Cleric´s 2 skill points is pathetic.

[hong]

If that's a Cleric, what's a Paladin?

A champion of righteousness.

There is _nothing_ about the paladin concept that requires adherence to a religion. Most of the archetypal paladins (see related thread on knights in shining armour) are heroic warriors or champions of an ideal. It's only a D&D convention to conflate this with religion. And it's a silly convention, IMO.

 

[Voadam]

I agree with Hong and nsruf, clerics are generic divine champions based more on knights than priests. They wear heavy armor use weapons, have decent attacks and hit points and they get divine spells and undead smacking powers.

They are knights with divine powers that get their combat skills slightly reduced for balance and because they rely upon and use their divine powers in combat.

Druids make little sense at d8 hit points and medium attack bonuses.

I think they should have made paladins customizable with powers and no spells.

I too think they dropped the ball in not creating a core priest class that was the equivalent of a wizard in divine spells and powers but not a knight.

Rashak from your original post, I would not expect cloistered lives of scholarly study and prayer to lead to any social skills. It is when you are actually dealing with people that you develop these skills, not when you are isolated from dealing with people.

 

[Storminator]

I just ran a two day one-shot adventure, and the cleric dumped all his stat points into INT, bought himself a robe and a walking stick, and followed the group espousing the benefits of his god, beat the wizard at chess, figuring out all the puzzles. He had the Knowledge domain, and used it well, and he never made a single attack roll.

And I didn't change the class a bit.

PS

 

[Rashak Mani]

Voadam... I agree with you on the social skills... but they are listed as class skills. Clerics are supposed to be able to give fair judgement of character (Sense Motive) and Convert people (Diplomacy).

 

[hong]

Voadam... I agree with you on the social skills... but they are listed as class skills. Clerics are supposed to be able to give fair judgement of character (Sense Motive) and Convert people (Diplomacy).

Clerics have the _potential_ to judge character and convert people. Not all clerics will take up these responsibilities. Fighters get Ride and Handle Animal as class skills, but that doesn't mean all fighters are supposed to be able to ride; and thieves get Pickpocket and Intimidate as class skills, but not all thieves will be muggers.

 

[Mordax]

I don't like 2 skill points per level for *any* class, so I just bumped everybody +2.

Also, while Clerics aren't necessarily good at social skills, I consider the following necessary skills for a warrior-zealot:

- Concentration. 'Nuff said.
- Spellcraft. Necessary for countering enemy mages and clerics, which is a *big* part of their battlefield role.
- Heal. The less Clerics depend on magic for this, the more spells they have for other things. So they should learn it.
- Knowledge (religion). Know thy enemy.

I don't think they should have to scrounge extra Int to max out any of those skills.

 

[SHARK]

Greetings!

Well, in a related thread, "The King's Rangers!(Reprised)" myself and Mmadsen venture at some length into a very similar discussion. I encourage any to check it out.

With all classes in my campaign, I have granted an across the board bonus of +2 Skill Points, specifically to address this very problem. To wit:

Throughout history, there have been warrior-priests who, while being skilled in combat, were also quite the theologian and scholar. Read up on some of the priests from the 8th century AD-the 17th century AD. I've also read about a number of early American Puritans, who besides being military veterans, were fiery preachers, and brilliant theologians and scholars. They organized the establishment of towns, governments, as well as leading raids against Indians or other enemies. All the while, these men were often married, raising six-twelve children, and known for writing dense theological books and Biblical commentaries. They were often known to be skilled marksmen, able swordsmen, and ferocious with an axe or club.

The D&D Cleric does suffer pathetically. Even if a cleric is more martially bent, there is no good reason to believe that he shouldn't be good at Diplomacy; Have skill in Sensing Motive; and be expert on the history and theology of his faith. The whole "Game Balance" excuse is supposed to have been thrown out with the last edition. "Game Balance" was the often cried justification for every stupid restriction and dumb rule there was. It was becasue of such weak thinking that perhaps many people stopped playing D&D. Remember the "Wizards can't use anything more than a dagger! Why?--because of 'Game Balance.'" Your wizard is trapped in the tunnel, and the Troll is charging you. You're unarmed. The Wizard says, 'wait! Can't I pick up the dead fighter's sword?'" "Nope" the DM says. Why?--because of "game Balance."

