no cleric? (my players stay out)

[hong]

Sometimes its just better to let natural selection work its way and inevitably someone will die, then they'll be wondering why no one made up a cleric.

Because being the party medic is not usually a role that captures the imagination.

Looking at the cleric and druid in 3E having come from 1E-2E I dont see why anyone wouldnt want to play one,

Because they tend to get saddled with boring duties like, oh, healing people.

Just have them meet an NPC healer somewhere in the wilds, say a village of some sort. They're going to need a place where they can rest, buy supplies and do other prep stuff anyway, and it's easy enough to assume that someone there is willing to heal them.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Anyone with the ability to heal by spells can just use a Wand of Cure Light. During Combat, this will be useless for actual healing, but the Cleric can dish out damage in that time, which is usually much better. So the Bard/Cleric/Druid/Ranger/Paladin will not fall into the trap of being a "healing machine" - at least not in combat.

Anyway, even without healing abilitities, it might just become a bit more difficult, not impossible...

2alsih2o:
What kind of characters did the roll up? What level is the group.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[ForceUser]

I play a cleric in my friend's Greyhawk campaign. The character is 9th level. Yes, much of my magic goes toward healing my companions. But you know what? Clerics kick butt. If you've never played 3E to mid levels you can't imagine what a difference heals and wards and protection spells can make. I may not be the guy with the flashy sword, or the chick slinging fireballs, but I'm the guy with recitation, death ward, negative energy protection, endurance, bull's strength, etc, etc. Clerics are amazing enablers. There is so much a party with a cleric can do that a party without a cleric cannot. My DM pulls no punches, fights are often at or above CR, and I cannot conceive of a way we could have survived half of them had I not been healing and turning undead and warding off death. And hey, now that I'm 9th level I can sling a couple flame strikes, raise the dead (for the record, that is VERY handy hehe), commune with my character's diety to chip away at campaign secrets....heck, in a time of dire need I can whisk my party away to the relative safety of Elysium.

I used to be all about crapping out damage and getting my armor class as high as possible. But I gave cleric a try and I really like it. This class OWNS. If you're thinking of trying it, I say do it. No matter what hong thinks

 

[Lord Pendragon]

The thing is, most players think of a cleric, and they automatically think that they have a certain...claim...on that cleric's spells. Unlike the wizard who casts whatever he darnwell feels like, players often seem to believe that they have a right to most of a cleric's spells, in the form of cures and buffs.

So the cleric wakes up in the morning and spends half of his spells on buffs, goes into the fight and plays backup to practically everyone, then spends the other half of his spells after the fight on heals. Not exactly the most fun character concept IMO, regardless of how much more powerful everyone else was thanks to the cleric's spells.

In my experience, you have to play a cleric somewhat selfishly for it to be any fun. Put those buffs on yourself and save the spell slots for Doom and Flamestrike and things are really cooking.

Buuuuuuuuuuut. Getting back on topic, I'd suggest that someone from the city teach the PCs about a certain herb with healing properties that grows in the wild. Then allow the PCs to find however much of it you want them to have as they travel.

If you want to add an element of scarcity to it, rule that the herb needs to be made into a tea by boiling it for an hour to have curative properties...and that those same properties fade after a few days. That way they'll have to decide how much of it to prepare at any given time. Too little and they'll be hurting. Too much and they'll waste their supply.

 

[Thresher]

Because being the party medic is not usually a role that captures the imagination.

Hey Im not telling people how to make up characters but its like anything thats had a bit of imagination done to it can turn out to be enjoyable.
Clerics and Druids make great second rank fighters up next to or flanking with the main melee players, thumping away or shooting arrows. Soon as one of your tanks takes a lot of damage, step back combat cast a healing spell, continue bashing away.
Either as a single-spec cleric or multiclass for versitility there is a lot of fun to be had simply being 'the bloke who stopped the party dying' and anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together soon realises that it isnt much fun for everyone else re-rolling new characters or eating dirt when a cure wounds wasnt there.

A healing class is still a core member of any group in my opinion and the mentality of perceived as being 'dull' is their own problem. Play as a team, its why theres different classes in the first place, anyone using a cure-wounds wand to prop up a party because they havent worked out how to make a group is just asking for problems later on.
Why should PC's get a free wand of curing at low levels? Should they get a stronger item later on that lets them do a full heal, simply beacuse they all want to be the frontline hero?
You can do a lot with 3E characters, much more than you could with 2E so theres no excuse for being lazy with imagination and never an excuse for poor play and self-centered characters unless youre running a primarily Neutral or Evil game.

Dont cut anyone any slack if theyre being slack in the first place.

 

[alsih2o]

2alsih2o:
What kind of characters did the roll up? What level is the group.

well, i am against having them drag an n.p.c. along. for various reasons, the strongesy of which is i want them to succeed or fail as a team, not as a team with some npc i play helping.

as for the crew- illusionist, druid (not centered on healing), rogue and barbarian.

the barbarian is played as a true barb, speaks slow, kinda dumb. the druid is very young, the rogue is 6'6" and malnourished (160 lbs) and it is illegal to be a wizard where they are,so the illusionist isn't exactly swinging spells right and left.

these players came up with cool characters with amazing hooks and backgrounds, i feel very lucky in that regard.

they have been through 2 combats (thieves attacking pacifists and wild dogs) and a rescue scenario(children stuck on a broken ferry in a rging river) and i AMAZED at ho well they handled them (especially the ferry, it was mostly to get the used to being occasionally powerless, and they beat the problem thru good rolling and awesome roleplaying)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A Druid doesn`t need to be centered on healing - He just buys or findes a Wand of Cure Light, and your main concerns might be gone. (Oh, and Goodberrys are a good emergency meal)

It won`t help against ability damage or even drain, but at early levels, even a cleric fails in these cases, so it is not really that worse.

Both illusionist (Change/Alter Self, Invisibility) and rogue (Disguise, Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Move Silently and Hid) might help the party avoiding combat if they don`t want it.
Good combat tactics can also make up a lot.

It might still take longer for them to revocer from combats, but if that`s all, it isn`t too bad...

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[F5]

Don't rule out the idea of an NPC cleric tagging along entirely. The issue of playing the party's buff-and-heal factory being dull is negated by bringing on an NPC to take on that chore.

You'd have to do something creative with the NPC you introduce, in order to keep it from taking away from the party's accomplishments (I definitely agree that it can be a bummer for the DM to have to play a member of the party, and have to balance the "should I help them out here, or not" scenarios you'll inevetably encounter).

I wouldn't make the cleric NPC a member of the theocracy, though. With a heretical Druid, a thief, and an outlaw mage in the group, I don't think they want to be tied too closely to the status quo...

They're in the barbarian wilderness, right? Say they save the life of a wandering shaman, or something similar. For saving him, he is now honor-bound to protect the party. But his honor system has VERY specific (and often bizarre) rules about what he can and can't do for them...when you're in a situation where you feel the NPC should help, but you're compromised by DM knowlege, just have him say something like "I'm sorry, masters, honor forbids me from offering my advice here".

Just a thought.

 

[RigaMortus]

Cure Light Wound potions are only 25GP. They might want to invest in some of them.

 

[Airwolf]

That's a bummer that I couldn't get in your game, I wanted to play a cleric. I guess I should check the Gamers Seeking Gamers forum more often.