Will be starting the AoW early Feb. I Have five players, but nobody wants to play a cleric. What should I do? The whispering Cairn is famous for being a death trap around here!!
What does the party do to heal during battles. Any ideas?
Thanks for any help.
Will be starting the AoW early Feb. I Have five players, but nobody wants to play a cleric. What should I do? The whispering Cairn is famous for being a death trap around here!!
What does the party do to heal during battles. Any ideas?Thanks for any help.
You can get around not having a cleric a few different ways. For example, as long as one character takes a level in a class that has access to some healing spells, like cure light wounds, that character could use a wand with that spell on it. I sometimes have a ranger, paladin or bard, that carries wands of cure light or cure moderate wounds. When the characters are well stocked with such wands they can survive. Of course there are plenty of undead, so having access to turning would be handy- but it isn't essential. You might also be able to convince a player to multiclass and take one or two cleric levels and do the rest in their preferred class.
Tried and true: add an NPC to the party.
I do it all the time -- I'll design him/her/it to not dominate any particular task, and to be running around with some useful talent that no one else has (I'm especially fond of Knowledge skills which my PCs don't ever want to 'waste' points on).
Jack
The PCs in the group I'm DMing have enough use magic device now to use said wands.
That's good because the NPC Paladin quit the group.
Maybe I'll have a caotic neutral NPC Cleric join.
Either that or the Lizard Woman Druid could put someone else in charge at the swamp and join the party.
Now that she's not evil, she might want to help stop the
Age Of Worms.
After they take a few beatings or a TPK someone in the group may see the logic in "taking one for the team" and playing a cleric. With five players I would not consider adding an NPC but I would make healing magic more available for those with the gold to spend. In this case healing should become a money pit sucking the PC's resources like a leach. Make them see the error of their ways.
The second combat encounter in The Whispering Cairn can be a real problem, and without alchemist's fire, acid or an arcane spellcaster with access to a burning hands spell (or something similar), coupled with a lack of healing magic (assuming no one is playing a druid either), your party may find themselves in a heap of trouble. I always like giving the party one-shot magic items like potions, scrolls or alchemical items just to aid survival where it's needed. Maybe you can specify that each starting character gets a choice of a cure light wounds potion, some alchemical items, or a 1st level scroll for arcane spellcasters just to get them past that first encounter.
I'm usually the one that ends up playing the cleric in most campaigns I've played in. I like playing clerics--they can be just as fun to play as the other character classes if you see them as a role-playing challenge. While I enjoy hack & slash, I'm more of a RPGer.
My current character in a FR campaign is a 3rd level cleric of Cyric/2nd level sorceror--working towards mystic theurge. He has trickery and knowledge as his domains and has very high CHA based skills (total +17 to bluff due to smooth talker FR feat, maxed out ranks, 18 charisma and a magic item).
He wears no armor, has the run feat and constantly berates the rest of the party for wading into battle and making him memorize cure spells. He wears no armor, has only a magic dagger and a crossbow and often throws flasks of acid and alchemist's fire in battle in lieu of physical attacks, and when he's run out of useful spells.
He's a sophisticated and learned (all Knowledge skills are class skills), sarcastic and opinionated, CN (E) little human of about 5'5" and 135 lbs. I very much enjoy assuming his personality.
There really isn't a fix to this phenomenon--clerics are perceived as dull by many...I find this is untrue and now with 3rd edition, a cleric can take a few levels in other classes to really spice up the character and make them unique.
My current character in a FR campaign is a 3rd level cleric of Cyric/2nd level sorceror--working towards mystic theurge. He has trickery and knowledge as his domains and has very high CHA based skills (total +17 to bluff due to smooth talker FR feat, maxed out ranks, 18 charisma and a magic item).
I like your Cleric alot Farewell2kings
In my party i have a Dwarf Cleric so im pretty well off but i still want one of em to take a Divine Wand class of some sort for back up healing as AoW is a very fatal campain
We have a new player comming tonight so he might support with the healing but if he dosent i might haveto run a DMPC that tanks and heals in some way
I think T-bone's got the right idea - let them know that just because they chose not to have a dedicated healer does not mean that you will make the advnture easier. the rest will take care of itself, either when the slasher and the beetles come out to play, if they somehow manage to get through whispiring cairn, the three faces of evil will start killing them.
player death is also a valid method of manipulating the party into doing what you want. :D
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player death is also a valid method of manipulating the party into doing what you want. :D
Although this statement seems a bit harsh, it is very true and I agree with windnight. My group tends to be obsessed with healing potions because we have a small group so there's no cleric. Although I have yet to DM AOW, I have read most of them and have heard a lot on these boards. You group will either get smart and take advantage of every alternative there is, or they will die and realize the need for a cleric. It pretty much happens in every campaign I've done.
