Cleric - Holy Warrior or Healer?

[UngeheuerLich]

Holy warrior and healer.

Only holy warrior: Paladin
Only Healer: Priest of a peaceful God or Goddess

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Holy roller, sayeth the wise-ass.

Clerics shouldn't be required to be the healer; nor should they gain access to abilities via spells or class functions that make other classes obsolete. In 3E you could have a party of all clerics that could perform better than a mix of specialized classes -- bad design, that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Both

Also, caster. 4e didn't invent the 'lazer cleric,' there had always been clerics who focused on casting over healing and macework.

 

[frankthedm]

Divine Character = Healing is something that has tainted D&D since it's beginning. It even corrupted the Dungeon Crawl Classics game, even though its supposed inspiration predated the D&D cleric.

Cleric should be theme, not class
Then, you can be a holy fighter, a religious rogue or a divine caster.

Thank you! Once the Divine Band Aid is out of the character roster, maybe we can get healing to no longer be safe, efficient or commonplace.

Holy fighter: "Bite down on this, and pray the stitches heal soon".

Religious rogue: "Partake in Daleetjill's Sacred Incense to dull the pain of that leg wound"

Divine caster: "Yes I can try Invoking my god to heal your wounds, but the minions of The Adversary may corrupt the spell, making your wounds worse. "

 

[Khaalis]

Can we answer both/neither?

IMHO, I'd prefer to see...

* Cleric: The adventuring arm of the church. They use magic and arms to be the common enforcers and adventurers of the faith. There should be the option for some differentiation from faith to faith, but overall a cleric is a cleric. This class should focus on damage and healing magic (as is required of an adventurer). Accomplished through a mix of spells (for damage and utility) and powers (for healing, so that healing and spells don't use the same resource). This is the hybrid or middle ground class.

* Priest: The devout and more sociopolitical and heavy spellcasting branch of the faith. More akin to a mage than a cleric and specifically different from faith to faith as far as class abilities.

* Paladin: The holy warrior of the faith (no more LG only Paladins). The most righteous and zealous champions of the faith. The should be living embodiments, symbols of their faith.


Personally, in a lot of ways I also like the way Fantasy Craft approached it.

They use the Priest base class that covers all of the basic archetypes like shaman, druid, and cleric. They have some basic abilities that tie them together like a basic augury/commune type ability but then each priest is different based on their faith. For instance a priest of a faith dedicated to the deity of thieving would have abilities like Darkvision and the ability to cast spells like blur, darkness, disguise self, etc. - while a priest of a war deity may gain melee powers like armor-piercing, additional damage with the chosen weapon of the faith, etc.

Another option is that you also have Specialties (kind of like Themes/Kits) that can are applied such as Cleric, Druid, Shaman, etc. that can be applied technically to any class. If added to a priest it defines your priestly role even more, but also allows for other types of "devout" characters such as the Soldier-Cleric, the Scout-Druid, the Mage-Shaman, etc.

In that system, Paladins are also not a base class but an Expert class (kind of like a PRC) attainable at Level 5 by anyone that is devout (FC uses a different system for faith/alignment than D&D), has good Charisma and has training in field medicine (a feat). They gain a mix of combat abilities, faith specific powers, some leadership/inspiration powers and some basic healing (lay on hands).


IMHO, there is nothing wrong with growing the D&D concepts of old and making them better while still retaining the feel of the classes.

 

[Henry]

I am not a fan of 2e, but 2e did clerics best.

I have to agree, even though the power balance was spotty on the spheres, there was very little quite like it to distinguish clerics. My home-grown clerics for my homebrew campaign back in the 90's were my favorite clerics ever.

One thing I cribbed from the 2nd edition Legends & Lore was the "ADDitional" spells idea -- in addition to the spheres, clerics get access to these extra spells on their lists. I used this to fill in critical gaps here and there in portfolios, and give clerics access to a little bit of extra healing where needed - not all clerics need access to Heal and Resurrection IMO, but most do need at least the lesser healing sphere, so for instance to the God of War I gave lesser healing sphere, PLUS cure serious and neutralize poison, but no cure critical, heal, etc. His followers need strength to keep fighting, but if they shunned the afterlife with pansy resurrection magic, what does that say about the courage of his warriors?

In fact, only two deities in my whole pantheon I think had greater healing sphere. And that was one example.

With 3E, and definitely with 4E, I didn't feel like I could do the same level of customization of my clerics to make them feel very different. My priests in my homebrew 2E game might as well have each been a different subclass, once you got down to weapon choices, spells, and armor permitted. And I liked the idea of doing that.

The only thing I've seen in D&D that comes close recently has been the Oracle from Pathfinder -- now THOSE guys, thanks to the different mysteries, DO feel almost like different subclasses.

 

[CleverNickName]

To paraphrase Wormwood: All too often, clerics in D&D end up being Van Helsing in chainmail.

I would like the 5E cleric to be a little more like the Cloistered Cleric variant in Unearthed Arcana, where they are essentially Wisdom-based wizards with a different spell list. But that won't happen, at least not in the core rules.

 

[Greg K]

With 3E, and definitely with 4E, I didn't feel like I could do the same level of customization of my clerics to make them feel very different. My priests in my homebrew 2E game might as well have each been a different subclass, once you got down to weapon choices, spells, and armor permitted. And I liked the idea of doing that.

In 3e, the above would be variant spell lists from the DMG (which mentions deity specific lists) and UA style class variants (which were an idea mentioned in the core 3e PHBs and DMG (both books even provided examples of customization albeit not for the cleric).

 

[Henry]

In 3e, the above would be variant spell lists from the DMG (which mentions deity specific lists) and UA style class variants (which were an idea mentioned in the core 3e PHBs and DMG (both books even provided examples of customization albeit not for the cleric).

True, but you're talking about actually designing all new classes manually, whereas a lot of work had been pre-done with the 2E spheres, the Complete Priest's Handbook, and in Pathfinder's case with the mysteries. Problem is, balance always seemed to be wound a little tighter in 3E and 4E, so altering TOO many powers from the clerics seemed to be too much of a headache to balance in play. Mix with that players who would accept a custom priest in a heartbeat, but strangely disliked playing anything that wasn't with the core official stamp.

 

[Greg K]

Problem is, balance always seemed to be wound a little tighter in 3E and 4E, so altering TOO many powers from the clerics seemed to be too much of a headache to balance in play.

I never had much of a problem with 3e. I used the OA Shaman, and a few third party classes (mostly Green Ronin) as extra classes. Everything else was DMG variant spell lists, Cityscape web enhancement urban/skill swaps (which I, basically, did from day one), bonus feats instead of spells (similar to the method in Complete Champion for Paladins and Rangers) and several Unearthed Arcana variants (which along with the examples in the PHB and DMG served as guidelines, but I was using the PHB and DMG as examples back in 3e).

Mix with that players who would accept a custom priest in a heartbeat, but strangely disliked playing anything that wasn't with the core official stamp.

Players coming into my campaigns don't have a choice. The deities are already pre-created as are the domains (and, therefore, spell lists), starting armor and weapon proficiencies and even the good saves.