But the cleric is IMO the hardest class to replace, and the one whose absence is most noticeable. If the sorcerer doesn't know black tentacles, it only matters for that fight. If the oracle doesn't know Remove Blindness, you're probably gonna be feeling it for a while.
It's my experience that savvy players resolve this with scrolls anyway, since it's not like it's common to have to cure the entire party of blindness twice over before getting to resupply. A spell is still on the oracle's class list even if it's not a spell known, so you can carry a handful of scrolls for when you need to cure a disease, curse, blindness, etc.
But the cleric is IMO the hardest class to replace, and the one whose absence is most noticeable. If the sorcerer doesn't know black tentacles, it only matters for that fight. If the oracle doesn't know Remove Blindness, you're probably gonna be feeling it for a while.It's my experience that savvy players resolve this with scrolls anyway, since it's not like it's common to have to cure the entire party of blindness twice over before getting to resupply. A spell is still on the oracle's class list even if it's not a spell known, so you can carry a handful of scrolls for when you need to cure a disease, curse, blindness, etc.
Yeah, and Mnemonic Vestments make this transition even easier. But the key word there is "savvy" I think. That's a pretty high system mastery solution, and a cleric can also keep scrolls on hand in any case.
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What I find absolutely bewildering from Mark's comments is the reported popularity of the cleric in PF1 ?!? How on earth can a class so devoid of features and general personality be so popular to play?
They are. one of my two favourite classes (the other is bard) because I like playing support characters, because I like the religion side of roleplaying and because I can keep coming up with personalities and roleplay that fit best as clerics.
Then there's the flexible spell list to play with....
But most of it boils down to actually liking being a support/buffing character, and not finding combat (in the sense of trying to pump out damage) very interesting.
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My money is on the modern take of prepared spellcasters, which is such you expend your spell slots for any spell you've prepared that day to power it (but don't lose that prepared spell).
1) Choose a number of spells equal to your casting modifier + your level to have ready (no level restriction, at 3rd level you could prepare from six spells five 2nd and a single 1st).
2) You get spell slots for your level (3rd level gets four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots)
3) You can cast your spell, powering it with any spell slot (aka a 1st level magic missile can be cast out of the 2nd level spell slot)
We already have the intel. that a fireball can be powered from a higher level slot by default, so there's not a lot of levers left hidden here...
Thus the oracle was loved a lot because of how its spellcasting worked, so in essence the cleric will basically feel a lot more like an oracle between the spellcasting and the way domains are updated (to be more useful across the board).
My money is on the modern take of prepared spellcasters, which is such you expend your spell slots for any spell you've prepared that day to power it (but don't lose that prepared spell).
...Thus the oracle was loved a lot because of how its spellcasting worked, so in essence the cleric will basically feel a lot more like an oracle between the spellcasting and the way domains are updated (to be more useful across the board).
I guess if that's the case I have to wonder why we bring up the oracle because the arcane side of things is way messier.
Like what's the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer in how they play? Just class feats? What does the Arcanist even do anymore then?
My money is on the modern take of prepared spellcasters, which is such you expend your spell slots for any spell you've prepared that day to power it (but don't lose that prepared spell).
...Thus the oracle was loved a lot because of how its spellcasting worked, so in essence the cleric will basically feel a lot more like an oracle between the spellcasting and the way domains are updated (to be more useful across the board).
I guess if that's the case I have to wonder why we bring up the oracle because the arcane side of things is way messier.
Like what's the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer in how they play? Just class feats? What does the Arcanist even do anymore then?
If 5e is anything to take from, the difference between the sorcerer and the wizard is the sorcerer knows less spells and is worse. (OK, it is a little more nuanced than that, but sorcerers having less spells known than bards? Come on.) Paizo hopefully has better ideas to make the sorcerer competitive though.
The arcanist probably won't exist this edition. Class feats already make the wizard closer to the exploit model, and if wakedown is right about prepared casting there's no real reason to make the arcanist a separate class.
