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

[babi_gog]

Of course, for World Building, someone would need to make a "priest" NPC divine spellcaster with UNIQUE abilities and spells. So, like a 300 page book minimum....maybe at least three books to cover "good". "neutral" and "evil". Of course, no company would dare do that.....

Well there is the RMFRP supplement Channeling Companion that has options to create mutiple types of priest character.

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[Maxperson]

Its a subtle thing noted in the one dnd document on clerics, but in the document it mentions how rare clerics are supposed to be. They are a unique exception in the world, a rare thing.

So when you think of the typical holy man in a village, or religious leader in a big city (like bishop) does the narrative assume these are the clerics, or are these still just "priests".

And if they are priests what is the difference? Do priests not get spells from their gods? Does that mean only clerics are generally capable of healing in the world (and so is healing actually very rare?).


This is a world building element I've often thought about, and so what do you all think?

Neither. Bishops are chess pieces.

 

[Tonguez]

I outright changed Cleric to Templar (Temple Knight/Guardian) - a militant sect who serve as guards and/or knights for their Religion.

Priests (including bishops) are Expert Sages and Acolytes

 

[Staffan]

The idea that spellcasting clerics aren't run-on-of-the-mill clergy or run-of-the-mill church militant, they're rare and exceptional individuals like prophets and miracle-workers, has been around for a long time; but I don't think it was ever codified into any flavor text in a D&D rulebook until 5e. (I could very well be wrong — there might have been a bone tossed to the idea in the 3e DMG — but this is my recollection.)

It has been around since at least 2e:

Priest characters are (obviously) not requlred to take up arms and set out on adventures to smite evil. No, their hierarchies require administraton, clerks, and devout workers of all types. Thus, although there may be many clergymen and -women at a temple or monastery, only a few will have a character class and levels.
Not all monks at a monastery are 1st-level (or higher) clerics. Most are monks or nuns, devout men and women working to serve their faith. Non-adventuring clergy are no less devout than their adventuring brethren, nor do they receive any less respect. Thus, it is possible to have leaders within a religious hierarchy who show no signs of special clerical ability, only proper faith and piety.
Even more than with military men, though, level is not a determiner of rank. Wisdom and its use, not the application of firepower or the number of foemen smitten, are the true pearls of the clergy. Indeed the goal of some beliefs is to demonstrate the greatest wisdom by divesting oneself of all earthly bonds – power, wealth, pride, and even level abilities – in an attempt to attain perfect harmony with everything.
In the end, adventuring prints tend to form a mall nucleus of crusaders for the faith. They are the ones who demonstrate their faith by braving the dangers that threaten their beliefs, the ones who set examples through trials and hardships. From these, others may spiritually profit.

3e codified things by providing guidelines for how many people of various classes were around in a settlement and offering the Adept NPC that was supposed to both fulfill the roles of a non-adventuring priest who still had casting abilities albeit lesser ones, as well as provide a class you could easily add to less-civilized humanoids to represent shamans/witch doctors (which is why the list had some offensive spells that weren't on the cleric list, such as lightning bolt). I don't recall if core 3e specified that religious hierarchies were filled with non-casters at all levels though. Eberron definitely took the idea and ran away with it (and moved the role of healer-for-hire to House Jorasco's houses of healing, providing a reason why the healer charges through the nose), but I'm not sure how strongly it was suggested in the 3e DMG.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Its a subtle thing noted in the one dnd document on clerics, but in the document it mentions how rare clerics are supposed to be. They are a unique exception in the world, a rare thing.

So when you think of the typical holy man in a village, or religious leader in a big city (like bishop) does the narrative assume these are the clerics, or are these still just "priests".

And if they are priests what is the difference? Do priests not get spells from their gods? Does that mean only clerics are generally capable of healing in the world (and so is healing actually very rare?).


This is a world building element I've often thought about, and so what do you all think?

Clerics are a class I dislike, but, putting that aside, the priest can heal and do some other stuff, but they don’t have spell slots or channel divinity or any high level stuff. They are like magewrights in Eberron, with some form of turn undead that is boosted by holy artifacts and places and by banding together with other faithful. They do as rituals spells that clerics can’t do as rituals, because the training is different.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I tend to spread feats around, so priests will probably be commoners that have the magic initiate feat (cleric) and a higher wisdom score. If they have higher spell casting, it is tied into rituals that take weeks to perform....

Unless the PC's run into a bunch of priests guarding some magic item or trapped mid-to-high level fiend, then those priests will be using the priest and war priest NPC stats (and maybe a guardinal, which I usually just use beastly fiend's stats, changed to NG Celestial with at will Alter Self--because having a "helpless old priest" turn into a large horse-headed celestial and punch someone out is a lot of fun for me).

I usually use bearded devils for cervidals (replacing the beard thing with a gore), amarites for equinals (gets a second punch instead of a bite), chasme for avorals (putting enemies to sleep instead of fighting them), half-white dragon howlers for lupinals (so they have a breath weapon and a howl), archanaloths for urisinals (sometimes I swap the spells for druid spells), and rakshasa for leonels (replace dominate person with divine word). Guardinals like to guard stuff without calling attention to themselves.

