Clerics: overpowered or overrated?

[Night Goat]

When discussing 3.5 and Pathfinder, I often see Clerics mentioned in the same breath as druids and wizards, but after playing them I don't see why. Granted I have only played it at lower levels, but those are the levels people actually play the game at. You can be a better fighter than the fighter, but that really isn't saying much; your spell list is much weaker than a wizard's, and you don't have wildshape and an animal companion to wreck shit with like a druid. What am I missing?

[deaddmwalking]

You have every cleric spell ever published automatically.

[Username17]

When discussing 3.5 and Pathfinder, I often see Clerics mentioned in the same breath as druids and wizards, but after playing them I don't see why. Granted I have only played it at lower levels, but those are the levels people actually play the game at. You can be a better fighter than the fighter, but that really isn't saying much; your spell list is much weaker than a wizard's, and you don't have wildshape and an animal companion to wreck shit with like a druid. What am I missing?

Clerics are the perfect answer to fighter advocates. They can do literally everything a Fighter can do, better, and still summon an angel, transport the team to another plane of existence, and see the future. The original Casters > You demonstration for 3rd edition was the "Cleric Archer" because she was able to do everything that the warriors could do and still do other stuff on top of it.

I mean, yes, a Wizard dumping high-DC save or lose effects on enemies is better than a beat stick character with a sword. But people unironically claimed that you couldn't compare them because the meat shield had a different role or some fucking thing. But the Cleric really can do literally 100% of the Fighter's "job" and more. So that was the lynchpin of the "Fighters Suck" argument. And because it was so difficult to argue against it when phrased in that manner, a few years later the "CoDzilla" meme wormed its way into accepted understandings.

Clerics are overrated. Being able to mimic a Fighter is actually small potatoes because Fighters suck. That being said, Clerics are very good. There is a lot of pretty boss spells on the Cleric list, and a Cleric automatically knows all of them in every allowed book "for no reason." So you can get up in the morning and decide to prepare awesome blasting spells like doomtide or you can decide to prepare major conjuration effects like planar ally or you can clean up the party's messes by preparing stuff like break enchantment. And if you really cared, you could tweak yourself out with an ironwood morningstar hopped up on weapon of the deity and spikes while you jackpotted all your other numbers with divine favor and whatever and just crushed people with giant melee numbers like that was a thing you cared about doing. And just by writing "Cleric" on your character sheet you are all of those characters whenever you need to be.

Clerics do a few things really well (like being a necromancer or a melee warrior), and they do pretty much everything passably OK. They are a class with no real weaknesses, huge benefits from expansion material, and immense day to day reconfigurement potential. There's no real color spray at first level, and that hurts. But by the time you have 5th level spells you can prepare a full complement of spells a Wizard wouldn't be ashamed of and do it without a spell book while in heavy armor with more hit points and better saves.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

Depends on what access to expansion material you're using and what you want to do with the cleric.

If you want to be a pure 3.5E blaster cleric with core-only material, that might be very hard to do at low levels. If you have the Spell Compendium and Complete Divine, pure blasting becomes a lot more viable.

But seriously, just to recap: clerics get a whole host of utility spells and also know them all. They get the two most important saves and have a bonus to one of the saves thanks to their spellcasting.

Also, at really low levels a cleric isn't much worse off than a fighter, especially if they rolled monk stats. A 4th-level cleric with the War and Elf domains will be behind a fighter or ranger archer 1 BAB, an average of 4 hp, and 1 feat. In return, they get more spell slots and better saves. And I know you dismissed the utility of fighters, but at low-level killing people competently with weapon damage is a huge advantage. Wizards being the MVP with color spray and sleep and silent image is dependent on them having a couple of meatheads able to take advantage of the tactical situation.

But anyway, if you ever want to know why clerics get so much love, try to imagine a wizard or fighter doing something at any particular level. Then give yourself two sourcebooks and try your damnedest to replicate that trick. Clerics can almost always get reasonably close while having so many other advantages. That's why they're overpowered.

[Lago PARANOIA]

For example, let's say that all you got to play with was the PHB2 and Spell Compendium and you wanted to play a blaster cleric and all you had was 25-point buy.

