I was wondering if there was some group of like-minded players out there that have formed a petition to have custom clerics put in the game.

I feel a small amount of pity for my poor abandoned priests. They are my favorites in PnP, but I have to betray them in BG2. The vanilla cleric and druid they provided are just too bland. And while the “have” custom clerics, those clerics are nothing more than their base with a couple of special abilities. I would think it wouldn't be all too hard, I mean they already have one: Druid.

I'm hoping that I'm not the only one who hopes that they put in an Elvin priest that can use some druid spells, wield a sword and bow, and be restricted in alignment and to chain or lighter armor. Or a dwarven one that gets only healing and combat spells, but can use axes and crossbows.

Geese at the least maybe being able to play a Priest of Helm/mage. I wouldn't imagine that it would be too hard to balance, seems the only reason people even have priests is for healing, hold person and undead killin' spells.

Or maybe I'm just a munchkin who doesn't realize it. But my priest reminds me of porridge.

Clerics are very cool...It would be cool to worship a Half-Orc God or a halfling god. And YOu should be able to use the weapon of your god at least!!!! That would be easy to implement.

I totally agree, there should be more options and special abilitys. I wonder what special power the cleric of Umberly posses or even the drow cleric of the spider queen. It is always good to have a large veriaty of choice and gods to chose from.

I think that clerics should be able to use different weapons depending on their faith (say, a battle god like Tempus should allow his priests to use swords and stuff, ya know?)And clerics should have more faiths they can follow (Seeing as mages can become loads of different variants)

For the third and final time, I want a cleric that brandishes an axe as he takes to the battlefield. They can weild hammers, so I can't see an axe being an impossibility. It seems to me that they would require about the same style and finesse in a real-life situation. Any thoughts on that?

Clerics in AD&D follow something similar to the Hippocratic oath. Instead of Do No Harm, tho, they Draw No Blood. Hence no edged weapons (such as an axe).

Draw no blood?

I suppose that's why flails and morning stars have spikes. Heh heh...

A blunt hammer is more than capable of breaking skin open, for that matter.

I understand that you didn't make the rules, but it seems like a lame explanation, nonetheless...

It's meant for game balance. Since they can wear any armor and still cast spells, they restricted them to only being able to use one type of weapon later. After that they came up with the excuses, which is why they are kind of iffy.

They also gave them the second best thac0 in the game and figured that put them on par with fighters. But because of the way levels work, they generally have a similar enough thac0 to a rouge with the same amount of exp. and since they lack the ability to specialize or gain extra attacks, the priests melee combat ability is kind of a joke, at least after about level 6ish.

Especially since rouges get backstab and a good choice of missile weapons. Most people will take rouges for melee before priests.

And the ability to wear any armor also is a lay kind of advantage, since most wizards have an AC pretty close to fighters because of all their magical protections.

As a result the priest is generally dualed or multied with another class to either augment the clerics spell casting or combat abilities, or give another class the ability to heal. Kind of makes vanilla clerics a bit of a joke, if you ask me.

Well, I melee clerics before rouges anyday, at least if they are out of offensive spells. I haven't played PnP sinde forever, but in the BG world, I know a rouge goes to like half "red" after just a fewhits, and the priest doesn't. Plus, with some of the decent blunt weapons in BG2, they can dish out some damage.

The reason clerics are like that is because they have all those combat enhancing spells. I agree though, they don't have to restrict them to just blunt weapons to make them balanced. In PnP there were different ethos all with a limited set of weapons to choose from.

they should get better spells. one good one is a thunder one (Bolt of glory or something) but you can only use that outside plus hen you are "waylaid by enemies..." you can't use it either..i get a "this spell can only be used outdoors" message. wierd.

That 'thunder spell' is called Call Lightning and is a DRUID spell, not CLERIC spell. The cleric spell Bolt of Glory deals awesome damage, can be cast anywhere, but has a long casting time.

In reply to Sprouty:

As for giving clerics better spells it's a balancing act. You need to compare their spells to the mage spells and remember that clerics have roughly twice as many HP's, much better AC & THAC0 and better weapons.

Mage spells in general have to be much better than priest spells for these reasons.

