Who else dosn't like clerics?

[Harm]

This is only true at very high levels. If your campaigns top out at say, 12th, then you really don't need any of that sort of healing.

A 9th level mage will hit the party for 54 damage with a maxed fireball or flamestrike or what have you. Thats over 200 damage to the party. A CR 11 dragon can do over 50 damage to one target easily. Neither of those are "things that you shouldn't be fighting" by 10th-12th level.

IME, clerical healing isn't needed even at higher levels. It's called RUNNING AWAY. When that big critter bites you within a single round of damage of dying, LEAVE. The only reason you need a cleric to toss in so many hit points is if you stay fighting something that you shouldn't be.

By 15th level d10/d12 PCs are breaking 200 HP and by 20th they're pushing 300. More importantly clerics at 15 can do roughly 10 level 6+ spells/day. So NOT EVEN COUNTING metamagic or 1-5th level spells a CR appropriate combat should burn about 2 heals (20%) at level 15, i.e. the party will suffer about 300 damage. 300 damage is enough to kill 2 party members. So... either you have an effective healer, or you're fighting monsters well below the appropriate CR, or your DM is gimping monsters, or people are dying every combat.

 

[Henry]

300 damage is enough to kill 2 party members. So... either you have an effective healer, or you're fighting monsters well below the appropriate CR, or your DM is gimping monsters, or people are dying every combat.

But that healer doesn't have to be a cleric. It needs to be a healer, but not a cleric, if the class is not to your liking.

 

[brehobit]

I find that at lower levels (1-8 or so) wands of CLW do the trick fairly well. My 5th level party now has a wand of CMW and a staff of life (you can guess the adventure) with 6 charges. They just added a cleric, but didn't really need one for healing. (Did for spells, before this the only caster was the 5th level ranger...)

Mark

 

[GreatLemur]

I share a lot of folks' misgivings about the Cleric. They're obviously overpowered, and personally I think helping the other PCs is enough fun that you don't need to be bribed to do it. I can't be alone in thinking it's as much fun to save somebody's ass as it is to hand it to them. There are people who will happily play so-called support classes without this kind of imbalance.

Also, the Cleric's martial focus always struck me as weird and inappropriate. There really needs to be a divine Wizard-equivalent out there, with low BAB, little to no armor, and more spells (and the Cloistered Cleric doesn't really pull that off, although it is a cool variant).

For that matter, can anyone give me a flavor justification for why Clerics aren't spontaneous casters? Because I literally can't think of one.

And then, of course, there's the whole weird bit of flavor-turned-mechanic that says that divine magic = healing and undead-wrangling. In my opinion, divinely-powered classes ought to be hugely customizable, to reflect the diversity of the gods behind them. Meanwhile, I don't really dig the idea that arcane magic--which can turn people into toads, for chrissakes--somehow just cannot close up people's wounds. There no logic, there, just archetype protection.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Arcana Evolved - no clerics, no problems. Healing spells are simple spells, so if you can cast, you can heal. It works incredibly well.

 

[Wraith-Hunter]

I share a lot of folks' misgivings about the Cleric. They're obviously overpowered, and personally I think helping the other PCs is enough fun that you don't need to be bribed to do it. I can't be alone in thinking it's as much fun to save somebody's ass as it is to hand it to them. There are people who will happily play so-called support classes without this kind of imbalance.

Also, the Cleric's martial focus always struck me as weird and inappropriate. There really needs to be a divine Wizard-equivalent out there, with low BAB, little to no armor, and more spells (and the Cloistered Cleric doesn't really pull that off, although it is a cool variant).

For that matter, can anyone give me a flavor justification for why Clerics aren't spontaneous casters? Because I literally can't think of one.

And then, of course, there's the whole weird bit of flavor-turned-mechanic that says that divine magic = healing and undead-wrangling. In my opinion, divinely-powered classes ought to be hugely customizable, to reflect the diversity of the gods behind them. Meanwhile, I don't really dig the idea that arcane magic--which can turn people into toads, for chrissakes--somehow just cannot close up people's wounds. There no logic, there, just archetype protection.