It is with these thoughts that one should think carefully about the elements of realism and logic in approaching rules, or a character, as opposed to the slavish obedience to "Game Balance." I'm not saying game balance isn't important, and I hope I'm not sounding arrogant, but personally, because I like to be a logical person, consciously ignoring something that I know makes good sense because of some nebulous concept like "Game Balance" often just drives me nuts, you know?

I say give the Cleric more skill points, or if you prefer, provide the cleric class with a few bonus ranks in essential skills as part of the class background--say, +3 to each of the particular skills, like Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive, Knowledge-Religion, and Knowledge-History, for example. That way, even if the Cleric only seldom puts any points into those skills later on throughout his career, at least he will have a minimum proficient knowledge to function in society--not just in the damned dungeon!--as a priest of the faith!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Victim]

Maybe Intelligence shouldn't be such a dump stat for clerics then. The main problem I've had with my cleric is trying to keep the skill he got from Cosmopolitan up along with the other skills. As a level 12 human character, he has maxed Concentration, 5 ranks of Diplomacy, 12 in religion, 4 in arcana, 4 in scry (our wizards never picked up the spell, so it was my job), 9 in Spellcraft, and 11 in Search.

Between a decent INT, the human bonus, and not feeling the need to keep every skill maxed, he has a decent set of skills. The main area he's hurting in as far as skills is his lack of formal study of undead and demons. They aren't even class skills. However, experience is a decent teacher.

Heal is pretty worthless. It's a fixed check for most things, so a cleric will probably make it in routine circumstances just on WIS, and a Cure Minor Wounds, also known as Cure Insignificant Wounds to prevent confusion with Cure Moderate, will do a fine job stabilizing people. Wands are pretty cheap too.

Clerics don't have Sense Motive as a class skill.

A 12 INT isn't unreasonable and can give lots of skills over the life of the character. A stupid cleric isn't going to be understanding the advanced theology, much less writing it.

 

[Voadam]

Shark,

Well I can use flavor reasons to back up the mechanical game balance reasons. Clerics are both fighters and master spell casters, and have domain and channelling powers. There development would seem to be split between combat and divine spell casting development. Their use of mundane interpersonal skills is just less.

I'm certainly not advocating making classes strange with bizarre restrictions for game balance reasons.

Now if you see clerics as village priests then yes they should get more interaction skills. If they are divine military assault squads (knights templar, hospitallar, etc.) then they should focus on combat and divine might. Since that is how I view them the mechanics of the class (low skills/good combat and powers) fit the class concept in my mind.

If I were to argue game balance I would say that clerics are broken, not shafted they get as many spells as wizards but high hit points, medium combat, and their spells do not suffer arcane failure. Plus they get every spell on their list automatically. True, their spells are about 2 levels behind arcane in causing damage, but I think their magical and mundane benefits more than balance this out. They can spontaneously turn their spells into heals and they get multiple powers.

If I had designed the core classes their would be priests with massive spell casting medium skills and poor combat abilities, clerics with mediums across the board and paladin/champions with good fighting and some powers. I might even have conflated paladins and clerics.

As far as the theologian and scholars, aren't these archetypes assumed to have high intelligence scores which mechanically serve the same function as boosting class skills?

I have no problem with your boosting skills across the board, it sounds like a fun backdrop. I just don't have a problem with low skill clerics as that meshes with my view of the class.

I think clerics are just right in comparison to the other classes for their number of skills (same as the wizard, less than a bard). I would have liked to see a divine spell casting priest with more skills and less direct combat abilities.

I also noticed you tend to give every class bonuses to skills they should have so giving the cleric these skills, since they fill the priest role in your campaign, seems fine for that campaign.

 

[Rashak Mani]

ooppss about the Sense Motive... I did let scry out thou...

High Wisdom shouldnt have to be necessary to compensate low INt... but fine... and Heal was made kind of useless and wrongly so.

As for Clerical Spells... dont get too enthusiastic Shark... Arcane Magic gets better and better compared to Divine magic as the levels go up. But like you said they get lots of spells and so forth... but didly $h*t for magical skills...