Elder-Basilisk
First Post
stevelabny said:
That's only true to the extent that the player wants it to be true and (partially) to the extent that he focusses his character at character creation. For instance, consider the following four clerics that one of my friends and I play in various Living Campaigns:
Cleric A: 1/2 orc Bbn 1/Clr 11 Strength and Luck domains. Power Attack, Cleave, Quicken Spell, Extra Rage, Craft Wondrous Item.
Str 18, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 6, Wis 17, Cha 6
Cleric B: human Clr 8/Radiant Servant of Pelor 5 Sun and strength domains. Power Attack, Extra Turning, Divine Metamagic, Craft Wondrous Item, Quicken Spell, Leadership.
Str 14, Dex 9, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 19, Cha 12
Cleric C (cohort): val'Holryn (val'Sheem bloodline powers) Cleric 8: Legionaire, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Spell Penetration.
Str 8, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 19, Cha 13
Cleric D: human Clr 4/Church Inquisitor 1. Glory and Purification domains. Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration, Augment Healing.
Str 10, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 17, Cha 14
Cleric A is obviously focussed heavily on combat. From character design, he's pretty much unable to turn undead usefully. However, if the party lacks a healing or support cleric, he's quite able to start casting Heal spells and leave the bashing to someone else. With a good periapt of wisdom, he is also able to prepare offensive spells like flame strike, greater command, blade barrier, etc if he wants to. So, he can be a fighter, healer, or mage depending upon how he feels.
Cleric B is more of a classic cleric. At low levels, he would often cast a few healing spells and wade in with his melee weapon. When he was 5th level, he would usually summon a celestial bison first. At 9th level, he started casting flame strikes. Now, he usually defaults to playing support and artillery--casting recitation and blade barrier, fire seeds, and flame strike, but if an enemy comes within a five foot step of him, he's perfectly happy to grip his greatsword, activate his strength domain power, cast a quickened divine favor, activate his bracers of the swift strike and his belt of one mighty blow and go to town on them. He can go from turning to blasting to applying the melee beatdown on a round by round basis.
Cleric C is another focussed cleric like cleric A, but her focus is on healing and spellcasting. Phantasmal Killer, Bestow Curse, and Spectral Hand to deliver a poison spell are her bread and butter. But, if she needed to, she could cast Divine Power and be a capable if unexceptional melee combatant. And, she can easily go from her standard array of save or screw/save or die spells to healing/support spells at a moment's notice.
Cleric D is also focused on magic but is quite capable of switching the kind of magic he uses on a day by day basis. And, if he really needs to, he can buy a better weapon (currently he uses a non-masterwork club) and prep some spells to make himself capable in melee.
Hmm. Best spell at every level? That really depends upon what you want to do. For the low levels, there are a lot of ones that you can use effectively:
1. Command (a favorite of cleric D), Cause Fear, Divine Favor, Protection from Evil, Bless, Cure Light Wounds, Magic Weapon, Shield of Faith, Remove Fear, Resurgence (CD), Nimbus of Light
2. Bull's Strength, Calm Emotions (a favorite of cleric C), Sound burst, spiritual weapon, hold person, remove paralysis, resist energy, divine vengeance (CD)
3. Summon Monster III, Magic Circle vs. Evil, Dispel Magic, Searing Light, Prayer, Bestow Curse, Remove Blindness
This is a rather bizarre series of contentions. The bad bit about a non-crazy cleric is that he has limited personal options... as opposed to the "zealot paladin" or the crazy cleric. One would think that the sane cleric has more options than the insane one. The same is true for having "already decided what he believes."
That is even more the case for the characters you say you have no problem with. After all, the supposed craziness of the paladin you describe is his certitude. A character who is not "crazy" in the same sense would presumably not display more certitude but would display less certitude or display the same certitude differently. One could also argue that certitude provides a wider range of characters than doubt. To play a character who has not decided any of what he believes is really the more limiting option. After all, there are many things one can believe and many ways one can believe them, but the only way to be undecided is to be... undecided. To pick a religious example, one could believe in reincarnation, the transmigration of souls, that death is the end of consciousness, in a judgement after death, in a resurrection followed by judgement, or many other things, but to not have decided what you believe is always to have not decided.
But that is something of a moot point. Most people have already decided what they believe in certain contexts. (You obviously have personally "already decided what you believe" but I doubt you think that has cut off your options for personal development). And equally, most people--including most religious people--have many areas of life where they have not decided what they believe. To take a fairly obvious example, it's quite possible to be certain that war is never justified without having decided whether reality is only physical or whether it includes spirits and possibly gods or God as well. Reversing that example, it's quite possible to be sure that God exists and even believe a long creed full of specific things about God and still not be sure whether you believe that a particular war is morally justified, let alone whether or not it is a good idea. The choice between having already decided what you believe on everything and remaining unsure about everything is a false dilemma. Most people are quite sure of some things and unsure about others. It's no different for a cleric.
Finally, the idea that character development is always equivalent to change seems to lurk behind your statements. That's emphatically not true. A character who chooses not to change in the face of circumstances is also developing along a potentially interesting path. The character who remains steadfast in the face of temptation is developing just as surely as the character who gives in. Similarly, the character who refuses to learn from his mistakes will develop just as surely as the one who learns from them. The protagonist of the Shawshank Redemption and John Travolta's character from Pulp Fiction are both at least partially defined by the way that they do not change throughout the story. (Tim Robbin's character maintains his decency, humanity, sense of right and wrong, his conviction of his innocence, and his determination to escape throughout the movie; John Travolta's character chooses to remain a conscienseless assassin despite events that lead his partner to renounce his life as an enforcer. They both have at least as much room for personal development as Han Solo who changes from a mercernary to a hero over the course of the original star wars trilogy).
It's one thing to say, "I don't like religion and am uncomfortable with the thought of playing a rational cleric" or even to just say that you are unable to put yourself in such a character's shoes. It's entirely different to pretend that those shoes are inherently limiting.