I'm always amazed when people don't want to play a cleric as I feel they are the strongest class. They get so many benefits with almost no drawback.
Let the group find some kick ass cleric stuff then kill off the PC that seems most likely to fall for it. Always works for me :)
Seriously, the DM can take steps to make the cleric less boring. The cleric often gets overlooked on good items, as you find lots of cool magic swords and axes, but only +1 maces. Plus you find wands of fireballs and burning hands, but few wands of searing light or other cleric offense spells. Usually the Cleric just ends up with good armor and healing magic which ends up being used on other PC's anyways.
Plus the cleric who takes cool spells usually ends up having to spend them to heal the other players instead.
Give the clerics good offense options, plus bump up the healing potions found so the clerics can use his spells for other stuff. Plus have the cleric's deity have a bit of impact on the game through the cleric and the players will find clerics more fun to use.
I'm always amazed when people don't want to play a cleric as I feel they are the strongest class...
Most people feel that way -- WotC did a poll.
On the other hand, clerics don't clearly dominate any particular task (except turning undead). Perhaps that's a deterrent to players?
Jack
I'm all in favor of allowing a couple PCs to die in order to learn the error of their ways. Another option that I would suggest is one that I use in my campaigns to make the cleric class a bit more appealing: the alternative turning method (Complete Divine). In case you are unfamiliar with the CD, alternative turning allows clerics to force a will save on all nearby undead v. 1d6 damage per level (half with a sussessful save). I like this rule because it makes so much more sense than the standard turning rules; why would a good cleric want to send nearby undead fleeing for its life? When that vampire stops fleeing it will only come back, or worse, plague some innocents with evil; in effect the cleric is only passing evil off to someone else to deal with. So dealing direct turning damage to undead not only makes practical sense, it also makes the cleric class more appealing.
My group of 4 PC's has no Cleric, and they have done fine. Then again, they do have two Druids (one full-time, the other part-time with Wizard levels too).
The main "draw-back" has been the lack of turning, which means simple fodder like zombies and skeletons take some time for the group to chew through (especially when they don't have the right weapons to by-pass their DR a lot of the time).
But there are plenty of CLW wands in the first two adventures; my party has now got two, so they have plenty of minor healing capacity at their disposal. Occasionally there is a Cleric spell they need (e.g. remove curse), but they find ways of getting those from NPCs between adventures.
I strongly beleive in letting the party come to its own conclusions as to what the best group composition, and so far the players all love their PC's and don't see any gaps they need filling (one is taking leadership soon, but not to fill out any real weakness; she'll end up with the Paladin Melinde, which will add some minor combat muscle and other minor abilities, but the group is already pretty strong due to the Druids' animal companions).
After getting from my DM that we were going to start the Age of Worms AP I was excited, I'd heard things here and there about it and it looked good. When it came to class selection as usual no one was taking Cleric... Me knowing what I knew (which wasn't much) about the Ap leapt at the chance to play one... (Currently a 2nd level cleric of Johydee) She's been fun thus far having scored the kill shots (With successful criticals I might add) on two of the nastier combat encounters in the Whispering Cairn.
My suggestion is to let the party taste the pain of no healing/turning and I'm certain someone will consider cleric. Nothing makes players reconsider quick decisions like emminent death!
On a brief side note, Does anyone have advice on possible prestige class suggestions? I was thinking of Mystic Theurge (considering our party wizard is a necromancer and I got a bad feeling I may have to 'take him out' later on when the undead stuff starts piling up) but I'm open to suggestions...
...our party wizard is a necromancer and I got a bad feeling I may have to 'take him out' later on when the undead stuff starts piling up)...
Um, you're going to eliminate a member of your party... mayhap? How will that work with your group and DM? Not that I'm overly fond of the (true) necromancer types/ aka Filge (ask GGG & JJ), but what will that player in your group think?
Oh, and when I play, I am the cleric.
LG
Let the players play whatever characters they want. It's been my rule for many years and always been a good one. Most players are fairly intelligent and resourceful. They'll either find ways to compensate for their lack or catch on and take a level or 2 in cleric or some other class with the ability to either cast healing spells or use healing items.