By level 8, you should look something like this:

Domains: Charm, Illusion
Took the Spontaneous Domain Casting option from the PHB2.
WIS: 20 (16 start + 2 level-up + 2 from a +2 wis item)
Spells Prepared:
1 - *Charm Person, Sign, Comprehend Language, Conviction x 4
2 - *Minor Image, Divine Insight, Hold Person x 2, Silence, Aid
3 - *Suggestion, Nauseating Breath, Blindness/Deafness, Magic Vestment, Stone Shape
4 - *Phantasmal Killer, Wrack, Mass Shield of Faith, Air Walk

While you're still not quite as good of a blaster as a dedicated wizard, you're at least comparable. And note that you didn't use any feats or magic items or whatever. If you were allowed to use Complete Divine, too, you could pick up Divine Metamagic: Quicken Spell and really cause your DM headaches. Or you could just go Thaumaturgist and completely blow open the game about when casters start to permanently become dominant. Whatever, just have fun with it.

[souran]

Clearly the real advantage of the cleric is the ability to wake up each day and select a bunch of different spells than yesterday.

Similarly, part of the reason why the wizard is so good is because he can swap his spells to whatever he needs every morning.

I know this has probably been discussed quite a bit before but:

If everybody used the spontaneous casting method, (all full casters function like sorcerers, all up to level 6 function as bards, all level 4 casters get more spells/day in exchange for fixed spells known) does the game work better or let more characters stay relevant over a larger number of levels of play? Obviously, you can still play games with buying scrolls or select only the spells that are game breaking, but just for general play would everybody functions as a spontaneous caster and just cannot reconfigure for every situation on the fly make 3.x better?

[Orion]

At 5th level you get a free undead army if your MC allows Animate Dead. Other than that, I have trouble getting excited about low level clerics. The cleric spell list doesn't really get exciting until around 4th-level spells, in my experience. I'll admit, I'm not extensively familiar with spell lists in splatbooks, so maybe a hard look at Spell Compendium would change my mind, but I don't know what the 2nd level killer apps are supposed to be.

[Insomniac]

the d8, 3/4 BAB, two good saves, all Cleric spells known, heavy armor proficiency, Domain abilities and Domain spells and a casting stat that benefits a save as crucial as Will is a badass chassis to do essentially anything. And not just half ass it either. They are the best or plausibly within top 5 material of just about anything.

Clerics slice, dice and jullienne the fries. Given even modest expansion material, there is a damn fine chance that the spells known thing, Domain spells and abilities and strong prestige classes will make them bonkers without dumpster diving sniffing out cheese. PHB I and II, Complete Divine and Spell Compendium and Magic Item Compendium alone would make a top flight Cleric of Whatever You Want.

The domains and spells thing is just so flexible and potent. Like Frank said, they are the original Fighter invalidator. HD, BAB and combat feats are d20 Fool's Gold. It's all about dem spells, bout dem spells, no martials.

[Whipstitch]

At 5th level you get a free undead army if your MC allows Animate Dead. Other than that, I have trouble getting excited about low level clerics. The cleric spell list doesn't really get exciting until around 4th-level spells, in my experience. I'll admit, I'm not extensively familiar with spell lists in splatbooks, so maybe a hard look at Spell Compendium would change my mind, but I don't know what the 2nd level killer apps are supposed to be.

It's reasonable to be jealous of grease, sleep and color spray but hey, wizards are the gold standard for a reason. Still, compared to everyone else you're still pretty well off at level 2. As has been said you're at the tier where weapon damage still matters and if you've got the War & Strength domains you're capable of throwing down 3d6+ damage via enlarge person and have heavy armor proficiency, a five foot step and a couple rounds of sanctuary in your back pocket when things go south.

[Username17]

If everybody used the spontaneous casting method, (all full casters function like sorcerers, all up to level 6 function as bards, all level 4 casters get more spells/day in exchange for fixed spells known) does the game work better or let more characters stay relevant over a larger number of levels of play?

Not really, no. Consider how just frickin bad the Favored Soul is. That's because one of the things Clerics are asked to do (possibly even the most important) is to "clean shit up." That's when they prep up some spells and end whatever negative conditions are hanging around on the party members.

But while that's "one thing," it's not "one spell." In fact, it's: Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Cure Critical Wounds, Heal, Raise Dead, Resurrection, Remove Disease, Remove Poison, Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Lesser Restoration, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Calm Emotions, Remove Curse, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Regenerate, and Atonement. For serious. 21 separate fucking spells between 1st and 7th level for that one shtick. And that's just core. There are of course expansion spells and mass versions of those spells and so on and so forth that fit into this category.

