D&D 3E/3.5 Clerics in 3.5

[Turanil]

(the player also liked the class from the moment he saw it, and said that he would have made his character a cloistered cleric, if the class had been available at the start of the campaign).

Maybe he could multiclass from cleric to cloistered cleric? Say spell progression continues as that of a cleric, but everything else is now as a cloistered cleric. In terms of roleplay, the character could go to a cloistered order and ask for admittance, saying that he is tired of violenece and combat and wants to now emphasize on scholarship etc.

Just my 0.2$ of course

 

[Staffan]

Clerics are often acused to be too versatile (but funnily enough, people also state that they're too bland, and not customizable enough, and 2e had that better).

There's a difference there. In 3e, each individual cleric has a lot of versatility through having a humongous spell list (and it keeps growing, too). In 2e, the priest class as a whole covered a tremendous amount of ground - much more than the 3e cleric, since the 2e priest class also included druids and monk lookalikes - but each individual priest only possessed a small subset of possible priestly abilities.

 

[Thanee]

A cleric 3 could had the first virtual save or die spell with that.

*cough* sleep *cough*



Bye
Thanee

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

I can't speak for others, but I for one don't mind the role of a healer. What I do mind is the "blandness" of the cleric class.

Based on their game stats (average BAB, decent HD, proficient in all armour types), it's clear they're designed to be a second-line combatants. Meaning you'll probably go for decent Str and Con scores. You'll also want a decent Wis, and if you want to make use of your Turn Undead ability, you'll want a decent Cha as well.

That is a common misconception. The class is plenty flexible, you just have to be willing to give something up. The breadth of cleric abilities is seducing you away from keeping the character in focus.

Frex, you can de-empathize casting during combat and make do with a 13 starting Wis. That gives you plenty spells for buffing with a few left over for healing. If you let Cha be a dump stat, you could have a very good Str & Con. You will fight just as well as the Fighter if you get two or three rounds of buffing. Most of the time, you will make do with a single buff spell. You won't fight as well as the Fighter/Barbarian then, but you will easily hold your own next to the Paladin or Ranger.

Another example, give up on the melee aspect. Wearing chain shirt and go with a 10 Str. Then you could have a good Int and/or Cha. You may not have the raw offensive power of a Wizard/Sorceror, but you will superior in most every other area.

 

[Perun]

Maybe he could multiclass from cleric to cloistered cleric? Say spell progression continues as that of a cleric, but everything else is now as a cloistered cleric. In terms of roleplay, the character could go to a cloistered order and ask for admittance, saying that he is tired of violenece and combat and wants to now emphasize on scholarship etc.

Just my 0.2$ of course

We considered something along those lines, but the player decided the character is now conceptually rather far from the cloistered variant (he's not much of a scholarly type). In any case, he likes the character as is. It's just that the cloistered cleric fits better his idea of a cleric (and I agree with him), just not hte cleric he's playing right now

Hope it all made some sence

 

[Perun]

That is a common misconception. The class is plenty flexible, you just have to be willing to give something up. The breadth of cleric abilities is seducing you away from keeping the character in focus.

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on this one. I'm not saying that in order to play an effective cleric one needs to have a 16 in all stats, but -- similar to paladins, monks and bards -- cleric needs decent stats in the majority of his abilities. With the difference that paladins, monks and bards are, how to put it, non-core core classes. While it's not explicitly mentioned int he rules, most players will agree that there are four "base" classes: fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue. It appears that this combination of classes gives you the greatest effect. Of those, in order to get them to fully utilise their roles in the party, fighter needs two good stats (Str and Con) or three (Str, Dex, Con, if he wants to be a good archer), Rogue needs one (Dex) or two (Dex and Int), and Wizard needs a single good roll (Int). Cleric needs four, like I already said.

It's not like the "breadth" is optional, those are the class abilites the character gets, if he decides to dump one of them, he's weakening the character. It's like giving a fighter a low Con score, and saying he gets a d10 HD and a good armour, so he doesn't need the extra hp.