As someone else stated, cleric-less parties end up spending a great deal of gold on potions of healing to keep themselves alive. This can be great for making sure their wealth stays within the proper limits for their level. And also a lesson that perhaps having a cleric will save them a heap of cash so they can actually spend their gold on other cool things.
As the DM of a cleric-less group, you should also ensure that they have the opportunity to find the occasional healing potion(s) here and there where treasure is listed in the adventures. Just add it in.
If nothing else, if they can withdraw from a battle in one piece there is always bed rest as the ultimate healer.
You can have your Cleric undercut the Necromancer every
time decisions are made or other situations.
But unless he actually becomes a litch you cannot attack
him or her.
If you can get the whole rest of the party to tell Mr.
Necromancer to ditch the severed hand, they kind of have to.
Let the players play whatever characters they want. It's been my rule for many years and always been a good one. Most players are fairly intelligent and resourceful. They'll either find ways to compensate for their lack or catch on and take a level or 2 in cleric or some other class with the ability to either cast healing spells or use healing items.
I agree- let the players play what they want, no one should feel like a party has to have a cleric. If I had a group of players that all wanted to play fighters or mages for example, I would just try to tailor the campaign to the strengths of those characters classes. Although, I still would encourage someone to pick up a level in cleric just so that they can use scrolls and wands for healing. You could also throw more healing potions and such into the the treasure's to keep the party going. There's no sense in taking fun away from the players be making them play a class they don't want to play. As a dm I think it is your job to adapt the campaign to the party they create, not the other way around.
I've never understood the lack of pro-cleric players myself - I love 'em.
Since several of the story hooks for the AP mention "unkillable" zombies and at least one of my players assumed that there would be Kyuss Spawn somewhere along the way I figured it would be easy to get a cleric into the mix. It still took the group I'm sending through AoW until the middle of the Whispering Cairn to scrap the psion and replace him with a cleric. I threw them a bone and had the cleric join the party at the same level since a.) I hate psions and b.) they needed a cleric. Of course, they then raided the Dark Cathedral and every living thing in there seemed to have a grocery bag of Cure Light potions, not to mention two or three wands.
Long story short: throw a couple of mentions of the undead into their storylines, but if nobody bites the healing can be compensated for to an extent.
I think part of the problem with people playing clerics is that they look at the character as, first and foremost, a cleric that is X alignment. In order to get any enjoyment and depth from a character that is a cleric, you have to actually pick a deity that you enjoy reading about/roleplaying about, and one that you can roleplay your cleric's interest in.
One of my players has a cleric of Helm, from the Forgotten Realms setting. He wants to restore the good name of Helm, build a temple in the Dalelands, and start training more Helmites (thus all goals that make sense to a god like Helm). Dispite being lawful, he as played him as a hard partier when he is off duty, i.e. a pretty heavy drinker. On top of that, he has chosen skills and feats that might not play to the strengh of a particular "build" but make sense for a cleric of Helm (i.e. he learned how to use a bastard sword as soon as he could, rather than learning how to scribe scrolls, even though he thought the latter skill would be more useful overall). He also takes great joy in gaining ranks in the church, which are not directly related to level, but are often awarded based on what a character has done for the faith as a whole.
In short, if you play a cleric, get to know the religion that he is suppose to be an adherant of. Don't pick a god that you have an issue with. If you want to be a free wheeling carousing carefree character that hangs out with adventurers, pick Tymora and take a few risks, thus exalting the goddess of luck (to use a FR example).
If you aren't going to have a cleric in the party, one thing I would recommend is that you use the optional reserve points rule from Unearthed Arcana. Essentially, you have as many reserve points as you have hit points, and once combat encounters are over, you can "heal" your hit points by subtracting you reserve points one for one, but you can only do so once combat is over.
The party in my campaign had no cleric as well, just a druid not really focused on curing others. After a while he realized the only spells he was preparing were cure spells...
One thing I found was if your party tends to hit hard and fast, as mine does, many of the things they fight won't have a chance to use their combat gear, i.e. potions of cure light. After the 3FoE, the players were practically swimming in cure potions. Instead of selling them, they went in the haversack as community healing.
They're currently finishing the Champion's Belt, and here's how things have gone; the druid died, along with a rogue (almost), and the fights have become hard enough that healing is now an on-demand thing. Plus, the frequency of undead appearing has convinced the druid's player to roll a cleric after his first char died.