That's why pilfering spells off the Cleric list is so bullshit. And it's why spontaneous casters off the Cleric list are so bullshit. The Favored Soul and the Healer are terrible classes. Because Clerics have an insanely low density of spell utility. They fucking need to be preparation casters with a stupidly large pool of spells known, because if they weren't there's no way in hell that they'd have access to enough spells known to do their job.

But of course, once you have that chassis and you start getting spells that are actually individually good at doing shit like wall of stone and wrack, then you're rolling in the moneys.

-Username17

[Eikre]

The favored soul isn't straight-up bad. You can find an individually decent spell for every one of his spells known and be a good character of some kind, but Frank's right that the party members will be looking to him expecting a service that the Cleric provides and he'll have to explain that it's just not fucking worth it for him to have Break Enchantment or any kind of Cure spell at all, and that'll rustle some jimmies. Getting pigeonholed into the class is also kind of a bad time because you go and read Cleric handbooks on charop forums, trying to figure out what to do with your spell list, and all this cool shit is packed into the Domains and Turn Undead class features, which you just arbitrarily can't get into at all. That, however, is a separate issue, concerning expectations and the knowledge that someone shits all over everything you do.

The Healer class is kind of handy because while it is completely farcical that it could ever be a self-sufficient character on its own, it does describe a part of a character that people arbitrarily expect the Cleric to have, which is the "clean shit up" part as outlined by Frank, above. If you're gonna run the Spontaneous Caster Game, you can fold the entire Healer class into the Favored Soul (except for the class feature that fucks you [no not the unicorn, I mean the feature that metaphorically fucks you, not allegorically]), including her entire spell list in the form of completely free spells known, and end up with a character that can carve out a place for himself and probably not let anybody down too badly.

Actually, in truth, you can fold the entire Healer class into anybody and not be having a bad time. Try it in your next game. Select the person who does the least amount of shit and say "welp, God likes your humility. You get a free Healer gestalt." You won't even fucking notice.

[Smeelbo]

I am about to begin playing Rise of the Runelords as a cleric, and the referee offered me the following option, apparently based on 5E.

First, I will spontaneously cast spells equal the number spells a cleric could normally cast, plus one per level for Domain. All Domain spells are automatically known, plus each day I prepare a number of spells known equal to my cleric level plus my Wisdom modifier.

So far example, at level 1, with 18 Wisdom, and Healing and Knowledge as Domains, I would be able to cast Orisons at will, and three 1st level spells per day (1 base, plus one bonus for 18 Wisdom, plus 1 for my Domain spell per day).

Spells known include both Domain spells, i.e., Cure Light Wounds and Comprehend Languages. Additionally, each day I prepare another 5 spells to be known. My default list might be Detect Magic and Light for Orisons, and Bless, Command and Sanctuary for 1st level spells known.

I would then be able to cast Detect Magic and Light all day long, as usually, and three times per day able to spontaneously cast any of the five 1st level spells I know.

As level rises, I will have fewer lower level spells known, but always know my domain spells.

It seems like a workable compromise between spontaneous casting and pure prepared spellcasting. There's more flexibility at the lowest levels, but as level rises, fewer spells per level are known.

With Scribe Scroll, I feel confident that my cleric will have the right spells available at the right time.

I appreciate the convenience, and am not concerned by the potential downshift in raw power.

Smeelbo

[Orion]

Healer is also a great choice for a cohort that is useful, playable, and not game breaking.

[Username17]

First, I will spontaneously cast spells equal the number spells a cleric could normally cast, plus one per level for Domain. All Domain spells are automatically known, plus each day I prepare a number of spells known equal to my cleric level plus my Wisdom modifier.

There is no cut in raw power there. That's a pretty sweet deal.

Consider where you are at 8th level. You'll have a Wisdom Modifier of about +6 (two stat raises and probably a Wisdom hat or whatever), so your pool of known spells is going to be 14. Now normally, you'd prepare six 1sts, five 2nds, four 3rds, and three 4ths plus preparing one domain slot at each level. If you decided to prepare a different spell in every slot, that's a total of 22 different non-orison spells you have access to each day. That assumption is of course ridiculous, because obviously a number of spells are going to be doubled up.

