http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... 105templar

As for Fighters and Warlords, there are some changes but it is still the PH1 Cleric.

to say it lightly, I am very unhappy with the changes in this article.

I understand some of them, but they've nerfed many good powers to below average tier and making some signature powers (Turn Undead, Flamestrike, Firestorm) barely worth taking...

They are taking feedback at the following link, if you like or dislike the changes please post at the official forum. Personally I find it inexcusable that they change Leader AoEs to ones that nuke the party. At least they reduced the damage and the AoE size when they did it ..............

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... c_(Templar)

Botanicus, read the article & the thread and do not know what to say. Sadly, I am not sure if the developers will listen, are listening, or will even respond.

Cleric wasn't a class I played a lot over the years. In previous editions, the cleric was often a NPC. Obviously, that's not a choice in 4e but while they were good healers, there were other clerics that were much better leaders that the loss of healing was felt that badly.

Was this simply balance for the sake of balance rather than trying to combat 'power creep?" I honestly don't know.

I think there are some serious issues facing the future of WoTC with D&D. More articles like this one will simply encourage players/dms to tune out anything from ddi & play as they want. Which, in my opinion, is not a bad thing, but not what WoTC would like I am sure.

PR

The reaction on the WotC forums has been nearly universally bad for this article. The best i've seen so far is 'Yeah it needed nerfed, but i'm not sure if it was too much'

They will be doing an R&D podcast next week explaining portions of it, but i'm still hoping for a retraction on some of the updates.

I'm glad to see i'm in good company over there though with Litigation (Paladin Handbook) Lordduskblade (General handbook) and GelatinousOctahedron (Cleric Handbook) all speaking against it.

in the mean time, i'll be happy my girlfriend is the DM for my character currently most impacted by the updates. She likes my cleric so i think she'll look the other way on these, but we'll see.

Nowadays, these changes are kind of force fed to us. I know my group used character builder and whenever they print a new character sheet, they are picking up errata whether we all agree on them or not.

Sometimes this feels too much like a video game than a tabletop game...

WoTC is acting like one of those awful DMs who doesnt realize that the player characters are supposed to win.

My two cents: Stop using the official tools. They're overpriced and underwhelming. Use paper and pencil. You'll have a better understanding of your characters and you can pick and choose which errata you agree with.

The official response, quoted in full:

"Why did the cleric get nerfed? What were the underlying reasons for the changes?

The biggest nerfs to the cleric fall into a couple of categories: turn undead and a handful of other attack powers that had higher-than-typical damage for powers of their level.

In the case of turn undead, the scaling damage and size of the burst made this power substantially better than most daily attack powers available to the cleric. We didn’t feel that the targeting limitations placed on this power justified it being better than any daily attack power, especially when it can be recharged through use of power or path combos. An area-effect pile of radiant damage is already going to benefit from the vulnerability that most undead have to such damage (even on a miss), and the push plus immobilize is great control. The changes to the power do make it weaker than your typical daily attacks, but it is still likely better than your encounter attack power options.

We also reduced the damage or area of about a half-dozen cleric powers. We felt these powers went too far above our target power level, especially in comparison to controllers like the wizard, but even in comparison to other powers the cleric had available. When we design a game element, we have a target power level in mind, and the final powers always fall within a short range of that target. Sometimes powers are better, and sometimes a little worse than the target. A little better or worse is fine, but when a power or feat clearly sails way over the target, we need to bring it back in line. Otherwise, whenever we make new powers for the cleric, we’d have powers like fire storm or astral storm to compare them to, and if we make the new powers competitive with the original versions of the 'storms, then we introduce unintentional power creep to the game.

Of course, we are always listening to community feedback, and we’ll also have a discussion in the most recent podcast to address this more in depth."

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... 3/20110523

Nicely put.

Also, Emily, thanks for the summary. Not sure if their answers will calm people down but a lot of the irritation seemed to be due to the fact that there wasn't much discussion regarding the cleric prior to these changes.

It was most ironic that ddi had the previous week posted an article discussing why people don't play the cleric & how can the character be made to be more appealing. Then they came out with all these changes to the cleric (not calling it a templar, sorry).

Talk about a perfect storm for warranted or unwarranted over reaction.

PR

I'm glad they released the podcast, and that they took questions.

I'm not entirely happy with the answers and started a suggestions section in the Dragon article discussion thread. Hopefully it'll work its way to the developers.