Cleric Earlygame | Patreon Weekly #277

Hey Patrons, in this weekly I’m going to share some details on the Cleric’s base gameplay and early talents! This info was previously shared in Shattered Secrets #21 (Jan 2023) and #35 (Mar 2024).

Firstly though, here are the results from Patreon Poll #57:
53%: Prioritize Stones of Magic
47%: Like Stones of Magic
00%: Dislike Stones of Magic
26%: Prioritize Bomb Buffs
74%: Like Bomb Buffs
00%: Dislike Bomb Buffs
Firstly, there were no votes at all from gold+ Patrons for disliking these changes! When counting silver Patrons ~5% did dislike stones of detect magic though, for the record. Clearly these are both quite popular changes, and I’ll be looking to implement them both in a v2.5 patch fairly soon. I’ll try to avoid spending too much effort on bomb changes though, as they weren’t voted in as strongly.

There’s also a new Shattered Secrets this week! While this weekly is focused on Cleric gameplay, the secrets post is focused on their backstory!

And lastly, there’ll be an audio Q&A next week! You can ask questions here or in the Patreon discord.

The Cleric

As mentioned before, the Cleric will be a hero that focuses on magical abilities, similar to the Mage. The Mage gets most of his power from scrolls of upgrade on his staff and his general theme is focused on arcane magic. For the Cleric, I want their class-focused power to come from somewhere different and have a more divine or ‘holy’ theme to it.

Base Features

To start out, the Cleric has the following:

• They have a unique weapon, the cudgel, which deals 1-8 damage with a boost to accuracy.

• They start with a unique holy book artifact, which operates on a charge system that regenerates based on exp gain. These changes are used to cast spells. More on that below.

• The cleric also starts with the usual assortment: a velvet pouch, cloth armor, and a waterskin. Like the Mage, they get access to ranged magic instead of starting with a thrown weapon.

• The cleric automatically IDs scrolls of identify, scrolls of remove curse, and potions of purity.

Spells

Spells are the primary unique gameplay for the cleric. Rather than having an item that has a specific function, the cleric can use the charges on their holy book on a variety of spells that are mainly focused on defence and utility. I’m currently considering giving the cleric three spells at base:

• Holy Weapon has a moderate charge cost, and temporarily replaces the current enchantment on the cleric’s weapon with a blessing that grants a bit of bonus damage. Very useful early on to get a boost of power but falls off later as other enchants become more available.

• Holy Ward has a lower charge cost, and acts as a version of holy weapon for armor. The temporary blessing effect gives a small amount of bonus damage blocking.

• Lastly, Guiding Light gives the cleric a ranged option at a low charge cost. They can target an enemy with this ranged spell, dealing a small amount of damage and guaranteeing their next physical attack.

Talents

Unlike the other heroes, all (or almost all) of the Cleric’s talents will be activatable abilities via their holy book! I think this will really help create a unique gameplay identity for the Cleric, and because the spells will mainly be utility focused it should complement the game’s existing gear progression instead of overriding it.

As one example, of this, rather than getting a more passive T1 ID talent, like the other classes, the Cleric will have a talent-based spell called ‘Detect Curse’. This spell has a high charge cost (or moderate cost at +2) and will identify the curse state of a piece of equipment, without requiring you to equip it first! While this behaves differently than the other ID talents, it does fulfill a similar purpose while being an interactive spell instead.