Can I do with out Cleric Class

[herald]

Ok, I'm trying to flesh out a champaign in the style of Swashbuckling Adventures/Freeport and I'm moving the game in to a more Reniassance timeline instead of Medieval.

I'm keeping magic, (My players like magic). And I'm keeping most of the players handbook races. (Kind like the idea of what they might be like a few hundred yaers down the line.

History is going to be that there was a "Magic Lull" in which magic was repressed for a while (by unknown means) and very few people were able to become actual adventuring classes. This period lasted for over 1,000 years, and those that were adventures either left the world behind and went else where or watched thie classes and thier powers fade. Many magical creatures disappeared or dies. Although some still hung around.

So the world falls into a sort of dark age and works it's way forward until it finally enters a sort of Renissance time period. An age of invention and exploration happens. A sort time afterwards, do to some explorers digging into a place that they weren't ready for, Magic is unleased upon the world again.

One hundred years from that moment is where the champaign begins. The world has just learned how to cope with magic, and has started to merge it into thier world view. Adventurers are still rare, and as a general rule, aren't expected to live very long. Players as a general rule start with characters that are young.

Average NPC's are not a week as the average game. A typical guard might be 3-5th level warrior, as schools of defense have cropped up over the many hundreds of years.

Anyways, the world has moved on from being petty countrys into empires and nations.

So looking at the classes I can see how I could use them, and scratching my head at others.

Fighters: The fit almost all games.
Paladins: Knightly orders. I can use that.
Rangers: I imagine them as fronteer spys. I can use them.
Wizards: I want them, and I like the idea of making them as a sort of a Renaissance scientist. I know people don't like mixing science and magic, But I've already started down this path.
Sorcerers: If I have Wizards, I'm going to use Sorcerers.
Rogues: Urban Spys. I love them.
Monks: I'm not going to use them yet. Want to develop the Western part of my game first.


But Clerics is where I get the most trouble. I want a church hierarchy that is not spell users.

The churches that I plan to use have moved away from magic. But they have for the most part not condemd it. I imagine that clerics would be special "troubleshooters" in the church. Like a Inquisiter, (take the negative context out of the name and imagine Sean Connery in the "Name of the Rose".) who looks for those that attack the faithful and stops them.

I also want to stop the Clerics from being the healers of the game. I plan to give Arcane Casters the ability to have a "curing type spell" that will convert lethal damage to subdual damage.

So I guess I want to tweak the cleric. I want him to not be a tank with spells, I want him to be more lightly armored, change the ability to heal (maybe change lethal to subdual for all casters) and bring him into line as a more focused character.

Oh, I should have worked this in earlier. I'm going to use the Dork 20 deck, to make things interesting and I'm going to use action points.

Any thoughts on this? I'm mulling it over in my mind and I need some feedback.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I actually like Monte Cooks idea in Arcana Unearthed, that there is one list of spells used by casters, and as well as fighting classes and roguish classes there are magic using classes.

There is no division of divine and arcane magic.

However, any character can take a "Priest" feat to represent ordination in a church. Those ordained might be fighters, rogues, wizards or whatever.

That kind of principle might work for you.

 

[Thomas Hobbes]

I also saw a rule in that new WotC book of, basically, houserules (Unearthed Arcana, which is rather confusing...). It would help with the whole "healing" thing, and certainly has a swashbuckling feel to it. Here's the link:

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20031214a&page=4

The basic premise is that each character has a number of "reserve points" equal to their hitpoints. When a character is injured, reserve points go into hitpoints at the rate of 1 per minute. So a character with 10 hitpoints has 10 reserve points. If he takes 5 damage, 5 minutes later he's got 10 hitpoints and 5 reserve points.

 

[herald]

I also saw a rule in that new WotC book of, basically, houserules (Unearthed Arcana, which is rather confusing...). It would help with the whole "healing" thing, and certainly has a swashbuckling feel to it. Here's the link:

http://wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20031214a&page=4

The basic premise is that each character has a number of "reserve points" equal to their hitpoints. When a character is injured, reserve points go into hitpoints at the rate of 1 per minute. So a character with 10 hitpoints has 10 reserve points. If he takes 5 damage, 5 minutes later he's got 10 hitpoints and 5 reserve points.

I've seen that too. I'm leaning to it.

 

[XCorvis]

I actually like Monte Cooks idea in Arcana Unearthed, that there is one list of spells used by casters, and as well as fighting classes and roguish classes there are magic using classes.

There is no division of divine and arcane magic.

However, any character can take a "Priest" feat to represent ordination in a church. Those ordained might be fighters, rogues, wizards or whatever.

That kind of principle might work for you.

This sounds like a great idea to me. Drop the cleric class completely. Most priests would be experts with the "Priest" feat. Militants would be fighters and knights, spellcasters would be wizards and sorcerers.

Of course, the downside of doing away with clerics means you either have to drop their spells or incorporate them with the wizard lists. And what about druids? Do you have any plans for them?

 

[Coredump]

Kenzers Kalamar campaign setting sets up a church heirarchy that is separate from cleric levels. You may want to take a peek at it.

 

[Eolin]

Here's what i might do, though i am just a tad intoxicated:

You want them in lighter armor? Take away heavy and medium armor profs.

Want them not to do cure spells much? Make them *stricly* domain spells. Or just not swappable like they are now.

Make clerics ultra-rare, with most people in the church being priests or what not. That way, the clerics in the game are really cool and you can demonstrate that there isn't much of this sort of magic.

Yes, it dramatically reduces the clerics overall power level. but i think it more or less fits what you want.

Whatcha'll think?

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

Though it sounds like you've about got things worked out, you may want to go down to your local store and flip through a copy of AEG's "Swashbuckling Adventures". It's got an inquisitor base class like you described, and also an alchemist base class for your science/magic (the other spellcaster is a witch, and could work as a sorcerer substitute). Might give you some ideas, even if you don't want to pick up the book.

 

[herald]

This sounds like a great idea to me. Drop the cleric class completely. Most priests would be experts with the "Priest" feat. Militants would be fighters and knights, spellcasters would be wizards and sorcerers.

Of course, the downside of doing away with clerics means you either have to drop their spells or incorporate them with the wizard lists. And what about druids? Do you have any plans for them?

Druids would be rare. But they would exixst in isolated parts of the game world. I haven't given them much thought yet.

 

[herald]

Kenzers Kalamar campaign setting sets up a church heirarchy that is separate from cleric levels. You may want to take a peek at it.

I own that book, I think thats one thing that has stuck in the back of my mind about that campaign.