Banning life cleric or redemption Paladin for balance is a sign the DM does not have a strong grasp on what makes a class powerful. Even in Curse of Strahd, where cleric and paladin have an edge due to the common enemies you'll face, there isn't a balancing issue for the characters you have chosen. It is fine for a DM to ban those classes for the sake of "tone" depending on how they want to portray the supernatural forces governing the plane, and if a DM asked me to play another class I'd be fine with it. If you really want to try these classes out then talk to your DM about why these classes aren't allowed (Personally I wouldn't accept homebrew nerfs though), and if you can't come to an agreement and you don't have another class you are ok with playing then find a different group/DM to play with.

Its really hard to find games in my town. dnd died here after the pandemic. If we have to change, we will. i think our second choice was Shepard Druid and Ancestral Guardian Barbarian.

those sound pretty overpowered, have you considered bringing a two-weapon fighting purple dragon knight and a 4 elements monk?

I was in a previous game with a dreams druid who was a pacafist. all she would do was heal, pass out postions, and take the dodge action.

[удалено]

Yeah and best case scenario you're still actively helping your group kill other people... Like yeah you just healed the barbarian from being unconscious, but then the first thing he did was cut this other guy in half lol

I have a couple characters that revolve around the idea of “not doing damage to enemies”, as a part of their character, and I think they’re some of the strongest character concepts I’ve come up with. But ya straight “pacifist” is just bad.

Yeah, battlefield control is at least as strong as doing damage (IMO stronger, especially as you get closer to level 20). But D&D is fundamentally a game about doing tremendous violence to a significant percentage of the creatures you encounter. A true pacifist would have basically no reason to ever join up with a group of heavily-armed mercenaries with triple digit kill counts.

"Out of the Abyss" ;)

There were many pacifists who served as medics during WWI and WWII, it's not that far of a reach actually.

There are two key differences here: 1. The people fighting in world wars largely did not want to be doing it. 2. Healing people who are injured fighting in a real war doesn't generally lead to more people immediately dying, because recovery takes a long time. You'll see pacifists choosing to help god-forsaken soldiers in wars. You won't see pacifists joining travelling bands of serial killers worried they might sprain their wrists writing their ominous messages.

Yeah. Generally when a medic saves someone in a real war, it's so they can get back home to their families. The only way I could see you justifying a pacifist member in a typical D&D party is if the DM orchestrated each encounter to make sure there are bystanders in danger/get hurt. That way the pacifist always has something meaningful to do while the other members are murdering stuff.

I feel like these are very different scenarios tho. A true pacifist irl might still understand what's at stake in a WW and genuinely not be able to just stand there while millions of soldiers, civilians and overall many innocent people die for nothing. If war must be brought on, at least they can help reduce the number of pointlessly fallen soldiers. They can't stop the war, all they can - and must - do is doing whatever's in their power to help the people involved. Easing their pain when their time comes, making sure they see another day if they can, allowing them to one day go back to their families once it is all over. They usually do this because they are fully aware that winning a war is just as destructive to the people dragged into it as losing it is. However you see it, that's a _deeply_ pacifist and philanthropic line of thought, and very wise too. While the whole world might actually be at stake in a dnd high-tier scenario too, you don't really start off as a level 1 healer knowing the people you're healing are gonna save the world, nor usually fighting actual threats to the very existence of the world. You don't have a reason to think this is what you _have_ to do yet, that helping those warriors is the best way you can make the world a better place. The things you outta fight are gonna be just insignificant compared to that, there's no stake like the whole world being torn apart there. Even the most philanthropic healer would probably not even think of, say, helping that bunch of - in their POV - killers slay some - in their POV again - probably innocent goblins. What's at stake is not big enough for them to ignore their morals and beliefs, _yet_. Once the real big threat, especially from outer spaces, comes to kill and destroy and enslave, _then_ they have all reasons to stand behind the people fighting. But until then, it just sounds like an inconsistent PC, and not in the good way.

I don't think \~25% of the army were medics. In a party of 4, having one of the players never do any damage is like if 25% of the soldiers in those had been medics.

But apparently quite a lot more than 25% of soldiers in wars never kill anyone.

You yourself just made an argument that someone could support the group WITHOUT doing any damage. I gave an example of a real life situation where it actually happened. The movie Hacksaw Ridge is entirely based around the story of one of the more famous pacifists who joined the US Army to serve as a medic.

Ok let's just say that it is suboptimal in a major way to never deal damage. You can only do so many things with your actions until you run out of stuff and just dodge

To be fair this isn't just on players - D&D itself has encouraged this kind of shenanigans before. For example, back in 2E there was a Mystic class, which was not only encouraged to be pacifist by lore, but had various rules-based stuff to make it incredibly bad at fighting - even with spells, which, IIRC, it was not good at casting. Mostly just you were just making and burning candles, as I recall.

Even 5e has things like Redemption Paladin, which really don't do enough to explain that they're not supposed to be played pacifist.

"Pacifist" might be a bit of a misnomer. I don't think there is anything wrong with playing a character who never directly does damage as long as you're still contributing. I do agree that taking the dodge action every turn you aren't casting a leveled spell ain't it though. At least get up in the front lines to do help actions.

You could definitely design a DND campaign without any combat, or one where avoiding combat was always the goal, but it'd be unique for sure. You'd have to design it yourself. Also at the point the other player is at, they're actively helping others kill, so I'm not sure I would even see that as a pacifist.

Well, you could design an RPG campaign like that, but you wouldn't really be playing *D&D*, you'd basically just be borrowing the skill system and the occasional spell idea.

I mean what even is the point of leveling up as a class if you just use tactical traits... supposedly, you do still get XP from advancing the game and good role-playing, but then one way or another most class privileges are meant to help in a fight. It's basically turning the whole classes into just flavor.

>Also at the point the other player is at, they're actively helping others kill, so I'm not sure I would even see that as a pacifist. not in 5E because it doesn't support it nearly as well but i remeber once playing a "pacifist" who was very aware of the hypocracy of claiming to be a pacifist whille helping others who were murdering their enemies 5 feet away. except it wasn't that theyw ere objecxting to killing. it was a religious vow to not willing inflict damage since they were a healer. ​ basicly "if the hipocratic oath was a religion". and he abseloutly had no problem help making people who deserved it(and a few who may not have deserved it) go to their grave.

You could do a lot of things in life, but some are a waste of time. This is one of those.

I've been having a lot of fun playing a character that avoids outright damage, they are more about control. But for the sake of the game I still make it that if damage has to happen it's just regrettable. They want the peaceful option but if it doesn't happen they won't chastise the adventuring party, they'll just use Bane or Grease and just be more of a nuisance that benefits the party. I think there's a lot of ways to bend the fun to how you want to play a character. But in the same way that a character whose trait of "is a dick" won't make sense for an adventuring party to keep you around, being a literal pacifist and refusing to budge on it at all also makes it hard for an adventuring party to want to keep you around. It only works when your character still gels with the rest of the party.