Needless to say, the party's much better off now. Luckily, the cleric joined the party shortly before the Champion's Belt... the monk and rogue chose to sneak around the sewers below the Arena and faced off against the three Spawn of Kyuss in the chapel. They managed to take them out (veteran players), but both failed their (secret) Fort saves against the Kyuss' Gift disease. Later when they woke up several ability points less, they were grateful a cleric was standing by with restoration and remove disease, instead of having to pay out the butt for it.
Clerics, though believed to be boring characters to play, are on of my favorite classes. Here's why: In our dragonlance campaign, the main cleric died and requested not to be raised since he was now with his god, so as the DM who thus far had no npc I decided to make a cleric the party needed but didn't want... a "Baaz Draconian" cleric of Paladine. Let's just say that when the party encountered him for the first time, the dwarf fighter got a critical hit with his dwarven thrower to my head... he barely gets healed anymore!
And my all time favorite: an Elven cleric from eveermeet, of some obscure ocean god named "Istishia" in Forgotten Realms. CN alignment and an uncaring diety makes for a great game... I always requested full payment for healing the party(as an NPC can charge) and when i was paid in gold, i would turn around and throw it overboard as my tithe to my god... every jaw at the table dropped when i did that! tee-hee... Clerics, when role-played can be a great source of entertainment.
I think I've got you all beat. When starting the Whispering Cairn, my group's party consisted of a Ranger, a Barbarian, a Hexblade, and a Paladin. Beat that.
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Here's an idea: Buy/borrow/somehow obtain Complete Divine (or the miniatures handbook), and introduce your players to the FAVORED SOUL. as the sorceror is to the wizard, so the Favored Soul is to the cleric. they actualy heal better than clerics, as they have more spells per day, though they need to wait one extra level before CMW. in return, they gain weapon focus and weapon specialization with their deity's favored weapon, Outsider saving throws (good everything), energy resistances, DR, and finnaly Wings. and, I davise you houserule that they can select one cleric domain at first level, to add to their class spell list. Im DMing an Eberron group with a Archery-oriented Half-elf Favored Soul of the Silver Flame, and he works out great. hes going for the Exorcist of the Silver Flame PRC.
Question: How do favored souls work in Eberron? I thought the gods there never really "showed their hands" so how would they pick a favored soul? Just wondering.
Clerics are one of the most fun classes to "role-play." My cleric of Cyric has abandoned his close friends in battle (I warned them that they were going too far, but they didn't listen) and has quit the party in disgust (only to be coaxed back by another player whom I actually asked to make a diplomacy roll vs. my own sense motive).
The post about the cleric throwing the party's payment in gold overboard as a tithe is just totally in line with what I'm talking about. I love playing clerics just for stuff like that.
After a TPK where my cleric was the only survivor, another player accused me of running like a scared chicken. My reply
"Damn straight, I took the 'Run' feat just in anticipation of you dumbasses doing something stupid."
The look on that person's face was priceless....
Yeah, althought its almost diametrically opposed to a cleric of Cyric, my friend's cleric of Helm is constantly making sure that the party keeps its word, even to relatively seedy characters, to whit the CG barbarian is constantly saying, "but we know he is probably evil!" I think its funny that a lot of people think that a cleric would be LESS stringent than a paladin, at least where their faith in concerned.
And on the broader topic of divine casters, the party druid is constantly lecturing the party on their "abuse" of their horses, and tears them a new one any time the horses get hurt. Yes, the poor barbarian has to sit and listen to debates between the two zealots in the party. Then he prays to the God of War for a random encounter to shut them up so he can kill something, lol.
My cleric of Heironeous in Shackled City just made 6th level and took Craft Arms and Armour. I'm having immense fun playing him trying to convert the party to Heironeous by offering to enchant their armour and weapons and requiring a donation to temple funds to offset the XP he's putting into item creation.
Yeah, in 3rd edition I would have to say that the one single class a party cannot do without would be the cleric. There are multiple ways to cover the main combat duties, and roguish trap/lock problems can often be overcome through brute force or a variety of magics. Social interactions depend on the campaign, and mostly, even with rules/numbers behind, the players themselves. But not having the cleric's singular usefulness a a source of healing can be crippling. Sure, now divine souls, spirit shamans and healers (from Miniatures Handbook, ugh) can approach that ability, but druids (and paladins, rangers and bards) are so far behind that curve... The 3E attempt to make older editions' clerics less of a "band-aid dispenser" with spontaneous casting is good, but has still not eliminated the problem.
