10 Clerical Spheres/Domains

[steeldragons]

Let us assume you are writing up your own D&D-esque 5e or OSR game (or whatever type of D&D/fantasy genre rpg you like).

Let us assume you are having priests/clerics as a pc class. Let us also assume you have decided, primarily for flavor reasons (but will also have mechanical elements) that you want to organize "divine magic" into spheres of influence/domains.

So as not to overwhelm new/beginner players, let us finally assume, that you want a list of TEN (10) base domain/spheres to begin with...these 10 area need to cover as many possible deity types as you can (since you've also developed your own pantheon for the default game world of this game you're creating.) Each god, of course, has access to multiple spheres, so "every spell level needs to have spells for each sphere and thus you'll end up with a bazillion spells" is not a concern.

This is allll hypothetical, of course .

What would those 10 overarching domains be? What makes the cut and give you a solid assortment of clerical types for the players to explore? Is it necessary for all spheres to be individual or can things that naturally "go together" be combined?

I'm thinking something along these lines...how does this look to you?

1) Life & Death (Necromantic spells): all of your curative spells, also things like Death Ward and Gentle Repose, anything that involves/manipulates "positive/radiant" or "negative/necrotic" energies.

2) Light & Darkness (mostly Evocations or Illusions): your assorted light/darkness spells, but also offense or defense spells that involve light, darkness or illusion.

3) Creation (mostly yer Conjurations): Create Water, Heroes Feast, Planar Ally, etc... but also -to give a counterweight to the Nature sphere- those spells that support or promote Civilization or Community. So things like Purify Water or Dismissal would go here also, as it is something that would be beneficial to the common/communal good.

4) Knowledge/Lore (Divinations): all divination spells along with communicative/"knowledge gathering" spells. Sending or Plane Shift, for example, would be considered within the Knowledge sphere.

5) Combat: self explanatory, spells for battle: either as external effects -like a Spiritual Weapon & Flame Strike- or personal buffs/benefits -like Bless or Divine Power.

6) Protection (Abjurations): self-explanatory, spells that protect or defend. Death Ward would also be listed within this sphere.

7) Nature: spells that involve the Natural World only: Animals, Plants or Weather. Speak with Animals, Entangle & Plant Growth and Call Lightning or Gust of Wind could all be listed here (the latter two also listed in the following sphere).

8) Elemental: spells that involve the 4 cardinal elements: fire, water, air and earth.

9) Good or Evil: spells that are alignment specific or other effects that incorporate radiant/positive or necrotic/negative energies but are not necessarily "light/darkness". Bless and Chant, for example, would be listed here as well as Combat, since the spell offers bonus to "us" and penalty to "them".
10) ...I'm not sure. Unless I need to break up Good & Evil or combine Light/Life and Death/Darkness or something entirely different...

So your game's powerful storm god [hypothetical example] might have access to something like: Good, Nature: Weather spells only, Elemental: Air and Water related only, and Combat. The other player want's to be a healer-non-combative priest and so, by their choice of deity, ends up with: Life & Death, Good, Protection, Divination [...maybe Creation?] and that's all.

1) What would be your 10 domains?
2) Would you insist on more than 10? What would they be? [note that opinions of 3e's version of every possible separate alignment, every possible separate race, every possible separate element and energy source. That's not really an option. Yes, it's thorough, but it is entirely too unwieldy to begin play with in a, well, non-3e/PF kind of game with multiple hundreds of pages of explanation and spell descriptions.]
3) Is this all too much/unnecessarily complicating for new players/beginning play and should just be a well-rounded singular clerical spell list?
4) What is your view of the 2e Full/Minor access distinction? i.e. The god of war might have full access to Combat and Protection, but only "minor access" to Life & Death (previously defined as only up to 3rd level spells) to healing spells. And if you like the idea but think it should be redefined/changed, how?

Thanks, in advance, for your kindly participation and creativity.
--SD

 

[steeldragons]

So, in case it isn't clear, there could be multiple avenues to acquire many (but not all) spells.
Resist Fire or Cold would be found, obviously I think, in Elemental and Protection...possibly in Combat, as well.
Light would be in Light/Darkness and Creation.

Death Ward, as noted above, would be available in the Life/Death and Protection spheres, certainly, but maybe also [now that I'm thinking about it] Good/Evil. But for Cure Serious Wounds, you need to have access to Life/Death.

Is this/would this be a bug or a feature?

 

[Spatula]

As much as I loved specialty priests, I think the idea of spell spheres is fundamentally flawed for the reasons laid out by the 3e designers - you get clerics that can't fulfill the basic role of the class. Having some overlap in the spheres definitely helps, to be sure. Although it's more work, I would rather tailor each religion's spell list, myself.

