I personally find such arguments like this to be relatively pointless, sorry.
In the end it's a group game. I'd rather buff the group as a whole and triple or even quadruple the output of the group rather than my clerics personal output. When you got guys also throwing down mass buffs than it makes for a very dangerous group rather than an individually dangerous character. In this game of action economy I'd much rather have my Cleric drop Blessing of Fervor, my wizard to drop Haste, my Bard to Inspire Courage, and my druid to cut the enemies formations to ribbons with wall of stone while the fighter and rogue pick a target to use and abuse on rnd1.
Round 2: Hilarity ensues.
So to me the group as a whole is a much more dangerous creature rather than a group of individual builds and combos. I think people forget that too much.
I agree optimizing whole parties would show what actually works better. Also this makes your party more resistent to save or lose hurting your super guy damage output. Why not optimize whole parties although that would be more complex.
They feel weaker because less spells per day more than the lack of armor.
While *technically* true, this is a really misleading statement in general. Do you even know what level a Cleric has to be in Pathfinder before it has even a single fewer spells than in 3.5? [Discounting a +2 bonus to Wisdom probably, since we're talking relative strength in this thread.]
Channel forces them into more of a healer's role than I like.
Channel lets them perform a healing role, out of combat, without losing the ability to perform another role with their spells. And if you really don't like it, you can channel negative and memorize/scroll/wand cures if need be.
They feel weaker because less spells per day more than the lack of armor.While *technically* true, this is a really misleading statement in general. Do you even know what level a Cleric has to be in Pathfinder before it has even a single fewer spells than in 3.5? [Discounting a +2 bonus to Wisdom probably, since we're talking relative strength in this thread.]
Channel forces them into more of a healer's role than I like.Channel lets them perform a healing role, out of combat, without losing the ability to perform another role with their spells. And if you really don't like it, you can channel negative and memorize/scroll/wand cures if need be.
channel also lets them heal damage to multiple party members not just one.
In the end it's a group game. I'd rather buff the group as a whole and triple or even quadruple the output of the group rather than my clerics personal output. When you got guys also throwing down mass buffs than it makes for a very dangerous group rather than an individually dangerous character. In this game of action economy I'd much rather have my Cleric drop Blessing of Fervor, my wizard to drop Haste, my Bard to Inspire Courage, and my druid to cut the enemies formations to ribbons with wall of stone while the fighter and rogue pick a target to use and abuse on rnd1.
You're missing the point. That all falls apart if it's the case that 2 PCs as cleric pours out more damage (or wins more encounters, or whatever) than 1 fighter and 1 cleric buffing him.
You're missing the point. That all falls apart if it's the case that 2 PCs as cleric pours out more damage (or wins more encounters, or whatever) than 1 fighter and 1 cleric buffing him.
Nope. Can an individual do two full attacks? Can they Cast several spells, move, do a number of combat maneuvers and then slap you around?
An individual working for the individual is quickly going to find himself being overwhelmed by the group working as a whole.
The trouble here is your thinking about classical roles. Which is damn foolish if you ask me. My cleric isn't sitting there being a buffbot. My cleric is getting maybe one or two buffs off before he comes in and tag teams you Hulkamania/RandySavage style. You get to eat full attacks from a buffy fighter every round while the cleric slaps your tight little tushy with Touch of Chaos, a debuff of his choice, or if your lucky he might just be bashing your brains in as well.
There is simply no argument in the world ever that can prove an individual is better than a pair or whole group working together without the group being screw ups or the individual shattering the rules.
Two Optimized dudes>One Optimized dude period.
You're still missing the point, but I lack the grace to explain it more clearly. Anyone?
Limiting material is pushing it but at least acceptable. Limiting what abilities one can use is see through ploy to help yourself.
OK,
Well let's do it a little differently then.
Fighting Cleric and Bard each have a 3/4 BAB, almost identical ability scores (swap wis and cha), and would have similar weapons, and similar magic items. They would probably even have similar feats. So in this case it boils down to buff spells.
Bards get:
Good Hope (+2 to hit and damage)
Haste (+1 to hit and additional attack)
Greater Invisibility (sweet!)
Bard song (+2 to hit and damage)
Assuming two handed weapon attacking, that would boil down to about:
+5 to hit and +4 damage, plus invisibility benefits.
