Musings of a Late Night Lago

[Draco_Argentum]

1084009474[/unixtime]]
Current Cleric --> Godless Cleric --> Wizard with Healing Spells

Heh, just suggesting that wizards should be able to cast really crappy healing spells starts a small riot.

[Lago_AM3P]

If you want to be the guy who is at the whim of the gods, you can allow Wizards to nominally get their power from gods if they want. There's just no reason for this to change how they prepare and cast spells, however.

That's sort of the point I was trying to make; a lot of people WANT their characters and other people's characters to be the puppet of the DM's personal spokesman, and as long as the cleric is accepted as the fall-guy for this sort of role it's never going to change.

This has almost the same effect as introducing godless clerics into the campaign--when people found out that godless clerics weren't subject to the fetishistic, often-sadistic desires of some metagame construct, there was frickin' rioting in the streets.

Giving people the option of playing wizards who can give the gods the finger and others who are slaves will have the same problem. A lot of people will want slaves.

And this isn't even getting into changing people's minds about the fakey mechanical problems of rolling back the cleric class. There aren't any, as you pointed out, but people still see them (OMG, if wizards could heal AND throw fireballs, totally overpowered! NERFFFF).

[RandomCasualty]

I think you're vastly overdoing the whole "slave" thing with regard to clerics.

It's a story hook just like any other. Instead of being part of the purple Dragons, or the Red Wizards of Thay, you're part of a temple. Big deal... I just fail to see how that's such a bad thing.

[Draco_Argentum]

Some people want to play a godded cleric, fine with me. That isn't a reason for them to get an overpowered class to do it with. The role of healer and the role of god-boy should be seperate though. But then you get "wizards shouldn't heal" arguements. Or even better "you want to change the rules so you're a powergaming munchkin min/maxer go burn in hell".

[RandomCasualty]

I don't think they should get powers for serving a god, but I don't think it means that the whole cleric class has to go. It just means their spells should be rebalanced with the idea they have d8 hit dice and can cast them in armor.

[Username17]

Basically, people will complain loudly and angrily no matter what you do.

I've come to the conclusion that "because it's legacy to the last edition" is no reason to do or not do anything if it compromises game balance.

Sure, people will complain if you make a healer class who can't use weapons which draw blood and replace the Cleric with it. But they complained when the Cleric stopped being that way too. Quite often it is going to be the same people doing the complaining. I just don't care about peoples' complaints unless they have substance other than "this isn't the way it used to be!!!!!"

-Username17

[Draco_Argentum]

Yeah but complaints like that are why posting anything revolutionary at WotC is pretty pointless.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Yeah, you either get screamed at, or have someone "Helpfully" suggest that it's done a different way.

Enworld boards are similiar, but not quite as bad.

[Oberoni]

Do people really play in games where the clerics are the bitches of their gods?

Any game I play in, the gods serve as background and occasionally story hook. They don't really force a PC cleric to do much of anything.

[Username17]

Enworld boards are similiar, but not quite as bad.

On Enworld they disguise it better by adding an extra layer.

Which is, they derive some flavor text from how the rules work under their own house rules, and then if you either a) point out what the rules say now, or b) suggest different rules and contrast them, then you get flamed for "not making sense" because the rules as described by you contradict the rules which must be there based on the flavor text they use in their games.

Which is to say: they actually take the time to come up with some corraborating bullshit before arguing with you.

I actually find this more insulting. I can accept simple resistance to change, that's an understandable motive. People played AD&D and it worked for them, I can see them resisting moving to a new system. People now play 3rd edition or 3.5, and it works for them better as a whole, so suggesting things which seem like rolling back to things like they were in AD&D will naturally be met unfavorably (which is why people nonspecifically attack the Mystic Theurge - number one complaint is that it is more like AD&D than not having it).

What I can't accept is making up three pieces of interlocking bullshit and then slapping them all on the table as if they were some kind of interlocking argument. If your argument is just lies, what difference does it make if you have one or seventeen? It's no more true, it just takes up more space. That kind of behavior sickens me.

