Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Puggle Halfwine 03-28-08, 12:09 PM	Disclaimer: A mostly self-anecdotal cleric thread. Aiming for discussion and comment, nobody is forcing you to read it... So, yeah. I'm rolling out another cleric, but this time I'm a far more experienced player than when I started (I've liked clerics since second edition, back when they really sucked). This has influenced by thinking about them, somewhat. To recap, I've made the following characters in LG: (spoiler blocked for your sanity; skip it if you don't care) First cleric: Keth Clawfist Half-orc Barbarian 1/Cleric X. 20 str, 14 wis. Massive battle cleric. Pretty decent build, except from level 5 onwards he was playing in Red Hand as the sole healer aside from a Mystic Theurge, while we had two extremely effective full-bab fighters on the table. While this meant we romped the combats (and I really enjoyed playing with this group!), it also meant that basically, I spent the whole of Red Hand being a below-APL cleric with a level in barbarian (who had crafted strength belts, etc...). It was only by late in the forth part, when our fighter was down (being tended by the theurge) and I was separated from the group and had to fight to survive, that everyone went... "Woah. You can FIGHT!!" Ironically, at the very last session of Red Hand I lost his folder and haven't found it since. It was probably left in a supermarket and lost. Ahh well. Second cleric: Lord Aenen Samhain LN Cleric of Wee Jas. Negative energy channeller, death domain, obsessed with death (and tyranny). Suel racist and proud of it. Immense fun to play; I haven't had as much fun with a character until my kobold came along. Ended up getting removed from the campaign at about level 5 (did The Wrong Thing(tm) in a regional module, which sucked because it was *totally* in character for him to do...). Frequently indulge myself in thoughts of rebooting the character or playing him in another campaign (IE Living Forgotten Realms). Fun times. However, playing Aenen... I can sympathise with a lot of battle-cleric players. The amount of flak I copped for playing Aenen was staggering. Complaints ranged from, "Why are you playing a cleric if you're not going to heal?" to "Clerics only purpose is to heal people, you're not much good to us if you can't do that..." to, "The marshalling board said you were a healer! We NEED healing to survive, so you better be packing all healing spells or I'm gunna go see the con organiser and get put onto another table, with a REAL cleric!" It got to the stage where I would just sign up to games as a "tank" or "fighter" instead of "cleric", because people assumed "cleric" was synonomous with "healer". Unfortunately, got retired before it became a *massive* problem. Third cleric: Vashan Von Sanguine Created spontaneously for an intro mod table, never planned on having any real "future", but I had so much fun on that table I kept playing him. Flamboyantly "everything-sexual" who made every table an innuendo-fest. Hilarious with the right crowd, but I deliberately turned it down during cons (didn't know who I might offend) or when there were underaged players at the table; both circumstances I tried to avoid because it just made the character amazingly, shockingly boring to play. I mean, it's one thing to say, "I cast-move-touch" in your normal voice, then to say it in a sleezy, voice-quoting, "I cast-move.... *mrrow*... 'touch'! Cure mod, big boy!" He's about level 8 now, but with the end of the campaign I'm enjoying playing my kobold so much more. I figure I'll pull him out if anyone needs "super happy fun times", or a healer in that APL. So, that pretty much wraps it up. The Greyhawk Ruins table needs a cleric, so I was going to make one (that cleric is dealt with in another thread). But the one thing I'm wary of... is The Three Cleric Traps. What I mean by The Three Cleric Traps is the following... Trap One: Just a Healer Only three classes can perform divine healing (the only kind of healing, practically); these are the cleric, the favoured soul, the druid. The druid can't spontaneously swap for healing magic; she must prepare her healing ahead of time. Plus, most of her healing spells are a spell-level above when a cleric casts them, and she suffers from a spell-slot deficiency, so she's a sub-par healer in any event (and usually only packs one or two healing spells). Few people will begrudge a druid for not being a primary healer (some will, however). Which leaves us with the cleric and the favoured soul, both of which fall victim to this nasty trap. A divine caster sacrifices their *fun potential* (either in spell slots or spells known) to heal others. When she burns a flamestrike for a cure critical wounds, she's giving up the fun of flamestriking some monsters in order to keep another character on their feet. While healing people can be fun and rewarding (I personally LIKE healing, despite appearances), let's face it- it's more fun to rain holy death down upon some orcs then heal the fighter who stupidly drew an AoO and got himself a boo-boo (especially if said healing puts you in full attack range...). It does kinda suck to begin the day with a full array of "fun" to play with, only to have it burned away for healing. Don't let your party bully you into wasting all your fun on healing. If your fighters acts cavalier in regard to AoOs expecting you'll pick up the pieces, then he's basically sapping your fun to maximise his own. Don't let him. Trap Two: Too Much Self Buffing Clerics have some of the best self-only buffs in the game. Divine Power plus Righteous Might followed by a Righteous Wrath of the Faithful turns even a weakling cleric into a whirling blur of cold steel death. But... it takes three rounds to do it. When cleric players talk about their characters, bragging about how "After three buffs, I'm better than any fighter!", I do roll my eyes a little. Their statement is completely true- I've never contested it- but they have fallen into the second cleric trap. Buffing takes an action. Sure, there's some real appropriate times to buff. Mods which allow you time to buff are reasonably frequent these days- even if it's just a single round. If the bad guys are two full turns away, then sure- ask the fighters to hold back while you pump yourself (and maybe them too) up with holy power. Fantastic. However, when the fighter's making (and taking) a full attack, that's probably not the best time to start/keep self-buffing. High level combats resolve themselves quickly- often the surprise round is the best/only time to effectively self-buff, because at worst you're usually only sacrificing a single attack (or charge) instead of a full attack. Of course, if the barbarian charges while you self-buff, then you have to charge while he full attacks... you're unlikely to make up the damage difference than if you just charged along with him in the first round. This trap can often compound Trap One- people are screaming for cure crits, and you're still going, "But guys, my build doesn't work unless I've got five rounds to buff!". This is FURTHER compounded by casting purely defensive buffs (shield of faith, etc) to keep yourself alive. You're a cleric- you're built to be pretty much as tough as a fighter, sometimes even more so with hours-per buffs running. Trap Three: Playing Against Type The cleric that doesn't heal others is probably going to be called selfish by other players. This may or may not be the case- said cleric might be caught in Trap Two, undergoing his Voltron-esque extended transformation-into-godlike-fighter sequence while his party gets massacred around him. That cleric is being selfish. The 20 strength wood elf barbarian/cleric who rages and charges into combat with his falchion isn't being selfish- he's doing what he does best (often with frightening effectiveness). He's being no less selfish than the full barbarian who does the same. Essentially, a cleric can be many things; an effective fighter, an effective blaster, an effective healer. However, the cleric's role is for the cleric, and the cleric alone, to chose- it's not right for the rest of the group to demand that he fill the role of healer when he's clearly a warrior. I mean, in the presence of a fighter who's a couple levels higher and extremely effective, said cleric might go... "Well, I can charge and do some damage to one of them, or I can dimension door said fighter into full attack range and he can kill all three of them easily... which is the most effective thing I can do? Definitely the latter." And that's fine. That's the cleric's choice. It's only when that choice is forced upon him- by an indignant fighter who *demands* to be teleported into flank, every combat, even if it is the most 'optimal' course of action- that the fighter is forcing the cleric into Trap Three: playing against type. It makes you feel pretty crappy to spend a whole game looking wistfully at your power attack while adding up d8s for cure crits because big dumb fighters can't keep their organs on the inside. Solutions Ahh, the interesting part. The best way to deal with the traps is to recognise they exist, avoid them personally if you can, then explain them to your party (more succinctly than I have in this post. ;)). Here are some other tips, in no particular order... * Explain that while you're happy to heal the party with a fair portion of your spells, and even go total healing/buffing if/when needed, BUT you're also here for fun too- and you have feats/spells/etc which reflect that. Being a team player is good, and sometimes you have to willingly let other people take the spotlight. However, you can also expect to be cut lose occasionally (or frequently) to do what you're built to do- and have fun too. * Don't spend more than one round self-buffing, especially if blows are being traded. Either fight back, heal or group-buff (or do something wacky like travel-domain teleport everyone to the temple of Pelor, get healed, teleport back). * When you build your other characters, don't rely on divine casting to survive. While Karmic Strike builds are powerful, they essentially require a full-time healer behind them to keep them alive and replace the hit points they've lost. This means, essentially, that the Karmic Striking character has to be as powerful as *two* characters- they have to make up for another character who's contributing essentially very little to the combat aside from helping her. Even something as simple as buying anklets of translation to get yourself out of trouble/avoid AoOs, rather than rely on the cleric spending their action to heal you, greatly eases these problems. I mean, if you have a devoted boyfriend who'll happily play your own personal healer- then go nuts! Do it! Otherwise... think long and hard about building a character which requires another character to support them. * I'm going to put this next tip in bold so that people can really see it. Healing belts are wonderful. They are wonderful because, at lower APLs, they free up the cleric to do something other than heal in combat (you're just as good as she is- so why not do it yourself? She's busy thumping kobolds!) and it means that, below APL 8, the cleric isn't spending almost all of his spells in a day on cure light/cure mod/cure serious/cure crit. Remember, spells == fun and cure spells, sadly, aren't very fun. They don't even crit. :( * Become a cleric of Joe. You automatically win at life and get a free holy symbol; all your problems disappear. This thread is irrelevant to you if you worship Joe because clerics of Joe are *just that good* that they don't need anyone to help them with anything. You will have more friends. You will have more dates. Strangers will give you money. Life will be beautiful. * Delay death is a blessing, so are the vigor spells. Throw DD/vigor on the fighters, wade in yourself/blast with your spells, if they fall over- well, they're out of the combat, but they probably won't die (especially with DD). Fun times for everyone. * Take a reserve feat. You'll probably have to take an elemental domain (such as fire) to use it effectively. Yes, they're crappy damage- but at least it's something. It's damage you can do without exposing yourself to the dangers of melee combat AND without burning away your spells. * Play to your type- it's much more fun. If you're a battle cleric, BE a battle cleric- hit things! Recognise when it's good to heal your party, when it's good to buff them, and when it's good to smash some goblins in the face. * Play smart. Know when you *should* be healing, when you *should* be fighting and when you *should* be blasting. When, exactly, you should be doing what will vary wildly based upon your build- battleclerics should spend most of their time fighting, support clerics should spend most of their time fighting and buffing, blaster clerics should spend most of their time blasting. "Middle Way" clerics should do what's most efficient. So, the bottom line is: Be kind to your clerics, and occasionally let them do their thing. I've played full-support/full-healing clerics before- they can be fun and rewarding. But really, most of the time it's more fun to be the hero, rather than the hero's bandaid dispenser... so cut them some slack. :)
RtrnofdMax 03-28-08, 01:39 PM	First off, I enjoyed reading your post. Now, it seems so much of your problems come from playing with meta-gamers who see you as a cleric instead of as a character. Sure you wear a holy symbol of Joe or you fight "in Joe's name" but that's all their characters know about you. If they are unconscious, I doubt their character is thinking about why you haven't healed them, or about anything at all. I think you really hit the nail on the head when you said you it's about your fun. Play with players who play characters not players who move mini's, roll dice and level.
