TOPIC: anxiety over the cleric class

Toran wrote: Yeah... that's 50 minutes to get your gear recorded and everything else.

Your party may wait in the coaching room up to 30 (not 50) minutes prior to your official ticketed start time. The coach will come into the room at your official start time and spend 24 (not 50) minutes filling out the party card and answering questions. You will then move into the training room where you will have 12 minutes to work on sliding and skill checks.

As for dealing with the beads, I got "forced" into playing cleric many years ago and I freaked out! However, using a mnemonic device to memorize the beads made it a breeze and cleric has been my favorite class ever since.

The coaches guide download is the only place that updated the 50 min pre startr time down to 30 min. I believe the event description under the how to play tab and the gencon event description still list the original 50.The coaches are going to have their hands full with people showing up early.

oh joy...

Also, if your party gets really beat up and you're stressed about healing, have the Paladin do a big Heal on one character and then use your Restore Power spell which will let him do a free Heal of the same size on a different character. Great way to get a badly damaged group back up near full without expending too many resources.

Druegar wrote: oh joy...

LOL it's hard enough getting people to show up 10 minutes early. I don't know how many people are going to show up 50 min early... But I guess it's possible.

CrowOfPyke wrote: The fibia bone is in the front row.

BZZZT!

Sorry. That's the tibia. The fibula is lateral, buried in the muscle.

Pointers for playing a cleric huh?

Grab a bunch of healing, like the one point potions or small scrolls. They are good for topping off after any heal spell you cast.

Read through the other [url=http://http://truedungeon.com/resources/item/49-character-class-cards]character cards[/url] for abilities and spells other classes have. Convince them that using these once a dungeon spells or abilities isn't a bad thing since you can give it to them again with your Restore Power or Restore Spell. Having these is only half the job of using them.

The cleric is the guy most likely to jump from hurling spells to swinging iron and back again, so you have to be ready to change at a moments notice. Choose some easy room or monster hooks to identify which you should be when combat starts, then listen well during the first round to figure out if you should change.

Our cleric memorized the beads by touch. It's amazing to see the look the GM gives him when he hands the beads back without actually looking at them. This took a while though, so you would have to get a couple runs under your belt to get this one down.

If you are unsure about how something works, don't be afraid to ask the GM. He is the guy that's going to make the final call anyway. This happened to us a couple years ago when the cleric hit the paladin with the Restore Power to give him back all his heal boxes. Since the spell says "next turn", any healing that wasn't used that next turn was wasted. The unused boxes that were granted by the spell would lost. The GM was very gracious in helping us figure this out before we actually went though the motions. These guys are there to help, so use them.

That's all I have right now. If I think of anything else, I'll post it too.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the great advice.

This is the third year for me to play the cleric. Though I get very anxious about it, I've been lucky enough not to miss any so far.

What happens when you don't get the bead right anyway? Do you just fail the spell? Do you get smacked with a wiffle bat? Does everyone point and laugh?!?!?!

... I think I need a sedative.

Seriously though, I am really going to respect the spell casters in our Pathfinder game a lot more. The character's they are playing really have to study a lot! What do the fighters do but eat, drink and kill things?

Even in fantasy settings, nerds have to do all the hard work!

Getting the skill test correct just adds a bonus to healing or damage. If you fail you will still cast the spell, just not as strongly.

Kevin Jacobi wrote: What happens when you don't get the bead right anyway? Do you just fail the spell?

Per the Player Guide on pages 10-11, if you correctly identify the bead, the spell has maximum effect. If you fail the bead test, the spell still works, but has a diminished effect. This principle applies to all spells for all classes when a skill check is required to cast a spell.

Both amounts of damage/healing are written on the character cards .

It's amazing how many people got forced into playing the cleric the first time. I was the same in 2010 for my first run of TD...And I managed to get every bead check right somehow that year. I've played Cleric in all but one run ever since.

For the beads, some look very similar, so I tend to make groups in my head from smallest to largest...Not perfect, but it's fast and dirty so it fits in the 12 minute window you have to study them.

Good tips all! Last year was my first TD and I'm not a role-player so the terminology overwhelmed me a bit; others suggested I be Cleric so I did. I got maybe half the bead checks right?? It does sound like from people's comments that they're the same year-to-year though? That will help!