How martial should the Cleric be?

[GreatLemur]

So, various 5e communications have spurred lots of cool discussion on the nature of and distinctions between the Cleric and Paladin, as well as brining up the possibility of a non-fighty Priest class, the possible future of the Avenger, etc. One interesting thing that came out of this was a poll on RPGnet about the 5e Cleric's use of weapons and armor. The results were a huge surprise, at least to me.

What's the 5e cleric look like in your head?

• The cleric should be, at default, an armored guy, usually with a mace. — 20.54%
• The cleric should be, by default, more of a spellcastery class, without the armor. — 36.61%
• The cleric and priest should be represented by two different classes. — 31.25%
• Other — 11.61%

Now, I went for option 2 myself, but I was still shocked to see the largest percentage supporting such a major change to a Big Four class.

I can't speak for everybody else, but my reasoning goes like this: as a major iconic class, the Cleric should (at least in its default configuration) strongly embody its major themes, those things which are unique to it among the Big Four. That means healing, miracle-working, turning, and other divine magic. It does not include wearing armor and wielding weapons effectively. Furthermore, there doesn't seem like a lot of need for a martial Cleric in the same game as the Paladin.

Now, I would be fine with a martial Cleric supplemented by some kind of Priest/Invoker/Lasercleric class, sure. But I don't really want to see a whole flood of divine classes, and I think the primary divine class should be one that's purely about the whole "divine" thing, instead of one that's essentially multiclassing as a Fighter.

Fighty divine casters can just be Clerics with a Warpriest theme.

...But that's my take. How about you?

 

[dkyle]

I think what might work well would be to have the classes be set up in the Core game with specific Themes and Backgrounds pre-chosen. So the Core Cleric class could look like the traditional D&D Cleric with armor and be good with a mace, because it would have a Theme for that stuff built in. The Cleric class itself might be no more martial than a Wizard, but also not be an ideal spell caster. With the Themes rules module, a Cleric could drop the default martial-focused Theme, and instead take a Mystic or Sage theme to gain better spellcasting, to exemplify that "Priest" style Cleric.

For example, I could see the Cleric class itself giving full access to Cleric spells, but having rather poor offensive casting power (in 3.X terms, low save DCs). Then you could take a martial Theme to add good martial offense, or a caster Theme to get better offensive casting. Or any of a bunch of other Themes to focus on things other than offensive capabilities.

 

[Sunseeker]

Minimally martial. Most of their powers should come in the form of spells or divine empowerment. The "spec" of cleric you build should be tied to your god. Everything a Cleric is should come down to the deity they follow. A god of love, caring, and healing is much less likely to have battle basher clerics or blaster clerics as it is to have healer clerics.

Honestly, the design space for clerics is just TOO big, something needs to limit them or get trimmed away.

 

[steeldragons]

How Martial should the Cleric be?

As martial as the player playing him wants!

...which, preferably for flavor reasons is in line with the type and tenets of their deity...but I could see some fun being the "rough n' tumble" cleric sent off from an abbey of pacifist priestesses. "How do you solve a problem like Maria?"....but that's not even necessary.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Minimally martial. Most of their powers should come in the form of spells or divine empowerment. The "spec" of cleric you build should be tied to your god. Everything a Cleric is should come down to the deity they follow. A god of love, caring, and healing is much less likely to have battle basher clerics or blaster clerics as it is to have healer clerics.

Honestly, the design space for clerics is just TOO big, something needs to limit them or get trimmed away.

Absolutely. The only way to do Clerics right is to know what dieties are available from the start. Which D&D can't do as it's not geared for that. Classes simply don't work with polytheistic worlds unless there's a class for every type there is, or can be in D&D's case. But they won't even try to do that, so the question is moot. If there isn't an option for the Agriculturist Cleric who has no martial abilities or blasty or healing spells, they've failed. (IMO, YMMV.)

 

[Sunseeker]

Absolutely. The only way to do Clerics right is to know what dieties are available from the start. Which D&D can't do as it's not geared for that. Classes simply don't work with polytheistic worlds unless there's a class for every type there is, or can be in D&D's case. But they won't even try to do that, so the question is moot. If there isn't an option for the Agriculturist Cleric who has no martial abilities or blasty or healing spells, they've failed. (IMO, YMMV.)

Sorta, I think they just need to put some thought into the diversity of gods they release. Lets say, there are at launch, 3 gods for each "Core" alignment, "Good", "Evil" and "Neutral". One of each can give the "battle", "blaster" or "healer".

There, we've got the three primary alignments as well as the three core "styles" of cleric covered.

Expansion books are now under no requirement to release a god of each type or of each alignment. They can, over time build up to that, but at launch we only need 9 gods, one per alignment or 3 per "core" alignment.

 

[EmbraCraig]

Absolutely. The only way to do Clerics right is to know what dieties are available from the start. Which D&D can't do as it's not geared for that. Classes simply don't work with polytheistic worlds unless there's a class for every type there is, or can be in D&D's case. But they won't even try to do that, so the question is moot. If there isn't an option for the Agriculturist Cleric who has no martial abilities or blasty or healing spells, they've failed. (IMO, YMMV.)

Those type of clerics could exist, but they're probably not out adventuring in dungeons. Or if they did, without any kind of adventuring abilities they wouldn't last long, so why put them in a game which is often about going into Dungeons and/or fighting Dragons?

About martial vs. caster clerics - why can't they do both? I did a quick blog about clerics here. Give clerics who want to hit things the ability to cast while doing so, but give people who want to focus on casting a bonus to their spell effectiveness as the trade off. Should be easy to accomplish if spells can be prepared in multiple spell level slots as it's been suggested for 5E.

 

[dkyle]

Sorta, I think they just need to put some thought into the diversity of gods they release. Lets say, there are at launch, 3 gods for each "Core" alignment, "Good", "Evil" and "Neutral". One of each can give the "battle", "blaster" or "healer".

There, we've got the three primary alignments as well as the three core "styles" of cleric covered.

I really dislike the idea of every Cleric of a given diety being exactly the same style, reflective of what their diety is. That would be like every religiously-devoted Christian being a carpenter, because Jesus was.

I'd much rather dissociate character mechanics from Diety. Let the players build something that literally reflects their diety if they want to, or not, if they don't want to. It's not like only the god of war has any use for mighty warriors in his service.

I see nothing wrong with a follower of a god of healing taking up arms to fight the evil that is hurting people in the first place.

 

[Shadeydm]

Less martial than the paladin.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

I really dislike the idea of every Cleric of a given diety being exactly the same style, reflective of what their diety is. That would be like every religiously-devoted Christian being a carpenter, because Jesus was.

I'd much rather dissociate character mechanics from Diety. Let the players build something that literally reflects their diety if they want to, or not, if they don't want to. It's not like only the god of war has any use for mighty warriors in his service.

I see nothing wrong with a follower of a god of healing taking up arms to fight the evil that is hurting people in the first place.

Yeah, I wouldn't expect them to make any great effort to add in non-adventuring Clerics. But there ought to at least be a disscussion about them. They can't think of everything, so the more options they add, or at least talk about, the better.