I've seen both in my Land of the Nine Swords campaign, where I'm the poor DM that had to try challenging them with enemies (game's on hiatus for a few months right now). Two dead dragons, several dead frost giants, countless dead orcs and zombies, several dead shadows, a few dead clerics of Nerull, and countless dead martial adepts of various sorts later, and I finally managed to challenge the cleric on two occasions and get him killed.
Not on purpose, in the killing part that is, but those were the only two times he was actually challenged. Once when a big fight got him killed by a lucky martial adept (I forget which one), and a second time when an old white dragon surprised him by bursting out of the frozen river at his back, while he made the mistake of not healing and buffing himself after the first round of attacks.
The first time, he was revived by an earlier Wish the lucky bum got from the Deck of Many Things. The second time, since he was caught without his buffs active and chose to fight instead of heal himself, he fell from the dragon's full-attack which got one or two crits and several normal hits, then the party shot the cleric's Necklace of Fireballs and horribly burned the dragon (incinerating the cleric's unconscious body, in the process). The dragon died one round later because it was so crippled by the Necklace exploding.
That cleric normally started every fight buffed up with Righteous Might, Shield of Faith, Divine Power, and Divine Favor, and sometimes a Bless or Spiritual Weapon thrown into the fight for good measure. Whenever the party had a battle that they weren't prepared for (the occasional ambush), the cleric just buffed himself up in 1 or 2 rounds since he prepared Quickened versions of SoF and DF. He was also half-bronze-dragon and half-human. His Strength was ginormous when buffed up, and he used Power Attack frequently. With his buffs active, he always had an AC in the 30s (or the 20s when unbuffed), and his hit points were decent (not great, due to his half-dragon Level Adjustment, but Constitution was his 2nd-highest stat, Wisdom 3rd-highest).
He beat the crud out of just about everything, and only the dragons had a decent chance of hitting him on a regular basis. He was quite noticeably the most powerful PC in the group, in every fight, since he almost never missed and was only occasionally injured, dealing huge damage every time that he struck something. Since stuff died so quickly most of the time that he engaged it in melee, he didn't have to worry about healing as often.
After his second death, he decided he'd try a slightly different character, and has made up a monk/warblade/kensei or somesuch. But the cleric was often the most obvious beat-stick around, ignoring most enemies as ineffectual against him.
The party also has a druid, multiclassed as a Nature Warrior for the improvements to Wild Shape. He changes shape in every battle and buffs up both himself and his animal companion (a polar bear), and usually summons an earth elemental or fire elemental to help out too. Then him and his minions go beat the stuffing out of some monsters/NPCs.
In some battles, though, he just has his animal companion fight while he Flame Strikes the bejeezus out of stuff, then moves in to heal the animal companion whenever it's in trouble, sometimes Wild Shaping into a polar bear to flank and maul stuff in tandem.
He heals, he fights, he nukes, he buffs, he tanks, and he still has some utility left over. He hasn't been killed yet, and though he gets more seriously injured than the cleric (lower AC and less damage output, but more crowd control), he has the highest HP in the party from his maxed-out Constitution and good HP rolls each level, plus minions to keep enemies away whenever he needs to heal himself.
The party's aasimar sorcerer 4/swordsage 7/Jade Phoenix Mage 2 (with Adaptive Style, natch) has managed to rival the cleric in AC (and goes invisible quite often), but has been less accurate, less damaging, and slightly less durable. He expends many a 2nd-level spell on Arcane Wrath for improved attack and damage rolls, and focuses on Diamond Mind and Desert Wind maneuvers for the damage output, greater accuracy, and higher AC (it helps that the campaign is in the frosty northlands, so there are plenty of Cold monsters about).
He has a few maneuvers from other disciplines, like Cloak of Deception, and generally uses Pearl of Black Doubt or Stance of Clarity combined with occasional Zephyr Dance, so he's basically walking around with Immunity to Everything Lower-Level Than Himself. At least, everything except the occasional spellcaster who gets past his saving throws and energy resistances.
He survives better than the cleric (since the cleric only heals when he's in dire need of it or when battle is over), but does relatively little of use in combat, besides draw some attention to himself and slowly slug it out with enemy martial adepts. He has his glorious moments sometimes, but his fights are always much slower than the cleric's, and more tactical. He does wear down enemies, but hasn't been able to reliably hit any of the NPCs I've had to send against the cleric in order to challenge that cleric. Anything less was nothing but mulch before the cleric's sword, a brief speedbump on his rampage.
The party's archer (half-bronze-dragon half-human fighter/order of the bow initiate, sister of the cleric), mage (human sorcerer/air elemental savant), rogue (halfling rogue/fighter), and tank (human fighter)?
They weren't really notable by comparison, though the archer did have the highest accuracy in the group (with mediocre damage output), and the mage was useful once or twice when he wasn't flinging Magic Missiles, Acid Arrows, and other nonsense (for whatever reason, he didn't use his big spells very often, though sometimes it was just because of other PCs charging into a chaotic melee with enemies, and he didn't want to nuke allies with area spells).
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