JamesMaissen 03-28-08, 04:00 PM	The biggest thing about any character is to know their role. Understand what you bring to the table and then see how is meshes with the rest of the group. Sometimes the archer stands in the front rank, sometimes the battle cleric is a support cleric, and sometimes the barbarian shock trooper doesn't charge. If you put your mind on autopilot you get what you deserve... unfortunately sometimes your party gets what you deserve, James
Samwise 03-28-08, 05:53 PM	Counter-Trap One: You Are the Best Healer Really. Nobody else is possibly going to be as good at healing as you are. Even the people who are great at not taking damage because of AC or special abilities are still not going to be as effective at removing damage that any character takes as you are. You need to recognize this, and understand what it means to the other players if the circumstances merit it. If you as the cleric are burning all of your swift actions using magic items, you will not be able to cast close wounds or delay death. If you are burning up your high level spells with buffs or blasts, you will not have any slots available to convert to a cure critical wounds. If things go sour, everyone is going to look to you to pull their fat out of the fire. If you are a druid, you will not be expected to convert to a cure spell. If you are a favored soul, you may not know any cure spells. If you are a cleric, you have the best healing. Counter-Trap Two: But Can You Do This? You are a battle cleric. You unleash a pretty considerable smackdown. But . . . do you have all of those fighter feats? The power attack, improved critical, improved initiative, close quarters fighting, and four or five other bonus feats depending on level? If not, even with all of those buffs the other frontliner types just might have those few extra options you do not, and they might be better at being a frontliner even when you are buffed. Yeah, you can have a dump level of barbarian. So can he. Yeah, you can have a buff spell to give you the same BAB. He already has it. Yeah, you can burn spells to equal a bunch of his regular abilities. He is even more powerful with the equivalents. Do a check to be sure you really are that much better a fighter when fully buffed, and how not being fully buffed affects that. Counter-Trap Three: Go Ahead, Enjoy Yourself Just as too much selfishness on the part of other party members, particularly fighters, for healing, buffing, and transportation can be annoying, do not forget that it works both ways. If you are really that eager to be a frontliner, do not complain when the fighter says "That is OK, I will do a one round "debuff" of firing an arrow this round. After you charge up next round, I will switch weapons, maneuver, and join you the round after that. Oh, and I will need some cover from behind you while I get ready." Or when the wizard is down to single digit hit points from the area effect spell he blew the save against and you up front unleashing the divine smackdown and cannot heal him, and says "No arcane pain from me this round guys, I am heading a nice d-door distance back out of range. When you are ready to heal me let me know, and I will wander back over." Or perhaps it will be the rogue saying "You dropped that negative energy protection on yourself. Along with the heroe's feast and your better Fort save if it is disintegration, you trigger the trap, I am going to wait back yonder out of range."
rockondon 03-28-08, 05:54 PM	If I play with someone that doesn't know my cleric and asks what class I am, I say I'm a warrior of Kelanen. Then I offer an insignia with a Kelanen symbol on it to everyone. They don't have to take it, but if they don't they miss out on insignia of healing and insignia of warding spells. My two favorite feats: power attack and quicken spell. I haven't seen a straight warrior that does nearly as much damage as my cleric, even taking into account losing the occasional round casting divine power (and quickened divine favor) in the first round. I can cast two quickened insignia's of healing/day, leaving me free to spend all my time swinging my flaming shocking frost adamantite greatsword. In medium levels I would rarely heal people in combat - my healing came in the form of delay death while I kept fighting. After combat, I'd heal whats left of ya. I could tank and hit with the best of them so nobody ever had a problem with it. Plus, pretty well everyone I play with has a helm of glorious recovery. Pretty handy item.
Samwise 03-28-08, 06:06 PM	My two favorite feats: power attack and quicken spell. I haven't seen a straight warrior that does nearly as much damage as my cleric, even taking into account losing the occasional round casting divine power (and quickened divine favor) in the first round. I can cast two quickened insignia's of healing/day, leaving me free to spend all my time swinging my flaming shocking frost adamantite greatsword. So the first starts working at 9th level and the second starts working at 13th level. The 18 points healed by Insignia of Healing pales compared to the 20+ average damage from a single attack from most CR 13 critters.
rockondon 03-28-08, 06:22 PM	^ yes well I tend to take the brunt of the combats so I soak up most of those 20 damage hits.
kinevon 03-28-08, 06:59 PM	Counter-Trap One: You Are the Best Healer No, he isn't. A Healer, which is a class so unused that the OP didn't even mention it, is going to be the best healer, by far. At first level, with a 15 Wisdom and a 16 Charisma, 4 ranks in Heal, and the Augment Healing feat, a Healer does 4 points of healing with a single cantrip, and 1d8 + 6 points with a basic Cure Light. If he gets off the Healing Lorecall first, that bumps up for the CLW to 1d8 + 9, and a capped CLW of 1d8 + 10 at 2nd level. If he uses Lesser Vigor, the first round, from posts about how Augment Healing works and the way his Healing Hands ability is worded, should do 6 points of healing in the first round, and the normal 1 point per round thereafter. He isn't going to be much use in combat, except maybe for using a longspear and aid another actions, but he will be able to do massive healing, especially since he gets more spells than normal Cleric.
_metz_ 03-28-08, 09:38 PM	Ok there are several important things I like to consider when playing my clerics. (I have three, one high level, one mid level, one low level) 1. Roleplaying is often overlooked. My Dwarven Battle cleric, if shown that his buffs will go better elsewhere will always buff the party. However he won't dish out continuous aid to people who don't use it wisely, and moreover, refuses to give certain buffs to certain PCs if their actions are dubious to his moral code. (I.e: no Zealot Pact/Stalwart Pact for a few PCs that he beleives offend Moradin) Hence If you have played with me when I was in a talkative modd, recitation would come down in the form of a proselitizing rant. 2. I don't like feeling obligated to heal stupidity. If a PC does something Dumb I am more likely to delay death him then put the party and myself in a compromising situation to cast cure serious wounds. 3. My 4th level spells are far too important to ask for use on healing, thats delay death, death ward, freedom of movement, etc. I have 3 PoP 4th levels and I still never have enough 4th level spells. 4. Samwise already said this point, and I agree with him - Don't turn into a fighter unless you can afford to/need to! My Cleric only wades into combat in two situations: where he feels the party can do well without him or when he feels the party needs him to. A proper Battle Cleric at high levels needs only one round of buffing wiith a belt of battle in order to be a fighter. 5. People need to stop being so hypocritical. My attitude towards selfish 'you should buff me I am the fighter' attitudes are the same as to the local school bully who demands all the attention. I am often plagued by players who are too selfish to make a cleric themselves, yet dish out abuse when they don't have every whim of their own catered to. My cleric always takes a healing role if he has to, but only with parties he knows/likes. He is more proactive on random tables. I am personally tired of selfish players who don't have characters who can maintain themselves. Out of combat healing is something my PC always provides, but in combat healing comes in the way of empowered insignias of healing, delay deaths, close wounds and the occasional HEAL. Most of his self buffs are also party buffs (e.g: divine protection) and so he is usually fine for a fight. My attitude is that when someone demands that my cleric does something, If it comes from selfishness or a desire to be the centre of attention (see the player that only plays BDFs who are CN and slaughter everything) I don't do it. A reasonable party that has a good fighter may never see me in battle mode. Finally: anyone that asks me to turn undead is reminded _gently_ that I am a dwarf and we turn undead by hitting it with a big hammer/axe. Not to many of us worship the sun when we live underground. (I hate the 'you are a cleric so turn it' demand I get all the time, I know when I can turn **** and Iwill do it when I can)
Timlagor 03-29-08, 04:25 PM	Stuff in random order: 1st level Healers absolutely rock the Healing. At higher levels even they can't compete with the healing clerics ..and it's (virtually) all they can do. [Turn Attempts are too useful] My 5th level Dwarf Cleric has a 100% record for destroying undead with his Turn Attempt! Fighters should never rush into a fight with anything that isn't devastating at range. Quite often you're in a confined space already of the TRex surprises you at 30' on the open plain but sometimes they have a choice.. and they usually rush into melee anyway. You are not obliged to do the most effective thing in a combat (though you should do something reasonably effective). this is especially true if you will win the combat anyway. Fighters ought to contribute some consummables to healing Not everyone has access to Healing Belts or Helms of Glorious Recovery (not by a very long way) ..but we do all have access to 'happy sticks'.
Hariman 03-29-08, 10:01 PM	No, he isn't. A Healer, which is a class so unused that the OP didn't even mention it, is going to be the best healer, by far. At first level, with a 15 Wisdom and a 16 Charisma, 4 ranks in Heal, and the Augment Healing feat, a Healer does 4 points of healing with a single cantrip, and 1d8 + 6 points with a basic Cure Light. If he gets off the Healing Lorecall first, that bumps up for the CLW to 1d8 + 9, and a capped CLW of 1d8 + 10 at 2nd level. If he uses Lesser Vigor, the first round, from posts about how Augment Healing works and the way his Healing Hands ability is worded, should do 6 points of healing in the first round, and the normal 1 point per round thereafter. He isn't going to be much use in combat, except maybe for using a longspear and aid another actions, but he will be able to do massive healing, especially since he gets more spells than normal Cleric. Everybody that I've talked to would rather have a cleric due to the versatility that a cleric brings to the table. Heck, I would rather have a cleric over a healer any day.
magebeast 03-29-08, 10:16 PM	Everybody that I've talked to would rather have a cleric due to the versatility that a cleric brings to the table. Heck, I would rather have a cleric over a healer any day. He already conceded this point in his post under "He isn't much use in combat" He was just saying healers are better at healing.
JamesMaissen 03-30-08, 01:45 AM	He was just saying healers are better at healing. That's fairly debatable as well. Between burning turn attempts to heal at range, and the healer not even being able to spontaneously heal.. the little CHA boost to hps healed doesn't quite measure up. -James
kinevon 03-30-08, 02:42 AM	That's fairly debatable as well. Between burning turn attempts to heal at range, and the healer not even being able to spontaneously heal.. the little CHA boost to hps healed doesn't quite measure up. Debatable, again. 4 skill points in Knowledge (religion), and a nonevil alignment (standard for a playable PC in LG) allows use of the "Spontaneous Healer" feat from Complete Divine, even at first level. Sure, it is a slightly more limited version, only being usable a number of times equal to the PCs Wisdom mod, but that, along with the shallower selection of useful spells, doesn't provide that much of a handicap. On the other side of the coin, of course, is the ability of the Cleric to take the "Sacred Boost" feat, also from CD, which uses a Turn use to make all Cure spells cast before the end of his next turn Maximized, if cast on anyone within 60' (at activation) of the Cleric... Which could also be useful against Undead. Hmmm. So, are you all recommending Cleric, with lowered Charisma and raised Str/Dex, instead of Healer for me?
