Do You Feel The Cleric Is Balanced?

[Valiantheart]

I think they are a little too powerful.

I think a great way to balance the cleric out and make them more unique is to tie their abilities to their domains more tightly.

Start a base cleric with basically no proficiencies (armor, weapons, turn undead, etc), and then the specific domains flesh them out.

For instance, if a cleric chose to use the war domain they receive all armor proficiencies and martial weapon profs. If he then chooses the good domain he might receive the ability to turn evil outsiders. Some domains give profs, some special abilities others bonus spell access.

It might be more similar to 2E priests, but at least they would all be unique again.

 

[the Jester]

Clerics would be balanced with a d6 hit die, or with only one good save. There are prolly other easy fixes- the no heavy armor thing might work too- but those are the two solutions I favor.

It really doesn't take much; they're just slightly too strong.

 

[Petrosian]

A character is balanced or not balanced by his abilty to affect the outcome of the challenges presented to him and his compatriots. Without a predefined set of challenges and conditions, the very issue of balance is meaningless.

Cure Wands and the like are vital in the curreent by-the-book analysis and are ubiquitous by the rules. However, how much time is there between individual challenges? Does your campaign features lots of "close proximity" encounters like traditional dungeon crawls where round by round application of DLW one per round will take too long? If so the cleric will be expecting to spend some or even maybe many of his spells for rapid curing.

Bufs and the like are great... how many of your challenges are initiated by you as opposed to surprises or ambushes where you will not frequently be pre-buffed? How many of your challenges feature spellcasters who can or will dispel these magics? How many of your challenges involve long periods where rest is doubtful?

IMX... the cleric class is in general a second class spell caster AND a second clsss fighter. In specific, prepared, set piece scnearios he can exceed these levels... but those are rarer than the comparisons would indicate. THe second class diversity coupled with the healing role means this character class will more often than not have something to do... but he willrarely if ever be the force driving the scenario or the element that stands out as "if you do not actively prevent me i will be the MVP and destroy you."

Fighters are frequently the MVP and the forces driving the scenario. Wizards/Sorcerers are often the drivers and MVps.

Clerics are hands down shoe ins for the Oscar for best performance in a supporting role or the guys who get the "total assists" record.

That does not appear to me to be unbalanced by any definition.

 

[comrade raoul]

Ever considered just dropping divine favor, divine power, and righteous might, the really abusive cleric buffs? If you eliminated them from the cleric's spell list outright, they'd still have a reasonable array of spells, but they wouldn't be able to take down fighters.

 

[Merlion]

A character is balanced or not balanced by his abilty to affect the outcome of the challenges presented to him and his compatriots. Without a predefined set of challenges and conditions, the very issue of balance is meaningless.

Cure Wands and the like are vital in the curreent by-the-book analysis and are ubiquitous by the rules. However, how much time is there between individual challenges? Does your campaign features lots of "close proximity" encounters like traditional dungeon crawls where round by round application of DLW one per round will take too long? If so the cleric will be expecting to spend some or even maybe many of his spells for rapid curing.

Bufs and the like are great... how many of your challenges are initiated by you as opposed to surprises or ambushes where you will not frequently be pre-buffed? How many of your challenges feature spellcasters who can or will dispel these magics? How many of your challenges involve long periods where rest is doubtful?

IMX... the cleric class is in general a second class spell caster AND a second clsss fighter. In specific, prepared, set piece scnearios he can exceed these levels... but those are rarer than the comparisons would indicate. THe second class diversity coupled with the healing role means this character class will more often than not have something to do... but he willrarely if ever be the force driving the scenario or the element that stands out as "if you do not actively prevent me i will be the MVP and destroy you."

Fighters are frequently the MVP and the forces driving the scenario. Wizards/Sorcerers are often the drivers and MVps.

Clerics are hands down shoe ins for the Oscar for best performance in a supporting role or the guys who get the "total assists" record.

That does not appear to me to be unbalanced by any definition.

