58 réponses à ce sujet

[M. Rieder]

Okay, So I just got done reading the Druid vs Cleric thread and I kept reading about what great tanks Clerics are. 

Consider my mind blown.

This coudl be because I play wizards almost exclusively, so I am not well versed as a Cleric, but I did try the OC as a Cleric and it just wasn't as easy as when I built a Fighter/Frenzied Berzerker tank. 

I read some of the arguments for divine might and similar spell buffs, but I just don't see how that can be compared to the various forms of Power Attack.  I just don't see how a cleric could be better. 

But I am open to arguments for the Cleric Tank.  Amaze me.

Modifié par M. Rieder, 27 août 2010 - 04:51 .

[Thorsson64]

M. Rieder wrote...

I did try the OC as a Cleric...  Amaze me.

Well, if that's all you've tried, it's no wonder you think Fighter/FB is great. Fighter is great at low levels. It can wear anything, fight with any weapon, it only needs to feed a couple of stats, it gets lots of free Feats, and it gets two attacks by level 6. Power Attack and FB are great for the OC, because they have low ACs, meaning you don't need a high AB to hit them so it's all about damage.

Nevertheless, a properly built Cleric will hit more, hit harder, and get hit less in return, by the time they reach CL9. The main reason for this is the Divine Power spell (with CL9 you can cast the extended version and it should last long enough to end the battle). On top of DP, Clerics have access toi Divine Favor (which they can Persist at CL13), Bless, Aid, Prayer, Recitation, Battletide (and if you're short of a good weapon, Greater Magic Weapon), all of which add AB, and in some cases damage to boot.

Then Clerics can also be Stormlords. SLs are like extra cheese on the double cheeseburger that is Cleric. They get 3 more AB, a bunch more damage, electric resistance, and Extended Storm Avatar.

And this is just offensively. Defensively (melee wise) Clerics get Iron Body, Recitation, Living Undeath, Magic Vestment. They get lots of healing. Taking a pasting? Cast Heal and then Regeneration. And they also get Domains. Earth gets free Toughness and the Stoneskin spell, for example. I could go on, but no non-spellcaster can compare to a spellcaster once they get going.

Modifié par Thorsson64, 27 août 2010 - 09:00 .

[avado]

While i am starting to love the way Thor answers questions, ill give it to you the way us dummies look at it.



At lv 10, a ftr has 10 BAB. With 18 st would have 14 AB and wf now 15 AB. When you do power attack, you loose 3 ab. IF we assume that the world is non-magic, the wpn would be mundane (+0) to ab.



At 10th lvl a cleric would have 7 BAB +4 str (assume 18 st) +1 wf = 12 ab. At 10th lvl, when div fav is cast, you get +3 AB AND +3 Dam, so you are now at 15 AB. Wiht DP, your BAB is 10 +4 +1 +3 = 18 +3 dam. You also have GMW, which is a spell, +2 enchantment. So now the AB is 20 +5 damage. WIth magic vestment, you can add +4 AC (+2 on armor +2 on shield) +1 AC from Shield of Faith.



THEN, there are plenty of other spells that add damage, AB, resistance, immunity, etc (my personal fav is Living undead, which i call Pocket Pale Master - grants you imm to crits!).



So, when you look at it, YES the cleric is dependant on spells, but you will never loose ALL the spells in a dispel or Mords, so you are still ahead of the game. In my experience with clerics, things die rather quickly anyway, so dispel is rarely ever an issue.



Clerics take alittle more tinkering with and playing and studying (and if you are lucky, a player who is good with them to play with cuz you learn ALOT that way), but the end result is truly a terrifying melee monster.



Oh yeah, and dont forget the silly domains! People ask why would they be so powerful? Well, if you were A God's chosen defender, if you had a god in your back pocket, you'd have to be that good! Personally, im still trying to figure out how to get more skills (4 would be great) per cleric lvl and Tumble as a class skill. THere would have to be some god that would grant that!