HassanSabbah 03-30-08, 07:36 AM	Debatable, again. 4 skill points in Knowledge (religion), and a nonevil alignment (standard for a playable PC in LG) allows use of the "Spontaneous Healer" feat from Complete Divine, even at first level. Sure, it is a slightly more limited version, only being usable a number of times equal to the PCs Wisdom mod, but that, along with the shallower selection of useful spells, doesn't provide that much of a handicap. On the other side of the coin, of course, is the ability of the Cleric to take the "Sacred Boost" feat, also from CD, which uses a Turn use to make all Cure spells cast before the end of his next turn Maximized, if cast on anyone within 60' (at activation) of the Cleric... Which could also be useful against Undead. Hmmm. So, are you all recommending Cleric, with lowered Charisma and raised Str/Dex, instead of Healer for me? I think the designers intended that the unicorn companion that comes at 8th (?) level compensates for the healing. I don't know whether it actually does that, though. Baris Player of a lvl 2 healer
Ramacass 03-30-08, 09:45 AM	First off, I enjoyed reading your post. Now, it seems so much of your problems come from playing with meta-gamers who see you as a cleric instead of as a character. Sure you wear a holy symbol of Joe or you fight "in Joe's name" but that's all their characters know about you. If they are unconscious, I doubt their character is thinking about why you haven't healed them, or about anything at all. I think you really hit the nail on the head when you said you it's about your fun. Play with players who play characters not players who move mini's, roll dice and level. I agree with you 100% I know this is beating a dead horse but it's a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Everything can and should be settled in game and in character. I just played a game with my local group where the hexblade spent the start of th mod throwing coppers at beggers laughing as they fought over the coins. My cleric found this disgusting and told him so. He later came up to my cleric after taking a serious beating wanting some healing. My cleric responded by saying "if you want some healing then do the monkey dance and began clapping her hands" He didn't of course, he just snarled and said "watch your back". There was no hard feelings at the table because IT'S A GAME . The player who plays the hexblade plays his character I play mine. I once played a towersheild fighter who came off as a real jerk but actually was a softy underneath. He had ****** off the alcoholic cleric by calling him "Mr silent cry for help" so was refused healing. In return he refused to stand up front despite having the highest AC and was quickly healed. It's really a question of what you value more... winning combats or roleplaying. Yes you can do both but slamming a player(not a character) for not conforming to your idea of what makes the game fun is wrong. there is no rule about what kind of character you must play and until there is it's up to each player to bring whatever character they want and play them however they want (within the rules) But don't worry all those who want to pigeon hole other players at the table into party roles don't have long to wait.... go 4ed!
rockondon 03-30-08, 02:58 PM	I am personally tired of selfish players who don't have characters who can maintain themselves. ME TOO! A friend of mine has a barb1/fig 9 with 18 armor class. He has a girlfriend with a 10th lvl cleric whom we refer to as his 'cohort' since healing him is a full time job. He loves to brag about how much damage he does, oblivious of the fact that it takes two characters to do it. Isn't even great damage. The baddies can full power attack and still smack him easily. What's worse is when his gf can't show up to the game and he expects me stop being a combat cleric and fulfilling my 'obligation' to cure him every round so he can continue doing mediocre damage. ...I don't think so. If you're 10th lvl with 18 AC you don't deserve to live.
amysrevenge 03-30-08, 08:39 PM	oblivious of the fact that it takes two characters to do it. This is a perspective I hadn't really considered before, but have now seen twice in two days on two different forums. The more I think on it, the more it makes sense. If you are going to sacrifice defense for offense, you better be at least twice as effective as if you didn't, or else you are wasting the resources of the person healing you. (I played a halfling cavalry who was indeed at least twice as effective - it was often in a wizard's best interest to DD me to where I could charge than to do an action of their own. lol) Big Mike
Hariman 03-31-08, 12:53 AM	Debatable, again. 4 skill points in Knowledge (religion), and a nonevil alignment (standard for a playable PC in LG) allows use of the "Spontaneous Healer" feat from Complete Divine, even at first level. Sure, it is a slightly more limited version, only being usable a number of times equal to the PCs Wisdom mod, but that, along with the shallower selection of useful spells, doesn't provide that much of a handicap. On the other side of the coin, of course, is the ability of the Cleric to take the "Sacred Boost" feat, also from CD, which uses a Turn use to make all Cure spells cast before the end of his next turn Maximized, if cast on anyone within 60' (at activation) of the Cleric... Which could also be useful against Undead. Hmmm. So, are you all recommending Cleric, with lowered Charisma and raised Str/Dex, instead of Healer for me? My recommendation is Cleric with lowered Cha & raised Str. (Dex 10 is good enough, no penalty = good.) Augment Healing and Craft Wondrous Item are good choices for levels 1 and 3. You can craft a lot of great items with a cleric that will make your life easier. (AC boosters, stat boosters, Pearls of Power (with access) and even items that you gain access to.) Healers can't do that either. However, I am not the arbiter of your actions. It's up to you to look at your options and choose which one you like the best. Either class can be used to heal the party. And both have their own strengths and weaknesses. And I still recommend cleric. On a different note, specifically one about melee usefulness and healing: I know a guy with a barbarian/fighter (with more barbarian than fighter) whose character needs healing often. BUT, that barbarian does a lot of damage. The damage is enough that it's impressive and very useful to have this barbarian on any party's front lines. But the barb still does best with a cleric nearby, just in case. Still, said barbarian was impressive with Elusive Target to confound the enemy.
MwaO 03-31-08, 08:01 AM	I think this is missing the meta-Cleric Trap. The more a particular region's players demand that a Cleric fill a particular role(aka buffer/healer), the less they have of them. And the more convinced they get that they're right that all Clerics should fill that role, because the various parties need healing that badly, and non-healing clerics don't fill the role as well. Make sure the party is aware at muster that you're not that kind of cleric. Let the party make the decision not to have you at the table if they're not willing to let you play the way you want. A properly tweaked tank cleric can be just as effective as a properly tweaked barbarian in overall damage output - because he doesn't need support from the party to make it happen. He does need support from the players, though...
Timlagor 03-31-08, 10:19 AM	While there is certainly a point to be made, saying that it requires two character is an exageration. The Fighter/Barbarian does have (potentially a lot of) HP of their own and out of combat actions aren't important (though they do have a responsibility to provide wands -even more than everyone else) Staggering Strike and Elusive Target can also do a lot to keep damage down however low your AC.
copperwyrmling 03-31-08, 03:04 PM	While there is certainly a point to be made, saying that it requires two character is an exageration. This is true in some cases, but not all. I really have played on tables with fighters who almost invariably required top-tier healing every single round to avoid being taken out of the fight ("I charge the three gargantuan monsters" types). At that point, you are indeed taking up two characters' actions. My comments: - I've heard a lot of complaints about clerics doing long power-up sequences, but have never actually seen it except when we're explicitly given prebuff rounds. I see one-round power-ups quite a lot (even without a belt of battle - quickened spell + real spell + move into full attack range is the usual approach), and I don't think this compares unfavorably to a generic fighter/barbarian (it does mean the first round is "wasted" compared to an archer, dervish, pouncer or spirited charger). If you can't contribute in melee after your best two buffs, then adding more is unlikely to significantly change the situation, in my experience. - Related to this: there is no way a fully buffed cleric is "better than any fighter" in melee, even an unbuffed fighter (assuming by "fighter" we mean "noncaster melee", rather than "pure-class fighter"), at least in LG with only Open spells. They just don't get enough feats and class abilities. That does not mean they shouldn't melee: they can still be good enough at it to make it a strong option. If the barbarian does 250 damage/round unbuffed and 300 damage/round buffed, and the cleric does 200 damage/round buffed (and <100 damage/round unbuffed), then there will be plenty of situations where it's better for the cleric to self-buff and join in the smackdown than buff or heal the barbarian. (And sure, there are meleers out there who are less effective than a cleric who's had one round to buff. In my experience, these also tend to be the people who complain the most about self-buffing clerics.) The test for "is melee a good idea" is not "can I be better at it than my party fighter", it's "is it more effective than my other options". - I disagree with the suggestion to take a reserve feat. Just use your spells, at least past APL 10 or so. If it's not a Core Special, you will pretty much never run out, and you'll have a lot more fun. Seriously: misguided resource conservation (supported by party members who are thinking of all your spells as potential healing) is one of the bigger cleric fun-killers at higher APL. Your spells are a renewable resource, and they're what makes the class good: use them! Have fun with them! (sure, if all the monsters are already stunned, blind and prone, then don't burn high-level spells finishing them off, but don't feel you can't throw damage spells or debuffs in the second round just because the fighters say, "I think we can handle this") ------------------------------------- If you are really that eager to be a frontliner, do not complain when the fighter says "That is OK, I will do a one round "debuff" of firing an arrow this round. After you charge up next round, I will switch weapons, maneuver, and join you the round after that. Oh, and I will need some cover from behind you while I get ready." Or when the wizard is down to single digit hit points from the area effect spell he blew the save against and you up front unleashing the divine smackdown and cannot heal him, and says "No arcane pain from me this round guys, I am heading a nice d-door distance back out of range. When you are ready to heal me let me know, and I will wander back over." Or perhaps it will be the rogue saying "You dropped that negative energy protection on yourself. Along with the heroe's feast and your better Fort save if it is disintegration, you trigger the trap, I am going to wait back yonder out of range." It's true that a party with a cleric who's going full-blown melee often feels, mid-combat, more like a table with two frontliners and no cleric. That's fine - those tables can be very effective. It does however mean that people need to modify their tactics a bit. I think the wizard D-Dooring away to get to a better tactical position and avoid a death sounds like a fine action to take in a party that is weak in mid-combat healing. (However, his next action had better either be "cast a long-range spell" or "start healing self with potions or other items" or "cast a defensive spell that will allow me to re-engage".) The fighter shooting an arrow with a nonmasterwork bow, then moving around in circles for a round, sounds like a stupid action to take. Effectively taking your character out of the combat because you're annoyed at another party member is not something you should be doing in D&D. (Now, if it's "the archer/fighter full attacks with their highly enchanted longbow, then spends a round switching weapons and moving into melee" then sure, I would have no problem with that as a melee cleric. I don't build characters who can't take care of themselves.) The rogue in this case is pretty much exactly analogous to the rogue telling the party barbarian, "I don't want to disable the trap, you trigger it as you have more HP and a better Fort save". If the rogue honestly thinks they can't disable it, this can be a good thing to do (and I've seen it done where det magic indicated a L9 spell and so we knew the rogue needed a good roll to succeed on disable device): if the rogue thinks they can disable it pretty easily but choose not to because they want to make the cleric sweat, then this falls under "making your character useless to annoy another player", which again, is not something you should be doing in D&D. I don't really see the comparison between, "I'm trying to get your character killed so I'll refuse to take any useful actions", and "instead of healing you for 40 damage, I'll do 200 to the bad guy". ----------------------------------------------- - A quick correction to something Samwise said: if you're burning swift actions, that doesn't stop you from casting close wounds / delay death - it's the other way around. Burning immediate actions costs your swift action for your next turn. This is important. - To Rockondon: I had a PC with AC 13 and Con 12 at L11. She survived just fine: she had other defences (mostly "they can't hit me if I'm 200ft away, and I can attack just fine from over there"). AC 18 at L10 is fine, if you have some other way to avoid dying that doesn't depend on forcing other players to spend their actions helping you. I played for several years in the same city as Puggle. I sympathize completely with his comments on playing a non-healer cleric. Those experiences were why I resolved never again to play a cleric / favored soul / healer in a Living campaign. Oddly, when I came over to the US, my experiences playing my cleric were very different. Perhaps it was because nobody knew her, so they waited to see what she could do rather than making assumptions (since "L15 divine caster" can mean a lot of things), but the people I've played with in the last year and a half have seemed much more willing to accept her doing pretty much anything so long as she's effective, rather than just assuming she'll fill some strictly defined role. I've had a lot more fun playing her in the last year than in the three before it. (The cleric in question is a generalist: she can transition pretty easily between melee smackdown (in which case she does about 150 damage/round after one round buffing, which is respectable but not great), offensive casting, and healing/buffing. She also tends to have the best AC in the party and uses that to good effect (that is, even when she's not doing melee damage, she functions as a cork who can absorb hits for the party while casting spells). She's not as good in any of those areas as a true specialist (her healing spells are augmented, but not empowered for free; her buffs can be extended or quickened, but not chained; her save DCs are decent, but not improved by spell focus etc), but she's pretty good in all of them, and that has proved very useful.)
kenobi65 03-31-08, 03:13 PM	- To Rockondon: I had a PC with AC 13 and Con 12 at L11. She survived just fine: she had other defences (mostly "they can't hit me if I'm 200ft away, and I can attack just fine from over there"). AC 18 at L10 is fine, if you have some other way to avoid dying that doesn't depend on forcing other players to spend their actions helping you. Obviously, a ranged combatant like yours needs AC and HP somewhat less than a melee barbarian (which is what the original PC in question sounded like). I've seen barbarian-types with absolutely horrific ACs (like, single digits), who depend on being able to dish out so much damage that hope to not have to face many full attacks against them. It *sounds* like the player in question thinks that he's got that kind of build, but it also sounds like he's not nearly as optimized for that as he thinks he is.
