Another look at the Cleric

LS over at Papers and Pencils has been doing a series on Pathfinder's Advanced Players Guide classes and the latest is on the Oracle class, which is basically a PF Sorcerer with Cleric spells instead of Wizard spells.  And some of his comments, especially a link to his thoughts on the actual Cleric class, inspired me to revise my own ideas about the Classic D&D Cleric (and why I find it superior for my style of play).

So what's my beef?  Of course it's to do with healing.  Should Clerics be the party band-aid?  Is that the reason the class exists?  I disagree, but modern game design seems to believe that is the case. 

LS mentions that the PF Oracle class automatically gets Cure X spells (or Inflict X spells if they choose) at levels they can cast, in addition to the Sorcerer-style "spells known" each level.  So no need to debate about whether to take a handy utility spell or a cure spell, you've already got the cure for free.  And in the PF Cleric, instead of Turn Undead they get a blanket "heal everyone in 30' of xd6 damage" a large number of times per day (minimum three, but with a Cha bonus or the right feat selection, that increases) in addition to spells and the hold-over from 3E, spontaneous casting of cure X spells.

In our old PF game from a couple years ago, I was playing a Paladin, but we always had at least one other Cleric in the group, sometimes two.  Any time I thought to use Lay on Hands on another PC, the Clerics would stop me and just use their Channel Energy ability instead.  I was left using Lay on Hands in the rather selfish and un-paladinly manner of keeping myself in a fight (since I was able to self-cure as a minor action in addition to moving and attacking) rather than aiding the needy (but with two actual Clerics, I guess the party injured weren't really needy after all...).  They get a lot of healing ability is what I'm saying.

Now in Classic D&D, assuming OD&D/BX/BECMI, Clerics are actually fairly limited in the amount of (hit point) healing they can do in a day, until you get up into the Companion/Master levels of BECMI.  Even then, they still get lots of non-curative spells as well.  Let's take a look at some numbers, shall we?

OD&D Men and Magic lists a 10th level Patriarch (the highest in that book) as getting spells per day: 3/3/3/3/3
They have Cure Light Wounds as a 1st level spell and Cure Serious Wounds as a 4th level spell.  At most, they could take six out of fifteen spells to heal hit points in a day, curing 9d6+9 hit points per day.  Cure Disease and Neutralize Poison are at 3rd level, Raise Dead is at 5th level.  Yes, they are healing/restorative magics, but not usually needed as often as Cure Wounds spells. 

BX Clerics at 10th level get one more 1st level spell: 4/4/3/3/2, so could heal 10d6+10 hit points, at at the maximum 14th level can cast: 6/5/5/5/4.  That's a fair bit of healing, actually, if all spell slots are devoted to it, 16d6+16 points.  Spells are as OD&D.

BECMI Clerics at 10th level: 4/4/3/2/1 actually have a decrease in healing if you stick to the Basic and Expert books - Companion adds Cure Critical Wounds (3d6+3) at 5th level.  With Companion, that's 11d6+11, only two dice more than the OD&D Cleric at the same level.  Without Companion, it's 8d6+8, one less!  At 14th level, the BECMI Cleric has spells: 5/5/5/3/3/2 - yes, 6th level spells, which includes Cureall which heals nearly all of a character's hit points.  If all hit point healing spells are memorized, that's 20d6+20 before the two Cureall spells are factored in.  They still end up with ten spells of 2nd and 3rd level that don't cure hit points, and with Cureall available, you likely don't need all of those Cure Light Wounds spells anymore.  I'm not even going to bother with 36th level BECMI Clerics. 

Also note, none of the above Clerics start out play at 1st level with the ability to heal a single hit point!  No spells at level 1! 

Do I need to remind everyone that in 3E, they upped Clerics to 9th level spells and lowered the bottom to include 0 level spells, and there are hit point curing spells in all of them?  And Clerics can instantly change any prepared spell into a Cure Wounds spell of the same level at any time. 

Let's take a look at a 10th level 3.5 Cleric - assuming they don't have Healing as a Domain, so those spells can be used for something else.  They cast 6*/4/4/3/3/2 spells per day plus Domain spells.  *0-level spells.  Ignoring the 0-level and Domain spells, it's actually the same as in BX - oh, except for bonus spells for High Wisdom.  The Cleric will have bonus spells from Wisdom, but let's ignore them for now since it's variable. 

Cure spells now use a d8 instead of a d6, and add a variable amount depending on the Cleric's level.  33d8+126 just with the 0 through 4th level spells, and at 5th level they get Mass Cure Light Wounds, which will heal 1d8+10 to up to ten creatures, for a potential 43d8+326 points of damage in a day.  And remember, with bonus spells for Wisdom and the Healing Domain (which grants more spells and gives a bonus to the amount each healing spell cures), there could be more!  Of course, that's assuming all spells get used to cure hit point damage. 