[nicethugbert]

OC monsters have low AC so it doesn't bother an FB to use Enhanced Power Attack all the time and get a huge damage bonus, more than a cleric gets from buffs. Clerics get a lot of AB buffs but they don't matter so much in the OC because of the low ACs.

Clerics also get immunities and AC boosts, but, the OC has a lot of powerful items laying around so the FB can have them too.

You also get a full party to fill in the gaps until you get the items.

Clerics are essentially a walking magic item rental shop so when powerful magic is plentiful and the opponents are weak then they don't shine as much.

Modifié par nicethugbert, 28 août 2010 - 03:50 .

[Thorsson64]

Clerics can get Power Attack. What's more, having taken it, they can get Divine Might. Divine Power also gives +6 to Strength don't forget, so Clerics actually get more from Power Attack than Fighters until & unless you find a high strength item.

Clerics get the same skill points as Fighter, but access to more skills. However I generally take a class that gives access to more skills and the Able Learner Feat. Oh and more than 8 Intelligence. For the OC, for instance, a Human Bard 1/Cleric 8/Fighter 1/Stormlord 10 can be very powerful. You get enough skill points to max Concentration + Diplomacy and put 20 into Spellcraft, 15 into Tumble (to avoid AoO) and 3 into Perform. My stats would be Str 15+5, Dex 10, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 16, Cha 12, but you could tweak those depending on your preferences.

Modifié par Thorsson64, 28 août 2010 - 07:42 .

[MANoob]

Should be noted that even with powerful magic items available clerics probably still would have a higher ab than fighter, because the only AB boosting features of a fighter a cleric can't get is GWF and EWF, that's only 3 ab and buffs more than make up for it. That's not mentioning all other benefits of a cleric, like healing magic, immunity spells etc.

One of the few things that can even the odds a bit (for PvM) is an environment where you face a lot of dispeling. So this may be a good note for module builders: if you want to challenge a cleric, put disjunction traps and wizzies with disjunction everywhere (Greater Dispel/Dispel at lower levels).

Modifié par MANoob, 28 août 2010 - 08:18 .

[Ticladesign]

Partly how NWN/D&D 3.5 implements melee classes. It's just point and click, with only Knockdown and Disarm being special abilities - who in turn can be taken by any other class, without taking fighter classes.



What the fighter class needs are more class specific abilities to be a potent class in itself. (yes that's where MMO's made an improvement with their fighter classes)



Clerics however, should be a very potent class. They're a Religion's chosen warrior, and not a healbot that has crappy ab and should only heal. (something, MMO's implemented horribly telling you to heal and nothing else.. yuck. I take a NWN cleric over any other 'healer'' any day)



In low magic settings/low magic servers Clerics are ALWAYS on top. It's not the Cleric's fault, but the way a low magic setting nerfs Fighters.

[PJ156]

avado wrote...

At 10th lvl a cleric would have 7 BAB +4 str (assume 18 st) +1 wf = 12 ab. At 10th lvl, when div fav is cast, you get +3 AB AND +3 Dam, so you are now at 15 AB. Wiht DP, your BAB is 10 +4 +1 +3 = 18 +3 dam. You also have GMW, which is a spell, +2 enchantment. So now the AB is 20 +5 damage. WIth magic vestment, you can add +4 AC (+2 on armor +2 on shield) +1 AC from Shield of Faith.

This for me is the hole in this argument. It's all very well on play 2 through the OC when you know what is coming or I guess if you scout with your rogue, which is not always possible.

But for me this is a very cynical/egocentric way to play. By the time your cleric is AB 20 with +5 to damage you are three rounds into the combat, four once you buff your AC. During that time the rest of the party are covering for them. If the opponent is a hard one then the fighter is taking damage. Healing potions are all very well but every round spent drinking one is wasted in terms of doing damage back. If your facing a group of monsters several of you weaker members may be in trouble, your fighter can use taunt for that.

For me, the cleric during this time can be keeping your fighter in the combat (after all he is the one designed to do dammage - clerics can do damage but to do so you have to cast a whole batch of spells to emulate something he isn't. Like a MU buffing up for a scrap, yes its fun but all those wasted spell slots).