Redfist 03-31-08, 03:15 PM	I love watching PCs like that put "all they've got" into killing a creature in one round driving their AC down to 5 in the process. When they find out that the creature is still alive... they start to sweat and then often get pounded into the dirt. :D
kenobi65 03-31-08, 03:23 PM	I love watching PCs like that put "all they've got" into killing a creature in one round driving their AC down to 5 in the process. When they find out that the creature is still alive... they start to sweat and then often get pounded into the dirt. :D Yeah, the "glass cannon" approach isn't really my preferred style, esp. because I know I'm not good enough at min-maxxing to make it work. :D
Samwise 03-31-08, 03:56 PM	The fighter shooting an arrow with a nonmasterwork bow, then moving around in circles for a round, sounds like a stupid action to take. Effectively taking your character out of the combat because you're annoyed at another party member is not something you should be doing in D&D. (Now, if it's "the archer/fighter full attacks with their highly enchanted longbow, then spends a round switching weapons and moving into melee" then sure, I would have no problem with that as a melee cleric. I don't build characters who can't take care of themselves.) Yes it is. However, I have seen "melee clerics" who effectively do that level of damage. When the player of such a cleric insists on making two attacks at +14/+9 for 1d8+7 compared to healing the AC 8 barbarian "thing" making 4 attacks with full power attack at +30/+30/+25/+20 for 2d6+60, it is easy to see how the attitude develops. I don't really see the comparison between, "I'm trying to get your character killed so I'll refuse to take any useful actions", and "instead of healing you for 40 damage, I'll do 200 to the bad guy". It is more, "I will not suck up damage that only you can heal but refuse to just so you can do 15 damage to the bad guy." - A quick correction to something Samwise said: if you're burning swift actions, that doesn't stop you from casting close wounds / delay death - it's the other way around. Burning immediate actions costs your swift action for your next turn. This is important. This is one of those heavy rules issues I doubt will get resolved. I disagree. The rules say you can take one quickened/swift/immediate action per turn. Even if you are borrowing from the next turn, by doing that you are still taking two in one turn. I have seen it ruled the way you suggest, and I just plain disagree.
copperwyrmling 03-31-08, 04:12 PM	Yes it is. However, I have seen "melee clerics" who effectively do that level of damage. When the player of such a cleric insists on making two attacks at +14/+9 for 1d8+7 compared to healing the AC 8 barbarian "thing" making 4 attacks with full power attack at +30/+30/+25/+20 for 2d6+60, it is easy to see how the attitude develops. Sure, incompetent melee clerics are as much of a problem as any other incompetent melee character - but you can't extrapolate from incompetent melee clerics to all melee clerics. Pretty much all the self-buffing melee clerics I've played with were pretty good at what they did (i.e. 10*APL damage or better with a full attack, past about APL 6): the ones who weren't hadn't gotten that far. This is one of those heavy rules issues I doubt will get resolved. I disagree. The rules say you can take one quickened/swift/immediate action per turn. Even if you are borrowing from the next turn, by doing that you are still taking two in one turn. I have seen it ruled the way you suggest, and I just plain disagree. A "turn" is not the same as a "round" (in 3.5, at least). A "turn" is what you do on your initiative. Immediate actions occur (generally) outside your turn. If you have a reference that says you may only take one swift/immediate action in any given round, please point it out to me. The Spell Compendium text on swift/immediate actions says only: "Using an immediate action on your turn is the same as a swift action, and counts as your swift action for that turn. You cannot use another immediate action or a swift action until after your next turn if you have used an immediate action when it is not currently your turn." I don't think this is ambiguous: if there are other rules references that make it ambiguous then please point them out to me.
_metz_ 03-31-08, 10:07 PM	This is true in some cases, but not all. I really have played on tables with fighters who almost invariably required top-tier healing every single round to avoid being taken out of the fight ("I charge the three gargantuan monsters" types). At that point, you are indeed taking up two characters' actions. THis happens. A LOT. THe worst is when the fighter does it without asking the party what their PCs can do, and then is surprised when they find out that the other players don't all have spells and abilities designed to support only him. - I disagree with the suggestion to take a reserve feat. Just use your spells, at least past APL 10 or so. If it's not a Core Special, you will pretty much never run out, and you'll have a lot more fun. Seriously: misguided resource conservation (supported by party members who are thinking of all your spells as potential healing) is one of the bigger cleric fun-killers at higher APL. Your spells are a renewable resource, and they're what makes the class good: use them! Have fun with them! (sure, if all the monsters are already stunned, blind and prone, then don't burn high-level spells finishing them off, but don't feel you can't throw damage spells or debuffs in the second round just because the fighters say, "I think we can handle this") I defineitely agree with this. Reserve Feats on Clerics are wasteful, you get a stack of spells by the time you reach a high APL, and those little firepuffs end up being a waste of a round as much as burning hands is at APL 12 (yes I know there are exceptions but you know what I mean). It's true that a party with a cleric who's going full-blown melee often feels, mid-combat, more like a table with two frontliners and no cleric. That's fine - those tables can be very effective. It does however mean that people need to modify their tactics a bit. There are so many groups that consider themselves to be good gamers, who often get really thrown off by new tactics. ITs a bit of a joke amongst the Ratikan/Sydney Community that if you throw something other than Undeaed at the Brisbane gamers from Perrenland that they will freak out and not know how to fight it. This is a matter of habit and whilst not entirely ture, many gamers are set in thier ways and are not sure how to deal with unique or different PCs. I love the reaction I get when my 15th level rogue outperforms the nearbyb fighters in combat. Whilst not as good a s a tweaked damage producer by far, we don't have many of those around. I played for several years in the same city as Puggle. I sympathize completely with his comments on playing a non-healer cleric. Those experiences were why I resolved never again to play a cleric / favored soul / healer in a Living campaign. Oddly, when I came over to the US, my experiences playing my cleric were very different. Perhaps it was because nobody knew her, so they waited to see what she could do rather than making assumptions (since "L15 divine caster" can mean a lot of things), but the people I've played with in the last year and a half have seemed much more willing to accept her doing pretty much anything so long as she's effective, rather than just assuming she'll fill some strictly defined role. I've had a lot more fun playing her in the last year than in the three before it. Yep, playd there, and received similar flak from a few of the players when I mentioned that my cleric was a battle cleric. You should of seen the looks on their face when I told a few of them off for not ebing able to do what their characters promised, and that if they liked, I would switch to a different PC and they could play *their* cleric. They shut up real quick, it is often the selfish players or the afforementioned ones set i ntheir ways that demand a cleric cater to thier PC, when they often do not have high level clerics themselves, especially not interesting ones. After playing said cleric with them a few times now they all want him around, after seeing how useful he is! I make it quite clear at the beginning of the game, when I play with new folk my policy on healing: 1. Out of combat healing is sorted, I have poPs 1, by the bucketload, no worries there. If you have pearls swing em my way, it will help me out. 2. In combat healing is restricted to when you are in actual danger. If you have 200 HPs and lose 30 I am NOT wasting my action to walk over and heal you each round. 3. I don't heal stupid, I delay death it and give it a right talking to later. 4. My cleric also has a background and hopes and dreams. He is Lawful Good, a cantankerous old dwarf, and doesn't have much time for violent sociopaths. Hence the *support* (buffs) you get are contingent on roleplaying reasons as well as how sensible they are. For example, My cleric doesn't always give out stalwart pacts to new PCs. You may cry that is selfish, but he wont' give Moradin's grace to someone who will use it for ill works. 5. Tell me what you do in combat, and I will try to accomodate you in my spell list. If you don't tell me, and then ask for something later on, and I don't have it prepped - IT is YOUR fault not mine. I change my spells every game based on the blurb, and I don't care waht you are used to. If you don't like It I will play the selfish angry fighter and you can play the support character who stands behind me. I may sound a bit grumpy, but like Tracy, I have a high level (almost 14th, would be higher if wasn't such a crafter) Battle cleric who often gets flak for having battle cleric written down as to what he is. When people criticise the character I have several responses I like to do: - Pick apart flaws in thier PC (I can do it too!) - Play a different character - Ask where their APL appropriate cleric is. Fortunately that happens rarely, and almost NEVER in Sydney, but I have copped it a bit in Canberra and Queensland, which is unfortunate as they are lovely places to game, just have some People who are too set in thier ways.
Lomiat 03-31-08, 10:31 PM	Ah, bugger... the "divine caster" cleric that's not a healer and not a tank just gets no respect anywhere... But... um... yeah, Aegon definitely feels Puggle's pain... Why cast a spell to heal one of your friends when you can just cast a different spell and bury the monster under a ton of sand? I do, however, do as others have suggested and tell the tables at which I play Aegon that he's not going to heal anyone in-combat. Instead, he'll hope to keep them alive (he generally has a Close Wounds and/or Delay Death) and then patch them up with Sacred Healing (turn attempts for up to 165 hps of healing, per PC, per day). Now, not at the tables where I've played my cleric whereas I've played other PCs or tables about which I heard my friends talk... it seems like a fairly commonly-accepted notion that the cleric can be the "behavioral modifying agent" via the timing and power of the application of healing. Just as much as it's irritating to sit down to the table with your cleric and hear everyone tell you how you should use every action to heal them, it's not their place. So when the barbarian charges and drops unconscious and your cleric drops a Delay Death to keep the barbarian alive... and out of the combat... that's fair play. Generally, a table of 6 players can see 2 PCs go unconscious and still beat the encounter without too much sweat; the encounters are designed to be beaten by 4 PCs.
Puggle Halfwine 04-01-08, 09:43 AM	I defineitely agree with this. Reserve Feats on Clerics are wasteful, you get a stack of spells by the time you reach a high APL, and those little firepuffs end up being a waste of a round as much as burning hands is at APL 12 (yes I know there are exceptions but you know what I mean). - I disagree with the suggestion to take a reserve feat. Just use your spells, at least past APL 10 or so. Actually, in contrast to this, the more I see the firepuffs being used the more I see their value. I've been playing a lot with characters who have these feats and there's been several combats so far that they've just broken into tiny bits. Depending on what you've played, I'm prepared to PM you examples if you'd like. ;) However, opinion about these reserve feats is highly divided- some people see them as utterly *useless*, others see them as shockingly overpowered. Me, I'm somewhat in the middle. I think they're very nicely balanced and a great feat for prepared casters of all types. Here's my case for having Fiery Burst with my Greyhawk Ruins cleric, although most of these points can be used for any cleric really: - Clerics move slowly. 20ft a round, mostly. While the argument is to "single move, then buff"- at the pre-10 APLs that spell isn't going to do more damage than a single firepuff will, fire resistance aside, and you have a lot fewer spells to play with. If your barbarian scythe crits it on his turn, the loss of that spell could be serious. Essentially, firepuff is an action cost. While employing a fiery burst isn't always the optimal course of action, sometimes it will be. - It's an area of effect ability (something clerics are remarkably short on pre-flamestrike). Swarms are reasonably popular for module authors these days and they're something I think I think I can expect frequently in Greyhawk Ruins. Area effect damage with no concentration check to cast (it's an SU) means I can "cast" it even when overrun by swarms, when people are readied against my casting, etc... Yes, dwarven clerics have high concentration, but low rolls happen (before you can automake) and sometimes the swarms are too small to hit. - I don't sacrifice much to take it. Effectively, I choose the Fire domain instead of... ... well, I would take the Fire domain anyway because it's awesome. I have to prepare (one and only one) fire spell in my highest level spell slot- that's ok, I'm cool with that, pretty much going to do it anyway. Clerics are feat starved, but it's just one feat. It's not going to break the build, especially on a "generalist" cleric like this one. It also means I take Craft Wonderous late (at 6th), but I've done that with all my clerics so far so I guess I'm just keeping up with tradition. - It's fun. It's a fun feat. I like fun. - There's no SR to Fiery Burst. Again, aside from buffing for a while and hitting it there's very few ways for clerics to deal with high SR, high AC critters. This is one of them. - Clerics tend not to pack too many "direct damage" blast spells. High DR monsters can reduce the effectiveness of battleclerics much like they reduce the effectiveness of fighters. - Fiery Burst is relatively low damage but a high save (as per my highest spell slot). That means it's reasonably constant damage which, while half the damage of Flamestrike when you get that, is pretty much the best "blasting" spell out there for low level clerics (dealing 2d6 damage vs 4d4 from burning hands, but at a higher save, for example.) - As shown above, Fiery Burst increases the effectiveness of my other fire spells (+1 caster level). Not necessarily gamebreaking, but hey- that effect alone is pretty good for a single feat with no prerequisites (compared to, say, Draconic Spell Power). - It's an option and options are always good. - I can retrain out of it at about APL 10 if I find something more useful. Being as useful as you can at the low levels means you live to get to the high levels. ;) - At the early levels I'll probably be doing as much damage (or even less) in melee than I will be fire puffing. Further, our group is frontline heavy, which means (particularly in cramped underground tunnels) that our "front row" is gunna get mighty cramped. I really should have some way of dealing damage from the second rank or rear- I can't think of a better way than firepuffs. Non-rogues tend to whine when you burning hands or wall of fire them. Essentially, really, it boils down to preference. I almost always build my characters "small". I pass up builds which "get good at 10 or 12" because, to me, I don't find it appealing to spend the majority of the game being crappy. For most of my characters I want their "trick" to kick in at level 6 at the *very latest*, often at level 3 or earlier. Waiting till level 7 with Puggle to get his flying bat was just so annoying I basically swore, "Never again!". In contrast, Ixen (kobold sorcerer) is just a BLAST for me- because his "trick", being a kobold, kicks in right at level one! If he somehow became a kobold at level three, or six, or nine... blech. Pass. So, I think Fiery Burst is a great feat for clerics with the fire domain of levels ten or under. So much so that I'm pushing back Craft Wonderous Item to do it. Yes, yes, yes. Craft Wonderous is *just too good for words*, but I want to get the most out of the "Fiery Burst sweet spot" that I can. I'll just save my money, like I did with Vashan, for when I hit 6 and start crafting then.
