Everone in my new campaign is a multiclassed cleric

[fnork de sporg]

All of them except for the paladin. I've got a cleric/fighter, a cleric/psychic warrior, two, count them, two cleric/wizards, and the paladin, plus there's talk of a sixth player with a cleric/ranger or cleric/rogue.

I didn't tell them to do this, it just happened. I'm not sure who's idea it was, if there was a single instigator or what, but man is it weird. They'll certainly have enough healing, that's for sure.

Last campaign we had no clerics, not even an NPC. So I'm totally unprepared for this. How do I handle it? What are the unique tricks and problems of clerics and clerical parties? And how do I stop them from getting screwed by mutliclassing rules?

The cleric/wizards are taking the biggest hits I would think, but now the cleric/psychic warrior is talking about TRIPLE classing (!!!) as a cleric/psychic warrior/psion, which I think will just be horrible. He's playing as a githyanki though, a good githyanki, yes, don't ask it's not that bad, and his dimensional slide has stopped him from dying so far, but it still seems like it'll only be a matter of time. What to do?

 

[Breakstone]

If they follow different religions, you could always have their respective churches come into play for some neat plot hooks.

Or, if they follow the same religion, they could always be sent on a holy quest to bring them all further together.

 

[Gumby]

Kill them all and let their gods sort them out.

 

[RedSwan78]

Well it sounds as if they where really hurt by the fact that there where no Clerics in the last campaign. Not having a cleric tends to.. uh.. suck.. hehe.

Of note, your cleric/wizards might be heading towards the Mystic Theurge PrC

Should be interesting, and like you said, they aren't short on healing! If none of them keep up the Clerical lvls, later on you can always throw higher HD Undead at them.. they won't be able to effectively turn them

 

[Eridanis]

I would email Eric Noah and have him comment. One of his campaigns is based around the group being part of a religious order, and he made everyone take at least one level of cleric.

 

[Stalker0]

I say have fun and throw whatever the hell you want at them. When you have lots of clerics and lots of healing- you tend to be able to bash a party a bit more than usual. And they can typically go longer than a normal party.

 

[Angcuru]

Bashy-bashy BANG BANG! Cleric go BOOM!

If they are all of different religions, have them be in constant competition with one another to prove their deity's dominance.

Power Word: Holy War

 

[fnork de sporg]

Well, this is what we decided. OK, I decided on most of it, but the players had their imput as well.

There is no current religion. At all, really. The campaign world is magical post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, somewhat inspired by DarkSun, with all but a rare few gods destroyed by the potetntially mythical, but not really, God-killers. yeah, so I couldn't think of a good name.

There are, or at least may be, a few rare remaining clerics of various alien of surving gods out there, alone and in hiding, no doubt.

The party will be the largest religous grouping there is, they will be the the only representitives of their, not counting any after the fact conversion. Many people just assume they are some odd sub-class of wizards, perhaps with an emphasis on healing.

The paladin is this worlds only paladin, he is the first paladin in clsoe to a thousands years. Oh, and he's also a full-blood orc.

I still don't know whether I like the Theurge class. It does seem a little unbalanced. They're still too low level for it to matter, but when it does come up it now seems likely that one of the cleric-wizards will go with the Arcanist PrC from, I don't remember, some mongoose book, and the other will go into Hallowed Mage from that religous MalHavoc book.

I intend to have good degree of divin intervention and miracles, but not in the save-your-butts way, more in the strange happenings and mysterious prophecies genre of divine acts.

I've got a worshipper of Vinduil the god of psionics from the psionic tool kit. I've got a fighter-cleric of heironious, or however you spell that, how's an alien refuge from Oerth brought her through planar accident, or perhaps divine will. I've got the two cleric-wizards of a still poorly defined player-made god that I really wish they would work better on. His domains are Healing, Luck, and Knowledge, and he's supposed to be the god of, I don't know, the cycle of life or some bull. I'm thinking of having their god take a more active role, he's the youngest diety around and they're his first worshippers ever, and I can have their god define his attributes for them. He's neutral good, I know that, and his symbol is spoked wheel made from, or at least colored like, gold.

Oh, and the orc is a special case. He's got this chip in his head, see, that makes him lawful good and forces him to worship this ancient god. It's all part of an evil plot by the God-killers and their minions who plan to use the paladin, once he's high enough level, as an arcane focus in their ritual to permanently slay his god and steal its power. I don't have a name for him yet, but I pictured as the lord of orcish hell, an orcish satan if you will. Once, ages ago, he was lord of orcish paradise, but when the orcs turned evil it became their hell and ge their tormentor, Cause he really hates evil with a passion. He's also quite sadistic for a lawful good god, and believes that pain and suffering are the best routes to personal strength and inner peace. His domains are Law, War, and Death.

What do you think?

 

[Guilt Puppy]

All Clerics in a WORLD WITH NO GODS?

I think this is final proof that players were put on this earth to stop campaign settings from making sense.