Clerics and Druids, Why is everyone against them?

[Kojiro]

Good grief, you can have your pet take a Vow of Poverty? I thought that being poor was an assumed part of being an animal. One that doesn't have the word "dragon" in its name, at least.

[SleepyBadger]

Basic optimization for a druid: take Natural Spell, pick animals with high physical stats, and don't use terrible tactics. Wizard might have a higher maximum power level, but druid is certainly easier to break without trying.

Also it's enough to know the SRD to have a game-breaking druid from very early on. Outside the SRD wizards get the coolest prestige classes, clerics get DMM but a druid can stay on par even if limited to the SRD. Of course high level wizard and cleric spells are more versatile...

[Divide by Zero]

Hm. Would cutting the spontaneous summoning feature out at least help them be more balanced? Spontaneous healing on a cleric seems useful but being able to throw anything away to basically pull out another party member or three seems a bit much even without... Everything else. Which is a lot. Hm. I don't think a Druid player would be justified in complaining, at least, if you did so.

Again, while it would make them slightly less versatile, they'd still be solid tier 1. Only difference is now they have to decide how many bears they want to shoot out in advance.

[urbanwolf]

a lot of these problems seem to be things DM could fix by saying no

no resuffling feats for an animal companion


turning into a T-Rex
has the druid ever met a T-Rex
is the T-rex a native animal to the druids enviroment

Exalted Animal companion takes VoP ( I would just say no)
or the animal demands a fair share of the loot be donated to PETA or something
money hungy PC's freak
and an inteligant animal companion could say no to the durid if the druid does something it does not like

[Zaq]

a lot of these problems seem to be things DM could fix by saying no

no resuffling feats for an animal companion


turning into a T-Rex
has the druid ever met a T-Rex
is the T-rex a native animal to the druids enviroment

Exalted Animal companion takes VoP ( I would just say no)
or the animal demands a fair share of the loot be donated to PETA or something
money hungy PC's freak
and an inteligant animal companion could say no to the durid if the druid does something it does not like

Oberoni much?

[urbanwolf]

Oberoni much?

No

I am not making any new rules

Ph say a druid had to be famiier with a animal form before it can take it

a creture with an Int being intelligence and having ideas is not something they make rules for but it is RP stuff

no reshuffling feats you are supposed to use the base stats of a creature of its kind so you are stuck with Alertness and toughness and other less savory feats until you get some bonus hit dice

[Engine]

I'll try to explain.

but the cleric seems about the same as a paladin, minus the smite attack

Smite Evil is useful, but it's still ONE attack. At higher levels you could use that just 5 times a day. Yes, you could do a lot of damage, but it's a scarce commodity. And if your enemy is out of range you couldn't use that at all.

mount

Nice, and some builds use the mount to great effectiveness. Anyway you should consider that a Large mount (for a medium sized creature like a human) is useless in a dungeon or similar place.

+1/lvl base attack bonus

The BAB is really overestimated: a Paladin has 5 points in BAB and one attack more the Cleric. The Cleric has 5 more spell levels. With more BAB you just attack, with 5 spell levels you could do much more.

martial weapon proficiency

A Cleric really doesn't need that much. And if you really want that, just pick the War Domain (which is two feats, you get proficiency and focus in the favored weapon of the Cleric's deity).

I really would like to understand why clerics are considered over-powered, as ive only GMed a group using a paladin instead of a cleric(so I dont have much experience with clerics in game).

Well, you should consider that spells in D&D are more useful that martial skill. A Paladin, for the most part, could just fight. Yes, a Paladin has some utilities and sometimes he could use them to some effect. But the Cleric has a flippin' ton of utilities, thanks to her spell list. While a Paladin, for the most part, could just charge and maybe smite, a Cleric has more options. A lot more.

To understand why Clerics are considered overpowered one should read carefully the Cleric spell list and forget the notion that a Cleric is just someone who heals and maybe swings a mace for 1D8 damage.

[Gametime]

no reshuffling feats you are supposed to use the base stats of a creature of its kind so you are stuck with Alertness and toughness and other less savory feats until you get some bonus hit dice

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that every creature has to have the exact feats listed in the Monster Manual, but as far as I can tell it isn't supported by the actual text.

