How much would this fix the cleric [3.5]

[Loki_42]

One of my biggest problems with the class is that they can fight well and they're full casters. Those don't go together in a pleasant way. One thing that's been going through my head is making Cleric identical to Cloistered Cleric, but without the benefits. This, IMHO, fits the priest archetype better than standard does, with the added benefit of stopping the cleric from out-paladining the paladin.

So, Comments?

[Ernir]

Doesn't matter, because they still have their spells.

If you want to tone down the Cleric, you need to attack their spells. Nothing else will work. No-benefits Cloistered Cleric would make them more annoying to play, but does next to nothing for their optimization potential.

[nolispe]

Given that most combat clerics are going to have divine power up, the whole effect of that is making them loose 1 hp per level. Oh the horror.

[KingMerv00]

I think your worries are overblown. I've played 3.5 for a long time and I haven't see a cleric out fight a paladin. Yes, you can specifically build a battle cleric but it takes a fair amount of work and sacrifice.

[hamlet]

The problem is that full casters are inherently better at . . . well . . . everything in 3.x. No two ways about it.

Ironically, this is one of the points of overlap with AD&D. A well played cleric, with a very savvy player, who knew the full use of his spells, could have the most powerful PC on the field bar none, even the wizard.

Clerics were powerhouses back then, as long as you eschewed casting yourself as the walking first aid kit.

[Last Laugh]

One of my biggest problems with the class is that they can fight well and they're full casters. Those don't go together in a pleasant way. One thing that's been going through my head is making Cleric identical to Cloistered Cleric, but without the benefits. This, IMHO, fits the priest archetype better than standard does, with the added benefit of stopping the cleric from out-paladining the paladin.

So, Comments?

I assume you also plan on nerfing every spell that makes the cleric a melee beast?

Cloistered cleric is great, you get 6 + int skills points, a bonus domain, free identifys, and all it costs you is 1 hp/level and 1 bab/4 levels, until level 9.
Divine power gives you BAB = to character level and a temp hp/caster level.
Divine Favor gives you a nice boost to attacks
Righteous might gives you +8 str, +4 con, +4 NA, and a size increase.

Clerics are not great fighters on their own, they CAN fight, better than a wizard but worse than a rogue. their spells turn them into fighter+ tho.

Edit: Spose that should say level 7, as divine power fixes everything you lost to be a cloistered cleric, cept weapon choice. I've always been a fan of morningstars anyways. Greater mighty wallop + dive attacks = fun

[erikun]

You might as well just remove standard Clerics and use standard Cloistered Clerics. If you are determined to remove them from the battlefield and put them in robes, then it would make sense that they'd get knowledge skills from the exchange.

And as others have mentioned, this doesn't really fix the "problem" with the Cleric. They can still fight on the frontlines if desired, and a single level of Fighter (of all things) gives them back everything they lost. If you really want to remove combat capacity from Clerics, you might start with taking away the biggest problem spells and giving them to the Paladin. (A Paladin who can cast Divine Power on others will be better for the party than a Cleric who can only cast it on themselves.)

[Loki_42]

Alright, thanks anyway. It's not a huge problem and was just an idea I had floating around that I wanted to get out. And my friends aren't that good at game balance, so I came here.

[Draz74]

How about this:

• Starting from the standard Cleric, use the Spontaneous Divine Casting variant from UA.
• Much like the Ardent, lose the good Fortitude save and drop the Hit Points to d6. However, boost skill points to 4+Int out of shear mercy. Keep Medium BAB.
• Take away Heavy Armor Proficiency; in its place, grant automatic proficiency with the deity's favored weapon. The War Domain still grants Weapon Focus with the favored weapon, but now it also grants heavy armor proficiency.
• Remove Divine Power from the Cleric spell list. It's still on the War Domain list.
• Limit Divine Metamagic so that the adjusted (metamagic'd) spell can't be higher effective level than the Cleric can cast anyway. So a Level 9 Cleric can still use DMM to Quicken his Level 1 spells, and at high levels DMM: Persist of low-level spells even becomes viable. But it's nerfed.

