Is the Cleric a Common Fantasy Archtype?

Have you?

  • Yes

    Votes: 28 31.8%
  • No

    Votes: 55 62.5%
  • Yes and No(Post Explanation)

    Votes: 5 5.7%

Lalato

Adventurer
Umbran said:
On clerics, there's a bit of a problem. Fighters and rogues from different fantasy worlds are still pretty much the same. Wizards are too, though they vary somewhat as the metaphysic of magic varies from world to world.

On religion, though, fantasy books may as well not be lumped together as a genre, because they have little in common. Religion (and it's role in society) in fantasy worlds varies so greatly form one book to another that it's not really fair to ask D&D to provide an archetype that covers many of them.
That may well be true... but the archetype found in D&D has little to no connection with the real world or the majority of fantasy fiction. It's a completely different type of holy person. The cleric in D&D is closer to a holy warrior... than a holy priest...

There have been holy warriors throughout history and literature... however, very few, if any, had the awesome spellcasting abilities of D&D clerics.

--sam
 

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fba827

Adventurer
with regard to the specific nature of your question, the D&D concept of cleric is not necessarily present as is in fantasy fiction.

The cleric, is, however, still from myth, legend, fable, and history. It is the healer and the holy warrior (at least the ones that do not fall under the strict catagory of paladin).

So while it (the cleric) may not written in tale after tale of modern day fantasy authors, it still has a lot of basis in real world myths, legends, etc.
 

Enkhidu

Explorer
fba827 said:
with regard to the specific nature of your question, the D&D concept of cleric is not necessarily present as is in fantasy fiction.

The cleric, is, however, still from myth, legend, fable, and history. It is the healer and the holy warrior (at least the ones that do not fall under the strict catagory of paladin).

So while it (the cleric) may not written in tale after tale of modern day fantasy authors, it still has a lot of basis in real world myths, legends, etc.

My memory is failing me at the moment, could you name a few?
 

Merlion

First Post
And mind I am not just asking about the cleric class...but also the nature of the magic system. the whole thing were you dont just have magic or people who can use magic...and you dont even just have different styles and traditions of, or aproachs to magic. you have to very seperate types of magic. And each of them has certain exclusive or virtualy exclusive abilities that in most fantasy are simply magic and avaible to anyone who uses it.
And as for the Cleric class..Lalato makes a very good point. None of the priestly types or healer types in fiction had both large combat capabilities and major full mastery of a type of magic at the same time.
Edit: Also note the question isnt, does the concept exist...the question is is it common...not even common as the wizard or fighter but common as the ranger, bard or druid.
 
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And it's great that D20 Publishers have been able to release products that help you run games that have less of the "D&D Amalgam" if you want to. For instance, nicest thing I ever did for house ruling was to take the Star Wars Vitality Point system, see that it had PCs heal 1 vp/level/hour, and port that over to D&D. Now all damage is subdual damage, except for the last few points. You don't _need_ healing magic anymore, and so I was able to give healing magic to wizards and sorcerers without feeling that I was overpowering the class.
 

Merlion

First Post
Would you mind elaborating on how you did this a little? If I ever did actualy run a campaign I would love to do something like that
 

drnuncheon

Explorer
Enkhidu said:


My memory is failing me at the moment, could you name a few?

Considering that a goodly number of cleric spells come right out of the Bible, you might start there. ;)

Anyway, to answer the original question, you don't see many "warrior-priests who could fight almost as well as a full warrior and use extensive magic that included healing, divination and enhancement but largely exlcluding offense and utilities"...

...but then again, you don't see many "wizards who are forced to prepare their spells each morning and lose the ability to repeat a spell once it has been cast", either. (Vance, the original inspiration, and Zelazny in his 2nd Amber series being the notable exceptions - Pratchett doesn't count since he did it as a riff on D&D in the first place)

Just out of curiosity, have you been following Monte Cook's work on his Arcana Unearthed books? It sounds like they address some of the issues you express, with all casters drawing from the same spell list, albeit in different ways.

J
 

Merlion

First Post
Ohh goodness yes :)

And yes the DnD magic system has a lot of oddities. but the wizard class as a whole..you can find a lot of characters who would be wizards(or sorcerers) in lots of fantasy literature. I have yet to see one that reminded me much at all of the cleric. The execution of the wizard may be a little odd but the archtype is still recognizable(although the prohibition of wizards healing worth a darn is out of line with most literature).
 

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
Merlion said:
...its that I think the Cleric class(and to a large extent the concept of Divine Magic as done in DnD) has little simliarity to most fantasy literature/media.

I don't quite get you. It is about something the cleric does not do - it does not match up with the literature.

My point is that it is pretty much impossible for the cleric to look like what you find in most of the literature, because religion and religious practitioners in the literature are not similar to each other.

Allow me to analogize.

Warriors in fantasy literature are aking to a bowl of fruit - specifically apples, with a few pears thrown in. There's a good deal of variation, but many similarities as well. It's pretty easy to put together something for the game that resembles many things in the bowl at once.

Religions and religious practitioners are another bowl of fruit, but it's a bowl of grapes, peaches, bananas and oranges. Other than being generally a fruit, there's simply no way to be similar to all those at once. Especially when you are also trying to be different from the stuff in the wizard's bowl and also still be effective as a part of a game.

If the literature had only a small number of ways to approach religion, I'd agree that the cleric would be odd for not matching it. But considering how disparate the literature is on the subject, how could the cleric match many of them at once?
 

Merlion

First Post
Yea we arent jibing for some reason...its not that I dont think the cleric matchs that many of fantasy's archtypes...its that A) I dont really think it matchs any of them and most of all B) I dont really think their is much to be matched.
I guess the root of it is I dont think the concept of a spellcaster who is religious and/or has the power to heal is one that neccsarily requires a class. In most literature you just have people who can use magic and what the use it for is mainly a matter of personal choices and aptitudes.
And most of all that the whole concept of magic being almost split down the middle as it is in DnD is...out of kilter.
 

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