How I Got Forever Banned From Playing Cleric At A Table
u/Malharon on r/DnDGreentext says: One of the most memorable characters I’ve
ever played in Pathfinder started as one of my most unhappy starts ever, as the GM starts
off by decreeing that the only race allowed was Human.
Unhappy as I was, I still made the best of it, and I decided to play a Cleric of Ragathiel.
For those of you who don’t know, Ragathiel is of the Destruction Domain, and is Lawful
Good.
Clerics also gain proficiency in their deity’s favored weapon, which in this case means the
Bastard Sword, and this is where the fun begins.
The GM decides to go with the standard Point-Buy system for our statline, which is amazing
for me, lets me perfectly balance my glorious creation’s stats *wink wink*.
I decide to completely use Dex as a dump stat, allowing me to have Wisdom and Charisma as
my high tier stats, and an average Strength and Con.
I use my human racial trait to bump up my Con, I guess Human does have some good benefits
after all.
I decide on taking proficiencies in Heavy Armor and Tower Shields, and I take a few
traits that buff my Craft and Profession skills.
Of course, I choose the glorious Destruction and Law domains, and this is where I begin
to lay the groundwork.
I decided that my backstory was that I was a blacksmith for my church, and asked my GM
if I could have crafted my own weapons and armor before the campaign starts.
He gives me the go ahead and lets me roll.
Nat 19, add my bonuses to that and...
Let’s just say it was a real big number.
The GM tells me that I was able to craft all the arms and armor I have, which makes me
very happy as I start with full plate armor, a tower shield, and the beautiful bastard
sword.
Let’s fast forward to game time, and introduce the party shall we?
I am playing the Lawful Good Human Cleric of Ragathiel, and accompanying me is: a Rogue,
Sword Saint with the Samurai Archetype, and a Paladin...
All Humans, of course *scoff*.
The GM wants to look over all of our character sheets, and seems to take a long look at my
own.
He dares to question why I am wielding my glorious bastard sword in one hand without
the Exotic Weapon Proficiency feat.
After letting him know it's my god’s favored weapon, and a bit of fumbling through the
books, he knows that I am correct.
I feel a great wave of glee as he sees my ridiculously high AC and immediately regrets
his allowance of me to craft my own gear.
I blow pretty much all of my gold on various supplies and a masterwork backpack, and thus
the game begins.
We start by gathering in a council of various organizations, both religious and not, and
it is decided that we are to be the strike force to deal with the first wave of Undead
from the Bleeding Crypt.
I take some time to prepare myself mentally and quietly pray to my god, as to not bother
my party as I am a very respectful Cleric.
After this preparation we all head out.
I immediately make friends as I offer to carry the heavy stuff due to my god-tier carrying
capacity...
All thanks to my masterwork backpack!
Our first encounter is trivial, standard fight.
Somehow I’m able to go first, even with my horrendous dex, and I take a good chunk
of a zombie off with my first strike.
The Rogue moves in for a sneak attack, the Paladin taking on a separate zombie, and our
Sword Saint moves in but can’t use his iaijutsu strike due to it being a Full Round Action.
I laugh at the zombies as they measly scratch at my high AC.
When the party gets a bit beat up, I channel positive energy around me to heal my party
and finish off the zombie with chunks missing.
I move forward to set up another flank as the Sword Saint almost drops another zombie
with his fancy bladework.
Zombies still can’t hit us, and the initiative is back on me.
I immediately dust another zombie with my Destructive Smite, and we easily clean the
rest up without much trouble.
Party asks me why I built my glorious cleric this way, and the answer is easy.
Tank cleric equals best cleric, plus it is stupid easy to make clerics super powerful.
After I explain that with my channel and spontaneous casting I can be an effective healer, the
party moves on.
After that I smite a few more zombies, spread the glorious wrath of Ragathiel, and get a
level up, our session ends.
The next day resumes our antics as it is time to explore an abandoned castle full of undead.
Of course I tank ahead, and the party quickly understands why tank cleric is best cleric.