 

[ThrorII]

Think about Canon Terjon and Cannoness Y'Dey in The Temple of Elemental Evil: they're 6th level clerics, and they also hold approximately bishop-level ranking within the hierarchy of the Church of St. Cuthbert. And this makes perfect sense for a sword & sorcery world like Greyhawk's Oerth, because it's a dangerous place! Having cushy, noncombatant administrators is a luxury of safe, civilized worlds. But in a place like Hommlet, in the Viscounty of Verbobonc, in the Flanaess? Someone like Terjon or Y'Dey can only be a hierarch of their church because they're a sufficiently-leveled cleric to hold their own!

And I can buy into that.

So your average priest in Furyondy or Veluna is probably a 'normal man' (B/X) or '0-level' (AD&D), who MAY just be some guy, or MAY have access to 1st level spells WHEN IN HIS CHURCH and praying for 1 day. The average bishop in Verbobonc or Veluna City may just be a normal guy (tm) as well, OR he may be able to cast up to 3rd level spells if he is in his cathedral and prepares himself (ritual cleansing? prayers and fasting?).

BUT, for those areas outside of 'civilization'? Those areas they send experienced, hardened zealots who have the power of the gods readily available to them (ie: Clerics).

Kind of like how in the New Testament, the average priests, deacons, and bishops couldn't perform mircacles, but the Apostles could.

 

[NotAYakk]

Its a subtle thing noted in the one dnd document on clerics, but in the document it mentions how rare clerics are supposed to be. They are a unique exception in the world, a rare thing.

So when you think of the typical holy man in a village, or religious leader in a big city (like bishop) does the narrative assume these are the clerics, or are these still just "priests".

And if they are priests what is the difference? Do priests not get spells from their gods? Does that mean only clerics are generally capable of healing in the world (and so is healing actually very rare?).


This is a world building element I've often thought about, and so what do you all think?

In the setting I am working on, magic doesn't work like PC magic does.

Wizards, for the most part, are people with books of scrolls. They can create scrolls. And, with effort and a few times per day, they can cast spells from scrolls.

So each use of magic requires capital expenses (creating a scroll) which is then destroyed.

Wizard guilds have apprentices who practice scribing simple spells as part of training (as well as casting spells). The work of scribing spells is what lower level wizard do in big cities.

Priests use relics to cast spells. These relics are fragments of the divine; without such a relic, most priests cannot do magic. "Recharging" a relic is more than just waiting, unless you want to wait an age: all of those prayers and rituals and church services for some gods -- for others, blood sacrifice.

Ritual magic is much bigger. Spells to reinforce houses and walls and roads and ships and tools are big part of society.

A level 1 PC is a wizard who has the amazing ability to not destroy scrolls when they use them, and can even memorize them!

Creatures like sorcerers are also extremely unusual.

 

[Li Shenron]

Temples in adventures seem to always have a bunch of clerics. Forgotten Realms at least. There’s a bishop in the adventure I’m currently running. He’s the highest level cleric in town.

Looking at the next adventure I’ll be running, the leader of a local temple is a high priest who is a 12th level cleric. Zhentil Keep is also part of the adventure, and is ruled by clerics. Patrols there often have 4th level clerics with them.

This.

The core books of various editions typically suggested that classed characters are rare in the world, but published adventures always contradicted them. How many adventures do you remember where a local temple did NOT have a spellcasting Cleric? Of course that is not the only NPC in the temple, it can very much be so that there are 10 other non-classed priests living there but are not worth being mentioned. It depends what "rare" means for you: 10% is a statistical minority and for someone looking at numbers it can qualify as rare; but take a different perspective like that of CCG and a card which would end up in a booster every other 10 cards would be hugely common.

The bishop problem is more related to the gamers habit of invariably assume that a character's social power must equate with their game mechanical power, which is rubbish when compared to the real world, but it matches with plenty of fantasy fiction: a fantasy world built on violent conflict to allow combat being at the centre of the fiction requires successful individuals to have mechanical power.

It doesn't have to be like that, but I am just saying that it is what I mostly expect from published material. Probably the designers think, there are always going to be players groups who will want to go after the NPC, and will do so by attacking it because they can't think of anything else, so we have to give that NPC some class levels.

 

[NotAYakk]

You'll note that if you take the view that NPCs can't refresh their abilities (etc) as fast as PCs can, published adventure stats still work for a single combat's worth of resources.

Like, imagine if the Bishop was a 12th level cleric, but their abilities are their yearly spells (or, monthly).

A fight with the bishop will turn out nearly identically. The only difference is the world building implications.

I still don't want any "oh you are an important person hence 12th level". I want 12th level mortals to require reasons, like significant backstory.

There is a problem in affine games like D&D to simply move the baseline as PCs gain levels. You can see it in computer RPGs as well. PCs get more powerful? Just scale the power of everything around them! And then you can tell the same story!

CR 1/8 guards no longer a threat? Swap the guards for CR 3 veterans! CR 1/2 orcs too easy to kill? Make CR 2 berzerkers your standard orcs!

This extends to "make random NPC be a 12th level character because they are a Bishop".

A 13th level spellcaster is a planeswalker. Someone who stops off to have tea with angels on a long weekend.