Cleric´s 2 skill points is pathetic.
- Thread starter Rashak Mani
- Start date
reiella
Explorer
And I think Victim (I think it was him anyway) hit on a good point.
Don't use Int as a dump stat if you want to represent yourself as actually knowing a fair bit. Another fun bit is that clerics get more spells / day than wizards too.
A cleric of olidimara etc should necessitate having a high int, although stat requirements went poof. But that's my opinion
. A cleric has it hard if they want to maintain that many skills. Concentrate is required solely for combat casting, if you're a book brooder, why would you even concern yourself with this? Assuming even a minor 12 in int, they have enough to maintain 3 skills at max if they aren't human. Just because a skill is on their class list doesnt' mean that they need to take it 
. A more modular cleric might be viable, but I like the shunenga and shaman for that aspect from OA.
One thing I might consider though is allowing certain domains to let you use knowledge : religion in place of another related knowledge (Undead domain would allow Knowledge Undead), but even then reluctant.
Look at the coveted druid that you mentioned. They get 2 more skill points per level. They are 'expected' to have Animal Empathy, Wilderness Lore, Intuit Direction, and Swim beyond those listed for cleric (exchange Knowledge nature for knowledge religon). By the logic of using their class skills to determine what's expected of them, the druid is even worse off than the cleric (2 more skills but 4 more that expected of them), and they lack the ability to wear most armor, shields, and weapons... and fewer spells/day.
My cleric currently struggles with skill points *shrug*. I put points in Concentrate, Spellcraft, Knowledge (Religion), and Knowledge (The Planes) each level (Took Cosmo: Knowledge-the Planes so I can meet the requirements for Sacred Exorcist before 12th
). 12 in Int, and a human *shrug* not a big deal. Would I like Knowledge: Undead for that whole Sun aspect in his domain? yea, and I'll prolly be spending points in it after meeting the reqs for Sacred Exorcist. Heal just sucks to have/use... I make untrained use of it, but that's it. Cure Minor Wounds as others said.
At the other end of the spectrum there's my psion... Who currently gets 13 skill points per level (26 int, 4 base, 1 human). Needless to say he has maxed many skills.
Simply though,
Don't use Int as a dump stat if you want to represent yourself as actually knowing a fair bit. Another fun bit is that clerics get more spells / day than wizards too.
A cleric of olidimara etc should necessitate having a high int, although stat requirements went poof. But that's my opinion
. A cleric has it hard if they want to maintain that many skills. Concentrate is required solely for combat casting, if you're a book brooder, why would you even concern yourself with this? Assuming even a minor 12 in int, they have enough to maintain 3 skills at max if they aren't human. Just because a skill is on their class list doesnt' mean that they need to take it . A more modular cleric might be viable, but I like the shunenga and shaman for that aspect from OA.One thing I might consider though is allowing certain domains to let you use knowledge : religion in place of another related knowledge (Undead domain would allow Knowledge Undead), but even then reluctant.
Look at the coveted druid that you mentioned. They get 2 more skill points per level. They are 'expected' to have Animal Empathy, Wilderness Lore, Intuit Direction, and Swim beyond those listed for cleric (exchange Knowledge nature for knowledge religon). By the logic of using their class skills to determine what's expected of them, the druid is even worse off than the cleric (2 more skills but 4 more that expected of them), and they lack the ability to wear most armor, shields, and weapons... and fewer spells/day.
My cleric currently struggles with skill points *shrug*. I put points in Concentrate, Spellcraft, Knowledge (Religion), and Knowledge (The Planes) each level (Took Cosmo: Knowledge-the Planes so I can meet the requirements for Sacred Exorcist before 12th
). 12 in Int, and a human *shrug* not a big deal. Would I like Knowledge: Undead for that whole Sun aspect in his domain? yea, and I'll prolly be spending points in it after meeting the reqs for Sacred Exorcist. Heal just sucks to have/use... I make untrained use of it, but that's it. Cure Minor Wounds as others said.At the other end of the spectrum there's my psion... Who currently gets 13 skill points per level (26 int, 4 base, 1 human). Needless to say he has maxed many skills
.Simply though,
SHARK
First Post
Greetings!
