Troll Lord Games

There have been more responses than I expected. It's something I was thinking about, but I think I'm sticking to "by the book". Although, I'm sure it's not a game breaker. On a separate note, I have allowed some gods from OG&M into my game. Aihrde and others. We'll see if that was a good idea or not, but that's another thread...

Having also played clerics, and currently playing one (approaching 7th level!) I like not having to "load up" on healing spells (My CK, Kayolan, also allows us to change to healing spells) and get the chance to actually use other spells, such as Prayer, Protection from Evil, Hold Person, Silence, Dispel Magic, etc... a bit more often. So now we typically come of of fight barely standing, where as before, since I would have pretty much exclusively healing prayed for, we'd come out of combats mostly healed. We also don't "charge ahead" to the next encounters, either, if we were really beat up. We withdraw and rest and recover. I have definitely never felt like a "heal bot" with this character, which is all I was in games where I played Clerics before.

So I find it makes Clerics much more fun to play as a player, and as a CK its pretty obvious to me my players find it much more pleasant to play as well. So it was/is a good idea from 3E, and that is how I do it, as well as most of my CK's. In fact, all 3 of them do it in the online games I play.

I am also doing it "old school" in the Friday Ravenloft game I have been running. What do I see on the cleric spell lists? Healing spells. Lots of healing spells. There are two clerics, so in game they changed up their spells a bit to where they now have a Prayer, Dispel Magic, Shield of Faith, and Protection from Evil on their lists.

So I definitely prefer doing it how 3E introduced, rather than how it was done the 17 years I played prior to the release of 3E.

So that is why I also like C&C, it is easy to add on all the ideas I like from other games, whether from 3E, Pathfinder, 4E, 2E or earlier, GURPS, or Paladium Fantasy. So C&C is precisely the game I want, now. So "my" C&C is my favorite game of all time.

I definitely am glad that all the CK's I game with like a lot of the same things I do. I'd definitely feel like I was having less fun having to play the "old school" heal bot cleric.

So while there is no "wrong way" to do it, I obviously feel there are "less fun" ways to do things. But that is why I do house rules, to make my rules tighter (such as giving stacking rules, clarifying polymorph, changing up teleportation, making energy drain a little less devastating, etc...), and to add rules ideas I feel make the game more fun than it is in its "by the book" form. So I have Luck Points, Clerics able to convert spells to "heal" spells, Druids have an Elemental Path available to them and can spontaneously convert spells to Animal Summonings, spell casters have an Arcane/Divine Blast available to them that I took from 4E, Crit/Fumble rules, expanded explanations on what I allow to be done with the SIEGE engine, and more.

As said, though, my definition of "fun" is not how others necessarily define "fun". So how I do things is not for everyone. Which just makes me appreciate that the CK's I game with do as much as they do as I do it. Not that they have come even close to adapting my House Rules, but they do a lot in similar ways. Which has definitely helped me enjoy their games noticeably more than I would a game ran "by the book" C&C. Which I know, because I have played C&C "by the book", usually at Gen Con, Troll Con, and Gary Con. While I had fun, I would have enjoyed the experience even more with more added. I guess that is where the CKG will come in. A lot of the alternate rules in the CKG are variants on the rule ideas I use myself. So in any future conventions I make, any game I hear will be using the CKG rules will be of significantly greater interest to me than a "by the book" C&C game.

That is to be expected, everyone has a different definition of what is "fun" to them. So we all have varying house rules, or simply go "by the book", or add on the CKG in part or whole sale. So there is definitely not a "wrong way" to do things, unless your the one playing under those things you do not like. Unless you would prefer the game to be different than it is being ran. That is the only time it is "wrong". I just hope those people will be able to find a game more to their liking sooner rather than later.

I just feel very lucky, as I have mentioned before, that I found several CK's on line who play the game closer to what I like. Here at home I have it even better. I taught everyone here how to play, so when they CK they use my house rules. For all 8 of them, C&C is "my" C&C, as well as theirs. Threads like this just remind me of how fortunate I am in that regard.

Lord Dynel wrote:I originally house ruled it as such, but I've since gone back to RAW (meaning, not allowing the "spontaneous casting" like 3.x). I don't think there's a game balance issue, but to me it makes cleric players a little lazy. I know, I'm an ass for saying that, but it takes some thinking out of their spell selection for the day if they know they can fall back on a cure spell. I know it makes the cleric less fun if he's a "healbot" and doesn't do anything but heal and buff the party. My two thoughts on that are 1) that's kind of the cleric's job and 2) if you didn't want that to be a possibility then you shouldn't have taken cleric as your class. I believe that sometimes the choice needs to be made that you need to memorize raise dead or plane shift instead of cure critical wounds. Being able to fall back on that cure critical is kind of a cop out, in my opinion, and is one one of the things that makes them an already powerful class. I'm so glad the Trolls didn't put the spontaneous casting rules in as RAW.

My apologies for sounding like a douche bag! I don't intend to. I guess 3.5 has really soured me over the years.

If you are a douche bag for these kinds of attitudes and play styles, let me be the first or second deciple of the Great & Mighty Douche Bag, Lord Dynel!

*bows*

~O