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S1 Ep.4 - Class Review: Cleric · Bards and Barrels

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Bars and Barrels, the podcast for Dungeons and Dragons players, new and old.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're just a few 30-something dads who play DD on the regular.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Ross Druze, and I'm joined by my friends and co-hosts Brett Miller and Phil Boone.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be exploring the world of Dungeons and Dragons in each episode, sharing our experiences, offering tips and advice for those who play and run this classic game.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Don't miss out on us discussing everything from character creation to combat mechanics and even delving into some of the lore behind the game.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: We'll also be sharing some of our funniest and most memorable moments from our own DD campaigns.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you're a new player just starting out or a seasoned veteran looking to reminisce about your own adventures or just get a new perspective on things, Bards and Barrels has something for everyone.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: So sit back, grab a drink, and join us as we roll for initiative and embark on this epic adventure.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: It is indeed once again time for another episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Fellas, tonight we are going to dive into the cleric.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: How's everybody doing?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this is our first uh class that we're gonna dive into.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Our hope here is that about every other episode, we're gonna talk about the classes that are available to new players in the core rule book and the players' handbook.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and just give you some pros and cons, talk a little bit about the class, maybe how you set it up, uh, in the hopes that it inspires you to build one of these characters and and uh you learn a little bit about how we would play them.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_03: And maybe make them a little bit more approachable.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: Some of these can be a little intimidating, but you can do it.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: So, starting off with the cleric, this is your typical healer, kind of a jack of all trades.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: They're also a fighter.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, amongst that, they're a priest.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not that you would specifically play a priest in DD, but um amongst the the healers of the world, uh, cleric is obviously your number one with uh druid, bard, paladin coming next.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and guys, when we were talking about this, our our initial thought was it we want to get people playing healers a little bit more because your typical first-time party, people are gonna gravitate toward fighters, um, maybe a wizard in a not so great case.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: But but let's let's open the table here and talk about a cleric.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_03: I think there's a lot of pros and cons with running a cleric.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, hey, you've got to have a healer in your party, or else you're gonna be chugging down health potions or something like that just to stay up.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but the cleric is really approachable.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_03: The spell class is pretty large but manageable.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_03: You can learn your spells, and it's um a lot of stuff that kind of builds off of each other, especially as you scale up.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: So um a lot of pros with being able to um jump in and use a spell caster without having to go all the way to something really complicated like a wizard.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely think on the DM side of the table, especially too.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: When I look at a party and there's not a cleric, I get a little nervous, right?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Even if there is a paladin, which is a pretty good substitute.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: You just know as a DM on that side of the table, if there's no cleric in the party, you better have an opportunity for that party to be buying some healing potions or some other way to inject healing into that party.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I know it gets bypassed a lot, especially in an introductory level party, but it really is kind of you know the cornerstone almost of having a successful campaign.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not hard to get into.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think some people see magic and they you know shy away a little bit.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: But as Brett kind of mentioned, you know, your your spell list isn't too intimidating.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a lot easier to maintain than some of your more complex classes of magic, like a wizard, especially.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think it's a very approachable class to get in even as a brand new player.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know, another pro with the cleric, every day you can change your spell list.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: Some of the other classes, spellcasters, you're stuck with it until you level up and then you can change a little bit.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_03: Cleric can change whatever they want every single day.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't if you learn you don't like a c uh a spell or aren't using it, dump it.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh well.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one of one of the things I uh so I took notes for this.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the rare episodes where I took notes, of course.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the things I wrote down was the fact that that clerics use wisdom as their main spell casting ability.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: I play a paladin, so charisma's great, don't get me wrong, but it but if you're the type of player that doesn't like to do a lot of talking and persuading, um, charisma is probably not great for you.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so with wisdom, you're gonna use wisdom in a lot of different ways.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's always uh there's a ton of wisdom saves that you're gonna make in the course of a campaign.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh wisdom's great, uh just just from a learning capacity, so it's more useful across the board than charisma is.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like I'm an outgoing-ish player, so charisma fits me well with my paladin, but but I think it's more useful in terms of a cleric.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's just my opinion, of course.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that if you look at ability scores, potentially too, that 100%.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you look at your wisdom, like your perception's based off of wisdom, your passive perception is based off of wisdom.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a max min type of player and you want to try to make you know the best player you can, cleric is not necessarily a bad class to look at.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes it gets overlooked for that, but it's one that hits on a lot of those buttons as well.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I want to back up for two seconds because you had made mention that if a cleric is not in the party, you get a you get a little worried, and even if there's a paladin in the party, you're still a little worried.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I just want to note that we mentioned in the last episode that that we're all playing in our descendants avernis campaign, and Phil added a cleric.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm guessing because you were a little worried about us now.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if for anyone who's not familiar with the Descent to Avernus campaign, which is a published adventure that we're playing through right now, uh it takes place in Avernus, which is the first layer of the nine hells.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're sending an entire party into hell, you get a little nervous when they don't have a dedicated healer.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Paladin can do some healing, but a paladin is more like a holy warrior.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like they are more combat-built almost than they are healing built.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, yes, perchance the fact that you happen to meet Yostix the cleric while you were in Avernus uh may or may not have been me worried about you and the lack of access to healing potions while you're in hell.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: So so this may not be a bonus to everybody listening, but it's definitely a bonus to Brett and I to learn how Phil's brain works when it comes to DMing our game.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, look, he's looking out for us.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, somebody's gotta do it because we apparently weren't doing it for ourselves.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: No, we just smash.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, after you basically TPK'd when we hadn't even gotten to hell yet, I decided that it was probably necessary to intervene.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: Details, details.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: We were a young we weren't murder hobos, but we like level two.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_02: We we were well okay.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we gotta tell this story now because essentially what happened was uh my character gave a source of light to Brett's character, and he chose not to use it and took a torch into a room filled with gas and about blew us up.
