Message 143 : Newbie Cleric's Guide (Vainamoinen)
Written on Wed Jan  7 16:27:29 2004

NEWBIE CLERIC'S GUIDE

This guide focuses on listing the most common and important cleric skills.
The listing also contains some guidelines for amount of practices to spend
on each skill.

When you think of clerics, your first thoughts are probably of healing and
blessing. These are important qualities for clerics, but they are not
necessarily the top priority skills in this world.

There are of course many reasons why someone would want to start a cleric
character. For me it has always  been the ability to survive on my own in
the wild. This may sound surprising to many newcomers, because clerics are
often imagined as weak people who need the protection of stronger characters
on adventures.

This also is a misconception. If you look at people who request help, it is
more often warrior types asking for clerical aid than clerics asking for
warrior aid. This is for numerous reasons.

  * breath of briskness (max)

Clerics can be very mobile in the wilderness because our guild offers the
Breath of Briskness spell, which improves move point regeneration by a great
deal. Other classes, especially warriors, will often welcome a cleric in
their group because the extra mobility that a cleric can give to the group
with BOB is remarkable. This mobility is also the number one key to escape
dangerous situations - a cleric who is unable to run or ride distances will
be a dead cleric pretty quickly, no matter how much healing he can do.

  * blindness (max)

Even when mobility is not required, cleric guild offers another valuable
skill, the Blindness spell. Casted on a creature, this spell will make the
target blind for an hour and a half. When creatures are blind, they are both
easier to hit with your swords and axes, and obviously they cannot see
anything so they cannot engage in fight either. Together with a warrior
who can send blinded opponents out of battle with powerful bashes, a group
of cleric and warrior can be a mighty combo, that will eventually be able
to put a fight against hordes of evil creatures.

  * sanctuary (max)

A few creatures out there are so powerful, that they can only be faced with
the help of sanctuary casted by a cleric. With this spell your services will
be in demand at higher levels.

A number of other spells of assistance can be practiced in the cleric guild,
most notably

  * create food (a couple practices)
  * bless (a few practices)
  * remove poison (a few practices)
  * strength (max)

The cleric guild also teaches certain offensive spells, that can be casted
on targets to inflict instant damage:

  * dispel evil (max)
  * harm (max)

For an average cleric these spells should be enough. Many have only one of
them, but others like to experiment by also (or instead) practicing an
offensive spell or two from the mage class. My opinion is that you will
then be more of a mage than a cleric, because of two protective spells that
you need to practice from the mage guild anyway:

  * armour (max)
  * shield (max)

It is entirely possible to be a succesfull cleric without any real fighting
abilities. Shooting with a bow, for example, works very well if you first
blind your victim. However, on low levels it may be worth it to practice
a weaponskill suitable for the weapon that you want to wield (depends on
your strength) once or twice. That will slightly improve your ability to
hit those foxes and wolves, before you are able to fight them with other
means. A couple of practices in parry won't hurt much either, but I advise
against going further than that.

  * heal (a few practices)
  * cure serious (max)
  * cure light
  * cure critical (a few practices)

In the beginning I mentioned that healing is not the most important part
of being a cleric. It is however a required part, because you and your
friends will get hurt and running away to safety is not always the best
option. These four healing spells do different things. Should you only want
to practice one of them, then you should get heal. But my experiences with
all of them has proved that at the time this guide is written a combination
of cure light or serious (max) AND cure critical (a few practices) AND heal
(a few practices) is the most efficient.

A number of useful skills can be practiced from the ranger guild also.

For equipment there are many options. The most important thing that should
affect your choise of weapon and equipment is your strength. I recommend
that if the class is not familiar to you, go with a piercing weapon or
a slashing weapon, and keep a bow also.

For further information about the skills or other things concerning the
cleric class, ask the guildmasters or write questions on this board. If you
cannot find a spell in the guild you are at, you might want to seek for
expert of that spell at other locations. The guilds at Forlond, the Druid
near Bree, and Rivendell usually offer the best services.

-Vainamoinen