Cleric Guide
COMPILED AND WRITTEN
by Adhara Hathor
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Cleric Guide
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March 2001
Introduction
First you have a right to ask who I am to think I can write a guide about my class. My name is Adhara Hathor, human priestess of Holy Lumnis. At the time of writing this, I have trained over 60 times. That represents 2 and a half years, many thousands of hours devoted to my profession. I don’t know everything, and obviously what interests me may not interest you. So I offer you this, a glimpse of my research, my field experience and my opinions. I encourage you to read as many guides as you can. There’s something good in each and every one of them.
If you’re reading this, you are showing some interest towards the cleric profession. My job is one of a salesperson. My job is to convince you that you ought to try it. And if you have already, great. We can probably teach each other a few things. But for those who are not yet convinced, those who hesitate, I’ll use the most powerful bait right off the bat. Power. The power of the cleric is immense. What kind of power you say? All of them. The power to be self sufficient, the power to choose between many ways of earning experience, and my personal favorite, the power to raise the dead. To give birth is natural, to bring back from the dead is divine. Is cleric the most powerful profession? No. I refuse to claim such because power is relative. So try it. You don’t have to like it but trying it is the only way to know for sure. I’m living proof of that. I chose this profession for a reason that had nothing to do with the above and was the first surprised when I fell in love with the class. Maybe that’s what awaits you, too.
Oh also, this guide isn’t written for a pure gemstone newbie. I use some terminology assuming that you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, you can either read other guides written for beginners or send me questions. I didn’t put any formula in this guide on purpose as they seem to change often. And my last advice for this introduction, look at the date at the top. If this guide seems too old, ignore it. Or at least check if some basic mechanics have changed before following any of the advice given here. I know for a fact that the character generation is going to change shortly so pay attention.
Character generation (yes the math)
Please don’t follow my example. Put some serious effort into rolling your character. I was so sure that I would hate it that I satisfied myself with less than I should have. Roll your character as if you plan on playing it for the rest of your life. You won’t be sorry. That being said you need to choose a race. Some popular choices are Giantman, Human, Half Elf and Dwarf (based on the 100 names of the cleric fame list). This is for your information only. By any means, choose a race that appeals to you, be it for racial bonuses or pure roleplay. You can compensate for some racial weaknesses with your stat placement. Depending where your priorities are, you might want to take into consideration the spirit point recovery rate, the natural stronger arm swing of giants or the dark elvish superiority at weaving spells. The decision is yours to make. My purpose is to teach you about growth interval, or how quickly statistics increase. Here come the numbers...
CON DEX DIS LOG INT STR REF CHA WIS AUR
Dark Elf 18 15 30 25 18 20 20 15 30 15
Dwarf 25 5 35 25 20 25 10 13 33 15
Elf 15 15 25 30 22 20 17 10 32 20
Giant 25 8 30 25 20 25 13 15 30 15
Half-Elf 20 12 28 25 20 22 17 17 30 15
Halfling 25 15 25 23 20 15 20 18 30 15
Human 22 10 30 25 22 22 15 15 30 15
Sylvankind 18 15 25 25 20 15 20 20 30 18
How to read it:
First, notice that the total for every race is identical. Therefore no race has an overall growth quicker than any other. Now then, the higher the number, the faster the stat increases. This is the cleric table remember, there’s a different one for each class. Let’s use examples.
Example 1:CON increases the fastest for Dwarves, Giants and Halflings (GI 25) while it is the slowest for Elves (GI 15).
Example 2:For a dwarven cleric, DIS increases the fastest (GI 35) while DEX is the slowest (GI 5).