10 is also a bit limiting... gods tend to have odd portfolios, and lumping, say, all nature deities together loses the distinction between a sun god, a fertility/agriculture god, and a hunter god.

I'll have to think about what my list would be. But I think #1 would be a Universal domain that everyone gets access to that contains critical cleric spells and basic invocations of divine power.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I haven't compiled my list yet, but I'm considering having broad spheres made up of smaller domains. This way a god can be more carefully tailored.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

I've been going through the spell list, and it just isn't working. There aren't enough spells to make any structure functional. Nor do I feel like there are any gaping holes. Moreover, the spells are mostly well named. I think we might be better served combining spells that do similar things in to fewer spells that can be cast at higher levels.

 

[Spatula]

OK...

#1. Universal. Your basic cleric package.

#2. Healing (advanced). Contains more advanced healing options, like cure mass wounds and true resurrection. All clerics can do the basic stuff, only a priest of a healing religion can pull out the big guns.

#3. Death/Necromancy. Inflict wounds, slay living, create undead, etc. Undead creation is optional (or maybe can be swapped out for undead destruction spells) for death religions that see undead as abominations.

#4. Battle. Direct damage, battlefield control, combat-related personal buffs.

#5. Boons (advanced). Not sure about this one. All clerics should have basic group buffs (bless, prayer, etc.). This would be for the serious stuff, like heroes' feast. Although I'm not sure if there are enough such spells to warrant its own domain.

#6. Banes. Curses, afflictions, diseases, darkness, etc.

#7. Divination (advanced). Same idea as healing. All clerics have some ways to petition their higher power for guidance. But some divinations are reserved for followers of the gods of knowledge.

#8. Nature. Animals, plants, weather, the natural world.

#9. Elemental. Air, earth, fire, water, ice, wood, metal, etc.

#10. Alignment.

This leaves out some niche categories, like Travel, Creation, Trickery, etc.

 

[steenan]

I would design the spheres first and then choose or create spells to fill them. Probably, a lot of sacred cows would die in the process - but I think it's a much better approach than taking an existing spell list and trying to divide them somehow into more-or-less balanced categories.

Also, the set of spheres is setting-related. If I were to create them in vacuum, I'd probably go with something like:

1. Honor - light, oaths, detecting lies, improving morale, destroying fiends and undead
2. Anger - combat buffs, inducing fear or rage, ignoring pain, dealing direct damage, destroying objects
Honor and Anger are sun- and fire-themed

3. Deceit - darkness, illusions, confusion, sneaking, poisons
4. Protection - metal, defensive buffs, removing conditions, redirecting damage
Deceit and Protection are earth- and underground-themed

5. Life - wood and plants, healing, inducing and directing growth, taking animal forms
6. Instinct - improving body and senses, communicating with animals, summoning animals, inducing emotions
Life and Instinct are water- and nature-themed

7. Movement - travel, ignoring obstacles, creating passages, finding paths, reacting faster
8. Veil - speaking with spirits, summoning outsiders, necromancy
Movement and Veil are air- and star-themed

9. Craft - alchemy, creating magic items, conjuring and animating objects
10. Mind - reading thoughts, telepathy, suggestions, detecting and identifying magic, divination
Craft and Mind have no elemental association, but focus on words and symbols

 

[steeldragons]

As much as I loved specialty priests, I think the idea of spell spheres is fundamentally flawed for the reasons laid out by the 3e designers - you get clerics that can't fulfill the basic role of the class. Having some overlap in the spheres definitely helps, to be sure.

Yeah. I think it's doable.

10 is also a bit limiting...

It is. But I like to try to start with as small a group as possible and that way, if I absolutely must end up with 12 or 15, then I'm still doing better than 5 pages of 30-something different spheres, many of which either being a) completely unnecessary or b) redundant.

I also very much like (and personally think the 5e dev's need to do some -or a LOT- more of this) forcing the issue to make the tough decisions. Can we have more [of ANYthing] classes, races, specialties, spheres, wizard spells, etc. etc. ad infinitum? Yes. Of course we can ALWAYS have/add/come up with MORE. Do we NEED them to 1) Give the players fun and creative options and 2) make the game functional? I really don't believe so.

So...yeah. 10.

gods tend to have odd portfolios, and lumping, say, all nature deities together loses the distinction between a sun god, a fertility/agriculture god, and a hunter god.