• 7:22
  unknown: Yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he did blow you up, but divine intervention saved your asses.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: I like how your reaction to that is yeah, it's fine.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: We made it out.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: It was a little touch and go there for a minute.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's one of those early on things where the party's still getting to know one another.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: It happens, right?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and my deity showed up and saved all y'all's ass.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you, Phil.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: One of the the kind of negatives, though, that if you are gonna play a cleric, you probably need to at least understand that you're not gonna be the main smasher of trying to finish the enemy necessarily.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: Some types of clerics could be that way, yes.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like uh a popular culture version of a cleric, Thor.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: Thor could be a type of cleric.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um as one of what would it be?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Fighter Domain?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_03: War domain?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: War domain, yeah.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um easily could be.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: So he definitely could be a type of cleric, but most of your clerics are not gonna be the one to go finish off a uh a monster.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Totally, which which is why my main con was again from the position of playing a paladin, no smite.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you here you are this very religious, not necessarily battle-oriented character, and you have no real attack spells, no no like uh support ways of dealing more damage as a cleric.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: They have some pretty powerful spells, but not like a paladin smite that can stack on top of each other.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: Unless you're going up a unless you're going up against undead.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: True.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been 100%.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and it's been very helpful for us in in Avernus where we're facing fiends, devils, undead would so would certainly fall in that category, not in the same category DD-wise, but in terms of places you would be very effective.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: I 100% agree with that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: I love jumping into reviews like this because I actually so while I agree with you that I don't think a cleric is cleric is going to be your warrior, like a paladin is, a cleric actually still makes a fantastic melee fighter.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you obviously you're gonna pick wisdom as your highest ability score, because that's what your spells are based on.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if you make your second one, either constitution to buff up your you know, your AC and your hit points or strength to strengthen your melee attacks, you can still build almost a tanky style player using a cleric, and you equip your cleric with either you know a mace or a war hammer, something like that, that does some decent damage.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: You stack your cleric with armor and a shield.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, you become almost unhittable.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you can stand in there and you can take hits, you can use bonus actions to heal your party and use your actual action to still either use a spell attack or use an actual weapon attack.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it still can make a decent fighting class, even though that's not necessarily what it's designed as.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you're absolutely correct because the lore in the player's handbook kind of sets that up because they talk about how priests live in the temple and they're meant to serve by doing the everyday things, right?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: But clerics are the priests that are sent out into the world to go on these adventures, and so they're equipped with the tools to do such, right?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so part of that is you still need to be good at melee, not just healing, but you need to be good at combat and taking care of yourself and protecting yourself all at the same time.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: So so the lore certainly backs that up as well.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: 110%.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, if you even look in the player handbook, the picture that they have there is a a dwarf cleric that looks tough, looks beasty, beastly.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: It it is kind of funny though, though, like it in our minds, like we don't frame the cleric as the warrior.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like, first and foremost, he is the healer of the party.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: But he can hold he or she can hold their own in a battle, no question, hands down.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it all comes down to where you place those ability scores, right?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to be the tank, you place that in constitution.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to go faster in a battle and do that first hit, you place that in your dexterity or wherever you want to do that.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: I also think, too, it comes down to a lot of your spell choices as a cleric, because if you want to play a by the book healer, you can choose to just pick all of the healing spells.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a battle cleric, there are offensive spells that you can pick, both ranged and melee.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, your ranged options aren't great necessarily as much as your melee are, but if you want to build, you know, a fighter cleric, you can do that.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The options there.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: I one of the things that that I've I I do like about the cleric, and this is where some of that overlap with the paladin happens, is that they have the divine inter intervention and they have the channel divinity options too.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and I don't want to dig in too deep of what those are for either class, but but basically it's it's actions, sometimes like types of spell casting actions, or they're essentially spells where it gives you the ability to do something really cool and really helpful.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um but that that kind of is because they're stemmed in that route of being a priest, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So they they have that ability to call on their deity and then they channel that that godly energy through them to do something.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I would say, you know, one of the other big things about picking a cleric is it's relatively really approachable because uh you have one major selection up front, which is picking your domain.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that guides a lot of your later choices.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_03: You kind of get along a path based on the type of domain you pick, and it kind of can guide your character.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_03: But even within that, there's enough types of domains that you can really develop your own unique cleric, whether it's a a positive uh world-helping cleric or a really evil dark follower of a dark god type of cleric, and anything in between, uh, even a trickster, you can do that with a with a cleric.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the things we were talking about earlier when it comes to domains, is if you're running out of the core rule book, which is free to everybody, your one option is the domain of life, right?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it gives you you're not making a ton of decisions with a cleric if you're building one.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like this is the way I have to go.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you're running out of the player's handbook, you ought obviously those those choices expand.