I really don't care you can heal (rant)

[tankteddy]

Guess it's time to bring Rose Cross back

[Snook]

I'm sorry to hear that you've had such bad experiences with this. On my character Elben I go about healing and warding other people's characters. I've mostly had good experiences with this. People willing to RP a bit, or at the very least expressing thanks for the healing and the buffs. I've only had a few "No thanks, I can take care of it myself" encounters, and these were really just cases where the character was 'barely wounded', so it was believable.

I guess that what I'm saying is: don't give up! There is a place for nice healing clerics! And everybody greatly appreciates the 'remove curse' spell.

On a side note, I am all for the removal of raise dead scrolls. My other character Rags is also a healer, but he is a physical one. He can't heal through divine magic, he just stitches people up. He also carries around a few raise dead scrolls, but could do without them. In fact, not being able to use those scrolls would be more fitting. He's just a crude surgeon and a priest, and not a divine cleric. At the very least restrict them to clerics so that other classes have to at least invest in UMD.

[chad878262]

Well said, and it goes for many classes. When in a group if everyone slows down just a little the rogue can look for and disarm (or set!) Traps, the cleric can banter about the gods and conduct healing, the wizard can be going through his spell book one more time as they walk and the warrior can be stomping along looking for the next monster to slay. I used to attempt to rp tracking / scouting with my ranger in groups, but was always left behind as the rest rushed of toward the next monster or chest. Now I only attempt it with a couple groups that like to rp while adventuring and in dm events. The rest of the time is a waste since by the time I finish typing *holds a fist up indicating stop, points to his eyes, then holds up for fingers and points to the east* The for monsters to the east have been slain, the chest looted and the group is on the next screen.

Hey, rantings fun! In any case, ASD not everyone on the server will ignore your healing or trump you scrolls and potions, ya just gotta find the right folks to rp with! I'm hopeful when we get party looting in game it will become easier to find adventuring companions.

[Hoihe]

To reiterate Chad...


When adventuring in a group... at first stick to your chars speciality. If anything vital is missing from the group composition, only then start to branch out into his her other skills. Either let such develop organically, make OOC agreements or deal with it IC.


Hoihe for example /is/ a Jack of all trades, with a bunch of equipment to allow for even magical healing. However, she's way better at stabbing things than disabling traps, locks or healing... so I always make sure to ask my companions if they know about locks/traps.

Point is... even if you cN do it.. if its not your speciality.... hold back and ask your party members first before stepping in.


Reply from phone.. Sorry for typos.

[tankteddy]

Hidden: show

To reiterate Chad...


When adventuring in a group... at first stick to your chars speciality. If anything vital is missing from the group composition, only then start to branch out into his her other skills. Either let such develop organically, make OOC agreements or deal with it IC.


Hoihe for example /is/ a Jack of all trades, with a bunch of equipment to allow for even magical healing. However, she's way better at stabbing things than disabling traps, locks or healing... so I always make sure to ask my companions if they know about locks/traps.

Point is... even if you cN do it.. if its not your speciality.... hold back and ask your party members first before stepping in.


Reply from phone.. Sorry for typos.

I agree, Takeo Yamada is one of my Favorite toon I ever made, He is a up close fighter Mostly, but can easily take up a bow, Open locks and Disarm traps. With the right gear he can even be an effective healer. ((Also a cook, Tea brewer, and musical player as well)) I personally made him a Permadeath PC and as such, when I am with a group, things slow down a lot. RP becomes something I focus more on then running off to kill the next mob.

Of course the down side is, I don't go out often killing things as I am always learning more about PCs I run into, Taking notes and such about everyone.

[MopKnight]

I am personally for hard mode. Meaning limitations on healing kits, raise dead scrolls and everything else outside of magical healing. In return, a script that lets characters be knocked out by encounters depending on situation and be revived by passing characters allows for much more meaningful RP.

I acknowledge I am rather in the minority on this.

[NCrawler]

My character Taran is a loner who heals himself when needed. He doesn't like priests very much so would be averse to their healing him, unless he paid them for the service. He recently returned from retraining in the North so I just RP that he learned the healing arts then.

[Nomster]

If you think clercis are only about healing, you are wrong. I see them as holy warriors, to a less extent than paladins but that is pretty much what a cleric is. Heavy armor and lots of spells to aid with the offensive. Not all clerics /need/ to be this but it is pretty much the base line.

