Alternatives to heavy armor for clerics?

[akr71]

Look, you've got to either have Dex to benefit from light/medium armor or Str to benefit from heavy armor. That's just the design of the game, and there aren't any classes that get around that limitation because AC isn't free. I don't know anybody who would seriously consider the -10 movement for low Str a reasonable trade off for heavy armor's +1 AC, and that's kind of the point. The Stealth disadvantage is part of the cost of higher AC, too.

An alternate like mage armor, Sorcerer Draconic Resilience, or Barbarian/Monk Unarmored Defense is fine, but if you're just looking for Clerics to get the benefits of heavy armor essentially without any of the cost, that's dumb.

I agree with that. That's why I tried to suggest something that would be useful & have a cost. I mean, hopefully the character has at least 2 decent ability scores, so for a cleric, Wisdom and one other. If the player takes Str, take the heavy armor. If the player takes Dex, a +2 isn't unrealistic, so my armor of faith suggestion gives you AC of 15 and uses an action (either before combat or as it starts). Slightly better than ring mail, slightly worse than chain mail.

If you choose to play a Wis/Cha build cleric, sorry, I've got nothin' for ya. Put on the heavy armor and try to keep up

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The thing with clerics is, more than most other classes, they are very dependant on the campaign setting. Who are the gods? What are they like? What are the tenants of the religion? Are there different factions.

If you want to rule that your setting has no god of magic, you can do that. Want to rule that nature clerics can wear heavy armour, but only on a Thursday? You can do that. Religions have all sorts of "dos" and "do nots" associated with them.

My advice is to start by designing the gods and religions of the setting. That should indicate what, if any, mechanical tweaks are needed.

 

[Rossbert]

A big thing to remember as far as design decisions go is that cleric and priest are not interchangeable (using 3e design notes). A cleric may be a priest but all priests are probably not clerics.

Clerics are the evangelical and troubleshooting branch of a church. They are expected to go forth into the world and demonstrate the power of their God by deeds rather than regulating the clergy, organizing temple logistics or arguing fine points of cosmic theology and doctrine (though they may and often should be able to).

They are expected to face threats in the world that a normally trained priest would never be able to handler. In the wilderness they must face fierce beasts, eliminate threats to world, the faith, and virtuous communities, root out and destroy the plots of enemy deities, and put to rest the undead scourge.

The hope is that by doing these things they make the area safer for people and the less combat ready clergy can minister from safety and the very visible acts of the god's power bring in more faithful converts.

So yeah, they probably need all the protection they can get.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

First of all, if there's a rule I don't like in a game, I prefer to come up with a solution *before* it comes up in play rather than try to improvise a fix on the spot. Secondly, any players I'm likely to be GMing for in the foreseeable future are people who are new to D&D in any form, and therefore there's no reason for them to have preconceived notions that wearing heavy armor is something a cleric would do.


-t


*Every* rule regarding class features puts limits on what the class can look like. Why don't wizards use longswords? Because the rules say so. Why don't fighters have as many hit points as barbarians? Because the rules say so. Why can't a rogue be proficient in the Survival skill? Because the rules say so. Of course, all of these limitations can be circumvented with the right choice of feat or background -- and so can a lack of heavy armor.

And again, the fact that "that's the way it's always been done" is irrelevant, because a) a new player wouldn't know that, and b) I don't particularly *like* the way it's always been done, and I want to do it differently. Essentially, you're questioning my right to make house rules. If you like the rules the way they are and don't see any need to change them, fine. You have my permission to play the game exactly according to the RAW if you so choose. Now go away and leave me alone.

P.S. I'm not the one wringing my hands here. I asked a simple question about how I could make a minor tweak to a few of the domains so that they're more to my liking. If my desire to do that upsets you, too bad.




Fair enough. *But*....

On the one hand, I'm being told that heavy armor isn't really essential to clerics, that a Dex build is a perfectly viable alternative, that giving the character a new feature in exchange for one they weren't using anyway is unbalancing.

On the other hand, I'm being told that proficiency with heavy armor is central to the cleric's identity and that taking that away hobbles the player's freedom to play the class the way it was meant to be played.

You do realize that these two statements are contradictory, right?

Wyvern

Good luck with your game.

 

[Wyvern]

"You do realize that these two statements are contradictory, right? "

Actually, i dont recall the bit about not playing the intended intrinsic to class identity. I did not say that for sure.

