Is the Cleric class broken/unbalanced?

[radferth]

If you ask "which class is best at X?" clerics finish second in about 5 or 6 catagories. The only one they win is healing (maybe a tie in divination). On paper this may seem unbalaced, but I have never had a cleric become the standout badonkey of a party, even with the whole Harm thing. This seems to be party because healing benefits the whole party rather than the cleric and being second in many categories doesn't make you a badonkey, and partly because you have to try to become the party standout, and such folks seem to gravitate away from cleric. On paper, a group with 3 marshal cleric and no fighter might do better in combat than a group with a figher, and mage, and a cleric; but a player who takes a figher or mage over a cleric can deal out damage much faster, and therefore seem more fearsome and therefore a more attractive choice.

In (US) football terms, magi are the quarterbacks, fighters are the running backs, and clerics are the offensive line. Having a good line may be the most important factor, but if there were an NFL roleplaying game, folks wouldn't be clamoring to play linemen. In terms of party compostion and overall sucess, cleric may well be unbalanced, but in any given combat, they are if anything slightly underpowered (along with other classes who have lots of non-combat abilities like rogues and rangers).

 

[Thanee]

1. A cleric's spellcasting is (at the very least) on a par with the spellcasting of a mage.

Nothing is on par with the spellcasting of a mage. Nothing!

2. The ability of a mage to have a familiar is as much a hindrance as a help.

Familiars are great!

3. The cleric gets a number of non-spellcasting perks: Twice the HPs, 1 1/2 times the BAB, and extra 'good' save, armour feats, weapon feats, turning, plus domain abilities. The wizard gets 5 bonus feats spread over 20 levels. I don't feel that these equal out.

Of course not, that's where the cleric has his strong side!

But there doesn't need to be a balance, as the wizards spellcasting is a lot better than the clerics!

4. The cleric skill list is only fractionally worse than the wizard spell list.

Yeah, skills are the clerics weakest point, clerics are among the worst there (on par with fighter and paladin with that).

5. A clerics casting stat affects their will saves. A wizard's casting stat affects their skill ranks. The balance goes to the wizard here.

Definitely. One of the wizards advantages over the sorcerer as well!

6. A cleric loses only the potential to turn high-level undead if he takes a prestige class giving +1 spellcaster levels. A wizard loses feats, and his familiar becomes even more of a burden.

Now this is a joke, I hope. Seriously, that can't be your opinion!

A cleric loses nothing, when taking a prestige class compared to a wizard!? I would humbly suggest to read your own point number 3 again!

A wizard has nothing whatsoever to lose, because the only thing wizards get is spellcasting. In every other respect, they have pretty much the worst possible deal (BAB, HP, Saves, Skills, etc). Only thing of note is the feat every 5 levels, but PrC abilities usually more than make up for that!

A cleric however has a delicate balance between all possible abilities (except skills), and therefore a PrC that only increases spellcasting ability would severely hurt a clerics abilities! That's why there is almost no really good PrC for clerics (only a few that are really good for some particular clerics).

There are, however, several PrC, which are good for pretty much every wizard out there!

The cleric character attains the same level of power as a high level wizard with none of the drawbacks present in playing a wizard.

Not even close. High level wizards own clerics, everywhere and everytime!

A clerics spellcasting is pretty good, not questioned, but it is not even on the same level of comparison to the true arcane casters!

I think this is the major error in your assessment. You value the spellcasting ability of the cleric too high!

However, the cleric is broken from a mechanical viewpoint, but not because his spellcasting is as good as that of a wizard, but because his spellcasting ability is very good, and at the same time his fighting abilities are as good as that of a fighter!

Comparing clerics to wizards (the two strongest class in high levels) doesn't yield anything, but comparing the cleric to a fighter really shows the difference!

Bye
Thanee

 

[Marion Poliquin]

In my two years DMing a weekly game, the Cleric class has never proven to be unbalanced. Clerics are an extremely useful and invaluable part of any party but they are not essential. I do not believe they replace any of the other classes or do better than other classes in their area of expertise.

 

[Dave G]

Well, my 2/2 Strongheart halfling bard/cleric would have to disagree with you In last night's session one particularly nasty encounter was saved from disaster through intelligent thinking on my characters' part (If I may say so myself)

Here's how my actions played out.

Round one: Cast Mage Armor
Round two: 3/5 of the party was stunned by a granted power, mine being one of them
Round three: stunned
Round four: stunned
-only one character standing at this point, and I'm too far away to heal-
Round five: Cast Bless, and move closer
Round six: Cast Cure Light, bringing up one fallen companion
Round seven: Cast Cure Minor to stabilize another fallen companion
Round eight: Throw two daggers, both hitting for 5 points of damage (rapid shot is nice)
Round nine: Throw two daggers, both hitting for 6 points of damage and dropping our opponent...
Round ten: Cast Cure Light on another fallen companion (creature gets up) [last spell]
Round eleven: cdg the creature, then riverdance on his head to make sure he stays down.