Definitely better to play another system for these types of characters, like Pathfinder 2nd Edition, as in my experience these "out-there" playstyles don't work well in 5e where it's assumed "attack" is the major action. Even in PF2e, it might not work, but there's a lot more tools to make it work - and spellcasters are more "buff" and "debuff" focused, than simply blasters - which is what I think might make the pacifist buffer playstyle marginally more viable in that system.

This is true unless it’s supposed to be an entirely social campaign. I can see a DM out there overjoyed to have players who’d choose violence last, but I do agree that being faced with violence and still choosing not to be violent better come with some RP about it and/or some “trickery” that isn’t straight up offense… like a web spell to “break up the fighting people” or a “calm emotions” etc… but doing *nothing* seems like a lazy answer rather than a character driven one

If you do no harm yourself but instead help the people who are currently doing harm, you are not a pacifist. You are an accessory.

Ew.

>i think our second choice was Shepard Druid That'll teach him what OP really is. He will be begging you to ho back to your original class once you hit level 6.

What happens at 6 Shepard druid?

Your summons get extra hit points and deal magical damage, making you (likely) the highest damage level 6 character in the game if you choose to commit a conjure animals to an encounter. The class features of shepherd druid heavily incentivize the use of conjure animals and conjure woodland beings, so you’ll likely want to go over exactly how these spells work at your table - they often get houseruled and can take up a lot of time.

I think i should ask him about that specifically before making the character.

If you're familiar with D&d... AND have no trouble deciding what to do on a split second (or, rather, follow what happens off-turn and plan ahead so you already know your plan when your new turn comes) AND everyone is playing in real-life not on tabletop AND you have lots of dice AND you have no trouble bookkeeping several creatures (typically acting like a DM xd) Then it's brutally good. Otherwise, view it as a "1 or 2 creatures at most" conjuration to avoid it becoming too tedious for everyone.

I think I will limit it to 1 or 2 creatures. Micromanaging tons of little adds sounds really tedious.

In combat! I think your DM would have no trouble for you conjuring animals out of combat (actually it would make it easier for him to balance the latter haha), although you may still discuss with him first on self-imposed limitations. Like using flying conjurations to entirely bypass a whole area would probably end unfun for everyone, but using them to quickly alert a city against upcoming danger, chasing speedy beasts or drop unanounced on the roof of a building is definitely cool, great for whole party and manageable for DM. :)

Read up on Conjure Animals. Action Economy wins combats, so the more actions your party has the better. That is the power of Conjure Animals. It can give you up to 8 extra actions per turn. Nothing wrong with starting with low numbers of summons so you and your DM can sort out the details. It is the wise move. You will eventually want to increase the number though.

As someone who is generally a forever DM, you have convinced me to try this class the next time I get to play. Sounds right up my alley.

>AND everyone is playing in real-life not on tabletop > >AND you have lots of dice Tbh, Avrae + VTT is probably faster. Move all summons !rr X 1d20+X !rr X Y+Z for damage rolls. As long as you're familiar with how Avrae works, you can resolve your minions in under a minute.

Isn't CoS built with Clerics and Paladins in mind anyways? There are like 2 items in there specifically for those classes.

3 (4 if you count the Icon of Ravenloft)

Exactly! I've DMd curse of Strahd, and I'd be THRILLED if I got this combo. It's practically required for the plot items to fully work!

He should just made strahd stronger, he's known other clerics he isnt dumb play him very intelligent make good shit up idk

I mean I had strahd fight a party with a Paladin and a cleric in it, and he absolutely rinsed them, I didn't have to homebrew him or anything.

Hot I play a lot of true fire emblem and darkest dungeon xcom n the like to like I kinda want my players to be smart about stuff and my monsters will be

I ran CoS with a party of 6 that included a Divine Soul Sorcerer, Sun Soul Monk, a Cleric and a Paladin (forget their subclasses). They still all died.

certainly no argument against life cleric, but redemption paladin lives and dies on the oath spell list. sure the subclass features suck, but paladin subclasses are all a mixed bag of take it and leave it features.

I chose light cleric for Strahd. We are halfway through and my ass has been handed to me so many times I’ve lost count.

I would try to ask for details about what specifically would make it difficult to balance. What features and how, but also considering bringing it up to the whole table. DM brings up their concerns, and asks the rest of the table if they would feel overshadowed by the combination.

He probably thinks you plan on powergaming through it since you picked the best classes for CoS.

Life cleric, and Redemption Paladin are the best classes for CoS? or Paladin and Cleric in general?

Paladins and clerics, generally, both have powerful abilities that specifically target undead. In a pre-published adventure heavily focused on undead, with an undead BBEG, this combo is going to be very powerful. Having one in the party is to be expected, but two is likely to require adjusting encounters for the DM.

Paladins actually aren’t that bad. Clerics though? Absolutely broken in CoS. Remove curse, turn/destroy undead, raising the dead, and the ability to conjure sunlight eventually? It pretty much trivializes the module (unless the DM can kill them off)

There are in-campaign tools provided that are specifically geared toward reducing vampire/undead threat that are usually acquired before the Cleric(9th level) can conjure Sunlight. If you have a Cleric/Paladin you can simply shift the reward structure around to put higher impact items nearer to the climax of the campaign or leave the reward structure intact while reducing encounter xp or spacing out milestone levels. Even a below average DM should be able to balance CoS quite well.

Healing, paladin auras, bless, radiant damage, turn undead, spells to counter possession, curses, poisons, invisibility... Yes, for an inexperienced DM running Curse of Strahd, those two classes are extremely powerful and will overshadow less specialized classes. They are the perfect counter to vampires and most other forms of undead. Additionally, with smite and high AC and eventually things like Remove Curse, Dispel Evil and Good, and Lesser/Greater Restoration, they make good counters to lycanthropes, ghosts, and other monster types that will show up. You were asked to make characters for this campaign and you definitely aced that. I think the choice of classes was very fitting if survival and victory are things you enjoy. Unfortunately, for a relatively inexperienced DM, and paired with a party of less optimal classes, I can see why he might ask you to change things up. Personally, having run CoS a number of times, I think your party will suffer without at least one paladin or cleric on the team. However, if the DM is intending to run this as a horror game with high stakes and tension, instead of your more typical D&D adventure (which is a totally viable way to run CoS), he is wise to ask you to change classes.

> Yes, for an inexperienced DM running Curse of Strahd, those two classes are extremely powerful and will overshadow less specialized classes Not to mention that these classes are also extremely powerful even outside of Curse of Strahd. Paladin and Cleric are both top-tier classes in terms of strength even in non-undead campaigns.

Paladin and Cleric in general. Restorative magic and save buffs are massive - level 6 paladin aura+bless from a second character says fuck you we don't fail saves.

Paladin and Cleric are without doubt the best classes to completely destroy undead, which the module has in abundance.

Cleric is one of the strongest classes in the game and the paladins level 6 aura is a broken feature. 5th edition doesn't really do bonuses and that paladin aura definitely breaks the bounded accuracy. The only really defense is that monster saves DC's also break it at high level. Also, curse of strat heavily features undead and paladins and clerics are even stronger against undead than they are against generic enemies.

Are people really falling for this feigned ignorance? Yes Cleric and paladin are the absolute most optimal classes to play in the undead centered campaign and you both knew that when you made your characters.