I actually don't see it as a "problem," should the trad D&D tropes be accepted (all healing comes fromthe divine etc.) but man, without one in the party, the game becomes much harder to run. I've had 2 full campaigns come to messy TPK conclusions (after years each) which could fairly directly be related to a lack of a cleric PC at the critical junctures (the NPC cohort in the 2nd one happened to be off plane-hopping... long story). Now my AoW campaign is struggling with the same, after a 1st-level "accident" with the initial cleric. Though the bard naturally learned CLW as soon as possible, and the paladin did what he could (even the psychic warrior made sure he was self-sufficient), the party just accumulated too much damage. Being good role-players, they don't want to pull any "We camp right now. Who can make a heal check for tomorrow? I made one for tonight." And they got beaten down, some past -10 HP. And now they will have a cleric again.
Well, my AoW group consists of sorceror, fighter, rogue, druid. So far they have managed to survive the Whispering Cairn by careful planning and frequent rest breaks. The druid has been scribing scrolls of lesser vigour and casting Goodberry every so often, so we'll see how they handle 3FoE.
Question: How do favored souls work in Eberron? I thought the gods there never really "showed their hands" so how would they pick a favored soul? Just wondering.
I think there was somewhere a text (Dragonshard? Steal the Hook?) indicating that while clerics study and learn to channel the divine powers "hanging out there" (Syberis, the "gods", etc.), the favored soul was born with a natural talent to do so. He is not really picked or chosen by a divinity, it's more that he has a natural-born connection to one of the abstract "divine power providers".
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Regarding the question of this thread:
1) Providing healing capacities to the group will be one of the challenges. As a DM you can place a Wand or two in their hands at the beginning, but you should also educate them to take over the healing responsibility into their hands (i.e putting aside a chunk of the loot to buy said Wands, rather than hoping that one shows up in the next treasure).
2) Dealing with Undead will be tougher, but maybe the Wizard can learn some dedicated spells (e.g. "Halt Undead", from the Faceless One's spellbook) to make their life more bearable.
3) Ability damage will be a pain, and level-drain will be even worse. They will have close to no way to deal with it ("Use Magic Device" and "Scrolls of Restoration" will be their best friends).
By the time it becomes really needed, they could try to have a cleric cohort of follower (a Cle1 can handle these scrolls of Restoration for you); or they will have to go back often to temples. Until they start on "the Spire of Long Shadows", they will have a relatively easy access to temples, so it should be ok at first.
So, first and foremost, I think it is important that they realize what they are missing out on and learn what the alternatives are. This could be done through roleplay and experiencing some tough encounters that open their eyes; combined with a small talk with a cleric in a temple who can give them some "tips for next time".
My two cents.
Bocklin
Man, you guys have really gave me alot of ideas on this. Something as simple as having a Ranger with a Wand of cure light woulds would fix the problem. Thanks for all of your comments.
Um, you're going to eliminate a member of your party... mayhap? How will that work with your group and DM? Not that I'm overly fond of the (true) necromancer types/ aka Filge (ask GGG & JJ), but what will that player in your group think?Oh, and when I play, I am the cleric.
LG
Well, despite the rather lengthy history I have playing the game and the understanding that for a party to survive the players must pull together I'm going to eliminate him with extreme prejudice should it look like he's gonna start working with the enemy. I've told the player that and he just cackled happily and reassured me that the Wormgod wasn't his character's thing. Alas I'm a paranoid old fart and fully expect someone to betray the rest of the party somewere along the line. The DM won't mind a bit and the player in question already has a backup character ready (As do I) should death befall... AND it has but I managed to get one of the local temples to raise his sorry behind... I'm certain the DM sorta fudged on the NPC cleric's ability to raise him but I'm not complaining. I do my best to not read all the spoilers..
When my players created their new characters for the Age of Worms, there wasn't a single "core" class among them; we all laughed as we wondered how they would survive with just "support" classes: a paladin, a monk, a ranger, and a bard.
Its taken them a little time to get used to the unusual mix, but they are doing just fine. They heal using a mix of potions and cure light wands.
My players are all veteran D&D players, and they're really enjoying the challenge of surviving without a cleric (or spellcaster, fighter, or rogue).
Note that a Necromancer that died and came back is allowed
to become a Blood Mage. Look into that.
Back to my gaming group.
The Ninja and Spellthief are both well aquainted with use
magic device.
The first encounter with 3 Spawn of Kyuss found the stiffs unable to hit before they redied. Sorry, no crits.
The NPC fighter was raised and I have yet to find a class or
feat he can use.
A Psion is only as good as the powers he takes.
Vigor, touchsight, and a few damaging powers go a long way.
If you hate Psions, you may have never played with someone
who knew how to play one.