What that tells us is this. In a purely theorical world, to maximize overall growth, the way to go would be to match the highest rolled number with the lowest GI. Again, an example illustrates this much better. Let’s take this set of numbers:
88 87 80 50 55 50 45 47 33 95
We want to place these for a giant. Let’s look at the giant’s GI’s:
DIS WIS (GI 30)
CON LOG STR (GI 25)
INT (GI 20)
CHA AUR (GI 15)
REF (GI 13)
DEX (GI 8)
Our super giant could look like this :
DIS WIS (GI 30) 45 33
CON LOG STR (GI 25) 50 47 50
INT (GI 20) 55
CHA AUR (GI 15) 80 87
REF (GI 13) 88
DEX (GI 8) 95
If things were so easy, life would be wonderful. But there are a few other factors to take into consideration. First and most important of all is Training Points (TP’s). With stats as placed above, our giant would have too little TP’s to cover the basic needs of a young cleric (Refer to other guides for the TP formulas). Furthermore, his STR and WIS being so low, he would have trouble swinging a weapon AND would have very little mana for a long time. So now you see how difficult it is to roll a character. You have to think about the GI, you have to think about the TP’s, and you have to think about the practicality of your final combination, meaning how effectively your cleric will be able to hunt and survive at lower levels. Despair not, for I have a secret to share with you. It’s called a Trainer. An excel spreadsheet where you put all your data and let it do the math. The miracle in this is that you can still be in the roller and not only visualize the stats of your character 20 or 50 trainings later, but you can also plan the training ahead. Within 5 minutes you will know everything about the future you. Your mana, your CS, your AS and TD, your TPs, your skills, everything. So go ahead, praise this trainer, cherish it and USE it. If you don’t find it on this website, email me and I’ll be happy to send it to you.
A few words on some important stats though. Don’t forget the professional bonus of +10 goes to LOG and WIS. DIS and AUR count for both types of training points. Your mana will come from WIS. The WIS bonus also plays a part in your CS and TD. LOG and INT are important for exp absorption but remember the clerical ability to meditate which almost doubles the absorption rate. And my most important advice goes to DEX. Notice it increases slowly for all races (highest GI is 15). DEX helps with dodging maneuver attacks. You think your CM training will make up for a low Dex? WRONG! It is the mistake I regret the most. DEX plays a much more important part in dodging than CM training does, from personal experience and numerous deaths to burrowing worms.
Skills
Mainly you can go three separate ways. The more physical cleric, the hybrid and the pure spell caster. Here are short descriptions of each.
Physical cleric: This one will usually go for heavy armor training, alternate weapon skills (like brawling on top of the main weapon), more expensive weapon types (polearms, two handers) and add some ambush, hiding, multi-opponent and the like. This is the most expensive path.
Hybrid: This is the path I took because I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to do exactly and don’t like to be specialized in case the gods surprise us with a nasty change in some mechanics. The hybrid goes for medium armor, a normal weapon training plus some extras like ambush or multi-opponent, magic item use or scroll reading, when there are TP’s left. This is a flexible path but every training means making choices and sacrifices.
Pure spell caster: They go for maximum spell training. Triple as much as they can. Usually wear light armor, have little ambush or the like and pick up skills like magic item use, scroll reading or spell aiming. This is also an expensive path but easy to train since all the extra points are always saved for the third spell.
If you want to go with the physical cleric or the pure spell caster I recommend that you do some more research. Find people who went that way and ask them questions. I won’t talk about something I don’t know well and so the following advices apply to what I am, a hybrid.
The core of my training is this:
Shield use: 1x
Combat maneuvers: 1x
Weapon: 1x
Spell training: 2x
Mana share: 1x
First aid: 2x
When I say core I mean FOR LIFE. That’s right. Now secondary skills.
Armor:1x until the desired armor type. I stayed with 8 ranks until in my 40’s and then started training again to go until brigandine (30 ranks). This one is really up to you. Heavy armor reduces the damage you suffer but don’t forget the base spell hindrance that you can’t train away. It’s also difficult to dodge in heavy armor.
Mana share:1x extra if you want, especially at lower levels since you need a 102 share to safely resurrect someone. You can choose to stop or go on. I took a break in this one for a long time too. A high mana share helps those with less than perfect share. The less altruistic benefit is the spell called Divine Wrath. It is said that high share improves the effect of this spell. Fact or rumor, I couldn’t say for sure.
Physical training:1x until racial max HP is reached. You can skip that one once in a while. You can also go on after reaching the theorical max as it can still increase a little and it also accelerates HP recovery.
