Help me swing my players away from clerics

[Eldragon]

• By putting them up against monsters that characters of their level wouldn't normally fight, you force them into playing very min/maxed characters (or to die).
  
  
• This group thinks clerics are the best class to min/max with.

Therefore.....

• Putting them up against higher CR critters encourages them to play more clerics. (Note: This is also true of the "cooking monsters" and "extra hard encounters via surprise or some other method" solutions).

Making things harder doesn't help. It only encourages them to min/max more (which, to them, means playing clerics) so they can live through the increasingly difficult encounters. That makes them more likely to play clerics, not less.

Hardhead's comments are very correct. Words coming from someone who clearly has had the same problem I am expecting in the next campaign. I encourage readers to re-read a few of hardhead's lastest replys to get a strong idea of the cleric party I am dealing with.

Heres a great analogy:

Battles in DnD are like rock-paper-scissors. When the party has *Rock*, its the DM's job to make sure they fight pleanty of *Paper*. The problem with a party full of *Rocks* is that I need to keep using *Paper*, and now my *Scissors* are getting rusty from neglect.

I need to push the party away from taking rock, and start using paper and scissors. I don't need more pieces of paper.

Sure there are lots of types of paper. Many shapes, sizes, and colors. But it's still paper, and I'm getting sick of paper.

I have seen a lot of good ideas so far. My favorite right now is the prayer-book solution. Where the prayer book functions just like a wizards spellbook. Cure spells, inflict spells, and domain spells can be prepared from memory, but everything else would need a prayerbook. Don't remember who posted the idea right now. My thanks to the poster of that idea, and all other good ideas on this thread.

Clerics are a particularly annoying class to have many in the party because the more you have, the less they get shuffled to the rear-lines healing people. Out of a party of 6 people, and 1 cleric, the lone cleric is going to use all of his/her spells on healing. But when you have 4 clerics, they will almost always get away with using their spells for combat, especially at the higher levels.

Getting ambushed at night is always a tricky situation. Nighttime ambushes are any party's weakest moment. Its not fair to the players to only attack them in their sleep because thats the only time they are weak. Attacking at night is a tactic intelligent enemy NPCs often use, so the players always set up a strong base-camp and defensive perimeter. Of course, my NPCs still try, and often succeed.... or wait just outside a dungeon when the party is low on spells and HP.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

*shakes head*

Extra skill points for wizards? Like they need the help!

Okay, this was my suggestion. I was thinking of Knowledge skills. Nice character/RP advantage, lets wizards be the "know-it-alls" they're supposed to be without adding any combat power. As it is, it's hard to rack up enough Knowledge skills to really call yourself a wizard, even with the Int bonus. There are just so many Knowledge skills that would be relevant.

But, more broadly, the point is to make the game fun. You only reduce players' inclination to play clerics by making the class less fun or by making other classes more fun. If the players want a powerful class, you have to reduce the cleric's power to dissuade them. If the players want a versatile class, you can turn them off by making the class basically a healer. If the players want to be the best in combat, you can push Righteous Might and Divine Power up a level each. If the players value their freedom, you can dissuade them from playing clerics by having strict and controlling church hierarchies.

I'd rather DMs not do that. I'd rather they make the other classes more fun rather than making the cleric less fun. It's not always a case of making them more powerful - just make them more fun. More versatile; neat special abilities that aren't duplicated by feats or spells; societal privileges. Feats or skills that compensate for weaknesses rather than adding to strengths. And, yes, bonus Knowledge skill points for wizards if that's what would make it fun for players raised on the wizards of literature.

Clerics are a particularly annoying class to have many in the party because the more you have, the less they get shuffled to the rear-lines healing people. Out of a party of 6 people, and 1 cleric, the lone cleric is going to use all of his/her spells on healing. But when you have 4 clerics, they will almost always get away with using their spells for combat, especially at the higher levels.

Here we see perhaps the best way to make the cleric class less fun and less appealing. Relegate the class to being the back-line healer and design encounters so they never get to use anything other than their healing spells. Don't let them enjoy the other hundreds of cleric spells out there. In this case, no matter the power level of the class, players will grow to hate the cleric and stop playing it.

 

[Eldragon]

Personally, I'd recomend staying away from the heavy handed stuff. Let your players play what they want.

