>>Trying to argue that Clerics suck, are hated by GMs, never get anything et cetera by pointing to a slightly anemic spellbook ignores the fact that Cleric spells on the whole are very versatile and provide a great deal of utility depending on how they are used.

I still disagree.

I'm not arguing that Clerics suck or are hated and never was. My argument was that Clerics have a few really neat spells that are top-tier, but I could point to Moon Mages and Warrior Mages and see the same things. The "value" of a Cleric spell slot is not somehow magically more valuable than a Moon Mage spell slot. The same considerations of usefulness, function, and cost v. reward go into a spell's design regardless of guild.

Cleric spells aren't proportionately better than Moon Mage spells != Cleric spells suck.

Moon Mages may have more, quote, "useless" spells because they have many more spells. Likewise, however, looking at the spell lists I can see more Moon Mage and Warrior Mage spells I would take in a heart-beat simply by virtue of there being a larger pool of selection.
*******
Because it's a gigantic can of worms. Eldritch, necrotic, squamous worms, writhing in a vile stew of coagulating ichor, crushed from the living gullets of a thousand infant puppies, ululating in wordless terror.

I don't know if it needs to be prioritized, but it's going to follow that expanding the spellbook is going to provide new spells and options at all levels of skill.

Generally when people ask I tell them not to get Benediction at 30th, but they might as well take it later in the 30s since you'll be a bit more capable of using it then and there's not a ton of dramatically compelling alternatives. If our spellbook gets to the point where it's viable to put Benediction off into the mid to upper 40s simply because there's a lot of interesting alternatives, so much the better.

If you look at War Mages or Moon Mages, the magic primes with more filled out spellbooks, you don't tend to notice huge skews in spell tier distribution or in development - they simply have more of everything. It's going to follow that the same will happen with us, particularly since not all spell concepts need to be 4th or 5th tier to be good solid choices.

Also consider this - the tier of our spellbook with the most representation? Third.

Syralon
"'Every apostle or disciple,' Mrs. Clark says, 'as much as they're running to follow their savior - they're running just as hard to escape something else.'"

>>Wouldn't that mean there should be more 1st and 2nd tier spells and thus more middle level spells? Just trying to understand here. Honestly I've never seen a WM or MM spell tree before thus I don't have never compared.

	Cleric	WM	MM
T1	4	13	7
T2	7	11	12
T3	13	12	12
T4	7	5	12
T5	1	0	2

We have a pretty balanced spellbook that has plenty of room to expand in lower and upper tiers alike.

~Aeth

>>Outside of the quantity/quality argument, something to note is that Clerics are a very late-blooming guild.

I couldn't agree more with you, m'friend. The better my magic skills, the more useful all the spells along all tiers are proving to be.

My gripe with the cleric guild is the vocal negatively that has taken place over time. While I understand it, it tends to get nothing accomplished. Personally, I feel we're in a golden era of our development as a guild at this point, from the standpoint that we have extremely thorough and innovative GMs behind the scenes. Unfortunately, it is always a game of patience, as the cleric guild cannot be a priority over mechanics that affect every player type in Dragonrealms.

Still, the idea of community leaders intrigues me because it allows us to come together in a forum with guided discussion (hopefully) that can lead us towards a direction with which we will all feel comfortable and perhaps look to with a tinge of optimism, given the large strides the guild has made in the last 3 years.

The thought of having a bit of affect over our own development is appealing.

- Tyrun

u sumuhmuh

:oP Ragran