Talk:Devonshire Clerics

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Devonshire is slowly trudging along towards being complete enough to release, and an integral part of that city is the clerics. Since the city is getting recoded, I figured the guild should get recoded as well. I had asked before on the cleric guild board for input, but apparently since Bless no longer grants +200 to everything, the entire guild is useless and no one plays clerics any more (and it seems no one ever bothers to look at the guild boards).

One of the key aspects of reworking a guild is to establish the concept behind the guild. This gives cohesion to the guild and sets up its identity, while preventing it from becoming a loose-knit group of rag-tag adventurers with cool powers. Discussions have been carried out between developers, but the main thing I drew from it was that Chaos has a dislike for the term 'Cleric', and there is no real unifying theme behind the guild other than being a rip-off of D&D clerics.

A trait of LS that seems to span across every porject is that the longer it is on-line, the more it changes and evolves via tiny little tweaks her, small adjustments there, and a few randomly inserted updates. The Clerics are no exception to this. This leads me to my current situation and question. What is the concept of the clerics? Are they spell-casters who derive their powers from the gods, are they holy warriors with certain spell-like abilities, are they predominantly warriors with a few healing spells, or what?

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First of all, let me say thank you for undertaking this project. It is long over-due and something I don't think any of us are willing to foot the bill for. So... thanks.

Yes, it's true Chaos(and some others of us, myself included) have a disdain toward the term 'cleric'. It's far too vague for my liking. The clerics, as they are, are simply rip-offs of DnD as you've stated. This bothers me, as they aren't even -good- rip-offs of DnD clerics. =) However, I do not have an idea for a better term for cleric that I can pull out of my miniscule mind at this time.

As far as a guild... clerics as they stand are primarily spell-casting warrior-types. They're a little misleading though, as you'd think they have effective healing spells -- but they don't. The current system of gaining exp for healing is quite nice, but it cripples their ability to make anything of the actual healing effect. One mediocre heal every three minutes(or whatever it is) simple doesn't cut the mustard when you consider all other possible outlets for regaining hitpoints. The offensive capabilities of the current clerics are also mediocre at best. Spiritual hammer is sorta nice, and turn undead is not without it's uses -- but it's all extremely spirit intensive with the current bless. Flame strike is decent, I suppose. I believe the code is outdated though, which makes it impossible to use in groups. Having not played Canada for awhile though, this may or may not be true.

As a side note: I realize bless was a bit outrageous -- I agree with nerfing it... however not to the extent in which it has. That extra spirit was vital to actually utilizing the high-cost spells in our arsenal, in my opinion.

Using bless as a segway, the cleric defensive/support spells are adequate. Blade barrier is fantastic, as is protection from evil(though not lasting as long as desired, but hey, what can you do). However, with low spec access in combat skills, a now pitiful bless, and few options for self-healing, the once-great defensive grimore has been nuked to mediocre. Support spells, even without bless, have their ups and downs. Prophylaxis doesn't last long enough in my opinion, but I've yet to really time it. Things like wind walk, regenerate, resist fire, neutralizing poison... yeah, they are nice to have. That's probably the only positive point of playing a cleric these days. (except for not being able to neutralizing poison on the same person within 3 minutes, but you can cure disease them as much as you want. that blows my feeble mind)

For a recoded cleric, I'd like to see the existing spell-casting scheme done away with. Memorizing spells is simply a throwback to the DnD ripoff-ishness of the current clerics. Praying for the worshipped God to bring the power of said invocation down upon someone would be more thematic(if any theme were to actually exist). That's just a piss-poor random idea though, so take it with a grain of salt.

As for your question -- if clerics are a spell-caster guild, a paladinish guild, or just warriors with healing -- I'd like to see them around the middle. Right now, they are warriors with poor spell casting abilities all around. They're sort of in the same boat as outsiders are -- people keep them around for the novelty and occasional support usage. I don't know what direction you would take your new clerics, but if you need my help in any way, shape, or form feel free to poke me. =)

Thanks again. Lysolian 15:10, 23 December 2008 (EST)

• Clerics should be walking advertisements for their God. Using their God's power to heal the faithful, defend the faith, destroy the enemy and hopefully convert the rest. So, I don't think seperate gods should be within the same guild. I think a cleric-like guild is only suitable for certain gods. Some gods would be more subtle or wouldn't care about such things, etc. Cleric as a term might be suitable for one god, but each religion should have it's own terms. I've been playing Gesus a lot recently, a cleric of Gaia who spends most of his time curing disease and helping defend losthaven. It's kinda fun with the new disease changes. But I shouldn't have the same spell list as a cleric of odin. The gods should be separated and their powers/spells/abilities made more thematic. I don't know which gods fit into Devonshire and Avalon. Are they the gods that were worshiped on Avalon before the Altrian empire brought Yehovah? How do they get along with the Knights? Fruri 15:02, 23 December 2008 (EST)