Allow me to point out the PGtF has just come out with Persistent Spell moved to +6 levels rather than +4. IMO, Persistent Spell was a Cleric mainstay... Persistent Divine Favor and Persistent Divine Power were too good to resist. Moving to 7th and 10th instead of 5th and 8th is a significant blow to the power Cleric. 3.5 is gradually smoothing out balance issues.

I actually banned Persistent spell the first time I read the feat. We still play on 3.0. Most of us have too much money invested in 3.0 books to switch to 3.5. Especially when most of the 3.5 books are just re-releases of content I already have in a 3.0 book. Instead I run off a house rules sheet that has fixes for the really big problems. e.g. 10 min/level buffs and 3.5 haste.

 

[Qualir]

Having read all the posts to date, as well as previously posting myself, I have to agree with some of the statements made.

1. Nerfing a class is not "the best" route to take. Such an action is likely to cause friction between the players and DM. Please note that minor changes to a class, such as the above mentioned "prayer book" is not necessarily nerfing, but massive reconstruction of and the deletion of certain core class abilities is so.

2. Adding abilities to other existing core classes is a dangerous & slippery slope. As DMs, we all inevitably worry about things like "game balance." Altering existing classes by adding to them without an appropriate amount of give-and-take can easily lead to unexpected balance issues.

3. A party of all/mostly clerics is challenging to DM. This is actually true of any party made predominantly/wholly of 1 PC class. D&D was designed with diverse parties of characters in mind and balanced accordingly. This is one reason behind players often feeling that certain classes are necessary to create an effective party.

4. Upping the CR of opponents to correlate with perceived party power encourages min/maxing and munchkinism. Players naturally take their cue from the DM as in creating/leveling PCs. Power playing by the DM will thus naturally lead the players to follow suit.

5. RP challenges have little to no effect on combat challenges. The two are seperate entities that seldom overlap. This is not to say that RP can not effect combat, but it can not be expected to do so on a contiuos basis.

6. PCs should not expect to be able to hire competant and honorable NPCs to fill holes left after party creation. I strongly encourage you, the DM, to discourage this thought. Few parties are willing to trust fellow PC rogues, so why should they trust an "Unknown."

7. One trick DMing is boring.

My own suggested possibilities.
1. Use an alternate method of awarding XP and treasure to the party. I award XP on a 1 level (or less) per adventure basis in order to keep my players at a desirable power level. I never award XP during play until the adventure is completed.

2. I select the party treasure based on party weaknesses and strengths rather than handing out random treasure. A party that is totally capable of self buffing and modifying weapons to bypass DR does not need items that do so for them. Do not award treasure that takes the place of "missing classes." You might be able to encourage additional classes/multiclassing by awarding treasure that benefits other classes much more than clerics without replacing the class altogether.

3. Anything outside the PH, DMG, and MM is totally optional (as is much of the material provided in these books). You do not have to allow PCs access to optional rules that increase their abilty to min/max. I suggest not allowing divine feats and optional domains from DotF and CW. I would also limit the # and type of PrC available for each class. Removing these options might discourage PCs used to a free reign of options meant to empower the class you wish to discourage.

4. Do not play to the party strengths. Reduce the # of undead encounters. Feel free to hit them with big damage encounters (they have plenty of healing power). Do not give divine spell wands as treasure.

5. Hit them where it hurts. Clerical power is dependent upon the deity's favor. Place the party in situations that can result in loss of this favor if they are not careful. Paladins are not the only class that has the potential to fall from grace.

6. Place the party in the Dragonlance setting between to the events in the War of the Lance and the Catyclism. The gods refused to acknowledge clerics during this time, making the class a depowered fighter. Unlike simply nerfing the class on your world, this allows the party to explore a setting they might have read about which has plenty of history. Players will often go along with things they dislike when there is a printed rational behind it, especially if they are rules lawyers.

7. Make someone else DM. Player experience behind the screne often grants sympathy for the challenges DMs face.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You and me go pretty way back, Zach, I can take it.

Good point, but it does mean he can still *challenge* the clerics in combat....which solves that little problem. And, alternately, if they don't find the clerics are handling the combat so well (targeting weaknesses at-CR is harsh enough, doing it with a higher CR is rougher), maybe they will switch to something better suited for the campaign or challenges...target the weaknesses of the monsters, rather than their own strengths......

