No more cleric. What to do?

[Bendris Noulg]

- Alternatively, I could continue to keep my friend's cleric in play, and run him as an NPC. I'm not sure I want to do that, though. The guy playing the Sorcerer runs him currently (as my friend has missed quite a few games in recent times) and could theoretically continue to do so.

I'd go with the NPC route, at least until reaching civilization or some such, mostly for continuity combined with my table-rule of one PC per player per party.

 

[Woas]

What about alternate forms of healing? You say the party is on a desolate island or some far off land. Maybe one of the characters could find a root, berry or leaf of a native plant that has healing powers. Eating it is like a cure minor wounds potion. Do any of the characters have Craft Alchemy or Profession Herbilist at all? They could create even stronger healing elixiars from these natural sources....

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Transform the cleric into some not so nasty type o' Undead, say a Ghostwalk style spirit o the cleric, and then run him as a present when necessary NPC.

Saves everyone the trouble and the character can be easily raised when/if the player returns.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

Do you have a Bard or Rogue in the party? Let the party find a Wand of Cure _______ Wounds. My group's cleric left too. Rather than forcing an NPC on them this seems to be the best way to grant party healing.

 

[Thanee]

Don't they have teleport?
Can't the wizard learn planar binding?
Potions, Wands?

There are so many ways to cover that weakness, your players should come up with ways to do so, not you.

Anyways, if the group is ok with it, why not leave the cleric there as a kind of NPC? It makes sense, that he doesn't suddenly disappear anyways. And a cleric makes a great NPC as you can give your party some nice hints, if needed, through him. If he was the battle cleric kind of front-line fighter, that's more problematic, but if he was more of a healer anyways...

Bye
Thanee

 

[der_kluge]

Let me stress the desolation part. To put it in real world terms, the PCs are on Australia before it was colonized. Oh, and remove the Aborigines.

I can't give them wands, since no one has any cure spells. Wands are spell-trigger items.

No rogues or bards - barbarian, fighter, ftr/wiz, and sor.

No, the cleric character wasn't safe, if he had died, they had access to the nymph druid, who would be able to reincarnate him if such a thing had happened.

They don't have teleport yet, and even when they get it, the range on it is not sufficient to send them anywhere remotely close to civilization.


I think I will try to see how they fare without a healer. For story reasons, I'm removing the nymph druid next game. So, I may have to think about adding in an alternate NPC as a replacement, which I had been toying with, anyway.

 

[Qualir]

Our current party does not include any PC clerics, druids, rangers, or paladins. The DM has been generous enough to place an NPC cleric with the party who always stays in town (total noncombatant) but creates potions for us to take on adventures. You could easily have the party cleric do similar.

"OK guys, the cleric has decided he is in love with the NPC druid and decides he will not leave her side. All attempts at breaking a possible enchantment/charm have failed. The cleric does feel that he owes the party a debt of gratitude for introducing him to his true love and opts to create healing potions for the party to take on their adventures. He also promises to provide further aid in the future if possible."

Effectively, the PCs have some assistantce as if they were adventuring in the vacinity of a town with a cleric. They can always return to the cleric for raising the dead and new potions, but you do not have to worry about the cleric being overly abused (he only knows what he learned with the party, he is not the NPC cannonfodder, he will not leave his true love, the PCs are not miraculously healed after each encounter).

Alternatively, you could allow the sorcerer to gain access to healing spells due to the primordal nature of the area they adventure through. I regularly allow this option when I DM so that no player feels like he/she has to play a divine spellcaster. I believe this is one reason behind Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed allowing all spellcasters access to healing magic.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Madness, have one of the players develop a split-personality, normal character and then one of a cleric, have the player roll during at time of action to see with one is in charge.

Magic Weapon with EGO and INT and levels in the class.

 

[Li Shenron]

Let me stress the desolation part. To put it in real world terms, the PCs are on Australia before it was colonized. Oh, and remove the Aborigines.

I was going to suggest to have the Cleric retire from adventuring and build up the first church of his god in this newfoundland, perhaps having been given the task by some avatar in his dreams. Then he would have still remained a friend of the party and could have brewn healing potions for half price for them.

If there are really no intelligent creatures at all in this land, there is no point in doing even that. In which case, I can only suggest one of the player to take a level in Cleric (perhaps of the same god, as some sort of continuation) and the Brew Potion or Craft Wand feat himself.

 

[Nifft]

No, the cleric character wasn't safe, if he had died, they had access to the nymph druid, who would be able to reincarnate him if such a thing had happened.

I think I will try to see how they fare without a healer. For story reasons, I'm removing the nymph druid next game. So, I may have to think about adding in an alternate NPC as a replacement, which I had been toying with, anyway.

The Nymph-Druid's obvious replacement is her apprentice (or "acolyte"), an annoyingly chipper Grig or Pixie Druid, who would be lower level than the Nymph.

The Cleric should go after the Nymph... well, any sane male PC should go after the Nymph. I mean, c'mon, she's a Nymph!

-- N