Help me swing my players away from clerics

[Von Ether]

In our group, we have one player who has the same attitude as your players, he has to be the best at everything (like a flying dwarven Inquistor PrC.) ... to think you have a whole room of these guys *shudder*

Believe it or not he's in line because he's Nuteral Good in a Lawful Good campiagn. All of the artifacts belong to the LG guys (magic items by alignment), and the church's "benfactor" code says they have to put buffs on other PC's first, before themselves.

The GM also sends in waves of bad guys, first come the goblins, if we are standing then their Hobgolin bosses come in on the next round, then the Gnoll encampment smells the blood and comes in when the hobgoblins are finished, etc. He's worked it up where we had small giants in the wings waiting if we got to cocky.

It also doesn't hurt the fighter players are decent min/maxers as well who hate the idea of playing clerics.

 

[Eldragon]

Basically, throw situations at them that would not necessarily be impossible for them to deal with, but would be SO much easier with another class in the party.

I'm not saying this will make for happy players, but it should be effective.

Allow me to clarify my problem a bit more:

The party always makes sure they have all thier bases covered. No rogue? They hire one, no mage? they hire one. Its pretty hard to come up with many situations that this party can't handle. But thats the fun part about DMing. I can come up with an ambush once, but I can only get away with it once. By a certain level, everyone (both PC and NPC) has dispel magics ready, thats a standard part of combat, but it does not solve the problem of clerics dominating the party. The above applies no matter what the party makup is.

Its hard for me as a DM to justify the tactic of always giving them things they can't handle. Anyone would get upset if they are constantly fighting battles that seem tailored to destroy them. Of course, when fighting the BBEG, his minions know exactly how the party fights, and what their weaknesses are. So minions of the BBEG are very smart and ambushes are pleantiful. But again, this thinking applies to any party, be it clerics or mages.

Addionally, The players tend to follow the rules of thier god VERY closely. They do this mostly because alignments shift very quickly when I am the DM. e.g. LG cleric in the party helps the rebels overthrow the tyrant without attempting a more lawful transition of power? oops... they are NG now.

I need incentives for players to swing away from clerics, and I dont feel that giving them specific challenges tailored against clerics will solve the problem.

Nix the standard D&D pantheon, and develop your own in which all the gods are either pacifistic or evil. Make clerics receive some sort of distinctive and easily visible "mark" from their god, so the evil ones are immediately recognized and killed. Require the pacifistic, good clerics to follow a strict code of conduct (not dealing damage in battle, or somesuch), and immediately revoke their powers (requiring atonement) if they break it.

I like this idea the best (so far). So simple, don't know why I didnt think of it.

I also like the inverted, undead cleric idea, but again, thats a one shot thing.

...See if all the characters are priest, this might lend itself to a chruchy type political game, where all there uber-combat munchkinism, does not really count for much.

Another good idea. Since I am trying to solve this problem before the next campaign begins, I might give this a try too.

 

[ForceUser]

First off, I would encourage people to diversify the party's classes, but I wouldn't forbid a party full of clerics. What your players (and yourself, Mr. DM, pardon) fail to realize is that no matter how tough the players are, the DM can design encounters to challenge them. It's all relative, thus, whether a class is "powerful" or not is meaningless; a good DM adjusts encounters to take into account a party's power level.

Clerics, like any class, have weaknesses. If they prep spells to fight A, throw B at them once in a while. Put them in situations they can't solve with firepower but with reason and roleplay. Attack them with spells that require Reflex saving throws. Fight them with enemy clerics who are likewise munchkin'd out. Send foes against them that are one or two CRs higher than a normal party could handle. Saddle them with temple obligations that tie their hands regarding who and what they can attack.

My point is, there are many ways to deal with a player group full of munchkin clerics that doesn't require reinventing the wheel.

 

[Capellan]

Reflex saves, balance checks, and touch attacks. Three things guaranteed to give your average cleric a very bad day

 

[ph0rk]

Addionally, The players tend to follow the rules of thier god VERY closely. They do this mostly because alignments shift very quickly when I am the DM. e.g. LG cleric in the party helps the rebels overthrow the tyrant without attempting a more lawful transition of power? oops... they are NG now.

I need incentives for players to swing away from clerics, and I dont feel that giving them specific challenges tailored against clerics will solve the problem.

Well, if they aren't being insanely disruptive, maybe they all just like playing clerics. Roll with it.

I remember once long ago some college friends and I played a low level campaign in a mage school (very much pre that harry potter filth). Everyone was a wizard (2nd ed) and all we had to differentiate ourselves was our specialization.

It was great! If all your players are holy and do it well, roll with it!

 

[WCrawford]

Most of the time requireing all divine spellcasters to worship a specific deity does the trick. It limits domains to a small list rather than allowing a cleric to choose any two they decide they like. It does sound as if they are already using gods, though.

Now, I'd like to hear more about how they are rule lawyers/munchkins. Generally when I hear a DM saying this about their players, I ask myself if the DM is delivering the players what they want in a campaign or delivering what the DM wants.

Are they twisting unclear rules to fit a situation one time and the opposite in another? Are they purposefully ignoring rules? If not, they probably aren't rules-laywers/munchkins.

 

[Gothmog]

Well, one of the most obvious problems for an all cleric party is the headaches it would cause between the clerics of different faiths. Say you've got a situation where a LG lord is being duped into cracking down on a peaceful organization of CN druids because they seem to be involved with "demonic forces". In fact, the CN druids are a thorn in the side of some CE demon worshippers, who want the holy site the CN druids use for their rituals. The demon worshippers stage demonic attacks against the lord that make it look like the druids are behind them, and maybe make raids on the druids dressed like the lord's men.

