Do You Feel The Cleric Is Balanced?

[Squire James]

I think clerics are a little too powerful, but not horribly so. They are similar in my mind to a reasonable prestige class. In fact, I've had a couple players comment that very few PrC's really improve on the Cleric's ability, and those that do are probably broken.

My house rule simply limits their spell selection somewhat. They get (10 + Wis bonus) spells per level on their list, requiring a day of ceremony to swap in/out a spell. This is a fairly good way to work in spells outside the PHB without the "suddenly, all clerics get to cast a whole load of new spells" syndrome. It also allows for some DM screening of individual spells as they come in. Finally, it means their spell spreadsheet isn't 5 pages long!

 

[Turjan]

Clerics are a bit too powerful, yes. In addition, they are one of the most versatile classes.

A friend of mine once had a game with the PC's playing four clerics, and there was no other class present. The game went surprisingly well. Most encounters went better than with standard parties, and only on a few occasions, the tasks got a bit tedious.

 

[The Serge]

But I will pick on this cleric burdon to heal crap. Yeah clerics are expected to heal to some degree, but at the natural helaing rate, and easy access to wands of cure X it isn't that big of a burden. and on top of that its no more of a burden than the burden every specialist class has. Rogues are expected to be lock and trap monkeys even if they were going for more of a wordsmith. Oh the fighters burden to be a meat shield, the fighter who wants to be an archer but the party lacks the spare meat shield is truly a sorry sight.

Whoever said that a campaign has easy access to wands of cure X or to healing potions?

The fact is, although the DMG does provide pricing for these items, there's not guarantee that PCs will always have easy access to these items, much less be able to afford them and carry them about with ease.

Sure, the Cleric can make potions and write scrolls, and all that jazz. And sure, the xp amount isn't huge... But at low levels, what appears to be a deceptively low xp loss adds ups and, at higher levels when the Cleric can afford to lose a lot of xp for a lot of lower level healing items, their usefulness is truncated.

So, no, these items aren't always easy to come by and this makes the Cleric's role as a healer important and an internal balancing factor.

Healing is a expected role for their class like every class has some expected roles. It may be a less popular role but this role doesn't dominate the characters existence like the meat shield role dominates the sole fighters existence. And also you don't have to follow the extected role. But whatever the expected role is its never a limitation if its an option. The cleric can choose to burn spells for healing, or choose to proactively use spells to end the threat earlier, or choose to just beat the foes down. Healing sometimes is effective so how terrible is it to sometimes choose to heal and contribute to the partys success.

I lost you here.

It's the nature of the role that's the balancing factor. The Fighter's potential to wade in and out of melee suffering relatively little damage while dealing fairly decent damage is balanced by the fact that he will need to be healed by another, and often outfitted with magic items by another and his susceptibility to enchantments.

The Wizard's ability to do tremendous amounts of damage to a lot of foes, her ability to make significant changes to the nature of the battle, and to remove the entire party from harm's way is balanced by her utter uselessness in melee combat, incredibly low hp and Fort, and the fact that she can only cast so many spells and is limited to the number of spells to which she has access.

The Rogue's ability to walk around virtually undetected, enter places others can't, avoid damage from massive area attacks, and do signficant amounts of damage in the proper melee or ranged environment is complemented by lower hp, low melee, low Fort.

Every aspect of the character's role is complemented by some limiting factor.

The Cleric's spell selection, while nice, is still not as powerful as the Wizards. Many of the higher level spells, like the current harm spell, require that the Cleric touches his opponent. If one's just using the core rules, this is a big deal since the Cleric is put at a lot of risk if he just tries to walk on up the critter he's fighting. While the Figher and Paladin and Ranger can wade in there immediately, the Cleric and the Wizard have to buff, defend, and prepare before either can even think of approaching the dragon that startled the party. Or just cast dispel magic on the entire party.

No, the Cleric is fine.

 

[Desdichado]

Oh paper, the cleric is the most powerful class in the PHB. In practice, if it was truly the most powerful, you'd see a lot more folks playing them than you do, I think.

 

[Gez]

No, the Cleric is fine.

Just like the Mystic Theurge.

 

[MadScientist]

IMC the Cleric is played by the least experienced RPer in the group and her character easily outshines the Paladin and frequently keeps up with my Dwarf Barbarian/Fighter in melee combat (if I'm not in a rage). This is in spite of the fact that her feat/domain selection isn't even optimal for a melee cleric. (Feats- MWP greatsword, WF greatsword, Power Attack, Blind Fight; Domains- Knowledge and Magic.) Those selections are pretty good but replacing Knowledge with the War domain and getting even more melee feats would be much better. Also the cleave feat would probably get chosen over Blind Fight by a good min-maxer.... On top of this melee prowes she gets lots of cool spells and stuff.

