After playing a Cleric in PF for a while and playing a couple back in the 3.0 and 3.5 days, there's something that has been bugging me for a little while. It has to do with their spell list. I've always thought of the Cleric as the masters of life and death. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one. I've come to learn over the years that this is not even close to accurate especially in Pathfinder. Let us compare a couple of Clerics.
Let's look at Kyra's list of spells for the day. At lower levels you talking mostly about cure spells and such. A good Cleric never has to memorize any of these but can (and usually does) convert most of her unused spells for the day into cures. At fourth level spells, she gets death ward. Protection or immunity from death spells and negative energy effects. At 5th level spells, she gets raise dead. This spell brings a dead character back from to life. They were dead...now they're alive. At 6th level, she gets heal which gives you or an ally 110-150 HP back. She also gets undeath to death which is like a death spell for undead. 7th level brings the second resurrection spell to the table (which happens to be its name). Now you can raise the dead all the way to full HP, vigor and health with no loss of spells. At 9th level, she gets both true resurrection and mass heal. Cure all allies a ton of HP or completely revive someone whos been dead for almost 200 years without even having physical remains. "Hey, my father died in battle before I was even born. I think I'll bring him back to life".
Not bad. I think that more than qualifies for "Master of Life Magic". Let's take a peek at the other side of the coin.
Now comes Meecrob the Pitiful. All of his lower level "death" spells are inflict spells. At third level spells, inflict serious wounds averages 18.5 points of damage at touch range (if the target fails their save) while the wizard is doing that to huge groups of enemies from hundereds of yards away. As they level up, the damage doesn't even go up for poor Meecrob (okay, +1 damage per level). These spells aren't even worth using 99% of the time they are so bad. Now he's got 4th level spells and gets...nothing. Good Kyra gets protection from all of his negative energy effects (including his channel) and he gets nothing. On to 5th level though. It's going to get good now. We're talking about slay living! Oh, crap. It doesn't kill you anymore. Now it does 51 HP worth of damage if they fail their save and you have to touch them to do it (so forget about killing the wizard with this one). 6th level brings us harm which does a whopping 110-150 HP damage. Now we're talking. Of course a successful save halves the damage and whether that save is successful or not, this spell can't kill anything. If the target only has 1 HP left, harm does nothing. Also missing from Meecrob's list is circle of death. Kyra can wipe out his entire undead army but he's got nothing that can even kill a 12 CON wizard without rolling better than average. 7th level spells finally bring us a real nasty death spell, destruction. This spell isn't too bad. It'd be better if it still killed you but at least we're back in the 10 damage per level territory again. It even makes the victum really hard to resurrect. At 9th level, he gets implosion. This spell is kind of meh. It's basically destruction without the nasty side effects. The difference is that you get to choose a new target each round without having to cast another spell (unless you take damage and loose your concentration which would never happen at level 17+). And of course you get mass harm. What's that? No, you don't? Poor Meecrob.
At the same time, a wizard gets:
phantasmal killer at spell level 4
cloud kill at level 5 (not death magic but it still kills you)
circle of death at level 6
finger of death at level 7
temporal stasis at level 8 (okay not a death spell but still a perminant coma
trap the soul at level 8 (sucks someones body and soul into a gem, possibly without SR or a saving throw)
weird at level 9 (phantasmal killer times infinity)
wail of the banshee at level 9 (finger of lots of death)
power word kill at level 9 (if you have 100 HP or less, you die with no save)
Needless to say that the Cleric's mastery over death magic is poor at best. Master of death magic? Not even close. The wizard grinds him on the bottom of his shoe.
So why does anyone sign up to be an evil cleric? What's their specialty? What do they do besides wish that they were real necromancers? And why does the good cleric get all of the extra nice things that the evil cleric seems to be missing even though they are exact opposites in terms of effect? Why are the "exact opposites" not even opposite anymore (slay living vs. raise dead)? Why do we perceive clerics as the masters of life and death magic? Where did this originally come from?
Sorry, I was bored. :)
Luke: ...Is the dark side stronger?
Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.
If you ask me, flesh to stone trumps everything when fighting living creatures. It's effectively the best save or die left in the game. You can either petrify and smash the enemy so they can't be transmuted back again, or you can petrify them and put them somewhere where no one will ever find them so they can never be resurrected.
That, in my opinion, is what puts wizards on top over the clerics in terms of combat ability. So few things are immune to petrification.
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Nothing wrong with boredom =)...
I never really viewed clerics as masters of life and death, I pictured them more of a sanctioned servant, but I totally agree with the disparity.
For me, the major difference between clerics and wizards is that, even at their best, clerics are still servants and dependent upon their deities. Wizards, on the other hand, are their own masters and dependent on no one (generally speaking).
If an individual wanted to strive for power, ie. master of anything, I would think that they would be strive to wizards.
