D&D (2024) Are Bishops "Clerics" or "Priests"

[BookTenTiger]

I usually use the NPC Stat Block for Acolytes to represent the priests in my campaign.

Priests with class levels (or more powerful abilities) are almost always important NPCs or villains.

I have always liked the idea that, outside of the player characters, 1st Level spells are cast only by those will skill, 2nd Level spells are very rare, and 3rd Level spells are basically miracles. Outside of legendary NPCs and enemies, no one ordinary is casting high-level spells.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Does anyone use adept from MM1 in place of a priest?

 

[HammerMan]

I usually use the NPC Stat Block for Acolytes to represent the priests in my campaign.

Priests with class levels (or more powerful abilities) are almost always important NPCs or villains.

Does anyone use adept from MM1 in place of a priest?

I use the NPC stats more now that I use Roll20 cause I can import them as a starting point.

 

[Clint_L]

Follow-up: I honestly could give a fig what any WotC publication has to say about world building, so I freely ignore anything that doesn't work with what I want my world to be like. Objective realism is also not a concern because if even 1% of what is in the PHB, DMG and MM existed the world would be so utterly transformed as to be unrecognizable, not merely the Middle Ages/Renaissance, but with magic and monsters on top (like so many fantasy settings). Consider the thread over in the D&D sub-forum on how transformative a single decanter of endless water would be for a civilization.

So this is just not a problem. My going assumption is that the PCs are only remarkable in the sense that Indiana Jones is remarkable - the story revolves around them, and they are unusually intrepid and skilled, but not superheroes. My current home campaign is level 7, so in the last game when they ran into a group of pirates that they wound up fighting, those pirates were tough enough to provide a suitable challenge for level 7s. Because that's what makes sense in the story, and makes it fun. There are times when just rolling over some hapless mooks could also be fun, but not often. For us. YVMV.

 

[Gadget]

I find the question somewhat off-putting as that's really up to the DM and campaign, but can have long reaching world-building effects if taken to their logical conclusion. D&D, since the days of AD&D at least, has gone more or less (less in recent years) towards the 'rare adventurer class' model of world building. For convience, older editions would have certain NPCs roll saves--for example--as a cleric 4 or fighter 3, or just have the NPC use the stats of cleric 4. It really should be up to the DM and the campaign, but the core rules have to make some assumptions. I think that 4e handled it fairly well, with NPC stat blocks being wholly separate from PC stat blocs. It explains why the town priest/ess can heal your injured Ranger from near death, but can't clear out the nest of vampires him/herself. They would have some power related to their calling, but not the full adventuring suite of options your party cleric can draw upon: so some healing, ceremonial rites, and rituals that can be performed with Acolytes to bring about certain supernatural results. Other than that, they are largely teachers and administrators.

The problem has always been that, once the PCs reach sufficiently higher levels, where are all the powerful NPCs that challenge them coming from? Where were they before? How is it that these people (or the PCs now) were not totally dominating/owning everything and upsetting the natural order? There are answers: They were concerned with other things, The King/Queen & the Counselor have always been a high level fighter type/Wizard, it is just that the PCs are now coming to their notice, etc. Most of these are not completely satisfactory from a story/world building angle, but you can just go with it.

 

[OldSchoolGamerGirl]

Follow-up: I honestly could give a fig what any WotC publication has to say about world building, so I freely ignore anything that doesn't work with what I want my world to be like.

I imagine that is where most of us are. That is why so many DMs homebrew

 

[Oofta]

That goes back to the big problem with D&D's zero to superhero paradigm. Either the PCs are weak enough that guards and the like can actually deal with them, and then you wonder why they keep getting sent out to do stuff instead of using said guards, or they are strong enough that they're able to tell whatever authorities are around to eff off.

In flatter systems, you can solve this by making PCs more competent than guards but not so much more competent that they can take 10-to-1 odds, and at the same time making them expendable in ways regular citizens aren't. But that's hard to do in a system that escalates as much as D&D.

It's why in my world the PCs occasionally have to track down and stop renegade groups of NPCs that have all the capabilities of the PCs. You don't need every bartender to be a high level fighter, the bartender just needs to know how to contact the local lord/authorities when people cause trouble. Even if you only have soldier level NPCs if you throw enough of them at a PC group the soldiers will eventually win.

 

[Oofta]

In my campaign a bishop could have levels of cleric but it is not a requirement. In addition, I assume magic works for more than just PCs, it may just be expressed differently. In the case of priests, that means that they can do ritual-like effects but the bigger the ask the bigger the cost. So a cleric can pray for someone that is sick and the person will likely get better more quickly, but they can't cast lesser restoration.

My new group is going to find out fairly soon that getting bit by a lycanthrope isn't quite as running over to the local temple.

 

[NotAYakk]

Follow-up: I honestly could give a fig what any WotC publication has to say about world building, so I freely ignore anything that doesn't work with what I want my world to be like. Objective realism is also not a concern because if even 1% of what is in the PHB, DMG and MM existed the world would be so utterly transformed as to be unrecognizable, not merely the Middle Ages/Renaissance, but with magic and monsters on top (like so many fantasy settings). Consider the thread over in the D&D sub-forum on how transformative a single decanter of endless water would be for a civilization.

So this is just not a problem. My going assumption is that the PCs are only remarkable in the sense that Indiana Jones is remarkable - the story revolves around them, and they are unusually intrepid and skilled, but not superheroes. My current home campaign is level 7, so in the last game when they ran into a group of pirates that they wound up fighting, those pirates were tough enough to provide a suitable challenge for level 7s. Because that's what makes sense in the story, and makes it fun. There are times when just rolling over some hapless mooks could also be fun, but not often. For us. YVMV.

My issue with this is that it changes what level 7 means to the PCs.

Is level 7 "you are a competent warrior", or is it "you are the best swordsman in the empire"?

So when you face pirates, are they competent warriors or are they strangely better than the best swordsmen in the empire?

This has knock on effects beyond world building -- in-adventure impacts. If PCs fighters at level 7 are world-class fighters, then seeing a dozen dirty pirates the PCs can very safely assume they aren't all world-class fighters. Because that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?

In turn, this kind of information about the world means that the PCs can look at enemies, and have an idea if this is a "run away don't fight" or "curbstomp" situation, without the DM having to always telegraph it manually.

It also means that the DM is "forced" to up the stakes for higher level PCs. If level 7 PCs are "best in the empire", a fight against 15 pirates is not a suitable conflict, unless said pirates are somehow supernaturally insanely powerful. And if they are, the stakes are probably more than "we found some pirates".

A problem with D&D that many DMs complain about is how it their adventures stops working when players start getting L 5+ spells. But if the stakes of the game are consistent with the players level, when planeshift shows up it is appropriate for the game. L 7 they are world-class combatants; L 13, they can take a sunday brunch in heaven, L 17 they can reshape the world with an action.

OTOH, if at level 7 they are fighting mook pirates who are 75% as good as them, and at level 11 they are fighting mook pirates who are 75% as good as them, and and level 15 they are fighting mook pirates who are 75% as good as them... because you scale foes up to match the PCs capabilities, without scaling the narrative scale of the PCs abilities ... then suddenly entire categories of world-shaping spells start breaking the game.

I mean it can and does work! It just is an issue.

 

[Kobold Stew]

And then, they gave it away, at least for this one case. Because in Xanathar's they introduced the Ceremony spell. This implied that if you wanted to be married, or someone to perform a funeral, it required a level-1 spell. Not only was the spell silly (newlyweds get +2 AC?) but it undermined what the background feature guaranteed.

...and the Pack Tactics YouTube channel has just posted a video on the silliness of Ceremony, here.