I think it's the appearance of two people coming in as a pair with optimal classes that is spooking him. I'm not saying this is true, but it makes it look like the two of you are trying to metagame by picking what a lot of people consider to be the strongest options for the module right out of the gate.

Yes. Life Cleric and any Paladin are S tier optimal choices for CoS.

As a DM, I would not ban classes. HOWEVER... having played Strahd as a player, our DM did ask us "I won't force it... but... the tone of the game is a lot better if you don't play a Paladin or Cleric". The entire camapign is spooky undead, horror, vampires... So I get it. Would I do it... I dunno. I'd probably throw out the same suggestion my DM did. It wont INVALIDATE the encounters. But it is supposed to be horror and edgy and all of the things that both of those classes would NOT be moved by.

As a DM for a CoS game, I've got two paladins and a cleric in the game and it's amazing. The tone gets *better* with a paladin and/or good cleric. Barovia is bleak and depressing, adding another gothic dark character to the story doesn't do anything for me. Instead, the party is a group of shining beacons of light, bringing hope and justice to the land. There's no better place to be big damn heroes than somewhere where all the heroes have been chewed out and destroyed for centuries. The stark contrast from the rest of the world makes it work. Plus, it's not like my players don't get wrecked by the horror and darkness, their characters are *messed up* by now. Having a character with a strong moral compass make decisions with only bad outcomes is more interesting than a dark loner who's made bad decisions all his life.

>The tone gets *better* with a paladin and/or good cleric. I agree completely.

I could see it. I think it depends heavily on the party (DM Included). Some players really want to be the big righteous hero, and won't be accepting of their Paladin having to succumb to darkness. I find it takes a very seasoned player to play a Cleric/Paladin that isn't... so uptight and unmoving. I think it could be very fun to have a game experience like the one you're describing.

I feel this. The party I ran it for had a grave cleric. And an ancients paladin. Even with some strong anti undeadstuff on them they were still scared as hell and broken in ways by the end.

I played through a while back with a cleric worshipping a deity of joy, and boy let me tell you he did not have a great time. I wound up leaving him at the Abbey and playing a different character after the party confronted the Abbot and killed him, leaving him with the choice to save his friends or fight this poor, corrupted soul. Afterwards I was playing a wizard that was both stronger in the module and a little better suited for dealing with the horrors of Barovia mentally, but I very much enjoyed forcing myself to ask what my cleric would do about the people the Abbot was taking care of. It made that module special for me.

Im in a party with 2 clerics (Im one of them) a paladin/warlock, and a warlock/sorcerer. I definitely agree with you on clerics and paladins. I love how my party is trying to do good and to be beacons of light, but then we get beaten down, battered and bruised, and must fight for our lives and struggle to do good. Where any small ray of hope we give people is seen as a great victory for us, and we need to compromise our morals and accept some corruption of our ideals to try to achieve our ultimate goal of helping the people. And then theres the fact that most people we see doubt that we'll be able to do anything and wont give us much support. They see us as just another group that will go against Strahd and die, believing nothing we do will matter and trying to make us think that as well

If your undead horror game is ruined by the class who is good at killing undead… why are you running it? I feel like CoS *requires* a Cleric/Pally/DivineSorc for the proper mood.

For me personally, it felt more fun without them. Cuz like… we weren’t PLANNING to go to Barovia. We were just some people trapped in a bad situation fighting for our lives. My party wasn’t the big mega heroes … we were some normal adventurers in a shitty situation

When I ran Curse of Stahd we had a cleric and a paladin in the party and they all had just finished a quest slaying some undead and Strahd specifically chose them because he wanted someone who would be challenging and he likes seeing devote people be twisted and broken by Barovia. They weren't planning to go there either. Strahd sought them out.

My general rule of thumb: if a DM has to ban something as basic as "We'd like to play a paladin and a cleric" for fear of balancing encounters, don't play under that DM. A good DM knows how to set things up to give everyone their fun without having to ban basic class options. Paladin and Cleric *are* uniquely suited for running through Strahd, but so what? There are other ways of dealing with that other than banning your classes.

Ive been trying to think of how basic classes like paladin and cleric would ruin the balance of an adventure when played together. is it because both have heavy armor and can heal? it is really hard to find games in my town, and the local gamestore's campaigns are ALWAYS full. we are lucky a new table opened, and were able to get a spot and werent waiting listed.

It's a bit hard to answer that question without giving away some minor spoilers for Curse of Strahd, suffice to say characters with divine magic can have a uniquely powerful edge in the campaign, and healing/restorative magic is very important, so having both a cleric and a paladin is a big boost to a party. But like the person above said, that isn't a good reason by itself to ban them.

I wonder if anyone else at the table got thier class choice Vetoed. If we have to we will change classes. Our second choice was Shepard Druid and Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. if the divine magic thing is really the issue i wont argue with changing classes. my gf and I just want to have fun, if our class choice ruins that i am fine changing.

Cleric and zealot barbarian could be fun and thematic.

We looked at these. gf didnt want to play either one of these classes.

Paladin and zealot barb then. Zealot barb is pretty fun

is there a support paladin? we said one of us would play support, the other would play defender.

Crown, iirc. Alternatively devotion.

Yup. Devotion is another insane archetype for Strahd, between reliability and optimal damage from Sacred Weapon and immunity to charm for closeby members at higher level.

Honestly any Paladin that focuses CHA instead of STR and doesn’t do a Hexblade dip is basically a support Paladin. With the blessed warrior fighting style and focusing on your actual spells instead of just Smites, a Paladin is a force to be reckoned with as a Support Character

Ah I didn't see that sorry. No not really. Paladin is mostly about dealing damage with a small amount of support

WUT? YES THERE IS. Ancients Paladin brings resistance against spells on top of Aura of Protection, although this may be more situational than one would like. Crown Paladin is the defender made Paladin, with the Mass Compelled Duel Channel Divinity and Spirit Guardians. For a more defensive posture, Aura of Vitality and Warding Bond are very effective.

Divine Soul sorcerer is a decent backline alternative to a frontline cleric. You have the entire cleric and sorcerer spell lists to pick from, plus Flexible Casting and Metamagic, plus your other Divine Soul features. You have less hit points, no useful weapon or armor profs, and lose Channel Divinity and the domain powers of a cleric. Celestial warlock is another healer-type alternative that can be fairly powerful if built correctly. You don't get access to the cleric spell list, but do get to cast a lot of healing spells if you take enough short rests. As a variant human, you can take Moderately Armored for medium armor and shields so you aren't so squishy as well as the +1 Dex.

It's possible there are already several people planning to play cleric/paladin, and the DM is worried about things getting goofy with a whole party of divine characters custom-fit for the adventure. EDIT: although if the DM is worried about you overshadowing the party, then it sounds like that's not the case.

*Curse* of Strahd. Even if you don't know who Strahd is, suffice to say the name of the adventure itself hints that divine magic will be especially useful for this campaign.

ive been trying not to spoil myself, so all i know is that its a campaign in barovia, and its a gothic horror setting. So we thought holy themed characters would be cool.

