How to fix the stigma of Clerics

[SeeleyOne]

I liked my thief characters, too. Come to think of it, Pathfinder is the only edition that I have NOT played a Rogue yet. In second edition it was my favorite class, even when I went for another class I almost always multi-classed as a Rogue.

I think that there is something to be learned here. No matter how much experience that we might have, none of us are masters. There are so many variables. But that is what helps to keep the game fun. Even new players can come up with clever ideas.

[Umbriere Moonwhisper]

play what you want.

if one of them wants a healbot, they can take the leadership feat or play one themselves.

[SeeleyOne]

My gaming group has several minor healers. We have a Fighter, a Ranger, an Urban Ranger, a Sorcerer, a Paladin, and a Bard/Magus. The Paladin and Magus can heal with power or spell, but mostly use CLW wands. The rangers also carry CLW wands. Everybody carries healing potions, but as of yet none have yet to be used.

[Buri]

Each character should carry some form of self healing. I think JJ knows the game pretty damn well. He got caught up in a situation where he couldn't heal. Stay prepared. I highly recommend Ashiel's adventuring guide. You're an adventurer whose friends die all the time. Friendships are relatively short lived compared to normal life and you face death for a living. Act like it!

In fact: for your reading pleasure

[DM Under The Bridge]

Ha ha, he (Ashiel) makes a good point on nets.

[Chris Lambertz]

Removed quite a few back and forth posts and the posts quoting/in response. Take a moment and remember that there's another person on the other side of the screen. Personal attacks are not OK, and this thread was starting to veer off-topic. Please revisit the messageboard rules.

[tsuruki]

I got to talking with one of my buds.
Not my own story but a good one still:

A player created a Cleric wielding a Double sword.
It was a high level game so the cleric could afford to get Minor spell expertise (Divine favor) and combine it with Quicken spell like ability (Divine favor) to very reliably raise his combat stats if needed. Then he had a very versatile assortment of spells that he never declared in name, merely described the visuals.
Lastly, the character before this cleric had been a useless Halfling Druid (bad luck and roleplay reasons saw to it that the druid decided to leave the party behind after their quest had almost been ended by a tribe of powerful greenskins).

His introduction scene was (DM narrated) "Into the room walks a tall black man in a suit of armor too heavy to be worn by any man without some sort of otherwordly magic´s to hold him straight and strong, he walks up to you and without kneeling pulls out from a sheathe on his back his twin bladed swordstick."
(Player) "You have my blades and my word, your expedition henceforth shall not ever again be halted."
At that point everyone knew he was some annoying self buffing paladin type who was too annoying to talk to at length.

His adventures from thenforth consisted of fighting a lot in character, with hidden dicerolls or the DM rolling for him, saying stuff like "I raise my blade to the heavens, and the gods bless it!" (Casts Divine power, other players: Ok, that was holy sword just now). "The gods take your ail away!" (Casts cure serious wounds or some other healing, other players: hes touching me, that was Lay on hands). "My blade flashes with light in mid swing and smites my foe!" (Other players, Divine bond this time, too bad we have'nt fought any evil creatures yet, he never uses smite).

Then finally, a player goes down, "I rush to my fallen comrade and gesture the first verse of my bible, casting breath of life to heal 36 points of damage, was that enough to save you?" (Other players: Breath o----- WHUUUUUUUUUUT?!?!??)

Apparently the look on their faces afterwards was priceless.

[Umbriere Moonwhisper]

a divine caster dedicated to healing isn't needed, but expect to be required to make accommodations in tactics, playstyle and character creation to fill the gap

characters with a handful of heals or condition removal in a sufficient group can help mitigate the issue slightly

but expect to blow lots of money on wands, scrolls and potions

and expect each party member whom can cast spells, to dedicate more spell slots to healing

a party without a dedicated healer can work if the whole party shares the healing burden as a group

[Aelfborn]

Zhayne wrote:

Ideally, those niches should be unnecessary; the GM should adjust the flow and specifics of he game to account for the capabilities of the PCs, not the other way around.

Agreed. Pathfinder is a variant of 3e. The 3.0 DMG discussed tailoring the specifics to account for the party hand, because the designers cannot know what is going on in your home campaign. The designers of had discussed the single party campaigns in supplements and Dragon articles (which is not something new with 3e as some of the 2e Complete Handbooks also discussed such campaigns).

[DM Under The Bridge]

Tailor and challenge, the ancient task of the dm.

[John Pryor]

Clearly, you can mold the cleric and take on other roles than support or healing. And if you do that for flavor and roleplay, there's kinda nothing more to say. My take, though, is if you want to play a divine warrior, play a paladin or ranger and if you want to play a divine caster with a lot of offensive capability, play a druid. My point, though, is more from a party perspective. I have to ask what does the character bring? In the groups I play in, fighters are routinely doing 30-50 points of damage each and every round by level 5 or so. (IMO fighters are overpowered because they dish it out round after round and spellcasters quickly run out of spells, but no one agrees with me. LOL). if you play a mixed class with divine casting and fighter, you are going to lag in both compared to a pure class cleric or fighter. You also run into stat problems since you basically need all 5 stats except Int to play this type of character. That may well be fun for you. It may or may not be good for a party. If you bring a divine fighter that lags on damage and also does not have enough heals, I would ask why the party wants the character to come along? If purely for roleplay, again, there is no more to say. If you play with min/maxers, though, as I often do, you'd best bring something that makes you stand out as useful. For a cleric, with limited offensive spells and few skillpoints, that something is heals and channels. Again, if we're talking pure roleplay, all bets are off.

[haruhiko88]

I have played one cleric for pathfinder before the UC came out but the one build that I personally like and just tank with are the clerics of Milani the Everbloom and take the defense subdomain of protection with the crusader archetype to get my heavy armor proficiency or shield focus right away. But that's not what you wanted to hear.
Your party is not overly bright are they? There are very few ranged healing spells, let alone your ability to channel which as you pointed out would heal the dragon. Now your few d6 healing the dragon might not have been too much since you have a few characters whittling away at it for pretty decent damage. In combat healing does suck, the last time I played a cleric the party got wiped and apparently it was all my fault. Granted first round I was assaulted by an assassin and my paladin cohort was pinned down by 2 salamanders and could not save the party it was still somehow my fault so I feel the pain of the OP. How to fix the stigma though is a toughie. Easiest way to do it is to say don't expect bandaids too often, in combat healing is not very effective and therefore you will smack it.

[TheNine]

If you are not a cleric whose god has the Healing domain, they have no call for complaint. I dont yell at the Two-handed fighters when i get hit as a cleric for not shielding me from the assault, I dont get mad at the Wizard when i get fireballed for not counterspelling it. Not all types of Clerics are healing Clerics, otherwise why make different flavored gods just my opinion