Every party wants a pure caster cleric with a positive energy pool, and negative energy pools are bad

[Colette Brunel]

As far as I can tell, every party wants a pure caster cleric with a positive energy pool.

6 base trained skills, including the domain trained skill, makes clerics skill monkeys. Cleric prepared spellcasting is no joke, since it offers solid spells chosen from the entire list at the start of each day. While most of the domain powers are stinkers, some can be quite decent as backup options, such as the fire domain's fire ray.

And then there is the positive energy pool, which helps keep a party topped off in hit points even after grueling battles. No party can recover from combat quite as well as a party with a positive energy cleric. Every party that wants to go for more than a couple of fights each day needs a positive energy pool cleric present.

Maybe the cleric could use some downgrades, but I dare say that this is the strong power level for classes that every other class should be striving for.

That said, negative energy pools are bad, and I think that they should be given an upgrade. By selecting a negative energy pool, a cleric takes away their ability to top off the party's hit points between combats, and why would a cleric do that?

[Colette Brunel]

I would also like to point out that Nethys provides an abundant list of spells, and that the protection domain's divine ward is good for preventing focused fire on the party and making the most of area heal spells.

[master_marshmallow]

I agree the classes need to be brought up, let's not be too harsh when we find something good.

[Alex Mack]

Colette Brunel wrote:

That said, negative energy pools are bad, and I think that they should be given an upgrade. By selecting a negative energy pool, a cleric takes away their ability to top off the party's hit points between combats, and why would a cleric do that?

Channel Smite can end combats real quick?

[John Teixeira]

Alex Mack wrote:

Colette Brunel wrote:

That said, negative energy pools are bad, and I think that they should be given an upgrade. By selecting a negative energy pool, a cleric takes away their ability to top off the party's hit points between combats, and why would a cleric do that?

Channel Smite can end combats real quick?

Unless I read it incorrectly, Channel Smite does not require a Negative Energy Pool, any channel energy works with it. So I believe his point still stands, if you can channel smite with positive energy, why choose negative? It seems so much weaker by comparison.

[master_marshmallow]

Is versatile channeler a thing? Pharasma c'mon...

[Rysky]

John Teixeira wrote:

Alex Mack wrote:

Colette Brunel wrote:

That said, negative energy pools are bad, and I think that they should be given an upgrade. By selecting a negative energy pool, a cleric takes away their ability to top off the party's hit points between combats, and why would a cleric do that?

Channel Smite can end combats real quick?

Unless I read it incorrectly, Channel Smite does not require a Negative Energy Pool, any channel energy works with it. So I believe his point still stands, if you can channel smite with positive energy, why choose negative? It seems so much weaker by comparison.

Channel Smite isn't flat damage, its Positive or Negative, so a Positive Cleric would only take Channel Smite if they're fighting Undead.

[Lanathar]

Making it so people actually want to play clerics should never be a bad thing

The slight disappointment is that they are still seen as necessary for passable healing. It would be nice for beefed up non magical healing but there is obviously a design challenge in creating that and not invalidating the cleric

I am not sure what to feel about the expansion into damage dealing through domain abilities and spells. It is a lot more limited than wizards and sorcerers it seems

[John Teixeira]

Rysky wrote:

John Teixeira wrote:

Alex Mack wrote:

Colette Brunel wrote:

That said, negative energy pools are bad, and I think that they should be given an upgrade. By selecting a negative energy pool, a cleric takes away their ability to top off the party's hit points between combats, and why would a cleric do that?

Channel Smite can end combats real quick?

Unless I read it incorrectly, Channel Smite does not require a Negative Energy Pool, any channel energy works with it. So I believe his point still stands, if you can channel smite with positive energy, why choose negative? It seems so much weaker by comparison.

Channel Smite isn't flat damage, its Positive or Negative, so a Positive Cleric would only take Channel Smite if they're fighting Undead.

Ah I see, I hadn't read the ability, just the prerequisites.

[Voss]

Lanathar wrote:

Making it so people actually want to play clerics should never be a bad thing

Making them required is. Even if you ditched channelling, there are lots of reasons to play cleric- it's one of the better classes in the playtest.

