The Cleric Pregen

[Bold or Stupid]

It seems blastier tan I expected, which isn't an entirely bad thing. However I do hope that there are some good Melee based Cleric powers as one of my regular cleric players does love her melee.

The healing looks good and the "Channel" powers like turn undead seem very cool and a nice mechanic, differentiating the Cleric from the other classes.

 

[Khaim]

But the healing and buffing seems much more useful than the relatively low area damage the wizard is shelling out. Sleep is too unreliable. With saves at the end of the creature's turn, the slow effect only really matters to melee combatants that aren't in combat already (all it does, from another thread, is lower movement to 2), and then there is a 55% chance it just ends.

While that's true, I also noticed that the Cleric's at-will powers have a range of 5, and his others have a range of 10. The Wizard, meanwhile, has a range of 20 on all but one of his spells. Given that the charge range seems to be 14, that's a big difference.

The Cleric's abilities do have nice buffs and healing and such attached to his attacks. That's roughly what I expected for a Leader. The Wizard really shouldn't have those abilities- he should have arcane utility, area spells, and long enough range that he can stay away from the front line. I think I'd like to see some single-target massive damage spells, but other than that he looks great.

 

[Kurotowa]

It seems blastier tan I expected, which isn't an entirely bad thing. However I do hope that there are some good Melee based Cleric powers as one of my regular cleric players does love her melee.

While a sun-themed Cleric is probably on the blastiest end of the class, I'd expect that for a really good melee leader you'd be better off with a Warlord. They've talked enough about how they're trying to really separate the classes, and the info on Warlords is a lot more martial oriented.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

One of the previews or something mentioned that the different builds for clerics include offensive-spell clerics, physical-combat clerics, and healing/buffing-intensive clerics. This playtest character would seem to be in that first group. Presumably, you could pick different powers to make a cleric that smites hardcore in melee, or one who spends a LOT of time buffing and healing.

 

[Nymrohd]

True, but since this is happening in 4e FR, we no longer have lawful/chaos distinctions. Also it isn't the first time someone replaces a Gods position but with a diffrent alignment.

My point is not that the replacement god is of a different alignment, Myrkul/Kelemvor and Mystra/Mystra did not bother me. The problem is that Lathander is the poster boy for good heroes, with the most popular clergy and knightly order, and my favourite god as a player (I am completely incapable of playing anything but NG (in RL as well ). Elminating him does not leave a viable Good god with not much portfolio baggage.

 

[Cadfan]

1) The cleric is my favorite pregenerated character.

2) The cleric had to lose some combat skills because the paladin exists. Its lame to have two character classes who's shtick is wearing heavy armor, carrying a shield, casting healing and boost spells and attacking with a sword. The 3e concept where one was slightly better at attack rolls and the other was slightly better at casting spells was NOT a sufficient differentiation. Not even with the free horse.

3) That means clerics had to get a bit more magical and a bit less melee.

4) Now we've got a cleric who, in my book, is as much of a fighter/mage as I've ever wanted to play. Its got social/roleplaying skills, attack spells, buffing spells, and some melee power. It does basically everything I want in a character. It can fight with a weapon in one hand and a magical foci in the other- D&D has been trying to create this character for ages, getting halfway (bladesinger) and now it actually exists.

5) But I would like to see a more melee specific build. The melee power that the pregen cleric had didn't do much for me, because it really wasn't as good as his spell powers. If I have an at will power that attacks reflex at range for damage and a rider effect, and also an at will power that attacks AC at melee reach for less damage and a weaker rider effect, I'm not going to use the melee ability much. I'd like to see a character with reason to switch between them a little more freely. There are probably easy ways to create such a character (bigger melee weapon?), but that's one of the first things I'll look for when I get the PHB.

 

[Darth Cyric]

The example Cleric is certainly impressive.

My No. 1 concern about the class in general is diversity within the class. For once, I'd like to have a Cleric class that allows you to make a flavorful, yet balanced but effective, servant of any deity, from a Sun-themed Cleric of Amaunator like the example, to a nature priest with appropriate magic, to a priest of a fire god like Kossuth, etc., etc.

The example Cleric certainly fit well as a servant of Amaunator. Hopefully we'll have Clerics that fit just as well as servants of Silvanus, hopefully with some other feature entirely besides Turn Undead being an option.

 

[Sitara]

The 3e cleric was not slightly better than the paladin at spellc asting. He was head and shoulders above and beyond.

 

[Mirtek]

2) The cleric had to lose some combat skills because the paladin exists. Its lame to have two character classes who's shtick is wearing heavy armor, carrying a shield, casting healing and boost spells and attacking with a sword. The 3e concept where one was slightly better at attack rolls and the other was slightly better at casting spells was NOT a sufficient differentiation. Not even with the free horse.

3) That means clerics had to get a bit more magical and a bit less melee.

I really hope that 4e supports the martial less magic & more melee clerics.

 

[jasin]

What are your thoughts on the cleric pregen? Seems in 4e clercis are very flashy, tossing blasts of radiant energy hither and tither, on a par with wizards. (at least, at level 1)

I don't like it.

It's good that we're stepping away from the full-plated warrior-priest. I would've preferred if clerical attack magic were more along the lines of cause fear than searing light, but I don't mind it too much.

But I really dislike the fact that there seems to be little connection between the attack and boost portions of the at-will attacks. When people complained about the silliness of the Bo9S crusader healing people by hitting other people over the head, I defended it as an abstract sort of boost to morale/will to fight: just when you think you cannot take any more, you see the crusader do his things, and suddenly, you can take that one more hit if you have to. A leader indeed.

I think the same rational would've worked for the cleric if the powers were something you could tack on to a regular attacks. Instead, each power is specific combo of an attack and a boost, so that shooting someone with holy light makes people able to take that one more hit, while hitting someone with a mace makes them better defend against that one more hit. Why? Because it's a magical ability that is defined that way, obviously, but I would've much preferred a better rational then "a wizard did it" (in this case, "a cleric did it").