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#1 loopy Dec 26, 2003 15:22:55	Loopy's NPC Series: The Cleric First of all, I would like to thank everyone who've had kind words for me and the series and all the other people who have added their own 2 coppers as far as improving or adding upon my experience. It is greatly appreciated! Now, about Clerics. I am sure that a lot of you are thinking, "What can he tell me about Clerics that I don't already know???" Well, first of all, like the title says, this is really for newer DMs. Although this thread will not be a munch-fest, maybe you advanced DMs will learn something as well. Spells: The Support-Spell Caster: This is the more obvious role of the Cleric. Unfortunately, in the lower levels a cure light wounds spell really isn't going to do a whole hell of a lot. For PCs who are hanging at death's door, this is fine, but your NPCs have to stay alive and swinging. I'd say until your PCs are powerful enough to face 7th-level NPCs, then you should stick with spells other than the cure series. You most likely will have to prepare them anyways. Sanctuary and Repulsion and all similar spells are good for the support Cleric. This spell will keep the PCs off your back while you are defending the other NPCs, however this locks the Cleric out of combat which is one of her strengths. These spells also work well against parties that always go after a Cleric and don't stop until she is dead. While they are wasting time with her, the rest of the NPCs are rocking the party melee-style. The low-level Cleric is very useful as a buff-spell caster. Shield of faith, align weapon and bull's strength are all great spells that improve the effectiveness of your tank(s). I mentioned shield other in my diatribe on Bards and I will reiterate it here. A cleric paired with a monster or a tank can save himself a lot of trouble by casting this spell in the first round of combat or pre-combat if possible. Not only will the damage that the party does be spread out over multiple characters, but you can heal a (possibly) unattended cleric instead of wading into battle with the monsters. A good defensive position works well with this spell active. Your Cleric can share the damage your other NPCs and monsters are taking all while lobbing attack spells from cover. With planar ally and summon monster, the Cleric can make a great summoner. Creating extra monsters can be a great benefit for several reasons regardless of the fact that the PCs should be able to mop the floor with these monsters. Aid another (PHB 154) is a tactic that you should use as often as possible. Your players might even attack these summoned monsters in order to stop the aid another from occurring, which allows your monsters to live even longer. Mass bull’s strength and mass bear’s endurance can give the followers of your Goblin Cleric of Grummsh a big advantage. The Attack-Spell Caster: The Cleric has some serious boom-boom at her disposal. It starts rather early with sound burst which is really an excellent spell to unleash on a group of PCs. The damage is not really all that great, but the Wizard, Rogue or Sorcerer in the party will not enjoy the stun effect and it will allow you to keep one step ahead of them as far as maneuvering your other NPCs and counterspelling. Also, early-on the Cleric’s ability to spontaneously cast inflict spells can be rather useful, but these spontaneous spells are cast as full-round actions, so you need to be certain of the PCs’ threat range. There are enough necromancy attack spells on the Cleric’s spell list that basing an NPC entirely around this idiom would be advisable at all levels. Later on, the sheer deluge of pain that a Cleric can rain down on a party is staggering. Only half of the damage from a flame strike is blocked by fire resistance. Harm is deadly, but not nearly as deadly as destruction. The destruction of a PC can be rough for the party, so be absolutely certain that you are comfortable with this kind of situation before you create it. Fire storm is a spell you’d expect to see from a Wizard, but the Cleric can drop that bomb right in the middle of the PCs and lighten their hit points a bit to make your tanks and your harm spell more effective. Implosion is just plain stupid… as in stupid good. The Annoying Caster: The Cleric’s spells can be by far the most irritating things your PCs will ever hope to resist. Off the top of the list comes mass heal I really can’t think of anything more annoying to a group of PCs than working for half an hour or more on dropping the HPs of a group (or pair) of NPCs to near death only to have most or all of those HPs cured in a single round. Antimagic field and dispel magic are right out. Nothing like casting that dispel magic on a character's wings of flying and seeing him plummet to the ground. Calm emotions is excellent against Paladins and Barbarians. Death knell is just plain mean; use it at your own risk. Casting darkness is wonderful fun; use it in an NPC party of Grimlocks or other such monsters. Zone of truth is great; even though half to most of the party may pass the saving throw, there’s always the Fighter or the Barbarian standing there with big, stupid grins on their faces. I could go on all day: bestow curse, glyph of warding, bestow curse, water walk, death ward, divine power, sending I really didn’t want this to turn into a who’s-who of Cleric spells. I’m sure you get the point. Just take a really good look at what the