It wouldn't matter much, though. A druid without an animal companion is still easily tier 1. A druid with nothing but druid spellcasting is probably still tier 1; restrictions on wild shape and animal companions aren't going to solve the problem.

[SleepyBadger]

I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that every creature has to have the exact feats listed in the Monster Manual, but as far as I can tell it isn't supported by the actual text.

It is stated in the PHB that the druid's animal companion is at the start a completely typical creature of its kind, so logically this means you have to use the exact stats as given in the MM.

[Zaq]

It is stated in the PHB that the druid's animal companion is at the start a completely typical creature of its kind, so logically this means you have to use the exact stats as given in the MM.

And that's what Psionic Reformation and/or Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos are for.

[tiercel]

Not that this pretty much hasn't all been said in one place or another, but in summary:

1) Full spellcasting. You can appeal to the "tier system" but it basically boils down to "the more spellcasting you get, the better."

1a) Really full spellcasting -- you can ready any spell from any source allowed at any time you prepare, at no cost to your character. Other characters have to find/purchase spells for a "spells available" repository, or have a limited number of "spells known" to dole out.

For example, simply adding Spell Compendium to a previously Core game vastly and instantly expands a Cleric's or Druid's arsenal without the character doing anything, merely by virtue of the book suddenly being usable.

2) Few real weaknesses -- decent HD, armored casting, two good saves (the important ones against save-or-lose; Ref saves tend to hit HP, which matters even less to characters packing healing).

3) Even more goodies: Clerics get Turn Undead, which by itself is only situationally useful, but with [Divine] feats can be turned into something-good-all-the-time, most brokenly, Divine Metamagic (Persist). Domains shovel out some pretty nice abilities and an even further expanded spell list.

Druids basically stop ever being humanoid-shaped around 6th level thanks to Wild Shape/Natural Spell, and they get pretty much at least a free cohort thanks to Animal Companion.

------

Presumably, what's supposed to keep the high power level of these classes in check is that they're "supposed to" function as heal/buff-bots for the party, and all the Phenomenal Cosmic Power is a bribe for taking one for the team.

There's a small amount of truth to this -- the more selfish a divine caster is (or can afford to be because there is more than one divine caster), the more they can focus on their own Awesome Power. But... only a somewhat small amount of truth. Realistically, most healing over much of the campaign is accomplished out-of-combat by use of items, be they humble wands of cure light wounds, the rather more effective wands of lesser vigor, or non-expendable items like Eternal Wands or Belts of Healing. So unlike, say, the 2e "bandage" cleric, relatively few spell slots have to be "mortgaged" on behalf of the party.

It's also harder to "screw up" a Cleric or Druid than other full casters -- partly because they can completely reset a "bad" (or even a good) spell selection for free the next day, and also because they don't have to spend any effort compensating for small Hit Dice, theoretical lack of armor, or weaker saves.

[Talya]

no reshuffling feats you are supposed to use the base stats of a creature of its kind so you are stuck with Alertness and toughness and other less savory feats until you get some bonus hit dice

I'm not a fan of feat reshuffling.

It takes as little as 6 levels for a druid companion to get 2 levelling feats. (+4 Hit Dice will give you 2 bonus feats if the companion started with 2 HD, 5 HD, 8 HD, 11 HD, etc.)

It typically doesn't have much for class features, so the feats from VOP aren't going to matter. It's the numerical advantages you want for your Exalted Animal Companion, and it gets those at whatever level it gets VOP.

[Midnight_v]

The real reason people hate on CoDzilla?
1. Because CoDzilla was the sun that shed light on the LIE that "Core Only" was a balancing factor for playing 3.5.
Origin of Codzilla: by RaicalTaoist

"It bears saying: if up against a logic-impervious DM who thinks Core is balanced and Psionics , Warlocks, Binders, The Tome of Battle isn't, then the most powerful way to disprove that is to play a C.o.D. (Cleric or Druid). Noncore material will not be necessary unless you are going for pure overkill. So by all means, if you must win that argument, take you C.o.D. to town. Annihilate the opposition. Make the NPCs and other players scream "Oh no, it's C.o.D.zilla!!!!!" in badly dubbed English. Breathe radioactive fire. Knock down buildings. Then stomp out of the burning Tokyo that is the ruins of the game and swim off into the ocean, seeking a DM with some basic cognitive functions.

