Making everyone a cleric (sort of)

[harpy]

Religion in D&D land has never made a whole lot of sense to me. With a plethora of gods vying for the attention of followers, you'd think that rather than channel their power through an elite few they'd lower the bar and hand out power to as many people as possible.

One of the results of mechanically bundling spiritual energy only into a few specific classes is that it sucks having any religious dimension out of all of the other classes. Sure, a player can add fluff to their character, but that is only going to appeal to those players who care a lot about real roleplaying, something which I've not encountered very often over 30 years of gaming.

So one campaign idea I have is to remove clerics, druids, and perhaps even paladins, and instead diffuse those classes over the rest of the base classes. There are many ways of mechanically approaching it. One of the simplest would be to use gestalt rules, but that seems a bit overpowered to me.

Another way might be to allow everyone to pick two domains as if they were a cleric. Perhaps another approach would be to use feats to unlock more and more divine power for the character.

Regardless of how it would mechanically get worked out, the idea is simply that everyone in the world is spiritual. There are no atheists because religion isn't really an issue of faith, but more of what power are you aligning yourself with. The divine are immanent within the world, the effects are obvious, and so who you pick defines the forms of worship and the privileges you get.

Spells like Bless and Cure Light Wounds would be relatively easy to cast by anyone wise enough to cast them, as you'd be calling upon your God for aid, and since these are jealous gods who want attention, would be happy to dole it out to those wishing to follow them.

Now, I'd assume a twist like this would have been proposed a thousand times over after all of these decades of the game existing. Has anyone written up a Pathfinder compatible treatment of this?

 

[Nyeshet]

I'm not even sure where to begin with this.

Here, this is how I understand the system to work in D&D and similar games:

The deities receive their power from the worship of their followers. Some of this power is re-invested back into the company so as to maintain the followers, attract new followers, and encourage continued worship. This power is usually invested into specific persons who act as guides and leaders amongst the followers - ie: clerics. The clerics use this power to guide the followers in decisions and behaviors that will increase the likelihood of having their prayers granted (various divinations, etc), to aid the followers (cure, remove disease, plant growth, make whole, etc), to protect the community (via defensive and offensive spells), and to and to display the great power of their patron deity (various higher level spells).

The reason this power is not given to everyone is: 1) the deity has only so much power to offer out, 2) not everyone is so devoted to the patron deity that the power can be trusted with them, 3) most peoples in D&D worlds worship multiple or even all the deities (as was true in most polytheistic societies in classical and ancient times), and 4) the occasional fortuitous / unexpected granting of a prayer request is enough.

The latter I've seen used by DMs multiple times, when during or after some sudden act honoring a deity the character suddenly receives the benefit of Cure Wounds, Bears Strength, etc. As an example, a character slays an evil foe who is a member of a race that follows an enemy of the character's deity, and as he strikes the killing blow he calls out "For <deity's name or title>!" In such situations I've seen a DM tell the player that the character just received a Cure Moderate Wounds, or that as the strike occurred the weapon glowed with power from a Greater Magical Weapon spell - dealing exceptional damage, or that the sign suddenly appeared - granting the character and other worshippers of the deity a +2 morale bonus for the remainder of the day. Granted, not all DMs utilize such.

I knew another DM that allowed player's to tithe a small % of their experience to their patron deity as a sign of their devotion. Every few thousand xp thus tithed, a servitor of the deity might appear and grant a minor boon - from information to a minor but useful magic item or the use of a moderate level spell - perhaps one that was just a level out of reach but would really be useful at that particular time. Clerics were required to tithe at least 5% of their xp (as much as 15% allowed, although the highest I ever saw tithed was 10%), but this also meant that such servitors of their patrons tended to visit them somewhat more often.

Giving everyone orisons is very powerful and very altering of the presumed setting. Consider this: if everyone can cast orisons (and only orisons) the following is possible: create 1 gallon of water at will, purify food and water at will, mend any minor tear or break at will, create light at will, stabilize or gain 1 temp hp at will, +1 to any check or save at will. These, by themselves, will utterly alter a setting if everyone can do them.

There is also the question of how higher level spells are 'spread out' through all the classes? Will it be a spellcraft check to cast such? If so, why does arcane magic require slots instead of such checks. Actually, considering all that can be done with just divine magic, why has anyone ever bothered to develop / learn arcane magic in the first place? If a fighter can retreat for a round or two in combat and call upon his deity to heal him, what is to prevent their foes from doing the same - in effect leading to a never ending fight so long as either side can ever manage to retreat for a round or two to call for such.

Also, does a deity care more for the worship of 100 people or just one person? What about 100 peasants praying for protection from a 5th level PC or NPC? What if each of the 100 peasants prayed for 'Produce Flame' to use against a NPC or PC aggressor? That is 1d6 fire damage, range 120 ft, ranged attack throw. Granted, most will miss, but this still is potentially a powerful attack if even a quarter of them hit. How do you prevent misuses like this? If you state that only PC classes can make use of divine spells, why do the deities overlook the vast majority of their worshippers to only invest power in the few [PC classed characters]? Isn't this the same argument for placing the power in the clerics, druids, etc? And don't forget, what works for the PCs works for their foes as well. If the PCs gain power via this redistribution of divine power, so too do their foes from evil (or just non-allied) deities. Hera was not evil, but through her power and the actions of her followers and allies Hercules suffered greatly.

