Cleric lovers appreciation thread.

[aramis erak]

I don't like playing clerics, but i don't mind it, and it usually makes the other players happy I'm there. (I prefer to play bards or paladins, TBH.)

 

[John Dallman]

If a GM has created some religions for their setting, I'm keen on playing a cleric of one of them, because it lets me explore the setting's background and assumptions. This has worked out very well in a setting where I've been playing online since the start of the pandemic. All the religions in Avalon are strange in some way, because of the way the setting was populated, and playing a cleric of the most popular one has let me learn a lot about it.

 

[sevenbastard]

I thought this was a thread about my x girlfriend.

 

[aco175]

When I have one tag along with the party as a (DM)NPC I find that I need to modify some of the powers and spells to make it easy to run. Things like Turn Undead and Spirit Guardians are a lot of rolls and fiddley bits to make easy. I know I can pass it off to a player to run in combat or just make it a sidekick, but that is not the question.

The class is fine as part fighter and part caster.

I like them more for story and bringing in adventure with their gods and cloisters fighting about who loves God the most.

 

[Tonguez]

I like playing utility characters, healbot is MVP when theyre needed, and Clerics also get the benefits of being effective armoured warriors and full casters with the full gamut of buffs, offense, control and utility spells. Background choice mitigates the limited skill slots in the cleric build.

That allows them to be played across a variety of styles (militant zealot, pious healer, charismatic evangelist, arcane investigator) and importantly has preset hooks to get in to full Setting RP as Religious factions, rituals and interactions come up in game.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I'm down for some priesty action.

I prefer a system where the priest doesn't have to be a healer. Can be, but not required.

Atcherly, I prefer a game where there is no distinction between cleric magic and wizard magic.

 

[Richards]

As I've been the DM for most of my decades of playing D&D, I've only gotten the opportunity to run a small handful of PCs when others have taken up the DM reins for a campaign. I'm currently running my first cleric PC, mainly because others took up the role in previous campaigns (or we made do with an NPC cleric) and I felt it was time I pulled my weight and carried the "healbot" burden this time around. I'm enjoying my character, but mostly because he's a curmudgeon who looks down on others (he's a fiendish human cleric of Boccob in a 3.5 campaign); I kind of miss the arcane spellcaster's wider range of damage spells (I ran a sorcerer PC in the previous campaign, also a first for me), but fortunately our party includes a druid, so I have someone else to cast the occasional healing spell on the wounded allies in the midst of battle so my guy can get in a bit of combat now and again. (That said, he's not really a "hands on" kind of guy, feeling melee combat is beneath him, so he relies quite a bit on summon monster spells, especially now that we're all high enough level that they tend to stay around for a bit.) And, as an evil cleric, he doesn't have the ability to spontaneously convert spells to cure spells like those good and neutral clerics can, so he has to plan out his healing spells in advance. Still, I'm having fun with him; just recently, he managed to successfully rebuke a vampire spawn such that it went into full-blown "command undead" territory, and now he has his very own undead minion to do his bidding. (Oh, and he rides around on an animated nightmare skeleton, something most good or neutral clerics don't get to do, so there's that.)

Johnathan

 

[Tonguez]

I'm down for some priesty action.

I prefer a system where the priest doesn't have to be a healer. Can be, but not required.

Atcherly, I prefer a game where there is no distinction between cleric magic and wizard magic.

So what would be the point of playing a Wizard if a Cleric can do exactly the same thing?

 

[Maxperson]

So in another thread some individuals were throwing some serious shade on clerics. So I thought I that I would make a thread for those of us that enjoy playing them. Maybe you love being that person that gives your party cool buffs or debunks the enemies. Maybe you love stepping in and healing your nearly dead comrades in the middle of a tough fight. However, maybe you are the only person in your in your party that can hit that ghost, because no one in your party BOUGHT A GHOST TOUCH ENCHANTMENT, BECAUSE THEY WERE CHEAPSKATES!!!!!! coughs Anyway.... this is for everyone's favorite healer, the Cleric!

I love clerics as a class that is full of roleplaying potential and cool abilities that aren't healing. Give me a cleric of war, magic, nature, or whatever else that isn't life.

 

[Fenris-77]

So what would be the point of playing a Wizard if a Cleric can do exactly the same thing?

Well, I would guess because they are very different characters. The man of the gods versus the man of learning. Pretty easy to ID types there. Of course those combine in many interesting ways, but I don't think you need separate magics to make them stand apart. Just my two cents.