CLERICS, how do your players play them ?

[Rashak Mani]

Funny that so many Men of the Cloth should take to the frontlines... I imagined the first option to be more common...

In my evil group the Cleric charges ahead and his only good stat is a high AC... I told him many times (i´m the group wizard)) that he is no warrior and one day called him for a duel to prove that even a prepared wizard could take him on...

I put shield and mage armor... Did he get trashed !! At the end I tumbled to get in close and he got a lucky 20 roll and good damage and I fell.... but I hit him 6 times before he hit me... (i was wounded already). Nothing like having an Elven Wizard. (Weapon Finesse Rapier and high Dex). He didnt get the "message" thou... soon after he closed in with a dragon like creature when he shouldnt have... and got badly beaten by multiple attacks...

 

[JoeGKushner]

Just wondering the predominant way clerics are played in your game... multiple choices select all that apply...

Are all Clerics medics or semi-fighters ?

Our current group has a cleric of Torm who is role played well but role played to the deterient of the party who now brings a healer from the miniatures handbook with them in addition to buying lots of spells. The cleric and the party often have different ideas of what to do so I can see a day when the party just kicks the cleric out of the group in order to avoid violating their alignments.

In the past, I've seen other variants as mentioned here. In one campaign where I was a player, the cleric was a fighter-cleric of Tempus and healing was the last thing on his mind. In another, the cleric rarely got to do anything outside of healing because everyone was so determined to wipe out the foe early.

 

[Mista Collins]

In my campaign one of my players play a very interesting cleric. She is a Cleric of Raico (homebrew). This cleric is the cleric of Life and Death. The domains available for this religion are Healing, Death, Destruction, Protection. This particular player chose healing and death. She had focused on touch attacks and is nuetral and chose to have cure spells as the ones she can spontaneously cast and turns undead. But when it comes to memorizing spells she usually chooses inflict spells. Her favorite spell is probably Deathwatch and Death Knell. The over all concept of this cleric is she is the one who decides who lives and who dies. She chooses not to talk unless she really much (which isn't often).

So where did I put my vote? I chose "Other" because I haven't seen anyone play a cleric like this. I find it interesting and very very cool. So when the next campaign comes along where I am not DMing. I plan on creating a character just like this cleric.

 

[A'koss]

Ahh, the ever-maligned cleric....

It's been a long, long time since anyone has played a cleric IMG. I doubt there has been even a single 3rd edition PC Cleric. However, they're obviously vital to a party's survival so there'll always be an NPC tag-along in the party for support.

My group just... doesn't care for the concept (to put it politely). They like paladins well enough mind you, but the cleric is looked upon as some kind of bottom-feeder class, only slightly more tolerable than the (I can already envision the synchonized spitting...) Bard.

So now our new campaign has no cleric class per se or a formalized bard, althougth there is a Skald PrC, and everyone's much happier...

A'koss.

 

[Nightfall]

Hey its thanks to the CLERICS that I HAVE the Scarred Lands. As for what they are like...well depends on their god.

 

[Jolly Giant]

I've had all sorts of clerics in my group, but the last two have both been Nerull-worshippers so I voted Necromancer.

The first of them (my girlfriend) was mainly interested in getting her army of undeads as big as possible and leading it into battle herself... She mainly memorized buffs (for herself) and healing spells. She was always asking everyone if they didn't prefer becoming undeads, instead of recieving healing...

The second generally sticks to casting offensive spells, mainly necromantic ones. He usually has some buff-spells (for the fighter-types) prepared as well. His approach to healing is generally along these lines: "Oh, are you wounded? And you DON'T want to die? Remind me again later, and I'll memorize a couple of healing spells for you tomorrow..."

 

[Wombat]

Earlier in my present campaign (...time jumble there...) we had a cleric of Mormekar (Book of the Righteous -- god of Death, but not evil) and a Holy Warrior of Terak (also BotR -- god of war and valour). The cleric played pretty much an anti-undead specialist; he was great against the hordes of zombies that showed up in some of the sessions.

But more importantly, both of them got into involved religious debates regarding life, death, and resurrection. They "quoted" from various holy tomes to "prove" their points and carried on these discussion any time we had a lull in the game. This got the other players, who were no clerics, also discussing their reltations (or lack thereof) with the gods. I felt this created a much richer game, although I was hard-pressed to keep up with all the volumes they kept "quoting" and finally demanded that they come up with a list of titles for basic texts.

Then, in a silly campaign, I had a cleric who handed out the equivalent of Chik comics in seaside taverns...