These are just a few of the issues Prometheus needs to consider in placing the power of the gods in the hands of every mortal.

 

[gamerprinter]

Yuck!

I'm in agreement with pretty much everything Nyeshet said.

If you're homebrewing a world of cleric everybodies that do just that, but for a general consesus to the idea - I think your line of thinking is broken. What about arcane spells, I've seen ideas, especially from certain novels, where everyone has a knack or lesser arcane ability. Again that might work for homebrews, but either way, you're creating a completely different game, not Pathfinder.

Finally, just by giving everyone heal type magic, well that's 4e - not a game I'm ever likely to play or want to adapt to 3.5/Pathfinder.

Historically speaking, from the idea that most people worshipped one or more deities, it wasn't to acquire divine powers, it was to get by in life, do better than survival and hope to go to a better place when you die.

Making everyone clerics, I think that's just silly, just my honest opinion.

GP

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

interesting

I see where you're going with this. But, I played RuneQuest for over a decade, so the cleric class has always seem kind of wierd to me.

My suggestion is that opening the whole cleric list to people is too much. Like the previous poster said, average people shouldn't have the create water ability.

That said, I think there's some merit to the idea that everyone is religious, and can learn specific prayers (perhaps 'pre-paid' with sacrifices?) that grant them divine magic. Maybe you can sacrifice 250gp worth of incense at an altar and make a prayer, and in return your god (or one of his intermediaries) grants you the ability to cast Cure Moderate Wounds once, any time within the next year?

I could see a game where there was no cleric class, but everyone belonged to different religions, which had various rituals and prayers that could be gained on an ad hoc basis. The god of Thieves would grant a prayer that helped one open locks , for example.

Ken

 

[Set]

You could go the other way and make nobody a Cleric.

Add a few Cure Wounds spells to the Wizards necromancy and / or transmutation lists (perhaps a level higher, or only turning lethal damage into nonlethal damage, or requiring the necromancer to rob Peter to heal Paul or something), and ditch the Cleric entirely.

Anyone can be a 'priest' of a specific god, if they take the feat, and will have some minor rituals that allow them specific bonuses, similar to the Devotion feats, perhaps.

Anyone at all can invoke a diety, calling some minor blessing, similar to the Invocations used in the Scarred Lands settings (groupings of two to three prayers that a worshipper of a specific god can use as a standard action to give them a bonus to an action related to the dieties interests in the following round, so that a servant of Tanil, goddess of the hunt, archery, song and the wild could pray to make her next arrow fly true (bonus to hit) or to enhance her next musical or bardic performance).

Heck, *Bards* could become the new Priests, using the Divine Bard option from Unearthed Arcana, and inspiring their flock through liturgical oratory, inspirational quotations from the holy canon and sometimes even sacred hymns.

These sorts of options are best for a world in which the gods are distant, and don't interact with the mortal world (or, as in Eberron, can't even be proven to actually exist), and the Cleric class is less relevant, since anyone can be a priest, by taking the feat, just as anyone can be a priest in the real world by filling out the paperwork and proclaiming themselves an ordained minister of the Church of Elvis or whatever.

Tweaking the sacrifice rules, from the Book of Vile Darkness, or using Incantations, from Unearthed Arcana, would be other methods of putting the power of the gods into the hands of pretty much anyone who can make the appropriate sacrifice, or uncover and complete the relevant Incantation.

 

[Allegro]

Perhaps you could explain clerics with a gambling analogy. Slot machines are more addictive because they have a variable payout. If a slot machine paid out 90 silver on every gold who would play them? The slot machine is addicting because people remember the big score rather than the slow constant drain. If every prayer was answered you'd only get one prayer for each problem. Now, if it requires a variable amount of prayer before a miracle that nets the deity more prayers for the same number of miracles.

Consider instead of directly answering each miracle directly, a deity deputize some agents (clerics) to distribute the miracles. Think of the word-of-mouth buzz that would be generated by knowing 2 counties over the abbot is curing the faithful. For minor injuries a peasant would not bother traveling, but would be comforted without the deity performing any direct service to the peasant knowing healing was available 2 counties over. The deity gets a free ride in many cases this way.

Alternatively alchemy takes the place of divine healing. Each player can pick up the alchemy skill if they want to be a mini-cleric. Refer to the gods in games as "Absent Gods" to explain the lack of deities. True miracles like reattaching limbs or raising the dead would likely be out of reach.

 

[harpy]

Thanks for all of the in depth responses. I have to say I'm surprised at the resistance to the idea.

I guess I wasn't intended this as some proposal for an official Pathfinder redo, I'd assumed everyone was seeing this as a homebrew.

