Does anyone miss the generic cleric?

[Spatula]

Admittedly, my games, where i used specialty priests from the the day AD&D2 PH came out, might not be representative--but maybe they're also indicative. My experience was that specialty priests were near the top of the list for player choice--even priests that were decidedly and obviously underpowered. But i didn't have a single cleric in the game once AD&D2 came out.

Everyone wanted to play clerics, but no one actually did? Or do you mean you didn't have a single generic cleric once 2E came out.

So perhaps they missed the boat with the cleric of D&d3E? Maybe the trick to getting people to play clerics isn't more power, but more flavor?

The flavor of the 3E priest is up to the DM. No different than what you got from 2E, which didn't give you any specialty priests in the core rules, just the generic cleric and the druid. The 1E cleric had flavor in that it was a Catholic warrior-priest, but that was rather inflexible and never made much sense in your standard polytheistic D&D world like Greyhawk.

In my 1E days, we had a cleric at the start but the player left while we were still low level. Never had another cleric in the group, although the DM had a druid NPC that I guess we used for healing.

In my 2E days, I briefly played a fighter/cleric, but I don't remember any other clerics in any of the groups we had. I don't remember what we did for healing. The only exception to this was our Dark Sun games, which always had an elemental cleric. But in Dark Sun, the source of your cleric spells didn't care what you did with them. Maybe I just always end up gaming with people that don't like strings attached to their character's ability to do stuff.

 

[WizarDru]

So perhaps they missed the boat with the cleric of D&d3E? Maybe the trick to getting people to play clerics isn't more power, but more flavor? I'm not a good judge, 'cause this whole "nobody wants to play the cleric" thing is news to me--i've never had the problem, so i've never had to actively solve it. But i wonder if AD&D2 *did* solve it, and they threw the solution out? It sounds like those in this thread who heavily embraced the specialty priest idea/mechanics with AD&D2 had similar experiences to mine--maybe not people clamoring to play priests/clerics, but at least no problems with a shortage.

All I can say is that my experience meshes with the designers intent, as opposed to yoru experience. Of all the groups I've played with, the cleric was often looked down upon in 1e, where he was viewed as 'healing machine'. Some groups literally referred to it as 'being stuck being the cleric'. In 2e, from what I've heard, pure clerics were very unattractive in contrast to specialty priests, who all got much better powers for little to no cost. Under 3e, clerics are finally customizable enough that you can be more than a walking medic...and more importantly, you can swap prepared spells for healing spells on the fly. That single ability alone makes clerics much more attractive, as they can still fulfill their 'healer' role, but now can prepare to do more in an adventure than wait for someone to get hurt.

Exactly--you answer the question yourself: since there isn't a single clear archetypal holy man, why does D&D3E (well, and every edition of D&D save AD&D2) represent them with a single archetypal class, barely customizable?

Two reasons, IMHO. The cleric class is a D&D archetype by now. He fulfills a specific role within a gaming group and is mechanically balanced to do so. Without a cleric in the party, for example, most Undead are probably +1 to their EL (due to a lack of turning and spells like restoration and death ward, to name a few). Second, because having it would be mechanically difficult to create a cleric class that would meet the criteria as broad as the concept of 'holy man'. As I said, the D&D cleric is now, well...the D&D cleric. In 3e, he represents himself as much as any specific archetype. To make a more specific cleric, 3e advocates either multi-classing or prestige classes. Beyond that, it expects you to either use the NPC class or create your own campaign-specific core class, such as OA does.

 

[woodelf]

Everyone wanted to play clerics, but no one actually did? Or do you mean you didn't have a single generic cleric once 2E came out.

The latter. Sorry for the lack of clarity: in AD&D2 terms, "generic cleric" is redundant, 'cause that's the only kind of cleric there was. The class group was called "priest", and if you were a priest but not a cleric, you were a "specialty priest" or "priest of a specific mythos"--"cleric" was only used to describe that one, specific class. Obviously, i should've been more specific in the context of this thread.

The flavor of the 3E priest is up to the DM. No different than what you got from 2E, which didn't give you any specialty priests in the core rules, just the generic cleric and the druid. The 1E cleric had flavor in that it was a Catholic warrior-priest, but that was rather inflexible and never made much sense in your standard polytheistic D&D world like Greyhawk.