Well, see my example above...just because a deity would have access to a sphere doesn't even necessarily give them access to ALL spells in the sphere. Ex: You want a "elfy foresty god of the hunt"...They'd have the Nature sphere, obviously. But maybe only as it relates to Animals. Or animals and plants but no weather spells. Maybe he/she also has the Elemental sphere, but only in relation to Earth spells...foresty guy's not gonna use/be interested in fire! Throw in Combat, maybe some Protection maybe Life/Death. Done. Your agriculture god would be concerned with plants and weather, if you include "fertility" then I'd say animals count too, so there's all of Nature. Elemental, again, not interested in fire. Life/Death again for the "growth" and "fertility" aspects. that might be it, actually...maybe some Creation as long as they are rural (as opposed to city)-focused/based.

But I think #1 would be a Universal domain that everyone gets access to that contains critical cleric spells and basic invocations of divine power.

Fair enough. And a very nice list it ended up being. I had not wanted to "give it all away on the first date", so to speak, but you're right.

The way I'm looking at it for this "hypothetical" game system and world is that clerics all have a joint spell list for spell levels 1-3. Beyond that (spell levels 4+), you get into the sphere specific stuff of your god...as the more powerful spells are gleaned directly from the deity's increasingly powerful representatives and eventually the god him/herself. (They also will receive deity-specific domain powers throughout their levels but those aren't related to their spell selection.)

I've been going through the spell list, and it just isn't working.

What do you mean? Not working how?

There aren't enough spells to make any structure functional. Nor do I feel like there are any gaping holes. Moreover, the spells are mostly well named. I think we might be better served combining spells that do similar things in to fewer spells that can be cast at higher levels.

Well, consider that no deity is going to have only ONE sphere available...so all you need is two or three spells per spell level. If the cleric has access to 4 of the spheres, there's 8 spells to choose from for a particular spell level.

The spell list I am looking at, at this stage in my spell-addled madness, does actually diminish options as you get to higher spell tiers. I really don't have any problem with that.

I would design the spheres first and then choose or create spells to fill them. Probably, a lot of sacred cows would die in the process - but I think it's a much better approach than taking an existing spell list and trying to divide them somehow into more-or-less balanced categories.

Yeah. That's pretty much how I was going about it.

Also, the set of spheres is setting-related. If I were to create them in vacuum, I'd probably go with something like:

-snip really great list of ideas of 1-8 /snip-

9. Craft - alchemy, creating magic items, conjuring and animating objects
10. Mind - reading thoughts, telepathy, suggestions, detecting and identifying magic, divination
Craft and Mind have no elemental association, but focus on words and symbols

Actually, going along with classical esoteric/occult tradition your 9 & 10 would then fall under the "element", if you would, that controls/directs the other 4 elements...commonly referred to as "Spirit." Which is actually perfect. It is the human element, the human condition...one sphere which leans toward/evokes what you can do with your hands/body, "Craft", and the other going to what you can [literally] do with your Mind...which combined make up the "human element." I like it a lot.

 

[steeldragons]

So, to be clear, [MENTION=2198]Spatula[/MENTION] , yes every cleric can cast light and bless, cure light wounds and resist/remove/buff their fellows...up to 3rd level spells. They will be able to fulfill their traditional role as party cleric (which I think far exceeds the trope of "healbot") up to a basic degree.

The way I have the spell lists at the moment, a cleric of any god could cure light and even cure serious wounds...but, then, not everyone gets Heal or Raise Dead.

Every cleric has at least one offensive combat spell with Spiritual Weapon...but not everyone gets Flame Strike.

etc...

As to [MENTION=61749]Jeff Carlsen[/MENTION] 's suggestion abut combining spells, I've already gone through and done a LOT of that to get [what I think] is well-rounded and robust but seveeeeeerely trimmed down cleric spell lists. Resist Fire and Resist Cold? Resist Fire/Cold...decide which one you need when you cast it. Cure Disease, Cure Blindness, Remove Paralysis...one "Cure Affliction", hold the mayo, please. Decide what you need it for when you cast...etc... (the mage spell lists are longer but still downright anorexic compared to most editions off D&D)

 

[Spatula]

So, to be clear, [MENTION=2198]Spatula[/MENTION] , yes every cleric can cast light and bless, cure light wounds and resist/remove/buff their fellows...up to 3rd level spells. They will be able to fulfill their traditional role as party cleric (which I think far exceeds the trope of "healbot") up to a basic degree.

The way I have the spell lists at the moment, a cleric of any god could cure light and even cure serious wounds...but, then, not everyone gets Heal or Raise Dead.

Every cleric has at least one offensive combat spell with Spiritual Weapon...but not everyone gets Flame Strike.

etc...

Yeah, exactly.

Regarding priests only getting access to part of a domain, isn't that basically the same as splitting that domain up into its constituent parts as separate domains? I mean, if you have Nature (Animals), Nature (Plants), Nature (Plants, Weather), etc. isn't that the same as having Animal, Plant, and Weather domains?