magebeast 04-01-08, 01:33 PM	I think people underestimate the value of reserve feats, specifically in adaptables. LG PCs are rarely optimized for long dungeon crawls. I played RHoD with two clerics, two wizards, a spring attacking barbarian/scout, and my sorcerer. Our combat ability was a very limited resource. Both clerics and my sorcerer had reserve feats. The only reason I had one was because I was under-APL as well as slightly under the gold curve so I couldn't quite pour out and endless number of spells. We pretty much only made it through RHoD through judicious use of the reserve feats. One other thing about the reserve feats that puggle didn't mention is that you can also do them in a silence. Or while grappled. Or at 1 strength. The only requirement to use the reserve feats is that you are concious and you have the requisite spell still in your slots. Also, because they have a small AOE, it's generally really easy to aim them without hitting someone. You can even make them only hit one square if you target them 30 feet away at an angle.
solbergb 04-01-08, 02:08 PM	...I don't think so. If you're 10th lvl with 18 AC you don't deserve to live. Depends how you play. If you play as if you're a 35 AC tank, then sure. whose monk had ac15 at 10 and even at 15 starts out at ~19-21 AC depending on enemy alignment. But who has tactical feats, has reach weapons, has ways of getting big on his own and has a new toy that extends his reach even further.... Oddly enough, when he needed the cleric standing behind him was in the low levels, when he could lock down the single monster encounter or half of a dual monster encounter with grapple. Most of the time he could get away with it via target selection, tactical feats and his variety of class abilities that let him disengage, and eventually heal himself out of the danger zone. I think that divine casters who don't fit the usual role (for clercs, this means spont healers AND some party buffing and offensive spellcasting) should advertise themselves as one of light infantry, heavy infantry, medic/support or even artillery, depending on what they're doing (to use Warhorn terms). But if the party has an obvious gap and you are best fitted to fill it, you need to step up. My monk is a terrible heavy infantry except for damage output but in a party with none, the party is generally stuffed with casters. Stick a healer behind him or buff the snot out of him and he can be heavy infantry. A generalist heavy plate+shield cleric (Jozan-iconic) is a terrible melee except for armor class at any but the lowest levels, but in a party that lacks any melee offense, giving him the time to buff up and become an adequate fighter is the right play (maybe even loan him a weapon...). You may be the best offensive caster on the table but if the whole party has been slammed with an area effect, and the party is about to either lose a bunch of actions recovering or have character deaths, your best action is probably to do a mass cure and not a flamestrike (unless the flamestrike will end the threat with high degree of certainty). Many parties succeed without a primary healer, they just have to play carefully. If your cleric is highly unlikely to heal in combat, don't say your'e a cleric. Say you're a tank who can heal between combats or that you're like a paladin - you have one or two big incombat heals in you but that's it, so be careful out there. My own druid has this struggle to some extent. She's usually most effective as light infantry, wildshaped and with most of her spells spent on buffs cast before battle. However when traveling overland, she can make it much faster if she and everyone else is mounted, which requires human form. She is often in parties with little or no battlefield control, so she packs a fog spell, sleet storm and sometimes terrain spells like entangle or spike stones. She sucks at ranged combat, so will pack a weak spell or two (flame arrow or call lightning) to help out, but normally tries for something more like air walk to eliminate most range considerations. She's even had to be the "Face" sometimes, which is a very sad thing considering her charisma is 8 and her only social-oriented capabilities are a wisdom of 18 for sense motive. The rest of the party was even worse :). She's a terrible healer, unable to even activate wands in wildshape form, and unable to cast spells when raging, but in a party very weak on healing she'll pack mass lesser vigor for a ranged heal and some stabilization stuff, and might use one of her precious L4 spell slots (she only has 2 and will only ever have 3 of these) on a summoned unicorn. I've spent entire adventures playing more like a arcane caster than what she was built to do, but the party had plenty of others who could do her thing better, and nobody who could do what her limited druid spell slots could bring to the table. It's part of the consequence of randomly mustered tables and playing a versitile character class. If you don't want to play out of "build" sometimes, build your heavy infantry, light infantry or blaster character in a less flexible class.
solbergb 04-01-08, 02:15 PM	I love watching PCs like that put "all they've got" into killing a creature in one round driving their AC down to 5 in the process. When they find out that the creature is still alive... they start to sweat and then often get pounded into the dirt. :D Well, the other way to support that kind of char than healing is to finish off the nearly dead monster. Which is something my ranged-oriented characters spend a lot of time doing when somebody like that is at the table...delay for them and finish off whatever they started....(or put up battlefield control blocking the counterattack)
copperwyrmling 04-01-08, 03:04 PM	So, I think Fiery Burst is a great feat for clerics with the fire domain of levels ten or under. So much so that I'm pushing back Craft Wonderous Item to do it. Yes, yes, yes. Craft Wonderous is *just too good for words*, but I want to get the most out of the "Fiery Burst sweet spot" that I can. I'll just save my money, like I did with Vashan, for when I hit 6 and start crafting then. Sure. They can be fun in the baby levels, where you don't have any spells to speak of. It's probably a good idea for an actual Living Greyhawk character starting out right now. I thought this thread was about more general principles of building and playing a cleric, though - for that purpose, I wouldn't recommend the reserve feats unless you're planning to retrain them when you hit the mid-levels. My problem with the reserve feats is I think people often overestimate the degree of resource conservation required in typical Living Greyhawk mods at higher levels (adaptables do sometimes go the other way). Reserve feats encourage people to do a very wimpy action rather than something better because it doesn't "cost" anything. (And the firepuffs are pretty wimpy. The fact that they do nearly as much damage as burning hands isn't really a good thing.) They also cost a feat, and feats are precious for casters.
CdrcJsn 04-01-08, 04:11 PM	My problem with the reserve feats is I think people often overestimate the degree of resource conservation required in typical Living Greyhawk mods at higher levels (adaptables do sometimes go the other way). Reserve feats encourage people to do a very wimpy action rather than something better because it doesn't "cost" anything. (And the firepuffs are pretty wimpy. The fact that they do nearly as much damage as burning hands isn't really a good thing.) They also cost a feat, and feats are precious for casters. I completely agree with copperwyrmling here. There are some interesting things you can do with reserve feats, but in general they aren't very useful outside of resource grind type mods (such as certain adaptables). On the other hand, I've seen some clerics with suboptimal tactics that would benefit from a reserve feat if it made them do something that round rather than delaying for yet another round. I've seen more than my share of clerics not do anything for several rounds because nobody was hurt or needed to be buffed. Thankfully 4e seems to have fixed this type of cleric and they'll be doing something useful every round without the need for reserve feats and it won't impact their healing of the party.
Maesto 04-01-08, 05:14 PM	My problem with the reserve feats is I think people often overestimate the degree of resource conservation required in typical Living Greyhawk mods at higher levels (adaptables do sometimes go the other way). Reserve feats encourage people to do a very wimpy action rather than something better because it doesn't "cost" anything. (And the firepuffs are pretty wimpy. The fact that they do nearly as much damage as burning hands isn't really a good thing.) They also cost a feat, and feats are precious for casters. I think copper's got it right. You can get through a lot of modules with very little resource drain if you play that way. I remember both her and I being told to save our spells because the fighters could mop up the combat from there, which leads to very boring adventures. Not having any spells to throw is one thing; being told not to throw them is another thing entirely, especially when aforementioned fighters want you to spend those spells healing them afterwards. On the flip side, by about level 12, it's also incredibly difficult to get through all your spell slots most days, even if you burn a quickened spell and a normal spell every round*. I agree that the reserve feats encourage resource conservation when it usually isn't necessary. Of all the adapted modules that I've played, only the low APL ones actually required resource management. In the high APL games, we quite happily threw everything we had at the monsters until they went away :D The real "cost" of a reserve feat isn't "nothing"; it's a (precious, precious) feat slot, and an even more precious standard action in combat. Even by as low as level 6, the most important commodity in the game is actions, not spellslots. Just because I can brag about it, I got copperwyrmling's 15th level sorceror down to one seventh level spellslot (the "Escape Card") and 4th level spells or lower in the game I most recently GMed her for. I think that's fairly impressive. Cheers, Jolyon * As I've recently found, there are some ways to do so. When you're a warweaver and your opening action goes "Release spells from the quiescent weave, cast a swift spell, cast whirling blade and arcane strike with another spell", you get through up to 7 spells in the opening round. Then you wonder why you have no spellslots left.
