D&D 5E Is the Cleric really one of the ‘core four’ anymore?

[TrippyHippy]

I'm tempted to think the latter

I was into D&D from the very beginning, the only newsletters I remember being published were the Strategic Review that I mentioned. People put far too much interest in 'chainmail' nowadays, back in the 70's it was considered inconsequential and ignored by everyone in every gaming community I knew of, since it was 'just some tabletop rules' and not much different from a bunch of other table top rules.

In those days it was always clear that there was the big three (FM, Cl, MU), who was quickly joined by Thief and Paladin together, and the others as I stated.

Cheers

The newsletter is detailed in Sandy Antunes’ Designers and Dragons, so you may wish to check that source.

I’ve no doubt your personal experience is substantial, but it’s not necessarily all encompassing.

 

[Raith5]

Clerics are definitely back to core in 5e. The basic rules has them as the only in combat healer and that is a big deal just as it was in 1e-3e. Keeping a party member in the fight is a huge advantage, especially in a game that has no penalties to bouncing back up from 0hp ( it is like being a punching clown a 1st level). From what we have played so far no one touches a Cleric of Life in this regard. Of the basic four the skill user/rogue archetype is the least necessary to the core in this edition as not every DM relies on the exploration or social pillars and Fighters, Wizards and Clerics can cover those roles well enough oft times.

The only edition you could run out of the box without a healer and make it was 4e as most classes had some self healing in combat abiltites.

Agree. I have always liked the cleric both thematically (because it links the PCs/campaign to Deitys and religions: which I find a great rping space) and mechanically (because I like the support role).

In fact, I never played in a campaign in any edition without a cleric (or cleric multi class) - not even 4e where it was arguably less necessary. I have just always played or DMed in campaigns where combat is brutal and healing at the end of the combat is often just too late.

Also, as a DM and player, I like the decision making aspect of do I fight or do I heal. I like in combat choices like that.

 

[Mercule]

The thing is the Knights Templar seem to be closer to my perception of what the Paladin is, rather than the Cleric. Indeed, Clerics in D&D do not need to be especially militarised. They could focus on the Domains of Trickery or Knowledge instead, for example. Paladins are more obviously militarised, and well, ‘Knightly’. And of course, it is worth mentioning that the Knights Templar were technically monks…..but there ya go!

I don't know how long you've been playing, but I think you're probably in line with most folks who started playing in the last 20ish years (geez, am I really that old). I was talking original concept and what Gygax claimed as the inspiration for those classes. I'm not 100% sure about the Druid, but what I said about the Cleric and Druid are my retelling of what I'd seen Gygax write. Regardless of how they've morphed, that's what their origins are. It's that reason that makes me believe that the Cleric needs a revision to Priest that re-aligns them to their current role in the same way that the original Thief has evolved into Rogue.

Personally, I'd rather see the Cleric/Priest lose some of its combat effectiveness and behave more like a White Mage (I am not endorsing that as a class name) than a full caster was good combat ability. Granted, the Cleric in my current group has the Life domain (why this grants heavy armor proficiency boggles me) and took the Heavily Armored feat, so I'm not really seeing a "vanilla" 5E Cleric.

Knights Templar may have been monks, from a Western perspective, but they certainly weren't D&D Monks. D&D Monks draw from a romanticized version of Shaolin monks.

 

[ruleslawyer]

[MENTION=5100]Mercule[/MENTION]: I agree. The original D&D cleric is definitely a priest-militant rather than a way to model a generic religious acolyte. As early as late 1e, I was looking for ways to pull out the more martial features of the cleric (heavy armor, all-blunt-weapons as opposed to deity-specific weapons access) and replace them with a range of abilities that was more flexible and tailored to the specific deity. 2e enabled balancing via access to spheres, and 3e of course allowed a lot of mix and match via feats, domains, et cetera.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I don't know how long you've been playing, but I think you're probably in line with most folks who started playing in the last 20ish years (geez, am I really that old). I was talking original concept and what Gygax claimed as the inspiration for those classes. I'm not 100% sure about the Druid, but what I said about the Cleric and Druid are my retelling of what I'd seen Gygax write. Regardless of how they've morphed, that's what their origins are. It's that reason that makes me believe that the Cleric needs a revision to Priest that re-aligns them to their current role in the same way that the original Thief has evolved into Rogue.

Personally, I'd rather see the Cleric/Priest lose some of its combat effectiveness and behave more like a White Mage (I am not endorsing that as a class name) than a full caster was good combat ability. Granted, the Cleric in my current group has the Life domain (why this grants heavy armor proficiency boggles me) and took the Heavily Armored feat, so I'm not really seeing a "vanilla" 5E Cleric.

Knights Templar may have been monks, from a Western perspective, but they certainly weren't D&D Monks. D&D Monks draw from a romanticized version of Shaolin monks.

I first started playing D&D in the mid 80s, which makes me closer to 30 years of playing these days. I don’t regard Gygax’ vision as particularly gospel though, and in any case I am more interested in where the game is now in relation to the real world historical sources they were derived from.

I could see the Cleric/Priest as a ‘White Mage’ as such, and note that in AD&D 2nd edition they did actually make the ‘Priest’ the umbrella classification of both Cleric and Druid. I think in 5E there are some Clerics that can be less militaristic however, based on their Domain choices. Knowledge and Light seem pretty good choices to me.

 

[Mercule]

I don’t regard Gygax’ vision as particularly gospel though, and in any case I am more interested in where the game is now in relation to the real world historical sources they were derived from.

I'm not particularly married to Gygax's vision, either. To understand why the historic classes have been included historically, however, it's the history of the game is somewhat relevant.

If I wasn't clear enough, in my previous post, I think the Cleric, as originally intended, is a bit mismatched to how most folks currently play the game. The origin of the class still shows in its construction, though, and I'd prefer it to "evolve" a bit more. If the 2E Priest didn't make any sacred hamburger, I don't see the issue. My preference is to update the class to make it a slightly less viable combatant than the current Wizard is (maybe slight better melee, but worse for magic battles). My biggest gripe, though, is the continuation of Turn Undead; that should be restricted as a domain power for a particular domain, say Life or Protection.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I think the major difficulty with making a non-combatant Priest/Cleric is that the game demands that all Classes be combat worthy in some respect. You may argue that a Wizard is non-combatant, but it isn’t really as it has a whole host of combat spells to utilise. Clerics generally have defensive or healing spells in the main, but this is countered by being fairly effective combatants with weapons and armour. Take that away, and the question arises how they will cope in the regular violent situations that generally make up a D&D game. Still, I’d be interested in seeing what you came up with.

 

[ruleslawyer]

Don't know if I agree 100% with this; I think the issue with defensive/utility capability vs. offensive capability is more spotlight time than actual potency. Even if both help the party overcome challenges equally, the *player* may be less excited about the role his character is playing.

All that said, I think that a primary spellcaster cleric is capable of dishing out plenty of damage, especially if the game were to supplement defensive and utility capabilities via domain powers. The 3e cleric is actually an interesting model here; given the right domain selection and a PrC or two, you can have a cleric that has absolutely no need to ever pick up a weapon or don armor and can still deal massive damage AND provide support.

ETA: actually, the more I look at the 5e cleric the more I feel like the same emphasis is possible. In order to make a less martial default class I would just focus more on domain powers that encourage the cleric to undertake support and utility functions and allow the class to engage in some limited magical combat. Seems pretty easy.