I'm not saying cleric is a bad class. It's really not. It's just not made to cover the wide range of your D&D gods. Does the current cleric make sence as a devotee of a deity of beauty, or thievery, or peace? Not much. That's why I liked the cloistered variant so much. Now, you have your martial, crusader-type cleric, to represent the more militant priests, and you've got the cloistered cleric, to fulfill the role of a scholar, diplomat and various other cleric types.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

A fair point, Perun.

My response is that just because there is an obvious & inflexible route to play a certain class optimally for a certain common style of play, you still have not demonstrated that the class itself is inflexible. This is especially true for a class that is broad and somewhat overpowered.

I would still say you are trapped by expectations. Would you argue strenuously with a fellow gamer who wants to play a Druid that he "needs to play a straight cleric because the party needs one and it would be optimal"? Probably not.

Flexibility is properly measured by how many diverse styles of characters of that class can be played as, and still be comparable in attractiveness to other core classes.

 

[Deset Gled]

It's not like the "breadth" is optional, those are the class abilites the character gets, if he decides to dump one of them, he's weakening the character. It's like giving a fighter a low Con score, and saying he gets a d10 HD and a good armour, so he doesn't need the extra hp.

I disagree. I feel that the breadth of the cleric class (though not necessarily some other classes) is completely optional. Just because he gets a number of class abilities doesn't mean that he needs to max out his usage of every one of them. You have to choose between doing a lot of things in an average way or being very focused and powerful at one thing. I think it's more like giving a fighter a low Str score, and instead putting everything into Dex. Sure, he may not deal as much damage as before (which some would believe is the entire purpose of the fighter class), but he'll have better AC, ranged attacks, and reflex saves. He gives up some offensive power to be more survivable.

I've recently played a 3.5 cleric with stats of 6, 12, 12, 10, 23, 6 (an antropomorphic bat from SS, with 25 point buy). He can't fight or turn for the life of him, can't even pick up some types of heavy armor, and has jack for skills. But at the same time his spellcasting is great, with very high saves and a good number of bonus spells.

 

[Capellan]

It's not like the "breadth" is optional, those are the class abilites the character gets, if he decides to dump one of them, he's weakening the character. It's like giving a fighter a low Con score, and saying he gets a d10 HD and a good armour, so he doesn't need the extra hp.

I disagree. Of all the clerics I have seen in 3.0 or 3.5, none have had high stats in STR, CON, WIS and CHA.

I've seen a cleric with CHA 6.

I've seen a cleric with higher INT and DEX than STR or CON.

I've seen a clerics built as spellcasters, archers, or as melee brutes, or as wannabe-rogues.

A fighter with a low CON is at a disadvantage in every fight. A cleric with a low CHA (for instance) might not be able to turn undead as well as he'd like ... but not every fight is against undead, and even when it is, he has cure spells to do damage with, or a decent weapon to swing. A cleric with a low CON can afford to hold back and use a reach weapon - he's a 2nd line combatant after all. A cleric with a low STR can work at range, or get finesse.

High STR, CON and CHA are nice for a Cleric, but they aren't mandatory.

 

[fba827]

I won't get into the topic of whether or not the cleric is unbalanced since that topic has seen more than its share of conversation. But I will say that I strongly feel the cleric class as presented is trying to fill all possible roles of the cleric in one class and is therefore failing to capture appropriate flavor (again, just my opinion on the topic)... by this I mean, the cleric class is trying to be a cleric for a militant priesthood, a healer/counsoler role, a cleric for a nature god, etc. etc. all in one with no variation (aside from domians that only affects one spell per level and domain granted abilities). I much prefer the idea of a different cleric class for each faith (much akin to the *concept* of priesthood that was used in 2nd edition but that was sorely unbalanced). ... so, that's what i do for my games anyway, different class for each. Works for our game and how we see it. However, it does add a new dimension of complexity.

So to sum up my ramblings, I think (my opinion) the cleric class as presented is trying to be able to fullfill many roles at once and in doing so makes it too easy to wander the character in other directions of focus unless you already have a concrete focus in mind that you can roleplay and stay with.