copperwyrmling 04-01-08, 06:33 PM	Just because I can brag about it, I got copperwyrmling's 15th level sorceror down to one seventh level spellslot (the "Escape Card") and 4th level spells or lower in the game I most recently GMed her for. I think that's fairly impressive. Running out of spells at the very end of the day is good - it means that you're playing your PC to their full potential :P
Hariman 04-01-08, 07:53 PM	- I've heard a lot of complaints about clerics doing long power-up sequences, but have never actually seen it except when we're explicitly given prebuff rounds. I see one-round power-ups quite a lot (even without a belt of battle - quickened spell + real spell + move into full attack range is the usual approach), and I don't think this compares unfavorably to a generic fighter/barbarian (it does mean the first round is "wasted" compared to an archer, dervish, pouncer or spirited charger). If you can't contribute in melee after your best two buffs, then adding more is unlikely to significantly change the situation, in my experience. - Related to this: there is no way a fully buffed cleric is "better than any fighter" in melee, even an unbuffed fighter (assuming by "fighter" we mean "noncaster melee", rather than "pure-class fighter"), at least in LG with only Open spells. They just don't get enough feats and class abilities. That does not mean they shouldn't melee: they can still be good enough at it to make it a strong option. ------------------------------------- It's true that a party with a cleric who's going full-blown melee often feels, mid-combat, more like a table with two frontliners and no cleric. That's fine - those tables can be very effective. It does however mean that people need to modify their tactics a bit. ------------------------------------- - To Rockondon: I had a PC with AC 13 and Con 12 at L11. She survived just fine: she had other defences (mostly "they can't hit me if I'm 200ft away, and I can attack just fine from over there"). AC 18 at L10 is fine, if you have some other way to avoid dying that doesn't depend on forcing other players to spend their actions helping you. Let's see: 1: I HAVE seen a self buffing cleric routine. It was a nightmare. I've been in parties of 4 and 5 where the cleric spent three rounds buffing before coming to the party's rescue. 2: Melee clerics are good sauce. Provided you don't have my cleric Jynx, who is a Kobold Cleric of Io with 12 Str/12 con. (He's a buffer.) If he's the only melee in the party, that party had better have some badass casters and archers to make up for it. He'll have a good AC, but his damage will probably never reach the same as a normal fighter or barbarian. 3: There's a player in my area that has a "Fighter who heals". AKA: A dwarven cleric who rarely heals and swings his axe in melee as his usual shtick. It's pretty effective (18 Str/18 Con) and we usually heal out of combat. 4: My sorcerer has the "I'm behind the fighter" defense. On top of Mage Armor, False life and doing unto others before they do unto you. I love watching PCs like that put "all they've got" into killing a creature in one round driving their AC down to 5 in the process. When they find out that the creature is still alive... they start to sweat and then often get pounded into the dirt. :D If that monster is still up after the party's follow up assault, either somebody did something wrong or that monster is remarkably tough. Running out of spells at the very end of the day is good - it means that you're playing your PC to their full potential :P Only if your enemies are already dead! ;) While there is certainly a point to be made, saying that it requires two character is an exageration. The Fighter/Barbarian does have (potentially a lot of) HP of their own and out of combat actions aren't important (though they do have a responsibility to provide wands -even more than everyone else) Staggering Strike and Elusive Target can also do a lot to keep damage down however low your AC. Elusive Target is an impressive feat. I've seen it work wonders with a barbarian who was using it.
Puggle Halfwine 04-01-08, 07:53 PM	I thought this thread was about more general principles of building and playing a cleric, though - for that purpose, I wouldn't recommend the reserve feats unless you're planning to retrain them when you hit the mid-levels. Sure, it is. I've started a bit of a tangent (on an internet forum? Shock horror :P) but yeah. The option to retrain them, especially as they have no prerequisites and have no feats depending on them, is definitely there. My problem with the reserve feats is I think people often overestimate the degree of resource conservation required in typical Living Greyhawk mods at higher levels (adaptables do sometimes go the other way). Reserve feats encourage people to do a very wimpy action rather than something better because it doesn't "cost" anything. (And the firepuffs are pretty wimpy. The fact that they do nearly as much damage as burning hands isn't really a good thing.) They also cost a feat, and feats are precious for casters. I'll agree with all of the above. At high levels, they're crappy- 5d6 ref half instead of a 5th level spell which, for my kobold sorcerer is a CL 10 empowered full orb of cold (15d6, touch attack, no save for the damage, save or be blind)... there's just no contest. Especially on a sorcerer... that's a stupid choice to make in combat. However, for a 5th level cleric in an adapted, I'd still say that Fiery Burst is probably one of the better feats out there. I think copper's got it right. You can get through a lot of modules with very little resource drain if you play that way. I remember both her and I being told to save our spells because the fighters could mop up the combat from there, which leads to very boring adventures. Not having any spells to throw is one thing; being told not to throw them is another thing entirely, especially when aforementioned fighters want you to spend those spells healing them afterwards. Exactly, which brings us back on topic- that clerics not specifically built as support characters don't exist as bandaid boxes for other characters, especially when other characters deliberately build themselves to require maximum support to survive. I'd take umbrage if someone told me to save my spells to heal them because they had AC -15 when they raged/karmic striked/charged/shock trooper'd. Even now when I play my 9th level sorcerer people tell me not to throw a 1st level orb because "this combat is taken care of". It's a first level spell! I have *heaps*! If I run out of spells in this mod, I'll apologize. :) Until then, lesser orb of cold for me!
Timlagor 04-01-08, 08:24 PM	1) There's no ambiguity about how Immediate and Swift actions interact 2) Running out of spells being good depends on your character. My Wizard never liked to run out of spells -what if something attacks in the night? 3) While clerics are slow, they usually have a useful buff to cast (esp with Divine Ward which you don't have to have running on the whole party incidentlally) ..but Fiery Burst could certainly be fun and even useful at low levels. I've asked people to conserve spells before now but not while the enemy was capable of doing considerable damage -when all the 2nd level spells get cast in the first combat of an APL2/4 I get a little worried. [throwing a Lesser Orb at 9th level is conserving spells ..esp for a Sorceror but it's also what Horalion (my Wizard) did when combats were essentially over]
Mattastrophic 04-02-08, 01:57 AM	Hmm... how to deal with Cleric traps... Here we go, in public-service-announcement form: Be part of the solution. Take Leadership. Also, on reserve feats. They're only good because of retraining. At a certain point, you realize "I can spend 1 TU and 2500 gp to have a whole bunch of different spells/day that're all better than this feat." That's about when retraining happens. As for spell conservation: I used to conserve my spells. I didn't have much fun. Now I use Arcane Strike to recklessly blow through my slots, and I find myself wishing that the bad guys would have more hit points so I could get to dump more spells. -Matt
magebeast 04-02-08, 02:39 AM	Also, on reserve feats. They're only good because of retraining. At a certain point, you realize "I can spend 1 TU and 2500 gp to have a whole bunch of different spells/day that're all better than this feat." To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't know what feat gives you "a whole bunch of different spells per day", or how 1 tu and 2500 gp provides that?
_metz_ 04-02-08, 08:06 AM	To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't know what feat gives you "a whole bunch of different spells per day", or how 1 tu and 2500 gp provides that? He meant 4 Tus. :) Reserve feats are ok if you retrain em by APL 6-8. - metz
kinevon 04-02-08, 09:39 AM	He meant 4 Tus. Reserve feats are ok if you retrain em by APL 6-8. Wouldn't that also be a lot less than 2500 gp? somewhere from 600-1000 gp, depending on exact level. I was thinking it was like one of the Meta Orgs in the Pale, where you can spend a TU for some special access, but with a gold cost attached.
Timlagor 04-02-08, 01:01 PM	Wands? Scrolls?
MwaO 04-02-08, 01:05 PM	To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you. I just don't know what feat gives you "a whole bunch of different spells per day", or how 1 tu and 2500 gp provides that? Craft Wondrous Item + 5 Pearls of Power 1
magebeast 04-02-08, 04:08 PM	Craft Wondrous Item + 5 Pearls of Power 1 Oh, well, wizard and cleric centric again :(
TetsujinOni 04-02-08, 04:15 PM	Craft Wondrous Item + 5 Pearls of Power 1 CWI is already planned for this build. I've got a similar discussion running with the player of an RSoP who's about to hit 9th on our way through red hand... (In no particular order other than legal, divine ward, augment healing, extra turning, CWI). I'm curious what gets suggested for the Moradiner, and what people think for the L9 feat for the Pelorite.
MwaO 04-02-08, 04:44 PM	CWI is already planned for this build. I've got a similar discussion running with the player of an RSoP who's about to hit 9th on our way through red hand... (In no particular order other than legal, divine ward, augment healing, extra turning, CWI). The question isn't whether or not CWI is planned for the build or not - the question is when. The reason the build needs to worry about what it does to conserve resources is that it doesn't have CWI. If by 4th level, you've crafted 5 Pearls and a +2 Wis item instead of paying 4K for a +2 Wis item... (crafting 5 Pearls, not 4, because CWI slows how fast you level)
JamesMaissen 04-02-08, 05:02 PM	One thing here: Don't consider one feat in a vacuum. Rather consider the ENTIRE character. IF a reserve feat works for the character then that's great and dandy, but consider the full build with it and the full build without it at the very least. Taking feats later is problematic in general as you have to deal with prerequisites to them. -James
solbergb 04-02-08, 07:07 PM	As for spell conservation: I used to conserve my spells. I didn't have much fun. I've never been much for conserving limited resources, not in nearly 30 years of gaming in various systems. The way most of my characters look at it, if I don't use it, I might as well not have had it. This attitude works pretty well in LG, where quite often the encounter is the only one you'll have that day. My monk, for example, has a few 1/day class abilities and several magic items with 1-3 charges/day. It is a rare day when he's used them all, even though I do use them at any possible opportunity that they might be useful. (swift action starvation limits the burn somewhat, pretty much all of these except boots of haste compete with each other for what gets used in a given round) Even in two rounders, core specials and adaptables this doesn't tend to let me down although a couple times my sorceress got into slot trouble due to excessive buffing of NPCS (no, I really didn't need to cast BOTH Phantom Steed AND Greater mage armor on all those refugees....). She still managed to squeak out the adventure with useful actions every round, but I probably missed out on some quicken spell opportunities. I rather enjoy the pained looks I get from prepared caster players when my spont casters toss spells around with abandon. Prep casters have to be more careful, if they cast a spell it may be gone when they need it later. Spont casters only burn a spell SLOT. If they're profligate with everything but their top tier slots, they're unlikely to get into trouble, barring having very few spell slots such as bard or assassin. I do tend to have a plan for when this behavior plays out badly. My melee and archer characters still operate pretty well when their x/day tricks wear out, just at merely "iconic" level instead of their best performance. My casters carry consumables which can stretch things a bit further. I'd say with confidence though that my grand total of wasted or significantly inferior actions due to excessive resource burn are far less than the number of "inaction" rounds caused by characters that are overly concerned with resource burn. Obviously I'm more cautious when incharacter I have reason to know it'll be a long day. (there is an army outside the walls, and it could attack any time. I won't frivolously spend magic on the kinds of thing I'd do on a market day or travel day)
_metz_ 04-02-08, 10:08 PM	I'd say with confidence though that my grand total of wasted or significantly inferior actions due to excessive resource burn are far less than the number of "inaction" rounds caused by characters that are overly concerned with resource burn. Agreed. Hence why I feel reserve feats are a waste on most PCs in LG. In the World's Biggest dungeon on the other hand... NOt at all. In LG, I have nearly knockedd myself out seeing PCs at APL 14 cast sound burst or searing light (on non undead). My Caster PC is designed to operate effectively and fully twice per day burning everything he ahs got in every encounter if he has to. That has only ever happened once, in the demonweb pits, when Alvin (curse you m!) triggered the entire final room all at once. THose firepuffs are a boreddom filler at best, and a woeful waste of resources at worst. Lets not mention that it allows a save, and is fire damage - something MOST things are resistant to past APL 8. - It is a poor man's warlock and it can get parties in trouble. I played with the firepuffing PC you were talking about Puggle, and in the game I played with it a few of us felt we could have finished the encounter so much quicker with a haste or a few other full strength spells in the wasted rounds.
Reylance 04-03-08, 12:50 AM	I've played multiple clerics, so I'd be happy to switch to my cleric, if available at the APL. In fact, one cleric rapidly jumped from 3rd to 7th in one year because, despite having multiple characters in that APL range, I was the only one willing to pull out a cleric, and I often played down to do so. My first mostly-cleric wasn't specialized, being resilient more than anything else (evasion/prescient sense, mettle, high saves). I typically prepared one quickened divine favor-divine power-righteous might, just in case I needed to fight in combat. It happened rarely, but it was good to be prepared. My second cleric was designed to be a support healing cleric. I had ideas of being a cork at mid-levels, but realized I wasn't getting anywhere near combat. I have long-range buffs for helping the party. I carry Righteous Wrath and have offensive spells and other abilities for when healing or support is not needed. My third cleric was a combat cleric designed to abuse the hours-per-level Spikes, but the LG ban and later Spell Compendium version nerfed that build idea. Pretty much all of my spellcasters have a variety of spell effects available. I include some direct damage, some utility, some buffing. Now, when it comes to party roles, I'm willing to heal as needed. As a fighter, I only ask for cleric support when it's needed. High rolls or crits can cause anyone to need healing, and the cleric is the best person to do this. Starting at mid-levels, it becomes more important to keep the people standing between you and the monsters healthy. And I'm biased towards defense. For example, around APL 12, any of my PCs that gets access to a Dusty Rose Prism ioun stone will buy it. I'll buy resistance items and defensive scrolls.