And, as has been pointed out, all that buffing comes to nothing once a dispell is cast.

The cleric to me is a healer first and a support fighter second, buff if you have time, of course, but spend your time keeping the fighter alive, keeping the whole partys buffs up and use you limited fighting skill to keep your MU for getting trounced. Then the fighter can excel at what the fighter does and you become a team.

PJ

Modifié par PJ156, 28 août 2010 - 10:25 .

[PJ156]

Sorry that post missed the point a little it was about roleplay choice which this thread is not.



The other issue I see is HP, a fighter can take high str and con but the Cleric needs to take wis, so he can ahve okay str or okay con but not both. So he can never be a true tank unless he buffs some more. Why bnot use those buffs increasing the fighters con?



PJ

[Haplose]

Buffing in/just before a combat is a big issue only at low-levels though. And Extend Spell helps immensly. Later on, when you have more Caster Levels, you can apply most buffs right after every rest and not worry about it too much. You can even Persist certain spells like Divine Favour.
Sure there are still Rounds/level spells which could be longer, but if Extended Divine Power lasts for 40 rounds its not so bad.

Modifié par Haplose, 28 août 2010 - 11:06 .

[Thorsson64]

Clerics are not really vulnerable to Dispel. The example I gave just has to take Practiced Spellcaster and he has a CL of 22. That's only a 15% chance of being Greater Dispelled. If it was just C/SL then that would drop to 5%. Go into Epic and it takes Mords to strip buffs, and bluntly a Cleric will still last longer against a Wizard than a Fighter. In any case how many Dispels do you have to face in the OC? A big fat zero last time I did it.



The HP argument is spurious too. A Fighter will start with Str and Con maybe 2 higher than a Cleric. That's 30 HP, but he can't self-heal. Pushing Con any higher hurts AB & damage.



Anyone who doesn't understand that Clerics (and FS) are the best Warriors in the game is just playing it wrong.

[PJ156]

Thorsson64 wrote...

The HP argument is spurious too. A Fighter will start with Str and Con maybe 2 higher than a Cleric. That's 30 HP, but he can't self-heal. Pushing Con any higher hurts AB & damage.

I take the last posters point on the extended buffing and yours Thor on the resistance to dispell. However it occurs to me (I am not stats expert so I am gonna burn here) the fighter gets his D10 and the Cleric his D8 HP - The cleric cant keep up from the start. A fighter maxes his str and Con at first level a cleric his wisdom and one other - let's make him a con cleric. When he comes to add points it has to be wis to 21 for the epic things he will need (am I right on that or is it 20). Anyways during that period the fighter is working on str or con (probably str) so he can either do more or take more damage. So at the upper levels the fighter becomes a scimitar wielding, armour wearing, crit build weapon specialist and lays down and takes some serious damage without worrying about buffs. The cleric had good con, if he improved it he can go into combat with high hp (though still not as good as the fighter unless he buffs) and with moderate str. If he started with high str then he can do more damage at high level but his HP are going to suffer compared with his fighter party member.

The fighter can self heal with potions (it's a waste of a round but he/she can do it) plenty of heal porions in the backpack along with str and con potions and the fighter can buff too (though he will have to do it at the expense of combat turns). But for me that round need not be wasted if his cleric is on the ball and ready to support him instead of prancing off risking thier own (and therefore everybody else in the parties) lives waving his mace around.

Anyone who doesn't understand that Clerics (and FS) are the best Warriors in the game is just playing it wrong.

Maybe so, perhaps I just don't want it to be the case and thus we are back to roleplay choice.

For me the cleric can do a range of things, they can do damage spells, healing spells, buffing spells and lots of cool miscelaneous ones. Much of that is wasted if you just buff them into a meat shield. They can't lay in with thier mace and cast spells in a single round (can they?) So why not let the fighter fight and then fulfill all that enourmous potential in the support role I think they are best for. Then when the combats over they can do the talking as well.

Unless of course you run with the Nicethugberts party full of clerics. In which case my arguments are void.