Though IMHO, as long as you can challenge them effectively, there's no drastic need to change, I guess. Clerics have their weak points, like any other class, and so are hardly the be-all, though they may be the most well-rounded (having a share of death-dealing, and healing, two good saves, and a decent BAB and HD, and the buffs....they're bards who smite evil ). As long as they are being challenged and having fun, why bother to force them to change? It's just like having a party who always chooses to be all wizards, or rouges, or fighters, or paladins....you can still challenge them, why make them play anything else? If it's just their sense of tweaking letting them play the cleric, showing them a few cases in which it is weak is all you need to do -- if they're willing to suck up a bad Ref save, and having to buff while the enemies are wailing on them, and not being able to hit the higher AC's or stand against the higher damage outputs of a chunk of monsters, then why should they be inclined to pick something else?

To use the Rock-Paper-Scissors analogy, if you like playing with paper, even though the DM throws both rock and scissors at you, then there's no real need to play with anything else. They always throw paper, but they see it as the most fun, the best of the best, the most enjoyable.....why force 'em to think otherwise? If they can live with trapped doors, no stealth, no speed, and taking full damage from dragons and fireballs, while devoting their spells to improving their 0's instead of improving other's 1's, why force 'em to change?

 

[beaver1024]

I feel your pain. I have a group with all divine spellcasters as well (druids and clerics). The worst thing is that you can't just ban the class because clerics have a monopoly on healing (not just HP healing either) and a party needs this ability.

The core balancing assumption that 3.0 & 3.5 uses is that there is ever going to be 1 cleric in a party. The only way I see you coming ontop of this is to enforce this. This will be pretty much an arbritary ruling and the only fair way I can see this being resolve is to draw lots on who gets the priviliage of being the cleric.

However you ahve to be careful that your players don't all just migrate to druids, as they are equally as potent as clerics.

 

[pawsplay]

Clerics have poor Reflex saves. Opponents with Reflex-based attacks, especially non-elemental ones, will be annoying.

Clerics have few skill points. So if they fire lots of additional help, just kill the help a lot. Soon, no one will want to adventure with them.

The old dog meat routine. Have a friendly NPC feed them a meal. In reality, the NPC is a hag or somesuch, and they've just eaten human flesh.

Alignment conflicts. Don't turn the party on each other. But it's not hard to ensure at least one Cleric out of a group has a hand tied in any battle. Lawful Good? The bad buys use charmed innocents as thugs. Neutral Good? The bad guy has a hostage. Chaotic Evil? The opponents include someone hated by their deity, and any sort of retreat will not be tolerated. Etc.

Live with it. An all-Cleric party can still have a decent selection of abilities. Just scale down the CR of any undead encounter automatically.

 

[ph0rk]

Anyway, not giving them the XP for a critter of that high a level keeps the problem from becoming an exponential XP cycle, but I fail to see how that will solve his problem of everyone wanting to play clerics.

Ultimately, you can't pick classes for your players (well, you can, but you might run out of players that way.)

There are certain things clerics cannot do, and it ought to be -very- difficult to find hirable NPCs higher than 6th level. At some point, if they hang on to a hireling long enough, they may demand a 1/2 or even full share of loot. Its hard to disarm deadly traps and keep trolls away from their holinesses for 2sp per day.

If death is particularly violent for those hirelings, they may not desire to return: getting eaten alive by trolls might be all of the prime material they need to see. Cast res and true res all you want, they're staying home.

Also; if they tend to go through hirelings alot, they'll have difficulty replacing them (they could get a reputation for being a meat grinder)

Please note though I am not suggesting you start having hirelings drop like flies; I'm just pointing out how difficult it can be to hang on to them.

Whether you let them cover the rogue skillset with cohorts is up to you: I'd probably not allow a group of all heavy melees snag 2-3 cleric cohorts, thats for sure.

If they decide to enter that trap-encrusted dungeon with the best 4th level rogue they can find: remember, even if you roll a 20 on your disarm traps, if its low enough, you can still critically fail. (Think Mikey and the tripwire in Goonies).

And, if all this fails, just send them to Ravenloft

 

[Trainz]

Tell your players that it is pointless to play a cleric.

 

[Agback]

Now, if they're buffing themselves, why aren't they buffing the party tank? That has got to be more effective, unless those spells can't be cast on the tank. Consider changing spells like that to allow them to be cast on another person (range touch). This at least will make 2 Clerics and 2 tanks a better combat party than 4 Clerics.

How? It will just lead to reciprocal buffing.

Regards,


Agback