Why do 3E clerics get such good press?

[Shade]

The fact that they have a number of deadly or debilitating spells that only require a touch attack (and often no save) makes them my character's most feared foe.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Bbn1/ClrX, Domains Destruction and Strength, feats Extra Rage and Extra Smite.

Proceed to destroy everything.

Or go Magic and Fire and for a few dollars down get pretty much all the destruction of a wizard (with all their items) and all the nice fire spells from pretty much ALL of the spell lists.

Domains make a big difference.

I had a Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil party that I couldn't kill. They were all multiclassed clerics or druids and stocked to the gills with healing sticks and buff/destroy magic.

--fje

 

[Vurt]

OMG. In our campaign, we call the Divine Power + Righteous Might combo, "10 Feet Tall and Farting Fire."

If you've got 2 rounds to buff up, you're gonna just be a combat monster. At 9th level (the minimum to pull off this combo), you'll have 8 rounds of:
- +9 melee attack bonus
- +7 melee damage bonus (+10 if you're using a two-handed weapon) (not to mention your weapon doing more damage for going up one size category)
- +27 hit points
- DR5/evil
- although you suffer a -1 penalty to your AC for size

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Righteous Might has been errata'd to only give +4 to Str and +2 to Con. And the DR/evil goes up by 3's instead of 5's.

Vurt

 

[babomb]

Bbn1/ClrX, Domains Destruction and Strength, feats Extra Rage and Extra Smite.

I recently played a Half-Orc Bbn1/ClrX with domains War (for free weapon focus) and Strength. He rocked.

He was almost as good at melee at the fighter (better, if he had a couple of rounds to buff) and better than the monk.

At 9th level, a Flame Strike does about more damage than a sneak attacking rogue, to multiple opponents. (Even if the target saves, it's comparable damage to the rogue.)

Once, I made a blade barrier around a huge iron golem. The wizard greased the area, and the golem kept falling down into the blade barrier and taking damage. It was great.

At high levels I would cast the Bigby's ___ (from the Strength domain) which could not only out-grapple the monk, but most of the DM's baddies, forcing them to waste most turns trying to get out of the grapple. Then I'd cast Spiritual Weapon, which can attack almost as well as I can. If I also cast Divine Power, that's a total of 9 attacks from me at level 16+ (4 from me with Divine Power's fighter BAB, 4 from the Spiritual Weapon that uses my BAB, and one from Bigby's Whatever). Plus, I've got a +6 to strength, and that's not counting rage. Usually, by this point, rest of the party will have slaughtered the thing, what with it being grappled. If not, Rightous Might makes you even more amazingly powerful.

As for turning, there are feats in Defenders of the Faith and Complete Divine that let you spend turn attempts to, e.g. give yourself a bonus to damage.

And I agree about getting/making a wand of Cure light wounds. That way, you don't have to worry about saving your spells in case we need healing.

Clerics rock the hizzouse.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Yeah, if you think clerics lack power and aren't interesting, you aren't playing with people who have much imagination. With proper domain, spell, and feat/skill selection, you can mimic almost any other character in the game ... particularly with domains from some of the non-core books. You can make clerics that are wildly different from one another. It doesn't all have to be about healing and turning undead.

 

[kenobi65]

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Righteous Might has been errata'd to only give +4 to Str and +2 to Con. And the DR/evil goes up by 3's instead of 5's.

Interesting. Takes the combo from "absurd" to "pretty darn good."

 

[Testament]

A lot of the Clerics are uber comments are fuelled by perhaps the most insane feat ever printed by WotC: Divine Metamagic from the Complete Divine.

Even without that though, just the basic list for the Cleric means that there is nothing another character can do that the high level Cleric can't do better.

 

[tetsujin28]

Clerics. My favourite class. Rock in combat, good boosting spells, great against outsiders and undead, and they even have some good offensive spells. Also, some of the feats they can use in combination with turning? Awesome.

 

[tetsujin28]

IOnce, I made a blade barrier around a huge iron golem. The wizard greased the area, and the golem kept falling down into the blade barrier and taking damage. It was great.

That shouldn't have worked. Iron golems are immune to any spell that allows spell resistance, other than the three examples in its description (lightning, fire, rust attacks). Grease doesn't allow spell resistance, but Blade Barrier does. You pulled one on your GM, there

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've found them to kick a lot of butt, myself.

Compared to a wizard, they get better defenses (armor and shield proficiency, more hit points, a good Fort save, a better Will save, etc) and better broad-brush defensive spells like spell resistance and better buffing. They even have holy word, stealing one of the wizard's greatest advantages. Your touch spells are better, because you have a better BAB and you can actually survive in order to get into melee.

About the only disadvantage I saw was less variety in offensive spells - most of their good attack spells force Fort saves only and can be warded by death ward - which just happens to be a cleric spell. (Harm is a Will save spell, but it can also be warded by death ward, and it's nasty whether you make your save or not.)

From a PC's PoV, being asked to heal in the middle of combat steals actions from you, however. That can be annoying.

I agree with the original posters that their low level spells aren't very exciting. I hate playing clerics of less than 3rd-level.