Hi there guys, I would like to start of my first post saying that this is a great game! I gave up battle net in Diablo 2 cause this game is really awesome :D
Ok, I play this game with another friend of mine ok multiplayer and he always go for socerer or multiclass with mage. I would usually go for the melee classes cause I don't personally like magic and stuff. I played my first game using a barbarian (still a bit into diablo eh?) and don't really it cause he was not versatile. Then on my second game, I used monks. I read some threads about monks earlier on and I have to agree with Lord Sarevok that the monks may be a 'lil sucky cause they simply are boring (though i love their kung fu kicks and fist :D). Well, maybe I'm only at lvl 9 and haven't seen his true potential yet...
Well, I was thinking about using somebody who are using magic for a change. But I'd go for classes using light magic (bards, druids, clerics). I seen lotsa people using bards and I'll skip that cause I'll like to try something different. I personally dislike druids :D so what's left are only the clerics. So I would some somebody who used clerics about their experiences and most importantly whether they are fun to play?

Thanks in advance. Cheers!

Well, if you are going to be a cleric, there is no reason not to take a kit as they have to drawbacks, that I know of. Clerics are defensive by nature, but still have a decent array of firepower, or can serve as a fighter in a pinch. They can also do some pretty good summoning, with spells like raise dead and gate. So, really, clerics are quite versatile. And they can use hammers, which are quite useful, especially if you end up getting Crom Feyr (can't remember how to spell the second part of that, I don't think that's right), and if not there are always staves. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that.

It's spelt Crom Faeyr I think.

Spelt is spelled spelled I think ;)

Turn Undead ability...not mentioned yet?
Great at higher levels!
I prefer to dual my cleric depending on what kind of char I want in my party.
In a total control multi player I want a thief, cleric, mage and fighter...I usually get a cleric/thief, a mage and two fighters.

There is one thing thats slightly dissapointing: A Cleric can have only one proffy in a weapon, Thac0 is not that high, but hey! He is a cleric...not a warrior.

In my current game (four pre-rolled characters and two NPCs) I have a multiclass Cleric/Fighter that works really well.
He is a tank (armour class as low as possible - currently minus eight) so he stands at the front with the magic flail from Keep D'Arnase (sp?) and bashes monsters while they try unsuccessfully to hit him. This gives the rest of the party plenty of free time to cast spells etc.
Because he is always in melee, all his spells are chosen to be cast before or after a battle - cures, slow poison, restoration, find traps, raise dead etc. I have another cleric for casting spells during battle.
Try it, the tank is a valuable character. High Wisdom, Dex and Con. Currently looking for a girdle to get his strength up.

Why not try a Cleric/Ranger, they start off with ** in dual wield ability and can specialise in blunt and spiked weapons, and probably their best ability is that they can cast both cleric and druid spells, giving you a good combination of fighting skills and priest spells.

An all round healing, killing machine

Arrrg. I had a big long post I typed for this and the site went down before I could post it.:mad: So I guess I just won't post big things any more until this site starts working right.

Better bet is to have a dual classed Ranger/Cleric(if dualed at 9 can still reach 20 as cleric) so you can put +++ in two weapon style if you're going to use that and have a ton of HPs.

But on the otherhand you just started SoA and you probably don't want to go through all of the trouble of dual classing.

Ok, lets go through the Cleric kits, shall we?

Priest of Lathander- Hold Undead, Boon of Lathander. Um, hold undead seems worthless since you can probably cast it as a spell, and it's bettter to just turn them. Boon of Lathander is also nice, but again you can do the same thing with chant, bless, type spells. Must be of good alignment.

Priest of Helm- True Sight, Seeking Sword. True sight is very handy against mages and frees it up from your other mages/clerics so they don't have to memorize it. Seeking Sword is nice since it counts as a +3 weapon and gives 3 attacks per round, but you cannot cast spells while using it. This isn't that much of a disadvantage since you can turn your cleric into a fighter for awhile and really don't need to cast spells while doing that. Must be of Neutral Alignment.