Cleric has at hand. You may be surprised at what some of those spells that you’ve been ignoring can do. The Local Healer and other Good (and Not so Good) Ideas: Let’s talk about your local healer for a bit. First of all, they really should remain emotionally detached from the party’s endeavors. Avoid storylines that force the local Clerics to NEED the PCs’ assistance in anything. Always make it clear that there are multitudinous adventurers that would gladly take up any mission or quest given by the church. Why should you be so harsh? Does this phrase ring a bell?: “We need a true res now. You need us, and we can’t do it without our fallen ally. What? Why should we pay you?” This happens way too much. Now that Reincarnation is a lot easier to deal with, there is no reason a party shouldn’t chip in and get the poor fella raised. Players will take anything they can, it’s their nature, so keep on your toes as far as your plots are concerned. They can end up screwing you as much as any monster or twinked-out PC. As far as the PCs asking a good Cleric to heal them with a few cure light wounds spells or to give them a couple of potions, well you shouldn’t be too stingy. However, if the PCs start to rely on or abuse the good nature of your local Clerics, then you should certainly start charging and possibly surcharging. Have the NPC apologize, “but there are church rules governing the wasteful casting of spells without donation.” Keep a steady supply of various healing potions. The bigger the church, the more powerful the potions should be. Now, keep track of the replenishment of said potions. There’s no need to build a flowchart or any such damn thing, but keep track just the same. Don’t let the PCs buy all the Church’s potions on Monday and expect there to be the same amount Thursday. Wands. Well, in my experience wands that cast cure spells are not overpowered or game-breaking. Thy cost boku bucks and you’ll be surprised at how fast your players use them up. They also give a party without a Cleric in it a fighting chance to survive! The Cleric BBEG: In the vastness of your campaign world there are likely multitudinous clerics. Many of those are righteous followers of the forces of good. We don’t really care about these people right now. They bore us, don’t they? We’re Dungeon Masters. We like them mean, vicious, power-hungry and fanatical. Far be it from me to pigeon-hole people, but I’ll be separating this section into two sub-sections: the Hypocrite and the Depraved. The Hypocrite: There is precious little that a party of adventurers fears more than a powerful ally turning on them. The Hypocrite is a Cleric who has it in his head that he is a good and righteous man, but he has more flaws than your standard holy man. Perhaps he feels that the ends justify the means and he has destroyed many lives in order to bring about good in the world and the thrill of it has taken him over. It could be that although he is devoted to his god and the goodness behind it, he has a foul soul that permeates everything he does. This type of Cleric will give hundreds of gold to the local orphanage every year, but a few children come up missing every year as well and he weeps as he buries their broken bodies behind the abbey. The stress of being a holy leader who is supposed to be a strong and righteous guide for hundreds or thousands of parishioners can get to a person. He can begin to feel as if he hasn’t received proper compensation or props for his good works. A tragedy in his family or involving his parishioners can cause a good Cleric to side with an evil or, more likely neutral deity. The Hypocrite should be pitied by the players. These ex-holy men should be played carefully by you so that the players can see the man he once was. If the Cleric has a connection to one of the players on a personal level then he should have tears standing in his eyes as he’s doing battle with them. Whatever the “vile” content of your campaign is, this sort of conflict can really drive home an emotional impact that may be lacking in your campaign or just that specific session. The Depraved While you should feel sorry for the Hypocrite, the Depraved is a person who rarely deserves any quarter. She will sacrifice innocent and unwilling people to their dark gods. They will perform torture up to and including vivisection to meet the approval of her unholy lords in the depths of the Abyss. Cunning and as prepared as any Wizard ever was, the Depraved should have a stronghold that is difficult to penetrate, a coterie of worshipers who vary in their racial makeup and a troupe of fanatical bodyguards. Follow my advice in my first article for guidelines on bodyguards. The Depraved will most likely have a pact with some dark power, so keep in mind all the Demons and Devils and Elementals that you have at your disposal in all of those quite well-made monster manuals that the D&D team has produced recently. There are nice extraplanar monsters for any level PC to fight, especially since the Fiend Folio came out. Use caution with that book, however. The monsters can be quite powerful and be sure to check the 3.5 conversions for blindsight and darksense. Flavor: Description is of utmost importance if you want to pull off a really nasty Cleric BBEG. The players must be afraid of him for you to pull of the balanced encounter you’ve devised. It starts with his stronghold. The place should be eerie and neutral or dark. Quiet always works well as an audial