Help me convince my players that the Cleric is cool

[The Thayan Menace]

Cool is the Divine Fist Which Schools You

I usually show players how cool a certain class can be by kicking their butts with one.

I agree; good call.

 

[Numion]

Whoah. I'm surprised. We haven't had a healer-cleric (one who specialized in healing) since our first 3.0E campaign (now it's our 4th campaign).

We saw the clerics power quite early, and the normal style to play cleric evolved quite quickly from healing and buffing others to .. buffing himself and opening the can of whoop-ass. First it was the obnoxiously resililient dwarf cleric with 2-handed sword, with defencive spells out the wazoo and damage output equal to fighters in the group. It was everyones own responsibility to buy healing wands (cure light, most hp for gp ). The cleric would happily discharge those on you between combats for free. Then it was the elf archer cleric (best clerical archetype, IMHO, in 3.0E). Then two-weapon cleric (you get almost twice the bang for divine favor, to be seen if viable).

Doesn't anyone else play like this? Clerics usually cast spells on themselves, then proceed to kick butt with melee or ranged weapons, and occassional offensive spell (flame strike, firestorm, etc.). Healing is considered waste of spells since the cleric can dish out much more than heal, except for some tactical Heal or Mass Heal spells. Healing is mostly done from wands between combats.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Unlikely Energy Drain Stories

Note to GM: level drain isn't scary, it just bites, because it makes the cleric memorise all his spells as restorations. Because the alternative is an entire party back to level 1.

Which sucks, because the GM has nothing prepared for now-level-1 characters with level 9 equipment.

Any DM that manages to drain 9th level PCs to level 1, without killing the entire party, is not playing hardball appropriately.

I would accuse this aforementioned DM of fudging the encounter to save an obviously floundering campaign and quit gaming with them.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

It's also fully possible to convince a player to turn a character into a cleric through role-playing.

You'd probably have to work off of a character with high wisdom, so throw some neat church based social opportunities and divine visions that character's way and see what happens.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Clerical Nitpicking

We saw the clerics power quite early, and the normal style to play cleric evolved quite quickly from healing and buffing others to .. buffing himself and opening the can of whoop-ass.

Agreed; clerics stomp.

Which brings me to another point:

I believe that our esteemed thread starter has a problem with a player who does not want to play a female cleric of Ehlonna.

Let us keep this in mind.

 

[feydras]

If the problem is that you think the cleric would only feel like a healing battery then you could use the WP/VP hit point system. This vastly decreases the need for the cleric to cast healing out of combat.

I myself find playing with clerics annoying. Mostly due to the fact, as Numion pointed out, that clerics tend to become super powerhouses with the right buffs. Once they get access to divine power and righteous might the cleric puts to shame any figher or barbarian in melee. I too have run into the greatsword weilding dwarven cleric of war. It was pretty funny when the villian sundered the greatsword which was the cleric's holy symbol.

Stylisitically, i like the wizard approach. They have plenty of buff spells but it is generally a much better idea to cast them on other group members than themselves. This encourages a group approach where all members shine as opposed the to the uber-cleric who just runs around smashing anything he cannot turn.

- Feydras

 

[StalkingBlue]

I was going to say, why convince players to change their preferences only because you'd like to see a class played that you love? Of course ...

Simple. Announce to your players that you won't be allowing the cleric class for PC use as its overpowered except in limited circumstances.

... this is sublime. Brilliant understanding of how players' minds work.

 

[Will]

Having to load up on restoration? Um, scrolls! Scrolls scrolls scrolls. And wands.

Thankfully, people seem to be slowly waking up (as a whole) to the use of these items. And I count myself.

A cleric should have scrolls of any spell which has a circumstantial or occasional use, like remove poison (unless you are headed into the Dungeon of Extreme Poisonous Monsters). A cleric should have wands of any low level spell that is useful to cast in large numbers between encounters (IE: the wand of CLW)

That frees him up for prepping spells that are likely to come up, are extremely situational but can be known ahead of time, or are too high level to economically purchase as items.

 

[Numion]

Having to load up on restoration? Um, scrolls! Scrolls scrolls scrolls. And wands.

Thankfully, people seem to be slowly waking up (as a whole) to the use of these items. And I count myself.

Right you are! We took a long time to realize this. A couple of restorations on scrolls and a wand of lesser restorations are a good start. Wand of lesser restoration is surprisingly useful, since it cures that naughty ability damage (temporary). At least the people I play with are such wussies that their tough fighters want to 'regroup' and come back tomorrow the instant they lose some of their STR. WoLR fixes that to a degree.

Wand of restoration is nice, but too expensive (around 30K).

 

[Numion]

I believe that our esteemed thread starter has a problem with a player who does not want to play a female cleric of Ehlonna.

Let us keep this in mind.

Yikes. Thats a halfling god to boot, aint it?