My money is on the modern take of prepared spellcasters, which is such you expend your spell slots for any spell you've prepared that day to power it (but don't lose that prepared spell).
...Thus the oracle was loved a lot because of how its spellcasting worked, so in essence the cleric will basically feel a lot more like an oracle between the spellcasting and the way domains are updated (to be more useful across the board).
I guess if that's the case I have to wonder why we bring up the oracle because the arcane side of things is way messier.
Like what's the difference between a Wizard and a Sorcerer in how they play? Just class feats? What does the Arcanist even do anymore then?
If 5e is anything to take from, the difference between the sorcerer and the wizard is the sorcerer knows less spells and is worse. (OK, it is a little more nuanced than that, but sorcerers having less spells known than bards? Come on.) Paizo hopefully has better ideas to make the sorcerer competitive though.
The arcanist probably won't exist this edition. Class feats already make the wizard closer to the exploit model, and if wakedown is right about prepared casting there's no real reason to make the arcanist a separate class.
With wizards presumably working on the arcanist model which lets them cast like a sorcerer, sorcerers can stay competitive by knowing 1.5-2x as many spells as a wizard can have prepared, and still keeping more spells per day. They're still limited because they can't change out their selection every day, but it gives them needed versatility.
If their spells known are only about what a wizard could have prepared, then their class features will need to be /quite/ good to make up the difference.
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With wizards presumably working on the arcanist model which lets them cast like a sorcerer, sorcerers can stay competitive by knowing 1.5-2x as many spells as a wizard can have prepared, and still keeping more spells per day. They're still limited because they can't change out their selection every day, but it gives them needed versatility.
If their spells known are only about what a wizard could have prepared, then their class features will need to be /quite/ good to make up the difference.
This. I have absolutely no idea on what the 5E team were thinking when they crippled their own Sorcerers' only chance to shine in half or lesser...
What I find absolutely bewildering from Mark's comments is the reported popularity of the cleric in PF1 ?!? How on earth can a class so devoid of features and general personality be so popular to play?
They are. one of my two favourite classes (the other is bard) because I like playing support characters, because I like the religion side of roleplaying and because I can keep coming up with personalities and roleplay that fit best as clerics.
Then there's the flexible spell list to play with....
But most of it boils down to actually liking being a support/buffing character, and not finding combat (in the sense of trying to pump out damage) very interesting.
And if you want a cleric build that also does damage, that's possible. Clerics are great utility PCs - able to fill a range of roles. In a high tier 7-11 game yesterday, my 9 cleric/2 barbarian was able to:
1) Do a lot of damage in melee to the various baddies2) Remove nasty debuffs from her fellow characters
3) Take 15 minutes and fill her empty 5th spell slot with Communal Air Walk
3) Channel to do some healing and remove the bleed condition from a mess of her fellow characters
4) Successfully avoid a potentially deadly combat through the use of diplomacy
5) Use her aura of heroism to buff her fellow characters
While she was exceptionally unhappy with the final outcome of the scenario, I think she make a very significant contribution to getting the party to the point where it made a terrible decision.
I’m wondering if they might go with more of a First Edition D&D approach and have the main classes ( fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue, for example) and then go with sub classes - paladin and ranger are sub classes of fighter, druid and oracle are sub classes of cleric, etc.
well they have stated that their are 12 classes, so that doesn't seem the route they are taking.
Clerics are awesome from the flavor standpoint, dunno what people are talking about. One of the only classes that HAS to have some lore connection to stuff, just please pick a deity. Also they can contribute to the game in multiple ways and try many builds.
Rather than saying "Oh, they dont get anything past level1", it would be better to say "They get the ENTIRE class at level 1!" but with heavy scaling. Good example of how to front-load a class.
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I’m wondering if they might go with more of a First Edition D&D approach and have the main classes ( fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue, for example) and then go with sub classes - paladin and ranger are sub classes of fighter, druid and oracle are sub classes of cleric, etc.well they have stated that their are 12 classes, so that doesn't seem the route they are taking.
