Obsidian's RPG design expert reckons he knows why no one's maining Cleric in Baldur's Gate 3, and it's the same reason no one plays them in his games either
pcgamer.comGosh, but we're an ungodly lot. A few weeks ago, Larian put out some stats showing that the Cleric was Baldur's Gate 3's least played class, with the majority of players preferring to play more front-line heroes rather than the humble god-botherers we rely on for healing and buffs. But now we might know why.
Spotted by GamesRadar, a series of tweets from veteran RPG designer Josh Sawyer suggests that the Cleric's unpopularity has nothing to do with its efficacy as a class in D&D or the fact that everyone just wants to keep Shadowheart in their party. Across all the RPGs Sawyer has made—ranging from the original Icewind Dales to Pillars of Eternity 2—Clerics (or their equivalent) are just chronically unpopular.
«In my experience this has nothing to do with the specifics of BG3 or [D&D 5th Edition],» Sawyer wrote on Twitter last week, «people generally don't make cleric/priest main characters in fantasy RPGs. They've been the least played class in every fantasy RPG I've made».
Onlookers were quick to offer their own explanations for the phenomenon. One pointed out that BG3 already had a Cleric companion—Shadowheart—and players likely wanted to avoid doubling up, to which Sawyer replied that he'd be «willing to bet [that] doesn't stop people from making Fighters or Barbarians.»
Another opined that, well, Shadowheart is a rather pretty romanceable half-elf, so players would probably rather cart her around in their party than play a priestly type themselves. Sawyer responded with a picture of Pillar of Eternity's Durance, a deranged, bearded, and howling vortex of misogyny who was also that game's main priest companion. «Every RPG I've worked on where clerics/priests are a playable class, they are the least often selected
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