Clerics and Druid being as strong as they are in many ways honestly wasn't the issue, the issue was that they were used to do the one thing that is unforgivable by many people.
"Prove them Wrong."
2. There's a post earlier in the thread about a Drow Druid who was the ONLY char to survive the whole campaign. . .
I believe that story to be true but I want you to understand that the horrible thing about that is this: MOST of the chars are supposed to survive the campaign. Believe it or not... the problem is that most of the other classes are too weak to deal with challenges of certain cr's. So in someways when you look at the CoDzilla, and then someone looks at the Fighter, the problem is that the fighter can't really do his job unless you're somekind of optimization whiz with 40 book to look through... like me !

[Leon]

The fighter does his job in a group by hitting things hard with a weapon, it doesn't need excessive optimization (no class does) to be a useful character.

[Kaeso]

The fighter does his job in a group by hitting things hard with a weapon, it doesn't need excessive optimization (no class does) to be a useful character.

That's the whole problem! The fighters job is "hit stuff", which would be fair enough in a balanced game. The problem, however, is that the clerics job is "heal the wounded, weaken the enemy, buff the party and hit stuff (preferably harder than a fighter on steroids could ever hope to do)". If you look at it like that, even an effective fighter is kind of redundant. In your average "fighter, rogue, cleric, wizard" party, the cleric and wizard could easily take over the roles of fighter and rogue (especially if the cleric is a cloistered cleric with the trickery domain (for sneaky stuff) and dragon domain (for diplomancy)). Actually, a "wizard-cleric-druid-donkey that carries their phat loot" would be better than the 'standard' party.

Even if we limit ourselves to just "making sure the bad guy dies", the fighter is outshined by all three Core big boys. Let's imagine a very common scenario: the big bad can fly, what does the fighter do? He switches to a bow, but unless he's completely specialized to fight specifically with a bow, he'll suck. On the other hand, a wizard uses overland flight and uses a few blasty spells (I know, unoptimized) to fry the big bad to a crisp. The druid changes into a strong animal that can fly and summons more strong, flying animals. The cleric uses animal devotion or air walk, casually strolls up to the big bad with a big smirk on his face due to how he can simply defy gravity because his god loves him so much, and slaps the big bad in the face with his 1d6+OMGWTFBBQ damage. Even if we assume that the fighter is purely specialised in archery, a zen archery cleric will more often than not be better (because his archery skills are keyed off his primary casting stat, making sure it's pretty much the only stat he'll ever need) and he still has some spells to back him up if archery proves to be sub-optimal in a given situation.

Another problem a fighter can encounter in his "hit stuff" task is insanely high AC and/or damage reduction. To overcome this obstacle a fighter needs really good rolls and/or magic weapons and/or good armor + hp to make sure he can outlive the big bad in this test of endurance (pro-tip: if the big bad has such a high AC and/or DR and a decent damage output, this isn't going to happen anytime soon). The big three however get to choose between:
a) summoning something that can overcome their DR and/or AC, or even to just act as a meat shield.
b) blasting spells that bypass AC and/or DR
c) weakening his defenses, then smash his face in with a good ol' mace
d) using other means to take care of him (forcecage + cloudkill, hold person + coup de grace and I'm sure there are other ways to take care of it. Ask one of the Cleric- or Wizard-freaks on this board).

Now that that's out of the way, we should know that flexibility is the name of the game. Imagine a situation where hitting stuff in the face isn't the best course of action, for example when you need to convince a heavily guarded baron to finance your cause. The fighter will just sit in a corner while he sulks over how he's useless. The big three, however, can use spells to improve their diplomatic prowess, and the druid and cleric even have diplomacy as class skills! If you take a cloistered cleric with the dragon domain he also gets bluff and intimidate as class skills and the spells "voice of the dragon" to boot, which gives him a +10 to diplomacy, bluff and intimidate. A bard with glibness is probably the only thing that can out-diplomance said cloistered cleric.

Now, what if said baron will somehow refuse to budge and joins the Big Bad's side instead? One way to take care of this (dependant on your alignment) is to assassinate him. A fighter can't do this unless he has some magic items/potions especially for this job or a rogue that's willing to drag him along through a portable hole or something like that. The wizard, however, can use the invisibility spells combined with fly to be unseen and unheard, the druid just changes into an unsuspicious animal (a cat, mouse, owl or what have you) and the cleric has a spell called ghost touch which reduces the AC penalty from his heavy armor. I'm not too familliar with other spells on the cleric list that deal with this problem, but I know that a (cloistered) cleric with the trickery domain gets a lot of stealth skills as class skills.

