Clerics: Essential Class or Sacred Cow?

[Ridley's Cohort]

Sacred Cow.

The Druid class shows us the very tip of the iceberg in terms of the breadth of possibilities for a healer heavy spellcaster. The Cleric is not a necessity as is. We could still have adequate healing in the party to support dungeoncrawling by other means.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Arcana evolved works just fine without divine casters. Anyone who can cast spells can heal (as they are simple spells). Its nice to separate faith from class - its tended to get my players to pay more attention to religion, since it no longer feels like cleircs, paladins and druids "own" it. Being a priest is a way of life. The magister in our game is a priest, the ranger is a druid, etc.

 

[Someone]

Just give the rogue a wand of cure light wounds and you don't need a cleric.

Give the ranger or paladin a wand of CLW and he doesn't even have to UMD. The phenomenon is quite evident in Living EnWorld.

(For the benefit of those who don't know, it's a persistent play by post world located here. people make their character, who then embarks in adventures - that's normal, except that you don't know what the rest of the group is going to be, since they are formed when a DM recruits for his adventure, so you aren't compelled to make a character for a 'balanced party' and instead you make whatever you want to play. There are a distinct lack of clerics and druids playing, and the ranger wielding a wand of cure light wounds is a common sight)

 

[ephemeron]

If we didn't have clerics, who would sanctify the cows?

 

[Felix]

... or you could just let wizards, witches and sorcerers cast healing spells. Seems to save an awful lot of trouble.

It's troublesome to maintain a seperation between metagame terminology and in-game terms?

By all means, give arcanists healing; but after you do, please revisit the balance issues between mundane classes and casters, because casters just got more powerful. This change would not exist in a vacuum.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I really like the idea of tearing down the flimsy distinction between "Divine" and "Arcane" magic. Spells should just be spells; if you want on-the-fly healing, then choose the healing talent tree.

You can also eliminate the need for a cleric by altering the recovery mechanic. If all characters automatically heal to 1/2 their HP total after an encounter, then you've decreased dependence on a cleric.

 

[Someone]

It's troublesome to maintain a seperation between metagame terminology and in-game terms?

By all means, give arcanists healing; but after you do, please revisit the balance issues between mundane classes and casters, because casters just got more powerful. This change would not exist in a vacuum.

I did it once. It made the party's sorcerer less powerful, having to use precious spells known ans slots to heal.

 

[Imp]

It seems you assume the characters, and everyone else, knows what class they are. So a character trains in the army; he doesn't think, "I'll take a level of Fighter", he thinks, "I want to get better at fighting". Similarly, a character classed as a Sorcerer can be an ordained priest, though he can't heal or turn undead; a bard may pass himself off as a powerful Wizard, and who would gainsay them?

Class levels, PrCs, HD, etc are metagame knowledge, and thus completely unknown to the character, or anyone immersed in the story of the action.

Yeah, and I do this all the time, but this is true for some classes more than others, and clerics (along with maybe monks and ninjas) are one of the hardest classes to deal with in this manner. It's just hard to pull off "I think I'll pick up a little miracleworking and the power to repel undead."

As far as divine/arcane splits go... I am not sure that giving wizard types healing spells makes them more powerful, exactly, if they stlll get the same number of spells per day, and plus they'll become even more of a priority target, they're less durable, and they won't be able to devote as much power to magical protections and evasions. I think in practice you'd see a "white mage" and a "black mage" in a party, with the white mage packing healing spells and ways to keep himself alive, and the black mage being the wizard type we know today. The difference is that you wouldn't necessarily have the divine baggage the cleric brings.

I'm more in favor of unifying all that under (an evolved) binder mechanic, so the arcanist can corral dark powers, the religious type can fuse with an aspect of Pelor's light or whatever, another vestige spirit thing can confer healing without being connected to one of the gods of the setting, another spirit for druid types can allow shapechanging into wolf form, etc.

 

[Felix]

I did it once. It made the party's sorcerer less powerful, having to use precious spells known ans slots to heal.

He wasn't clever enough to pick up a Wand of Cure? Hmm.

 

[drothgery]

It's troublesome to maintain a seperation between metagame terminology and in-game terms?

By all means, give arcanists healing; but after you do, please revisit the balance issues between mundane classes and casters, because casters just got more powerful. This change would not exist in a vacuum.

Well, arcane casters get more powerful. But they were less powerful than divine casters anyway.

He wasn't clever enough to pick up a Wand of Cure? Hmm.

Shockingly, Wands cannot be used as a free action. Which means if you're casting Cure (even from a wand), you're not casting Fireball.