I'm not going to figure out the 14th level 3E Cleric.  Nor the Pathfinder Cleric, since in addition to all the spells (they wisely axed the 0-level Cure Minor Wounds, though, since in PF 0-level spells are at-will), as I mentioned above, they get the Mass Cure spell series at least three times a day from level one! 

Some people over in the d20 versions of D&D really really expect way too much combat to happen in D&D.  And for the Cleric to be there to patch everyone up in time for the next combat. 

Now, of course, some will argue that the abundance of healing available to the 3E/PF Cleric means that they actually do get to prepare and cast other spells instead of only healing spells.  And that's true that most adventuring parties are not likely to need 500 points of healing in a day. 

But the thing they miss is this: in Classic D&D, Clerics get to cast other spells too!  And they don't get the party members bugging them to give up their utility spells in order to heal another wound.  If they don't max out their healing, they get to cast those other non-healing spells because they can't just switch it out for a Cure X spell. 

The End of the Long Road Home

Wow, this adventure arc in our Vaults of Ur campaign went on for nine sessions, since the first week of last December when the party became stranded in the caves beneath the Hive.  It took the lives of my alternate PC Fantasmo Argento (a masked Luchadore), the NPC Ralex, FLAILSNAILS favorite the Venerable Carolus (Very Elder Karl), the last of Thidrek's chickens, and several red shirt hirelings of FLAILSNAILS adventurers from across the Veil.  The promising young mage Yargrob Elderbob also went missing during the affair, and the party was unceremoniously stripped of most of their gear along the way, resulting in the loss of much treasure and a few prized possessions.

Anyway, the session recap.  Justin of course is the DM.  Jeremy was playing Noctis the Orc (on the verge of Level 4 but without a FLAILSNAILS game to pick up that last necessary XP, but he did alright anyway).  Alexei was playing Maya Culpar the Elf, now 3rd level and in possession of many spells but no magic items.  I was of course playing Thidrek the Sleestak.  Dean and Rick couldn't join us due to a commitment to play one last session of Dean's 4E game with a player that's leaving the group, so Udumbara the Pacifist Cleric and the Scented Shade of Venerable Carolus were not available to join us.  Luckily, a pair of NPC half-orc thief chicks joined us.  Being part of Bolt's crew (they're not quite Spiked Circle, but they're not friends either), Thidrek was predisposed to dislike them, and only referred to them as Orcess and Orcette.  Noctis, being an orc, was predisposed to like them and hit on them all the time.

Bolt gave us maps and suggested three ways to infiltrate the Sky Hunter temple.  Overland was patrolled by Sky Hunters.  The ghoul warrens were of course the home of the ghoul undercity dwellers.  The river was also a way in, but the last group to go there never returned, so they assumed something nasty was there.  We ended up choosing the ghoul warrens.

We nearly made it through without discovery, and did manage to get through without engaging them in combat (paralysis is nasty, especially with no cleric to cure it).  We got through the secret door just in time, and Maya used a Hold Portal spell to make sure we weren't followed.

Inside, we were assaulted by the Sky Hunters' guards, which were pasty gollum-like things with arms and legs twisted and bending in the wrong directions.  Sneaky bastards liked dropping down from the ceilings on us.  We entered the main hall, and found a giant energy ball with swirling shadowy shapes inside, suspended in mid air by beams of light shot from four statues.  While tussling with more of the gangly guardians, a troop of Sky Hunter legionnaires and a sorcerer emerged and engaged us.  Due to an untimely natural 1 from Thidrek and natural 20 from the gangly thing, Thidrek ended up down with the baddies and paralyzed by the sorcerer's energy whip.  They demanded the party surrender.  Maya cast web, saving Thidrek's life.  Maya, Noctis and the orc chicks managed to kill the enemies on their side of the web, while the sorcerer and one guard retreated.

Freed, Thidrek slew the remaining gangly thing and Sky Hunter guard.  Then he and Noctis went to get the Orb we were sent to bring back while Maya and the NPCs took on the sorcerer and guard.  A rough battle took place with the guard, who managed to wound all three of the adventuring ladies, but they managed to bring him and the sorcerer down, and free an Orc Magi.  Thidrek and Noctis used a Land of the Lost style crystal matrix table to shut down the giant magic sphere and free the shadow elementals that were inside who apparently run the black water pool portal system.

We retreated through the river, since the ghouls were alerted to us and we didn't want to face more Sky Hunter patrols in our weakened state.  Down the shaft, there were strange shadowy things but they went past the party and up the shaft after Sky Hunters, we assume.  We found a skeleton (with phat lootz!) and got on our boat, distracting giant crabs with one of the Sky Hunter corpses and made our escape.

