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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5867494" data-attributes="member: 1165">WotC actually did a poll on this for D&D Next. (I don't follow it, but still knew about it.)I think the cleric never had a role beyond "bandaid". In 2e, I didn't get the cleric. In 3.x, I never "got" the cleric either.In 2e, the standard cleric was a class with decent but not great "fundamentals" (THAC0, Hit Dice, armor proficiencies, weapon proficiencies). The spells were all over the place. (Why did clerics get Hold Person but not Hold Monster? Why did they get Hold Person before wizards?)The various subtypes (non-core, though) only muddled clerics even more. You could, for RP purposes, play a cleric of Sune, goddess of love, with no useful spheres beyond maybe healing. You shouldn't (although I think you did) get a good THAC0, hp score or armor proficiencies because clerics that make love and not war, so why are they training for that kind of combat ability? Such a PC wouldn't be useful to the party. You could also play a cleric of an evil deity, so either you shouldn't get healing (which made you a much weaker PC) or you did (which didn't match the flavor). Plenty of players refused outright to have PCs that worshipped deities that didn't give Flame Strike. *Sigh*IMO, the best solution would be two-fold:1) Priests get whatever suits them. So a priest of Gond might have lots of tech spells but weak fundamentals.2) PC priests must be "special". For whatever reason (frankly, game balance) they get a standard set of spheres (before any special deity-based spheres) which would include healing, combat, and all the spheres necessary to fill their combat role and they get the weapon training.So, an evil NPC cleric of Vecna doesn't need to have the healing sphere. The DM is free to balance that encounter as they see fit. But a PC cleric of Vecna has healing, because otherwise they're just a drag on the party.In 3.x, clerics' role got defined a bit more, based on spell selection (and domains!). Alas, every low-level cleric I've ever seen used spells like Cause Fear, graduating to Righteous Might at mid-levels and Destruction at high levels. I don't think any of those spells were unbalanced (compared to the rest of 3.x) but it ended up with every cleric feeling the same. Every cleric maxed Wisdom, then put their next best scores in Strength and Con (because you knew you would be buffing at mid-levels).In 4e, I think the cleric's role got even better. Beyond the healing (which is greatly superior; no more wasting a full round moving up to a wounded ally and then spending a standard action to heal them) most of the "laser cleric's" abilities give one turn buffs. I really like that.I don't like the E-cleric, because it's basically a paladin. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />I don't know the invoker class that well, but it seems like it could work for a less "healy" priest, sort of like a cleric of Vecna or some such. Of course, any party would want a leader, but that's starting to get separate from the priest RP role.</blockquote>

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