Now I know this is not a cleric specific example, but I'm not a front line combatant, when I have to be one, I can, but I didn't get hit in this fight. If we hadn't had the healing magic our entire party probably would have died.

Overbalanced? I don't think so, necessary? YEP!

 

[The_Gneech]

I have a particular character originally created for Fantasy Hero that I spent a lot of time fretting about how to convert to D&D ... sort of an elvish "Vampire Hunter D" character, a competent swordsman with a lot of knowledge about the arcane, who seeks out vampires, demons, and the like, and destroys them.

I tried combinations of fighter/wizard, paladin, and so forth, when it suddenly hit me: if you play an elf cleric, you still get proficiency with longsword & longbow, and you can whomp on the undead like nobody's business. It seems obvious in retrospect, but I missed it at first because I always had the standard "mace-and-scale" type of cleric in my mind.

I've been trying him out in Icewind Dale II as a cleric of Oghma (I think that's the diety, I'm not real up on my FR lore), and he works very well. (He's wearing chain until I can find some decent magic leather, but still...) So now I'm all eager to try him out in a tabletop game ... and I never in my life thought I'd be eager to play a cleric!

-The Gneech

 

[Shard O'Glase]

Nothing is on par with the spellcasting of a mage. Nothing!


Bye
Thanee

Nothing but a clerics. If all you look at is who did the most in fight X. Yeah a wiz will usually wn the spell debate hands down.(I'm invisble, ahsted, and flying dang it) If you ask whoose spells contributed the most to the adventure/campaign the cleric easily ties the wizard. Knowing every spell on the lsit is huge, thier defensive spells are huge, divination yo god spells are huge, healing/buffs are huge, save or die spells the cleric reigns supreme at almost all levels.

Now personally I think all spellcasters are broken in most games past a certain level.(the cleric just more so than most and at all elvels in stead of just the higher levels) In the rare games where every day the party is challeged multiple times so that spellcasters always nearly depleate all their resources they are somewhat balanced. In most games I've seen spellcasters can feel free to unload a godly amount of spells in pre-buff situaions, every fight, and still have spell left over to solve ever problem.

 

[John Crichton]

In (US) football terms, magi are the quarterbacks, fighters are the running backs, and clerics are the offensive line. Having a good line may be the most important factor, but if there were an NFL roleplaying game, folks wouldn't be clamoring to play linemen. In terms of party compostion and overall sucess, cleric may well be unbalanced, but in any given combat, they are if anything slightly underpowered (along with other classes who have lots of non-combat abilities like rogues and rangers).

Interesting analogy. I'm a huge football fan and know the game fairly well.

I'm not sure I'd put any class as a lineman. I think that is the role of most NPC's, to be support to the party. If the cleric was a football position I would liken it to the Tight End. He's tough, he can protect the QB & RB, add support to the Linemen and also double as an effective receiver. So the cleric can fill a bunch of positions if this was football except the QB (which oddly works with the assumption that the mage fills that role).

I really like this concept so instead of rambling on and on about football = D&D I shall start another thread...

 

[Celtavian]

Re

There are a few death spells such as Destruction and Implosion that are Fortitude save or die that would give a cleric an advantage in a spell battle against a mage. Magi don't have the death ward spell, and they could die rather quickly against a prepared cleric.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Re: Sigh.

What really needs to be done, is a source book designed specifically for making your own Priest classes. Yeah, it'd be a headache to set up, but I don't think that a Cleric of Sharress should be ANYTHING like a Cleric of St. Cuthbert. Let's see someone try to use Perform: Belly Dance in PLATE MAIL.

Now, now. I've seen the kind of plate mail women wear in D&D worlds. And I'm pretty sure you could belly dance quite well in it. Same can be said for seduction. In plate armor? Ask Avalanche Press, they'll be happy to explain how it works. . . .

 

[Thanee]

Nothing but a clerics. If all you look at is who did the most in fight X. Yeah a wiz will usually wn the spell debate hands down.(I'm invisble, ahsted, and flying dang it) If you ask whoose spells contributed the most to the adventure/campaign the cleric easily ties the wizard. Knowing every spell on the lsit is huge, thier defensive spells are huge, divination yo god spells are huge, healing/buffs are huge, save or die spells the cleric reigns supreme at almost all levels.

I actually thought more about the utility stuff, not even combat...

You are right, that multiple challenges per day would be better to balance the spellcaster against the other classes.

Bye
Thanee