This demonstrates that even a fighter who's very good at his job gets out-classed by the big three in what's supposed to be his only purpose, and he's useless unless the situation specifically demands that you crack some skulls. Of course, the best retort would be "the fighter isn't supposed to be a solo player, he has party members that can give him the buffs required". This is a very good retort, but let's think about it this way: what would make the wizard more effective, a fighter that needs half of his spells, or a cleric that can provide himself with all the spells he needs and have some to spare for his wizard buddy?

[FMArthur]

I actually do find it to be only the noncasting parts of the druid that make them unfun to play alongside. The prepared, full-progression casting is certainly their most powerful feature and is the most obviously rigged, but only when he goes into melee does he actually make other party members want to take their stuff and go home.

A solidly-built beatstick can make do with casters in play that don't try to take his job; they may be making all the enemies insensate cripples, but the beatsticks can still have a role in making sure they never recover or in mopping up other targets. This can be a lame, inglorious task if the casters are heavy-handed in their methods, but at the end of the day it still lets them have a purpose.

It takes no effort to make a wizard that lets them have their fun. It's pretty easy for clerics to get along with or support that as well. But it takes a conscious effort on the part of the druid to not take over weaker classes' jobs entirely, and can take over 2 - 3 such characters' jobs with merely accidental choices.

[Kaeso]

I actually do find it to be only the noncasting parts of the druid that make them unfun to play alongside. The prepared, full-progression casting is certainly their most powerful feature and is the most obviously rigged, but only when he goes into melee does he actually make other party members want to take their stuff and go home.

A solidly-built beatstick can make do with casters in play that don't try to take his job; they may be making all the enemies insensate cripples, but the beatsticks can still have a role in making sure they never recover or in mopping up other targets. This can be a lame, inglorious task if the casters are heavy-handed in their methods, but at the end of the day it still lets them have a purpose.

It takes no effort to make a wizard that lets them have their fun. It's pretty easy for clerics to get along with or support that as well. But it takes a conscious effort on the part of the druid to not take over weaker classes' jobs entirely, and can take over 2 - 3 such characters' jobs with merely accidental choices.

I fully agree, but isn't that what the shapeshifting variant from PHB II sort of does? It limits (actually, even gimps) the druids wildshape and gets rid of their animal companion, making them more 'beatstick friendly'.

[FMArthur]

Compared to Wild Shape and Animal Companion, yes... But a Barbarian would still give the entire left half of his body to get Shapeshift instead of Rage.

[Divide by Zero]

The fighter does his job in a group by hitting things hard with a weapon, it doesn't need excessive optimization (no class does) to be a useful character.

But if the cleric and the druid and the wizard are all better fighters than the fighter is, then they all have to hold back in order for him to be relevant. It constantly raises the question of "Why did we even drag this loser along?" and really hurts verisimilitude.

And he's still useless out of combat.

[Midnight_v]

The fighter does his job in a group by hitting things hard with a weapon, it doesn't need excessive optimization (no class does) to be a useful character.

Wow. Thats such a falsehood that I don't know if you're being funny or not. Fighters specifically CAN'T do that without excessive optimization. He doesn't hit things hard enough, especially not the things that do the same job as him on team evil.
Unless you know your optimization you really are not going to be able to the things that people think when they think of the archtype.

But if the cleric and the druid and the wizard are all better fighters than the fighter is, then they all have to hold back in order for him to be relevant. It constantly raises the question of "Why did we even drag this loser along?" and really hurts verisimilitude.

And he's still useless out of combat.

Its so funny though because Dm's still ban the ToB? I see "My Dm banned the TOB" but you never hear things like "The Big 3, held back so the Warblade could be relevant"
Further, pretty much anytime you see a fighter doing things like Shocktrooper, +Archery. People start saying "broken" and "I can't challenge this guy" why?
The don't understand the game mechanically.

[Engine]

Its so funny though because Dm's still ban the ToB? I see "My Dm banned the TOB" but you never hear things like "The Big 3, held back so the Warblade could be relevant"
Further, pretty much anytime you see a fighter doing things like Shocktrooper, +Archery. People start saying "broken" and "I can't challenge this guy" why?
The don't understand the game mechanically.