And if there was no archetype protection then there would be no reason to prohibit wizards from casting in plate mail and the world would be over run with wizards casting in full plate!! The sky is falling.

Seriously it seems like the game designers are stuck on making a Templar (much better word than cleric) mandatory for a party, which is dumb, options not restrictions..... And keeping wizards out of plate mail.

If a wizard wants to spend the feats or multi class to be able to wear plate so be it. Want to make that choice harder. Give Light and Med armor to martial characters at 1st. Then at 2nd or 3rd give them Heavy. Most fighters and the like can't affort heavy armor till level 2 or 3 anyway. Problem solved. A wizard that wants to give up 2-3 levels of spell casting for fighting ability or give up 3 feats for it SHOULD be able to wear it.

Want to make it even less likely make mage armor universal school. and Add in a greater mage armor with a personal range as a 3rd level spell with an 8hr duration. Bingo no more plate wearing wizards. Why spend cash and wear heavy armor when you can cast a spell for the same protection.

Enforce fatigue penalties for sleeping in med and heavy armor = no recovered spells.

Not every needs or wants a bard or ranger or sorcerer. But they make nice compliments when they are there. No reason that cleric should be different.

Nearly every fantasy book I have read wizards can heal. Devout characters are fine, but should be a nice compliment to the party not required.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

And if there was no archetype protection

It wouldn't be D&D anymore, I think. D&D lives off its classes - well-defined roles with certain powers and all that.

 

[Bladesong]

Love, hate?! Strong words.
For the last 20 years I have only had the chance to run a handful of characters, as I am usually the GM. As a player, I do not care if there are clerics or not, and I have no problem running one. In my campaigns, however, we do not use them. The gods do not take an active role in the affairs of the world.
Long story (as short as possible) there is magic; Druids use magic differently from Wizards. Wizards have "lay healing" spells meaning they heal x amount of damage, but take on half of x as non-lethal damage. Druid healing cures a set amount of damage per their level. We also use a converted version of the old Iron Crown herbal healing rules in conjunction with the Healing and Knowledge: Nature skills (which makes them more useful).
No clerics also makes undead more "frightful", which they should be anyway.
It has been working fine for us for a looong time.
As far as clerics go, use 'em if you like 'em; don't if you don't.

 

[Jawar]

«In my opinion, divinely-powered classes ought to be hugely customizable, to reflect the diversity of the gods behind them»

In my campaign, the Druid represents the "cleric" for the God of Nature, as well as the Healer (Miniatures Handbook) represents the "cleric" for a Lawful Good bearing-no-arms sort of Deity.

In all other deities we try to make minor tweaks to represent all sorts of cleric typos.
Another tweak in our campaign is to get the clerics from the main god of magic to take some wizard levels (eventually some sorcerer levels) and to take the Mystic Theurge PrC.

The game is already pretty costumizable, if you want to.

Still, I agree that the cleric is overpowered.
And the druid moreso.

 

[Bad Paper]

You do not need clerics in 3E.

You really don't. Between Druids, Favored Souls, Binders (Tome of Magic), Bards, Rangers, Paladins, Cure light wounds wands, and even Generous natural healing rules, The need for cleric as band-aid has NEVER BEEN LOWER in the game of D&D.

Tell that to the druid in my campaign who was forced into the role of healer. She hated it. Finally the monk got irretrievably killed and that player graciously generated a new cleric--as a favor--so that the druid could finally go back to being a druid. {which is its own problem}

You do need damnable clerics in this game. It really sucks.

For my next campaign one of the house rules I'm mulling over is giving clerics only 1/2 BAB. Ideally I would also strip off one spell per level, give them no more than medium armor proficiency, and kick them in the nards for good measure. But I think I'll just start with the BAB fix.