Clerics: Essential Class or Sacred Cow?

[Felix]

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

This is like saying, "The 1000 watt lightbulb wasn't as bright as the sun". There are 7 classes thatt arn't 9-level spellcasters, you know. They're the ones that need balancing with the newly-healing arcanists.

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.

You don't say. Golly gosh, what was I thinking?

A sorcerer's most limited resource is his Spells Known. A wand of cure protects him from having to use that resource for party healing. And sorcerer or not, unless they can make the party safely rest whenever they are out of spells, they won't be casting Fireball every round. Which gives them plenty of opportunity to use that non-free action you so astutely reminded us of.

 

[Someone]

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

I'm doubting if to answer or not, as your condescending tone implies you're feeling that you're being somehow attacked, but anyway. Nope, there wasn't any wand around he could pick up. It wasn't a standard campaing, several classes weren't available (clerics and druids among them, hence the need to make Cure spells available to more classes) and we were using an alternate system for magic items. The sorcerer character was otherwise quite standard, except that he knew how to cast Cure moderate wounds, which he mainly used out of combat. We discussed if allowing the sorcerer to heal would make it more powerful, but later agreed it wasn't that much of a deal and theneed to save spell slots for curing did cut into his blasting ability.

 

[hong]

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

No, it's troublesome to multiclass for no reason other than to satisfy some random game designer's obscure desire to maintain an unnecessary division between two types of magic.

Since we're being pedantic, and all.

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.

Healing is not power. Well, unless by power you mean power over the party. Healing is either 1) a chore; or 2) a club to beat the other players over the head with.

And all of these problems go away if you ban healing, and just let people enter each fight at full hit points. Now that's fun!

 

[hong]

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

IOW: yes, a cleric is indeed a sacred cow. Thank you, Felix, if that IS your real name!

 

[Drowbane]

These threads are a trainwreck... can't just look away. Is the Cleric essential? No, nor is "healing". Everybody loves rolling up new characters, right? Do I consider the cleric an essential part of my D&D experience? Hell yeah, if they were taken out in 4e, I would just house rule them back in. Paladins on the otherhand...

I have contemplated (for the past few years) throwing all of D&D's casters (wizard, sorc, cleric, druid, psion, etc) out of my homebrew. Non-casters would still exist much as they are now (binders, warlocks, incarnates, etc). I would replace the huge number of D&D casters with a generic caster who's flavor is derived from his choice of spells (access to a selection of Schools, each school is complete with no arcane/divine split) and perhaps any PrC they are in or training for.

I would cut down alot of redundant spells and rework the Psionics System somewhat to make magic more modular.

 

[Darklone]

I'd love to see the cleric class removed ... and give the wizards all the cleric spells. Keep the sorcerers as they are.

Wizard can specialise then in their old schools or in domains. The usual cleric is a Healing domain specialist wizard.

And give them more knowledge skillpoints. E.g. more skillpoints and make knowledge skills a little bit more interesting.

Then raise paladins spellcasting to the bards level (e.g. level 6 spells and curing from level 1 plus lay on hands).

SLAUGHTER THE COWTHING!

 

[GreatLemur]

I've definitely read more fantasy fiction with wizardy types healing people than with magic priests on any variety. J. Gregory Keyes' Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series has some very awesome magic priests, but I don't think I've heard of them doing any magic healing, so far.

So, yeah, the Cleric class (and similar tropes in other games) is very much a D&D-ism. We ain't gonna see it disappear from the core any time soon, but we can sure as hell houserule it out, and I don't believe it'd destroy the game.

I have contemplated (for the past few years) throwing all of D&D's casters (wizard, sorc, cleric, druid, psion, etc) out of my homebrew. Non-casters would still exist much as they are now (binders, warlocks, incarnates, etc). I would replace the huge number of D&D casters with a generic caster who's flavor is derived from his choice of spells (access to all Schools, each school is complete with no arcane/divine split) and perhaps any PrC they are in or training for.

I would cut down alot of redundant spells and rework the Psionics System somewhat to make magic more modular.

I like this idea a hell of a lot. Although, I've got to admit, I like the idea of using different casting mechanics to represent different kinds of magic. I wouldn't mind keeping arcane, divine, and psionic power around, as long as they were as different from each other as they are from binders and warlocks, you know? But, certainly, a modular spell system also makes all the sense in the world, so I'd have those different casting mechanics all drawing from the same pool of spell effects (not that they'd all have access to everything, mind you, but everything ought to be interchangeable).

 

[Felix]

No, it's troublesome to multiclass for no reason other than to satisfy some random game designer's obscure desire to maintain an unnecessary division between two types of magic.

The arcane/divine split? It's a holdover from 30 years of D&D. Must mean that it's a sacred cow and valueless, axe it.

Your opinion, as pithily expressed as it always is, isn't the only one; that there is a difference between the power of faith to make things happen and enforcing one's own will upon the world through magic is very attractive to me. Enforcing one's will upon the world should sound attractive to you as well.

Since we're being pedantic, and all.

You? Never.

 

[GreatLemur]

Your opinion, as pithily expressed as it always is, isn't the only one; that there is a difference between the power of faith to make things happen and enforcing one's own will upon the world through magic is very attractive to me.

It'd be a lot more attractive to me if the difference between these two methods wasn't what they can do, but how they do it.

I don't see any reason why a character who manipulates the world through strength of will shouldn't be able to heal, or why a character who works miracles by channeling the power of a god should use the same mechanics as someone casting spells. If we're going to have characters wielding divine power, I'd like it to work differently from magic. But I'd like the kinds of things that "wizards" and "clerics" can do to depend more on what the former have studied or who the latter worship than on which side of the arcane-divine line they stand on.

 

[Felix]

It'd be a lot more attractive to me if the difference between these two methods wasn't what they can do, but how they do it.

I don't see any reason why a character who manipulates the world through strength of will shouldn't be able to heal, or why a character who works miracles by channeling the power of a god should use the same mechanics as someone casting spells. If we're going to have characters wielding divine power, I'd like it to work differently from magic. But I'd like the kinds of things that "wizards" and "clerics" can do to depend more on what the former have studied or who the latter worship than on which side of the arcane-divine line they stand on.

Are you looking for different game mechanics, or an in-game explanation?

If it's in-game that you want, surely that's just a contrivance of flavor.

If it's game mechanics then there are multiple options for you. An easy one is the prepared/spontaneous divide. Another is striking Wizards, Sorcerers and Bards from the game, and replacing them with psions. The game mechanics are there to disassociate arcanists from divines.

So why have them function so similarly in the core rules? Simplicity, perhaps? It means only having to learn one set of game mechanics.

Is it possible to work the mechanics that there is no arcane/divine divide? Sure. Mongoose's Conan RPG does this, and the way they do it fits very well in the flavor of the Hyborian setting. Would it not feel alien in Greyhawk?

The mechanics exist to both make the classes distinct or make them identical. But simplicity suggests that while they may be different, arcane and divine magic should use the same system. And making them identical leaves out in the cold folks who have enjoyed Fighter/Thief/Cleric/Magic-User D&D for 30 years.

*Shrug*. If WotC finds in its market research that they can make more money off of folks who want them unified, I imagine you'll see something different in 4e.