Great point
Clerics are awesome from the flavor standpoint, dunno what people are talking about. One of the only classes that HAS to have some lore connection to stuff, just please pick a deity. Also they can contribute to the game in multiple ways and try many builds.
Rather than saying "Oh, they dont get anything past level1", it would be better to say "They get the ENTIRE class at level 1!" but with heavy scaling. Good example of how to front-load a class.
Well, I will grant you immersing yourself in diety lore is a great start and a wonderful seed for role-playing, the actual class features don't really further your connection to that diety in a meaningful way. I mean, domain abilities do a little, but frankly they are too sparse and too generic for that to seed to flourish. A diety just suggests that you immerse yourself in the setting more. Flavorful classes make you kind of a setting onto yourself.
Sorcerer bloodlines and oracle mysteries tend to have flavor infused across all their class features. The Barbarian screams a particular sort of character and every level makes it scream louder. For all monk class features don't always function well together, they definitely have a consistent flavor.
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As we go into the new system, I would hope that the magic system would have been unified and the need for separate classes for Spontaneous casting counterparts for the Vancian old guard would give way to more flexible design freedom to make them into something better.
I believe folding some of these into the parent classes makes since if that had been the direction Paizo would have taken.
From some of the podcasts and previews, though, it looks as if prepared casting is still going to be used in ver. 2, and that the crutch for the other casting mechanic will be changed in some way. It will be interesting to see what the differences between the two mages will be this time around.
One thing I would hope that would happen is to not have every spontaneous caster have a casting stat of Cha.
^Seems like spontaneous casters have to have a casting stat of Cha so that Gnomes, Goblins, and Halflings can all be good at them . . . .
So, regarding all the comments of "make this class an archetype of this class" statements:
I sort of got the idea that archetypes are going to be a separate thing, not actually tied to a class. Like you could have a 'scoundrel' archetype on your character, whether that character's class is rogue, wizard, or fighter - doesn't matter. With no 'class features', there isn't really a way to build the old 'replace these things with these' archetype system.
Want to make your fighter more 'swashbuckler-y'? you don't choose a 'swashbuckler fighter archetype' - you just choose swashbuckler-y class feats for your fighter.
Well, I will grant you immersing yourself in diety lore is a great start and a wonderful seed for role-playing, the actual class features don't really further your connection to that diety in a meaningful way. I mean, domain abilities do a little, but frankly they are too sparse and too generic for that to seed to flourish. A diety just suggests that you immerse yourself in the setting more. Flavorful classes make you kind of a setting onto yourself.
I'm not sure that I'd agree, though it probably is easier for some deities than others. With archetypes, alternative channeling options, variant domains, feat alternatives, a little multi-classing if necessary, etc., there is a lot of flexibility when building a cleric.
All of these tools can be used to make some rather flavorful, deity-specitic characters.Coming back to Pathfinder after my time away from D&D, I was really impressed with how much cooler clerics are now compared to my previous experience.
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I, too, like the concept of the Oracle a lot, but in practice I almost always find myself preferring a Cleric. The Oracle is already punished by the fact that Cleric spells are much less universal problem-solvers like arcane spells, and therefore rely on Clerics having the whole list at their disposal. Add a bad Fort save and that absurd concept of a curse as a class feature, and you can really feel Paizo's irrational panic about spontaneous casters taking over the world again.
While I'm a fan of many of the hybrid classes (the Swashbuckler in particular), I don't feel like keeping them as separate classes is a cause worth defending. I would find it much more interesting if the Fighter and Rogue classes were rich and flexible enough to allow for a swashbuckler character, which was sorely lacking in PF1 before Dex-to-damage! And with BAB being a thing of the past and — hopefully — viable Dex-based combat being baked into the base system like in 5e, that should indeed be possible.
