Balancing the Cleric

[The_Gneech]

Do you really have players all chomping at the bit to play those super-powerful clerics?

I don't really think the class needs much tweaking, myself.

-The Gneech

 

[Ave Rage]

Would 2 clerics in a party be effective?

They'd both have wis/str at 16 so they're strong and good with spells but I keep hearing 'no one wants to play one'. Is one cleric more than enough or is 2 still ok? This would most likely be a low level campaign.


On cleric AC, they can get:
chain mail +5
Large Wood shield +2
cast that 'faith shield': +2 (for 10 rounds)
dex +2 (max from chain)

That's 21 ac at lv.1
There's also 'Entropic Shield' which blocks 20% of ranged attacks.
Resist elements lv.2 spell is nice also. 12 points negated :/ can't hurt.

 

[Malachai_rose]

ack

whats with all the nerf clerics hype in this thread, I play a 13th (almost 14th) lvl cleric in my campaign and sure he's powerfull but no more so than the 11th lvl fighter/weaponsmaster in the group or the 13th lvl rogue/shadowdancer that routinely blows shiat up with an insane sneak attack, or how bout the 13 th lvl wizard whose spells are far superior to any clerics, power word anyone ?

I just don't see how clerics are overpowered sure we fight okay, but fighters do it better. Sure we have spells but wizards got far better. Clerics are a nice inbetween class for the player who wants to be able to fight but also likes having spells at his disposal, there are some aspects to them that are very powerful at higher levels but this is true of most classes (bards being sorely in need of some loving)

At higher levels the DM has the options of using higher level critters with nasty abilities and incredible damage so a player needs to be good at what they do. I have heard ways to nerf a cleric on this thread but what I havent heard is any reasons WHY clerics need to be nerfed. Thats just my 25 cents on the matter so any and all replies to the contrary would be welcomed and read with an open mind.

 

[WelcomebackPotter]

Nerfing the Cleric

What a term. Gotta love that.

My biggest beef with the cleric was thematic ... an armored, well-armed warrior-priest is more like the Paladin's role, or a Fighter-Cleric multiclass. Cleric, alone, should be a Divine Spellcaster, first and foremost. But, a massive rewrite would be bad. So, what to do?

The first thing I did is whack the armor down to just light. With light armor and simple weapons, the Cleric quickly changed from a warrior-priest to a priest who could fight in a pinch. That was big.

Next was Turn undead. Too many times, a Cleric of any level would just obliterate the Undead. Necromantic armies of zombies? Not a threat. The only way to slow them down was to throw so many waves of Zombies that all the Turn uses for the day would be burned out, but then you just handing teh party a huge pile of XP. This had to go.

Instead of Turn Undead, my clerics get Turn Outsider, with good aligned being able to call on Devas and turn Demons/Devils, while Evil could command Demons/Devils and turn Deva. THAT worked out marvelously well. To keep the traditional weakness alive, Vampires gained the added vulnerability of 'May be turned as if an Outsider by a Cleric'. By making them more planar-centric, the battles against demonic-types got much more storyline, while fights against the Undead actually got creepy and dangerous.

I'm so happy about THAT change that I'll never, ever go back.