It hasn't been a BIG problem yet but in the hands of an experienced player I think her character would be a monster that outshined practically everyone in the party. In the hands of good min-maxer during character creation this concept would be even worse.

So yes I think that clerics are over-powered.

 

[Numion]

The Cleric's spell selection, while nice, is still not as powerful as the Wizards. Many of the higher level spells, like the current harm spell, require that the Cleric touches his opponent. If one's just using the core rules, this is a big deal since the Cleric is put at a lot of risk if he just tries to walk on up the critter he's fighting.

Like what spells? Harm requires touch attack and thats it. Generally cleric spells don't require touching except for the inflict spells. Some of the attack spells are even better than wizards: Destruction is better than Finger of Death for example, and Firestorm is a very strong and versatile attack spell. Etherealness is a couple of levels lower than wizards. Clerics spell list isn't much worse than wizards.

And remember that Miracles can be used to launch Wizard spells up to 7th level at no experience cost. For that Spell Turning you always wanted

While the Figher and Paladin and Ranger can wade in there immediately, the Cleric and the Wizard have to buff, defend, and prepare before either can even think of approaching the dragon that startled the party. Or just cast dispel magic on the entire party.

Dispel magic will take one spell out if targeted at the whole party. Not a big deal. Generally I've noticed that I usually cast only one spell once combat has started, because the most common buffs have longer durations, and are already active when action begins.

 

[der_kluge]

I HR'd some features of the cleric. I think it helps balance them out quite a bit. I believe Clerics are quite powerful. I played an 18th level one at GenCon last year, and there pretty much wasn't anything my character couldn't do. Magic full plate armor, whole range of healing, divination, teleportation, etc spells. It was scary.

Remove the heavy armor feat, and let them wear medium armor. They can take the heavy armor feat if desired.

I also removed numerous spells that weren't applicable. Druid-specific spells, and all the scrying-related spells. There were a few other subtle changes. I can post them if someone wants.

 

[Merlion]

So the general consensus on this seems to be that the Cleric class was intentionaly designed more powerful than the other classes so that people would want to play them. Because healing is needed in a party and in DnD only clerics and to a lesser extent druids can be good healers...and indeed only Divine spellcasters and Bards can heal in DnD.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Whoever said that a campaign has easy access to wands of cure X or to healing potions?

The fact is, although the DMG does provide pricing for these items, there's not guarantee that PCs will always have easy access to these items, much less be able to afford them and carry them about with ease.

So, no, these items aren't always easy to come by and this makes the Cleric's role as a healer important and an internal balancing factor.

By the ruels they are absurdly easy to come by. Because by the rules not only do they have a cost but twns and cities have a anything less than X GP is available chart. Now I suppose you can design a campaign world tha either ignores the chart or doens't have a settlement bigger than a thorp on it, but that' either a house rule or a very different camapign world.

I lost you here.

It's the nature of the role that's the balancing factor. The Fighter's potential to wade in and out of melee suffering relatively little damage while dealing fairly decent damage is balanced by the fact that he will need to be healed by another, and often outfitted with magic items by another and his susceptibility to enchantments.

The Cleric's spell selection, while nice, is still not as powerful as the Wizards. Many of the higher level spells, like the current harm spell, require that the Cleric touches his opponent. If one's just using the core rules, this is a big deal since the Cleric is put at a lot of risk if he just tries to walk on up the critter he's fighting. While the Figher and Paladin and Ranger can wade in there immediately, the Cleric and the Wizard have to buff, defend, and prepare before either can even think of approaching the dragon that startled the party. Or just cast dispel magic on the entire party.

No, the Cleric is fine.

Many people claim that the clerics healing role is a limit. and i'm pointing out that is crap. It is a potent role you can choose to take if the situation dictates it. Your not wrapped in mystic energy tht leaches you of life force healing your companions whenever they are hurt.

It is an extra power that in fact makes the cleric more powerful, not some wierd limit because the role of healer is generally unliked. Sure in a team work environment people fall into roles and contirbute in that manner, and if the healing role is the most effective at the time the cleric can choose to follow that role for a time period. Its a nice benefit not a limit. And people complaining about this make about as much sense as the fighter complaining that his High HP, bab and combat skill make him fit the role of the meat shield. Again having benefits that you can choose to utilize is not a limit, it is a benefit. It doesn't matter if it makes you suited to a certain role, you still just got bonus abilities.