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: But at least for a new player, it it keeps it pretty straightforward for the most part.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think so.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I appreciate about domains, right, is if if you're brand new to DD and you've decided I'm gonna be the healer of the party, your cleric choice is very easy if you just are using the basic rules.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: They tell you what type of a background you should pick, they tell you what your only domain choice is, and it's a life domain, which is very heavy on the healing side.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as you hit first level, you automatically get access to a couple healing and buff spells.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that is very laid out for you.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as you grow in that domain and you continue to level up, you get access to different, you know, life domain spells.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: But if you start looking into additional material, you know, you want to play a cleric that not necessarily focusing on the healer side, or maybe you're playing some sort of um, you know, a different style campaign where you don't necessarily want to serve one of the you know gods of favor, and maybe you want to serve a Norse god, you can look into all these other domains that maybe tie into that deity better.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think across the wizard's published material right now, like there's like 14 domain choices or something like that.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there truly is a domain out there for the type of cleric that you want to play.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that I kind of want to circle back on that Brett talked about a little bit is you have to be careful with your deity choice.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um make sure your DM is okay with you playing a cleric who is maybe devoted to an evil god, because it definitely can not just impact the campaign as a whole, but very much impact your party kind of composition.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you have some people that are playing a lawful good character and you're kind of a uh even if you're bordering on the uh you know side of chaotic and neutral, it can still sometimes create some intra-party tension.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you just have to be cautious about things like that.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and when you when you have like a an evil a deity that leads toward the evil alignment, it changes your intentions, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like if you if you're a cleric, uh like we've talked about, you tend to be the healer, also warrior type path.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: If evil alignment is probably not gonna have you outward facing as a healer, I'm gonna heal myself first, then I'll worry about everybody if it's in my best interest, which changes like like you were saying, Phil completely changes the dynamic of a party if I'm worried about number one first and three, four, and five later, or whatever the case may be.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_03: But an interesting role-playing with picking your god is you don't have to be an ardent follower of that god.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: It could be that your god brought this on you, you didn't necessarily pick it, which is very different than when we were talking about paladins.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_03: Paladins are very close followers of a god.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: But cleric doesn't have to be.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: You could be a close follower of a god, but not necessarily.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I think this is all also tied to alignment in general as well.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because and one of my cons, not to go back to pros and cons, but one of my cons for the cleric though was it's an it's basically an unwritten rule that there's an alignment lock.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Clerics tend to skew toward good aligned characters.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: They might be good, chaotic, good, but they're not gonna be neutral or evil.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Brett makes a good point that you can certainly make this happen in whatever way because of how they follow them, or if they're sucked into a situation or something like that.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: But nine times out of ten, they're always gonna be probably a good character, almost always.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: I 100% love what you like the way you've approached this, Brett, because in my mind, I don't think I've ever really thought about it that way of like, what if the deity is the one basically that established the relationship and not necessarily the character?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because in those instances, in my mind, I'm starting as the DM thinking through a divine intervention, you know, scenario where you reach out to your deity and your deity is evil aligned and you may not be.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So it creates a fun opportunity for me as a DM for your deity to potentially ask you something to compromise almost your you know alignment, something leading maybe towards you know, turning you more towards an ardent follower instead of necessarily where you lie.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I really like that approach.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like the difference between your character's choices and your god's demands.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: So so before we before we get into the before we start wrapping this up and getting into this is our final thoughts on this character, I I think all of what we're talking about kind of l lends itself back to the fact that DD is open book.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can play the character you want to play.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we're getting at.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: So if you set up your character that their God is forcing them to do something, or if they're playing it as there's been some sort of divine intervention and they are a devout follower, do what you want.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's the whole point of this.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it what it boils down to is as long as your DM's okay with it and it fits within your campaign parameters that you've set up as a group and you're having fun with it, go for it.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_03: Do it.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_03: Work with your DM.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_03: That you there's so much flexibility in what you can do, what you can uh custom tailor to fit your character.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: Make sure they're on board, and you guys, you you too can roll with pretty much anything.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: All right, boys.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Final thoughts on clerics before we uh we get out of here.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love playing clerics.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's uh it's an easy class to play.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh things are kind of set out for you once you picked your domain, and I 100% think as an introductory you know player into DD that you could easily learn how to play the cleric class.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I love being able to be a supporting character in amongst a lot of um big brawly characters, it's it's something that you can help your entire party um be even more badass, more brazen just by being there to back them up.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I love both of those comments.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if if anybody out there has uh questions on playing a character, a character, questions on playing a cleric, you know, if I can say that correctly, uh, feel free to reach out to us.
• 20:14
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• 20:16
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• 20:17
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• 20:18
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• 20:20
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• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: So uh thank you all for listening.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'll catch you on the next episode.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll see you later.