What DO you DO for... Clerics?

[Bront]

I've renamed Clerics to Templars (ie Knights of the Temple) emphasising their militant aspects. On the fluff side Clerics are all low ranking members of religious orders attached to temples and lead by Paladins.

The religious aspects are attended to by the Priest are homebrew class which bears no resembalnce to the cleric

Priests have the abilities to Speak the Words of the divine to effect people, beasts, spirits and even objects
Word of Authority - the ability compel others, to inspire, to calm the masses, to command, to rebuke (includes turn undead/spirits etc)
Word of Knowledge/Wisdom - the ability to discerne and to understand with divine insight, visions, knowledge of tongues and detection of the unseen
Word of Power the ability to speak Blessings upon others, to sanctify and also to Curse, to Heal or to Wound, to give stength (buff) or to take it away
Domain - the divine boon given to the Priest to evoke and channel the power of their god

This is interesting, and works well if you then change the Cloistered Cleric to the normal cleric. Though I've thought that the Cloistered Cleric was a little weak and steped on the Bard a bit.

In general, unless I'm playing a particular setting with gods, i'm always open to allowing a player to create a god, as long as they create a unique and RPable dogma and the deity is reasonable. (No Lawful Good God of Travel and Luck for example).

 

[Ciaran]

I've gotten rid of clerics and divine magic entirely. Spellcasting priests are either wizards, or Experts using ritual magic (Incantations from Unearthed Arcana).

 

[Aus_Snow]

For those who envision clerics as Templars... what domains would you allow? I'm thinking War and either Law or Good. Not much customization, though.

To me, it's more a case of "what else would you call warrior-priests that go trudging around in full plate?" Yes OK, there are some other terms that might make sense, 'Cleric' most certainly not being one of them, but Templar is immediately recognisable and somewhat suitable. So anyway, all domains are still just as open as they otherwise would've been.

What customization options would you give to a cleric Templar?

And therefore, unsurprisingly, all the other options are also as open as when the class was called 'Cleric'.


But that's just for me, and my one (very nearly) actual D&D campaign. For others, and certainly in other d20 campaigns of mine, answers would vary.

 

[RisnDevil]

All of my changes a fluff in nature (I guess there is SLIGHT crunch). To start off with, it should be said that my gods are alignment free: they are truly divine beings above such mortal "boundaries." As such, any god can have a cleric of any alignment (this also expands out to any god can have paladins). Divine magic in my world is very pervasive, as such, clerics do not have to worship anything to get 0th - 3rd level spells. 4th - 6th level spells are granted by some form of a powerful outsider, who also is their guide to further "enlightment" with the divine. The when they can cast 7th level spells, they "follow" a god who then grants all their spells. (It is more like they follow a principle that is lorded over by a god.)

 

[Sir Brennen]

The clerics in my campaign just have a few changes to them.

First, they do not receive Heavy Armor Proficiency.

The primary religion, consisting of nine deities, have the only clerics who receive Literacy as a class feature. Bards and wizards also automatically receive Literacy, but not other classes.

The primary religion also has a little more flexibility in choosing domains: they may select both domains from their own deity's list, or one from their god and one from the sun god who established the religion.

Lastly, I have pretty extensive house rules for Turning Undead, using a damage-based system.

 

[Ilium]

My clerics are by-the-book, but fairly rare. Most religious functionaries are Experts. Empowered Priests (as they are called) are recognized as having a special status and respected as exemplars of their faiths (and yes they must worship a deity). I also have a homebrew class called Chosen, which I cooked up before the Favored Soul came out, and is quite similar to that class. Chosen are so rare that even most clerics don't realize they exist.

 

[Nyaricus]

Lastly, I have pretty extensive house rules for Turning Undead, using a damage-based system.

dude, this is brilliant! I particularily like the Burning Light Enhanced Turning.

 

[Rolzup]

Clerics are gone...kinda.

I'm keeping the mechanics, but changing the flavor. Clerics are now Theurgists, and they practice one of the few sorts of magic actually condemned by the Church (the others being Warlockry, Binding, and Necromancy).

Bascially, it works like this:

Each cleric worships a "dead" god; a deity forgotten by the rest of the world. They uncover these gods through research, by becoming an acolyte to an older Theurgist, or...other ways, which shall not be discussed.

But once they uncover the names of their chosen god, and make contact with Him, a symbiotic relationship is established. The Theurgist worships the god, strengthening Him with the power of his faith...and the god, in turn, rewards that faith with power in the form of spells.

The stronger the Theurgist's faith, the stronger his god becomes, and the stronger the Theurgist's magic grows. It's a nice little cycle.

The Church, on the other hand, cannot have Theurgists. The Sun God is the object of worship from millions of individuals, and is immeasurably powerful as a result...but with so many worshippers, He is unable to focus His attention on any one of them. And how can He answer their prayers, when so many of them are contradictory?

He can, and does, work Big Miracles when the occasion demands. Earthquakes, angelic visitations, and such. And He hand-picks champions to do his work in the world, but trusts them to use their own judgement in the matter.

Paladins, in other words.

 

[Psion]

I use priests (from AEG's Good) and Shamans (from Shaman's Handbook) to round out my divine casters, as I feel clerics don't quite provide good enough coverage for all possible faiths. I also provide homebrewed deities and bank heavily on specialized domains.

 

[Arkhandus]

For one of my homebrews, I make a few tweaks to the cleric, making them a bit more versatile while slightly toning down a few aspects (no automatic heavy armor proficiency, 2-3 fewer spells per day of each spell level except orisons) to keep them a little closer to arcane casters in raw power. Aurelian clerics get a base of 4 skill points per level, rather than 2, and get a few extra class skills: Knowledge (elemental lore) (Int), Knowledge (fey lore) (Int), Knowledge (outsider lore) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Knowledge (undead lore) (Int), and Perform (Cha). My Aurelia homebrew also has 3 cleric variants, the friar (skill/feat/healing/divination emphasis), the prelate (spell and energy channeling emphasis), and the zealot (strength of arms emphasis).

Also, however, I tweaked their Turn/Rebuke ability slightly in regards to what it may affect. The wording's a bit clunky at first, but the latter half of the paragraph is more clear. Underlined the important parts for this post.

Turn or Rebuke the Chosen: A good cleric (or a neutral cleric who worships a good deity) has the supernatural ability to turn either undead or evil outsiders, forcing these chosen enemies to recoil from the channeled power of the god or goddess whom the cleric worships, or they have the supernatural ability to rebuke either elementals or fey, commanding these chosen allies through the channeled power of the cleric's patron deity. Evil clerics (and neutral clerics who worship evil deities) instead rebuke either undead or evil outsiders, or instead turn either elementals or fey. Neutral clerics of neutral deities can do one or the other (player’s choice), depending on whether the cleric is more proficient at wielding positive or negative energy, based on their choice of converting prepared spells to either Cure or Inflict spells. Once the player makes this choice, it cannot be reversed. This choice also determines whether the neutral cleric can cast spontaneous Cure or Inflict spells (see above). The type of creature a cleric turns or rebukes is based on their deity, as each deity has designated a particular variety of creature to be enemies or servants to their clerics. Clerics who have no patron deity must choose a single one of the aforementioned creature types, and either turns or rebukes them, based on their alignment and their choice of positive or negative energy affinity. For purposes of turning and rebuking, they treat all outsiders and fey as though they have Turn Resistance equal to the outsider's or fey's Charisma modifier, if positive. A cleric may attempt to turn or rebuke chosen creatures a number of times per day equal to three plus his or her Charisma modifier.