Can a cleric buff into a magic user or a rogue ?

PJ

[PJ156]

BTW and this may just be a fuzzy memory, is the fighter the only class that can benifit from more than +2 bonus on con. Or is that my imagination its been a, long time since I looked at my players guide.



PJ

[Arkalezth]

That's in the 2nd edition, IIRC. Definitely not in any NWN.

Modifié par Arkalezth, 28 août 2010 - 02:18 .

[PJ156]

Definitely not in any NWN.

Perhaps it should be, that and the percentile over 18 helped to define the fighter as a class.



It was second edition when I played with a pencil in my hand so at least my memory is not failing me ... yet.



PJ

[avado]

Thorsson64 wrote...
Anyone who doesn't understand that Clerics (and FS) are the best Warriors in the game is just playing it wrong.

The wisest statement ever made on ANY NWN/NWN2 forum! 

Just one quick comment on the buffing concern.  After rest, a knowledgable cleric will cast the long term, extended buffs (magic vestment, gmw, stat buffs, persistant spells).  That leaves only a few left to cast for combat.  In experience having played clerics almost exclusively (yes i played all the classes over time, but always seemed to enjoy clerics the most for some reason), you get one spell off as combat is starting and you are in.

With nwn2 and persistant spell (divine fav for example) reduces the need to cast down to ONE!  (i most typically needed div fav and div power (+10ab +5 dam) in 2 casts, which now becomes just one cast. 

I have no idea where or how the idea that a cleric casts and casts for round upon round before he can mix it up, but it is beyond me.  It is wrong!   If only nwn2 had dev crit, then you would see some insanely stupid unbalanced clerical killing.  Lets just thank God that nwn2 doesnt have dev crit to give the masses a chance to survive, however small of a chance that is.

[PJ156]

The wisest statement ever made on ANY NWN/NWN2 forum!  

it looks like I stand alone in defence of the humble fighter. 

So if we put a lv 21 fighter and an lv 21 cleric into a pit together, assuming the nancy cleric has had time to put his make up on, he is going to win every time. Despite the fighter having put all his time into learning skill with weapons fighting in armour, building thier strength and constitution he still can't go toe to toe with a healer.

I shall lay down my sword and go get myself a prayer book

PJ

[nicethugbert]

The cleric will go Ethereal where he can buff in peace then rain hell when he is done buffing.

[Thorsson64]

A pure Fighter will get 2 more HP a level than a Cleric. If he's not going for WM he probably has 2 Con more too. That's 30HP by level 10, but 90HP at lvl 30 if we are talking pure builds. However Regeneration will give the Cleric up to 30HP back every round (20 rounds if extended), and he can always Heal for 150HP, so it's moot. 300HP is plenty for the Cleric (assuming 14 Con he gets 10HP per level).



Don't think of Clerics as Healers, that's just one thing they can do. They are the Church Militant, and Unbelievers better beware.

[painofdungeoneternal]

Think of it this one.



A fighter is a one trick pony, all he can do is fight, but he can do it well.



The cleric is almost as good of a fighter, and with the spell divine power equals the fighter. The major difference is less feats and a little bit less hit points but spells and 2 free feats at first level really make up for that. Just think of the cleric as a weak variation on a fighter.



But then the cleric is a caster focused on buffs. I know players who spend 10 minutes buffing, turning themselves in buffballs of pure magic at level 30. And since they are a pure caster their buffs tend to survive being dispelled. The spell breach spells focus mainly on arcane spells as well which also helps. Add in persistant spells.



Ignoring healing and rezzing, and summoning which the cleric can do as well.



Fighter goes and faces a melee test, fighter kills it.

Fighter goes and faces a powerful wizard, gets hit by some will save type of spells perhaps and is trounced.

He does very well in some situations, others he doesn't.



Same situations.

Cleric goes and faces a melee test, kills it a bit slower than the figher did, perhaps needing to use a heal or make sure he is buffed prior.

Cleric does same melee test again, but fully buffed, kills target about twice as fast as the fighter did using divine power, 2 magic vestments, enchanting his own weapon, persistant lesser visage, stone body, regeneration and about 20 other spells.