Real example:

P1) Vampiric Touch requires blood to flow from the victim to the caster.
C1, P2) Vampiric Touch therefore requires that the victim touch you, in addition to the other way around.
P3) A ranged spell storing weapon, or a reach spell, does not confer the ability of the victim to touch you.
P4) Touch spells in general work like Vampiric Touch.
.: C2) A ranged spellstoring weapon does not function with Vampiric Touch.
C3) By extension, a ranged spellstoring weapon does not function with any touch spell.



The worst part is that on Enworld, this sort of tact is apparently considered, not only acceptable at all, but extremely well reasoned. Despite the fact that it's almost completely false in every way. Vampiric Touch works like other touch spells, and not the other way around. Vampiric Touch doesn't mention blood at all - and functions on living creatures with no blood. There is no reciprocal demands for touch spells, which is why Spectral Hand works at all. It's an extremely flimsy house of cards where basically every single piece of the argument is a straight out lie.

And people will throw that stuff in your face every single time you suggest modifying something or attempt to talk about the RAW. It's beyond frustrating, it's an exercise in futility.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

1084110189[/unixtime]]Do people really play in games where the clerics are the bitches of their gods?

Any game I play in, the gods serve as background and occasionally story hook. They don't really force a PC cleric to do much of anything.

Yeah, that's exactly how every game I've played works out. It's never actually the god asking you to do something. Occasionally a high priest or something will give you a quest, but that's about it.

The temple is no different an organization from something like a mage's or thieves guild.

[MrWaeseL]

1084134511[/unixtime]]Yeah, that's exactly how every game I've played works out. It's never actually the god asking you to do something. Occasionally a high priest or something will give you a quest, but that's about it.

The temple is no different an organization from something like a mage's or thieves guild.

Same here. But gods could just as well not exist in our campaigns.

[The_Hanged_Man]

It's pretty clear what the AD&D cleric was supposed to do. But I've always wondered what the 3E cleric's purpose is. I'd love to see the Divine/Arcane dichotomy go away. If I want to roleplay a godboy, I know how to do it.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

The third edition Cleric is supposed to be a spellcaster who gets his or her power from a higher power (Usually a god, but occasionally from a concept like Good or Fire). The problem is that covers quite a bit of ground, to the point where the pacifistic healer to the Sonic-Machinegun Cleric Archer both work, as well as many other very different concepts of wildly different relative power level.

Frankly, I think the Cleric and Wizard SHOULD be rolled together, the "No Arcane Healing" rule is just retarded anyway.

-Desdan

[Username17]

Frankly, I think the Cleric and Wizard SHOULD be rolled together, the "No Arcane Healing" rule is just retarded anyway.

Also not a reality under the 3e/3.5 rules. Take a look at what happens when you use Minor Creation to make Healing Salve.

Each Healing Salve is 100% vegetable material and is 1 fluid once in volume...

-Username17

[Maj]

"No Arcane Healing" isn't really a rule in D&D.

[User3]

As a long time player of wizards, my two cents are:

1) I don't wanbt to heal people. I don't want my fellow players to ask:

Dude: "So why didn't you take some healing spells? We're doing out here."

Me: "Well, why didn't you invest in good armor and up your AC, so that you don't get hurt so often?"

Dude: "Its not in my character concept!"

Me: "Mine either!"

Dude: "But you're the cler...whoops...wizard!"

You see. Totally pointless.

The cleric was designed to be a healing battery with some stuff on top to make him feel useful when he wasn't healing people. Since that is no fun to play, the cleric's power was boosted until people would play it. Its the same reason that garbagemen are paid so well. If you don't pay them well, no one will do the job. In fact, no game in the RPGA is allowed to star unless someone has at least one cleric in the party.

-----------------------

Oh, and the cleric was not supposed to be a guy that gets power from the gods. He's the guy that get's power from his ethical beliefs. That's why if a cleric looses his alignment, he looses his powers until a new god accepts him.

