So, in your experience, how powerful are B/X / BECMI / AD&D clerics?

In mine, they're significantly more powerful than fighters, maybe as powerful as MUs. And thieves are weak.

But that is in B/X - BECMI adds combat maneuvers, streamlines cleric spell progression, making things potentially more balanced. But the thief is even weaker.

AD&D has spell components which could potentially balance MUs significantly.

(I'm asking because, in my book of feats, I gave feats according to attack progression - so fighters get them more often - but on a second reflection I think maybe the divide is between spell-casters and non-spellcasters, with clerics being more powerful than fighters, and thieves as powerful as fighters, both due to XP tables).

Clerics in TSR can be extremely situational in terms of power... unlike wizards and fighters and thieves, clerics have a purely RP-based aspect to their abilities; basically their ability to even cast/regain spells depends entirely on remaining in the good graces of their deity (as judged by the GM).

There's just no good way to judge a balance value on "if the GM disagrees with your actions you become a subpar fighter until they decide otherwise."

My inclination would be to set the number of feats as close to the fighter's number, but require that at least half must be spent on "fighter feats" vs. "spellcasting feats." This reflects the divided nature of the class (armored warrior with spells) and the fighting feats gives it something to fall back on if they do end up stripped of spells by the GM.

Quote from: Chris24601 on March 16, 2023, 10:49:02 AM
There's just no good way to judge a balance value on "if the GM disagrees with your actions you become a subpar fighter until they decide otherwise."

Clerics have this in every version of D&D though, even 5ed still has this baked in.  Was it uniquely common to run into this in old school situations?  I once had to depower a paladin who participated in a PC-originated plan to burn a building containing orc females and their whelps (they had slain the orcs at their camp and found this slave breeding pen), but that was because there was a human woman in there that the PCs didn't know about until after the slaughter was complete.  But since that was negligence, not deliberate murder, he just did whatever atonement thing the book had laid out for such an action and was back in smiting shape promptly.

I just feel that a cleric piloted by a player who isn't a turnip just won't run into this as a permanent issue, and one that is sufficiently awake will likely never run into it at all.  Again, unless this was a common trope back in the day before I played.

Fighters are the most powerful class in AD&D; paladins would be more powerful obviously (albeit a subclass), and cavalier paladins would be the absolute most powerful if using UA. Clerics are pretty close, but once you start factoring in THACO, hit points, ability to use certain weapons, etc., fighters are just way more badass. MUs are extremely dependent upon the situation. A MU who has enough time to cast the right spell wins; if they lose initiative against a fighter (and they will lose every single time against one with multiple attacks) they are pretty much toast unless the fighter whiffs his first attack. Clerics are arguably more USEFUL in a wider variety of situations than just about anyone, honestly. Except for backstabbing and stealing, Clerics can pretty much duplicate most of the important thief stuff; maybe not actually picking locks, but that's why you have Conan around to bash in doors. I'd say Thieves are the least useful overall in the grand scheme of things, mechanically, even though it's easily my favorite class after Bard.

B/X and BECMI are pretty similar, with Fighters being far and away better, although MUs are much closer due to how combat works. Still, a high-level Fighter can pretty much one-shot a MU or Thief if he wins initiative , and has a decent chance against a Cleric as well. I think B/X makes Clerics way more useful due to their getting Raise Dead super early in the XP table. But you start factoring in stuff like Weapon Mastery and Smash...fighters are gonna smoke everyone in any sort of combat outside of some high level wizard casting spells from a mountain top.

Every once in a while you'll get stuck with a GM who thinks it's funny or cool to fuck with your PC if you're playing a cleric or paladin. Lolfalling or just jerking you around, usually because they're some euphoric atheist who's still bitter about mommy and daddy making them go to church.

As a GM, I dislike thinking I'm responsible to limit the clerics and paladins. It's your PC, you play it, I've got dozens of NPCs to run.

Maybe I think clerics are so powerful because I do not limit them with GM fiat, and they have an attack that is often equal or better than Fighters of the same XP. The only thing they cannot do is use magic swords, which is significant in old school games but not as important in my games.