We meet a vampire who was actually at one point the high priest of my church, and I
pop a true strike spell as he mocks us for “fighting the inevitable” or some standard
bad guy monologue stuff.
Our Paladin smites him mid-drawn-out monologue, and I immediately follow up with my true strike
attack that I stack just a bit of destructive smite on top of – because, destruction domain,
‘nuff said.
The vampire immediately retreats as we attacked him much quicker than anticipated.
A secret door opens and reveals a giant zombie, which of course we have to fight.
Hoo man was it a fight though, causing me to blow basically all of my spells and channels
to keep my party up.
I’m finally able to deal the final blow with my destructive smite, and I’m stunned
as this was the first thing to even damage me, leaving me with only 1 channel left.
We find some treasure that contains a magical bastard sword that had the impact feature,
and my jaw hit the floor.
Fast forward to level 8, and I have grown to be stupidly powerful, I blew my feats on
extra channel twice.
The GM is quite irked with my antics, but can’t help being impressed with what I have
up my sleeve.
We meet the vampire again and throw some quips back and forth.
I open up with a combo of Divine Power and Divine Favor and throw a destructive smite
straight into his undead face for a massive amount of damage.
The Sword Saint uses his ring to teleport as a free action for his iaijutsu strike,
the Paladin goes on smiting, the Rogue sneak attacks like a boss, and I pretty much am
negating any and all damage dealt to us.
The GM is getting real tired of this and pulls me aside post-session to ask why I’m hell
bent on turning almost every fight into a slaughter fest for us.
I let him know that clerics are very easy to break, and I wanted to get him back for
race-locking in creation.
Did I mention that I don’t like playing Human?
The next session we finish the fight we started and take out the vampire, and in a moment
of roleplaying I explain that Ragathiel weeps about his fallen high priest, but what must
be done must be done.
I stab him through the heart and do the necessary rituals to keep a vampire dead, all while
quietly saying prayers to Pahrasma to pass fair judgement upon him and ask that Ragathiel
forgive him as he was not himself.
After that we reach the center of The Bleeding Crypt, and it's there we find a Lich raising
an army of the dead and proceed to just absolute waste him way too easily.
Turns out that the Lich is only a henchman to the BBEG, and after we get him to speak,
the Sword Saint destroys his phylactery.
After that, we step into the Plane of Undeath... and proceed to murder everything in our path
due to being OP.
We finally reach the BBEG, something that the GM had custom built so I’m not sure
of what it was other than it needed to die.
The fight immediately begins with no words from either side, as we knew why we had come.
I had made sure to pre buff before the fight, and I swing for all that I’m worth...
Natural 1…
Luckily the Rogue uses a good luck charm that lets me reroll...
Nat 20, with a confirmation!
Max damage all the way as the fury of Ragathiel burns through me.
The BBEG attempts to disintegrate me but red angel wings wrap around me as I call upon
Ragathiel for aid.
The Rogue uses this distraction to slam a scroll of healing into the face of the BBEG.
For those that don’t know, healing magic harms Undead in Pathfinder, reducing this
BBEG to dust.
We begin to make our way back to the Material Plane, and the doors begin to close as hordes
of frenzied Undead rush toward us.
We stop running and I lift my magical bastard sword into the air and blow a hero point to
use up every last bit of domain powers and spells to create a massive wave of destruction.
After a ton of d6 rolls, the party is blasted through the portal.
The party wakes up in the ruins of The Bleeding Crypt, surrounded by the rubble that once
made up the portal between the two planes.
Then they realize something...
I am not with them.
They have no way of reaching me.
My Cleric now stands guard over the portal to the world of the living within the Plane
of Undeath, and has been granted the title of the Unmoving Knight by Ragathiel.
The game ends, and the GM says that he had a ton of fun, but I am banned from ever playing
a cleric at his table again.
And you know what? I can completely understand his reasoning.
I hope you enjoyed this story as much as we did.
Cleric is undoubtedly one of the strongest classes out there and as the OP himself said:
“It is kinda hard not to play an OP cleric in Pathfinder”.
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