Um, the druid *is* a specialty priest. That's the whole point of its inclusion: as an example. Also, it *did* give you guidelines on constructing specialty priests, they just weren't very rigorous. 3E clerics are different from 2e specialty priests in that, by the book , much less of the class is altered in the customization process: just which domains are granted. All D&D3E clerics turn or rebuke undead, all are excellent warriors with significant armor and weapon proficiencies, all can spontaneously cast cure/inflict spells, and ~90% of their spelllists are identical.

In my 2E days, I briefly played a fighter/cleric, but I don't remember any other clerics in any of the groups we had. I don't remember what we did for healing.

Probably a DM generous with healing potions. I know that was the case in the game i ran: despite a plethora of priests, we often didn't have any that were good at healing (and even had a few that couldn't cast any healing spells at all).

The only exception to this was our Dark Sun games, which always had an elemental cleric. But in Dark Sun, the source of your cleric spells didn't care what you did with them. Maybe I just always end up gaming with people that don't like strings attached to their character's ability to do stuff.

Hmmm...that might be. It'd certainly explain the apparent dirth of clerics, historically, in D&D games, since of the 4 core classes it's the only one with RPing strings attached. OTOH, i think it might just be with strings they don't want attached that is the problem. Like i said, given the ability to select the deity and powers and all that, i had no problem getting people to play priests. Most of those people who played priests in my game probably wouldn't have played clerics even if they were an option (they weren't), and wouldn't've played them if they were the only divine character choice. I say this because most of them ended up playing characters who were nothing like the cleric in capabilities. The closest we ever got was a priest of teh god of war, who was a powerful spellcaster and warrior--but no undead or healing abilities, so that player might've chosen a paladin, fighter/mage, or something else over a cleric or fighter/cleric if there had been no specialty priests.

Similarly, i chose not to play a rogue in the D&D3E campaign because of all the strings that came attached, from my POV: I wanted a skilled, stealthy character, not one good at fighting. So i certainly agree that, at least sometimes, players are driven away from the class that has the elements they want because it also has other elements they don't want.

 

[woodelf]

All I can say is that my experience meshes with the designers intent, as opposed to yoru experience. Of all the groups I've played with, the cleric was often looked down upon in 1e, where he was viewed as 'healing machine'. Some groups literally referred to it as 'being stuck being the cleric'. In 2e, from what I've heard, pure clerics were very unattractive in contrast to specialty priests, who all got much better powers for little to no cost. Under 3e, clerics are finally customizable enough that you can be more than a walking medic...and more importantly, you can swap prepared spells for healing spells on the fly. That single ability alone makes clerics much more attractive, as they can still fulfill their 'healer' role, but now can prepare to do more in an adventure than wait for someone to get hurt.

I think i agree with you: i don't think anyone wanted to play the healing machine in any of my games. But i don't think D&D3E really solves that problem: If you end up using all your spells up to spont cures, it doesn't really matter much that you were able to memorize other spells to begin with. I think the *problem* is the "healer" role, not the mechanics that get you there. Most of the specialty priests in my game weren't great healers, and some of them didn't have access to a single healing spell. And i know at least some of the players specifically chose a deity to *not* have healing abilities. In those cases where we were designing the priest as we were building the character ('cause i hadn't gotten around to defining the priests of that god yet), i don't recall anyone particularly lobbying for the healing sphere to be included if they had chosen a deity that wasn't obviously about healing in the first place. The specialty priests allow you to play a holy figure without playing the healing machine. D&D3E makes *everyone* [every cleric, obviously] the healing machine, so there's still that tension between healer and whatever else--it's just decided when you cast a spell, rather than when you prepare it.

Oh, and on the cost of specialty priests: giving up turning/controlling undead, and/or heavy-duty combat abilities, sure seemed like a pretty significant cost to us. I'm not sure i always succeeded, but i generally attempted to balance specialty priests with the cleric, and i always felt that was the intended use of the rules.

 

[Spatula]

Um, the druid *is* a specialty priest. That's the whole point of its inclusion: as an example.

Well, it's not like they could have left the druid out of the new edition. It's labeled as an example of a specialty priest, but it's radically different than the generic cleric and has a very strange XP table relative to the cleric's. All the specialty priests that I've seen shared more in common with the cleric and used the cleric's XP table.