Priest of Talos- Lightning Bolt, Storm Shield. The lightning bolts are nice as an extra attack as is the Storm Shield which protects you from most elements and missles. Must be of Evil alignment.

Well, there's really no reason not to take a kit if you're taking a straight cleric since there are no disadvantages to one, it's mainly an alignment choice. My favorite is probably the Priest of Helm, but they're all good.

Oh and good job quitting Diablo 2, that game is horrible!

Take a fighter and dual him into cleric. Then you get 5 proffies.

i would advise against dual classing, because grand mastery, isn't what it used to be, all you gain is an extra +2 damage and +1 to THACo, and an extra attack(not sure about this one). So take a ranger/cleric, and you get to use both cleric and druid spells, all the way up to level 7 spells, because if you dual a ranger to a cleric, then you only get low level druid spells, that suck, its the higher druid level spells that rock. Combined with priest spells and lots of hitpoints, your pretty much invinicible

A Multiclass Ranger/Cleric is different to a Ranger dualled to Cleric? because of his higher druid spells?
If its true, that would be neat! never wanted a ranger/cleric because he had these low druid spells.

Hmm, I'm pretty sure any kind of Ranger/Cleric only gets up to level 3 druid spells. Anyone know for certain?

The downside with a multi-class Ranger/Cleric is you have to be Half-Elf.
A Fighter/Cleric can be Dwarven so you get all the extra Dwarf bonuses: resistance to magic, resistance to poison plus the ability to have a 19 Constitution and so get mega hit points.
Half-elves get a resistance to charm and sleep spells (which also comes in handy). The Ranger's dual-wielding ability is very atractive also.
As I said earlier, my Fighter/Cleric is a tank so I was looking for lots of hit points and resistances. Because he never comes out from behind his shield, dual wielding wasn't an option.

Priest of Helm is the best cleric kit. True Sight is a handy Special Ability, since it frees vital level 5/6 wizard and cleric slots for better spells.

Also, the Seeking Sword somewhat compensates for the one-attack only of the cleric. It sets attacks to 3 for the duration, and despite what the description says, it DOES include the high strength bonus. Use Draw on Holy Might in conjunction and see for yourself!

I have played as a ranger/cleric and i am telling you that he definitely gets both druid and cleric spells.

Deathmaster, that's not the point, it's to what level his druid spells actually reach. It wouldn't make sense for a Ranger/Cleric to get above level 3 druid spells, since that's all rangers get.

I had a multiplayer cleric once. I used the image of the bloke in the brown cowls with the staff and the book (It's on Kit's site, and I saw the book it was taken from once, but I forgot the name) and the cowled wizard avatar. He was a cleric of Talos, and was supposedly Maztican - which since it was the new world, and Maztica sounded *kinda* like Mexico, meant he called everyone "Gringo". He was known only as "Padre" and the back story was that he had once been a priest of Helm, but had turned to Talos, and was therefore branded a Heretic and hunted by Helmites. It didn't work very well, as I recall, and that game was abandoned - mind you, no multiplayer game I played got much further than the circus quest. I liked the character, though. Just telling you my experience of playing a cleric in multiplayer.

I think your problem is u dont like magic or haven't discovered it yet. i like druids more than clerics but go with the ranger?cleric or even a mage/fighter/cleric

When we are at Clerics, what about Druids? Single class druid? Well just asking, I couldnt find any good reason, but then again I never played with druid above 10th lev. Maybe F/D could be better than F/C but then again he couldnt play tank role either. I liked that raise dead in BG1 so I prefered clerics and that is most of my exp. with druids (beside Icewind).

Lord Sarevok...
If a ranger/cleric in ToB is the same as one in SoA, a ranger/cleric gets both druid- and cleric spells up to level 7 (in SoA, of course)
Well, if Entangle (lvl 1) and Creeping Doom (lvl 7) are druid-only spells, that is.
;)

Ranger/Cleric in SoA/ToB rocks totally.