Cleric goes and faces a powerful wizard, gets dispelled but does not lose his spell resistance. Uses dispel magics on the wizard as needed to remove his protections while the wizards spells fail most of the time on that spell resistance. Wizard is toast basically.



So a cleric is not as good at fighting as a fighter, but he's close and buffs can make him better for a bit, and buffs last 24 hours, if everything was melee a fighter would actually do better. But a fighter is only good at one thing, there is very little a cleric is not good at, and they have a lot of special talents, controlling undead, healing, blade barrier, and access to many wizard spells via domains.

[MANoob]

A bit off topic, but since when spell resistance is a problem for wizards (Assay?). And even a full CL cleric probably would lose most of his buffs (if not all) against CL 38/39 RWoT disjunction. Or you mean low CL NPC wizards? Although I do agree that a cleric stands a better chance vs a wizard than a fighter. But in a party situation, once hit by such powerful disjunction, a cleric would be back to his 10min buffing sequence and essentially out of comat(if not allready dead).

Modifié par MANoob, 28 août 2010 - 07:06 .

[Haplose]

PJ156 wrote...
Can a cleric buff into a magic user or a rogue ?

Into a Rogue? Not quite. Though in NWN2 everyone with good Int and 1 Rogue level can do typical Rogue skill duties.
Cleric isn't particularly well suited with base 2 skillpoints per level, but can still do some Rogue-magic.

Magic user? Not as well as an arcane caster perhaps, but certainly can fill the caster/nuker role. Especially with high Wisdom and mage-ish domain choices. Has enough spells of mass destruction to fill that role. And with high Wis he has a nice synergy with 1 Monk level for nice AC (Sacred Fist also a possibility).
So maybe not quite as good as a wizard, but also way more survivable then most.

[The Fred]

Woah, Clerics always seem to spark arguements. I guess that's Organised Religion for you.

Personally I'm not that keen on them flavour-wise, and I've never really tried to play a buffed melee Cleric, but the way I understand it is that it kinda boils down to Divine Power. Look at it this way: DP gives you the attacking power of a Fighter, a smidge of health, and +6 Strength (which more than makes up for whatever the Fighter has over the Cleric, even given the Cleric's MAD, though there are stacking issues).

Fighters are great, and they get a lot of feats, meaning they can do a lot of stuff quite early on. After a while, though, those feats aren't as useful to you, compared with the powerful spells and things other people get.

A Cleric buffed with Divine Power can fight like a Fighter, but can also Turn Undead, heal, and/or soften up enemies with spells. Cleric's also get a whole load of other buffing spells which can make them really hard to hit.

Divine Power has a very short duration, so on it's own it's not that overpowered. However, there are a couple of other things to take into account:
Extend spell - Once you get this, you can Extend DP so it lasts plenty long enough.
Resting - It's easy to rest in the OC, so you can use DP in every battle.
Dispelling - Nearly as rare as counterspelling, which means the chances of DP or any other buffs being stripped are tiny.

Certainly Clerics are probably better at fighting than they should be, IMO.

Modifié par The Fred, 28 août 2010 - 08:57 .

[Thorsson64]

MANoob wrote...

A bit off topic, but since when spell resistance is a problem for wizards (Assay?). And even a full CL cleric probably would lose most of his buffs (if not all) against CL 38/39 RWoT disjunction. Or you mean low CL NPC wizards? Although I do agree that a cleric stands a better chance vs a wizard than a fighter. But in a party situation, once hit by such powerful disjunction, a cleric would be back to his 10min buffing sequence and essentially out of comat(if not allready dead).

We were talking about the OC, and I don't recall anyone talking about Spell Resistance. I just made the point that Clerics will last longer than Fighters. Favored Souls can last longer still, especially if they have Quicken Spell. It's all about Mantles. But now you mention it, not all "Mages" are RWOTs.

[MANoob]

That was an answer to Pain's post, not yours.

Modifié par MANoob, 29 août 2010 - 08:05 .