I'm actually doing a small version of my idea in a current campaign. Before going out for adventures, players can go to the local temple and make a donation to one of the gods. In return they get to call upon the god once a day to receive a cure light wounds. So far it has been working pretty well, lots of players and classes that never bother to have any spiritual dimension to their characters are now, and it's fun to see each of the players come up with their own particular desperate plea for aid when they need the healing. It also means no one has to play a cleric, which none of the players have much of a desire to play.

Like I'd mentioned, doing a real treatment of "everyone is a cleric" would probably require an extensive overhaul, that is why I was hoping someone might have already have done this. On one of the other forums I'd posted on about this issue pointed out that someone had done a light treatment on this with called The Book of Faithful. It looks interesting, though it doesn't go as far as I'd want to go.

In digging around it also looks like the Conan RPG also takes a similar approach to the spiritual. Anyone can become a "Priest" by just spending a feat at 4th level or above, and with it they get a specific set of benefits and powers depending on the God that they are devoted to.

There is a lot of metaphysical fluff that I guess can stand in the way of someone not wanting to have a world where everyone can get divine powers, but because of that it can easily be hand waved away. There is nothing in the Pathfinder system that requires that Gods only having enough divine power to distribute to an elite hierarchy. You can easily crank up the dial so that they have plenty of power, and happily dole out energy to anyone who would pay attention to them.

I guess I'm thinking of things more in terms of the old computer game Populous, where you were competing with other gods to rake in as many followers as possible.

One of the things that makes it hard to compare D&D spirituality with real world spirituality is that in D&D you get empirical cause and effects, whereas in the real world there is no direct connection to divine powers. In D&D if you make a relationship with a God then you can do all sorts of miraculous things, whereas in the real world you're just pleading and hoping that something good might happen to you.

One of the things that I think about in the D&D world is why peasants put up with toiling the earth when they see a guy in the village who can just make water and food? It seems as if there would be a massive incentive to worship whatever God is allowing that to happen, rather than have to hope the next harvest will succeed.

Now, to keep things looking kinda medievalish you then have to put in place limited divine resources and choke point elite hierarchies, that way the bulk of the populace has to stay in their place and grovel to the local cleric to get what aid they can from the divine. So yeah, if you want to keep to a traditional image you need that kind of structure.

But, if you want something different then just open the floodgates and make everyone have a direct connection to one of the gods.

For a large overhaul you could still have lots of choke points in place. One of them is just to keep the standard Wisdom requirements to cast spells. You'd need at least a 10 to cast Orisons, and higher if you want more potent abilities. That would prevent almost half the populace from being able to toss around spells right there.

Another choke point is to break up what spells are available to each God. One way is just to take the domains and just expand upon them a bit so that the whole cleric list is covered. That way who you pick to worship has a real impact on the abilities that you can have.

In terms of the arcane issue... Yeah, I've often wanted to tinker with a setting where anyone can get access to spells. They are simply things written down that if you can read and master them then they can be cast. Basically a kind of magical technology. As with the divine above, Intelligence is one way of limiting who has access.

In the end though, I guess the main point of reshifting things for a setting would be to emphasize the spiritual. In 30 years of RPGing I've only seen a handful of times when people would make the religious pantheon matter to a character even though they were not some kind of divine class.

I don't play with hard core roleplayers. Everyone's rather gamist with their characters, so really the only way to bring out the religion in the world and make it important to everyone is to provide some mechanical bennies to all of the players right from the start. Basically as the player what their primary god is among the pantheon and then give them a divine ability or small spell casting ability. If they want to invest more into it then they spend feats, or some other resource. That way everyone's involved in it right from the start.

I think the biggest issue I'm having at the moment is just trying to figure out the impact of the monster CR. It might just be simple enough to just raise the party's APL by 1 or 2, but that needs a bit more examination.

 

[Hawkes]

The closest we've come to this in my gaming group is that we thought about running a campaign where everyone was a cleric/divine caster. The whole theme of the campaign being that the party would be kind of the God Squad, looking to save the lost, exorcise demons, etc.

 

[Herobizkit]

The OP needs to find himself a copy of Deities and Demigods 3e to see the various types of God/dess hierarchies and power sources available.

In one campaign I ran, I stuck with the Norse pantheon and said "These are your Gods. Deal with it." But then I went ahead and changed the Cleric class to the Cloistered Cleric variant, turning Clerics into scholars.

THEN I decided that every Cleric worships the whole pantheon rather than any one God/dess, and so they could pick their domains from any two of all the domains of all the God/desses.

And then I told my players, "There are no churches." The faithful wander about, telling stories about the Divine, and performing magic... but that's all it was. Arcane/Divine, it's all the same stuff.

Lastly, I allowed all classes to cast spontaneously, so no more "praying for miracles".

In essence, I turned my Clerics into "White Wizards". It worked very well for me and my players.

 

[roguerouge]

Give everyone orisons that they can cast an unlimited amount of times daily. That would work.