TOPIC: anxiety over the cleric class

Hi all,

My gaming group is coming down from Canada for GenCon and have signed up for True Dungeon. We played last year and had fun - for the most part.

I was the cleric (we needed one and everyone else had their heart set on other characters). I got all my castings off but felt a lot of anxiety over remembering all the beads in the limited prep time before we start.

Besides choosing another class, any advice on tricks to remembering the beads? Is there a way to study before we go next week? If you use a healing spell, will you be asked to identify the same bead each time (i.e. the one for healing).

I know I should really chill out. I love playing this game with my friends and just don't want to let them down.

Thanks for your help!

Hi Kevin,

I'll let the clerics respond about memorization tricks, but as a general comment I'd suggest doing your best and not worry about how you will do. As our Druid I go in expecting to fail the leaf test and consider it a bonus if I get it right

The main thing is to have fun!

Mike

LOL - great attitude!

I know that I'm doing this to myself since my friends are great.

I feel like I'm in school again and the big exam is next week!

I felt the same way, which is why I always avoided the casters, especially the fragile ones.

Cleric is my favorite role! My understanding is that you will be allowed 50 minutes in the training area for the class you intend to play, prior to your adventure. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Short term memorization can be difficult, but usually I just create a mental link between the bead and what it represents. For instance, (just an example), say life is represented by a flower bead, well spring is a time of new life and hence a connection is made. It serves me well.
My tip to you would be to let everyone know when they need a heal. It can be next to impossible to keep up with everyone's life, and it will take some stress off of you to put this responsibility in their hands. Also, heal everyone up that needs it at the end of a room. You never know what threat and hence what damage is right around the corner! Plus, you may want to spend that first action turning undead instead of healing. Also, if you are in a pinch for heals use restore special power on a Druid or Paladin in the group. Go read their special powers if you aren't sure what I'm talking about. Lastly, don't be afraid to throw a slider for damage if you aren't actively needing to cast spells. If you are still having problems PM me and we can talk further. Relax and dungeon up!

Mike's got the right idea. Especially during your first few runs or years, getting a bead bonus is ice cream on the cake. A happy addition!

I play Rogue, and it took me about four years not to sweat the trap boxes. These days, I've gotten used to the boxes' nuances- watch the bends, pause when you need a break, always take the T-shirt option, have someone else hold the and rotate the light, tricks like that. I still sometimes fail, but it doesn't bug me like it originally did. C'est la vie.

Or, if the thought of playing the cleric continues to cause unnecessary stress (especially after a year), then perhaps a different class might be a better fit. No harm in that- much better for the whole group when you play to your own strengths, and where you'd have the most fun.

You might want to consider the Paladin. A bit of healing, much of your equipment will transfer nicely, and no beads or tests to recall.

Personally, I certainly would not do well at the memorization!

james freeman wrote: Cleric is my favorite role! My understanding is that you will be allowed 50 minutes in the training area for the class you intend to play, prior to your adventure. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Short term memorization can be difficult, but usually I just create a mental link between the bead and what it represents. For instance, (just an example), say life is represented by a flower bead, well spring is a time of new life and hence a connection is made. It serves me well.
My tip to you would be to let everyone know when they need a heal. It can be next to impossible to keep up with everyone's life, and it will take some stress off of you to put this responsibility in their hands. Also, heal everyone up that needs it at the end of a room. You never know what threat and hence what damage is right around the corner! Plus, you may want to spend that first action turning undead instead of healing. Also, if you are in a pinch for heals use restore special power on a Druid or Paladin in the group. Go read their special powers if you aren't sure what I'm talking about. Lastly, don't be afraid to throw a slider for damage if you aren't actively needing to cast spells. If you are still having problems PM me and we can talk further. Relax and dungeon up!

You will have 30 minutes prior to your start time that you can go into the coaching room (which doesn't have the beads) and then it's 24 minutes with the coach and then another 12 minutes in the prep room from my understanding. So you really only have 12 minutes with the beads. As a cleric I would just focus on beads memorization and don't sweat it if you don't get it. I believe this year on one run I'll run a druid and it will be funny compaired to a druid we had last year. He was a horticultruist (sp) so they tried to trick him and he explained why the picture they had was not a true representation of the dogwood leaf but he said it was their dogwood leaf...

Have fun, don't stress, and remember if you don't get the bead it still goes off unlike the first few years.

Bead tricks - I agree, you have to tell yourself a story. Don't just try to memorie the random shape, look for what's different -this one is a small flower, that one has a fish on it, this reminds me of a book - and hook them mentally that way. There's an ancient magical principal that when you know a thing's true name you gain power over it. So name the beads.

And turn the study card on its side so you can see the beads from every angle. Some beads are glued on the card hole-down, but in the dungeon you'll be seeing them on their sides because they're strung together on a chain.

And I agree one hit point can make a difference. I turned down one point of healing in room 6 on my first adventure and three hitsin room 7 knocked me down to exactly zero. I'd have preferred being knocked down to one.

But this is a game. If you blow a bead-check nobody is going to really die, so relax

Yeah... that's 50 minutes to get your gear recorded and everything else. It's still the usual 12 minutes of training.

Kevin, for a Normal (or even Hardcore depending on your gear) run, I've found that it's extremely unlikely that you'll even need the cleric to cast all of their heal spells. If you fail the bead test on some of your spells, it's really no big deal.

Here here! Brilliant advice from some longstanding clerics! I guess the only thing I can add is to not hew and haw on the test - that time is better spent elsewhere - remember, time is the real enemy here. Do your best, bt if yo're sure you haven't a clue what 'devotion' looks like, then take a quick stab at it and move on.

I play wizard and my first year I was worried about the memorization test too. Here is my advice to any class that needs to memorize things: focus on getting a few things down solid instead of the whole collection. For example, if there are 12 beads you need to memorize, just focus on memorizing 6 of them really well. Then you can hope you get quizzed on those 6, and you can take a guess if you are quizzed on the others but don't fret too much. Then, then next time you play refresh your memory on those same 6 and commit 3 more to memory.

Using mental hooks, or memory triggers, is good advice.

Quick everyone! Which is in front in your lower leg, the tibia or the fibia? The answer: Bob Uecker. From his old "I must be in the front row" beer commercials for Miller Brewing. Front row. Fibia. The fibia bone is in the front row. Human anatomy class is impossible without such mental hooks, I am sure 12 beads are more easily conquered.

Make up some mental hooks for yourself that make sense to you and you will have little trouble with bead memorization.