On speciality priests ?

[Torgan]

Hello,

After reading the Races & Classes book, which is full of promises for sure, but I didn't see anything in the Cleric Entry about the difference between clerics of differents gods. I always thought that the 2nd edition point of view of speciality priests was the good one, the one that gave us very differents priests form one god to another.

In 3.0 and 3.5, the domains tried to emulate this but all the clerics were too similar, because the domains changed too few class fatures. All 3ed clerics still wore armors, used simple weapons, and so on. On the end, a cleric of Heironeous is nearly the same as a cleric of Boccob.

So, what aboutspeciality priests in 4e ? Do you think they're back or definitely forsaken ? Can each god impose specific talent trees to his priests ? Unfortulately, I didn't any clues from Races & Classes...


Torgan

 

[simply not edible]

This is something I was kind of wondering about myself, too. I once had this idea of customizing spell-list by domain of the deity, and have the cleric choose a few of those (probably three or so), so that the choice of deity had more of an impact, but then I got lazy...

They had that in 2nd Edition? Had I known, I could have looked it up there, and see how they managed. Ah well, that's what you get for only playing for two years...

 

[Irda Ranger]

So, what about speciality priests in 4e ? Do you think they're back or definitely forsaken ?

We have fairly good reason to believe there will at least be a "melee" cleric path and a "powers" cleric path who hangs back, and there will probably be different powers to choose from. But other than that, I don't think so.

And I wouldn't want them too, anyway. Classes should be good at what they do, and not try to be all things to all people. The "Cleric" class is really a specialty type of war-priest. Would you expect a "war priest" of Boccob to never wear armor? If a "war-priest of Boccob" doesn't make any sense to you, maybe you should just restrict adventuring Clerics in your campaign to faiths with a more militant aspect.

They had that in 2nd Edition? Had I known, I could have looked it up there, and see how they managed.

Poorly. Not worth your time, for the most part.

 

[Incenjucar]

With the new powers system, it's possible that specialty priests will be easier to replicate than 3E.

While the attempt to reduce the number of deities may increase the ease of creating specialty priests for all of them, I think they'll generally want to keep things unaffiliated so people don't get silly and constrain themselves like they did with alignment.

That said, I hope they eventually introduce some different kinds of priest than the cleric, maybe one who would be running around in cloth.

 

[Glyfair]

I always thought that the 2nd edition point of view of speciality priests was the good one, the one that gave us very differents priests form one god to another.

I always felt specialty priests were a good idea in concept, but was unsure about them in practice. The spell list varied so widely in 2nd edition it seems that keeping track of which spells were on your list, especially at high levels, would be a headache.

In 3.0 and 3.5, the domains tried to emulate this but all the clerics were too similar, because the domains changed too few class fatures. All 3ed clerics still wore armors, used simple weapons, and so on. On the end, a cleric of Heironeous is nearly the same as a cleric of Boccob.

I always thought that every god should have their own prestige classes in 3E. Once they reached 5th level or so they would be expected to specialize in a path of the deity. For example, in my ideal campaign St. Cuthbert would have a prestige class for the Chapeaux, the Stars and the Billets order.

I admit, this would be a lot of material floating around, and a lot of headaches for homebrew DMs. Still, the feel is would be right.'

I think this might work even better in 4E. We know at higher levels (10+) PCs choose paths. If they are made deity specific (or at least type of deity specific), this could help those ends. Low level clerics seem as similar as 3E clerics, but above that they start to really move in their deity's path.

 

[Belorin]

I liked and used the specialty priests in my own campaigns, players had a choice of playing a generic cleric or a specialty priest of their deity, 80% of the time they chose the specialty cleric. I think with the amount of options available for 4E clerics there might be guidelines for adapting a cleric to reflect your deities outlook.

Bel

 

[simply not edible]

I think this might work even better in 4E. We know at higher levels (10+) PCs choose paths. If they are made deity specific (or at least type of deity specific), this could help those ends. Low level clerics seem as similar as 3E clerics, but above that they start to really move in their deity's path.

Sounds like what I'd like to see, yes. This would be the ideal chance for WotC to implement such a mechanic.

Paths that take you closer to the views of your deity would seem like the natural choice for a Paladin/Cleric PP anyways (especially with this whole "paladins of any alignment" thing going), so I wouldn't even be all that surprised to see it happening.

 

[Nikosandros]

Since in future books it looks like that other kinds of wizard, like illusionists and necromancers will be published, it is not too far fetched to imagine that something similar might happen for priests.

Considering, for example, that the druid will be much more focused on the shape changing it would be good to have a nature priest whose main focus are spells.

 

[hero4hire]

Some Speciality Priests were simply broken.

IIRC some gave you fighter attack progression or weapon specialization.

I agree the flavor was great but the mechanics of it? Not so much.

 

[Nikosandros]

Some Speciality Priests were simply broken.

IIRC some gave you fighter attack progression or weapon specialization.

I agree the flavor was great but the mechanics of it? Not so much.

Oh, I agree that in 2e they didn't really work all that well, most of the time. But personally, I think it's an idea that has merit.

We don't really need a lot of highly specific priest for each random demigod... just a few extra classes to fill in some alternative niches to the warrior-priest.