Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General 5ed - explanation for Heavy Armour for some Clerics?

I can understand - and appreciate - the HA for War Domain Clergy. Seems apprpriate - they get stuck in melee.
But why Life and Nature?

Life are combat medics abd thus get in harm's way? Nature are exciteable and also dash into melee with their Shilelagh empowered clubs?

Gods of nature are as varied as the natural world itself; from inscrutable gods of the deep forests (such as Silvanus, Obad-Hai, Chislev, Balinor, and Pan) to friendly deities associated with particular springs and groves (such as Eldath). Druids revere nature as a whole and might serve one of these deities, practicing mysterious rites and reciting all-but-forgotten prayers in their own secret tongue. But many of these gods have clerics as well, champions who take a more active role in advancing the interests of a particular nature god. These clerics might hunt the evil monstrosities that despoil the woodlands, bless the harvest of the faithful, or wither the crops of those who anger their gods.

From http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/cleric:nature top page.

Pretty much front liners if need be or are to be.

List of all Nature Domain Deities from wiki (put bold on the bg3 deities)
Auril • Baervan Wildwanderer • Callarduran Smoothhands • Daghdha • Deep Sashelas • Dunatis • Eadro • Eilistraee • Eldath • Elebrin Liothiel • Fenmarel Mestarine • Gwaeron Windstrom • Keptolo • Luthic • Malar • Manannan Mac Lir • Marthammor Duin • Mielikki • Osiris • Rillifane Rallathil • Sebek • Sekolah • Sheela Peryroyl • Silvanus • Skerrit • Solonor Thelandira • Tarsellis Meunniduin • Thard Harr

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Nature_domain

Not going to go through each deity for you, do it yourself. More than likely can find some additional reasons through that.

Outside of lore adds additional separation from druids along with easy multiclass dip for heavy armor.

Such an argument can be made for ANY Domain.
Some Clerics reverring god of knowledge go out to protect libraries from Goblins and revolting unwashed peasants etc.

True, maybe next time you should writing the next edition and change it. Good luck

That does sound like palladins. That is why I don't like DnD clerics.
In my imagination and roleplaying in other systems - druids are one with nature, they don't care about people, they are caretakers of a chosen forest, so they are not servants of any God directly.
Clerics are direct servants and ambassadors of chosen deity. So they can be servants of a God, who does have temples in a forest and have plants as its domain.
So I prefer if clerics wear only clothes and relay on prayers. But if they have magic melee weapon then I guess they need heavy armor. I would prefer long range staves.

Also I don't like spells in DnD/BG3 - I prefer spells based on different magic which are used for them - like nature magic, arcane magic, divine magic, dark magic and necromancy. In DnD 5e/BG3 you can use all of it, even if you shouldn't have profeciency in such magic - like wizard should have arcane only, warlock should have dark magic only, nature magic should be only for those who have pack with nature in some way, etc. But even if that would be there for players who prefer it, still I don't have enough of specific spells to choose from, or their divine replacement - I have to take arkane spell, because I cannot do it as a cleric, but I should have. Or that generic healing even if I should be healing with plants, etc.
That is why all classes feel broken in DnD 5e/BG3 IMO.
I can still choose to ignore it, like I have to with majority of games, but still I'm not sure if it has to be that way.

Way back when, Clerics were the original Paladins. Up through (I think) Advanced D&D, they had a fighter/support hybrid role, and I remember somewhere some edition specifically mentioned that Clerics represented the holy fighting orders of medieval Europe (e.g., Templars, Hospitallers, Order of St. James, etc.).

The Paladin sub-class (and later class on its own) usurped that position, but echoes of the OG Cleric role can still be felt in 5e D&D. My un-informed, un-researched and probably completely wrong guess is that the 5e writers wanted the "good" domain Clerics to be more heroic than the others, hence Life and Nature getting HA proficiency. However, that doesn't explain why Tempest domain gives HA and MA proficiencies, while Light domain doesn't.

(Side note - D&D has almost always treated Nature as a positive force, probably always will, and that fact will likely always irk the heck out of me, but that's a "me" problem.)

Well, traditionally Clerics in D&D used to be able to wear heavy armor, every last of them.

Now they only get medium armor and they have limited it to certain domains that still get access to heavy armor.

Why ? I simply dont know.

But War and Tempest are both very aggressive choices so it makes sense to me they would be heavy armor and martial weapons.

Life obviously is a very defensive choice, so heavy armor makes sense, in some way.

Nature, I dont know. Balance issues ?


If I was asked to design D&D6, I would probably give Clerics and Druids a relatively small set of core functionality and add to that depending upon what faith the Cleric or Druid follows.

A Cleric of Shar for example would get light armor and spear proficiency.