Climbing/Swimming:Alternate those. Pick them up when you can. No way around it, eventually you’ll need it. No hurry on those.
Tertiary skills:
Scroll reading/Magic Item:When you can. Scroll reading skill is a component in the calculation of your skill while using living spell (208) which allows you to steal a spell from a target. Fun fun but not vital.
Perception:When you can. Many passages, doors and whatnot are hidden. If you neglect this for too long like I did, you’ll end up needing a guide to point all the cracks to you because you’ll be blind as a bat.
Ambush/Multi-opponent:For the later years, when you’re done with Physical training or armor and suddenly have extra points to spend. I suggest to pick one of those and stick with it. If you want to go the ambush way you might want to train in hiding alongside too.
Spell training:You can also go for a third spell once in a while. I did that a few times in my younger years when I had lots of spells to learn and was too impatient to wait. Think twice before you do it, that third spell is costly. Important note: Some recent changes to game mechanics have reduced the benefits of over training in spell. For the same cost you now get less benefit.
That’s the base. You can decide to personalize your character with some oddities like trading or pickpocket too. Or if you want to explore different paths, pick up some lockpicking and disarming locks. Go ahead. Be creative.
RolePlaying
I don’t want to tell you how to roleplay your character. I want to tell you to roleplay your character. If you must ask some technical questions, do so in whisper. Elanthia is still a world where it is good to live. Other worlds have been invaded with hungry powerhunters. If power, wealth or levels is all you care about, I still have respect for you. There’s no right or wrong reason to play this game and whatever yours might be, I will respect it. But I ask that you respect me, too. So be discreet, for the sake of our world.
A few words on hunting, resurrecting and other miscellaneous thoughts
Hunting. Be smart. Study your prey. Find its weakness. Watch your success rate, try different tactics. Don’t be afraid to grab a hunting partner. It’s much more economic mana and time wise, it’s safer, and it’s a lot more fun. Oh and don’t be stubbornor foolishly proud. Admit when you’re overmatched and look for another type of critter.
Resurrecting. Please, I beg of you, don’t you dare and raise someone if your mana share is under 102. If you fail, your patient loses an extra deed. If he had only one...but even if he had more, he will hate you and you won’t look professional. Be proud. Do a good job. In the same line of thought, know how to check if the patient is still bleeding. Highlight the strings and use DIAGNOSE. NOT appraise.
Highlight. Yes. Highlight is your friend. Highlight the LK strings, the bleeding strings, the clerical key words (fog/fogger, dead/deader, raise/rezzer, sanctuary wearing off) and most of all, highlight other clerics. Yes, ALL of them. It is frustrating when a cleric walks in the room as you were getting ready to raise a patient and snatches the body away thinking there was no other cleric. It will happen to you eventually, don’t do it to others. Highlight Highlight Highlight. It will also save you a lot of trouble when you learn to fog and locate. You’ll know right away if a cleric is already there without having to fog to find out. Yes I know it can be tedious. I’m here to help you if you’re serious about it. I have over 800 raising clerics highlighted and will be happy to send you my list if you email me.
My last comment is for the non clerical literate or the distracted clerical type. When you see someone kneeling, please LOOK at them before you poke, hug, nudge them. Those actions will interrupt meditation and if the said cleric happens to be AFK he/she won’t be too pleased when he/she returns. SMOOCH is your friend. It’s safe to smooch a meditating cleric so remember that when you feel too lazy to LOOK. Same goes with people lying down on nodes. They can be using voln’s symbol of dream which costs something to use, making the target even more uspet if you interrupt them. LOOKing at them will also tell you if they are dreaming or not.
Societies...I won’t touch that topic except on a one on one basis.
I realize that I didn’t cover everything. I possibly couldn’t. If you have more specific questions about anything I did or did not cover, I’ll be happy to supply more information. So send me questions, comments, thoughts, jokes, death threats, anything. I may be reached at Adhara@sinnersanonymous.com And remember to enjoy yourself. This is what a game is all about. And yes, Gemstone is a game. You’re allowed to ignore it but you’re not allowed to forget it.
- from Zanteal's personal library.
Documents and manuscripts gathered since 1996.