A cleric is essential for Age of Worms yes?

[Emirikol]

Been running Age of Worms. It seems that any party without a cleric is (*&(*^ed...seriously (*&^*&^%ing )(&(*^ed. Right?

I just about TPK's the party last night to the giant chilled monkey brain in "Hall of Harsh Relections." I actually had it just have the PC's sit while a larger creature came down the hall at them..it came down to the last PC with one HP and one successful critical roll. He then used an animate dead scroll to send the beastie in to smash the chilled monkey brain.

jh

 

[Dog Moon]

Well, we're only as far as defeating the Lizardfolk [level 5], but so far, I don't see that a Cleric is as vital as you seem to make it out to be. Useful, of course, but not vital.

 

[frankthedm]

No Cleric is pretty bad in D&D since the ruleset assumes players have access to a fair bit of healing, restoring and buffing.

The Age of worms seems to have been built assuming all the players have tweeked out on every splat-book feat and PRC they can. Notably, this includes enough undead foes where the cleric will be damned hard pressed to keep plenty of turn attempts ready rather than use those turning attempts to fuel Divine Feats. A wise move to 'balance' those feats out.

Should your party not have a cleric, you are pretty well boned. UMD with wands might delay one’s demise since the rogue was not doing too much anyways; cure wounds[any & all], lesser restoration, remove disease are must buys. Buy backups if you intend to use them in combat as many of the undead foes will be smart enough to sunder those wands when the rogues is UMDing them.

 

[Nightfall]

I'd say you're pretty boned, especially if you manage to make it past Champions and then there's Shadows of Long Spire...now THAT calls for cleric power there.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

D&D in general pretty much requires a cleric. I wouldn't, say, think that SCAP didn't require a cleric or that RttToEE didn't need a cleric. There's some additional value-adds to having a cleric, but I haven't seen where it was impossible to pass or succeed without one.

That said ... we're all clerics. Barbarian1/Cleric13, Cleric6/Contemplative8, Rogue6/Cleric3/Mole Of Thautam5, Fighter6/Paladin1/Cleric3/Occult Slayer 4. I've done most of the turning, as my character is pretty much themed as an undead slayer (Bbn/Clr). The undead ARE pretty buffed for a turn-intensive cleric, which I'm not. I turn as a full-level cleric with 16Cha and on a perfect turn check I managed to turn ... one in five undead creatures we were facing. You'd need a few turn feats and a bigger focus on Charisma to tear them down, I'd say.

--fje

 

[Nightfall]

Heap,

SC had a different feel and less undead involved. Which is probably why you could (in theory) not need a cleric as badly as you did say in the Spire of Long Shadow. I mean seriously, didn't you need a cleric there or not?

 

[Sunderstone]

I cant see running any AP without a Cleric for the above mentioned reasons. If the players dont roll one, add an NPC cleric as needed. Wands are nice for a quick heal, but you need the Restorations and Removals as well.
The SCAP for us was no different despite the lesser amounts of turning needed.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

We're still in SoLS ... but, thinking about it, there are several abilities displayed that would require a major healer to fix, yes. But, for instance, the Druid gets access to the Heal spell, just a bit later than Clerics ... and while Heal is almost certainly required in that module, it also seems that you're in the module about the time that the Druid would be getting access to the spell.

So, you need a HEALER ... the undead present mean a cleric is more useful, especially with turning and clerical anti-undead spells ... but the fact that my non-super-specialized cleric was unable to effectively turn them means that a cleric isn't "essential". It's a trade-off. If we had a super-specialized Turner, we might have had a much easier time with that part of things ...

The designers always throw a mix of creature types in, however, so a powerful cleric would only have helped for certain encounters. Additionally, it seems the other creatures in the module are very ... very ... very specialized at taking out clerics. To the point that our party, relying on Cleric strengths, has ground down to a stalemate.

--fje

 

[glass]

I am running Age of Worms at the moment, and the party doesn't have a cleric, inspite of having eight classes between the four of them (they are gestalt). It does have a druid and an artificer though, so healing shouldn't be too much of a problem, and of course they have pretty good hp and saves.

We are only in The Wispering Cairn at the moment, but so they seem to be doing OK. OTOH, I don't think they haven't met any actual undead yet. It'll be interesting to see how things pan out.



glass.

 

[Bagpuss]

You don't need a cleric (as you can get healing from other sources) but by the time they meet the more serious undead they need ready access to Remove Diease, Resorations and Remove Curse, if you can get that from other sources then you might be okay, but you are making it harder for yourself by not having turn undead, and the clerics spell selection.

I'm playing the Cleric in our party, I'm currently Cleric 5/Fighter 1, and have two levels to go up, thanks to missing some sessions and getting the XP. I was originally planning on leveling again as a Fighter so I could get Whirlwind attack, but I know it's probably a bad choice since the additional spell levels are almost expected by the adventure writers.

I know the party suffered for a bit due to the wizard multiclassing and not getting fireball at 5th character level. And we suffered for my single level of fighter and not having Remove Diease at the character level expected by the adventure.

I hate to imagine what I'll be short if we fall behind 3 or more levels behind the spell access the adventure expects (we are a large group 6 PC's so we are already about a level behind what the adventures expect).

The DM has also allowed the Rogue to take the feat that allows him hold back undead (like a limited turning) and have that treated as turn undead for the Wormhunter Prestige class so he can get the ability to sneak attack undead, since he's been feeling completely shafted by Age of Worms so far. If you arn't fighting undead, you seem to be fighting elementals or contructs.

Oh yeah and everyone is buying undead bane weapons.