We rendezvous with Bolt, who takes us to the portal and we gave him the Orb, then took Karl and Ralex's bodies back to Fort Low - only to find out that the bastard stole Karl's psionic Stone Fist.

So things are complete, but there are now lots of things we could do again sandbox style.  Justin says we're entering Vaults of Ur 2.0.  Dean's not sure what to do about Venerable Carolus.  His character was changed by the ordeal.  We don't want to lose his character, but Dean's not sure he wants to keep playing him.  We'll see what happens.  He may end up retiring Karl.  Or we may go on a quest to get him (or make him) a new, better hand.

In the meantime, Thidrek plans to keep busy with some research, some plotting, and maybe the formation of a Brute Squad to help clean out the ruins.

Good luck, you're gonna need it!

May the Fourth be with us.  Tonight is our next Vaults of Ur game, and we're breaking into the temple of a humanosupremicist magi-tech society (from what little evidence about them we've gathered).  It's going to be a rough one, I think. 

Happy International Star Wars Day, everyone!

Desperate Times

Late updating the Chronicles of Ur.  It's been over a week since the game. 

This session, Justin is of course the DM.  Jeremy played Noctis (formerly Burg) the Orc.  Dean played the Ghost of Very Elder Karl.  Rick (who DMs the Pathfinder Dragon's Delve game) played Udumbara the pacifist Cleric.  I was of course Thidrek the Sleestak.

We were camped out near the subterranean river with the corpses of Karl and Ralex the Fighter.  Our other companions had slipped back across the Veil to their home universes.  We found a skiff coming down the river, containing Udumbara, the only survivor of an expedition.  We made friends with her, and used her boat to head downstream.

We discovered some unusual statuary in the river, quite old.  There was a fork in the tunnels, and we were forced to quickly choose one or the other. Reminded me of Dragon's Lair.  We went left.

 After a little while, we heard a loud rumbling - assumed it to be a waterfall ahead - and found a place to dock.  While resting, the ghost of Karl did some scouting, but couldn't go too far from his corpse.  We got scouted while resting.  We explored up a staircase a bit, and found some ner-do-well types.  After a bit of negotiation, trying to get safe passage to the surface, we were introduced (re-introduced in Noctis's case) to their leader Bolt, the leather-bondage gear clad smuggler we'd ran into shortly after the bees killed Karl.  His short, cloaked magically adept friend was nowhere to be seen (Karl seemed to sense another presence in the room). 

Justin's image for us of Bolt

We made a deal with Bolt.  He wants us to invade the Sky Hunters' temple and steal a key to the black pool portal system like the one we had that got us into the current mess we're in.  He promised us safe passage back to Fort Low if we open up the portal system and give him the key.

Thidrek is planning to double cross Bolt.  Some of his men have Spiked Circle emblems, and they've been one of our biggest enemies in Ur.  But we'll see how things play out next session.





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In other news, I've got a few other posts I'd like to write up as well, but don't seem to have much time or motivation to write on the blog these days.  But I'm gonna try to get back to posting a bit more.

Excelsior!

Still need to write up our last game in Ur...where not much happened but some stuff is about to go down.

But tonight, Jeremy's going to run some vintage TSR Marvel Super Heroes...if we can get another player on board, hopefully.  I'm in, anyway.

My hero?

Hercules Einstein, Strongest Brain in the West.

Should be fun!

Details to follow whenever I get around to them.

Space Cowboys, Gangsters of Love

Listening to Steve Miller and reading Carl Sagan has got me wanting to whip up some kind of retro-future RPG.  Space Cowboys.  Scientists.  Strange aliens.  World-hopping adventures on the wrong side of the law.  Dudes named Maurice.

Found this awesomeness here

Now, there are already Stars Without Number, Space Princess, Starships and Spacemen, X-Plorers, and probably a few other sci-fi OSR games out there.  So if I do work this up, it may end up as either a retro-clone of Star Frontiers (even though that's available for free with WotC's blessing), or else a reworking of my Presidents of the Apocalypse system to a slightly more serious space opera type game.

For now, though, when time permits I'm still plugging away at Chanbara.

Maybe I could do retro-sci-fi with the Flying Swordsmen system, but as I mentioned above, the class&level D&D/d20 field has plenty of games already.

Map from Tonight's Game

Done in Twiddla:

Spiked Circle warrens where we may be bargaining away our souls to demon-worshiping bad guys in exchange for safe passage in order to resurrect Venerable Carolus.  Thidrek hangs out with Elder Karl's sandalwood scented ghost to the side.