No more cleric. What to do?

[diaglo]

the cleric has a vision from his deity. he goes wandering the wilderness in search of special herbs/focus. finds it/them. then establishes a church on the spot. if you build it, they will come....other faithful find his church

does the Cleric's Player still have access to email? maybe he can still be an active part of the campaign thru email?

 

[scholz]

You have several choices it seems to me. Here are a few.
1. Add a new PC. Just advertize "Seeking Cleric" then no one has a complaint when he or she joins the game. If the party is out in the wilderness, so could another party, so that is not really a problem. D&D games are full of coincidences.
2. Add an NPC, just like above, this could be the sole survivor of another adventuring party (not necessarily a good sign in a healer, lol), or someone else sent out there for some reason. Monster healers like Unicorns, Celestials and others can be interesting, especially if they can come and go.
3. You can space out encoutners more so the players have a chance to rest for a few days between big fights. You might also reduce the CRs they encounter until they get a healer. A high level party without healing might think twice before fighting the small band of ogres. That is just a new challenge. It also might encourage people to take Fast Healing as a feat.
4. Encourage one or more of them to take a level of a healing class (one form of encouragement would be finding a staff of curing, or wand of cure serious wounds). We had a group who all decided to take a single level of cleric, it really helped us with the healing situation.
5. You have a rogue. Depending on his Use Magic Device skill, he might be able to use some healing items. It would add a level of uncertainty to the game that might be fun.
6. Introduce a new intelligent item that can heal, but requires certain sorts of behavior or tasks from the party. It could be a singing harp, a paladins sword, or anything really. You get some of the benefits of an NPC without having to worry about what it is doing every round. An intelligent item can add to the game without giving the players a freebie.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Another idea I proposed to my group was the idea of the non-combatant Cleric. Basically, the Cleric was an NPC who would stay behind the party and under no circumstances would he/she get involved in combat (I wouldn't even put out a mini). If the party gets wiped out then it is assumed that the Cleric ran off before he could be captured. The same goes if the party got captured. If at some point a captured party freed themselves then the Cleric would come back stating that he had wandered around until he found them. In the end, such a Cleric is simply a healing device. I did however subtract half a share of XP from the party for using a mechanic such as this (Ex: with 4 players in an encounter for 400 xp, the NPC Cleric would get 50 xp and the remaining 350 would be split among the 4 players.). Not a whole lot but I figure such a mechanic would encourage the players to seek an alternative form of healing in the future.

 

[Shadeus]

There's always a way.

As for how to get the cleric out, there is always plane shift which the cleric has access to. I'm sure there's a hundred reasons that he has to leave immediately. Perhaps his god's home plane in under attack and the deity is gathering his/her followers to him and has to immediately plane shift there. All non-believers will be killed so the party cannot follow.

Time on the god's plane flows different and maybe the cleric character performs from great act (a day on the Prime, but a month on the other plane) and gets rewarded. The god can send some kind of intelligent rod that performs several "clerical" functions like healing, restoration, or raising the dead. How does the item get there? Well, its a gift from the PC cleric and the god...so maybe through a dream. That might be a good short encounter. Have the characters meet in a dream and have the PC cleric give one of the characters the rod.

Why an item? It gives the DM a change to be a real pain. You can make the item as surly as you want, but maybe incredibly smart and sarcastic. "The dwarf is dead AGAIN?!? Please....don't waste my magic on her. Just let her rot there...smells a good bit better anyway." Or it could demand prayer sessions to the god to work, etc.

And then if you add a PC cleric in the future, well, obviously the rod is insanely jealous and demands either the new guy goes or the obnoxious stick is going to stop working.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Though it may well strain believability, in a last-ditch effort, you can always add a new player and use the "poof" method.

"Poof" Elboar the cleric has been with you all this time.

 

[der_kluge]

All good suggestions. I think I'll just play it by ear and see what happens. Thanks, all.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Just this weekend, my cleric of Pelor appeared to the party in a beam of light shortly after my last character died.

Of course, she's half-celestial, so it wasn't *too* cheesy.

 

[Mac Callum]

Summon Monster VI (which your Sorcerer should be high enough level to cast, although he might have to wait a level) can summon a Bralani, which can cast Cure Serious Wounds 2/day. Not great, but SM6 is a good spell anyway, and it helps.

A more dangerous route would be a Planar Binding (lesser or otherwise). Many other-planar creatures have healing abilities. I'm not sure what your players might have to offer such a creature, but a single scroll, successfully implemented, might get them a healer.

 

[Philip]

I don't think healing/curing is going a big problem, you will adapt easily enough. You don't need a cleric to heal, everyone does that naturally. I'd be more wary of disease, curses, ability and level drain. If you keep the dangers that absolutely require a cleric to a minimum it should go smoothly.

 

[Saracor]

As an alternative to the *poof* mode is to create an adventure when the new player joins of a reality shift (ala Yesterday's Enterprise). Something happens (which you could lead up to on the last game of the leaving player) that shifts reality. The new one has the new player and everyone thinks he's been there all along. They could then realize something is wrong and try to figure it out but never be able to change back to the old character.

Gives them a story for the change and a mystery to figure out as well as gets a new character in play immediately and trusted.