I think someone else already said that try to not focus too much on the mechanical stuff, on the grinding moments. Where a cleric shines IMO is when it is all about role-play. So what that everyone has Raise Dead scrolls and heal kits & potions... They do not have a direct phone line to a god, like your character does. A cleric can do custom rituals for player events & DM events. They can be great at deeper discussions, philosophical questions. Guiding lost characters. Clerics are a bit like therapists in that way. Good clerics are also supposed to offer guidance to paladins. Paladins are actually below clerics in the church hierarchy. When a paladin falters, the cleric is there to offer support and in some instances, penance and atonement.

They all want to convert others to see the wonders of their faith. Evil clerics will try to pull everyone not of their faith into it, good clerics are likely to be more respectful about it. For a good cleric, it is the battle of the soul that matters. When a person dies, its soul goes to its deity. In the case of an evil patron deity, the soul of course will be in service to them and empower them. Redeeming people from evil not only lessens the power of an evil god in life but also in the afterlife.

And before anyone tells me I say this because I have a character who has been redeemed with the aid of clerics (several, yes) I used to play a cleric for a while. I found it very rewarding RP. He was in ways attempting to be some kind of mentor figure to others and was very sympathetic. One of my most memorable encounters is when he saw someone summon an undead and they had quite a long philosophical conversation. He let him go, hoping he had sown a seed of change. Maybe he had not, but the hope for change mattered.

Many also seek out clerics for some old background wounds, so if you are looking for some healing RP, make the most out of such encounters. Have your character tell everyone they meet they are a healer and word will go around.

In grinding/event parties, clerics mostly shine when they save everyone else with some well timed spells. Regeneration, Gr Restoration, Mass Heal... these are difficult to carry in a pocket. Do not rush to save people unless they are like, about to die and cannot handle a situation by themselves. That way, you will get greater appreciation. I advice you to treat Raise Dead scrolls as smelling salts. Ask whenever you raise someone if they are just unconscious or dead. I myself prefer unconscious state because it makes more sense than dying 100 times (especially to stupid things, bugs, lag, walk mesh issues, you name it).


The funny thing about this thread is that I think of all the times when my sorceress with 0 heal has somehow become the party healer in the past because she carries around Cure Crit Wounds wands because others do not bring enough sufficient healing for themselves. Guess we have encountered opposites, in a way

I hope you do not take this as me telling you how to RP a cleric AlwaySummer Day as that is not the intent behind it. Cleric is a very fun class and I hope more people might see that. Maybe this post might inspire someone to roll one... instead of the typical Favoured Soul

[Caelin]

Thing is, clerics and favored souls are already the most powerful characters on the server due to the low magic setting. Make healing and raising dead exclusive to them and we might as well just rename the server "Baldur's Gate: The Cleric Chronicles".

[kleomenes]

The OP's post resonates with me.

I remember when I first made my cleric. He was non-violent, and would not hit any non undead or fiendish spawns directly. He was happy to stand behind summons and paladins though, but otherwise he was pretty much a heal bot.

And yes, he did it very well! Even after buffs he had a ton of healing. People did not die on his watch often, with an empowered cure critical with augmented healing being nearly as good as a heal in low levels! Running around with a staff of curing and healing gear to heal a ton of HP even in combat with a heal kit. It was deeply satisfying to go out adventuring with a group that recognised this and so let him do it - and let that mean that the party could take on tougher challenges. (((speaking personally, play on a NWN1 server way back when inculcated me to moderately paced, team play for adventuring, and it was with that in mind I made my cleric)))

I bet few remember that is what he was like at first.

Yet...how often did he see his party running ahead of him and spamming heal kits (and sometimes complaining about consumable costs OOC, ironically) when both ICly, and OOCly, reminders were given that they had a heal bot behind them

Sometimes it was IC to be self reliant and I think thats valid RP and respect that. But generally, people just didn't really get out of a mindset of soloing. I could see that based on the fact that if I partied with people a lot, they started loving the healing. It just took time to recognise it!

Anyway, RP led towards my character going through a change in outlook, and breaking his vow of peace (at significant cost); I won't lie, by the time a situation came up to push him in that direction, I was glad of it. Partly being a healbot was at times problematic (soloing is tricky/impossible!) but often, as well, it just did not feel like his role was needed or wanted. I even got OOC tells about "not contributing" at times. From people using heal kits.

It is a shame, but I felt obliged, in some ways, to whip out the sword and the divine power and start hitting things. Although having not played a cleric heavily in NWN1 (except on a server where being a healer was much more important, as mentioned), I got the shock of my life when it turned out that extended divine power pretty much felt like engaging god mode.

