D&D 3E/3.5 D&D 3E Design: The Unbalanced Cleric

What do you call a D&D cleric who can’t heal? A 1st-level 1970s cleric. The original first-level cleric could turn undead but had no spells. Skip Williams says that the original conception of the cleric was sort of a Van Helsing figure, someone who bought the wolvesbane, belladonna, and garlic on the equipment list and who contended with the undead. The original cleric couldn’t cast cure light wounds or other spells until 2nd level, but they could turn undead at 1st. In terms of combat and spellcasting, clerics were intermediate between the other two classes: fighting-men and magic-users.

Aleena-by-Larry-Elmore_grande.jpg

Aleena the Cleric by Larry Elmore

With AD&D, the cleric’s role as a healer was established from 1st-level on, and they even got bonus spells for high Wisdom scores. They went from having fewer spells than magic-users did to having more. In 2nd Edition, the rules talked about clerics without healing powers, but that sort of cleric was not popular. Someone had to play the cleric, and that meant a cleric who healed party members. The poor cleric had to memorize healing spells, limiting their access to all the other cool spells that clerics have. Some spell levels lacked good healing spells, which was reportedly intentional. Since healing spells pushed out most other spell types, giving clerics no good 2nd-level healing spells meant that they were free to pray for spells that were more fun to cast. For 3rd Ed, we addressed that problem with spontaneous casting, letting clerics swap out any prepared spell for a healing spell of the same level.

One thing we decidedly did not fix in 3E was that somebody had to play the cleric, or something close. In the RPGA’s Living Greyhawk campaign, my barbarian picked up a level of cleric at 2nd level just so I would never again play in a party with no cleric. Then for the next two levels I continued with cleric because I was not a fool. The 3E cleric ended up so unbalanced that at Wizards I gave a presentation to RPG R&D on why it’s more or less impossible to balance the class. To understand why the cleric is hard to balance, it helps to think of the cleric’s opposite, a “berserk” class.

With a “berserk” class, the barbarian-type character deals an oversized amount of damage, which is balanced by damage that the character sometimes deals to allies. The “berserk” is cool to play because it deals lots of damage, and it’s the other players who really pay the cost that balances this benefit. Variants on this idea have appeared a couple times, but I consider this sort of class virtually impossible to balance. For its distinctive feature to be powerful enough to appeal to the player’s sense of power, the damage to allies has to be high enough to annoy the other players. If the “berserk” is fun to play, it’s at the cost of other players’ fun.

The cleric is the opposite of the “berserk.” The cleric’s combat ability is penalized in order to balance its healing capacity. This healing power, however, benefits the rest of the party more than it benefits the cleric itself. Unlike the player who likes playing berserks, the cleric player gives up some of their power in order to benefit the party as a whole. The cleric’s trade-off is something like, “Well, you’re not as combat-worthy as a fighter or wizard, but that drawback is balanced by all the healing you provide to other player characters.” How do you get players to play an altruistic character class like a cleric? How, as game designers, could we make clerics interesting to play when so much of their power benefited other characters instead of making the clerics themselves cool? We never framed the question that clearly to ourselves. Instead, we intuited a balance that seemed right. The answer to the trade-off was to make the cleric pay a small cost in terms of reduced combat abilities for a large benefit in terms of healing. Players would play them because they’re almost as cool as other classes in their own right (small cost), and they offer a significant amount of healing, which makes them valuable (big benefit). What do you get when you give a class a significant benefit and balance it with an marginal penalty? You get a class that’s overpowered.

On the plus side, I’m pretty happy with how the clerics turned out in terms of flavor. The 2E clerics were sort of generic. Since the 2E Player’s Handbook was world-agnostic, the rules for clerics were based on their Spheres of Influence rather than the identities of particular deities. In my personal AD&D experience, I liked playing clerics because one’s connection to a deity and religion gave me plenty of material for how I would roleplay a character. In 3E, the gods of Greyhawk gave default 3E clerics more world flavor than default 2E cleric had. Short descriptions in the Player’s Handbook were all players needed to hang their imaginations on these gods.

The puzzle of the altruistic character class intrigued me, and I came at the concept with two new classes for 13th Age. The occultist is a spellcaster who breaks the laws of space and time to protect allies and to make their attacks more effective. Most of the occultist’s spells are interrupts that get cast on other characters’ turns. For 13th Age Glorantha, I designed the trickster class. Their default attack deals literally no damage, but it sets up allies to hit the target for additional damage. Tricksters also have various ways of drawing bad luck on themselves to benefit other characters. The trickster class is so altruistic and masochistic that it has, I think, only niche appeal. It might be a class that’s more fun to watch being played than to play.

Another issue with the cleric is that it’s impossible to balance classes with mostly per-day abilities (that is, spellcasters) against classes whose abilities are at-will, such as the fighter or rogue. That issue, however, is a topic for another day.
 