UMiskatonic 04-09-08, 07:15 PM	Two points, and then I'll go back to lurking. 1) What you do CHANGES based on who you are with. From time to time, my 11th level cleric adventures with a group of fighters, marshals, and paladins. I am the entire spell support for this group. With them, it's group buffs like prayer, utility spells like invis purge, and lots o healing. When I play down, or in region, I'm more likely to move into melee. 2) Everyone wants a cleric at the table. This means that 1 of 6 characters should be a cleric. If you're on this list, there's a good chance that you have six characters. Are you doing your share? Are 1/6th of your characters clerics? That's my usual response to 'Can you bring your cleric?'
solbergb 04-09-08, 07:39 PM	Yeah...I have a similar dynamic with my monk...how he behaves depends tremendously on party composition. If he's the only melee at the table, it is far more important that he both does consistent, high damage and makes an effort to be survivable if forced to tank. (if he's the only melee, that means 3-5 casters who can spare a few spell slots for long duration buffs, and shorter ones when we have time to buff before a near-term fight) If the table is packed with melee he spends a lot more time setting up the other melees for success, via tactical feats or simply using his variety of mobility tricks (benign transposition, abundant step or simply picking them up and carrying them somewhere else) to give them more full attacks. If the table is balanced, he splits time between supporting a more traditional melee to get enemies all the way dead and going after targets a traditional melee can't touch. With respect to the cleric at the table thing - I have played plenty of games with no incombt healing. It's not any different from adjusting to a table that has no battlefield control, or no way of doing things like make people fly or no person who can tank an apl-appropriate melee enemy for more than a round. You adjust your tactics to capabilities. The primary change in behavior is that you just don't assume a heal will come and instead get yourself out of trouble if before moving would get you killed. A party light on healing is usually heavy on offense, so you can duck out of the fight and do something safer and the party will still get the job done. By contrast my tables where I play my medic/support and to a lesser extent with my offensive-caster cleric, we seem to have a dearth of damage dealing and the party tends toward long, drawn-out combats where nobody is in any serious danger. Very resilient, but bad at "burst" damage. This can be a problem when the enemy can teleport away, or has fast healing or something similar. A balanced party will have all of combat-healing, melee offense, melee tanking, ranged offense, battlefield control, high mobility (including flight and teleport-like tricks at APL10+ and sometimes earlier) and generally good out of combat utility (trapfinding, scouting, social skills, weird action multipliers like servant horde, divinations etc). But even with 6 players, the odds of having everything are low. What makes combat-healing unusual is only two commonly-played classes are any good at it (cleric and favored soul). Other classes can do a tiny bit of incombat healing but either run out quick (Paladin Lay on Hands) or the amounts are too small to be very helpful without massive feat investment just to break even vs a generalist cleric (druid, bard). The rest...you can have multiple solutions and most classes provide some of it. Just to take a pure fighter....he will generally be capable of either strong melee offense+tanking or strong ranged offense. He'll have decent tactical and strategic mobility when mounted, and at higher levels will have a way to fly and often a way to teleport, if limited by consumables or x/day uses. Out of combat he can intimidate or do things like climb, swim, break down doors or be the guy who risks the trap or the ambush. After level 1, he probably also provides between-combat healing in the form of wands of CLW for others to use. So he can add to the party capability of most of what the balanced party wants...but can't add a thing to incombat healing beyond perhaps not being very easy to hurt or keeping more vulnerable people from being hurt by blocking charge lanes or using tactical feats to interefere with enemy movement.
jhorred 04-12-08, 01:55 PM	On the other hand, I've seen some clerics with suboptimal tactics that would benefit from a reserve feat if it made them do something that round rather than delaying for yet another round. I've seen more than my share of clerics not do anything for several rounds because nobody was hurt or needed to be buffed. What sucks is when the party expects the cleric to do just that. Effectively putting a "In case of Emergency break Glass" sign on them. No fun for the player. Edit- Oh the Reserve Feat thing. I like them. Even on higher level characters. I think they are great when used at the right time and place. They can give the player something to contribute to the party when there isn't anything else to do. My wizard would use it instead of a fireball when the combat is winding down or the fireball would be overkill on the targets. I think they are a good power extender for the casters for the times when you do need to conserve resources. Plus Fiery Burst does at +1 CL for fire spells, often increasing the damage and range of your normal spells. Edit take 2- Also I don't think that it's the clerics job to keep the fighter at full HP, or even at half HP. I think it's the clerics job to keep the party alive. If he/she does that by healing after combat then the cleric is still doing their job.
RanielK 04-12-08, 09:28 PM	Everybody that I've talked to would rather have a cleric due to the versatility that a cleric brings to the table. Heck, I would rather have a cleric over a healer any day. That's kind of funny considering most players of clerics are hounded into doing one thing . . . heal, Heal, HEAL!!!! Versatility, shmersatility. The only options asked for are the Pact spells before the game starts and the first round party buffs (Righteous Wrath or Recitation usually). Otherwise it's "Do you have Close Wounds?" and "Fourth level spells? You're taking Delay Death right?" Now I do have my Radiant Servant of Cheese, with nearly everything needed to be unbelievably sick at turning (missing two magic items, a Bard Cohort and those three "Light of . . ." spells from Complete Champion). He is focused on healing the hurts of the world (will even stabilize enemies) and he only gets bent out of shape when his ward gets in danger (don't ask) or undead show up (unholy blights). I accept that he is a wand of cure critical walking around. I still feel the pain of my fellow clerics who want to do more than sit at the table with a bored expression on their face, thumbing through a book or having a conversation with someone else until being nudged in the ribs and told "Hey you! Be useful and cure me!"
Hariman 04-12-08, 09:46 PM	That's kind of funny considering most players of clerics are hounded into doing one thing . . . heal, Heal, HEAL!!!! Versatility, shmersatility. The only options asked for are the Pact spells before the game starts and the first round party buffs (Righteous Wrath or Recitation usually). Otherwise it's "Do you have Close Wounds?" and "Fourth level spells? You're taking Delay Death right?" Now I do have my Radiant Servant of Cheese, with nearly everything needed to be unbelievably sick at turning (missing two magic items, a Bard Cohort and those three "Light of . . ." spells from Complete Champion). He is focused on healing the hurts of the world (will even stabilize enemies) and he only gets bent out of shape when his ward gets in danger (don't ask) or undead show up (unholy blights). I accept that he is a wand of cure critical walking around. I still feel the pain of my fellow clerics who want to do more than sit at the table with a bored expression on their face, thumbing through a book or having a conversation with someone else until being nudged in the ribs and told "Hey you! Be useful and cure me!" Ironically, that's why I find my cleric less fun than my sorcerer. He's expected to be a healer, but he doesn't have Augment healing or the Healing domain. (Jynx, Golden Kobold Cleric of Io, Strength and Magic domains.) I'd rather use his spells to either attack the enemy or buff his friends. If only he had better than STR 12 and DEX 10. I'd be more tempted to dip into a few other classes to make him a melee character. If he dies gets reincarnated into something better for melee I might just do that. Hmmm. Now that I've said that, I've probably either ensured his immortality or guaranteed a permadeath via reincarnate.
CdrcJsn 04-12-08, 10:32 PM	What sucks is when the party expects the cleric to do just that. Effectively putting a "In case of Emergency break Glass" sign on them. No fun for the player. Really? I don't think I've ever been at a table where a player was forced into a healbot-only playstyle. I've been at plenty of tables though where the buffer type cleric decided to delay for several rounds voluntarily because he wanted to conserve his spells and nobody needed buffing or healing and he flat out had nothing else to contribute. I can think of at least a handful of specific instances off the top of my head. I specifically remember one table with three buffing-type clerics in a party of five. The first two encounters were rather rough because the party had no real damage capability...but it sure had plenty of healing. Combat was long, laborious and took forever. It took until the third combat before the clerics decided (with subtle hints from me, the DM) to memorize a few flame strikes, divine power and other attack spells to speed things along. But this illustrates the point that often, these "buffing" type of players need help to think of ways to contribute when there isn't anyone able (or worth it) to be buffed in the party. It's a trap for a personality type of "team-oriented" players. I personally love them in a group and appreciate team players. But sometimes support characters have to take on another role and all to often they are unable to do that. A reserve feat that will allow them to attack without wasting their precious heals or buffs will help move them towards that I think. I guess the short version is that although clerics can be built for a specific role and excell in it, they have to be prepared to step out of that role occasionally for the benefit of the group. The nature of the living campaign with its random table assignations sorta demand it.
Reylance 04-14-08, 11:28 AM	That's the reason my spellcasters always carry a variety of spells: some buffing, some offense, some utility, some battlefield control. I'll never run out of things to do with my highest level active cleric, since I have what's effectively a reserve feat, a 3/day ability that should last a whole combat, to deal damage, if no other spellcasting is needed.
solbergb 04-14-08, 06:49 PM	Cedric's story was the nightmare scenario I envisioned when I wrote up Mugwort, my favored soul of Procan medic/support character. He is in fact built to do two things other than heal...he can cork and he can do small amounts of steady damage. Amounts small enough to not be very meaningful with a real damage dealer at the table, but large enough to allow the party to win slowly if it is packed with healing or other support characters. When the melee damage becomes insignificant (APL6+) his spells and PRC class abilites were going to keep him in the same range...slow, steady, inexorable damage on a nearly indestructable platform (good hp, saves, AC and massive self-healing capability). He's unlikely to get further than L6 due to campaign dying, so I will in fact retrain the PRC prereqs into a reserve feat at L6 rather than use one of my few L3 spells known to boost the combat capability. (that plan worked better when he would use that spell for a half dozen levels, even though he lacked the spell slots at L6 to make the best use of it normally)
Timlagor 04-15-08, 11:11 AM	Every caster should be able to deal enough damage to make up for not having any real damage dealers at the table. Prep-casters have no trouble with this at all since they just sit down and prepare damage spells when they see who's at the table. No build thought is needed (aside from Wizards copying a couple of damage spells at some point) Spontaneous casters shoudl plan for it from the beginning -Empower Spell, MM and an Orb aren't that big an investment for a Sorceror. Healers and Beguilers do have a potential serious problem here but if you find yourself with nothing but those, it's time to remuster.
cycloptic_squirrel 04-15-08, 01:26 PM	Every caster should be able to deal enough damage to make up for not having any real damage dealers at the table. I think it's more important to have a way to contribute when there are no real damage dealers - dealing damage yourself can be the best solution, but it's rarely the only one. I have a buffing/face cleric type that just hit 11th without doing a single point of damage herself. At lower levels she was a cork, providing flanks and aids when the spells ran low. +2 to hit was usually better than 1d4 damage. Tripping also factored in. At sixth she took a tank cohort, which worked out quite well, as there was almost always someone to buff. I've also used entangle, calm emotions, silence, and wall of stone to good effect.