Its definitely true that while favoured souls are better at it, clerics are still nasty when they play selfishly by turning the spells inwards. To an extent it is a D&D thing as clerics are intended to be those who enact the divine will, hence the spell divine power existing at all. Its still a shame that sometimes you are incentivised to do so from both directions.

It is nice, these days, when in a party with a few PCs that know mine and aren't healers, to go back to the pure healing, or definitely limiting the combat buffing, and play the cleric to instead boost the power and longevity of others in the party. I relish it when its possible!

[Velaris]

Well, after reading through such a variety of opinions, I'd like to touch on a few small items as well. Not just to rant, so I apologize in advance if my post isn't adversarial enough.

One of my best toons I've ever played on this server is my Correlite priest Kirias. I hope a lot of you would recognize him, either through being in big dm events, smaller server rp plots and just general rp.
I love the cleric rp, and I'm blessed, hehe, with being part of the EDE team here, where I feel rp is valued above all else.
Clerics do shine in events, especially where other toons won't have the time to stop fighting and heal, because Bloodlust will kill them.
I feel I have to work on my priest's rp situations, and I do so even when offline, spending time trying to coordinate with other players to make rp situations possible. What I'm saying is that it takes work, but pays off. Especially when building a character with solid, consistent morals.

That being said, yes, some people don't want to listen to cleric rp. They are probably that way in RL too. That's their choice. That feels more like realism to me than anything else. Open minded people will listen, and rp with me. That's the party I want to be with anyway.
I don't intervene to raise someone who I don't know, after all, why would I appeal to my gods for someone I don't know, I rp that raising the dead takes a terrible spiritual toll on my elven cleric, especially for raising elves, and make choices appropriately.

Ok, raise dead scrolls...I don't know why they aren't really damn expensive, rare, or both. Same with resurrection scrolls and heal potions. These are very rare and valuable items in FR lore. Why not here?
How does a scroll connect a non-cleric with their god on a level comparable to a priest who devotes his/her life to servitude? It really doesn't make sense at all. Which cleric made them? Was he evil? Does using a scroll made by an evil cleric compromise a good one?
I agree with raise dead scrolls being removed from shops, perhaps only available if made by a priest in game. Yes I understand this opens up the possibility of clerics becoming merchants...

Point to consider : I can recall seeing penalties from being raised from the dead, though not on this server. Would there be a way to have time limit penalties for being raised by scroll, versus spell? A fighter or rogue should not be able to duplicate from paper what a cleric does without some loss of quality.

Just thoughts, see you IG for more cleric rp.

[roke42]

Point to consider : I can recall seeing penalties from being raised from the dead, though not on this server. Would there be a way to have time limit penalties for being raised by scroll, versus spell? A fighter or rogue should not be able to duplicate from paper what a cleric does without some loss of quality.

I know that some DMs did that in the past during their events. It's problematic to add that by an automatic script. I would guess resting or lesser restoration would simply remove the penalties.

[Kanada]

This not a hardcore server.

[Hoihe]

Point to consider : I can recall seeing penalties from being raised from the dead, though not on this server. Would there be a way to have time limit penalties for being raised by scroll, versus spell? A fighter or rogue should not be able to duplicate from paper what a cleric does without some loss of quality.

I know that some DMs did that in the past during their events. It's problematic to add that by an automatic script. I would guess resting or lesser restoration would simply remove the penalties.

Also, as said before... Most of us approach death as unconcious or as "just a moment longer with stabilization and dead." It's my assumption 100% of the time if I find a coprse, but I do ask the player how they wish it to be RPed.

It's also my own take if someone finds my corpse, only exception if I died to something that you can't just "Barely survive" (Save or Die).

[deserk]

Honestly people have such an immersion-breaking, gamer approach to divine spells that really irks me. Here's three points about why you shouldn't mindlessly heal everyone without at the very least permission.

- Priests don't go about healing everyone in FR and or other D&D settings without charging you, or at least if the one to be healed are serving the purpose of their faithful for that moment. The reason is, why would a church need donations, if they could simply heal everyone? Even they need money. The powers of the gods don't come freely. Nor would there be much point for adventurers to do much, if everyone lived in a utopia where everyone got healed or raised from death free of charge.

- Your priestly spells are not your own! They come from your god. You are drawing power from your god. Don't overindulge the gifts your god bestows you. Use them where you have to. Your character should always be aware just as you were given these divine blessings, you can just as easily be stripped of them.

- If my character follows a god that is a rival of your god, I don't want to be touched by your god's magic. Likewise, if I have no experience with spells, my character has no certain way of knowing that you are casting what you claim you are casting. You might be healing my character at cost of something else very important for all my PC knows.