Voadam, excellent response! Your "Broken, not shafted!" made me laugh! Yes, you've made some fine points. I agree with you that maybe there should be different kinds of "standard" clerics, too! You see, I have a diverse group of players, who've been playing for ages, and for example, they tend to focus on things like this:
Some play clerics, and though they have all of those *combat abilities* and such that you correctly mentioned, some don't seem to care about that really. They want to know why they can't preach to the street gathering, or why they suck so bad when they attempt to do research at the Royal Library, or why when one of their followers seeks them out for wisdom and counsel, and they seek to refer to *non-existant* knowledge skills and such, they say "huh?...um...See, since my skills suck, you'll have to seek counseling from someone else..." Do you see what I'm saying?
Something else I have noticed--in order for the various characters to be able to dive into a broad range of skills that accurately represent their characters, and their experiences, they have to consistently dump bonus skill points into intelligence. Mechanically speaking, this works, but there is a...how shall I say it?--a "story problem" when all the characters start looking the same when they all have 14, 16, or 18 Intelligences! It's not really that they want to be "geniuses" or have extra spells for wizards even, or what have you, but it is a dire necessity to gain more skills, you know?
Perhaps it's my fault as a DM. In the campaign, I've been told, there are so many important skills that everyone has to develop, or they're screwed. Skills that everyone seems to need a lot are as follows:
(1) Diplomacy
(2) Gather Information
(3) Sense Motive
(4) Perform
(5) Listen
(6) Spot
(7) Knowledge: Everything, varies by character.
(8) Bluff
(9) Ride
(10) Swim
(11) Climb
(12) Wilderness Lore
The players have remarked that as they meet various dignitaries and hob-knob with the elite and powerful, *everyone* needs to have decent scores in these skills, or you have the Fighter inadvertantly insulting the Prince, and the whole party gets hammered. Not literally, of course, but it has been seen that because many of the characters don't have decent ranks in these skills, when many of the interactions throughout the adventures don't so much require that everyone is a combat machine, but it is likely to require that everyone be able to hear things, see things, know things, and be able to make good impressions,--they fail in learning what needs to be learned, or making friends with someone important. But they can all do well in a dungeon room full of Trolls!
Do you see what I'm saying? I accept that there are certain combat stats, mechanics, and abilities that are all balanced properly, and are necessary to survive fighting in the dungeon, but there seem to be some problems when everyone is comprehensively immersed into an intense social/political environment, where other skills are essential to succeed in the adventure. I hope I've made sense!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Voadam, excellent response! Your "Broken, not shafted!" made me laugh!
Yes, you've made some fine points. I agree with you that maybe there should be different kinds of "standard" clerics, too! You see, I have a diverse group of players, who've been playing for ages, and for example, they tend to focus on things like this:Some play clerics, and though they have all of those *combat abilities* and such that you correctly mentioned, some don't seem to care about that really. They want to know why they can't preach to the street gathering, or why they suck so bad when they attempt to do research at the Royal Library, or why when one of their followers seeks them out for wisdom and counsel, and they seek to refer to *non-existant*
knowledge skills and such, they say "huh?...um...See, since my skills suck, you'll have to seek counseling from someone else..." Do you see what I'm saying?Something else I have noticed--in order for the various characters to be able to dive into a broad range of skills that accurately represent their characters, and their experiences, they have to consistently dump bonus skill points into intelligence. Mechanically speaking, this works, but there is a...how shall I say it?--a "story problem" when all the characters start looking the same when they all have 14, 16, or 18 Intelligences! It's not really that they want to be "geniuses" or have extra spells for wizards even, or what have you, but it is a dire necessity to gain more skills, you know?
