D&D (2024) The Cleric should be retired

[Senior_WotC_Janitor]

The thing is there were basically no antecedents of the D&D cleric. It was based on Van Helsing plus healing magic to bring down a vampire PC in a wargame at Lake Geneva, and anything else was more or less a retcon. And although the White Mage was based on the cleric they took away the armour and the maces. They're also not just a Final Fantasy archetype, they made it through to WoW. And the longer they've been going the further they've moved away from (a) weapons and (b) armour. The second is archetypal to the cleric and the first was until 4e.

And I don't think most healing will be going with them; clerics aren't a whole lot more popular than druids and probably less than paladins. And I for one would prefer less healing in the game.

What do antecedents have to do with anything? What does something that happened in Gygax's basement in 1975 have to do with anything? What's the problem with retcons exactly? So you want to reconfigure the whole game to feature less healing because...?

 

[MGibster]

To some players, D&D's charm comes more from the ability to accommodate diverse settings than from it's own tropes.

Me: This is madness!
Players: THIS IS D&D! <kicks me down the hole>

I learned a very, very long time ago that D&D is good for running one game, D&D. That's fine, because it's very, very good at running D&D games. I kind of get the feeling as though the rules are designed to run D&D games. The rules aren't very good for diverse settings outside of it's own tropes and I came to that realization way back in 1991 when I foolishly attempted to adapt the Wheel of Time to 2nd edition. That D&D divides magic into the Divine and the Arcane is just one example of how ill suited the rules are for fantasy settings other than D&D. Attempting to adapt D&D to other non-D&D settings is a lot of work and you'd be better of with GURPS or some other system. i.e. It's a fool's errand.

Granted, this is just one person's opinion. And if it has offended you, remember it simply as a dream. That you have but slumbered here while this vision did appear.

 

[Irlo]

Which to me is a support for the OPs position. The very thing that is the RP tie for the cleric is something we don't want to hammer down but leave vague and open. So maybe that isn't a good foundation for a class.

As for me, I think the fact that the cleric class supports so many different, engaging RP concepts is the very best reason to keep it around.

 

[Muso]

I totally disagree. The cleric is one of my favourite classes.

 

[Senior_WotC_Janitor]

The Cleric class is a Gish - a full caster that is competent in melee combat. The spell schools that this class is known for are: Abjuration including Healing, Divination, Planeshifting, and Necromancy including Undead and Fiends. This is a distinctive thematic for a kind of Mage, an Astral gishy one.

The wizard class is a Gish - but one without any competency with weapons or armor. The spell schools that this class is known for are: Abjuration Evocation, Divination, Planeshifting, and Necromancy including Undead, elementals, and Fiends. This is a distinctive thematic for a kind of cleric, an Astral gishy one.

 

[Senior_WotC_Janitor]

The deepest problem with the Cleric class is its cosmological setting assumptions. Other settings need to use this core class as well.

Religion is a session zero topic, to ensure all reallife players are comfortable.

The Cleric class must allow the player to decide the sacred tradition for ones own character concept. The class requires narrative flexibility with a fluid, inclusive, and customizable approach to sacred traditions. Any kind of sacred tradition: polytheism, monism, animism, whatever.

In D&D, Divine power is the magic of the Astral Plane, including its thought stuff, alignments, concepts, symbols, paradigms, and mindcapes.

The Cleric class is a Gish - a full caster that is competent in melee combat. The spell schools that this class is known for are: Abjuration including Healing, Divination, Planeshifting, and Necromancy including Undead and Fiends. This is a distinctive thematic for a kind of Mage, an Astral gishy one.

Isn't the session zero issue also true for any character or monster that casts spells, in addition to demons, devils, djinns, and any D&D element that can be traced to real world cultures/belief systems? Why are you singling out the cleric?

As a side note, "gish" has to be most annoying unofficial D&D term ever.

 

[Stalker0]

So where does that leave the fighter?

The fighter is a generalist by definition. My point is the cleric tends to implies some religion or organization that needs to be defined. The "holy man" or "divinely chosen avatar" concepts are handled better by other classes. the paladin handles your "holy warrior" motiff.

The cleric is "the religious guy", but then you have to define the religion and the clerics interaction with that religion to specify a strong niche, otherwise...again we have other classes that just do it better.

 

[DEFCON 1]

But, 5e used 3e's level-by-level multiclassing. If you had only a handful of classes, each focused on very specific ability sets, like y'know, divine casting, arcane casting, combat, skillz, then players could mix them in the proportions they wanted to get the character they were after.
A traditional Cleric could be constructed with a lot of divine casting levels and a few combat levels, for instance.

If I wanted to play HERO System or GURPS... I'd play HERO System or GURPS.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

For how many decades and how widely known does an archetype have to be a fixture?

I understand some things in D&D are an amalgamation. What I don’t see is how that is necessarily a bad thing.

I would make the opposite argument—-that there are unique and defining things about the cleric. Turning undead, healing…now channel divinity…this is pretty specific stuff.

Other classes creeping into these areas maybe an issue but I just don’t see it.

I have had fun playing clerics since 1e and just played one this past weekend. Of all classes I see fewer problems with clerics in comparison.

The cleric is like a saint in religion girded for war. There has been drift to accommodate different directions but the basic idea is solid and archetypal. It has influenced countless games and people know what you mean when you talk about them.

I would rather see this discussion be had regarding some other classes but then again, some people like monks or whatever.

 

[aco175]

While we are at it, I want a subclass for rogues that cast cleric spells. We have Arcane Trickster, so why not? He can heal you or backstab you- call it the Holy Roller.