Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why ever play a cleric?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6827971" data-attributes="member: 996"><p>The Cleric's always been an less-popular, underappreciated class. Part of it, it's always seemed to me, was just that many people aren't entirely comfortable with a <em>religious</em> leader/scholar/warrior/zealot as a PC. </p><p></p><p>But, as you point out, the healing burden was perhaps the biggest part of the problem. You'd play a Cleric, you'd get this long spell list, but at the end of the day, most of those spells would have to go to Cure..Wounds or your party's be in trouble and your time in the dungeon shortened. You'd end up healing and turning undead, and occasionally braining a kobold with your mace. Ho-hum. </p><p></p><p>Every edition after 1st has tried to make the Cleric more appealing. 2e had over the top specialty priests from Legends&Lore, and less over the top ones from CPH. 3.x, of course, brought us CoDzilla. 4e introduced Healing Surges & heal-from-0 & overnight healing and gave everyone Second Wind, neatly balanced all the classes, and gave 'Leader' ('healer' with some positive spin) classes their basic surge-triggering power up-front over and above the usual number of powers each class got, /and/ let them trigger an ally's surge /and/ still take a standard action in the same round, so the traditional 'healer' role became much more dynamic. It also introduced the Warlord as a non-Cleric 'Leader' who could Inspire back hps instead of heal them. You still occasionally had problems filling the Leader spot, even if nothing like in the old days, and with less severe consequences if you did without.</p><p></p><p>5e classes (that were around in 2e) tend to harken back to the 2e version and the Cleric is no exception. It's a very capable healer, has other support potential (mostly via spells), Turns Undead, and has lots of spells that reach beyond those basics including blasting, control, and other offensive ones (though, with neo-Vancian casting, it has an excellent chance of casting some of them as something other than Cure Wounds now and then).</p><p></p><p>The Cleric casts more and higher-level spells than the Paladin.</p><p></p><p>You get a very different spell list.</p><p>Both the above: more & higher level spells from a very different list.</p><p></p><p>If the concept doesn't appeal to you, don't worry about it. As long as there's at least one class that does appeal to you, just enjoy playing.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6827971, member: 996"] The Cleric's always been an less-popular, underappreciated class. Part of it, it's always seemed to me, was just that many people aren't entirely comfortable with a [i]religious[/i] leader/scholar/warrior/zealot as a PC. But, as you point out, the healing burden was perhaps the biggest part of the problem. You'd play a Cleric, you'd get this long spell list, but at the end of the day, most of those spells would have to go to Cure..Wounds or your party's be in trouble and your time in the dungeon shortened. You'd end up healing and turning undead, and occasionally braining a kobold with your mace. Ho-hum. Every edition after 1st has tried to make the Cleric more appealing. 2e had over the top specialty priests from Legends&Lore, and less over the top ones from CPH. 3.x, of course, brought us CoDzilla. 4e introduced Healing Surges & heal-from-0 & overnight healing and gave everyone Second Wind, neatly balanced all the classes, and gave 'Leader' ('healer' with some positive spin) classes their basic surge-triggering power up-front over and above the usual number of powers each class got, /and/ let them trigger an ally's surge /and/ still take a standard action in the same round, so the traditional 'healer' role became much more dynamic. It also introduced the Warlord as a non-Cleric 'Leader' who could Inspire back hps instead of heal them. You still occasionally had problems filling the Leader spot, even if nothing like in the old days, and with less severe consequences if you did without. 5e classes (that were around in 2e) tend to harken back to the 2e version and the Cleric is no exception. It's a very capable healer, has other support potential (mostly via spells), Turns Undead, and has lots of spells that reach beyond those basics including blasting, control, and other offensive ones (though, with neo-Vancian casting, it has an excellent chance of casting some of them as something other than Cure Wounds now and then). The Cleric casts more and higher-level spells than the Paladin. You get a very different spell list. Both the above: more & higher level spells from a very different list. If the concept doesn't appeal to you, don't worry about it. As long as there's at least one class that does appeal to you, just enjoy playing. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Why ever play a cleric?
Top