Hey Petrosian havent seen you in a while
I agree with what your saying about the nature of challenges having a lot to do with balance. However I still feel that the Cleric as printed is a bit to powerful, and it can easily tread on the feat of several other classes a bit to easily.
Plus of course the upshot of it is I am starting to get annoyed with the whole Arcane/Divine magic split and the DnD vision of the Cleric...and I am just harvesting other peoples thoughts and feelings on the matter.

 

[RigaMortus2]

And it's not like it is very hard to get wands or potions of healing if you are playing in a standard world, by the book. They are present in almost every civilized location bigger than your average hermit dwelling. Not to mention the fact that you may have more than one Cleric in the party, which greatly cuts down on the "burden" of playing a Cleric.

What is the Core Book defintion of a "standard world"? There is no such thing. Just because a healing potion my cost 50 GP or a wand of healing may cost 100 GP and the PCs have the money to spend, doesn't mean the town(s) they go to will have them available. I don't remember reading anywhere that X town with Y population MUST have Z magic items of worth available, and if it doesn't, then you aren't playing in a "standard DnD world". That just makes no sense.

 

[EricNoah]

The clerics I've seen in action (as a DM and a player) are a) not very good at combat, b) not very good as magic "artillery", c) most effective as a buffer and healer. I haven't seen any kind of balance problem with the cleric.

The character who needs the most added help in my campaign is a ranger/druid... he's a poor-AC fighter and doesn't have hardly any useful spells, plus he has to spend all of his time defending his animal companion. Yikes!

 

[LuYangShih]

Feats, however, are always on. While Buff Spells take a lot of time to get up and running and are on a clock from the get go. In the games I've been in speed is a very critical factor in combat.

Particularly in the high levels. You want to close with that magic user very very quickly.

wands of cure are just as crippling as actual cure spells since it still takes an action for the cleric to bring them on-line.

Besides, the party that is willing to spend the money to buy wands for every eventuality that a cleric's healing and protection spells cover is pretty rare.

Most of the buffs Clerics will use last the entire day, particularly if Extended. If you allow the Persistent Spell feat, it's even worse. Those few spells where this is not the case the Cleric can easily bring up in the pre ambush round, or in the first round of combat.

At higher levels, from what I've seen, anyway, the only cure spells you're going to want to actually bring out during combat are Heal or Mass Heal, and that's hardly going to take out all your spells for the day. Most healing takes place after combat, not during.


And besides, Wands Of Curing are simply meant to allow you to spend valuable spell slots on something other than healing. Which they do quite nicely.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

What is the Core Book defintion of a "standard world"? There is no such thing. Just because a healing potion my cost 50 GP or a wand of healing may cost 100 GP and the PCs have the money to spend, doesn't mean the town(s) they go to will have them available. I don't remember reading anywhere that X town with Y population MUST have Z magic items of worth available, and if it doesn't, then you aren't playing in a "standard DnD world". That just makes no sense.

Actually in the DMG when they talk about cities they have a chart that says what items of GP value X and under can be found in towns depending on their size. At the metropois level its any item 200,000GP or under, once your past a thorp potions of healing will be normally accessible. Now obviosuly these are jsut guidleine and you could easily detail a town of 2000 or so that has only one church who dosn't sell ehaling potions, or who a town that doens't sell magic at all for whatever reason.

But the general guidleines do make wands and potions very easy to come by. So much so that if your following the general guidleines I woudln't waste a feat on brew potions since there just to dang cheap.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Re: Re: hmmmmm

Fair enough, every game and party is different.

Though I do shudder at the thought of a game in which buff spells' durations and casting times aren't accounted for.

Actually, my "disagreement" response was to LuYangShih, not your post. See my earlier posts.

I don't disagree that clerics can be mix-maxed more easily than some other classes. However if a character is being munchkinized, the problem then is with the PLAYER. A true power munchkin will find a way to munchkinize any class, trust me. Not all cleric players' sole purpose in life is to have a cleric/hospitaler with persistent divine favor and divine power.

Most healing takes place after combat, not during.

heh, it's a pretty even split in our games. My DM doesn't let us get off easy like that, where you only need to worry about healing after a battle.