D&D 2E 2E specialty clerics

[exile]

I, for one, am a fan of the armored holy man (or woman) who fights with a blunt weapon (or the chosen weapon of his/her god), heals, and channels holy energy against the undead.

Back in the days of 2E, I loved the Forgotten Realms specialty priests, but I think the reason that I did is that they were so much sexier (i.e more powerful) than the generalist cleric.

I have/had little if any experience playing a PHB specialty priest that is/was significantly removed from the baseline cleric, so I can't say much about that.

I will echo that a "priest" theme (or different "priest" themes for each god) seems a good way to handle things. That way, for a priest of a nature god, you could make a cleric or druid (or even ranger), then add the appropriate theme. "Priest of Chauntea" say for a lawful priest of a nature god that favors working with humanity and civilization; or the "Priest of Silvanus" theme for the nature god for nature's sake.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

i want the concept of specialty priests. I just want it to be better designed/balanced than 2e did with it

Another vote for this.

In their defense, specialty priests had to be built on top of the 2E design without changing it. So there was only so much they could do.

OTOH, this really set the pattern for, "Replicate the same thing a zillion times with little changes that are fluffed to appear more important than they are, to distract from a few key changes that are broken. And if you don't like these, our professionals will quickly write you 20 more. Then you are sure to have something you want!" Seems like an excuse to take a 20 page, well-designed supplement, skip the design, and pad it out to fill a couple of books. Seems like that mistake has been repeated a few times since.

 

[Tom Servo]

A bit off topic, but in my home games we also gave clerics pretty clear codes of conduct and bits of dogma they had to follow. Sort of like a paladin's code. This also added to the flavor of clerics.

I once played a cleric of life that could never refuse a request for healing. The DM played it masterfully, never abusing it. The first time he tugged this string was during a fight with a clever and religiously knowledgeable BBEG. I'll never forget the faces of those around the table when mid-fight the BBEG looked at my character and politely asked for healing...and then I did it.

I also really enjoyed the fact that different priest had access to different spells. (Different spheres and major/minor access.) You've got a problem with failing crops? You don't go to a war-priest.

Anyways, for me the more flavor the better. Balance comes second. Some orders of priests just aren't cut out for the adventuring life, I'm okay with that.

I know it is way too much to ask of 5e, but in my ideal version the class of priest/cleric would be a whole range of very distinctive subclasses. Subclasses with different spell access, different granted powers, different skills and skill points, different weapon and armor access, different thac0/BaB/whatever, etc, etc. A guy can dream though.