I love the suggestion that the Sorcerer should be merged with the Kineticist to set them off from the Wizard. Maybe Wizards could move to a 5e-like system where they prepare a number of spells from their book, which they then can cast spontaneously for the day, finally putting those Vancian bovine faeces to rest. The way to make Sorcerers into their own thing, then, would be to give them at-will blasting abilities and maybe reduce their actual arcane spellcasting (this would replace the Kineticist's utility powers). Kineticist elements could then simply be bloodlines (Sorcerer class feats). I'd play one of those in a heartbeat!
I'm not sure that I'd agree, though it probably is easier for some deities than others. With archetypes, alternative channeling options, variant domains, feat alternatives, a little multi-classing if necessary, etc., there is a lot of flexibility when building a cleric.
All of these tools can be used to make some rather flavorful, deity-specitic characters.Coming back to Pathfinder after my time away from D&D, I was really impressed with how much cooler clerics are now compared to my previous experience.
Unfortunately, the flaw with that logic is that the vast majority of cleric options in PF1 are pretty terrible to begin with...
Having 5 terrible options to play with is just as bad as having 10 terrible options to play with....
Enjoying playing a cleric depends largely on the ability of the player to get involved with the teachings of the deity. Its not something that any player can get to grips with.
In my experience there are 2 kinds of people that play clerics:
1) The inexperienced gamer who end up getting "persuaded" to play the healer role and use their 20 pt buy to design a bland, mediocre, MAD PC.
2) The experienced gamer who knows deep down that in order to be effective as a cleric they need to specialise and min/max the hell out of it!! When you have a class with next to no options what other choice do you have? Deity roleplay helps to justify choices and adds flavour.
I'm not sure that I'd agree, though it probably is easier for some deities than others. With archetypes, alternative channeling options, variant domains, feat alternatives, a little multi-classing if necessary, etc., there is a lot of flexibility when building a cleric.
All of these tools can be used to make some rather flavorful, deity-specitic characters.Coming back to Pathfinder after my time away from D&D, I was really impressed with how much cooler clerics are now compared to my previous experience.
Unfortunately, the flaw with that logic is that the vast majority of cleric options in PF1 are pretty terrible to begin with...
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.2) The experienced gamer who knows deep down that in order to be effective as a cleric they need to specialise and min/max the hell out of it!! When you have a class with next to no options what other choice do you have? Deity roleplay helps to justify choices and adds flavour.
I don't get the sense that you've actually looked at the all the options that I've described in any real sustained way. Many of the options aren't that great, but a significant number are very cool both mechanically and flavorwise.
As I noted above, one of the neat things about clerics is their ability to play multiple roles (i.e. not specialize) and still be effective. My cleric/barbarian melees, acts as diplomat, and works as a utility caster for the party.
I think if one's goal is an uber-powerful, totally min-maxed character, then maybe cleric isn't the best route, but I've never been convinced that such uber-powerful characters are really necessary, and they often aren't that much fun for the others at the table.
EDIT: Two additional things:
1) I totally agree about the danger of asking an inexperienced player to play a cleric in the role of healer. That's probably not going to end well for anyone.
2) As I noted, my appreciation for PF1 clerics is in large part based on how little I, or anyone I played with, liked D&D clerics of old.
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If the oracle is an archetype of the cleric then the shaman should be an archetype of druid.
Alchemist didn't even lose out to all of the core classes, either, which is pretty impressive. But cleric, fighter, and rogue were in their own league (if you only count single-classed characters, wizards, fighters, and rogues were in their own league and clerics were in another, higher league of their own).I would really Love to see the numbers on that Mark cuz to me, the Cleric was one of the most Boring 1E classes, all it had was a couple of domain powers, Channeling, and Spells, it didn't even have a capstone.I figure all the core classes are the most popular since the core rulebook is the one book everybody has. Plus some people ran "core only" games but nobody ran "no Core whatoever" games (But, hey that's an idea for a sendoff to PF1!).
Love clerics - not boring!