My experience with B/X is that clerics getting the first spell at second level, and needing to heal, takes away somewhat from their oomph, but they are still very valuable.  In BEMCI/RC, you have a similar dynamic, though there might be some details in the spells that are available that shift it a little. 

In AD&D 1E, spell selection has more options for upping cleric power.

However, in all of them, a big part of it is how savvy are the other members of the party?  Specifically, if the wizard is managing to fireball his friends and the fighters and thieves are sucking down the damage at an outrageous rate, the cleric can feel constrained.  OTOH, if you've got savvy party members, the cleric really shines as the "glue" guy.  With the most tactical group I ever ran in AD&D or B/X, the cleric was a favorite choice of the whole party.  If they had 6 players, it was often fighter, thief, MU, and 3 clerics--with some debate on making the thief a fighter/thief or MU/thief, and maybe swapping one of the clerics for a ranger or paladin.  Depending on what everyone rolled, of course.   Point being, those players valued the clerics very highly, and made effective use of them.  I've had other groups where no one wants to play the "healer" and whoever does can almost mentally check out at times. 

Curiously enough, I have a player that loves being the cleric.

We half-jokingly accuse him of cheating frequently, but OTOH he loves supporting other PCs, healing, etc., and is always involved in the game, concentrated, etc.

It is hard to manage sometimes, but he is a good addition to the party.

Clerics have their weaknesses just like all the other classes, but the 1E cleric is very powerful. Big difference between Advanced and Basic is getting spells at first level and also bonus spells.

Observing material components in 1E almost certain works against the cleric more than the magic-user.  It also makes individual clerics more unique at first level. No two magic-users are going to know the exact same spells. That makes for differentiation between magic-users. For clerics, it comes down to, you cannot afford to buy all the material components required to cast all the first level cleric spells out of your starting gold and still have money left over for their good armor. If you get a decent starting gold roll, you can get all the components, go with leather armor or no armor. Or you can get the good armer and pick and choose which of the components you'll buy, so you can access only a portion of the list rather than the entire list.

The undead turning is extremely potent against the slice of creatures it works on. For the real hardcore gamers, name level clerics get a discount on labor and materials when building their temple and can collect more in taxes.

Clerics keep up pretty well in fighting ability. Though a thief with high dex is also competitive with clerics. Both get left in the dust if you're playing a high stat game where fighters can reliably access exceptional strength. So some degree of the assessment is stat-specific.

But we all know their healing is perhaps their greatest feature. To put it in perspective, if a fighter is down to his last few hit points, he really can't fight anymore. Not without taking undue risks. A cleric's healing puts the fighter back in the game. The value of a healing spell is the value of the most potent member of the party. And clerics wield that power via assist.

AD&D clerics are extremely powerful.  They're martially decent, and add some really good spells on top of that for even more gas in their tank.  The only trick is that AD&D didn't have the whole "toss a spell at will to turn it into a heal" that 3E has, so clerics are forced to write off a percentage of their spells every day to have any healing in the bag.  Also, unless I'm misremembering, there weren't any alternate uses of turn undead in AD&D, unlike later editions when feats would let you use charges of turning for other stuff.

BX Clerics are early on just essentially Fighters with clubs.
But by level 2 they start becoming gradually more open ended. Cure spells can be reversed into cause wounds.
Then they get some spells like Hold Person and the vital Remove Curse.
Finally they have Raise Dead, and so on.

Much like the Magic User they are versatile. Just geared for support and detection. But can end up being more than a bit situational.
At the higher levels Dispell Evil can be a real terror vs undead or summons heavy foes. And it lasts a whole Turn. Thats right, a Turn, not a round.
Sticks to Snakes can be an interesting one and one of our Cleric players way back loved that spell and used it alot. The DM would groan every time they got some poisonous ones as that was usually it for an encounter in short order.
Striking is great for adding that little extra melee damage to self or others and can help ramp up fighter damage when needed. And hits weapon resistant monsters.

BX is nice too in that you do not have as much full on power with stuff to track. Just 5 spell levels.