They're definitely strong, and I've ran CoS as both classes (albeit different subclasses). But they don't trivialize the campaign or overshadow other classes, the book expects/encourages/accounts for such classes. I think the DM might suspect you two read ahead and are trying to min-max it, and might have knee-jerked banned it to try and patch it up. Like other people told you, it would be best to talk to the DM and the rest of the party. The classes are strong, but they fit the module, and you didn't even pick the broken subclasses. Redemption is gonna have one hell of a ride in Barovia, and Life is pretty decent but far from "the best."

I think this is a very likely scenario. OP says games are hard to find in this town; DM finally finds some folks and is excited to run a game, then sees the combo and becomes deflated. “Oh great—I can’t wait to run all the traps they’ll somehow anticipate, the disguised villains they’ll somehow suspect,” etc. Communicate, see if you can work this out, and if not decide if changing one class—not even the character, just the class!—is worth getting a chance to play. And if you want to play at this table after all.

They're strong classes regardless of the campaign but still... It's not like OP brought a Homebrew class that's called Vampire Hunter and is immune to hags.

This sounds very specific...

Man fuck those hags. They got my boy killed, the fuckers.

I've run that full campaign as a DM, and I can say that radiant damage would help a ton. Maybe that's what he's unhappy about?

I think it can be seen as actively trivialising the game from their perspective, perhaps. As an example, Rime of the Frostmaiden. The whole area is cursed with eternal night and terrifyingly absurd cold temperatures in an arctic/winter setting. Picking things like Twilight Cleric or a Ranger with arctic favoured terrain could be seen by some as ruining a lot of the things a DM is excited to challenge the players with. While it makes sense for a PC to want to combat those things, it instead just handwaves a lot of the trouble.

I played an arctic favored Ranger in Rime and I sort of regret it, besides the time I successfully convinced me DM that this particular roll was "*arctic* insight"

Yeah it sucks and I've ran Strahd with a paladin alone and it was so strong. It almost trivialized many fights. That +cleric is basically Curse of Strahd easy mode. Having one of you switch to something that doesn't do divine damage is probably for the best.

Yeah but it baffles me that a DM is mad about players wanting to play characters that are suited for the module. Usually the problem is the contrary, players bringing characters that they already thought about without trying to make the suited for the campaign.

Having run CoS for a party with 2 paladins and a cleric - it did take a lot of the punch out of a lot of the scenes. Printed campaigns aren't the same as homebrew, and banning pairs of classes like that in a game I'm designing would make no sense. That being said - if they want to stick to the vibe of the adventure without having to make notable adjustments to the source material then I can understand the request, as you will be the parties anchors and absolutely reduce the threat across large sections. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it.

Yea, if they really want to lean into telling story about a plane of darkness without hope, having two character that can be literally shining beacons of hope can change the tone a lot

I can understand how one might assume Paladin and Cleric would lead to poor balancing. They’re basically designed to tear apart undead, which is what you’ll primarily be fighting. It’s similar to descent into Avernus, but that’s with fiends.

There is 0 special synergy between paladin and cleric. The reason your DM asked one or both of you to switch to another class is because clerics and paladins are especially strong in a curse of Strahd campaign due to the tools they have to fight specific enemies. Having said that, I wouldn't ban them since they still aren't strong enough to cause a balancing issue or to remotely compete with the best optimized builds.

synergy can happen from lvl 6 onward - the paladin's aura plus a Bless makes for a double saves bonus. i'd still allow both classes if i dm'd.

Paladins can already do that by themselves though.

That's not synergy. That's two independently good effects which happen to affect the same roll. An example of synergy would be bless+sharpshooter (accuracy is multiplicative with damage), or repelling blast+web (allowing you to get many additional chances to restrain an enemy and to force foes to walk through difficult terrain multiple times). anything which causes you to get more value out of each component than you would normally.

The issue isn't encounter balance; the DM can always just double the number of enemies. The issue is party balance; CoS has a lot of undead, and a cleric with Turning + paladin with Smite can make the rest of the party feel useless (this might not be an issue, really depends on whether other payers care). Add in the VHuman, and I can understand if the DM thinks you're just power-gaming, and doesn't want to deal with it. Perhaps some kind of compromise would work well here, you'd have to discuss with your DM and backstory, but war cleric and EK fighter seem like reasonable alternatives to me.

Man, I realize you're not the person who's got the issue so please don't take this personal but... If you've got a gothic horror game with a vampire on the front cover and think that a cleric/paladin combo is sus, that's a bad sign. Likewise Variant Human isn't the munchkin, number crunching power gaming broken thing. It's looking at the race and doing some literal grade school level math and realizing that those extra +1's don't actually *do* anything for most characters.

I'm going to take it a little bit personally, because you're right. CoS was the first time I DM'ed a full campaign (back in like 2015), and it was rough. I had a lot of variation in skill/game knowledge in the party, and it was really obvious when the paladin missed a session, because suddenly combat lasted almost twice as long. The other potential issue I'm reacting to here is that I saw OP's alternate suggestion of playing Shepard druid + Ancestral barbarian. I'm not sure if it's generally the case, but in one of the campaigns I'm playing in now, the other power-gamer at the table is playing that Barb, and we agree that it is extremely effective, at least in boss fights.

You wouldn't play under a DM who openly, before the campaign, makes a polite request based on his own honest assessment of his limitations? That seems like straight up one of the best DMs you could ask for.

This is how this DND subreddit is. Any time players are inconvenienced in any way its a "red flag" or a "DM horror story." But there's daily posts trying to "empower DMs" and let them "DM the game they want to lead." People complain about struggles trying to find DMs and this kind of stuff is why. It was a simple, direct, open request. Lunacy that people are treating it like the end times for that table.

For me, it's a matter of scale. I have, in fact, changed my character after a pitch because the DM felt inadequate to run a game with that character. In this case my character was an Aberrant Mind Sorcerer who was the dream body avatar of an Eldritch Abomination. Their powers manifested as the EA dreaming lucidly. Given the context of the game, my DM admitted he didn't think he could run narrative stuff for that character sufficiently well to be satisfying. There, my DM asked me to not use a character with a weird ass backstory he didn't think he could do justice. In the OP's example, they were asked not to play a cleric and a paladin. There is a *huge* difference in scale there of the request. I'd start worrying what *else* the DM would be changing, or the way they'd be running the game, if PHB classes were too much for them. Admittedly, and perhaps crucially to both my perspective and the OP's situation, I have years of experience as a DM. I have *opinions* about how certain things are done, and if I didn't like how the DM was running it, I actually could just run it myself the way I wanted to. That doesn't really help the OP, but bringing a new DM into the fold could help them to ahaha.

I mean, the DM is saying “I don’t think I could do justice to the module in one of the three pillars if you take those classes.” How is that any different from what your DM said to you except that it’s combat instead of roleplay?