With two domain spells at each level, that's 8 spells plus the 14 you get to prepare off the giant list. You're going to want to throw a couple of bones to the Orisons, but your big pile is... 22. If the number of repeat spells you want in a day happens to be the number of Orisons you leave prepared, you have exactly the same number of spells available each day, only now they are totally fungible "for no reason."

It's a pretty weird house rule, but it's basically a raw power up of the Cleric at pretty much every level.

-Username17

[souran]

Not really, no. Consider how just frickin bad the Favored Soul is. That's because one of the things Clerics are asked to do (possibly even the most important) is to "clean shit up." That's when they prep up some spells and end whatever negative conditions are hanging around on the party members.

But while that's "one thing," it's not "one spell." In fact, it's: Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Cure Critical Wounds, Heal, Raise Dead, Resurrection, Remove Disease, Remove Poison, Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Lesser Restoration, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Calm Emotions, Remove Curse, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Regenerate, and Atonement. For serious. 21 separate fucking spells between 1st and 7th level for that one shtick. And that's just core. There are of course expansion spells and mass versions of those spells and so on and so forth that fit into this category.

That's why pilfering spells off the Cleric list is so bullshit. And it's why spontaneous casters off the Cleric list are so bullshit. The Favored Soul and the Healer are terrible classes. Because Clerics have an insanely low density of spell utility. They fucking need to be preparation casters with a stupidly large pool of spells known, because if they weren't there's no way in hell that they'd have access to enough spells known to do their job.

But of course, once you have that chassis and you start getting spells that are actually individually good at doing shit like wall of stone and wrack, then you're rolling in the moneys.

-Username17

The favored soul is bad for several reasons (although ends up being pretty good in NWN2 for the simple reason that in that game more spells > breadth of spells because what can be done with spells is much more limited than in table play).

However, the fact that clerics need a bunch of spells to fill their role doesn't really have fuckle to do with "would 3.X be better if everybody was a spontaneous caster".

Clerics need Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Cure Critical Wounds, Heal, Raise Dead, Resurrection, Remove Disease, Remove Poison, Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Lesser Restoration, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Calm Emotions, Remove Curse, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Regenerate, and Atonement to function. We agree. So add them to the list of cleric spells known and/or let them cast them spontaneously.

In practice clerics don't memorize those spells until a person has something that needs that spell to clear it.

However, what if the spells that the cleric could cast beyond the essential ones were chosen from a fixed list.

[TOZ]

the d8, 3/4 BAB, two good saves, all Cleric spells known, heavy armor proficiency, Domain abilities and Domain spells and a casting stat that benefits a save as crucial as Will is a badass chassis to do essentially anything. And not just half ass it either. They are the best or plausibly within top 5 material of just about anything.

And Pathfinder's answer to balancing the Cleric was "eh, now you have to spend a feat to wear heavy armor".

[Username17]

However, the fact that clerics need a bunch of spells to fill their role doesn't really have fuckle to do with "would 3.X be better if everybody was a spontaneous caster".

Clerics need Cure Light Wounds, Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Cure Critical Wounds, Heal, Raise Dead, Resurrection, Remove Disease, Remove Poison, Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Lesser Restoration, Restoration, Greater Restoration, Remove Fear, Remove Paralysis, Calm Emotions, Remove Curse, Remove Blindness/Deafness, Regenerate, and Atonement to function. We agree. So add them to the list of cleric spells known and/or let them cast them spontaneously.

In practice clerics don't memorize those spells until a person has something that needs that spell to clear it.

However, what if the spells that the cleric could cast beyond the essential ones were chosen from a fixed list.

So... your real question is what Clerics would be like if they were a spontaneous caster that wasn't like a spontaneous caster in any way. To which I can only respond with "Can I buy pot from you?"

Spontaneous casters have a list of spells that they can change only very infrequently - generally only when they gain levels or have enough downtime to invoke character rebuilding rules. This means that "niche" spells are avoided like the plague. This is as opposed to preparation casters who get to rewrite their spell list every time they rest, and for whom niche spells are grabbed whenever the characters have 9 hours of warning that a niche spell is relevant to their interests.