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I just feel like "if you make an old class an archetype of a different class" you're going to annoy people who loved that old class, and nobody is going to be especially happy about this. If you must have a new class encroach on the mechanics of the old class, at least preserve the flavor and theme of the old class with new mechanics.
I confess, though, I have no idea what to do with the Arcanist though since that doesn't really seem to have a strong enough theme to support it, it's just "recklessly experimental arcane caster" I guess, which I suppose could become something *very* different.
I, too, like the concept of the Oracle a lot, but in practice I almost always find myself preferring a Cleric. The Oracle is already punished by the fact that Cleric spells are much less universal problem-solvers like arcane spells, and therefore rely on Clerics having the whole list at their disposal. Add a bad Fort save and that absurd concept of a curse as a class feature, and you can really feel Paizo's irrational panic about spontaneous casters taking over the world again.
The curse was always a sticking point for me. I was a big fan of Favored Soul in 3.5, and wasn't a large fan of being given 9th level casting with a "this was a bad thing" mechanic. Especially with that curse not actually being tied to your mystery. It also took years before there was a curse I actually liked the theme of. All of it felt like a huge limitor on character options for me. Having it as an optional feature for all classes sounds like it could be a fun idea. You get some minor spell casting or abilities, but you have to deal with this ghost or some such.
If the oracle is an archetype of the cleric then the shaman should be an archetype of druid.
Actually, Shaman already was a set of archetypes of Druid before the ACG came out . . . Just like Brawler was an archetype of Fighter, and Skald was an archetype of Bard, and Swashbuckler was an archetype of Rogue . . . .
And later, just like Occultist was an archetype of Arcanist before Occult Adventures came out . . . .
I probably missed some.
^Just remembered another one: Investigator was a Rogue archetype before the ACG came out . . . .
Well, I will grant you immersing yourself in diety lore is a great start and a wonderful seed for role-playing, the actual class features don't really further your connection to that diety in a meaningful way. I mean, domain abilities do a little, but frankly they are too sparse and too generic for that to seed to flourish. A diety just suggests that you immerse yourself in the setting more. Flavorful classes make you kind of a setting onto yourself.I'm not sure that I'd agree, though it probably is easier for some deities than others. With archetypes, alternative channeling options, variant domains, feat alternatives, a little multi-classing if necessary, etc., there is a lot of flexibility when building a cleric.
All of these tools can be used to make some rather flavorful, deity-specitic characters.Coming back to Pathfinder after my time away from D&D, I was really impressed with how much cooler clerics are now compared to my previous experience.
And Divine Combat Technique and deity alternate spell-lists and obediences and the favored weapon proficiencies... This class is seriously not lacking options.
Mark my words, we will yet bring about the +Wis Halfling. :)^Seems like spontaneous casters have to have a casting stat of Cha so that Gnomes, Goblins, and Halflings can all be good at them . . . .
Hear, hear!
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And Divine Combat Technique and deity alternate spell-lists and obediences and the favored weapon proficiencies... This class is seriously not lacking options.Well, I will grant you immersing yourself in diety lore is a great start and a wonderful seed for role-playing, the actual class features don't really further your connection to that diety in a meaningful way. I mean, domain abilities do a little, but frankly they are too sparse and too generic for that to seed to flourish. A diety just suggests that you immerse yourself in the setting more. Flavorful classes make you kind of a setting onto yourself.I'm not sure that I'd agree, though it probably is easier for some deities than others. With archetypes, alternative channeling options, variant domains, feat alternatives, a little multi-classing if necessary, etc., there is a lot of flexibility when building a cleric.
All of these tools can be used to make some rather flavorful, deity-specitic characters.Coming back to Pathfinder after my time away from D&D, I was really impressed with how much cooler clerics are now compared to my previous experience.
Note that pretty much none of this was core and was all added later, the obediences being particularly recent. So yeah, over time they have patched the cleric into something more interesting, but the CRB cleric is a boring inflexible lump.
Hopefully all this can be brought into the PF2 cleric though.