Why are clerics so popular?

Remove all ads!

A lot of veterans venerate clerics as the best class in IWD II, but I must confess, I find them inferior to wizards/sorcerers. Their spell selection *sucks*!

Why are clerics so popular?

 

Because they can buff up, kick ass, heal themselves and chew bubblegum simultaneously.

 

Raise Dead, (Mass) Heal, Bull's/Champion's Strength, Animate Dead, Bless, Prayer, Recitation, Holy Aura.
Buffs that improve the whole party in one casting, Bull's lasts for hours. Heal casts instantly! The best summoning spell in the game at level 3. The debuffing effects of Chant, Prayer & Recitation cannot be saved against by enemies. Sorcerer's buffs and summons are good too, but require high level spell slots, and often don't last long.
Early on, access to buffing spells from the cleric can make all the difference in combat. In the late game, many monsters are resistant to many types of offensive spellcasting, either through (elemental) damage resistance, high saving throws, spell resistance, or flat-out immunities. Since the bulk of the cleric's power lies in healing and buffs, the usefulness of cleric spells remains.

 

Does anyone actually ever use 'Raise Dead'? If any of my party members die, I simply hit 'Power Word: Reload', and I suspect most people do the same.

Mass Heal sucks. Heal is awesome.

Mages get Bull's Strength, AND Cat's Grace, AND Eagle's Splendor.

Mages get this too.

+1 to attack. Wow. That's not impressive, considering that mages get Armour, Shield, and Protection from Evil.

Relatively minor.

Good, but they are only two spells.

I'd say that wizards have far better buffing spells. Off the top of my head: Invisibility, Improved Invisibility, Mirror Image, Fireshield, Blink, Stoneskin, Emotion: Hope, Spirit Armour, Ghost Armour, Tensor's, Exec. Eyes, etc.

 

Except you don't access most of those spells early on like you do a cleric.

 

Most of those are caster-only buffs. A solo sorc would definitely be easier than a solo cleric (not that soloing a cleric is difficult), but clerics are good at enhancing the rest of the party. They're also more melee-capable than arcane casters.
Sorcerers are the second most powerful class in the game, so depending on your playing style, you may indeed find sorcerers to be better. But the majority consensus is that clerics outmatch them.
Mixing in other levels with arcane casters is difficult, because every non-sorc level you take costs you slightly in offensive spell power. Clerics buff mostly, meaning a lower-level caster isn't at a disadvantage.

 

If you're finding a cleric underpowered, you're playing them very wrong.

Not to mention that Turning is worth bringing a Cleric along for in itself, it's a sickeningly powerful ability.

 

Heal.
d8 HP.
Not stuck with a sorc/wizard's BAB progression.

It's seriously nothing for a Cleric(x)/Monk(1) to have 35 AC in normal. And SR.
And 26 STR, which tends to take down enemies pretty quick.

 

You don't get hit with an arcane spell penalty on them either IIRC

 

Yup. Though it kinda sucks that armor's so bad that a Cleric is better off taking a level of monk and walking around naked.

 

Yeah but at least the option is there!

 

If you were going to solo that clericx/monk1 character, what Race and Deity would you use?

 

Deep Gnome (Bonus to Wisdom + Generic Armour Bonus + Magic Resistance) + Cleric of Bane (Bonus to Wisdom)

 

Deep Gnome has a strength penalty so it won't deal enough physical damage to kill anything quickly. In a solo game, it gets quite boring when every battle is dragged out too long because you're not dealing enough damage. That Deep Gnome is also gonna suffer an XP penalty because neither classes are favored. I understand this is less severe in a solo game because all the XP goes to one character but its still there.

A Female Drow doesn't get these penalties. Unfortunately for the Drow, she doesn't get the Wisdom bonus the Deep Gnome does.

I would suggest taking either a Deep Gnome, Female Drow, Half-Orc, or Human for a solo game using that build, depending on your play style. They're all good choices for a solo Monk(1)/Dreadmaster(x). Personally, I wouldn't even take the Monk level though.

 

Deep Gnome, Human, and Drow can all min/max to three 18's and a 16 so none really has an advantage in ability scores. The DG has to take the 16 in strength, the Drow in CON.

The difference in damage output of 16 base strength vs 18 is negligible. With 2 ability increases by level 8 (which you hit before the Horde Fortress) it's 18 vs 20 . At level 9 you get Champion's Strength with a 75% chance of 6+. So 24 vs 26.
So, with Fang, including crits, it's either
1d10+7 (13.75avg) +5d6 (17.5) = 31.25 average damage
or
1d10+8 (14.85) +5d6 (17.5) = 32.35

A difference of 3.5%.

I'll take the 4 generic armor, thank you very much. The Horde Fortress is hard enough with 28 AC against those 10 BAB worg riders. With 24 AC they'll be hitting you 3 times as often.

And the monk level can be put off for quite a while. But I do suggest it from a pure powergaming perspective.
You're pretty much just looking at 15 AC from armor + shield + dex in normal. (assuming you don't go crazy building dex for Chain of Drakkas.) A dreadmaster monk can pretty easily do 26 wisdom with the Every God Ring. With 18 dex and the ring of mage armor, that's 16 AC and you have both hands free to dual-wield or use a two-handed weapon. Dual-wielding with Bastard's Son in the off-hand is pretty killer. (Constant effect: Executioner's eyes)

 

I'm like you, I use 'Power Word: Reload' but I know those veterans who venerates about Clerics do actually used 'Raise Dead'.


Lots of facts and points about why a cleric is great had been mentioned. I personally loved the 'Turn-Undead' feature. Casting Sanctuary then walks into a roomful of undeads with this feature is just insane. I myself am not exactly a great strategist so healing spells are a must, especially in the early goings. But the best part about clerics that I loved is that they can wear the heaviest armor, wield the largest shield (if their strength permits) and still cast spells without the armor/shield penalty.

 

That is something I always found odd in the D&D system. Especially since there are so many similar spells for both divine and arcane spell-casters.

 

You know Blades, I've questioned that myself before. It's truly odd but heck, let's just exploit it.

 

Don't Arcane Spells require both vocalisation and body movements, whereas Divine Spells only require vocalisation?

 

Honestly, I have no idea. While I enjoy D&D games, I never really went that deep.