The Cleric is, thematically, a pile of niche spells. It's not just their "clean shit up" focus, their divination focus and their protection focus are the same way. No character who only gets to change their available spells infrequently is ever going to voluntarily choose find the path or positive energy protection as one of their slots. Those are mission specific spells, and if you have to pick your spells four missions in advance you are never ever going to select them at all. No one is going to select attune form without knowing ahead of time that they are going on a mission to a plane with damaging base traits. No one is going to select make whole without a specific reason.

Now, what people actually want out of Clerics is to have all these niches combined up into big domain chunks and then have the player choose domains and then have the niche spells they need to be the kind of Cleric they signed up to be. But that wouldn't look a single fucking thing like a 3e Spontaneous Caster either.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I've gotten kicked out of more than one game because I played clerics who kept referring to themselves in-game as warriors. One time the GM gave the party fighter a +8 str item at level 4 because he didn't like that I was better at swordery than her. He specifically told me before the game that I specifically was not allowed anything outside of the PHB. It was kind of adorable, really.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

I've gotten kicked out of more than one game because I played clerics who kept referring to themselves in-game as warriors. One time the GM gave the party fighter a +8 str item at level 4 because he didn't like that I was better at swordery than her. He specifically told me before the game that I specifically was not allowed anything outside of the PHB. It was kind of adorable, really.

Adoeable? Really? I'd love to hear those stories.

[erik]

In living greyhawk you pretty much had to advertise your cleric as a warrior or fighter. If you declared as a cleric then when forming tables a plurality of morons would equate that to meaning you would exclusively prep to heal their feeble characters, and people tried to make sure every table had one. I never played a cleric there because I didn't want to be having that conversation every game, but near the end I decided I was going to.

I had a half-orc celerity/strength cleric all ready to be played as a "Monk" with 6 int, 6 cha, maxxed Diplomacy as his only skill as an F-U to all the times I've seen people locked out of diplomacy encounters only because they were a half-orc or had a sub-10 charisma.

[hyzmarca]

No character who only gets to change their available spells infrequently is ever going to voluntarily choose find the path or positive energy protection as one of their slots.

Well, they would if they lived and adventured on the Positive Energy Plane. But that's more of a if all you have is a hammer, thing. If you spend a spell known on positive energy protection, then you better do things that require positive energy protection.

[Mistborn]

So... your real question is what Clerics would be like if they were a spontaneous caster that wasn't like a spontaneous caster in any way. To which I can only respond with "Can I buy pot from you?"

I think he was trying to say is "could Clerics be 'list casters' along the lines of a Beguiler or Dread Necromancer?" Those are a thing that exist that somewhat resemble his specifications.

[souran]

I honestly don't know why Frank is being so obtuse.

The pathfinder spontaneous casters all get "bonus spells known" for various class features. If his problem is that the favored soul sucks compared to the cleric then I also agree, but again, I am not saying "make all the clerics play favored souls" I am saying make all the "memorization" casters use the equivalent "spontaneous" caster spells known/per day rules. The sorcerer and his spells known/spells per day list is not hard to understand.

Just imagine the cleric chassis only they were bound by the sorcerer spells known/spells per day charts. Then, give them bonus spells known to cover the mandatory status condition removal spells.

Yes, this does mean that there are spells on the Cleric list that are unlikely to EVER be chosen because they are to situational. That's fine, the sorcerer has that problem as well. It is handled simply, those spells become something you buy scrolls of in the event that you need them. This works better anyway because then the party has to spend real resources on getting these/managing these types of spells.

Again, the issue with casters who can memorize spells is that they are to flexible. This would address that.

[hyzmarca]

So the solution to spontaneous casters sucking is to make Vancian casters suck even worse?

Okay, I guess. If you want your casters to suck, that works.

[OgreBattle]

The Cleric is, thematically, a pile of niche spells. It's not just their "clean shit up" focus, their divination focus and their protection focus are the same way. No character who only gets to change their available spells infrequently is ever going to voluntarily choose find the path or positive energy protection as one of their slots. Those are mission specific spells, and if you have to pick your spells four missions in advance you are never ever going to select them at all. No one is going to select attune form without knowing ahead of time that they are going on a mission to a plane with damaging base traits. No one is going to select make whole without a specific reason.

Is that a feature, not a bug?

Say if instead of dozens of spells to memorize for the problem at hand, the Clerics had a single "healing" orison that scaled with level to restore hitpoints, but also gained the ability to remove level appropriate debuffs with levels.