Quote:

The slight disappointment is that they are still seen as necessary for passable healing. It would be nice for beefed up non magical healing but there is obviously a design challenge in creating that and not invalidating the cleric

Other forms of effective healing wouldn't invalidate the cleric in any way at all. Nothing else in this playtest even comes close to having enough healing for a party, and that's a problem.

The cleric has a whole pile of domains and spells and doesn't have to be a bad combatant either. Having amazing scaling healing on top of everything just means someone has to put on the priest hat. It's a entirely separate class battery on top of being a full fledged class.

I don't necessarily think that's bad, just that cleric being the only avenue for it is terrible.

[PossibleCabbage]

master_marshmallow wrote:

Is versatile channeler a thing? Pharasma c'mon...

It's likely that no deity is less likely to allow negative energy channneling than Pharasma, who in no uncertain terms does not want you healing or doing anything except "destroying" the undead.

Negative energy channeling would make much more sense on Ragathiel or Torag or Iomedae than it would Pharasma.

[Arachnofiend]

Even if non-cleric sources of strong healing were readily available clerics would still likely be the strongest class in the playtest. The current paradigm just means that someone absolutely must play a Cleric or else the party dies.

[PossibleCabbage]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Even if non-cleric sources of strong healing were readily available clerics would still likely be the strongest class in the playtest. The current paradigm just means that someone absolutely must play a Cleric or else the party dies.

It does seem pretty clear that the cleric is the strongest class in the playtest, which, I mean, I guess I'm glad it's not the Wizard. But coming out of how the PF1 CRB ended up, I wouldn't have minded if they decided to let the fighter, rogue, and monk be overpowered for once.

[Colette Brunel]

On the topic of clerics being strong, while most domains are quite poor, a contact of mine wrote up a guide to selecting optimal cleric domains.

An optimized cleric is really quite the MVP to the party, able to contribute with spell slots, Spell Points, and positive energy pool uses. No party will be able to sustain themselves throughout an adventuring day as long as a party with a positive energy cleric.

[MaxAstro]

I am definitely of the opinion that "bring everyone up to the cleric's level" is a better solution than "nerf the cleric".

I also agree that a party needing to have a cleric is not ideal, because people end up being pressured to play cleric.

I would honestly like to see the clerics role move away from "healer" a bit, even though that's a big departure from classic (as if we don't have lots of departures in 2e). I'd much prefer clerics as "divine fonts" that represent whatever their deity represents. A Sarenrae cleric should be a good healer. An Iomedae cleric shouldn't be a great healer but should be great at smiting evil. A cleric of Gorum really shouldn't be healing at all, but should be tearing up battlefields.

What I think would be awesome is if Channel Energy went away (or became a domain power for the Healing domain) and domain powers were buffed to the point of being class-defining features on the level of Channel Energy.

[master_marshmallow]

Paladins, bards, and druids should get access to healing like the cleric, but at the cost of resources like feats. Paladins get this, but it competes with powers.

I like the power level of the cleric though.

[Colette Brunel]

As it currently stands, all paladins should be taking Deity's Domain at 1st level and Channel Life at 4th level in order to circumvent the janky mechanics of Lay on Hands.

But is it just me, or is the paladin's Channel Life actually very good? It is significantly more cost-effective than the cleric's healing font. I dare say that it could substitute for having a positive energy cleric in the party. That is a non-negligible amount of healing over the course of an adventuring day.

[Arachnofiend]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Even if non-cleric sources of strong healing were readily available clerics would still likely be the strongest class in the playtest. The current paradigm just means that someone absolutely must play a Cleric or else the party dies.

It does seem pretty clear that the cleric is the strongest class in the playtest, which, I mean, I guess I'm glad it's not the Wizard. But coming out of how the PF1 CRB ended up, I wouldn't have minded if they decided to let the fighter, rogue, and monk be overpowered for once.

It's pretty clear that the powers that be at Paizo still want martials to be weak. I don't think there's anything we're going to be able to do about that.