ZSutherland
First Post
My gripes with the cleric class could comprise an incredibly long list if I let myself dwell on it. As of 3.5, only monk really competes for the title of my least favorite class.
Dislikes:
- Stat dependency rivaled only by the monk and paladin. Str and Con are both important for front-line combat and survival while healing in melee range. Int is useful for taking advantage of a very appreciable skill-list. Wis is of course mandatory for spell-casting, and Cha is necessary for turning and to take advantage of the diplomatic potential of the class.
- Their complete necessity to nearly any party given the assumptions built into the baseline game.
- Miracle. Great, it's a spell that's at least as powerful as wish, never costs as much xp, and can be used without xp cost at all.
- They don't step on the wizard's toes. They drop their heavy armor trousers and take a massive dump on the wizard. They get the base versatility of a wizard's casting (being able to change spells daily from a broad list) but they get a much broader list without the very high cost of adding these spells to a spellbook, don't have to suffer the drawbacks of the wizard's specialization (horrible at everything besides spell-casting), and they get a little spontaneous casting just for good measure.
- Spontaneous Healing. More than anything, this is what forces clerics into the healbot role that turns players off the class to begin with. There was no need to overpower the class to entice players. The cleric's massive spell-power with 3/4 of their current combat abilities and drop healing added as an extension of positive energy channeling (in place of a turn undead use) would have sufficed.
My personal preference would have been to convert heal and harm spells to range, strip clerics down to light armor, medium fort progression, and let them be the buffing, healing, defensive counterpart to the blasting, utility wizard. Add in some divine class abilities that key off their turn undead uses/day so that positive/negative energy channeling isn't such a mother-may-I ability that can be really useful but most days is simply wasted, and voila.
Likes:
- I like domains (at least the core domains). It gives the class a bit of customization without the rigidity of the 2E spheres.
Dislikes:
- Stat dependency rivaled only by the monk and paladin. Str and Con are both important for front-line combat and survival while healing in melee range. Int is useful for taking advantage of a very appreciable skill-list. Wis is of course mandatory for spell-casting, and Cha is necessary for turning and to take advantage of the diplomatic potential of the class.
- Their complete necessity to nearly any party given the assumptions built into the baseline game.
- Miracle. Great, it's a spell that's at least as powerful as wish, never costs as much xp, and can be used without xp cost at all.
- They don't step on the wizard's toes. They drop their heavy armor trousers and take a massive dump on the wizard. They get the base versatility of a wizard's casting (being able to change spells daily from a broad list) but they get a much broader list without the very high cost of adding these spells to a spellbook, don't have to suffer the drawbacks of the wizard's specialization (horrible at everything besides spell-casting), and they get a little spontaneous casting just for good measure.
- Spontaneous Healing. More than anything, this is what forces clerics into the healbot role that turns players off the class to begin with. There was no need to overpower the class to entice players. The cleric's massive spell-power with 3/4 of their current combat abilities and drop healing added as an extension of positive energy channeling (in place of a turn undead use) would have sufficed.
My personal preference would have been to convert heal and harm spells to range, strip clerics down to light armor, medium fort progression, and let them be the buffing, healing, defensive counterpart to the blasting, utility wizard. Add in some divine class abilities that key off their turn undead uses/day so that positive/negative energy channeling isn't such a mother-may-I ability that can be really useful but most days is simply wasted, and voila.
Likes:
- I like domains (at least the core domains). It gives the class a bit of customization without the rigidity of the 2E spheres.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Didn't realise this one was skill kicking.