The first change makes the Cleric Tier 2 instead of Tier 1. It also makes him reflect his deity a lot more strongly.

The rest of the changes make him a lower Tier 2, particularly attacking his ability to outshine warrior classes in melee. He's still a viable backup melee character, especially with appropriate domains.

If you want to knock him down to Tier 3, then yeah, you're going to have to start attacking individual overpowered spells. But I think this Tier 2 version could be played just fine in normal campaigns without ever accidentally breaking the game (except maybe with Gate).

[gallagher]

How about this:

• Starting from the standard Cleric, use the Spontaneous Divine Casting variant from UA.
• Much like the Ardent, lose the good Fortitude save and drop the Hit Points to d6. However, boost skill points to 4+Int out of shear mercy. Keep Medium BAB.
• Take away Heavy Armor Proficiency; in its place, grant automatic proficiency with the deity's favored weapon. The War Domain still grants Weapon Focus with the favored weapon, but now it also grants heavy armor proficiency.
• Remove Divine Power from the Cleric spell list. It's still on the War Domain list.
• Limit Divine Metamagic so that the adjusted (metamagic'd) spell can't be higher effective level than the Cleric can cast anyway. So a Level 9 Cleric can still use DMM to Quicken his Level 1 spells, and at high levels DMM: Persist of low-level spells even becomes viable. But it's nerfed.

The first change makes the Cleric Tier 2 instead of Tier 1. It also makes him reflect his deity a lot more strongly.

The rest of the changes make him a lower Tier 2, particularly attacking his ability to outshine warrior classes in melee. He's still a viable backup melee character, especially with appropriate domains.

If you want to knock him down to Tier 3, then yeah, you're going to have to start attacking individual overpowered spells. But I think this Tier 2 version could be played just fine in normal campaigns without ever accidentally breaking the game (except maybe with Gate).

you know... this actually is a fair and reasonable nerf...

[Thiyr]

The first and third changes seem to actually be called playing the favored soul (from CDiv) Spontaneous divine caster with no heavy armor proficiency and auto-proficiency in their deity's favored weapon. still gets the d8 HD and 2+int skills though, and get monk saves instead. just bar them taking divine power unless they have a deity with the war domain and it does most of this for you

[Natael]

Replacing Cleric with Favored Soul probably works decently at nerfing spells a bit, and some other capabilities.

[AslanCross]

Two reasons why clerics are powerful even when "nerfed" into Cloistered Clerics: Spells and domains.

I do agree that while clerics are Tier 1, they aren't guaranteed to outfight the paladin. IMO it's more of the paladin sucking royally than the cleric needing to take hits. I'd buff the paladin instead of nerfing the cleric.

[Aldizog]

You know how people post now and then "I think other alignments besides LG should have a holy warrior"?

My reply is always "They already do: the cleric." The Classic/2E cleric was a holy warrior, capable with heavy armor and shield, with the second-highest hit die and attack progression. Explicitly modeled on orders such as the Templars and Hospitalers. The spell list that was weaker than that of the wizard, only going to 7 levels and generally focused on healing, fixing conditions, and weaker buffs than 3E has. Some of 3E's higher-level spells were introduced as "Quest Spells" in 2E's Tome of Magic, and those had serious restrictions on use. 3E kept and expanded the combat ability and tacked on more spells per day AND more powerful spells.

I'd say the fix is to remove the more powerful spells (many of the direct damage ones and many of the buffs) and change the progression to be more like the bard's.

[Draz74]

you know... this actually is a fair and reasonable nerf...

Thanks. I've posted it before, but somehow it never seems to get noticed. Too reasonable, probably.