TWG_Prometheus 04-15-08, 05:39 PM	Prep-casters have no trouble with this at all since they just sit down and prepare damage spells when they see who's at the table. No build thought is needed (aside from Wizards copying a couple of damage spells at some point) I'm not so sure about this in terms of the main class under discussion, Clerics. I've seen people try to pull out Flame Strike as a damage alternative when they're not built for it, and the results were underwhelming. Inflict spells tend to be similarly meh and they're evil acts in LG as well. Wizards can get away with a lot more since there's no save or spell resistance on Orbs at least, but in my experience a lack of build preparation to deal damage usually results in (basically) zero damage out of Clerics. Maybe there's something more reliable in the Spell Compendium.
magebeast 04-15-08, 06:21 PM	Spiritual Weapon is an excellent choice. It has SR, but it's steady damage. Any caster build cleric is going to have a fantastic to hit with it, because of the high wisdom. Spiritual Weapons were a staple of my two-cleric Red Hand table.
copperwyrmling 04-15-08, 06:24 PM	I'm not so sure about this in terms of the main class under discussion, Clerics. I've seen people try to pull out Flame Strike as a damage alternative when they're not built for it, and the results were underwhelming. Inflict spells tend to be similarly meh and they're evil acts in LG as well. Wizards can get away with a lot more since there's no save or spell resistance on Orbs at least, but in my experience a lack of build preparation to deal damage usually results in (basically) zero damage out of Clerics. Maybe there's something more reliable in the Spell Compendium. It does depend what level you are, but yeah, clerics don't get a whole lot of damage spells, especially if the bad guys are fire-resistant and not fiends or undead. My cleric's alternative for "there's no serious damage-dealer in the group" was usually "I cast divine power, put quickened brambles on my staff and wade in" - her full attack is generally better than any spell she can cast as far as pure damage goes, and much less of a drain on spell resources if the fight goes more than three rounds. The damage spells she does use regularly are Fire Seeds (from Fire domain, but since Sun domain gets it as well, this is pretty common) and Bolt of Glory, plus Heal vs undead with too many HD for her to turn. She sometimes preps Blade Barrier and Flamestrike for area damage. I've seen people use Cometfall because it's untyped and SR:no, but I don't usually take it. I've been using Lion's Roar a fair bit recently, but not so much for the damage as for the other effects - it is good for clearing up HUGE mook battles though. (I also haven't been particularly impressed by the damage output of wizards who aren't built for it, but sometimes everyone just needs to help chip away at the bad guys.)
jhorred 04-15-08, 06:44 PM	Really? I don't think I've ever been at a table where a player was forced into a healbot-only playstyle. <snip> I guess the short version is that although clerics can be built for a specific role and excell in it, they have to be prepared to step out of that role occasionally for the benefit of the group. The nature of the living campaign with its random table assignations sorta demand it. It doesn't happen very often at cons. You're right when you say the cleric excels at the one role, but some players seem to have a problem when the cleric tries to step out of it.
CdrcJsn 04-16-08, 04:55 AM	Spiritual Weapon is an excellent choice. It has SR, but it's steady damage. Any caster build cleric is going to have a fantastic to hit with it, because of the high wisdom. Spiritual Weapons were a staple of my two-cleric Red Hand table. My first LG character was a caster/buffer type of cleric and for one adventure at around 16th level used Spiritual Weapon as his only damaging spell. He cast it every round in various forms. Regular Spiritual Weapon. Extended Spiritual Weapon. Empowered Spiritual Weapon. Extended Empowered Spiritual Weapon. Quickened Spiritual Weapon. Extended Quickened Spiritual Weapon. Empowered Quickened Spiritual Weapon. It was sorta funny. It was a joke tactic used during an overpowered table so it's not something I would recommend normally. But he was a cleric of Zagyg, so it made sense for him to use the above nonsense tactic at least once. It took a couple of rounds to set up, but the "Doom Cloud of Force Clubs" quickly made short work of any foe.
RanielK 04-16-08, 09:24 AM	It was sorta funny. It was a joke tactic used during an overpowered table so it's not something I would recommend normally. But he was a cleric of Zagyg*, so it made sense for him to use the above nonsense tactic at least once. *Isn't his spiritual weapon a giant hand with a joy buzzer? Or am I thinking of the Spell Bigby's Groping Hand?
Timlagor 04-16-08, 10:13 AM	I'm not saying that any caster will have impressive damage but they can prep enough to get the job done once the enemy is incapacitate by the overwhelming casting superiority of a no-fighter group. I have yet to see a Cleric that had neither high DCs not enough physical attributes to buff-up and run into melee. Lack of damage spells is certainly a problem for clerics at low levels but even the feeble ones aren't as far behind the fighters then. One of my Wizards (6Str) bought a Large Scythe for Coup de Graces :) -it had to be carried by his riding dog of course. [effectively retired almost immediately after when the TUs went so I didn't get to use it but he had felt the need for it in the mod before he bought it]
bitznarf 04-21-08, 06:17 PM	[Pet Peeve]Inflict spells ... [are] evil acts in LG as well. This is (in my opinion) not clear in the RAW. At my table casting an inflict spell is not an evil act. If anyone feels like debating this with me, feel free to either send me a PM or start another thread on the topic. [/Pet Peeve]
Black_Egg 04-22-08, 03:58 PM	I don't like the Inflict = evil act ruling either, but a ruling it is. It isn't worth fighting at this point anyway.
MwaO 04-22-08, 04:42 PM	I don't like the Inflict = evil act ruling either, but a ruling it is. It isn't worth fighting at this point anyway. It isn't actually an LG ruling. Individual DMs can decide it is an evil act, but there isn't any place in LG which says that they have to make it. You think it is dumb, you don't have to make it. And despite appearances, because it does involve making a decision about the core rules, no Triad or Circle member can force a DM to decide that one way or the other - they will back up the right of the DM to make that decision, though.
magebeast 04-22-08, 04:54 PM	It isn't actually an LG ruling. Individual DMs can decide it is an evil act, but there isn't any place in LG which says that they have to make it. You think it is dumb, you don't have to make it. And despite appearances, because it does involve making a decision about the core rules, no Triad or Circle member can force a DM to decide that one way or the other - they will back up the right of the DM to make that decision, though. This is absolutely true. People make that confusion because Britt was/is a strong proponent of that particular ruling, but he never said it with his triad hat on!
Black_Egg 04-22-08, 05:08 PM	That's nice to know I guess. If the campaign was continuing maybe I would have gone back to my Necromancy/touch attack focused Cleric of Zilchus but some things aren't meant to be.
_metz_ 04-22-08, 10:32 PM	This is absolutely true. People make that confusion because Britt was/is a strong proponent of that particular ruling, but he never said it with his triad hat on! I never liked that ruling. Does that mean that an evil cleric who preps and casts cure spells on himself is committing good acts and is danger of changing alignment and losing his spells mid fight???? Outrageous. Negative energy and Positive energy are DnD forms of matter with thier own planes. That is a dumb ruling, I'd expect better from Britt, not that it matters seeing as he has dropped off the face of the planet with the rest of our Iuz modules.
magebeast 04-22-08, 11:44 PM	I never liked that ruling. Does that mean that an evil cleric who preps and casts cure spells on himself is committing good acts and is danger of changing alignment and losing his spells mid fight???? Outrageous. Negative energy and Positive energy are DnD forms of matter with thier own planes. That is a dumb ruling, I'd expect better from Britt, not that it matters seeing as he has dropped off the face of the planet with the rest of our Iuz modules. Well it's perfectly reasonable, given what the turning rules say about channeling positive and negative energy.
_metz_ 04-22-08, 11:57 PM	Well it's perfectly reasonable, given what the turning rules say about channeling positive and negative energy. Turning equals channeling/being a conduit for those planes. Inflict = Conjuration from those planes via a spell NOT innate divine power. I don't see how they are corollary RAW wise. So no, I don't think its reasonable given those rules. :)
MwaO 04-23-08, 12:24 AM	Well it's perfectly reasonable, given what the turning rules say about channeling positive and negative energy. That they're the act of turning? The turning rules tell us to use the terms interchangeably. You have to ignore that in order to get that perfectly reasonable ruling.
magebeast 04-23-08, 12:20 PM	Mmm I thought I remembered there being a more explicit sentence in the turning section, I guess I was wrong.
MwaO 04-23-08, 12:47 PM	Mmm I thought I remembered there being a more explicit sentence in the turning section, I guess I was wrong. There is an apparently explicit sentence: Even if a cleric is neutral, channeling positive energy is a good act and channeling negative energy is evil. But that's only if you're ignoring the first paragraph - last sentence of it after defining the use of positive or negative energy: Regardless of the effect, the general term for the activity is "turning." You're meant in the section to be able to swap in 'turning' at any point they say 'channeling X energy' - that's in the definition of what is turning. It is only a reasonable position if you ignore the definition of what is turning. Now that could still mean that you're meant to do that on other sections of the rules, such as the inflict spells, but the results of that are wacky - does casting CLW use up a turning attempt or does it generate a turning attempt? Either result is so silly, that basically, the people adopting that position are saying that we're intended to ignore the definition of turning.
dkay807 04-24-08, 07:58 PM	Counter-Trap One: You Are the Best Healer Really. Nobody else is possibly going to be as good at healing as you are. Even the people who are great at not taking damage because of AC or special abilities are still not going to be as effective at removing damage that any character takes as you are. You need to recognize this, and understand what it means to the other players if the circumstances merit it. If you as the cleric are burning all of your swift actions using magic items, you will not be able to cast close wounds or delay death. If you are burning up your high level spells with buffs or blasts, you will not have any slots available to convert to a cure critical wounds. If things go sour, everyone is going to look to you to pull their fat out of the fire. If you are a druid, you will not be expected to convert to a cure spell. If you are a favored soul, you may not know any cure spells. If you are a cleric, you have the best healing. Counter-Trap Two: But Can You Do This? You are a battle cleric. You unleash a pretty considerable smackdown. But . . . do you have all of those fighter feats? The power attack, improved critical, improved initiative, close quarters fighting, and four or five other bonus feats depending on level? If not, even with all of those buffs the other frontliner types just might have those few extra options you do not, and they might be better at being a frontliner even when you are buffed. Yeah, you can have a dump level of barbarian. So can he. Yeah, you can have a buff spell to give you the same BAB. He already has it. Yeah, you can burn spells to equal a bunch of his regular abilities. He is even more powerful with the equivalents. Do a check to be sure you really are that much better a fighter when fully buffed, and how not being fully buffed affects that. Counter-Trap Three: Go Ahead, Enjoy Yourself Just as too much selfishness on the part of other party members, particularly fighters, for healing, buffing, and transportation can be annoying, do not forget that it works both ways. If you are really that eager to be a frontliner, do not complain when the fighter says "That is OK, I will do a one round "debuff" of firing an arrow this round. After you charge up next round, I will switch weapons, maneuver, and join you the round after that. Oh, and I will need some cover from behind you while I get ready." Or when the wizard is down to single digit hit points from the area effect spell he blew the save against and you up front unleashing the divine smackdown and cannot heal him, and says "No arcane pain from me this round guys, I am heading a nice d-door distance back out of range. When you are ready to heal me let me know, and I will wander back over." Or perhaps it will be the rogue saying "You dropped that negative energy protection on yourself. Along with the heroe's feast and your better Fort save if it is disintegration, you trigger the trap, I am going to wait back yonder out of range." I came into this thread a bit late, and thus, my response to this post is a bit late... I just wanted to say that this is one of the best, most well-reasoned and logical posts I have ever seen on this message board. Where's Rob R. (you know who I'm taking about) when you need him to read something? I agree 100%, Sam... bravo. Except of course that if you burn your swift action on your turn, you can still cast Delay Death as an immediate action during the bad guy's turn (consuming next turn's swift action). But that's a minor technicality... ;)
Drezden 04-25-08, 12:30 AM	I believe the answer is Law school. Of course, Rob knew all of these concepts - he just chose to ignore them. LOL Daren [snip] Where's Rob R. (you know who I'm taking about) when you need him to read something? I agree 100%, Sam... bravo. [snip]
dkay807 04-25-08, 11:53 PM	I believe the answer is Law school. Of course, Rob knew all of these concepts - he just chose to ignore them. LOL Daren I know :) Rob was (is?) a good player. We just gave him a hard time for being halfway through his buff routine as the combat was ending on a regular basis.