Perhaps it's my fault as a DM. In the campaign, I've been told, there are so many important skills that everyone has to develop, or they're screwed. Skills that everyone seems to need a lot are as follows:
(1) Diplomacy
(2) Gather Information
(3) Sense Motive
(4) Perform
(5) Listen
(6) Spot
(7) Knowledge: Everything, varies by character.
(8) Bluff
(9) Ride
(10) Swim
(11) Climb
(12) Wilderness Lore
The players have remarked that as they meet various dignitaries and hob-knob with the elite and powerful, *everyone* needs to have decent scores in these skills, or you have the Fighter inadvertantly insulting the Prince, and the whole party gets hammered. Not literally, of course, but it has been seen that because many of the characters don't have decent ranks in these skills, when many of the interactions throughout the adventures don't so much require that everyone is a combat machine, but it is likely to require that everyone be able to hear things, see things, know things, and be able to make good impressions,--they fail in learning what needs to be learned, or making friends with someone important. But they can all do well in a dungeon room full of Trolls!
Do you see what I'm saying? I accept that there are certain combat stats, mechanics, and abilities that are all balanced properly, and are necessary to survive fighting in the dungeon, but there seem to be some problems when everyone is comprehensively immersed into an intense social/political environment, where other skills are essential to succeed in the adventure. I hope I've made sense!
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
LostSoul
Adventurer
If you were to create a bookish, scholarly, spell-casting priest, what multi-class combination would you use? Expert/Cleric sounds right, but I don't think anyone wants to pick up a less-powerful class. Rogue/Cleric doesn't sound right, either. (Sneak Attack?) Bard/Cleric? Why the arcane knowledge? (Although the Perform abilities are great for a missionary.)
What would you do?
What would you do?
Voadam
Legend
Shark,
A couple of suggestions,
Picking up a couple of points in a skill is fine, maxing it out makes you an expert at it. Take ride and swim as an example, a point or two to say you know how should be fine, unless you are a mongol or a knight, then you want to max out ride. The same for diplomacy to indicate you know some etiquette. Do you make that many rolls for social interaction or do you wing it based on their role play?
Do they all need perform? Do they each give speeches before the senate?
Climb can be replaced by magic, particularly for the wizards.
The cultured characters should warn the bruthish dwarven fighter to keep his mouth shut when dealing with the emperor.
I empathize with the cultured skill selection problems, I played a wizard who became a merchant prince. So the skills he wanted included appraisal, info gathering, diplomacy, sense motive, spell craft, concentration, knowledge political lore, knowledge general lore (trivia), knowledge arcana, spot, listen and profession merchant. I blew off bluff because I was an honest guy. Even with an int above 20 you can't get everything maxed out.
I was even considered "not a real mage" in the campaign because of my mercantile focus and not maxed out spellcraft or arcane knowledge, although I was regularly trading 9th level spells with archmages and dragons.
A couple of suggestions,
Picking up a couple of points in a skill is fine, maxing it out makes you an expert at it. Take ride and swim as an example, a point or two to say you know how should be fine, unless you are a mongol or a knight, then you want to max out ride. The same for diplomacy to indicate you know some etiquette. Do you make that many rolls for social interaction or do you wing it based on their role play?
Do they all need perform? Do they each give speeches before the senate?
Climb can be replaced by magic, particularly for the wizards.
The cultured characters should warn the bruthish dwarven fighter to keep his mouth shut when dealing with the emperor.
I empathize with the cultured skill selection problems, I played a wizard who became a merchant prince. So the skills he wanted included appraisal, info gathering, diplomacy, sense motive, spell craft, concentration, knowledge political lore, knowledge general lore (trivia), knowledge arcana, spot, listen and profession merchant. I blew off bluff because I was an honest guy. Even with an int above 20 you can't get everything maxed out.