sensation, quiet punctuated with screams or possibly the sounds of spells being cast. Allow casters a spellcraft check with a –10 penalty to figure out what spell has been cast. Gray stone, mutated animals, stunted plants, cauldrons filled with mulled fat from some poor person or creature, malnourished slaves and prisoners, vapors oozing from small, barred portals, strange light sources, strange light without a sign of a source, blasphemous symbols and bodies arranged in terrible or blasphemous marionette-like positions. Unsettle them even before they see him. As for the man himself , I don’t want anyone to get into a “too cool for you” rut. Certainly not all BBEGs should be so uber-cool, perfectly formed examples of the **** human being. I see far too many of these to suit me, but your Cleric BBEG should be imposing. We’ve all read or seen descriptions of evil Clerics in stories and movies. Cool, spiked, dark plate armor. Nasty, bloodstained, serrated weapons. Long, flowing cloaks that, for some reason do not impede the Cleric while he’s fighting. Now, what I want you to do is step out of the box for a bit. Take that same look and that same menacing gear and put it on Danny Devito’s characterization of the Penguin in Batman Returns. This is a dynamic character. Take that armor and put it on cocky Tyler Durden. This is a dynamic character. Don’t be afraid to steal characterizations from the movies and books; they’ve all been done before and will be done again. Trust me. All a good movie or book tries to do is depict real people as dramatically as they can…. And that’s your job, too! In conclusion: As you may have noticed, I used my DELETE key on a lot of the tactical advice in this one. The article was getting very long and I really didn’t want to go and repeat the material from my first Article. If you want to, go and visit that one and you’ll find a lot of advice there. Once again, if anyone has anything to add or refute, please do so. This repository is a place where we can discuss things like adults. Thanks!
#2 soltares Feb 14, 2006 2:30:24	If your Cleric has Magic as a Domain (such as a Cleric of Vecna, Wee Jas or Boccob, using the Core deities), he can use spell-trigger and spell-completion arcane items as a Wizard of half his level. The nice part of this is that a Wand of Spectral Hand is fairly inexpensive, and makes a very nice vector for the bad-guy Cleric to stand behind his animated minions or fanatical blood-cultists and throw Inflict Wounds spells at the party (or other touch-requisite spells, like Contagion or Poison). If he's prone to hiding behind commanded / created undead, he might also use this tactic to use Inflict to heal one of his favorite undead minions. Being able to spontaneously turn any spell into an Inflict means that he can hide in the back and burn through his spell-selection, even if he's prepared a bunch of stuff that isn't particularly handy, like that Comprehend Languages he was gonna use on the evil runes that he was deciphering before those pesky adventures showed up... Stunning Fist and Sneak Attack go nicely together, a Monk with Leadership who has a few Rogue allies, or simply a Monk with 1 to 3 levels of Rogue himself, can do some scary damage. A group of rogues and assassins whose highest ranks practice unarmed fighting in the style of the Monk, to allow them to get close to their foes while 'defenseless' would be an intimidating group to face. With Monks, it becomes all about the race choice. A Human will have that very important extra Feat (Freeze the Lifeblood is very cool for that), but a Lizardfolk or Charduni Dwarf (from the Scarred Lands setting) will have Natural Armor, which makes quite the difference in how long the Monk gets to hang out there in combat. Even with a +1 LA, a Half-Ogre Monk is going to be worth the sacrifice, between his +6 Strength, 10' Reach and +4 Natural Armor. Unearthed Arcana has a lot of interesting 'fighting styles' for Monks on p. 52, which can add a lot of variety, but the Monk variant on p. 58 that replaces their speed bonus and level based AC bonus with a Barbarians damage reduction is my favorite example of tweaking the Monk to be very different. (Granted, that version works better for a PC than an NPC, and a Monk with enhanced movement will probably make for a more effective NPC challenge than one that is taking 1 or 2 points less from each hit.) Bards, like the Bless or Prayer spells, are force multipliers. On one target, it's just a +1. But if a dozen henchmen, some summoned critters and a few allies are present, suddenly those '+1's' are adding up. I like your suggestion of varying the appearance of the bard, such as having an Ogre's taunts serving as 'inspiration' or whatnot. I ran a bad-guy Bard (who thought of himself as a Priest, regardless of what class he technically was) Lizardfolk who used the Alchemy skill to arm his minions with tanglefoot bags and alchemist's fire, and sent the minions in to fight while he stood in the back and chanted holy texts to his snake goddess, 'inspiring' his followers. Especially with lower-powered minions, such as Kobolds, Orcs or Goblins, even a 1st or 2nd level Bard is going to make a huge difference in their ability to hit the party's better-armored members, and if a Bard takes advantage of the ability to gather henchmen with the Leadership Feat, or combines the various Summon Monster spells and the Augment Summoning Feat, he's going to be a one-man army, not just a one-man band.