Cleric boost: was it intentional?

[aboyd]

So I asserted to a friend that the cleric was designed to have lots of powers and options, because "nobody wants to play the healer." My friend replied, "Says who? There was no intention to design it that way."

So I Googled it. I found lots of people asserting that the cleric is powerful so as to "entice" players and reduce their skepticism. But I found nothing from Skip Williams, Sean K, or any of the usual suspects. Nobody whom I would think had insight into the design of the class has ever stated that it was powered up on purpose. Or at least, I can't find them saying it.

So I ask my fellow EnWorlders. Was I wrong? Is "nobody wants to play the band-aid, so 3rd edition authors made clerics awesome to lure people in" just an often-repeated myth? Or have any of the people involved actually gone on record as saying that it was a deliberate effort? I'd really like to know if I need to apologize to my friend for insisting that the development team said that.

 

[kitcik]

I don't know the answer, but I can say this.

Having played basic & 1E, the cleric was NOT underpowered.

It is true that it was cast in the role of healer and that a lot of people in those days played the classes as they were apparently imagined by the designers, resulting in some people complaining that playing clerics was boring. Remember, first and foremost, that there was no spell-swapping, so clerics were under a great deal of pressure from other party members to take healing spells.

That said, this was offset by many things including:
- there were many spell levels that had no cure spells. In fact, the only cure spells were Cure Light, Cure Serious, Cure Critical and Heal. I believe those were 1st level, 3rd level, 5th level and 7th level spells, respectively. I may be off a level somewhere (maybe it was 1/4/5/6?), but you get the idea. Clerics were "forced" to take many non-healing spells.
- clerics got a lot of bonus spells from high wisdom but wizards got no bonus spells, so the bonus spells were often thought of as the make-up for the "requirement" to take healing spells.
- clerics were tanks in battle with full plate, pretty good hit points, good weapons and decent THACOs.

I guarantee that a 20th level 1E cleric would have the advantage on any other 20th level 1E class other than wizard.

 

[airwalkrr]

I've read a lot of old stuff by EGG the Great and it seems to me from his articles and other writings that he saw the clerics as warriors of faith, who donned armor and wielded magics of war to bring low their enemies. Part of the side benefit of being a war priest was that your god would heal you in times of trouble, as evidenced by the existence of the cure spells and the heal spell.

3rd edition didn't give the cleric a boost. It was pretty much keeping in line with the original vision and design of the cleric as an armed and armored soldier of the cloth whose primary focus was offense. If anything, 3rd edition made the cleric more of a healer by giving them spontaneous casting and curing spells at every level. In retrospect, that decision was a disaster as it probably resulted in casting more clerics in 3rd edition as healbots than in previous editions.

 

[Deset Gled]

Check out this Dragon article: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The Cleric)

Directly to the point:

What is the most powerful class in the Player's Handbook, and why is it the most powerful?

Mike Mearls: The cleric is the most powerful class. Aside from its mechanical advantages – its access to divine spells, ability to wear heavy armor, average base attack, turning/rebuking undead, and two good saves – the cleric's role within the party is perhaps the most vital to the players' success. The cleric is responsible for keeping the other players active with its ability to heal. While magic items can cover this gap, most items that a party can afford don't provide enough healing on a round-to-round basis. The person playing the cleric can exert a lot of control over the party's decisions. For example, during a battle, the cleric moves away from the monsters and announces that if anyone wants healing, they have to move back to his position. The players must follow the cleric if they want their characters to survive.

While the cleric is the strongest class, I would argue that it is not unbalanced. Its abilities are fundamentally passive – they remove conditions rather than inflict them. The cleric needs to be powerful in order to attract players to the role. I think the cleric illustrates that mechanics must sometimes be judged according to criteria other than pure mathematical analysis.

Emphasis mine.

Basically, making the cleric the most powerful class in 3.x was definetally done on purpose. However, attracting people to play a cleric was only one of many reasons for this design decision.

 

[Dandu]

There is so much wrong with that quote...

 

[billd91]

I won't dispute Mearls's take on the cleric since that clearly appears to be his opinion. But I don't necessarily agree with the idea that the cleric was deliberately made overpowered.

I can see how the 3e designers would have wanted to break the cleric out of the mold of having to devote a lot of his daily spells to healing spells - thus the spontaneous healing. That giving them that ability makes them more powerful is, I think, more of a side effect than an intention.

That said, I think some of the buff spells given to clerics, particularly the double-whammy of Divine Power and Righteous Might, push the envelope on cleric power pretty strongly. But, again, I have doubts they were meant to really make the class more powerful as a whole package. I just think the spells are imbalanced.

 

[Vegepygmy]

I won't dispute Mearls's take on the cleric since that clearly appears to be his opinion. But I don't necessarily agree with the idea that the cleric was deliberately made overpowered.

You're absolutely right. Mearls' quote makes it clear:

"While the cleric is the strongest class, I would argue that it is not unbalanced."

It wasn't deliberately made overpowered; it was deliberately made powerful (perhaps even the strongest class). That's not the same thing.

 

[JamesonCourage]

So I ask my fellow EnWorlders. Was I wrong? Is "nobody wants to play the band-aid, so 3rd edition authors made clerics awesome to lure people in" just an often-repeated myth?

I don't know about the rest of the world, but it's wrong in my group. One of my players loved his healing Cleric of Pelor more than any other character he's ever played. Why? For roleplaying reasons. He didn't play a cleric to be overpowered. He didn't play a cleric to kick some ass (though he would throw down in combat more often than he'd heal, unless it was a Heal or Mass Heal, a Quickened healing spell, or to stop someone from dying). He played a cleric to heal people, because he liked the flavor.

And that, I think, answers the spirit of your question. He liked roleplaying a healer. He liked roleplaying someone who saved lives through that healing, not through defense (though he would through defense, obviously). Are there people that want to play a healer? For sure. Out of my group of 5 (which does not count myself), two are content to play dedicated healers/support. Right now we don't have one, and my group may be quite different than most. But I'm looking at 2/5, or 40%, as a pretty high number.

Hope this sheds some insight into at least one other group. Good post, and good luck finding the answer. Remember, play what you like

 

[frankthedm]

It becomes unbalanced because the character power that is supposed to support the party can instead used for direct offense.

Also the cleric basically is a character and a half when undead are involved, while the rogue is roughly half a character in the same situation to balance things out.

 

[Dandu]

It becomes unbalanced because the character power that is supposed to support the party can instead used for direct offense.

Like a Maxim gun. Intended as a defensive weapon that would support fortifications and make invasions too costly for the aggressor, only to later be made into lighter machine guns and use in offensive operations.