D&D 5E Death, dying and class balance

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

But that's the thing about stereotypes; they often have some basis in truth (Clerics do cast healing spells) and some basis in, well, not truth. Few people remember, for example, that the Thief was both a necessary part of the 1e party and, at the same time, not much beloved ...

That doesn't exactly sound unfamiliar. The Thief and Cleric are the classic examples of 'niche protection' and how it was designed into the game and into modules. Every dungeon had some over-sized undead encounter for the Cleric to turn and some deadly traps for the Thief to find/remove or expendable trying.

But despite the stereotypes, it was almost always the case that someone wanted to play a Cleric before a Thief.

Not so much, no. The stereotypical response to 'what do you need' was "a Cleric!" Every party needed one, no one wanted to play them. There was often some poor sucker with visions of the Ali Babba or Thief of Bagdad or the Grey Mouser or Alexander Mundy or even Bilbo or something ready to play a Thief. The Cleric had much less draw, but a much more critical necessity.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think that some memes take a life of their own - people remember that parties needed a Cleric (true!) and that a Cleric was required to devote some of their spell slots to healing (also true!), and from there, the meme was born.

The stereotype ('meme') was going strong at the time.

The difference, of course, was that in actual play, the Cleric was a useful member of the party outside of healing. And in addition to turning undead. In just everyday combat, a Cleric would hold their own.

Yep, mechanically the Cleric was both at least as necessary as the Thief and strictly more powerful. And, at the same time, it was less popular. There simply weren't archetypes in the genre that corresponded to the Cleric and made it seem 'cool' the way there were for the Thief.

I think the post hoc resentment of Clerics has a lot more to do with the fact that all parties were required to have one. Which meant, especially in small groups, there was a requirement that someone always play a Cleric.

Nothing 'post' about it. It was very real, at the time.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Yep, mechanically the Cleric was both at least as necessary as the Thief and strictly more powerful. And, at the same time, it was less popular. There simply weren't archetypes in the genre that corresponded to the Cleric and made it seem 'cool' the way there were for the Thief.

There still aren't popular archetypes of a (non-evil) priest in fantasy literature. The cleric is a purely gamist trope created by D&D as a vampire hunter. To the extent that there are any priests at all in fantasy books nowadays, it's a largely self-referential trope.

Robert E. Howard would have just told you to model evil priests-magicians in D&D as wizards cynically masquerading as devotees of Set/Gruumsh/whomever. And arguably that would work better than having clerics in the game. Religion and fantasy don't mix well.

 

[Ancalagon]

Religious baggage in 5E is worse than it was in 2nd edition.

How so?

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

How so?

In 2nd edition, you could attempt to model a cleric as a cleric of an ideal or abstract force or just a school of philosophy. The key thing about a priest was his Spheres. (BTW, the spheres of Numbers and Mind were sheer awesomesauce, magic that was cool without feeling wizard-ish.)

You can play this way in 5E up to 9th level, but at 10th level, Divine Intervention comes into play, which requires the DM to roleplay a powerful NPC (your god) with ill-defined capabilities intervening directly on your behalf, but only sometimes, with a frequency determined by the dice. A corresponding implication is that other PCs should not expect to see divine intervention on their behalf, because that would be stepping on the cleric's toes. If you hate having unpredictable uber NPCs (putative "gods") upstage the PCs, this is maddening. If you love having PCs with actual personal relationships with gods (think Jason Cosmo and the goddess Rae, here), I expect it's equally maddening. The game engine is actually taking a religious position and building a game mechanic around it.

I'm sure you can houserule it away and replace it with some other capstone[1], but for my part I'm just glad that all the clerics in my campaigns have died or multiclassed away before hitting level 10.

[1] A simple version: clerics have a small chance to cast Wish using no components where they formerly would have been doing Divine Intervention. At 20th level, the chance becomes 100%. You can choose to believe that this constitutes a divine being of some sort hearing their prayers; or you can choose to believe that the cleric is intuitively manipulating arcane energy. There's evidence in both directions (e.g. the spell can be Dispelled, and a too-great Wish will burn out the ability permanently). The ambiguity improves the gameplay and the roleplay, IMO.

 

[Ancalagon]

[MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION]: so you are upset that your cleric has to worship a god because reasons?

If you don't want the god bagage, play a wizard!

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

In 2nd edition, you could attempt to model a cleric as a cleric of an ideal or abstract force or just a school of philosophy. The key thing about a priest was his Spheres. (BTW, the spheres of Numbers and Mind were sheer awesomesauce, magic that was cool without feeling wizard-ish.)

You can play this way in 5E up to 9th level, but at 10th level, Divine Intervention comes into play, which requires the DM to roleplay a powerful NPC (your god) with ill-defined capabilities intervening directly on your behalf, but only sometimes, with a frequency determined by the dice. A corresponding implication is that other PCs should not expect to see divine intervention on their behalf, because that would be stepping on the cleric's toes. If you hate having unpredictable uber NPCs (putative "gods") upstage the PCs, this is maddening. If you love having PCs with actual personal relationships with gods (think Jason Cosmo and the goddess Rae, here), I expect it's equally maddening. The game engine is actually taking a religious position and building a game mechanic around it.

Divine Intervention still works if your deity is an abstract and/or mindless force rather than just a powerful NPC. The wording is that the DM chooses the nature of the effect, not the DM has to RP the deity. It allows the DM to choose an effect that fulfils the request in a way that matches the deity's ethos and portfolio.

There are several deities straight-out in the PHB that are abstract forces or philosophies rather than NPCs. Nothing is said about clerics of those deities being limited in level.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Divine Intervention still works if your deity is an abstract and/or mindless force rather than just a powerful NPC. The wording is that the DM chooses the nature of the effect, not the DM has to RP the deity. It allows the DM to choose an effect that fulfils the request in a way that matches the deity's ethos and portfolio.

There are several deities straight-out in the PHB that are abstract forces or philosophies rather than NPCs. Nothing is said about clerics of those deities being limited in level.

Really? I missed that. Maybe I should go back and give that section of the PHB a re-read. Can you point me to a starting place? I just remember a bunch of FR and Dragonlance(?) deities and a list of which spheres they correspond to.