I was even considered "not a real mage" in the campaign because of my mercantile focus and not maxed out spellcraft or arcane knowledge, although I was regularly trading 9th level spells with archmages and dragons.
Zerovoid
First Post
SHARK said:
I think your campaign is alot different than most. Actually, I've read enough of your posts to know that is the case, although it sounds very cool.
Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive, and Bluff are some of my favorite skills, but... In most campaigns I've been in, you really only need one or two chacters with high social skills. The other characters can just defer to these people during critical negotiations, and I wouldn't make checks during more casual circumstances.
Listen and Spot are good for everyone to have, but if you can get one person on every watch who's good at perception skills, you'll do ok.
Ride. Only if you want to be good at mounted combat, otherwise, just get a warhorse and you won't have to make checks.
Knowledge. This isn't always very useful in most campiagns, although it really should be. I find it harder to make these skills useful than alot of other ones. I find it hard to set up situations where the party benefits from knowledge skills, but won't automatically fail if they don't have them.
Wilderness Lore. The party only needs one tracker.
Swim and Climb. Even a party of level 5 or so can easily use spells like Spider Climb, Fly, Alter Self, Polymorph, etc... to get around these spells. I would never even bother to give a rogue climb, because magic supplants the ability so quickly.
So, I don't think every character needs all these skills, just that the party needs them. Any across the board skill point increase cheapens the value of intelligence, and I think this is a bad thing.
A human cleric with 12 int has 4 skill points per level. This lets them max out Diplomacy, Knowledge(Religion), Spellcraft, and Concentration, and these are the only skills I think a cleric really needs. Healing is only really good for stabilizing people, and clerics can easily afford to do that with Cure Minor Wounds, so I think a cleric with these skills will do fine.
Storminator
First Post
I think you are all insane! Heal is not useful!?!? You know it can replace the saving throw for poison? That is a profound benefit.
Let's see, my 10th level rogue has +3 base and a +1 for CON, so +4 Fort save vs poison. Compare this save with the Heal check of of the 10th level cleric...+13 and a +3 for WIS, is a +16. For those serious poisons give me a healer.
PS
Let's see, my 10th level rogue has +3 base and a +1 for CON, so +4 Fort save vs poison. Compare this save with the Heal check of of the 10th level cleric...+13 and a +3 for WIS, is a +16. For those serious poisons give me a healer.
PS
Bran Blackbyrd
Explorer
Crothian said:
Why wouldn't a cleric be trained as a priest?Not training them in the priestly arts would be a big mistake. When they are out there in the world they are representing their religion, they aren't just battlemages wearing holy symbols.
In the PHB (pg. 93) we see a chart for random starting ages. In this chart you'll notice that clerics take longer to start out as characters than any combat oriented class, save monk. Why?
In my opinion it's because they learn to be priests first and foremost, then they learn the arts of divine magic and combat. What good would a cleric be if he can bust heads, but can't tend to the flock when the situation arises?
You'd might as well find a fighter/arcane caster and have him wear your church's symbol. But a cleric is more than an enforcer, a cleric is an agent of his/her deity.
Take the priest out of the cleric and all you have left is a hired thug fighting in the ultimate gang war.
It requires faith, wisdom and a closeness to your deity in order to channel that god's power into the manifestation known as a spell. That faith and wisdom is gained in priestly service to your deity.
Otherwise any PC could walk into a chuch, sign their name on a contract, and walk off to kick butt with their new church-sponsored weapons, complete with logos.
People of lesser faith and devotion than a priest might turn away from their religion in a moment of weakness and doubt, or worse, join the opposing religion! What church would take that risk by putting a novice out there with that kind of combat training and power?
Just some food for thought.
Bran Blackbyrd said:
A pity that the class isn't really designed for it, then.
It takes that long for the pod to ripen.
A red herring. Different people can have different responsibilities, but still answer to the same master.
D&D can easily be thought of as playing thugs in the ultimate gang war. If you choose to think of it that way, that's your business.