Clerics get:
Aid (+1 to hit)
Divine Power (+3 To hit and damage and additional attack)
Righteous Might (+4 Str, +4 Con, -2 Dex,+2 NA, size increase, DR 5/evil)
Domain power to make weapon holy for 5rnds/day*
*Making a weapon holy was about the best domain feature I could find, although taking the Good domain offers few other benefits to the fighting cleric.
+6 to hit and damage, plus large size benefits and penalties, HP boost, DR and holy weapon for 5 rounds per day.
I would say the cleric comes out slightly ahead, but mosly because of the holy weapon. The cleric really benefits no-one but himself in the process. The bard gives the rest of the party +4 to hit and damage plus the benefits of haste. The bard can also walk around with heroism going, and have a bardsong and mirror image up in the first round. Oh yeah, and I just remembered that Arcane strike feat gives the bard +3 to damage on each attack.
But what is the point of all of this? You're jumping through all these hoops, just to reach where the fighter is when he is done strapping on his cod piece. If you have two or three rounds to buff yourself up before all combats, and you only do one or two a day, then sure cleric might beat fighter, but in a real campaign, cleric just can't keep up.
ultimate magic...:)
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I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around the concept of "underpowered cleric".
A fighter will kill or incapacitate the druid's animal companion in no more than two rounds, while the druid cannot kill HIM in one round. Two rounds later, the druid will be dead or fleeing for his life.
A buffed cleric and a cleric will LOSE against a fighter and cleric, because the cleric pretending to be a fighter isn't going to be doing as much damage or hitting as often as the buffed fighter is, while the cleric buffing t...
Good lord....these are spellcasting classes -- if they're puking like that, the player running the character doesn't quite know what he's doing. Druid and cleric bosses were some of the most dangerous opponents I ever faced in LG.
I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around the concept of "underpowered cleric".A fighter will kill or incapacitate the druid's animal companion in no more than two rounds, while the druid cannot kill HIM in one round. Two rounds later, the druid will be dead or fleeing for his life.Good lord....these are spellcasting classes -- if they're puking like that, the player running the character doesn't quite know what he's doing. Druid bosses were some of the most dangerous opponents I ever faced in LG.
From what I understand the point of the conversation is straight DPR, no battle field or SoD affects.
However if clerics/druids are allowed access to all their abilities then my money is on the cleric or druid team every time.
You're still missing the point, but I lack the grace to explain it more clearly. Anyone?
If you're talking about 2 clerics buffing one another. Then you lose the moment the fighter has a turn. BEcause he didn't waste an entire round just to become the equivalent of himself. Instead his Bro used a round to make the cleric slightly better adn the Fighter even more awesome.
This problem gets even more exasperated if my fighter also happens to be a good archer, because you probably just ate a full attack instead.
Theres a reason, and a damn good one, why no one runs around with groups full of clerics and druids. They function just fine together in theory. But in practice my Fighter, Barbarian, and Paladin are getting things done faster and more reliably then wasting resources and several rounds just to handle the encounter.
From what I understand the point of the conversation is straight DPR, no battle field or SoD affects.Those kinds of "in a vacuum" DPR calcs are silly; you'll never be in a fight that.
This is the way I see it; in many ways, DPR calculations are worth jack squat, particularly for melee classes, because they essentially assume that the combatants are standing in front of each other, taking turns wailing away at one another with full attacks. They also assume the subjects' equipment and build - another red flag. It's indisputable that Fighters hit more and do more damage by DPR alone, but everchanging variables like circumstance can't be ignored.
Apart from all the DPR discussion (reminds me at the WoW Class Forum "class x is op" posts), I think the cleric could get a few more "style" abilities. (Maybe with an restriction to medium armour, like the druids resctriction to no metal armour)
As someone already mentioned, something like the sorcerrors bloodline powers, maybe tied to the domain, maybe tied to the god.
Also you can use these so players can choose between different cleric roles (related to their god).
This is the way I see it; in many ways, DPR calculations are worth jack squat, particularly for melee classes, because they essentially assume that the combatants are standing in front of each other, taking turns wailing away at one another with full attacks. They also assume the subjects' equipment and build - another red flag. It's indisputable that Fighters hit more and do more damage by DPR alone, but everchanging variables like circumstance can't be ignored.From what I understand the point of the conversation is straight DPR, no battle field or SoD affects.Those kinds of "in a vacuum" DPR calcs are silly; you'll never be in a fight that.
Well it is not completely silly, as in it is useful to show that the fighter's role is not overshadowed by a cleric or druid.
The druid in itself is great to have in a party, two druids are comparitively a bit less useful than a druid and a fighter in one party in most (combat) encounters.