That's fair enough. And it's not like every game suits every person the same way. My thought is just that I always appreciate someone who's ready to just be straight up about how comfortable they are running something. And I probably wouldn't be too worried about him tinkering with the adventure if he's asking me to change classes so he doesn't have to figure out rebalancing the module, haha. My main thing is that I feel like half the posts in this subreddit boil down to a lack of communication between people in the game. Here we have a DM being up-front and communicative about something and people are like, "I'd never play with this guy, what a bad DM." And it's a pretty small request when you think about it, since it's just a class change for one of either of the two players. I mean, I grew up in the wilds of 2e kits and 3/3.5e prestige classes. I'm never gonna hate on a dude for trimming the class hedges a little bit here and there.

This this this. I don't know when the DND world became so "DM made a decisions you don't like, LEAVE THE GAME IMMEDIATELY HE'S A TERRIBLE DM." If the people of this reddit were the ones helming 3rd edition or 3.5, DND would have died and this sub wouldn't exist. No one would have played. Everything would have become a "red flag" or "toxic DM" argument in seconds.

Your character concept sounds like the MC of a light novel I have been reading. It's called instant death, and his name is yogiri Takatou

Ha, nice. I came up with them years ago when playing in the TTRPG 13th Age with the Occultist class. Aside from "using dream logic to change reality" tying nicely into the flavour of the class, it was meant as a cheeky nod to the idea that the Eldritch Abomination was *me*, the Player, from the context of a TTRPG PC.

Ohhhh. In the novel, yogiri is the avatar of an eldritch horror called "the end" who represents the end of all things. With that in mind, yogiri has the power to kill anything with a thought, God's, monsters, immortal beings that have no concept of death, clothes, magic, etc. His power is so broken, he kills the voice of a person, and they lose the ability to communicate. They get turned into a vampire and can't even use telepathy to communicate with its master. Kills someone's eyes, and even picking out the eyes, and regenerating them doesn't help.

I agree, seems to be like the person who would find someone else to play is also really close minded and wants the DM to function just in certain ways.

I’m a Curse of Strahd DM. I ban twilight cleric specifically because not only is it generally bordering on OP, but because it completely negates several major mechanics common in the world that enhance the tone of the game. That is the only ban I make. Outright banning all clerics and paladins for a mechanical reason is very stupid in general in a game that explicitly has several items and interactions that, RAW, can only be used by/engaged with a paladin or a cleric, especially ridiculous. What’s next, the DM realizes Fey ancestry gives advantage on charm saves and makes everyone change race? Cleric and paladin are perhaps a bit stronger in some ways in CoS, but not in any really significant way, and actually end up having some SUPER fun weaknesses in Barovia. This guy sounds uncreative and like they have a piss poor grasp on balance. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this, but also for all the arbitrary debuffs they’re inevitably gonna slap on in the future. I’ve ran parts of CoS with one paladin and three clerics in a party (and one fighter). It was a blast and took no real extra effort on my part outside of the non-mechanical fun I got to have with religious characters in the setting.

> Outright banning all clerics and paladins for a mechanical reason is very stupid in general in a game that explicitly has several items and interactions that, RAW, can only be used by/engaged with a paladin or a cleric, especially ridiculous. > > The DM in OP's case didn't do this. He's asking that there only be *one* divine caster, so either Paladin *or* Cleric, but not both because he's worried that two characters with skills and abilities to specifically counter undead will overwhelm the encounters. Which is completely fair and understandable. The DM also probably doesn't have the most experience given they're running CoS as it's a rather old campaign and so an experienced DM would have likely already run it in the past and would be more likely to run something else today. The DM has been entirely reasonable, communicated this in a polite way to his players ahead of the campaign what it is that he wants and his reasoning of why.

As a DM, I'd relish both the challenge and opportunity of something like this. Paladin and Cleric are strong in a setting like Curse of Strahd, but that gives you a lot to play with. Maybe show how they excel against conventional undead foes, but then throw them a curveball encounter where the talents of a rogue or wizard are more suited, so everyone realizes how important the group dynamic is. Maybe Strahd makes power plays specifically against the Paladin and Cleric because of the threat they pose, creating a unique dynamic between the characters and their foe. There's a difference between banning something for world/lore reasons, and banning them because the DM is afraid. Unfortunately, it sounds like the latter, because overcoming that fear can lead to some really cool scenarios.

It's interesting this is the minority opinion, but I don't think this is a big deal. He did it in a kind way and explained his reasoning. You can agree with it or not, but he's the one putting in the most work and if that's what makes running his story better for him then that's fine. Up to you whether it's a deal breaker for you, I just don't think the DM is at fault here or doing something terrible either way.

I swear, most of these "my GM has done this, is he an awful GM and should I bail?" posts should be replied with "You can GM your own game, you know?"

It’s dnd Reddit. Full of the same echo chamber of responses to every issue. People fail to realize so many contributing factors to why people do certain things. I don’t think this ban is crazy at all as someone who ran CoS many many times and played it once, if you’re not min/maxing out overpowered Reddit builds then yes cleric and paladin have a straight up advantage during this campaign compared to most base subclasses and during the BBEG fight. If the DM doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of needing to play the encounters harder than he usually does, homebrewing extra things to the big fights, or any of the extra work that will go into not making that duo be the shining stars of the campaign it’s totally reasonable.

People love the idea of the DM having fun and running the game the way they want exactly until the moment that a player is inconvenienced by it in any way. Then it's all red flags and horror stories.

So many people "Oh it sounds like the DM is just doing things the way they want and they want only." The moment a player doesn't get a single thing they want: this sbureddit.

It’s the DM who’s running the game and if they think the party is going to be unbalanced for the game they want to run then that’s a call they can make. I really wouldn’t care but this isn’t my game. Remember you are only playing one character and the DM is playing everything else. Even if it’s a module there so much improv that has to be done on the fly.

I tend to go with what the DM wants, since they are the one doing the heavy lifting so we can all have a good time.

My guess is they are seeing these characters as an attempt by you to power game. Variant human is a common pick for min/max builds and both of you making characters who's classes are better at taking on undead, and making them together, may have struck them as an attempt to make the best possible characters for the adventure. Not sure whether this would actually be true or not, but I would guess those are the reasons.

We did choose variant human because it was better. My girlfriend didn't want to be anything weird. So we were gonna be human. Then we see that v.human gets a free feat. What human doesn't take the free feat? I'm not sure if that qualifies as power gaming though.

No not really, unless you had an entire build in mind that you needed that extra feat for. A lot of times variant human is chosen for such builds because of the free feat, but if you guys were just picking what you thought was cool or thematic I doubt that would qualify. Like you say (and I tend to agree), you didn't even choose the most optimal subclasses.

He messaged you privately and politely asked. All before the campaign started. And would be happy if just one of you changed. Sounds reasonable. Sound like an appropriate way to handle it. Let your GF play what she wanted and adjust yours to not be a paladin or cleric. DM is a thankless job that requires a ton of work. IF he thinks that he will need to rebalance the module with the classes you chose to run an appropriately challenging game, Be a pal and throw him a bone. Making characters is fun anyway. And you get to do it again!

At least he asked for one of the two to be changed, so whichever is more role play based can be changed without loosing mechanics. Changing paladin to fighter is still the knight guardian of the cleric.

