Strength Clerics Getting Away With Warpriest Domains

[ourchair]

The way I see it, the frustration that comes from STR Clerics as well as the Paladin, is that the PHB isn't really well written in how it advises new players on how to get started with it, or isn't particularly consistent about it.

I got started role-playing on 4e (despite having purchased Marvel Super Heroes and WEG Star Wars two decades ago and never getting the chance to use them ) and it's weird.

It's like they tell you "Rogues! DEX should be your primary stat and make STR yr secondary if yr Brutal or CHA if yr Artful!" and all such stuff like that but the Paladins and Clerics don't really make it clear why you're prioritizing certain stats.

As such, many people I know have played Paladins and Clerics who fall behind players wo play classes that are easy to grok mathematically (Fighters and Wizards) because they spread out their attributes too thinly, not realizing -- because the PHB never thought to mention it -- that spreading those stats thin can put you at a disadvantage.

That problem has never been damaging in most of our groups' games mostly because the DM deliberately chooses to fudge the numbers on the fly, but if people who are playing the game RAW and alongside Optimizers like myself, it can be tough.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Feats which give the right to swap a power have always been a sub-par choice to me. Not only do you pay a feat, you have to give up a power you already have. Its like paying twice, and is one of the major reasons multi-classing is so naf.

It is by its very nature a highly situational kind of thing. A power swap is usually a bad deal, but there are many cases where it is instead actually rather scarily good. There's little way to really balance that. Most players simply won't power swap. A few will and can get some very nice goodies out of it.

The way I see it, the frustration that comes from STR Clerics as well as the Paladin, is that the PHB isn't really well written in how it advises new players on how to get started with it, or isn't particularly consistent about it.

I got started role-playing on 4e (despite having purchased Marvel Super Heroes and WEG Star Wars two decades ago and never getting the chance to use them ) and it's weird.

It's like they tell you "Rogues! DEX should be your primary stat and make STR yr secondary if yr Brutal or CHA if yr Artful!" and all such stuff like that but the Paladins and Clerics don't really make it clear why you're prioritizing certain stats.

As such, many people I know have played Paladins and Clerics who fall behind players wo play classes that are easy to grok mathematically (Fighters and Wizards) because they spread out their attributes too thinly, not realizing -- because the PHB never thought to mention it -- that spreading those stats thin can put you at a disadvantage.

That problem has never been damaging in most of our groups' games mostly because the DM deliberately chooses to fudge the numbers on the fly, but if people who are playing the game RAW and alongside Optimizers like myself, it can be tough.

Yeah, I think the problem was that in the PHB1 era of design the devs somehow deluded themselves into believing that players would build 'V' type classes with one of the prime stats at say 18 and then the other at say 16 and they would play a kind of mix with mostly powers of the stronger stat and some of the weaker. I think they also entirely underestimated the degree to which people would optimize. The game was designed around generalized characters, not optimized ones.

This comes out pretty clearly with the cleric where if you build a character with say 18 STR and 16 WIS or vice-versa you can build something a lot like the old AD&D cleric. The problem there was the cleric is actually a pretty odd beast. It doesn't correspond to ANYTHING in literature or myth for one thing. So first of all people really had no strong reason except tradition to make something similar to old-style clerics. Instead they made laser clerics, which at least correspond more closely to say a 'Van Helsing' type. The STR cleric really has little to draw from and as essentially a 'holy warrior' is pretty obviously overlapping the (equally confusedly designed) paladin.

 

[Zaphling]

it would be just fine if they made the clerics start out with wisdom on everything.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Yeah, I think the problem was that in the PHB1 era of design the devs somehow deluded themselves into believing that players would build 'V' type classes with one of the prime stats at say 18 and then the other at say 16 and they would play a kind of mix with mostly powers of the stronger stat and some of the weaker. I think they also entirely underestimated the degree to which people would optimize. The game was designed around generalized characters, not optimized ones.

Although I don't know if I'd use a word as strong as 'delusional', I do think your point is absolutely correct. I think they genuinely believed towards the beginning that people would spread their ability scores out more in order to help with their defenses and their skills, and thus have two stat paths for the two divine classes made more sense at the time.

It was only several months to a year in when it seemed like everyone immediately was going for 20s in prime stat with +3 prof weapons when possible that reality set in. Optimizers came to the conclusion that Attack bonus was the end-all-and-be-all of numbers, and that having that as high as could be trumped any advantage gained by keeping other numbers competitive. Add to that the problem of the V classes having half as many usable powers for their stat as A classes (thus reducing by 50% the chance of getting that one uber-power that trumped all others in its level bracket) and you have the disparity growing even larger. And finally... as time went on and the emphasis of the D&D design really all became about the combat encounter (with the non-combat aspects of the game like skill challenges, rituals, and fluff taking a backseat to more powers, delves, and dungeon tiles), it only confirmed what most of us already knew... the Attack bonus of your D&D character was king.

