So Ive been looking at the advance scheme of a clerics characteristics and it seems to me that they have no weaknesses. What do I mean by weaknesses? Frankly something that they "aren't good at" or something thats hard for them to increase. Take for example the Assassin, while they specialize in combat and agility it is hard for them to increase their strength and fellowship. And by hard I mean the simple advance costs 500 xp. All classes have some sort of weak characteristic advance from the guardsmans willpower to the tech priests agility. All of the classes save for the cleric that is.

Would I be in my right as a GM to change the advance scheme? say to make their perception and perhaps toughness "hard" to increase(ie the 500 simple advance progression)? Would this balance the class a bit better? Have any other GMs had this problem in the past? Can anyone offer any other solutions?

I read in the descriptions that they are supposed to be good fighters and just general well rounded characters, but it seems like a no brainer to me. They get paid well, have access to the same weapon talents as others do at pretty much second level, and they have the best advance scheme (along with the sororitas but they aren't allowed in my game ) Im not saying they should be gimped hardcore but it seems like they come with too many boons and not enough burdens at least mechanics wise. True a creative GM could work things out to balance it out, but coming from a pure numbers point of view, clerics are the the most superior of the core 8 classes.

And for all that they still don't get played… In all honesty, they are not an appealing class to most people. I wonder if the devs wanted to sweeten the pot a bit, but when it comes right down to it it's all about roleplaying. DH is a lot less action-oriented (most of the time) than the other core 40K games and a little advantage isn't going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things. They can't really specialize like a lot of other characters and that becomes a drawback in the long run. That being said, I've never had anyone play one (in DH, someone ran for maybe 4 or 5 months in RT with a Missionary but that's not the same), and I've never played one myself so maybe other groups are different. Everyone seems to avoid it like the plague, and I don't think the advance scheme matters to them in the slightest.

I wish someone would play it though. They're fun!

I dont know about the not specializing thing. They get access to a wide variety of skills, yeah they may not get the +20 version as well as the Talented: xx talent… but when they are testing at full characteristic, with a bonus and can easily get their original rolled stat to +20 it kinda becomes a little wonky if you ask me. Thats not even taking into account the test difficulty. I know they are the ones preaching the gospel of He on Terra, but it seems to me like the emperor smiles on some of his servants more than others.

Right on. I hear ya. For me, the specializing is about talents, though. They have access to fewer of the really devastating talents that other lines get, and that makes up for a lot. High characteristics are essential, but talents are where it gets really fun.

They are basically the all-rounders, more so than scum (which are also perceived to suffer long run) and as well, playing a fantical priest of the Imperium has it's own set of RP challenges.

Jeff Tibbetts said:

Which ones dont they get access to? Because quite frankly if you want to talk devastating, they get access to basic SP and are one of the classes that can actually AFFORD to outright buy a Nomad. Plus you know the whole chainsword and flamer bit and if it's melee were talking, lets not forget about crushing blow at level 5. Nothing says "goodbye heretic scum" quite like +2 damage on all melee weapons.

I'm sorry, I don't have the book in front of me so I can only speak in general terms. Yeah, at the higher levels like you're saying things like Crushing Blow can really help, but compared to other tracks they don't have the depth of excellent talents that allow someone to become a dual-wielding melee maniac dishing out several hits per turn, or an elite sniper popping called head-shots at +60 BS, you know? They are good, sure, but they're not crazy like some of them can be. They are just that, a jack of all trades and a master of none. Like I said, I can see where you're coming from but I don't think they're out of balance. I think they're MORE balanced than most.

I realize this may be somewhat off topic, but in terms of game balance, how does being able to use faith talents (most of them in Blood of Martyrs) change the balance? I realize that the vanilla version of clerics in Dark Heresy don't get them, but if one buys them as elite advances, or gets them in the course of an alternate career, are they a game changer in regards to the cleric?

I ask because the faith powers which can combat corruption or insanity ("Holy Radiance" and "Blessed Ignorance", Blood of Martyrs, pg. 103) or adding the cleric's willpower bonus to the party's toughness bonus ("Spirit of the Martyr", Blood of Martyrs, pg. 104) sound pretty nice as a support role. However, even though they sound nice, do they unbalance the power within a party?