How Did I Become a Grognard?

[pemerton]

In Medieval times there were simple Nobility (Fighters), Knights or those Holy Knights that were either anointed or ordained by the Church (Paladins), and the Priests. Among Priests there were the normal every day priest and then there were the Landowners (Clerics). These Landowners were NOT knights, though they may be nobility by birth. In many instances a second son would be sent to the Church for "safekeeping" but if the eldest died...they then would be called for. They had combat training and were typically very able warriors.

They had NO HEREDITARY LANDS. The lands that they watched or governed were owned and regulated by the Church. The church (in this instance, in Europe it was normally the Catholic Church, but in Britain this changed later on) controlled a GREAT DEAL of land, much like nobility did, but they were owned in the name of the church. Thus, a Bishop could very well be acting in the same role as a Knight, but in this instance they would be as a representative as the Church. They would be the church's governance over the lands. However, the lands were NOT theirs or their families, it was the church's land.

This is a bit simplified - the history of the relationship between landowning, the church and monarchical power in Catholic Europe is fairly complicated.

And I don't think it's what Gygax had in mind when he wrote (in his PHB, p 20), that the cleric class "bears a certain resemblance to religious orders of knighthood of medieval times." And provided for clerics to seize land and rule it personally in just the same manner as a fighter does.

A paladin also may "construct [and] maintain a small castle" (PHB, p 24) - which differentiates paladins from the religious orders of knighthood, whose castles were built and owned by the order, not by an individual knight.

And on a slight (only slight) tangent, the Templar rule was authored by St Bernard of Clairvaux, who was a prominent holy man but not a warrior. You can't emulate St Bernard with either a cleric or paladin build, unless - in either case - you just ignore the fact that you're a seriously puissant melee warrior. Which reflects both my point, and also reflects [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]'s complaint about the lack of a non-warrior miracle worker in the classic D&D set-up.

 

[Arnwolf666]

I been playing since the 80s. And we never used mini’s until pathfinder. And then we stopped because it slowed combat down. Went back to playing a modified 2E for a while. Then started playing 5E. Like 5E except for the concentration mechanic and a few minor things. Will soon be playing a modified 2E/5E with the best of both. Proficiency slots for 2E will be used for some of the feats we like. Also using attributes like B/X not ad&d.

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree that the 4e STR cleric overlaps pretty heavily with the STR paladin; and the WIS cleric overlaps quite a bit with the invoker.

I don't have much experience with the 3E cleric/paladin divide - but comparing 4e to AD&D, it seems to suffer from wanting to preserve a class difference that in AD&D depended quite a bit on minutiae of the alignment rules and similar (eg related paladin class distinctions) rather than honing in clearly on actual thematic differences.

Maybe they were also driven a bit too hard by their conception of distinct combat roles.

I think that PHB1 is just a bit half-baked (7/8ths baked maybe?). They seem to have had this concept of making 'V-shaped' classes. We have the cleric, the paladin, the warlock, and the ranger which all fall into this category. With the possible exception of the ranger they are all somewhat problematic. It is telling that WotC NEVER released another V-shaped class during the lifetime of 4e.

So, I think it is quite possible to blame it on a failed rules experiment. Given the desire to build a V-shaped class, you then look at the cleric and you create WIS and STR versions based on a look at the archetypal classic D&D clerics. Likewise you end up with a STR and a CHA paladin. Taken in isolation, and given the goal of making V-shaped classes, these are logical implementations. They only fail in that the archetypes they are attempting to fill don't make sense in the greater context of the complete set of classes. Thus a STR/CHA/WIS A-shaped paladin, and a WIS/CHA/?(CON,INT) A-shaped cleric really do make the most sense.

IMHO if 4e had been released with a year more development this is what we would have gotten, with the cleric being pretty much the 'laser cleric' build, and maybe some sort of 'rune priest like' build. The paladin would simply be a STR-primary defender with a CHA based punishment mechanic and a WIS based sustaining one. So you would either focus on 'laying on hands' and be more 'leadery' or on punishing and be pure defender. I'd note that this would be much closer to the style of PHB2 classes, which all have a primary attribute and a primary role, plus a 'side role' which leverages an optional secondary attribute. This gives 3-4 good build options vs the V-shaped class having basically 2 poor choices.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So I thought I'd have a more specific response to you. I don't agree with your characterizations, and I think it might help to explain why. I'll go through so it makes sense.



It's not even much better. Clerics are casters (we can call them "full" casters in our current terms). Paladins when introduced in OD&D were not casters; in AD&D they (along with Rangers) could cast very limited spells starting at name level.