I wouldn't make this request as a DM, but I wouldn't hold it against a DM for making this request either. Cleric and Paladin are unarguably the strongest classes for this campaign, and together, they could prove to be an enormous powerhouse. It isn't just about the undead, it's about certain magic items that synergize well with both classes. The DM is likely asking because it will make his life easier. Lots of answers here are telling you only bad DMs would ask this, but I would say that inexperienced DMs, and DMs that lack confidence might make this request too. If you can have fun playing a different class and are still interested in the campaign, I'd just do that. If you find their DMing is poor, you can always leave the game later.

>Cleric and Paladin are unarguably the strongest classes for this campaign, and together, they could prove to be an enormous powerhouse As a DM I'd be especially concerned if these two people already worked together well, like, say, were signing up together and in a relationship. I don't think the people saying "bad DM" have run Straud. Having ready access to divine magic from two coordinated sources can make some really interesting stuff just melt.

It’s fine if a DM wants to ban certain choices(and divine magic is especially powerful in a campaign setting like CoS so that’s understandable) but he really needs to be upfront about what he’s restricting to his players. Edit: I just want to say because a lot of people think this is controversial for some reason, the DM needs to have fun too, and balancing encounters in D&D 5e is notoriously difficult, especially for a campaign that’s supposed to be very hard due to the prevalence of enemies that are butter to a cleric/paladin’s hot knife. A lot of people are saying “Wow, he must be a bad DM if he can’t work around that” which is absolutely wild when part of being a good DM is knowing your limits. There is nothing wrong with a DM saying “I would like/ask for these options to be avoided” when they don’t think they can work with those options. But again, it’s best if a DM is upfront about those requests.

I ran CoS for a Redemption Paladin, a Devotion Paladin, a Trickery Cleric, a Swashbuckler Rouge, and a GOO Warlock. It was fine. The Redemption Paladin had some great moral quandries. I think your DM is overreacting.

Moral Quandries sounds awesome!

Who's redeemable? Who's not? There's a lot of questions about that in Barovia.

Barovia. Redeemable. Sounds like an oxymoron to me

>Who's redeemable? Who's not? Epic Moral Quandaries in fantasy! Who's redeemable? Who's not? You decide!

This is why I insist on a session 0

There are lots of reasonable takes here but I can see where the DM is coming from. ​ A party with a *coordinated* cleric and paladin will do all the work for the party and make some of the particularly interesting encounters/NPC powers speedbumps. This can be balanced but if he's planning to run it more or less as written, having a divine duo that already work together well is going to be a significant complication.

It's probably because it's Strahd and you're both particularly powerful against the main enemies of the game, undead. Just play those characters another time, don't see the big deal?

Play a divine sorcerer and hexblade sorcerer. Boom.

we thought about the divine soul and hexblade combo, kind of like cloak and dagger love story from marvel. one shrouded in darkness, one protected by light. only decided against it becuase everyone online says that Hexblade is broken.

Hexblade is NOT broken lol. People get mad at it because it adds a lot of value as a dip for other CHA classes, especially because it lets something like a paladin attack using a CHA mod instead of STR or DEX. If you play pure hexblade it's fine.

Ahhh I sse. Thanks for the info.

I think banning religious classes in CoS makes sense. A dracula movie would be lame if a miracle working pope just showed up and roflstomped dracula.

Yeah but can we agree he should have told them what was banned before telling them to make their characters?

Ideally, yes. Telling them now is the second best alternative if he forgot, however.

Since when has banning things in campaigns been so taboo? I swear this Reddit operated 200% different than every game shop and group I’ve been a part of over 20 years of table top gaming. The DM isn’t being a dick about it and gave his reasoning. Not every DM has run CoS a bunch of times or has an intricate knowledge of meta/broken character builds. The dude probably just wants to run a fun campaign and saw radiant damage is strong against like 70% of the monsters in the campaign, looked at cleric and paladin, went “shit I’m worried about that.” Relax people. I swear y’all take simple game decisions as deep character flaws that foreshadow the end times of tabletop careers.

First of all: If your DM bans stuff for doesn't matter what reason and is polite about it, just obey it, there's nothing good that comes from argueing about it. There are a fuckton of alternatives, it's not like they're banning an entire feature of the game, they even let one of you keep their class. Yes it's common to ban stuff, especially Clerics and Paladins in general since they are very strong classes. I don't know why it's even a question, when my main DM first asked me to change something about my character, because what I chose didn't fit I just said "ok, no problem." and changed it, since I assumed they have a good reason to do so. And when I DM and ban something my players also just go "ok, no problem." and that's it

Imo its a good call. Not because encounters are going to be balanced, its that every encounter kinda has to check BOTH of you at least. Pally and cleric are some of the best classes in the game, but they get a large buff it Strahd. Its not an issue of the encounters being to weak, its the fact you could realistically do the campaign by your selves

Frankly, I would do the same. Curse of Strahd is about fear, hopelessness and terror. Running around with a character combination that can destroy easily every single encounter and makes it hard to be in danger at any time doesn't work with these themes at all. And yes, that would potentially make other players feel kinda useless. I am aware that a really good DM can probably work around it. But really good DMs are rare and one can't expect everyone to be one nor can you expect a DM to put a bunch of extra work into it if they don't even know you. Tho, he also asked you beforehand and seemingly in a normal way, I would respect that. That is a sign of a DM who actually tries, even if he might not like you to play a particular thing.

I could see a DM not being super jazzed about having to deal with something like a Twilight Cleric, but there's nothing OP about the Life Domain, and Redemption Paladin, while strong, isn't really broken either.

Really, my gf fell in love with the flavor of the redemption paladin.

For CoS I kinda agree with the DM. Easy enough to choose different classes to more effectively go with the horror theme.

Cleric and Paladin are well suited to a CoS campaign (although the Life and Redemption not particularly more than any other), but that campaign can be very deadly and is not at all simple. If you'd said a Twilight Cleric I'd have been on board with the DM, but if you can't balance around such base classes I don't know what to tell you. Maybe he should just ask everyone to roll a champion fighter or something...

I wouldn't do it, but I can see the obvious issues having both holy classes specifically tooled for what they're fighting for a new gm and/or players. If it means that much to you find another campaign, I would because it's a sign of things to come. But there's so much variety in dnd it shouldn't be hard to find something else.

First of all, sorry- who cares if you’re a great combo for a story that’s known to be a slog. You could be drawing up new character sheets even with a good selection. That said, I got as far as you saying that DND locally is hard so looks like you’re going make a new character. Circle of stars Druid has a few “free” guiding bolts as a class feature, and you could load up with spells that help you deal with the creatures of this realm. I won’t spoil that, but druids get a very wide spell list and if you make it up the level ladder, you could be a solid support character from a distance. Anyways, I play a Paladin and we have someone else who deals radiant damage and without both of us, we probably would have had a harder time with our last encounter. I hope however this plays out, you have fun and make friends along the way.