This.
I had a lot of DMs banning everything that could be useful for melee\ranged characters (items & feats especially) but didn't say a word about the primary casters. It seems to me that a lot of people see the Fighter (or Warblade) as the powerplayer's choice.

[Midnight_v]

This.
I had a lot of DMs banning everything that could be useful for melee\ranged characters (items & feats especially) but didn't say a word about the primary casters. It seems to me that a lot of people see the Fighter (or Warblade) as the powerplayer's choice.

The thing that bugs me about it is that... the second they realized "OMG... CoDzilla! CODZILLA!" they start hating on them as the power players choice and the undertown seems to be "the problem is with CoD" No. . .the problem is:
1. With certain classes not being able to do thier jobs.
2. You being a Dm, but not having any system mastery. Thus you lack the mechanical acumen to really "challenge" anyone who has the dimmest stirrings that Monte Cooke and the boys might have made D&D with intentionally bad options.

I'm not tying to lambast anybody but really you shouldn't be dm'ing until you have somekind of system mastery, at least in 3.5, and honestly...
People don't want to hear that.
Its a truth, that many people just look at and sneer, because it kinda puts the spotlight on them as being bad, but its not that you're BAD. It's more along the lines of "We can all improve". Just like if someone was a dm who created all bland Npc's, or only runs the same plot over and over again.
We can all improve. Thing is... some of use aren't even willing to try.
So yeah. . .

Clerics and Druids right now are getting lots of negative attention for being too good, but sadly they're likely about the right power level, for the progression of most stories, and considering that the CR system is innaccurate as all get out.
Thing is they're "Please don't optimize, this" classes.

Where as fighters(and other melees are) Please optimized this if you intend to play.

[Gametime]

It is stated in the PHB that the druid's animal companion is at the start a completely typical creature of its kind, so logically this means you have to use the exact stats as given in the MM.

Since feats (and, as far as I can tell, only feats) are specifically mentioned as being customizable in the Monster Manual, I wouldn't consider an animal with new feats to be atypical. Within reason, of course; the feats should at least be things you'd expect the animal to be able to figure out on its own.

Admittedly, that's a judgement call, but I think there's some leeway in the text.

[Fox Box Socks]

Thing is they're "Please don't optimize, this" classes.

Cleric yes. Druid not so much. All you need to do to break the Druid is crack open the MM1 and look at the stats for the list of monsters provided in the PHB, then take Natural Spell. That's it. That is literally all you need to do to make the Druid the nastiest, game-balance destroyingest PC this side of the Mississippi.

The sad part? It happens by accident. I've lost track of the number of times I've seen a fresh player, completely green to DnD, trick out their Druid in this way without ever even going online to look at what the community thinks the strongest options are. Natural Spell is right there in the PHB as a Druid-only feat; why would anyone ever not take it? It takes some digging to figure out that riding dogs and cats are the way to go for animal companions, but even a Druid with a wolf is crazy powerful. Augment Summoning and the like are no-brainers, and I'm 90% sure the PHB2 actually encourages Druids to take them (and by "encourages" I mean there's a little blurb that says "If you are a Druid, you should probably have Augment Summoning").

The real problem with the Tier 1 classes is that they're so good at what they do that players not trying to make the strongest character possible sometimes will anyway.

[Big Fau]

turning into a T-Rex
has the druid ever met a T-Rex
is the T-rex a native animal to the druids enviroment

Hate to say this, but this is indeed an Oberoni fallacy. Any Druid with enough ranks in Knowledge (Nature) can just choose to make a Knowledge check to learn about a T-Rex, and then Wildshape into it.

As for the feat shuffling thing: That works as long as the Druid keeps upgrading to the highest HD animal Companion possible, but if a 9th level Druid takes a Wolf for a companion, he is free to determine what feats it gains beyond the wolf's initial stats. There is nothing in the books stating that either the DM or player in control of the druid gets to, but the feats are required by the rules and thus have to be selected.

[Midnight_v]

Cleric yes. Druid not so much. All you need to do to break the Druid is crack open the MM1 and look at the stats for the list of monsters provided in the PHB, then take Natural Spell. That's it. That is literally all you need to do to make the Druid the nastiest, game-balance destroyingest PC this side of the Mississippi.

