Druid is better at range (except some domains).

I don't know why you would say this. Summoning is an extremely powerful tool. Drop 4 flying swarms on the board and go to town. Or, make it a 5th level spell and drop 8. Sure, they're only +3 to hit, but, most baddies aren't that hard to hit and 4d4 damage on a hit is pretty significant. Not when you can get 4 attacks per round. And, aside from a few attacks, they effectively have 44 hp each, meaning they can take a few hits that aren't hitting the party. I found land druids to be very effective.

It's funny how everyone has such different experiences.