Topic: No Clerics?

Rumours are floating about of Clerics being eliminated from the game. I can see why. With their diminished combat abilities in LotFP, is it hard to get people play them?

How will no clerics work?

The only spells of theirs that is greatly need are the healing spells. Will there be a some to replace Cleric Healing? Healing potions? Healing spells for Magi? Short rest/healing surges?

I would be tempted to import Nymphs or Lyricists from Mazes & Minotaurs to replace Clerics.

Re: No Clerics?

Add all the clerical spells directly into the master spell list for magic-users. Clerics and demihumans will probably be relegated to the appendix in the new edition, but there is really no time frame yet for that. Vaginas Are Magic has a good description for the magic system in the front.

That which does not kill us makes us linger.

Re: No Clerics?

I think there will also be some suggestions for how to deal with "clerics" in the game once they're officially removed. (Many products refer to clerics, including recent LotFP releases such as England Upturn'd.)

My personal take is that M-U use Charisma to make their magic saves, while Clerics use Wisdom. This allows more opportunities to play spellcasters. Otherwise, they draw from the same spell list, use the same casting rules, and are essentially identical. However, anything in a product that refers to M-U or Cleric, specifically affects only the type the player is actually using.

Re: No Clerics?

Andomedanaea wrote:

Rumours are floating about of Clerics being eliminated from the game.

That is the first time I hear of that, but then again I am not what one would call "well connected". Where did you picked it up? I like to learn where to put my ear smile.


If I would want to make the cleric class more attractive, I would remove the "Touch" limit from some of their spells (like the reverse version of "Heal Wounds" or "Curse") and substitute it with a range (30´feet perhaps) and do not have  them "prepare" spells. Instead, they may use a number of spells of Level X, Y and Z, as it matches their level, between periods of "devotion" (the usual "prepare spells" phase). But they may choose on the spot, as it is not really them working a spell but them calling their god/s attention.

The latter gives clerics much more flexibility, and may thereby make them attractive to those who would otherwise not touch them.

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Gregorius21778
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Re: No Clerics?

Cleric's are much less attractive to play now that they aren't almost as good at roll-to-hit as fighters. If they are kept, they would need some new, more powerful spells.

If their spells are folded into Magic users, probably only the Cure/heal spells will be used with any regularity. Problem is, Random chance can't assure that you will get "Cure Light Wounds" as one of your initial spells. And a beginning party need it.

Re: No Clerics?

Andomedanaea wrote:

Cleric's are much less attractive to play now that they aren't almost as good at roll-to-hit as fighters.

...isn´t that true for any class but fighters? As far as I know the rules, everyone but fighters have the same, flat "+1" to-hit-bonus.

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Re: No Clerics?

But Clerics have been the most hard hit by this. They were the almost fighters that could cast some minor helpful spells. In (1st ed) AD&D Fighters and Clerics started out +1 to hit better than Thieves and Mages. At 3rd level, Fighters pulled ahead, but Cleric's caught up at 4th Level. It wasn't until 5th level that fighter's became permanently better at "roll-to-hit" than Clerics. Being the almost Fighters allowed Clerics to substitute when the Party had no Fighter and to stand shoulder to shoulder helping the Fighter while the other Classes hid behind them.
Without being able to improve "Roll-to-hit" clerics are casters of an inferior form of magic. An Elf would be a better choice if you want to do magic with armour. The only needful thing Clerics had going for them is Curing/Healing spells. If you give those to Magi, there is no reason to have a Cleric Class.

Besides, I can't think of a mythic basis for the Cleric that pre-dates D&D. The religious Heroes of Legend all fit either the Warrior of the Wizard archetype.

So go ahead a dump the Cleric class. But there needs to be some sort of healing mechanism. Some way for 1st level characters to have access to Healing.

Re: No Clerics?

Andomedanaea wrote:

But Clerics have been the most hard hit by this. They were the almost fighters that could cast some minor helpful spells. In (1st ed) AD&D Fighters and Clerics  started out...

Well, this here is LotFP, and here they never started out like that. smile

Andomedanaea wrote:

Without being able to improve "Roll-to-hit" clerics are casters of an inferior form of magic. An Elf would be a better choice if you want to do magic with armour.

As far as I know the rules of LotFP, there are no armor limits for clerics. The things that are mandatory for them in order to cast spells are

#having a holy symbol of their faith in hand
#the ability to chant and gesture.

Magic-Users are more limited in this, as they cannot cast spells if they are more than lightly encumbered. Even an Elf has a limitation here (so only at Heavily Encumbered; see Player core book p82). Thereby, a Cleric may in fact armor up more heavily than an Elf when it comes to "armored spellcasting".

With kind regards
Gregorius21778
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Re: No Clerics?

Maybe the solution is instead of eliminating Clerics, that their magic should be "beefed up". Give them more spells, spells focused on life shaping. Druid spells like: Entangle, warp wood and Plant growth. Life-effecting transmutation spells like Enlarge person, Polymorph self, polymorph other and Giant Size.

Adding such spells would make Clerics more than portable healing spells and make them an attractive option for players.

Re: No Clerics?

I haven't noticed anyone not wanting to play clerics. In actual gameplay, they do as well as any other class and, with the Lotfp setting, can have the fun, "witchfinder general" theme going on.

I have started letting them turn undead like b/x clerics instead of that being a spell. It made the players feel like they were getting a slight relief from the perceived lethality of lotfp.

Last edited by Char-Vell (2017-11-10 18:24:34)

Re: No Clerics?

Char-Vell wrote:

I haven't noticed anyone not wanting to play clerics. In actual gameplay, they do as well as any other class and, with the Lotfp setting, can have the fun, "pathfinder general" theme going on.

I have started letting them turn undead like b/x clerics instead of that being a spell. It made the players feel like they were getting a slight relief from the perceived lethality of lotfp.

Did you actually mean "witchfinder general" or did you type that on purpose?

Re: No Clerics?

Solon wrote:
Char-Vell wrote:

I haven't noticed anyone not wanting to play clerics. In actual gameplay, they do as well as any other class and, with the Lotfp setting, can have the fun, "pathfinder general" theme going on.

I have started letting them turn undead like b/x clerics instead of that being a spell. It made the players feel like they were getting a slight relief from the perceived lethality of lotfp.

Did you actually mean "witchfinder general" or did you type that on purpose?

Witchfinder general.

The auto-correct on my tablet often humiliates me.

Re: No Clerics?

I've had no Clerics in my games for a couple of years now, and the dynamics are *way* more interesting when getting hurt is actually a challenge to deal with. There aren't any potions either. Having no healing magic makes for a better game.

Re: No Clerics?

How do you handle that? Do the PCs have to leave the dungeon and go somewhere to heal up a few weeks before going back?

Re: No Clerics?

Andomedanaea wrote:

How do you handle that? Do the PCs have to leave the dungeon and go somewhere to heal up a few weeks before going back?

I haven't run a straightforward dunegon crawl in a while, but yeah that's how it'd have to be taken care of. I wouldn't make them have to go back to a city or town if they had adequate shelter and food in the wilderness outside the dungeon though. They just need to be somewhere safe enough to lay around and do nothing.

Now if the rolls go alright it's not going to take very long for someone to heal up to full anyway (1d3 HP back per day if they're above half health, double that if a Medicine roll works out, most characters have like 4-6 HP per level on average, etc.), just a few days is usually plenty. It's usually a question of "do we have time to go heal?" more than anything else.

Things get really interesting when someone decides to press on despite having only 1 or 2 HP left too!