Maybe...
Maybe, the ability to become any moster of your hit dice is too strong. However... there something about the fact that you're generally fighting monsters above your hit dice. Or you're fighting monsters with powers that are pretty harcore save or lose specialists, (illithids, vampires and other mind controllers). What I'm trying to convey here is that if we play honestly the MMI, many of the monsters have what is generally refered to as the "Awesome" tag.
So when you say "Balance Destroying" what I think people don't consider is how hardcore some of these encounters really should be.
The thing is its really only CoDzilla or the paranoid wizard who has a good chance of defeating many of these monsters in a dungeon setting. Its easier if the monster is attacking your city, but nominially adventurers dont' have homefield advantage all that much.
... I wanna go into this a bit more... but I'm trying to do the "brevity is the soul of with thing" nowadays.
Hmm... so this:

"I've heard some people complain that playing a spell casting Polar bear at certain levels is broke and ruins the game balance.
The thing they fail to consider though? Just how many Spellcasting Flying Polar bears they are going to have to fight in the life of a pc.." -Midnight_v

[Engine]

Clerics and Druids right now are getting lots of negative attention for being too good, but sadly they're likely about the right power level, for the progression of most stories, and considering that the CR system is innaccurate as all get out.
Thing is they're "Please don't optimize, this" classes.

Well, I have nothing against Clerics, Druids (and Wizards, for good sake). I have something against DMs with the mindset that a well played (from a mechanical point of view, of course) Fighter is overpowered, but a well played Cleric is just fine.

(Today my gnome Diviner, 4th level, laughed in front of the Fighter Villain with one cast of Grease on his weapon. My character isn't optimized - I even spent a feat on a Dragonmark just for roleplaying reasons - but I can't be too dumb. Yeah, well played Fighters are really overpowered...)

[SleepyBadger]

Hate to say this, but this is indeed an Oberoni fallacy. Any Druid with enough ranks in Knowledge (Nature) can just choose to make a Knowledge check to learn about a T-Rex, and then Wildshape into it.
...

Or the druid could have had some sort of druid master in his learning years who was able to wildshape... or even use shapechange... theoretically he could have met the whole arsenal of creatures available at 1st level...

[Midnight_v]

Well, I have nothing against Clerics, Druids (and Wizards, for good sake). I have something against DMs with the mindset that a well played (from a mechanical point of view, of course) Fighter is overpowered, but a well played Cleric is just fine.

(Today my gnome Diviner, 4th level, laughed in front of the Fighter Villain with one cast of Grease on his weapon. My character isn't optimized - I even spent a feat on a Dragonmark just for roleplaying reasons - but I can't be too dumb. Yeah, well played Fighters are really overpowered...)

Good sir. We have no argument. In fact we have the same complaint, it seems. Well met.
Oh and what'd you think of this?

"I've heard some people complain that playing a spell casting Polar bear at certain levels is broke and ruins the game balance.
The thing they fail to consider though? Just how many Spellcasting Flying Polar bears they are going to have to fight in the life of a pc.." -Midnight_v

[MeeposFire]

Maybe...
Maybe, the ability to become any moster of your hit dice is too strong. However... there something about the fact that you're generally fighting monsters above your hit dice. Or you're fighting monsters with powers that are pretty harcore save or lose specialists, (illithids, vampires and other mind controllers). What I'm trying to convey here is that if we play honestly the MMI, many of the monsters have what is generally refered to as the "Awesome" tag.
So when you say "Balance Destroying" what I think people don't consider is how hardcore some of these encounters really should be.
The thing is its really only CoDzilla or the paranoid wizard who has a good chance of defeating many of these monsters in a dungeon setting. Its easier if the monster is attacking your city, but nominially adventurers dont' have homefield advantage all that much.
... I wanna go into this a bit more... but I'm trying to do the "brevity is the soul of with thing" nowadays.
Hmm... so this:

Actually changing into monsters isn't too strong. For one a MoMF with a WS ranger as the base is very tier 3 which is what many people are fine with. Further changing into animals was not so much a problem in 2e and 1e but that is because changing forms was very different back then. In 2e changing into a bear at high levels was near useless since you had to use the bears THAC0 which was really bad at that point and the bears damage was also too low (bears did not have str scores and the static damage that comes with that back then).