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Jonathan Tweet

Jonathan Tweet

D&D 3E, Over the Edge, Everway, Ars Magica, Omega World, Grandmother Fish

Zardnaar

Legend
Oh, 3.5 just needed a WoCLW to make the adventuring day - CoDzilla would break it. ;P

And 1e/2e, they gave the cleric enough healing to see the party through a rough patch or two, even at 1st level. Without one? Good luck.
I never got the impression B/X was /that/ different, though if it err'd on the side of 0e with even the Cleric not bringing you any healing at 1st, or if it had more rapid natural healing....

...but, this discussion also gets into campaign pacing. For you 'just fine' includes backing off from a dungeon or other dangerous challenge for days or weeks of recuperation, prettymuch as a matter of course, without excessive spoilsport consequences, I assume. For other DMs, 'just fine' means they keep time pressure bearing down on the party so they don't dare pause more than an hour in their adventure lest everything explode in the their faces...

...and that's "fine" - I mean, you run the edition with the system artifacts you're accustomed to and the party composition that fits your style, and your campaign cruises along at 6-8 days per encounter or 6-8 encounters per day, or whatever other's knife-edge it all comes together and works at, and you wonder how anyone else gets those other games to work.

Generally you have very few encounters.

Look at Game of Thrones, WW2 etc. How much time do you really spend in combat?

Modern D&D leans heavily on attrition, AD&D not so much. You generally get hit less in AD&D fiw reasonably low damage

In 5E you get hit a lot for lots if damage but rapid healing and lots of healing available.

A cleric henchmen helped along with multiclass clerics if someone didn't want to be the healbot.

2E healer priests were popular.
 

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Generally you have very few encounters.

Look at Game of Thrones, WW2 etc. How much time do you really spend in combat?

Modern D&D leans heavily on attrition, AD&D not so much. You generally get hit less in AD&D fiw reasonably low damage

In 5E you get hit a lot for lots if damage but rapid healing and lots of healing available.

A cleric henchmen helped along with multiclass clerics if someone didn't want to be the healbot.

2E healer priests were popular.
Yet, all those 1E modules are just full of combat encounters. Sure, a clever party can get around some of them. But the modules rarely seem to lean into it.
 
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Zardnaar

Legend
Ye, all those 1E modules are just full of combat encounters. Sure, a clever party can get around some of them. But the modules rarely seem to lean into it.

If you're doing that it's probably a light combat game.

Ours was on the world of Davania. Lots of exploration, the PCs set up a domain port with shipyards and went looking for ivory, gold in a fantasy Africa/Carribwan type mashup.

They used their wealth for the ship yards and paid people to settle their settlement.

Tax free, guranteed jobs and farmland. Defended by pet charmed elephants lead by Clive tricked out in magical barding.

Flying Elephant cavalry off a fantasy aircraft carrier. Minor access to animal and major access to war with a fighter/wizard.
 
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If you're doing that it's probably a lie combat game.

Ours was on the world of Davania. Lots of exploration, the PCs set up a domain port with shipyards and went looking for ivory, gold in a fantasy Africa/Carribwan type mashup.

They used their wealth for the ship yards and paid people to settle their settlement.

Tax free, guranteed jobs and farmland. Defended by pet charmed elephants lead by Clive tricked out in magical barding.

Flying Elephant cavalry off a fantasy aircraft carrier.
Well yeah you can do that. But it doesn't seem to have been the default playstyle. Anymore, than it would be the default playstyle for 5E.

Really, to me AD&D and 5E seem pretty similar in terms of playstyle. It's just that the former defaults to hard mode, while the latter defauts to easy
 

Zardnaar

Legend
Well yeah you can do that. But it doesn't seem to have been the default playstyle. Anymore, than it would be the default playstyle for 5E.

Really, to me AD&D and 5E seem pretty similar in terms of playstyle. It's just that the former defaults to hard mode, while the latter defauts to easy

As I said I like variety and didn't have access to a lot of modules.
Used X1 as an inspiration and the domain idea from B/X so they built a miniature Havana.
 

cbwjm

Legend
How much healing would a 2e and earlier cleric need to have? Playing through icewind dale and baldur's gate 1 & 2 it seems that they are still able to dedicate a large portion of their spells to non-healing, they even make pretty decent combatants with their self buffs (especially when they have a few levels to improve those buffs that get a bump in power ever 3 or more levels). While you do want some healing, I think a party can get buy with a priest who only has a few healing spells prepared. It might depend on how each table runs the game, you do get plenty of great items in these two games.
 

Zardnaar

Legend
How much healing would a 2e and earlier cleric need to have? Playing through icewind dale and baldur's gate 1 & 2 it seems that they are still able to dedicate a large portion of their spells to non-healing, they even make pretty decent combatants with their self buffs (especially when they have a few levels to improve those buffs that get a bump in power ever 3 or more levels). While you do want some healing, I think a party can get buy with a priest who only has a few healing spells prepared. It might depend on how each table runs the game, you do get plenty of great items in these two games.

I think it was assumed you use around half your slots on healing.

You got hit less generally for less damage.
 

