Clerics - What do you LIKE and DISLIKE?

[riprock]

And I don't get why people find casting healing spells to be so distasteful. There have been plenty of times where my Cleric and Druid characters have totally led a party by the nose with healing. The one with the power to heal is the one with the real power.

I agree that clerics are the natural voice of real leadership.

The brash melee specialist who's always in front is usually not thinking about his decisions.

The cleric, in my experience at least, is the closest thing a party has to a responsible grown-up.

I liked playing clerics in 3.0. I haven't played one in 3.5.


What I dislike about the usual DM'ing of clerics is that I've had a lot of DM's assume that the deity exists to make the party's life miserable and to deny spells, cooperation, etc. And, yes, I have suffered that ultimate statement of DM dislike: I've played clerics who got their powers stripped and became fighters with d8 hit dice, forever. I regret nothing. I would do it over again, if by some misfortune I ever play with that DM again.

I liked in 3.0 that one could be a cleric without a personal deity. Taoist clerics are a cool idea, to my mind.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

How I have fixed them in my current campaign?

ditched the cleric, wizard and sorcerer completely. Replaced them with the 'Scholar'. The scholar is exactly like the wizard but with d6 hit dice and the spell list includes all cleric spells alongside all wizard spells.

Cheers

Can you describe what that's done to your game?

 

[riprock]

I only have one serious beef with the cleric and that is the fact that to me cleric spells should represent miracles and blessings and those to me should be spontaneously granted rather than having a cleric pray to their diety every morning with a shopping list of miracles ("I'll take Detect Poison, 2 Virtues, and Shield of Faith, amen."). Unfortunately every attempt at a spontaneous divine caster I've seen has fallen flat.

I whole-heartedly agree. It makes even less sense to prepare clerical spells if one is trying to present a Daoist/Taoist.

I don't have a solution to the spell-prep vs. spontaneous issue.

Side note on 3.0 clerics, which I think may have been fixed or nerfed in 3.5: in 3.0, Clerics with the Madness domain had a Madness score, which increased their Wisdom for spell-casting purposes but reduced it for other purposes.

I liked that a lot. It struck me as a fountain of potential character concepts. Then again, the "crazy" schtick strikes me as a fountain of potential character concepts.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Can you describe what that's done to your game?

It has been pretty positive. Having scholars who attribute their powers to divine sources or to arcane sources while still using the same basic list of powers has been great. Removing 'turn undead' has made undead creatures more scary (and less of a speedbump) as well as removing the divine power feat cheesiness/superpowers. The party like the fact that they don't have to have a 'cleric' along to do the healing for them, and the party scholars to date have taken a wide range of spells from the arcane and divine lists; I've not had any problems with cherry picking of the 'best' spells from each list, they've just taken what makes sense for their character.

I've been very pleased with the result, and I'll probably use it in my next D&D campaign too.

(The inspiration came partly from the Conan OGL 'Scholar' class, and partly from the fact that in Eberron nobody *really* knows whether or not the gods are *really* there).

Cheers

 

[Drowbane]

The cleric isn't standard priest, that's the adept expert.

I don't think the standard priest is special enough to warrent having access to Divine Magic miracles. They look after the flock and spread the word... while the Clerics (Templar Knights, Crusaders, "Paladins", or whatever else you'd like to call them) fight to promote thier Deity's ideals (or just go around patching up small groups of psychopaths to murder "innocent" monsters and steal thier loot... ).

 

[tetsujin28]

Dislike? There's nothing to dislike. Clerics are 100% awesome.

 

[Steverooo]

i want to marry you.

seriously, best post i've read in a long time, on any topic.

Thank you!...

 

[GQuail]

It sounds like alot of people don't like the Cleric's Turn Undead ability.

Of all the complains made of the Cleric, it's the one that bugs me the most in play as a DM. Turn Undead always involves double checking the PHB when its done: though a Dread Necromancer PC has forced me to become more fluent in it, the fact it has a whole seperate mechanic is a pain. I'd far rather have a simple D20 roll vs save of some sort, or just make it a spell like ability or suchlike that deals flat damage. Perhaps a Will save, with passing/failing leading to no effect/turning or turning/destroying depending on the HD of the target?

Also, I would have to concur with the fact that Clerics are often a bit samey, and there's no real reason to stick to the higher level sif you find a PrC you want. (Meanwhile, my Druid player is taking a PrC and is heavilly weighing up every level to see what's the best option: which is how I think it should be) Perhaps give Clerics, like Rogues,a list of higher level optional abilites: they can choose to improve their turning, or gain some more low level spell slots, or trade it for a feat? And the idea of starting with 1 domain and working up to more sounds quite snazzy, though the fact some gods only have 3 domains might knack that a bit.

While D&D clerics do fill a specific "war priest" kind of role, I do wish they would have higher skill points. But I dunno how you would balance that without dropping HD, BAB or Armour Proficiency: all of which are pretty core to the D&D style of cleric.

 

[Psion]

I like that the cleric forms a strong central element of a party... a compromise between the full casters and the good fighters.

I like the cleric as a distinct concept from an arcane caster. Though the divine/arcane MAGIC dichotomy gets a little muddy, the preist/wizard CASTSTER distinction is clear and important to me.

THAT SAID:
For the representative "priest" core caster, I think that the cleric needs to be a lot more flexible. As it is, it only represents warlike faiths well. I can address this by assigning less warlike faiths other classes, but I dislike tacking on more classes. I'd rather fewer, more flexible classes that empower GM world design and player concept design.

I think the implications of following a faith need to be a bit more explicit, with real game effects of taboo and strictures.

 

[Psion]

Y'know, you'd get 90% of what you want by using cloistered cleric from UA or Achivist from Heroes of Horror as your core priest class.

Or the, um, priest from Good by AEG