D&D 5E Clerics and Wisdom

[pemerton]

The "wisdom" stat is also your resistance to attacks on your decisions, so it is being used for faithfulness or resolve.

On the same page that I referenced (AD&D PHB p 11), Wisdom is called out as standing for willpower. But I can't see any reference to that in the 5e SRD or Basic PDF.

 

[Tectuktitlay]

I've had a lot of cognitive dissonance surrounding the way int, wis, and cha are conceptually handled in d&d over the years, and at this point I honestly think a lot of it can be attributed to the fact that clerics use Wisdom for their spellcasting mechanic, when that frankly attaches baggage to the score that is inappropriate. The entire concepts of willpower and devotion should revolve around Charisma, not Wisdom. Charisma is what enables a priest to emulate and draw power from the deities they serve. Wisdom is fundamentally about emotional maturity and the application of reason, which has little to do with piety and is the antithesis of dogma. Organized religion (regardless of its truth or lack of) is largely based on authority, and this is even more true in most D&D religions.

So, I guess what I'm saying is - I think Charisma makes about 600% more sense as a spellcasting stat for Clerics than wisdom. Wisdom should, at best, be supplemental for most spellcasters, with the possible exception of intuition or nature based magic.

Thoughts?

I agree with you entirely. Charisma makes a lot of sense for both Clerics and Warlocks. In fact, in many ways Warlocks are essentially arcane versions of Clerics. Both are building a rapport with, and/or serving a powerful being far beyond themselves, and trying to convince said being to further the ends of the Cleric or Warlock, often by either smooth-talking that they are trying to, or genuinely trying to, further the powerful being's goals with their actions.

Sorcerers, on the other hand, never made sense to run off Charisma, in my opinion. Sorcerers, and probably Psychics (Mystics, whatever ) should run off of Wisdom.

The way I've always seen the stats in D&D is as follows:

Intelligence is the raw ability to compute, to reason, to take all of the information one assimilates from the world and organize it, make sense of the patterns.
Wisdom is the ability to take the plethora of information one gains, and to most efficiently utilize it, playing to the strengths one possesses. This not only covers perceptiveness and intuition, but willpower; willpower is using your own mental resources as efficiently as possible, bringing the maximum offensive and defensive use of each thought in as small an amount of time as possible. A wise person knows when and how to use their intelligence and their charisma, and more importantly when not to. Both of these, to me, speak to raw strength of will.
Charisma is the ability to take your strengths, and best influence others with them. Some charismatic people know how to use their looks. Others their words. Others, their lack of words; the dark, quiet, mysterious stranger who immediately grabs everyone's rapt attention the rare times they speak is very adept at using their charisma! Regardless, Charisma is directly influencing others with your actions in a manner that achieves what you wish to achieve.

To me, the inward power and strength of will that sorcerers, born with their power and having to learn to hone these potent innate abilities through strength of will and intuitive efficiency reeks of Wisdom, not Charisma.

I can see the argument for psionic characters using intellect, meticulously honing their skills. I would likely have a split, where the learned psionic characters use Intelligence, while the wild talents, those born with immense psionic potential who learn how to use it on their own, use Wisdom instead.

But yes, I 100% agree with you. Charisma makes a whole helluva lot more sense for Clerics than Wisdom.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

On Hallowed Ground (1996), page 13. "The main function of a priest is to proselytize, to draw others into the worship of the power. It doesn't matter if the flock comes in terror or adoration, as long as the people feed the god their beliefs.
...Those who don't (or can't) inspire sufficient emotion and belief are utter failures, and won't remain priests for long.
...Why do some priest fail to deliver the faithful? For some, it's just a lack of charisma."

Yep. None of which determines the extent of the power that the god is willing to trust the priest with.
As I suggested, the priest who can bring in the converts will be popular with the church and the god, but being popular doesn't automatically equate to being trusted with divine power.

The same could be said about knights, though. Not all knights of the Round Table are popular - yet in AD&D they all have high CHA, and in 5e are at least encouraged to do so.

I'd expect some of the knights to have decent Charisma. Lancelot for example, seems to have been popular. (Although he was fairly explicitly a Paladin, not just a Fighter, which may skew things somewhat.) Some of the others seem to have attracted attention, good and bad from various people and powers.

In my 4e game we have a ranger-cleric who, like most (but not all) 4e clerics is built on a WIS chassis, and it doesn't particularly bother me, but I can still see the OP's point. If I had to choose a canonical stat to represent a miracle worker and prophet I would opt for CHA (as has been done with paladins) rather than WIS (which I think is a better fit for hermits, monks and druids - who, oddly enough in AD&D, also needed CHA, but tend not to in more modern versions of the came).

