Favorite Spells: Cleric Edition

[Nol Drek]

I went with the obvious Cure Spells:
Heal, Cure Critical Wounds

Then I went with the devourer of HP: Harm

The mandatory: Resurrection

Finally, Damage Over Time: Blade Barrier

Every party needs a Cleric.

[Iranon]

Cure Light Wounds: As a stand-in for the entire line of healing spells. Especially strong considering the fix command (which I downgrade severely  in my own modules).

Detect Magic: I want many of these, and first-level cleric slots happen to be the most plentiful for them.

Hold Person: Very powerful for a low-level cleric spell. Can be used indiscriminately against humanoid opponents since you probably want to rest for other reasons before you run out of these.

Dispel Magic: Having several party members disabled by a single hold spell or having your own mage drop a nuke on you isn't good.

Blade Barrier: Credible source of magic damage and useful for cutting off access.


Honourable mention: Destruction. In the unhacked game, it doesn't need an attack roll and doesn't allow a saving throw. Clerics have many somewhat useful wish-me-dead spells, this one stands out.

[nologgie]

Honourable mention: Destruction. In the unhacked game, it doesn't need an attack roll and doesn't allow a saving throw. Clerics have many somewhat useful wish-me-dead spells, this one stands out.

Absolutely. One of the few spells that can change a character's status to Gone. By the book, it should require a touch.

A topic I haven't seen discussed here is whether the slay and cause wounds spells should be as limited as the non-reversed versions.

If Raise Dead can't raise an elf, should Slay Living kill one? Should monsters immune to a Cure Wounds be subject to a Cause Wounds? The list of creatures affected by the Hold Person spell suggests such limitations exist for offensive spells.

It would probably be a pain to hack the spells to limit the effect, though, so I expect it to remain as-is. Meanwhile, my clerics will continue casting Cause Light Wounds the old-fashioned way:  By whacking opponents with heavy blunt instruments.

[Null Null]

Yeah, it's not worth making a to-hit roll to do 1-8 points of damage when you can do about as much with a mace. Even the critical wounds spell isn't much better than a magic flail and an enlarge spell. I've seen one hack that dispensed with cause light wounds and cause critical wounds.

I think you could probably make undead immune to those spells by making them death-elemental in the hacks, but they're so rarely used it's not worth it.

[Iranon]

I brought that up once when I posted my findng about damage types. In 3rd edition, the effects of cure and cause wounds were reversed for undead.

The 2nd edition PHB states that nonliving, noncorporeal or extraplanar creatures can't benefit from the curative version, the wording is a little ambiguous but it seems they are immune to the reversed version as well. Harm explicitly follows the same rules as the cause wounds spells, the wording for Slay Living is ambiguous about whether it inherits the restrictions if there are any:
'The reverse of the spell, slay living, grants the victim a saving throw vs. death magic. If the saving throw is successful, the victim sustains damage equal to that of a cause serious wounds spell-i.e., 2d8+1 points, Failure means the victim dies instantly'.

I'm fairly sure Slay Living works just fine on Elves; the limitations on raising stem from elven souls being too classy for everyone else's afterlife or returning to a measly Raise Dead.
Resurrection worked just fine, making the conflicting lore released to explain this even worse.

I don't know if you can alter which creatures are affected by healing spells.  The reversals are easy - change the damage type of the Cause Wounds, Harm and possibly Slay Living spells from 8 (magic) to 72 (magic, death effect) and creatures who have the immunity to death box checked will take no damage from them.

[nologgie]

I brought that up once when I posted my findng about damage types. In 3rd edition, the effects of cure and cause wounds were reversed for undead.

I guess I missed that. I know some types of undead could be slain or returned to life by a raise dead spell even in 1e.

I don't know if you can alter which creatures are affected by healing spells.  The reversals are easy - change the damage type of the Cause Wounds, Harm and possibly Slay Living spells from 8 (magic) to 72 (magic, death effect) and creatures who have the immunity to death box checked will take no damage from them.

Looking at ckitform, it seems possible to alter which creatures are affected by cure spells. To do the same for the reversals would require extra space (which isn't there) or some major shifting.

The disadvantage to flagging monsters with death immunity for modified cleric damage spells is that it would also give immunity to mage death magic that should affect them.

On the plus side, it should all be do-able in DC v2.0 (or sooner). 

[Iranon]

In the default game, undead, elementals and iron golems are immune to death effects... none of these should be affected by cure spells (they are though; could you tell me how to change this? I can't seem to find the relevant part of ckitform.) and possibly not by the reverses thereof.
So far so good.

Efreeti and Salamanders are more problematic - these are clearly extraplanar but not death immune, although the 'of extraplanar origin' in the description of the Cure Light Wounds spell baffles me a little as that would seem to rule out many legitimate targets.
I'm also not sure how fiends or celestials should react to death magic or cause wounds spells. D&D SNAFU I suppose - pedantic and supposedly unambiguous wording in individual rules as opposed to concepts that make sense.

[nologgie]

In the default game, undead, elementals and iron golems are immune to death effects... none of these should be affected by cure spells (they are though; could you tell me how to change this? I can't seem to find the relevant part of ckitform.) and possibly not by the reverses thereof.
So far so good.

My bad. I was looking at Raise Dead/Resurrection rather than the Cure spells. (Trying to decipher the OP codes, and doing a poor job of it.)

Efreeti and Salamanders are more problematic - these are clearly extraplanar but not death immune, although the 'of extraplanar origin' in the description of the Cure Light Wounds spell baffles me a little as that would seem to rule out many legitimate targets.
I'm also not sure how fiends or celestials should react to death magic or cause wounds spells. D&D SNAFU I suppose - pedantic and supposedly unambiguous wording in individual rules as opposed to concepts that make sense.

The 1e CLW description doesn't mention extraplanars as such, but it does state the following:

"This healing will not affect creatures without corporeal bodies, nor will it cure wounds of creatures not living or those which can be harmed only by iron, silver, and/or magical weapons. Its reverse, cause light wounds, operates in the same manner; and if a person is avoiding this touch, a melee combat "to hit" die is rolled to determine if the cleric's hand strikes the opponent and causes such a wound."

FRUA ignores these restrictions, however the reversals do operate in the same manner. (Except Iron Golems are immune to Cause Wounds spells due to their magic resistance.)

[iatus]

Hold Person is practically the only level 2 spell that I memorize, immensely powerful. I hate it though when enemy clerics use it on my characters.... 

I am quite disappointed with Prayer. In the regular AD&D it is considered a very powerful spell, but in FRUA I can't get it to work right. Most of the times the prayer will only affect my casting priest, which is somewhat sad. I still cannot get this spell mechanics right.