Priest NPC Class

I decided I needed a class to represent the religious leaders who tend to the day-to-day needs of the people and run the churches. I don't have a problem with clerics, but I wanted a good option for non-military, non-adventuring clergy.

So here is what I developed...

It is pretty heavily back-loaded because I wanted the mechanics to handle old devout priests with limited access to 9th level cleric spells. But I wanted the bulk of the class to be of lesser power, in the adept range. I also tied most of their spell-casting to domains so that they would reflect their religion more distinctly. This also makes them appear to be part of the church machinery as opposed to the hero-individual of the cleric.

Please comment

Looks pretty clean.


Weapon proficiencies: I'd give the same proficiencies as the wizard. At the very least, I'd remove the proficiency with the Diety's preferred weapon, since adventuring, combat clerics don't necessarily know how to use the deity's preferred weapon (unless they take the War domain).

Domains: 4 domains? that's a LOT, especially since some deity's don't even have 4 domains associated with them. I'd at least make it so the priest doesn't get the domain's special abilities.

Hope this helps.

AR

Thanks

You are exactly right about the War Domain. If they have that, they get the weapon anyway. If it isn't a war god, this class doesn't need any special weapon prof.

I went with the one simple weapon because I wanted to be closer to the commoner. I can see it either way and don't think it really makes a big difference in the end.


I went with four domains because I really want these guys to be more directly tied to the deity's portfolio. And with over half their spells being limited to domain spells, it seemed fair to give them some selection to work with. And really, they don't get to four until a fairly high level. Granted, the special abilities can be quite nice, but I don't see that as a major problem.

And my home brew is standardized at 4 domains, so that is not an issue in my personal case.

(I tried to pm this to you 4 times, enworld would not let me do so )

I did something very similar, didnt want to tie up your thread with baggage though.

Basically it was for the guy who usually stays at home. Ever wonder how those preists of the god of healing always had the spell you were looking for? This is how. Basically they are really good at what the gods portfolio is. Or at least should be if domains work properly. Under this most gods should get an extra domain or two (for a total of 6 for every god, which is reasonable in my world at least). Plus it rides along your delay of spellcasting, but not as much.

Feel free to just ignore me though, just hopeing it might help your idea along. Both of our ideas seem very similar. although this one is designed to be used for pc's as well as npc's.

Priest
Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills
The priest’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff(Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Gather Information(Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (history) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier.

Level BAB Fort Ref Will Special
1st +0 +0 +0 +2 2 Bonus feats, Turning, Spontaneous Casting
2nd +1 +0 +0 +3
3rd +1 +1 +1 +3 Bonus feat
4th +2 +1 +1 +4
5th +2 +1 +1 +4 Bonus feat
6th +3 +2 +2 +5
7th +3 +2 +2 +5 Bonus feat
8th +4 +2 +2 +6
9th +4 +3 +3 +6 Bonus feat
10th +5 +3 +3 +7 Bonus feat
11th +5 +3 +3 +7 Bonus Feat
12th +6 +4 +4 +8
13th +6 +4 +4 +8 Bonus Feat
14th +7 +4 +4 +9
15th +7 +5 +5 +9 Bonus Feat
16th +8 +5 +5 +10
17th +8 +5 +5 +10 Bonus Feat
18th +9 +6 +6 +11
19th +9 +6 +6 +11 Bonus Feat
20th +10 +6 +6 +12 Bonus Feat


Class Features
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Priest is proficient with all simple weapons and light armor.

Deity, Domains, and Domain Spells: A priest's deity influences his alignment, what magic he can perform, his values, and how others see him. A priest chooses two domains from among those belonging to his deity. A priest can select an alignment domain (Chaos, Evil, Good, or Law) only if his alignment matches that domain.
If a priest is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies.
Each domain gives the priest access to a domain spell at each spell level he can cast, from 1st on up, as well as a granted power. The priest gets the granted powers of both the domains selected.
If a particular diety does not have enough domains choose from related domains along similar lines of what the god believes in (ie talk with your dm and see what is appropriate)

Spontaneous Casting: The priest may spontanously cast any spell on his domain lists.

Turn or Rebuke Undead (Su): Any priest, regardless of alignment, has the power to affect undead creatures by channeling the power of his faith through his holy (or unholy) symbol (see Turn or Rebuke Undead).
A good priest (or a neutral priest who worships a good deity) can turn or destroy undead creatures. An evil priest (or a neutral priest who worships an evil deity) instead rebukes or commands such creatures. A neutral priest of a neutral deity must choose whether his turning ability functions as that of a good priest or an evil priest. Once this choice is made, it cannot be reversed. This decision also determines whether the priest can cast spontaneous cure or inflict spells (see above).
A priest may attempt to turn undead a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier. A priest with 5 or more ranks in Knowledge (religion) gets a +2 bonus on turning checks against undead.

A priest casts as many spells per day as a sorcerer of the same level. His primary casting stat is Wisdom.

Bonus Feats are any metamagic feats or divine feats, Augment Summoning, Diligent, Eschew Materials, Extra Turning, Improved Turning, Negotiator, Iron Will, Great Fortitude or a Domain. (a character cannot have more domans than their 2 + (class level/3) )

That is cool.

It is more of a PC class than I was looking for. But the differences and similarities are interesting.

I considered going the spontaneous route. I stayed with preparation because I ultimately decided I wanted to stay in tune with the cleric.

I know what you mean about the spontaneous casting. I picked it because I figured if the caster could only cast domain spells it would make him sortof like the embodyment of his gods ideals.

Plus, if you want a certain spell cast and you have some knowledge of the gods you always know what temple to go to. They are almost always the go to guys for spell X. Healing? every normal cleric can spontaneous so that isnt the best example, but you go to the god of healing. They get a +1 caster level anyway If you want an air walk you go to the temple of air. Etc. But with your four domains granted (eventually) and extra domain slots you will get the same effect.

Hopefully you will get to what you want! Looking good so far.

I use a similar 4-domain priest for PCs.

I haven't decided how to rule the extra domain(s) from dipping into Cleric though...thoughts?

If I were going to make an NPC priest class, my first thought would be to use the Adept class with a different set of spells...simple, effective, boring. But this document you've got has some pretty cool stuff going on. Here's my two cents.

Spell Progression: I like the limited access to high-level spells, and how you balanced it with more skill points. Well done.

Domains: Four domains is a lot, especially if they get the granted powers of each. If it were me, I would give them access to a single domain at 1st level, and maybe a second one at 10th level.

Turning Undead: instead of scaling the effective cleric level by an odd number (-0.75,) it might be easier to say that the priest can turn or rebuke the undead as a cleric of four levels lower (sort of like a paladin, but with a minimum cleric level of 1.) There's nothing inherently wrong with your rule; I just like to keep the math to a minimum.

this is what i've been using, though i added a fourth domain at 20th (and spread out the rest), and changed turn undead to turn evil outsider. Oh and added an extra domain spell per day (because of the extra domain) in place of a regular spell per day...

http://www.zipworld.com.au/~hong/dnd/priest.htm

Very decent NPC class I gotta say. I have to agree with 4 domains being "acceptable", as the bulk of the spells of the Priest class are domain spells, including all 7-9th level spells. I could see myself using this class for my priest NPC's.