But the thing is... I don't think we can blame WotC for thinking this way. I know at the very beginning I would never imagine that Attack bonus was the most important stat over all others, and obviously no one else did either. If anyone at WotC or amongst all the playtesters had any inkling that this was true... we never would have seen the Power Attack feat as it's currently designed. We also would never have seen Twin Strike as it is. Nor would the warlord's Lead The Attack become so much more obviously overpowered than it was (before it got nerfed).

It's easy for us to look back at it now and claim that WotC "should have known" or that more playtesting would have discovered it... but I really think that's us looking at hindsight with not just 20/20, but 20/10 vision.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Although I don't know if I'd use a word as strong as 'delusional', I do think your point is absolutely correct. I think they genuinely believed towards the beginning that people would spread their ability scores out more in order to help with their defenses and their skills, and thus have two stat paths for the two divine classes made more sense at the time.

It was only several months to a year in when it seemed like everyone immediately was going for 20s in prime stat with +3 prof weapons when possible that reality set in. Optimizers came to the conclusion that Attack bonus was the end-all-and-be-all of numbers, and that having that as high as could be trumped any advantage gained by keeping other numbers competitive. Add to that the problem of the V classes having half as many usable powers for their stat as A classes (thus reducing by 50% the chance of getting that one uber-power that trumped all others in its level bracket) and you have the disparity growing even larger. And finally... as time went on and the emphasis of the D&D design really all became about the combat encounter (with the non-combat aspects of the game like skill challenges, rituals, and fluff taking a backseat to more powers, delves, and dungeon tiles), it only confirmed what most of us already knew... the Attack bonus of your D&D character was king.

But the thing is... I don't think we can blame WotC for thinking this way. I know at the very beginning I would never imagine that Attack bonus was the most important stat over all others, and obviously no one else did either. If anyone at WotC or amongst all the playtesters had any inkling that this was true... we never would have seen the Power Attack feat as it's currently designed. We also would never have seen Twin Strike as it is. Nor would the warlord's Lead The Attack become so much more obviously overpowered than it was (before it got nerfed).

It's easy for us to look back at it now and claim that WotC "should have known" or that more playtesting would have discovered it... but I really think that's us looking at hindsight with not just 20/20, but 20/10 vision.

Yeah, having been somewhat involved in various game designs and hacked together a few myself I am not one to find much fault with WotC's devs. I think what happens is you get into a certain culture of playing. So probably in early incarnations 4e played well in a 'spread it out' kind of style of character development. That might also have been related to play style of the main devs too. As things got tweaked in various directions they just tended to continue to play in the same way. Playtesting with other groups is a great theory, but it has to overlap with development, so you never really know how much weight playtest reports should have when things have shifted some in the meantime, etc. Plus at some point you just end up having to put some stakes in the ground so you can get on with the rest of the product. Then 90% of the way through for whatever reason various changes happen, and you never really know how the final game is going to play, no matter how much time you spend developing it.

I think cleric and the paladin in general though definitely had some issues with concept. Is a cleric an armored holy warrior, or is he a bad-assed preaching man wielding divine power through his holy symbol? Even the whole V shaped thing aside it seems like they should have narrowed the concept to one or the other. Chaladin simply never made sense to me at all. I mean the guy is a PALADIN, shiny plate armor, big sword, fire and brimstone, etc. What does the chaladin build actually portray? Again might have been best as an A shaped STR primary class with WIS/CHA riders. The whole "17 CHA" thing got them hung up there and it didn't quite come out.

 

[Zaphling]

I remember the time asking people how does a paladin damage someone with his weapon using charisma. Then we got to the excuse of hitting them with style or the gods power channeled. actually until now, i can't full explain how they attack with charisma in heavy armor and so so.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I remember the time asking people how does a paladin damage someone with his weapon using charisma. Then we got to the excuse of hitting them with style or the gods power channeled. actually until now, i can't full explain how they attack with charisma in heavy armor and so so.

I can live with that aspect of it, but it just seemed unneeded. Paladin is a warrior, so why not have his powers all be STR based? Just would have made a lot more design sense, and the 'channeling divine power' aspect can be easily covered by secondaries and class features.

