Paladin/Cleric Argument

[SamuelKeller 1]

This has been a topic I've hotly debated with a few of my friends over my game design, namely on how to separate my Paladin and Cleric classes a little better. Here's a rundown of the situation:

 

Basic Game Premise

Your party consists of 4 members, with new members added over the course of the game. There are 16 members you can obtain, separated into 4 roles: Tank, DPS, CC, and Support. Each person has a Primary Role and a Secondary Role, indicating their skills and overall recommended usage. Any team of 4 can consist of any number of each role, but one of each Primary Role is a good idea.

 

Both

Deal Holy damage (effective against Undead)

Have moderate base DEF and MDF, as well as MHP

Specialize in protecting/aiding allies

Has basic healing abilities 

 

Paladin only (Tank/Support)

Obtained late in the game

Higher ATK/MDF than the Cleric, with the highest MDF in the game

Utilizes the "cover" skill type, which blocks all damage for an ally and making the Paladin take the damage

All heals are for the user only

Can actually deal damage

 

Cleric only (Support/Tank)

Starter class

Higher MAT than the Paladin

Diverse healing abilities, from basic heals to cures

Has one of the few revives in the game

Has extremely powerful buffs for allies

 

My question to you all is, should there be a bit more separating them? I honestly can't think of much more I could add to improve their distinctions. 

[Lord Vectra 414]

To be honest, I think that's enough.

[lonequeso 1,921]

Generally, Paladins have more offensive skills than support/heals than clerics. Personally, I'd give the Paladin a bit higher attack stats and lower defenses, vice versa for the Cleric.

 

The best way to separate them is be clever with your skill sets. For example: The Paladin's attacks are mostly single target and cause debuffs. The Cleric's do area damage and can cause status conditions. 

 

You already varied the healing abilities and support abilities. You should be fine there. 

 

One suggestion is to give them one or two ex-parameters.  Give the Paladin a small chance to counter attacks which compliments cover. It's okay if you have a skill that does the same, too. They would stack.

 

Give the Cleric a higher chance to evade magic. You can also increase the Paladin's CEV. You can make them more resistant to certain states. Like silence for cleric; stun for paladin.

 

Just throwing some ideas out there, Hopefully, you'll find 'em useful.

[+ caelumania 54]

Another thing that's usually different between Paladins and Clerics are the equipment they could use. Paladins normally have access to heavier armors and weapons (like a soldier at most times) as opposed to Clerics who have mid tier armors and blunt weapons.

[Silenity 33]

Paladins could be able to self-buff with things that aid in covering their allies.

Like a self buff that sets his counter rate to 100% if he covers an ally for 3 turns.

Or a shield buff that reduces the next incoming attack by a flat 100 points.

Or a debuff to make enemies who aren't normally weak to holy, weak to it.

[Mysticphoenix 8]

Paladin can wear heavy armor while cleric can't.

[+ Takeo212 1,079]

Pretty much what everyone else said about the armour and stuff.

 

I think you have a nice balance between classes.

[HumanNinja 144]

I think you've done a good job in differentiating them. However, I will still offer my own thoughts.

 

In my mind: Paladin's are about buffing themselves only, healing themselves only, and using skills that absorb damage being directed to the other, more squishy, characters. It seems like you have all that. The only thing I would change is the Paladin's abilities that focus on dealing damage to the enemy. I personally would only make offensive skills that 'provoke' the target and do little damage.

 

Also in my mind: Clerics focus on curing status ailments, healing the party, and minor buffs. An interesting way to spin it would be to make the clerics spells ineffective on himself. Anyway, seems like you got most of that down as well. The only suggestion I'd offer is to make the buffs not as strong if they are group buffs and let another character have really strong, single-target buffs.

[Guyver 65]

I went with a different path for paladin/cleric for my game. While my paladin can be access by leveling a cleric and freelancer to 10, it's still available pretty early. It shares the same basics from other games, heavy armor, minor healing support and so on. I set the magic to be lower than normal, so the healing support is very minor and I made it a more offensive tank with a taunt. The paladin upgrades to the Guardian which is a walking fortress. It has little offense, and only retains what it got as a paladin and focuses on buffing the teams defenses rather than its own. I gave it a much better taunt and higher defensive stats because of this. The guardian still retains the holy magic as well, so when your allies are buffed you can still use some minor healing or cast some regen spells on your team. It helps lighten the burden on the clerics like this, while forcing the enemy to focus on the guardian. I tried not making the taunt super ridiculous to the point where the enemy would do nothing but attack the guardian because then it's just basically a dungeon group in an MMO which gets pretty boring.

 

The cleric on the other hand I left pretty much untouched, with the addition of a holy damage element debuff and new healing spells for group healing which cost a set percent of your MP so you can't just spam heal and cheese the game. The cleric then upgrades to the bishop, which plays like a disc priest on world of warcraft and can shield your party from damage. I use lunatic states to achieve the desired effects. Depending on which shielding is cast, and only one can be cast on you at a time, it will negate damage higher or lower than the set caps. They can also increase the base healing done so you can use lower tier healing spells more effectively and save your mana.

 

That's just my take on the whole paladin/cleric thing.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Guyver

[TheManlyFairy 51]

If you're really intent on making them separate classes, make the cleric blatantly feeble so that it would require more protection, making your paladin shine more as the protector of the group. If you also give the paladin its own unique self buffs the cleric can't provide him, as well as giving the cleric multiple party buffs the paladin can't use, the differences become much more obvious.