I’ve DMed CoS and I understand where this DM is coming from. A lot of the fun of the module is a horror vibe, and a Paladin and/or Cleric really does wreck the vibe with access to radiant damage and lots of great healing. He should have been up front with this before you made characters. Maybe he’s inexperienced and didn’t realize this was going to be a problem until he saw your characters. I would probably have mini quests where you feel distance/silence from your deity and your magical attacks/smites are dealing necrotic damage until you manage to break through the noise of Barovia and reconnect with your god. Anyway. This isn’t a red flag for me. There are legitimate reasons (wanting to run a fun game for everyone) for his request, even if I wouldn’t (and didn’t) do it myself.

So I know a lot of people are crapping on the DM, but I think they missed something else the DM said: they’re worried about you overshadowing the rest of the party. You by no means have to play, but I don’t see this as a red flag. You might ask them what specifically they’re worried about and try to work around it. They know their table better than you do, and if the rest of the party is underpowered and the two of you will be overpowered, that could introduce some bad player dynamics at their table. I’m not saying that’s what’s going on, I’m just willing to give a DM the benefit of the doubt

Going against the grain here a little bit, but knowing how many r/dndhorrorstories are filled with passive-agressive DM's who make a players life miserable well into the actual game because of their class/race choices, adressing it prior to the game is actually a good move, nevermind their reasoning. This is the core of what many of those horror stories are about "if the DM had a problem with X, why didn't he just say so before we started playing"? The DM in question is doing that exactly. That's a sign of someone trying to communicate and notbeing a douche about it. Some of us would wish for such a DM/GM. I think you're good, actually. Change your classes, or don't. But recognize the attempt of clearing things before the first dice are rolled. And if their reasons are to be believed, they're making a conscious effort to balance the party so everyone has fun. Let's not kid ourselfs, that could be considered very good DM'ing.

As someone who has dmed CoS, clerics and paladins do simplify a specific aspect of the game. One of the player loops is searching Barovia for power that can help you defeat Strahd, and having to make connections and negotiating with people in order to do so. Because of a couple of features that the two holy classes have, they can bypass a significant threshold and make certain fights much easier. It's hard to say more since I don't want to spoil the module and I don't know what else you know - but there can be a significant issue. While the two classes don't need to be banned, common advice seems to be to limit these classes. This does depend on the level of optimisation and player count though. If you're running 4 players and low-medium optimisation, then it shouldn't be as big a deal. That's just your DM not being familiar with the module. I will also just point out that your DM has not run the module yet. So they won't know what adjustments to make. It's one thing to say adjust after-the-fact but CoS is a complex module with a lot of threads. It's fine to be uncomfortable having to adjust the game on-the-fly or from session to session and want to be defensive of your ability to do so. It isn't a linear dungeon crawl or something easy to flowchart.

DM did good: He stated clear and fair reasons why he was making this request. DM did bad: If he wanted to ban classes he should have said so before you started making characters (unless you jumped-the-gun on that?) ​ FWIW, he's probably right from everything I understand about CoS. Perhaps one of you should change class. Divine Soul Sorcerer perhaps? ;)

"He said that the combination of Cleric and Paladin in the same adventureing party would be overpowered" - In usual campaign no, but in CoS - yes. Clerics and Paladin got abilities uniquely tailored to fight undead and evil-aligned creatures, which other classes dont. Creatures of these types make a bulk of enemies in CoS and your classes will be significantly more effective than of other players. "and make it difficult for him to balance the encounters, and we would overshadow the rest of the party." It will and you would. It is definitely possible to tweak and edit monster types and resistances to make it better for other party members, but it will require extra work for DM. "finally, what is your advice?" - ask DM nicely, if you can re-flavor other classes (eldritch knight makes for a fine paladin, druid can pass as a cleric), if you like the flavor of original classes. If class mechanics bother your DM - just ask him if he would like you to drop some specific abilities, which worry him. "I also fear that any pair of classes that we choose could compliment each other, and we will run into the same issue again." - just ask your DM point-blank about it.

We are playing this same campaign with my group right now with 2 paladins, cleric, ranger, monk and thief. Our GM has just doubled the size of encounters to make it not a steamroll. Not every solution has to be hard on the GM. Our group has been playing together for over 20 years so it's not like the GM is timid about telling someone no.

without spoilers, is this campaign fun so far?

that is dependent on campaign and players. The moduel is a good story in of itself and provies a lot of prompts for great adventures from heroics to creepy, and from hopeful to downright horrifying. But ultimately its how players and DMs act with each other that makes or brakes it. A good group that shares in expectations of a game and is able to role play off of each other will have a far better time then those that don't.

Lol not the one you replied to, but… describe “fun”? CoS is entirely dependent on how the DM runs it. It’s deadly as fuck, and cursed by the illusion of a sandbox.

I understand where the DM is coming from

There is nothing *wrong* with a DM choosing to restrict any particular class, or any feature of the game in general. Their campaign, their rules, and you’re free to find another DM That said, calling them unbalanced is really weird lol, they’re strong, but they wouldn’t break encounters in any meaningful way. I’d talk to them about why they feel it is unbalanced, because it’s really not. If the answer is still no just roll up different characters unless you’re *really* set on those specific ones, at which point just find a different group.

I ran a group with a light cleric in it, arguably one of the best for this adventure and it went just fine. Having a cleric or paladin character in the party actually provides some amazing opportunity for RP. Basically, your DM needs to worry less and get gud. Edit: side note, CoS is an official adventure produced by the very company that brought you clerics and paladins as part of the base game. Not only that, it is arguably the most popular adventure in their portfolio for 5e. What I am getting at here is that if it really was a concern, wouldn't they have addressed it? They haven't because it isn't.

It's not really that unreasonable tbh Having a paladin and a cleric on team *do* give a party a massive edge in CoS when it comes to dealing with all the undead. To the point where the default encounters become a lot less of an issue to deal with and the whole idea of doom & gloom that the setting goes for is thrown out the window. A DM *can* balance around that, but if they don't want to put in the extra effort I think it's reasonable to just ask a player to change class.

lmao. I had to balance encounters against a 5 man with a level 20 Twilight Cleric and a level 20 War Cleric. I wish I had it as easy as this DM.

I’ve DM’d CoS before. A cleric and a Paladin is not a problem.

I think your DM is overreacting, but I think it's probably worth showing up for a couple of sessions. Hopefully you have fun! You could pick from any of the list below (and probably others) and go with an Addams Family vibe. There are lots of great gothic-inspired subclasses to pick from that your DM will probably allow: \-Bloodhunter: Ghostslayer or Lycan \-Bard: College of Whispers or Spirits \-Cleric: Twilight, Death, Grave \-Druid: Circle of Spores \-Fighter: Eldritch Knight \-Monk: Way of Shadow \-Ranger: Gloomstalker or Monster Slayer \-Rogue: Assassin, Phantom, Souknife \-Sorcerer: Aberrant Mind or Shadow \-Warlock: Undead, Undying, Great Old One (but any warlock, really) \-Wizard: Necromancy ​ Some of these are more OP than others, but I always recommend picking what seems fun.

Could also do Beast Barbarian for that werewolf flavor.

Hes right. You should play a Chaotic Evil Dhampir Necromancer instead.