What about druid spells, most suck. Besides, clerics really should get more offensive spells or shorten the casting time of there spells. When it takes a min to cast something in combat that really sucks.

i personally love druid spells. insect plague and creeping doom are awsome for disabling spell casters and they may even run around "scared" for a round(i would to if there were acouple of teranchalas(sp) crawling down my neck). They also get some great summoning spells.

don't be dising my druids though. ;)

OK, a couple of things.

The cleric weapon restriction is strange, but it actually is based on the restrictions of one of the crusading knight groups, maybe it was the the Knight's Hospitaller. It was hypocritical to say you can smash someone's skull in with a mace and you aren't drawing blood, but what else is new. The Japanese decided that you could be Buddhist and kill people so long as you follow a code of honor. Nothing new under the sun.

If you consider that clerics...
Are second only to fighters in combat,
Have access to great protective magic,
get bonus spells for high wisdom,
have only one real disadvantage which restricts them to a group of weapons that includes some of the most powerful in the game,
I don't consider them all that lacking.
(Plus they can romance the main character ;-> )

This stuff comes straight from the AD&D 2nd Edition and if anything they would have to reduce the power of clerics to balance the game.

I'm agreeing with you there. I used to play Rangers, but after IWD when I lvled up a Cleric to 17 and saw the potentials, I knew I would be dualling in BG2 (Ranger/Cleric). All the boosting spells plus some good offensive ones at times, turn undead that just destroys them at high lvls, etc. Plus, you know, some of the spells I rarely use because everyone "saves" on them really do pull through sometimes. Like mental domination. Casting time is the painful factor, though.

Connecting:
Its amazing how easy it is to find knowledge on the net.
About clerics take a look at theese links:

A PICTURE OF THE BOOK I USE AS A DM IN P&P: http://www.flash.net/~brenfrow/ad/ll.htm


A strange but introductionary page: http://the-desk.com/arcania/netbook/index.html


THE WAY TO GET TO A BETTER LINK IS MENTIONED IN A MESSAGE BELOW.

[This message has been edited by Nobleman (edited May 17, 2001).]

NObleman, your link for the page of gods at geocities is broken. You get this error message, "The web page you are trying to access doesn't exist on Yahoo! GeoCities.
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Ring/2665/religion.htm" (http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Ring/2665/religion.htm)

This guy has just the right Idea. I use that book quite a bit in my PnP 2nd edition game, and I must say it makes the clerics much more interesting. Those are the kind of thing I would love to see in a game.

And I still stand by the fact that, yes clerics have the second best thac0, but without specialization and multiple attacks they cannot keep up in combat.

If you don't believe me just take a look at home many people consider having a fighter something necessary simply to survive as the Child of Bhall. Then ask yourself why that is. I guarantee that it won't be because the classes are balanced and fair. It's because melee combat dominates the game.

Spells are nice, but limited and there seems to be a lot of magic resistance. That makes magic more of a support device than as a primary front, which explains all of the tactics that have evolved for spells.

Missile weapons deal great damage on the battlefield, but you find you great archers using a great deal of non-magical arrows because of the high cost and relatively low availability of magical ammunition.

Whereas any character can pick up any magical melee weapon, fight with it constantly without worry of running out of ammunition. Nothing in the game is over about 70% resistant to any one type of physical damage, and with the exception of protection from magical weapons (or absolute immunity, or whatever it's called) anything can be dispatched quite easily. Even these spells have short duration leaving them to be only a mildly reasonable deterrent.

In short I don't think that clerics are underpowered, or wizards, or rouges for that matter. But rather that the warriors are overpowered. But I stray from the point of the post………………

Ever the stubborn one... (me)

A 1d8 axe isn't any more powerful than a 2d4 morning star. It's actually just a little bit weaker than a morning star. Gimme an axe, dammit!!

Oh well...

I would almost agree with you, but magical axes are far more common and kick-ass in BG2 then magical morning stars.

And whoever thinks clerics are weak, I would like to see them play in a PnP game without one. *laugh*

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRG You are right the link is broken!!!!

But it works on this search engine:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=da&safe=off&q=Legends+%26+Lore+sif&btnG=Google-s%F8gning&lr=

Just pick the first post. "Religions of LAstaria" Don't know who this bloke is, but he has done a lot of research.

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Ring/2665/

That link will take you directly to his main page. It has a lot more stuff than just cool priests.