So this is the part that really doesn't make sense. So the thing is ... in OD&D/AD&D, cleric's spell use tended to be less, um, spectacular than a Magic Users.* That's a good way of putting it. But their melee ability was AMAZING, second only to the Fighters (Fighter, Paladin, Ranger). Which meant that the Cleric usually had a bunch of healing/protection/etc spells, and was the party's second-line fighter. That's right. So this doesn't make sense to me at all; the Clerics were almost always heavily engaged in melee in OD&D/1e.




I addressed most of this already, but this is incorrect. My understanding is that in 3e you had some sort of "CoDzilla" which is maybe what you're thinking of? But that's not correct for the OD&D/1e cleric.



That is surely a path that might have been taken, but it wasn't. I think that the trouble many people have when retconning this is trying to get back in the mindframe of what was happening back then; the "Cleric" as an adventuring class (remember- adventuring class) was not supposed to represent all clerics; there is a well-known Dragon Magazine article about the "cloistered cleric" that comments on this. But all of this tends to overlook how seat-of-the-pants a lot of this creation was early in the game.



*If you've forgotten, Cleric's offensive spells, ignoring reversals, were:
1st Level: Command. Kind of. But you always had Cure Light Wounds (and maybe something else).
2: Spiritual Hammer, Hold Person. But most clerics had better weapons than spiritual hammer (no damage bonus).
3: eh .... Animate Dead? Yeah ...
4: Sticks to Snakes ... but this is when you got Cure Serious Wounds!
5: Flame Strike.

So, really, it was at 5th level when you got something good. FLAME STRIKE! But that's also when you got Cure Critical. And your fifth level spell came at name level (level 9).

OK, not to get into a rules p***ing contest or anything, but when I comment on the rules of OD&D or AD&D it is because I can pretty much quote them chapter and verse. I'm sure you are well acquainted as well, but my point is I'm not misunderstanding or showing some lack of knowledge about any of the rules. I am speaking my opinion and idea about how those rules work and what they represent, from a well-informed position.

It is actually pretty hard, from a general description to distinguish a paladin from a cleric, they are both armored guys who are likely to bolster themselves or other party members with healing, wear the heaviest grades of armor, and often engage in melee combat. Both also refrain from the use of missile weapons (though technically clerics can use the sling and the logic for why they don't use bows is somewhat differently explained than for paladins).

While it is true that clerics have wider alignment choices, at first level anyway, in AD&D changing alignment is a very punishing experience, especially for a cleric or paladin. Neither one would do so and retain their powers intact, though a cleric will suffer a bit less and can regain his. Still, thematically and in terms of general play they are both pretty tightly constrained, it is just that clerics can take the evil path, whereas this is generally a house-rule for paladins.

Nobody argues that the two classes have the same mechanical implementation or that they were designed by the same process. What we argue is that they are largely aimed at the same general thematic territory, a godly warrior. I'd argue that the cleric is very essentially misnamed anyway in that he does NOTHING in the way of promulgating his religion, caring for its adherents, etc. He's really very much thematically like the paladin, he goes where evil resides and he smites it!

Of course there are specific characters you would make as a cleric and others as a paladin, the mechanics are not identical, but they are still very close relatives.

 

[pemerton]

Nobody argues that the two classes have the same mechanical implementation or that they were designed by the same process. What we argue is that they are largely aimed at the same general thematic territory, a godly warrior. I'd argue that the cleric is very essentially misnamed anyway in that he does NOTHING in the way of promulgating his religion, caring for its adherents, etc. He's really very much thematically like the paladin, he goes where evil resides and he smites it!

All I would add to this is that the reason you can't substitue a paladin for a cleric in classic D&D dungeon-crawling play is because in such play theme/archetype is largely irrelevant, while the difference between healing 2 and 10 hp/per day is hugely important.

Which actually feeds directly into the 4e issue that you've dissected upthread - in 4e theme/archetype matters (because of how it anchors power design, and also the play of a character more generally), and the significance of those mechanical differences drops away (and eg the difference between Cure Light Wounds as a spell and Lay on Hands as what 3E called a "spell like ability" goes away completely).

 

[lowkey13]

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[lowkey13]

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[pemerton]

the cleric isn't a front-line fighter like the Paladin.

In AD&D, a 1st and 2nd level cleric has the same chance to hit as a 1st and 2nd level paladin. Has the same ability to have the same AC. Has marginally fewer hp (d8 raher than d10). And if a table treats a footman's mace as a one-handed weapon (I don't know if there even is an official rule on this, but in my experience many tables do so) can have the same average damage unless the paladin has 18 and hence excpetional strength.

Clerics are front-line fighters at low levels, and in my experience remain pretty handly in melee at upper levels too, although in an UA environment their lack of weapon specialisation/weapons of choice, which makes their lack of mulitple attacks more serious, makes fighters and paladins notably stronger.