This does not deny the fact that clerics are the healers, but they are always at the mercy of their deity. Why the disparity then? Why couldn't the servant of an evil deity do an equal amount of damage? The simple answer is it is just a mechanics vs abuse ratio that has been sliding to neuterdom for awhile =). The fluff answer is that it is difficult for deities to infringe upon other deities property but easier to influence their own interests.
I take your boredom and raise you one =)
I've always thought of the Cleric as the masters of life and death.
I would state that your entire premise is flawed, in that you desire clerics to be literally the masters of everything ;p
If Clerics are the best at healing and the best at dealing damage and the best at killing enemies with magic...er, what are wizards and sorcerers and druids supposed to do again?
As for Flesh to stone- baleful polymorph trumps it- 1 level lower effective SOD (transmuted snails are easy to squish)
I don't know about that. It's true it has a larger target range (any creature rather than any creature made of flesh), but it also has two saves rather than just one, both of which need to fail for the threat to be entirely nullified. I don't know about you, but I think a snail with lots of supernatural and spell-like abilities might actually be MORE threatening then it was in its normal form (among other things, the size change may well increase its attack rolls and armor class values).
Also, snails with over a hundred hit points (which many creatures will possess by the time you can cast that spell) are pretty darned hard to squish.
Really though, with both spells you lose all the treasure the target may have been carrying. Truly sad.
I've always thought of the Cleric as the masters of life and death.I would state that your entire premise is flawed, in that you desire clerics to be literally the masters of everything ;p
If Clerics are the best at healing and the best at dealing damage and the best at killing enemies with magic...er, what are wizards and sorcerers and druids supposed to do again?
I never said the Masters of Everything. I said Life and Death magic. You know, positive and nagative energy effects, revive and death spells. Evocation, illusion, charm, polymorph, weather, nature are all clearly the wizard's and druid's domain. Wizards also get necromancy and that's fine. I don't think they should be sooo much better at it though. It used to be with the cleric that whatever the positive side could do, the negative side could do equally. The cleric necromancer is a joke now. Good thing he's got channel energy. He doesn't have much else to hurt anyone with.
I think I might house rule the save away from inflict spells. It's the least I can do for poor Meecrob.
A decent Cha and the Selective Channeling feat allows an evil cleric to do 1d6/2 levels damage (Will half) to most opponents on the battlefield while simultaneously healing his or her animated undead minions. That's not a small thing, especially if you throw in a phylactery of negative channeling for an extra 2d6. In general, since the cleric's limited to excluding his Cha bonus of victims, and since parties tend to fight largish groups of enemies that they don't want to heal, this tends to be more useful than a good cleric's channel in combat.
In my experience, that doesn't make up for the good clerics' advantages, but it is helpful.
A decent Cha and the Selective Channeling feat allows an evil cleric to do 1d6/2 levels damage (Will half) to most opponents on the battlefield while simultaneously healing his or her animated undead minions.
It's not simultaneous, you have to choose to either deal the damage or to heal the undead. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but that's what page 40 says.
What can I say, spontaneous inflict spells SUCKS.
Losing Spontaneous cure spells for spontaneous inflicts is the single biggest downside of being a negative energy cleric.
As a positive cleric, I used to sometimes memorize an inflict spell, but the damage of inflict is just horrid, that most of the time it would be the first spell I converted to a cure spell.
Sorcerers and Wizards have to deal with armor penalties and have a lower HD and BAB to balance out their stronger spells. If you make a NE cleric deal damage on par with a wizard or sorcerer, you have a class that is flat out better than either.
It's not simultaneous, you have to choose to either deal the damage or to heal the undead. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but that's what page 40 says.
Huh. Go figure. We've been doing that wrong since day one. I wonder if that was a change from beta. Like as not it wasn't and we've just been in error all along.
Thanks for the correction.
Something that is often overlooked with save or loose spells of wizards (and to a lesser extent clerics) is they target Fortitude and will saves which are generally the most powerful for monster classes. Heck phantasmal killer negates the spell if you make either one of its 2 saves (again both generally the strongest). For this reason alone, I dont find save or loose spells particularily overpowered against monsters. Sure there will be times when you see a charging monster get turned to stone or otherwise be rendered moot but its not going to happen a lot unless the GM's just unlucky. You cant really punish players for their good or your bad luck
IMO the real masters of life and death should still be necromancers. In the earlier days of D&D necromancy was the art of life and death magic which had some amazing applications that both restored your party and harmed your foes. However in its transition to 3.X and later Pathfinder its become totally about unlife and death. The life restoring powers it once had are gone and even fear spells (which really should be in the enchantment school) have been added to the necromancy school for a reason I cant comprehend
The life restoring powers it once had are gone and even fear spells (which really should be in the enchantment school) have been added to the necromancy school for a reason I cant comprehend
I guess scaring people is evil. :S
Losing Spontaneous cure spells for spontaneous inflicts is the single biggest downside of being a negative energy cleric.
Unless all of your friends are undead. :)