It would have resulted in a LOT less material being needed as well. 2 A shaped classes, then there'd have been a much simpler situation with the e-class for clerics as well. No 'stranded' redundant STR cleric, a lot cleaner paladin class, and again when they did the e-classes for paladin they could be a lot more directly compatible with the core paladin.

I admit to having a bit of a fondness for the concept of 'V' classes, but it just didn't turn out well in practice.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I remember the time asking people how does a paladin damage someone with his weapon using charisma. Then we got to the excuse of hitting them with style or the gods power channeled. actually until now, i can't full explain how they attack with charisma in heavy armor and so so.

Well, actually, weren't most (if not all) the Charisma-based paladin attacks all ranged prayers? So the theory was those melee attacks that were weapon-based used STR, while those that were ranged spell-effects were CHA.

And I imagine that was the same reasoning used with the clerics... all the weapon-based cleric melee attacks were STR, and all the ranged spell-effect prayers were Wisdom. And had there been a melee arcane class in PHI, I imagine it would have used STR or DEX for its melee attacks as well.

It was only with the advent of PHII and the complaints that they received in regards to the V class conundrum that they finally said 'ah screw it' and just made Avenger weapon powers use Wisdom rather than STR or DEX, even if it seemed hard to explain why a melee weapon attack would use WIS (likewise a Swordmage's melee weapon attack using INT).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, actually, weren't most (if not all) the Charisma-based paladin attacks all ranged prayers? So the theory was those melee attacks that were weapon-based used STR, while those that were ranged spell-effects were CHA.

And I imagine that was the same reasoning used with the clerics... all the weapon-based cleric melee attacks were STR, and all the ranged spell-effect prayers were Wisdom. And had there been a melee arcane class in PHI, I imagine it would have used STR or DEX for its melee attacks as well.

It was only with the advent of PHII and the complaints that they received in regards to the V class conundrum that they finally said 'ah screw it' and just made Avenger weapon powers use Wisdom rather than STR or DEX, even if it seemed hard to explain why a melee weapon attack would use WIS (likewise a Swordmage's melee weapon attack using INT).

Yeah, chaladin powers are all close or ranged pretty much. That made it just that much more bizarre, the only really viable paladin build doesn't use a weapon and is basically a spell caster. Sure didn't jibe with any sort of paladin from any other edition at all, nor with anything from source material. I can swallow classes like Avenger or Swordmage using non-physical stats with a weapon, but a paladin that is an implement using caster with ranged powers? Better to have the paladin attack using WIS using a weapon, at least it fits the concept of a warrior...

Man I so wish I could cart a pile of 4e books and my play experience back to 2007 and tell those guys "DON'T DO THAT!!!" lol.

 

[mneme]

Yeah, chaladin powers are all close or ranged pretty much.

Not really.

There are no at will ranged or close paladin powers.

There are seven at will chr melee paladin powers (including 1-3 from every source--yes, including PHI).
There are 32 encounter melee paladin powers (again, including examples from PH1.
There are 18 daily melee paladin powers (next verse, same as the first).

And, of course, weapon close powers support melee builds -- though -those- are really rare; chr weapon close powers are unheard of in the Heroic tier until Divine Power, and there are 4 each (total) among encounter and daily powers.

(that said, Strength paladins don't have many weapon close powers either).

I think, overall, that they realized that Strength paladins were a mistake as produced (while chr paladins had everything except a decent basic, str paladins were not only missing a class feature (or MADing to get it); they were also missing the "occasional ranged attack" that Chr paladins could manage); they eventually basically threw Str paladins a few bones to get them a decent (or great, for half-orc paladins) Divine Challenge and Ardent Strike, plus enough powers that you could actually make a Str paladin at all levels, then ignored them. Chr paladins did have a big set of choices to make until they developed a way to use a weapon as an implement, particularly as they -couldn't- ignore their weapon entirely, but they were basically fine.

And, of course, the whole divide was artifical and a bad idea, but that's another question. But I question the idea that they had a big problem with non-weapon stats being used with weapons until PH2, as opposed to them not letting go of the double-main stat idea until then. Paladins were using Chr for weapon attacks from day 1, and FR included two Int-main-stat weapon wielders, Artificers and Swordmages. Warlocks got to join the game extremely early with Eldritch Strike -- although the weapon wielding warlock was then completely abandoned until the Hexblade.

I think the reason they made 4e paladins Chr based was inspiration from 3.5. 3.5 paladins tended to have an -extremely- high Chr -- as Chr added directly to their saves, added to-hit on smites, determined Lay on Hands, and determined Turning -- making it a more important stat than their other main stats (Str, Wisdom, and, of course, Con). So it made sense to recast them as Chr-based (just not in combination with also having them be Str based)