All D&D3E clerics turn or rebuke undead, all are excellent warriors with significant armor and weapon proficiencies, all can spontaneously cast cure/inflict spells, and ~90% of their spelllists are identical.

Sure, which I think is a good thing. They're *not* identical (as 1E clerics were), the balance problems of the 2E specialty priests is avoided, and the cleric is always able to fill the niche of healer and undead-handler if necessary. A cleric that can't heal is really just another spellcaster, albeit one with a religious focus - healing magic is what sets the divine casters apart from the arcane ones (aside from the bard, but the bard isn't a full-fledged caster). And it's an important game function that needs to be performed.

I say this because most of them ended up playing characters who were nothing like the cleric in capabilities.

I think this is what the 3E designers were trying to avoid.

 

[woodelf]

Well, it's not like they could have left the druid out of the new edition. It's labeled as an example of a specialty priest, but it's radically different than the generic cleric and has a very strange XP table relative to the cleric's. All the specialty priests that I've seen shared more in common with the cleric and used the cleric's XP table.

Well, since it was a while until eth Complete Priest's Handbook came out, and the only example we had to go on was the druid, most of our specialty priests were about as divergent--i honestly don't remember what we did for XP table.

Sure, which I think is a good thing. They're *not* identical (as 1E clerics were), the balance problems of the 2E specialty priests is avoided, and the cleric is always able to fill the niche of healer and undead-handler if necessary. A cleric that can't heal is really just another spellcaster, albeit one with a religious focus - healing magic is what sets the divine casters apart from the arcane ones (aside from the bard, but the bard isn't a full-fledged caster). And it's an important game function that needs to be performed.

Healing = important? yes. PCs with innate healing ability are necessary? Maybe. Innate healing ability has to be based on spells? No. Innate healing ability should be restricted to divine casters? I dunno. And i've been in plenty of parties that relied on healing potions instead of spells, and did just fine.

I don't see why it's any more necessary to the game to have a cleric that can always turn undead or heal, than it is to have a wizard who can lob artillery, or a rogue who's a trapmaster. Those are useful subsets of their abilities, not the sum total of them. Now, i agree that balancing priests in AD&D2 was trickier than clerics in D&D3E, but that doesn't mean that the end result, when done well, wasn't better. And, personally, one of my complaints with clerics/priests has always been that they *already* are pretty much just another spellcaster--that they should be less like wizards, not more.

I think this is what the 3E designers were trying to avoid.

Oh, undoubtedly--it becomes much harder to maintain, or even determine, balance when you start radically shifting the abilities aronud. And party power changes radically if you don't have a healer in the group. Doesn't mean that (1) it's a worthwhile goal or (2) there aren't other ways to get there.

 

[Spatula]

I don't see why it's any more necessary to the game to have a cleric that can always turn undead or heal, than it is to have a wizard who can lob artillery, or a rogue who's a trapmaster. Those are useful subsets of their abilities, not the sum total of them.

I don't know that it's *more* necessary. Depends on the DM and the game style. The DM can certainly compensate for any glaring weaknesses in the party (no thief, no healer, no front-line fighter, whatever).

Now, i agree that balancing priests in AD&D2 was trickier than clerics in D&D3E, but that doesn't mean that the end result, when done well, wasn't better.

Sure but it's a pain in the ass from a rules design standpoint if your goal is a balanced system. A create-your-own cleric section would have taken up a lot of space and been too complicated for the PHB. Defenders of the Faith would have been an ideal place for such a thing, but the class books really dropped the ball on the class-customization front.

But the lack of an 'official' system for creating specialty priests shouldn't stop you from customizing the cleric class on your own.

And, personally, one of my complaints with clerics/priests has always been that they *already* are pretty much just another spellcaster--that they should be less like wizards, not more.

Well, we're still playing D&D here. In principle I agree with you, but the system works and it's relatively simple.

 

[Altalazar]

I set up a whole custom pantheon and basically specialty clerics as "base classes" for each one. I thought prestige classes for each would just be too much of an ad-hoc thing - and would still end up with identical clerics at the lower levels. I much prefer clerics to be customized according to their diety.