The first and third changes seem to actually be called playing the favored soul (from CDiv) Spontaneous divine caster with no heavy armor proficiency and auto-proficiency in their deity's favored weapon. still gets the d8 HD and 2+int skills though, and get monk saves instead. just bar them taking divine power unless they have a deity with the war domain and it does most of this for you

Yes, it's similar. No, it's certainly not the same:

• Domains. A meaningful power-up.
• Domains. A very meaningful limitation to spell selection. Which actually forces your Cleric's spell selection to match his deity's portfolios somewhat!
• Turn Undead. Not a big deal on its own, since it's so weak. But it's really annoying when your Favored Soul can't use nice, balanced feats like Divine Might or Travel Devotion, just because you happen to be missing Turn Undead.
• No MAD spellcasting. Although actually, I wouldn't mind making the Cleric more like the Favored Soul on that account. (I think MAD is actually good game design.) Maybe make the Cleric's Save DC's based on Charisma, but keep the rest of the spellcasting under Wisdom ...
• Knowledge (religion) as a class skill. Because leaving this out of the favored soul was a ridiculous oversight.
• No "wings" class feature, which a lot of Favored Soul advocates despise.

[Aemoh87]

The only way to fix Cleric would to be remove the spells that make is a better melee fighter than all the other classes (except druid, which is the best melee fighter.)

But trying to fix it is pointless. It's tier one summoning too! And it makes a decent archer.

[MeeposFire]

I think you mean take away the spells that make them able to do the basic part of the warriors job. A cleric does not "fight" better than a fighter, a cleric fights well enough to handle the monster's in melee and then uses spells to do everything a fighter wishes it could handle. The fact that the fighter can get slightly better numbers does not make it overall a better class especially since you do not really need those extra few bonuses in general.

[Aemoh87]

a fully buffed cleric at 13th level is superior in melee to a 20th level fighter at the same level of optimization.

They are faster, they hit more, they hit significantly harder, they get more attacks, and of course they can heal themselves. On top of all this is their utilities spells!

I would even argue the more you optimize the farther apart them get. Compare Ruby Knight Windicator @ 13th level to anything a fighter can do without just taking all it's levels in some other base class.

[MeeposFire]

You point is meaningless since the true power of many of the stuff you are talking about are spells and not fighting.

If we talk just fighting the fighter is more than capable to kill a cleric in one hit if he wins initiative. Heck a fighter can get crazy high damage and the like, it just does not matter. A cleric will outspell what it cannot outfight.

A fighters problem is not that it cannot fight, it can, the problem is it cannot do anything else and it cannot change its style once it is chosen. Fighters are also terrible out of combat. Fighters lack ways to deal with multiple situations.

Further those buffs can mostly be applied to a fighter and would make the fighter even better at fighting it is just silly for the cleric to spend more resources to make it close. Remember we are not comparing the classes to each other overall (a cleric wins hands down). We are only talking about fighting.

[Grim Reader]

I am worldbuilding at the moment, and this is what I have been considering as a balancing issue:

No Clerics, no Wizards, no Druids.
Add a bit of pruning of the most problematic spells, Divine Power, Polymorph, Righteous Might, Shivering Touch etc.

The Clerics stuff is covered by the Favored Soul and Archivist for spells, and the Paladin for turning.

The Druids stuff is covered by the Spirit Shaman and Wildshaping Ranger.

And the Wizards job is done by the Sorcerer, Beguiler, Warmage and Dread Necromancer.

Being the only guy with Turning is good for the Paladin, and without Domain spells, the Archivist is far more reasonable. No more cherrypicking the best Wizard spells as well.

[Last Laugh]

I am worldbuilding at the moment, and this is what I have been considering as a balancing issue:

No Clerics, no Wizards, no Druids.
Add a bit of pruning of the most problematic spells, Divine Power, Polymorph, Righteous Might, Shivering Touch etc.

The Clerics stuff is covered by the Favored Soul and Archivist for spells, and the Paladin for turning.

The Druids stuff is covered by the Spirit Shaman and Wildshaping Ranger.

And the Wizards job is done by the Sorcerer, Beguiler, Warmage and Dread Necromancer.

Being the only guy with Turning is good for the Paladin, and without Domain spells, the Archivist is far more reasonable. No more cherrypicking the best Wizard spells as well.

Shapeshift Variant Druid (PHB II IIRC) takes away the druids wildshape and instead applies stat bonuses. (So it helps to actually have a str/dex score)

Overall I like, makes me wish there were more specialist sorcerer types. (I always do, they are fun)