Godless clerics are a touchy roleplaying issue. They should be guys with strong beliefs(religious beliefs, even) about their portfolio. loosing those Beliefs(alignment)

Some examples:

The Exististentialist Philospher:
Domains: Death, Knowlege
N

The Holy man in the Woods.
Domains: Plant, Animal
CG

The Cloistered Healing Order
Domains: Healing, Knowlege
LG

Insane Cultist
Domains: Chaos, Evil
CE

Wallstreet Guru
Domains: Luck, Trickery
LN

Surfer
Domains: Water, Air
N

Now, if any one of these guys changes his alignment, he needs to pick new domains. the Wallstreet Guru who suddenly stops looking at the market like an sytem of deception and blind luck, and more like an purely chaotic jumble with some order within it might change his alignment to N, and pick the domains Law and Chaos.

The Existentialist who starts to feel that like doesn't just end in death, but in destruction of the self, and there's no point(nihilism) might become a CN cleric of Death and Destruction.

A surfer who says: "I hate the beach. Wrinkles my skin dude! The sun is the life giver!" might become NG cleric of Sun and Fire."

If you can talk about a subject passionately, and have well beliefs so strong that they couldbe called religon, then you are a cleric, and in DnD that has power.

A wizard is just a smart guy who knows tricks(a scientist), and a Sorcerer or Bard is a guy who seduces the very universe into giving him power(artist). Neither one of those types needs an alignment.

[The_Hanged_Man]

In fact, no game in the RPGA is allowed to star unless someone has at least one cleric in the party.

What does this mean? I'm not, and never will be, and RPGA guy (although I am a member IIRC), so I'm curious.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Oh, and the cleric was not supposed to be a guy that gets power from the gods. He's the guy that get's power from his ethical beliefs. That's why if a cleric looses his alignment, he looses his powers until a new god accepts him.

Except that gods allow their clerics to fit within a small range of alignments. Also, who says you can't be a CG cleric of Surfing with the Air and Water domains? Even philosophies can allow a little bit of choice in alignment without being completely insane.


And the attitudes about arcane healing are just nuts. The argument that healing should be the exclusive territory of clerics is baggage from previous editions, when clerics could do little but heal. Once they beefed up the cleric (not to mention giving the bard several arcane healing spells) it became silly to talk about arcane healing spells as stepping on the cleric's toes. The major reason to keep wizards from healing is probably--as K said--that most wizards don't want to be medics; they want to do cool stuff.

[Username17]

The only really good point made for not putting healing on the Wizard list is that if it was there Wizards might be tempted to use it. Maybe even in combat.

:shudder:

Healing is something that needs to be done, but at any given point there is almost always something better that can be done with your time. A Cure spell heals less than a sword blow inflicts, and is never an efficient use of your combat time at any level. The fact that it also costs limited resources (spell slots) to employ drives it over the edge into crazy land.

In order to be viable in the hands of a character who is attempting to be a spellcaster, healing either needs to be a lot bigger or free, or both.

Let's face it, the only reason you ever see made that makes any sense for a Cleric being remotely balanced is "They end up using their spells for Cure Spells anyway." Which actually makes them balanced in games where that is actually true. Why?

Because D&D Healing completely blows, that's why! Cleric spellcasting is actually massively inferior to Wizard spellcasting if it is actually used to heal other party members. They really are a balanced class if you spend your spell slots on healing the rest of the party instead of pumping yourself up into crazy town or raining fire on the heathens.

As long as there are people who haven't figured out that you can just get a 750 gp god stick from a department store and spend all your spell slots on kicking ass - there will be games in which the cleric isn't overpowered or even very good.

And if you allowed those people to cast healing spells out of a Wizard chasis - they would completely suck. And ironicallly, those players would find their Cleric with a lot of extra spell slots on their hands, making them be unbalanced in the too powerful direction.

So yes, if you play Clerics according to their tactical write up in the PHB, adding Cure Spells to the wizard list would unbalance the game. By making Wizards too weak and Clerics too powerful.

For those of us who have figured out the whole thing where you don't use spell slots for cure spells at all even as a Cleric - Clerics are already too powerful and it wouldn't really change Wizards at all.

So unless and until healing magic gets a crap load better - it's not a good idea to integrate it into the Wizard spell list as printed.