HarbingerX

Rob Of The North
...and that's "fine" - I mean, you run the edition with the system artifacts you're accustomed to and the party composition that fits your style, and your campaign cruises along at 6-8 days per encounter or 6-8 encounters per day, or whatever other's knife-edge it all comes together and works at, and you wonder how anyone else gets those other games to work.

The campaign was built for a B/X ruleset, so yes, it had number of dangerous locations the PCs could visit and then retreat to safety to rest up for their next foray into danger.

I also DM 5e and play a campaign with a style suited to it, so I don't have any issue understanding how those other games work.
 

Ogre Mage

Adventurer
My dirty truth/unpopular opinion is that I miss the 3E cleric. Ah, for the the days I ran around in GOD mode with divine favor, divine power, righteous might etc. consumed by monomaniacal megalomania that I was the vessel of a GOD and would CRUSH all who stood against me. And TWO domains to boot! I would laugh hysterically smashing, holy smiting and flame striking everything into oblivion. While the DM sat there with a constipated look.

But it was like crack, so it's probably better to be done with it.
 

ClaytonCross

Kinder reader Inflection wanted
I just want to say I play a Forge Cleric as the party tank. I have no healing spells. I have not debuff spells. My spells ether make me a better tank, buff an allies I have difficulty protecting (Aid, warding bond, and death ward are my favorites) , or do damage to enemies (Divine Strike, Spiritual weapon, Flame Strike). Spirit Guardians is my most common concentration spell because it slows enemies down while they take damage and my allies can hide 10ft behind me using me as cover and preventing any melee enemies without reach from touching them without me touching back.

Sure me tanking benefits other players, however: while I am not a top damage dealer in the party, little minions drop like flies to Spirit Guardians keeping us from getting zerg'd, people know when my one of my spells save them, and I do enough damage with my weapon and inflict wounds to avoid being considered a light weight.
 

How much healing would a 2e and earlier cleric need to have?
About what they had, really. There wasn't a Cure..Wounds spell at every level, 2nd & 3rd could be used for other things, for instance.
The band-aid Cleric was stultifying, at first, all-in on the CLW, or else, but by 3rd you might occasionally get to cast something else...
...or If you're not the only source of band-aids, of course.
;)

But the other consideration is that even a marginal cleric, like a Fighter/Cleric/Magic-user, when you are down and recuperating as a party, got spells every day, and that overwhelms natural healing as a pacing factor.
So, no cleric or other source of renewable, daily healing, and you're playing an entirely different game.
 
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I remember those gold box computer games.

At first, I found it really tedious, as I had to go through all the healing spells and cast them on the PCs, then select them to memorise, then rest, then cast them again, then memorise them again, then go adventuring.

Until I realised that the game didn't actually care about the passing of time anyway and I would just rest for 41 days instead.
 

Jiggawatts

Adventurer
2nd Edition has my favorite version of clerics...which is not to say the base cleric presented in the PHB, but rather Specialty Priests, which good lord, are just amazing in feel and flavor. The trio of Faiths & Avatars, Demihuman Deities, and Powers & Pantheons are still probably my favorite overall D&D products of all time, and Specialty Priests are the best presentation of clerics D&D has ever gotten, but they are a lot of work, and thats why we will probably never see something of their like again, its just more work than most companies want to do, which is a shame.

The 2E base cleric does make for a good multiclass though, dwarven fighter/clerics and half-elven ranger/clerics in particular are a lot of fun.
 

Sabathius42

Bree-Yark
The trio of Faiths & Avatars, Demihuman Deities, and Powers & Pantheons are still probably my favorite overall D&D products of all time,

That trio of books and the 3rd edition Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide are the best items ever published for D&D through all the editions. The specialty priests were overflowing with both crunch (In 5e terms it would be like publishing 50+ sub-classes of cleric that somehow still felt distinct from each other) but just as much oozed theme (with fairly detailed write-ups of holy days and rituals for each god as well as a distinct "This is a cleric of X" artwork for EVERY ONE. I still use those books today when someone wants to delve into being a cleric in the FR, and they are why I port over the FR pantheon into all of my home-brews.

In a way its the polar opposite of a majority of books in the 5e era which tend to sprinkle little bits here and there but don't tend to deep-dive into anything at all.
 

barasawa

Explorer
I've been in plenty of games with Barbarian PCs.
I've never seen one attack the party due to a berserker rage.
Someone stealing something from them, sure, but not a rage.

As to clerics, their religion is supposed to moderate their actions.
I think I've seen 2 campaigns where the GMs even bothered to tell them what their religions/gods rules were.

Pretty much the same with Paladins. Their whole holy code they supposedly follow ended up being little more than don't piss of the GM, and don't be blatantly evil.
 

Fanaelialae

Legend
I've been in plenty of games with Barbarian PCs.
I've never seen one attack the party due to a berserker rage.
I think you're taking the berserker idea a little too literally. The berserker as pertains to this thread is a conceptual anti-cleric. Whereas the cleric enhances the party at their own expense, the berserker enhances themselves at the party's expense. At least in this sense, a barbarian is not a berserker.
 

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