Not you, no. It was other people that said that. I just find it ironic (and not in a good way) that I'm getting criticized from both sides; some people are saying the change I'm suggesting is overly restrictive, and other people are saying it's trivial and pointless.

Also, it's not Nature or Tempest clerics wearing heavy armor that bugs me the most; it's the Life domain. Yes, I can see the *practical* benefits of a combat medic wearing heavy armor. The issue for me is one of flavor. It just doesn't feel thematic, and when four out of seven domains give heavy armor proficiency, it starts to feel a bit samey. Maybe if I had the opportunity to see clerics of different domains in play, I wouldn't feel that way, but so far I haven't had that opportunity.

If you want different, choose differents that matter, not ones whoch are cosmetic beyond killing some concepts.

That's what I'm trying to do... but I don't think I can manage it without help. If you think ditching heavy armor proficiency isn't enough to make a meaningful difference, what would you do? If you like the rules just fine the way they are and have no desire to change them, I have no beef with you, but why are you even bothering to post in this thread? (That last bit's not directed at you specifically.) But if you were going to replace heavy armor proficiency with something that's more thematically-connected to the specific domains, what would it be? If you think that taking away heavy armor proficiency makes the class unbalanced, how can I do it without unbalancing the class? I know it can be done, because they already did it with the Knowledge, Light and Trickery domains.

I say keep it and don't give an alternative.

There are several proficiencies given that are rarely used that give options, even if rarely put in use (rogues are proficient in longswords, the unarmored defense barbarians have light and medium armor proficiencies). It gives the option of a lower Con barbarian still having good AC or a dumped Dex melee cleric not always getting hit.

As far as I can tell, excepting the Life, all the domains which have heavy armor also have Divine Strike indicating a conscious choice toward a melee build.

Life, I believe, gets it to add survivability in a front line battle medic role since the basic healing spells are often touch range, because while they all heal Life obviously is specialized in it.

The ones that don't have heavy armor as far as I saw are Grave, Light, Knowledge and Trickery and all of those appear to lack any domain abilities that really encourage you to go within melee range of the opponents being either dedicated blasters or some other form of focused (even non-combat) support.

You make a pretty convincing case. Except, where do you get the idea that Divine Strike is intended to encourage a melee build? I can't see anything in the description of the class feature that suggests it can't be used just as effectively with a ranged weapon.

Good luck with your game.

Thank you.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

@Wyvern is correct: Divine Strike works with any weapons, including ranged.

You may be confusing it with Paladin Smite, which specifies melee.


The Life domain is very much meant to emulate the classic cleric from earlier editions, which is why they get heavy armour proficiency.

 

[Rossbert]

[MENTION=2374]Wyvern[/MENTION] is correct: Divine Strike works with any weapons, including ranged.

You may be confusing it with Paladin Smite, which specifies melee.

You are correct, it may be my bias showing, I find myself not fond of most simple ranged weapons, especially compared to cantrips and may undervalue them compared to others, and it caused me to make an unfair and unfounded assumption regarding people using ranged weapons as a cleric. My tempest cleric tended to stay close since thunderwave was my only thunder or lightning spell for quite a while, and it may have fed the bias.

I also misspoke when I said Life doesn't have divine strike.

I think the underlying (but possibly muddled) point of the presence of divine strike implying a more martial bent than the non-divine strike, medium armor domains still applies, even if the divine strike to heavy melee comparison is not appropriate.

Off the point, I still stand by Life lending itself to being close for emergency heals though.

 

[Satyrn]

Some of you seem to have the wrong idea about why I started this thread. I'm not asking from the perspective of a player who's trying to wheedle the GM into giving me something I want in exchange for something I don't want. I'm asking from the perspective of a (potential) GM who doesn't care for the RAW and is trying to find acceptable substitutes.

Now, if you're perfectly happy with the RAW, that's fine. Nobody is forcing you to change anything. But I'm getting tired of the repeated implications that I'm wrong-headed for not being on-board with the notion that clerics should be heavily-armored by default.

Wyvern

I was not trying to imply you were wrongheaded way back when I asked if it would help if you shifted your view to heavy armor as the default. I was honestly wondering if that would help you accept the cleric as is - because if you did, then you would be saved the hassle of figuring out a fix that wasn't coming to you easily.

There are so many fiddly little things in the game like this, and the way I deal with the ones I don't like is to try to ignore them, then try to think about them differently, and then change them if needed.

I was asking you if thinking about this issue a certain way would remove your need to change it. Your answer - no, it doesn't help - doesn't make you wrongheaded.