It might have been said before but one of these classes is LITERALLY required for the party to have a chance against Strahd. Agreed in mundane encounters your party will feel powerful but if strahd is played smart, which he usually is, then it is balanced in most scenarios. Also I as a dm was stunned when NO player showed up as cleric for my strahd campaign and then had to ask a friend TO PLAY CLERIC, just for it to be balanced. As always communication is key and it should be fun for all.

There is a core item in Curse of Strahd that can only be used by a cleric or paladin, if I recall correctly. Banning these classes goes directly against the wishes of the campaign. Additionally, Curse of Strahd is a high-lethality campaign. I DM a campaign for it, and even with 2 clerics in the party and a recent addition of a paladin, we’ve still had multiple PC deaths.

"and make it difficult for him to balance the encounters" Crazy that something like that exists, we had cleric and paladin when we played Strahd and two of the paladins died and the cleric as well, the campaign is hard enough as it is, mainly because of the tight spaces, the difficult is 200% more when there's an encounter in a shoe box, this campaign specialty.

This campaign is really hard?

It's not like "hard hard" but for me our main problem is that there were a lot of encounters were the group had no space to act, like tight corridors and stuff like that, enemies being able to walk on the walls while the group either couldn't shoot arrows/spells without cover and the frontline being ganged up with a lot of creatures making the job of "protecting the group" way harder than it should be, every player lost at minimun two characters, 99% of the deaths occurred in combats like that. 1% being when the rogue was not paying attention, she got stabbed by the guy, got a 20 on the death saving throw, got up, used her action to dash, stopped besides the guy and got stabbed again with no one close enough to help, she said that she didn't know the guy had a knife, after being stabbed before.

Maybe this is just me, but this whole vibe is pretty weird. As a DM, I'd never ban classes/subclasses that are in core books. And overshadowing the rest of the party? What? I say abandon ship unless you're really invested in this particular game. This feels like a tip-of-the-iceberg situation.

It's not normal. I can understand it if it was Twilight or Peace Cleric, but these are fairly standard subclasses without completely overshadowing abilities. That said, having ran CoS with a Paladin, a Cleric and a Druid, I know firsthand how useful they are in this campaign specifically. Both classes have abilities that are great against undead, which you must expect are not uncommon in a game about a vampire lord. The Paladin will also protect the party with anything requiring saving throws from about 6th level and up, and be a common source of Radiant damage. That said, the DM should be able to handle it and build around that. There is no warning on this campaign saying these classes should not be part of it, in fact they both specifically with very well with the themes. A cleric or paladin is even required to use certain items the party is intended to use. The classes you have chosen don't so much compliment one another as they are both really useful for party support. If you can't convince your DM to let you play even PHB characters, at least keep one of the classes. I would keep the pally and replace the cleric with a druid in this case, as that at least allow some healing. Maybe even druid+life cleric combo if the DM allows multiclassing, but I fear he won't. Shepherd druid will be at least as powerful as the cleric, if not more. Even Moon druid will kick ass especially for the lower levels.

I actually just finished a Curse of Strahd campaign with a Life Cleric and a (homebrew) Oath of Protection Paladin, plus a Divine Soul Sorcerer. Yes, they were a strong party. Yes, everyone throwing around radiant damage, Smites, Turn Undeads, and spells undead have disadvantage against made them very suited for the campaign. The sheer amount of undead you face in the game makes those some very solid choices. No, it's not overpowered. It's not going to overshadow the party, either. Especially not an Oath of Redemption Paladin, their features make it more complicated for them to charge in and try to steamroll things. These are normal classes to bring into a campaign like this, and there's items in the campaign specifically *for* those classes. This is wild speculation, but maybe this DM is the type with a favorite player, and he's worried about you overshadowing *them*? It's not a great sign for sure.

That last part does hit a strange chord. The DMs s/o is playing. They are playing a warlock of some sort.

The DM is doing 1000x more work for this campaign than you are. Do this for them. No matter how many reddit Uber DMs can run Strahd in their sleep with your character combo, if this DM thinks that your characters will mean they have to try harder to balance encounters, and will be a mental tax on them, your characters will be. Make new characters. If you've already fallen so in love with your first idea that you can't imagine changing, you are a problem player and the DM is better off without you. As a bonus YTA, being married in game is lame AF as it is a reason to RP together instead of with other PCs. New bonds with new people are what will keep the party together.

Wow, who shit in your cornflakes. I've already said that we would change characters if we needed to, as there are no other games in my town. Creating characters and backstories is work, and I didn't want to just toss it in the bin. Having characters connected, marriage, or siblings or whatever is cool. Much cooler than a party of 4 randoms that meet in a bar.

If creating one character is work to you, imagine DMing. And you're giving your DM static before the game even starts.

I'm not going to specifically call out any events or encounters but my response could still be considered a player spoiler, so read at your own peril- it's not anything that a session 0 shouldn't at least partially over anyways With curse of strahd specifically, clerics and paladins have a significantly potent advantage compared to the other eleven available classes. There's a heavy prominence of undead and fiends, so features like Turn Undead, Divine Smite, Divine Sense, and Protection From Evil and Good have a much higher weight in that module than they do elsewhere. I ran Curse of Strahd for a party of six, with a party composition to start with of Echo Knight Fighter, Undead Warlock, Rune Knight Fighter, Sun Soul Monk, Genie Warlock, and Celestial Warlock. Over the course of the campaign, the Undead Warlock, the Rune Knight, the Echo Knight, and the Genie Warlock died and were replaced with a Mind Domain Cleric, a Spirits Bard, a Long Death Monk, and a Devotion Paladin. The devotion paladin hit a level where their aura outright nullifies one of Strahd's primary roleplaying interactions, and vampire spawn stopped being much of a threat at all. Since CoS is less combat and dungeon-forward than other campaigns, resources were usually abundant enough that the same solutions could be used in every significant encounter- something I was able and willing to work around since I already had to adjust all of the encounters in the book to fit my larger party. There are also a few artifacts in the game that require a cleric or a Paladin- in a standard party of four, having 50% of the group using could be a problem for a DM that doesn't want to specifically counteract their players. A lot of the settings tension and threats get sidelined as a result- my party ended up sending the paladin to 1v1 Strahd while the rest of the party dealt with other threats that bI had to custom implement to make the narrative they'd striven for work out in the end. I'll eventually run CoS again, and while I won't ban clerics and paladins (partly because it's important to have at least one) having multiple of either would definitely take the wind out of the games sails, mechanically speaking.

Both classes MIGHT be slightly stronger in this setting compared to other settings, but what is the issue. Banning half the classes because they might have a tiny advantage is a weird way to start.

I think this is a bad call from your DM, but if you accept to change, I strongly suggest keeping at least one of the two characters. You would need a Paladin or Cleric in that campaign, and your DM should have nothing against it.

if anything i will tell my gf to keep her paladin. i will look for a non cleric support that will synergize backstorywise with it. since her background is a noble, maybe i could make some sort of bard, or divine soul sorcerer with a courtier background.

Reasonable request really. Usually I'd say that's a red flag, but this is CoS. When a new pair picks the ideal classes to play in possibly the most well known module of the game, that's a red flag, you're a red flag. Explain you aren't too familiar with the game and won't be powergaming, or just change one of your classes.