When Hook Horrors Attack!

[Voadam]

Our party cleric is a cleric 11/fighter 4 with a souped up adamantite dwarven battle-warhammer (like a bastard sword for hammers) unbuffed he does the most damage on average unless the paladin with the holy and bane sword gets going with divine might. The paladin has a very high Cha and does a lot of healing when needed and one of the PCs has fast healing from an exalted feat so he only gets healing when close to death. Most of the party has really high AC and the arcane casters are usually flying or protected by mirror images.

 

[JoeGKushner]

One of my favorite alternative priest was in one of the Player's Options book, a war priest. It's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual.

For me, I find that unless I spent a lot of feats and getting equipment focusing on combat that most of the time, the priest roll is to buff and heal the party but not be completely useless if bum rushed, say, unlike a mage who gets hit once or twice at higher levels and if effectively dead. "Yeah, you took 63 points of damage!" "Man, I'm dead!" "But dude, you're like a 10th level wizard... oh right, the d4 hit dice..."

 

[Sir ThornCrest]

Medic or combatant.....they are the best at one & 2nd best at the other

Role playing a medic is boring! Sitting back and beefing up the party agian boring, almost an NPC role. However very effective just not fun...Unless you get off on role playing "ok Its my initiative, I run up to the fighter and heal him." None of my players like it. Going pure melee is fine as long as your winning. As soon as you are over run or in trouble, you guys are dead. The Cleric cant move fast and is going to be forced to cast spells under consentration...I hate loosing spells this way!!!

Evil Clerics......bwaqaaaahhhahhahha! stand back and let it rip! A quick party booster and start after the enemy leader with those ranged touch attacks..save or die spells, pioson, Harrier, etc. Not killing mass numbers, but good against the elit core of your opponent.

Thorncrest

 

[Numion]

But back to the topic at hand...
I find it mostly depends on the player, I've seen clerics who don't even have a melee weapon because they'd rather be casting bless, even at high levels than wade into combat. On the other hand I've seen clerics who don't do any healing at all in combat, and no buffing on the rest of the party (unless it just happens to hit the whole group, like bless or prayer).

Yeah, there are two ways to go. People shouldn't IMO expect the cleric to automatically spend most of their spells for healing. Playing such a cleric would be very boring for me - I chose the class so that I could buff myself up and wade into combat. Just like a fighter does, spend my resources on being a combatant.

If people required me to play cleric differently, I'd just play the fighter then, and in either case there would be a lack of healing from me. However, as it currently is, I do some healing with my cleric - it's just not my main thing. We have Wands of Cure Light Wounds for that

 

[Evilhalfling]

I just finshed up a game playing a melee monster cleric of Grumbar (earth FR) who went from 10/ftr 1 to 14/ftr 1
healing ? Bah. He had a dire pick from arms and equip (stastics as scythe) 1d8 x4 critical, two handed, unless taken as exotic weapon - bah need more PA
for roleplaying reasons I didn't take the time domain (FR) and I admit to a bit of whining.
1 - truestrike
3 - Haste
5 - contigency
6 - permanacncy
Edit : thinking about how much he used earth powers, and that casting these would have ment more rounds of not attacking, I am happier with my domains Earth and Caverens)
It wasnt perfect as he rarely fought fully buffed, and would usually spend 1 round in 3 casting more defense/ healing. His normal fighting spells - Spell Reistance, Bull Str(HR longer duration) Magic circle vs evil, barkskin from druid, and quickend divine favor. Divine Power only if there was extra time. Rightous Might was nerfed by WoC. He only used it sucessfuly twice in the game, as it made him an instant dispel target. Most of his spells would go to party protection - death wards, energy protections, prot evil, a bull str or endurance. The druid was our back up healer with vigor spells and a healing cacoon from CD.
He never turned undead, despite many encounters with them, and only attempted direct attack spells once or twice in the campaign.

Attacking was fun, but he was just as effective when he spent a lot of time controlling the earth, giving detailed instructions to the druids Huge Earth Elementals (he spoke terran) Wall of stone to give the whole party a few moments to recover, using lesser planar alley to get xorn scouts, and of course tunneling under hostile encounters using Proffesion miner +11, and the dire badgers (sig).

Clerics of Grumbar are not allowed to fly or sail across water. This presented huge movement problems. Exaccerbated when teleports quit woking in mid campaign.
He was normally outdone by the full fighter archer, who had no movement problems or other duties.

In the last game he really came into full flower against a Balor demon we had run from 4 times previously. Getting a hit and a confirmed critical at x4 (see sig) On his last round of divine favor, he whispered a prayer (nonmagical) and he criticaled again for 101 dmg then died when the demon exploded.

 

[Gomez]

Our group (there is 7 of us and 1 GM) is running in the City of the Spider Queen. We are about 2 games from finishing it. We have two clerics. One is a geared for combat, a Cleric/War Priest and I run the other, a halfling Cleric of Larue. I heal, heal, and cast a few offensive spells but I don't think I have ever attacked in melee the entire campaign! I have had allot of fun with my role in the group and every one appreciates the healing!

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Do the priests in your campaigns act in a similar fashion, or do they go more the Divine Favour and Power and Righteous Might route?

The clerics I play tend to do a little of both--healing and fighting. With a little buffing.

The WLD group I play in has two clerics. The other one is the healer (Cleric 7 / Radiant Servant of Pelor 2) and I am the "battle cleric" (Cleric 9)--but I still have to heal sometimes.

Now that we're 9th level and more mobile (the wizard just made me some winged boots and the other cleric has a flying carpet), we can mix it up a bit. It's certainly more fun when a cleric you're playing can fill more than one role; one-trick ponies get old very fast.

 

[Pants]

One of my favorite alternative priest was in one of the Player's Options book, a war priest. It's one of the reasons I'm looking forward to Green Ronin's Advanced Player's Manual.

Does that the APM (I'm lazy...) will have something akin to the Clerical Spheres from 2nd Ed in it? I always thought that was a neat idea....

I guess it really depends upon the Cleric. There were times when my old Dwarven Cleric of Pelor would do nothing but buff and heal for entire fights (Cure spells, Bear's Endurance, Elation, Cure, Bull's Strength). There were other times when he'd spend fights bashing away.

Most of the clerics I've seen in play have defaulted to the Divine Power/Righteous Might schtick and waded straight into melee. Healing in the back of the group just isn't fun for most people I guess...

 

[Gez]

This is somehow a very common tactic that is just not supposed to work.

If I may be allowed a bit of rule-lawyerismness here, it says you need your hands free to climb, but doesn't say anything about just clinging onto the surface without moving.

As I can think of plenty of examples where you needs all four limbs to move, but can use your hands as you wish if you don't move (like for climbing in a tree), I have no problems with people using that tactic.

 

[MerricB]

Extrapolating your DM's understanding, that means that you get to enjoy fighting 165 more hook horrors (33 x 5 remaining rooms.)

Enjoy....

Indeed. And, during that session, we actually slew 66 of the nasties. The second time round we knew about them in advance, my wizard had four fireballs prepared (including a Sudden Widened fireball), and the barbarian had bought a +5 buckler and had gained the Buckler Defense feat...

For those interested, the first combat took 18 rounds, the second 8 rounds.

I then persuaded the DM that it'd be boring to do it again, and the rest of the Horrors just vanished.

Cheers!