09-07-2020, 10:18 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Looks like the party will be without a cleric
It looks like the party will be without a cleric. I'm running Deep Night and the Star first - are clerics strictly necessary? I may have to add a henchman - or just have the first character that dies make a cleric.
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
09-07-2020, 12:09 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Most definitely alone
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Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric
In my limited experience running DFRPG, no one in our group wanted to run a cleric, even when someone did and was hugely effective vs. undead. For whatever reason, the party just viewed 'cleric nulifies certain undead' as a given, rather than a cool, powerful ability of the Cleric in question, and the player of the cleric viewed the need to heal others as a drain on his resources and wanted to be more like a Holy Warrior or a Wizard.
Maybe your group has the same dynamics and expectations, and will just suck it up and spend a lot of money on potions. Clerics seem cool to me, but it may be the intentional lack of a defined pantheon and the intentional lack of a 'non-dungeon' society that turns people off. You don't get the 'customization' that you get with other games in playing Priests of the Whatever God, who have this specific ability, and you don't get the general social regard and influence that clerics tend to have in a lot of games that emphasize intrigue and interaction more than DFPRG. Maybe playing without one will make them appreciate the role more?
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09-07-2020, 01:15 PM | #3 |
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
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Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric
We're playing in Nordlond so there are specific clerics for different gods (Hand of Asgard is an excellent supplement, buy it now), but clerics have a bad rep in our group.
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“When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love ...” Marcus Aurelius |
09-07-2020, 01:24 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric
I personally love playing clerics, but I've definitely run DF and DFRPG adventures for groups that lacked them. In those cases, I've done one or more of the following:
Quote:
Edit: I see HoA was already referenced while I was typing this up. I'll leave my recommendation here in case others poke into the thread. |
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09-08-2020, 04:33 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Seattle
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Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric
I approach the DFRPG with the idea that a party will have 4 - 6 members. I generally have 4 or 5 players, so that works out well. My theory is that my players can make any PC that fits within the game, even if that means importing rules, spells, etc., from standard GURPS DF.
In my current campaign, I have a dungeon alchemist and a wizard using spells from the DF Magical Styles supplement, as well as a thief-mage. The only "standard" character is a scout, and he's even drawn a couple of power-ups from the DF line. One player wanted to play a "half dragon," so I created a template which pretty much soaked up all of his starting points. It made for some very interesting encounters (including meeting the scout, who has dragonhide leggings). It has been a long, long time since anyone has played a cleric. My tendency is to fill in the core party to bring the number up to 5 or 6 with NPCs which serve the dual purpose as acting as "party allies" and as guest characters when someone's curious and wants to give the game a try. They often serve dramatic purposes as well - the players were sad when their tough guy NPC died very thoroughly.
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Seven Kingdoms, MH (as yet unnamed), and my "pick-up" DF game war stories, characters, and other ruminations can be found here. |
09-08-2020, 04:53 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric
Healing is not generally relevant to a single fight, it's mostly for recovery after the fight. Hence a lot of players finding it a bit unfun.
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09-08-2020, 05:50 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Aug 2013
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Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric
Quote:
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09-08-2020, 06:38 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Looks like the party will be without a cleric
My experience with hard fights in GURPS is that characters are either fine or down, and healing doesn't do much in either situation.
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clerics |
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