Now, you've got a party with the following clerics:

LG smite the evil type- likely wants to go in to the CN druid site and bust some heads based on their supposed demonic involvement
CG help the underdog healing god type- sees the lord's persecution of the druids as unfair, and sides with the druids to "fight the power"
NG diplomatic type- wants to hear both sides of the story and reach an amenable agreement between both sides where neither is hurt and the most innocents benefit
LN maintain order type- support the lord against the insurgent druids and their corrupting influence on the local populace
CN wild hair cleric- picks his nose, drinks too much at the inn, then decides to help the CN druids because it would piss off the lord
Neutral balance is all type- this guy wants to make sure the cosmic balance isn't usurped by one faction becoming too strong, so he investigates, finds out there is a 3rd party making the destabilizing influence, and eliminates them

As you can see, there is plenty of conflict between the party members if they are roleplaying their characters at all. Yeah, all cleric parties can be powerful, but the RPing considerations preclude having too many people of different faiths trying to work together (just imagine a Catholic, Mormon, Methodist, Suni Islam, Shivan, and Wiccan trying to work together and agree on ideology and what "should" be done). If you've got munchkin/rules-lawyer players, make them do the one thing that will make them wither up and whimper- ROLEPLAY their characters in a believable fashion.

 

[Salad Shooter]

The party always makes sure they have all thier bases covered. No rogue? They hire one, no mage? they hire one.

Hehe...they hire a rogue...and he makes off with their stuff...can't trust the untrustworthy. Mage gets berserked or something and attacks EVERYTHING...even a cleric eventually will run out of spells. Once their spells are gone, they are underpowered fighters. Cursed belts of Class Changing(tm)....I like the strict code idea, and if they break it, make them pay by stripping them of their spells and having them have to do penance...make a series of encounters that are too tough for them, but make it so that they can talk their way around them. Encounters. Encounters. Encounters. Encounters. That inverse cleric sounds like fun...mwahahahaha...

 

[Kazuel]

put a disease into your campian that isn't curable and is highly contagious. The population starts to hate all clerics because they feel the clerics aren't doing enough or something along those lines. Every town they enter, swamp them with sick people seeking them for salvation. When they can't provide it, have the town turn on them. a time or two and they will be so leary about going into a town. Tension for the party should rise and assuming they are playing good clerics, should seek to find a way to cure this plague.

*Side note - I didn't read everyones replies so if this is a repeat idea, excuse me.

 

[Eldragon]

As you can see, there is plenty of conflict between the party members if they are roleplaying their characters at all. Yeah, all cleric parties can be powerful, but the RPing considerations preclude having too many people of different faiths trying to work together (just imagine a Catholic, Mormon, Methodist, Suni Islam, Shivan, and Wiccan trying to work together and agree on ideology and what "should" be done). If you've got munchkin/rules-lawyer players, make them do the one thing that will make them wither up and whimper- ROLEPLAY their characters in a believable fashion.

The clerics in the party are almost always deity compatible. I encourage this. Its pretty rare for there to be more than 1 alignment step away from each other. The players do this to improve the role-play experience and reduce party infighting. However limiting all clerics in the party to one god may solve the problem, I Have not tried that. Roleplaying is also strong. I hand out large XP bonuses for role-playing. The usual game session has 1 to 3 battles, and the rest rolplaying (over an 8 to 12 hour period). So a lot of roleplaying goes on, no problem there.


Tailoring a campaign for players who are clerics might annoy PCs who are not clerics. Certainly a valid idea, however.

I have no problem with people who play clerics because they like the concept, but this party has a lot of clerics who play them because they like the munchkiness of them. As a matter of personal play style, I don't like to limit the classes the players have to choose from. e.g. Doing an all wizard game would certainly be cool, but I have a player who sticks to rangers, barbarians and druids because he likes the concept.

The typical campaign starts with a very diverse party. Then a PC dies and the player comes back with a new PC...a cleric. The preceding sentence then repeats until we have 3 to 4 clerics in the party. I am a little sick of seeing so many clerics, so I am looking for ways to nudge the party makeup a little.

I like my players, they do a good job. I'm as bad as a rules lawyer and munchkin as they are. I am usually the DM cause A) I like to do it, and B) I am good at making stuff up as I go along.

Now, I'd like to hear more about how they are rule lawyers/munchkins. Generally when I hear a DM saying this about their players, I ask myself if the DM is delivering the players what they want in a campaign or delivering what the DM wants.

Are they twisting unclear rules to fit a situation one time and the opposite in another? Are they purposefully ignoring rules? If not, they probably aren't rules-laywers/munchkins.

I view muchkining as the maximizing of ones character via the use of rules loop holes, oversights, and imbalances. This is certainly the fun part about 3.x DnD for many people (myself included).

Rules are never twisted as you describe. When a player is caught doing that (and I test them) It results in a large XP loss for the session. We have a strong set of house rules that fix much of the unclear issues and the really broken rules. However some of the players have every word of the PHB memorized, and if I screw up, I hear about it in about 3 seconds. I actually had to ban talking about rules during combat to keep things moving. With all of the DnD books available, there are a lot of feats and spells. The combinations thereof can make for some pretty powerful characters. Thats a part of 3.x DnD. Banning everything that can be abused will ruin the game experience for me and all my players. We LIKE exploiting the rules. The core problem is that the players have come to the conclusion that there are more exploits for clerics than with any other class. Thus, I made this topic.