Bear in mind that Paladins aren't directly granted power by a god, but gain it through conviction and force of will by the power of their Oath. Thus there are already constraints on their use of it, and its power is likely more to do with their passion and expression of it.

 

[seebs]

On the same page that I referenced (AD&D PHB p 11), Wisdom is called out as standing for willpower. But I can't see any reference to that in the 5e SRD or Basic PDF.

So what? It's the save you use against things that willpower would have been a defense against.

I do note that the rest of the text mostly stopped mentioning willpower-type things, but it's still how the stat is used.

 

[pemerton]

So what? It's the save you use against things that willpower would have been a defense against.

I do note that the rest of the text mostly stopped mentioning willpower-type things, but it's still how the stat is used.

If I didn't know the legacy, I think this aspect of 5e would be a bit mysterious. For instance, p 76 of the SRD describes CHA as measuring "force of personality", which at least on its face seems more connected to willpower and resolution than does "perception and insight".

As for so what? Like I posted at 40 upthread, I'm pretty accustomed to D&D using WIS for clerics, but I feel the force of the OP's point, and I think this is borne out in the CHA requirement for paladins.

I think there is an archetypical difference between the miracle working prophet or crusader - which the traditional cleric and paladin represent (with their laying on of hands, their turning of the undead and their sticks to snakes) - and the hermit or oracle - which the druid, monk and some specialty-priest type clerics represent. If I was building from the ground up I would use CHA for the former and WIS for the latter.

 

[Ancalagon]

Well, if we are going to go all biblical...

Wasn't Moses a stutterer? Didn't he get his brother Aaron to do a lot of the public speaking (Cha) while he worked the miracles (Wisdom)?

I would also point out that a high Charisma is only useful for *some* aspects of priesthood. Sure preaching to the masses, attracting followers. But what about giving good advice? Intuition, understanding, life experience, what is wisdom...

 

[Einlanzer0]

Yep. None of which determines the extent of the power that the god is willing to trust the priest with.
As I suggested, the priest who can bring in the converts will be popular with the church and the god, but being popular doesn't automatically equate to being trusted with divine power.

False. You can easily infer that one's ability to effectively proselytize is the most likely factor in determining how much power a god is willing to entrust them with. This is exactly why Charisma (generally) makes more sense than Wisdom, though it's certainly possible there would be some exceptions.

 

[seebs]

False. You can easily infer that one's ability to effectively proselytize is the most likely factor in determining how much power a god is willing to entrust them with. This is exactly why Charisma (generally) makes more sense than Wisdom, though it's certainly possible there would be some exceptions.

You could infer that, but it's not stated, and it's not obvious that it would work that way.

And honestly, I just don't buy it. I think it makes sense for paladins, whose power is their own faith and force of will, to use Charisma, while clerics, whose power is someone else's that they have to be a vessel for, use Wisdom. Different approaches to casting.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

The same could be said about knights, though. Not all knights of the Round Table are popular - yet in AD&D they all have high CHA, and in 5e are at least encouraged to do so.

In my 4e game we have a ranger-cleric who, like most (but not all) 4e clerics is built on a WIS chassis, and it doesn't particularly bother me, but I can still see the OP's point. If I had to choose a canonical stat to represent a miracle worker and prophet I would opt for CHA (as has been done with paladins) rather than WIS (which I think is a better fit for hermits, monks and druids - who, oddly enough in AD&D, also needed CHA, but tend not to in more modern versions of the came).

Aren't you engaged in special pleading here? As evidence for high Cha, you've given the fact that they attract followers and work miracles. In response to the observation that those things aren't evidence for high Charisma, and that many classical prophets were unpopular to boot, you observe that it's okay for the game to obey archetypes even if those archetypes don't exist in real life. At this point your argument that miracle workers have high Charisma is merely axiomatic.

I'm not going to tell you that you can't have high-Cha miracle workers any more than I'm going to tell you that you can't have high-Cha wizards (Rasputin). But the argument so far advanced in favor of Charisma being a primary stat for holy men is pretty weak. The best argument for it is Planescape-style "gods who need followers in order to have power, and clerics in order to gain followers," but in that case you're clearly in gamist territory with no real-world analogue whatsoever.

 

[Ancalagon]

Rasputin was clearly a CON-based wizard

As far as gods wanting followers, sure! But that doesn't mean they are going to grant powers to charismatic individuals - but rather individuals wise enough to understand their wishes and further their agenda most effectively. A high Cha, low wisdom character will make a mess of things, and furthermore may not have the sheer willpower needed to effectively and safely channel divine power.