-Username17

[Desdan_Mervolam]

How do you reccomend fixing it? Like you said, healing has to be done, no matter what ultimatly meaninless descriptor we put in front of the title. What would it take for healing to be worthwhile at all, and what would it take for healing to be worthwhile in combat?

-Desdan

[Username17]

1084404448[/unixtime]]How do you reccomend fixing it? Like you said, healing has to be done, no matter what ultimatly meaninless descriptor we put in front of the title. What would it take for healing to be worthwhile at all, and what would it take for healing to be worthwhile in combat?

-Desdan

Healing has to be better than damage for it to be usable in combat. Which means that it has to heal more than an attack of comparable expenditure.

A melee attack at 1st level has no cost except the time it takes to perform, is extremely likely to work, puts you in less danger than when you started, and can inflict 14 points of damage or more average.

A Spell Attack at 1st level is fairly chancy and costs a very valuable spell slot - however the payoff is that you can easily end up dropping 3 opponents right out of the combat.

Since casting a healing spell does not bring you closer to winning, and can only be used at all subject to enemy facilitating actions - healing has to be significanly bigger on the cost/benefit graph.

A healing effect which had no spell slot cost and required a touch on a single ally, for instance, should be able to bring an ally from -9 to +12 when cast at first level, for example.

A healing effect which actually costs spell slots should revive more than one ally in an area of effect, eliminate conditions like sleeping, stunned, and cowering, and restore 10 or more hit points - when cast by a first level character.

A healing spell that costs a spell slot higher than 1st level should restore lost organs and bring the dead back to life (at least if cast within a short time frame of the death).

And no, I'm not kidding.

-

And while I'm on the subject, Remove Poison is about as helpful as sucking on the guy's ass. Poison does the vast majority of the damage immediately - before you can actually cast Remove Poison, and then not only is it too late to stop the primary damage, but most poison doesn't even matter. In the few cases where the poison is a serious enough threat that you give a crap (Black Lotus, Wyvern Venom), the character is probably dead before you can even shake your wand at them.

There needs to be a delay on all poisons (probably variable, each poison should have an "onset time"), and the poison effects need to be serious enough that you actually care about maybe stopping them, and the ability to remove poison needs to be a lot more accessible and cheaper to use.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

I don't think I agree with Frank on combat healing... sometimes you just want to keep someone alive through another hit, so that he doesn't die, and this is where combat healing is useful.

I do agree about poisons however. Poisons should have some kind of onset time, even if that's just 1 or 2 rounds, and they need a significant increase in DC or effect to make getting rid of them actually matter.

More often than not people just end up soaking poisons, even at lower levels and that just doesn't feel right. Before you're walking around with tons of fortitude boosting items, you should really need those antivenoms and such.

[The_Hanged_Man]

I agree w/ RC on the combat healing. But it's highly situational. If you can heal the wizard, who then gets one more round to cast the save or die to kill the BBEG, then it's a good spell. If you can heal the Barbarian, who then gets a round or two to kick ass, then it's a good spell. But as a strategy, having heal spells sucks. Sucks, sucks.

Remove poison spells are just a cruel joke. I almost have to laugh when I see a scroll for one. Somebody wanted to blow XP on a spell that doesn't work - even when it works?

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I think that's severly overdoing it, Frank. All we really need to do, for the first four or five spell-levels anyway, is to ramp up the amout of hit points healed with cure spells. Organ and limb regeneration's not terribly important at this level because there is exactly one mechanism for getting disemboweled, or having an eye cut out or an arm cut off, and that's the same mechanism we use to deal with people losing their head and getting knives plunged through hearts.

I heartily disagree with the idea that we need more life-restoring spells. I've played my share of games and at four core life restoration spells(Reincarnate, Raise Dead, Ressurection, True Res), has more spells, more commonly available than pretty much any other game I've played, including non-D&D d20 games. In most games if you die, you stay dead, so as it stands D&D's already pretty generous in that department. I don't think we NEED more ways to make death not matter.

Though, I completly agree about poison spells. Poisons are pretty wimpy, but their cures are worse.

-Desdan