D&D 5E Clerics and Wisdom

[Celebrim]

This is a classic example of a proxy argument. What's really being argued isn't wisdom vs. charisma, but what religion actually is. It's the person's definition of religion that is informing their view of what people should accept as the one true answer here.

There is no possible way in which this argument is going to achieve any good results. The actual thesis statement of the original poster is: "Wisdom is fundamentally about emotional maturity and the application of reason, which has little to do with piety..." The whole argument is a proxy attack on religion and on practicing religion, because the poster wants to divorce "emotional maturity" and "reason" from piety. As such, it really has nothing at all to do with arguing about fantasy role-playing game, where in theory whatever opinions you might have on real world religion shouldn't necessarily inform how the fantasy world behaves because no one has to accept that any particular cosmology of a D&D universe has any bearing on the cosmology of the real universe.

There is no way we can even debate this question in the context it has been presented without debating real world religion. So there is no way I can even answer the original poster without violating board rules. The question really has in a fantasy context no right answer, but fundamentally depends on how you define religion and piety in fantasy setting. If you define the pious as those who are loved by the gods, a definition that was apparently common in ancient Greece but rejected by Socrates, then sure Charisma makes sense as the stat that gains you power over the Gods by making them love you more (probably regardless of your behavior). If on the other hand you define the pious as those that love the gods, then Wisdom makes sense as the stat that gains you power because you are better able to discern the will of the deity and thus are entrusted with greater power because you more often do the deities will and are trustworthy.

Why Wisdom was associated with clerics and not charisma has to do with the archetypal ideas of a priest that informed the original class, which must have in Gygax's mind seemed more like the later idea of piety as those that love the gods rather than the ones that gods love. Certainly the 1e cleric spell-list has a certain biblical bent to the sort of things a cleric can do, as about half the spells we could point to a biblical verse that serves as the obvious inspiration and point of separation between what was considered 'divine' and 'arcane' when spell powers were being initially doled out. But if you don't think this is the 'right answer', because it offends you, then certainly you can invoke different definitions that make 600% more sense to you and arrange your cosmology accordingly.

Any more said on the subject would violate the board rules more than this thread already is doing. There might be a non-provocative thread you could have about the virtues of charisma versus wisdom for clerics in the context of D&D, but it certainly wouldn't be a thread that started as a proxy argument about real world religion.

 

[pemerton]

This is a classic example of a proxy argument. What's really being argued isn't wisdom vs. charisma, but what religion actually is

<snip>

The actual thesis statement of the original poster is: "Wisdom is fundamentally about emotional maturity and the application of reason, which has little to do with piety..." The whole argument is a proxy attack on religion and on practicing religion, because the poster wants to divorce "emotional maturity" and "reason" from the piety.

I think there is another issue that is raised that can be discussed, at least on the margins, without so obviously crossing board rules.

It's about personality (in a very expansive sense - as per my post a couple upthread, when I think CHA I don't think "used car salesman") vs judgment as exmplifying divine inspiration. I think there is a trope - Joan of Arc is one version of it, and so is a certain conception of St Francis preaching to the birds - where the sincere demonstration of a life or a vision that is infused with conviction is more important in exemplifying holiness than is sound judgment or wise counsel. The sincere but naive "wise fool" is related to this trope too, though that extends beyond particularly religious instances.

An up-side for D&D is that it makes it clearer what the difference is between a cleric (CHA) and a druid (WIS). The down side is that it even further narrows the (in my view razor-thin gap) between the traditional cleric and the paladin (who has always used CHA as the stat that exemplifies devotion, and the way that devotion is a living example to others).

 

[Saeviomagy]

Wisdom has just become a bucket that anything associated with clerics, druids, rangers or monks gets shoved in, which is why it has such an eclectic collection of skills. I am surprised they didn't chuck knowledge religion in there too. It does kind of seem like clerics shouldn't have a distinct casting stat, and maybe neither should other classes. Shouldn't an innate understanding of magic be high wisdom? I could see any variety of spellcaster using it. Similarly an encyclopedic knowledge of one's religion would be int, and I could see a cleric deriving power from that. Or from demagoguery. Or from a direct act of will.

 

[Einlanzer0]

Like I said previously, the archetypal holy person is noted as being wise, insightful, enlightened, and imbued with the understanding of divine workings.

Yes, but the archetypal "holy person" is not really what the cleric class represents in D&D. They represent something more akin to crusader priests.

 

[Einlanzer0]

This is a classic example of a proxy argument. What's really being argued isn't wisdom vs. charisma, but what religion actually is. It's the person's definition of religion that is informing their view of what people should accept as the one true answer here.

There is no possible way in which this argument is going to achieve any good results. The actual thesis statement of the original poster is: "Wisdom is fundamentally about emotional maturity and the application of reason, which has little to do with piety..." The whole argument is a proxy attack on religion and on practicing religion, because the poster wants to divorce "emotional maturity" and "reason" from piety. As such, it really has nothing at all to do with arguing about fantasy role-playing game, where in theory whatever opinions you might have on real world religion shouldn't necessarily inform how the fantasy world behaves because no one has to accept that any particular cosmology of a D&D universe has any bearing on the cosmology of the real universe.

There is no way we can even debate this question in the context it has been presented without debating real world religion. So there is no way I can even answer the original poster without violating board rules. The question really has in a fantasy context no right answer, but fundamentally depends on how you define religion and piety in fantasy setting. If you define the pious as those who are loved by the gods, a definition that was apparently common in ancient Greece but rejected by Socrates, then sure Charisma makes sense as the stat that gains you power over the Gods by making them love you more (probably regardless of your behavior). If on the other hand you define the pious as those that love the gods, then Wisdom makes sense as the stat that gains you power because you are better able to discern the will of the deity and thus are entrusted with greater power because you more often do the deities will and are trustworthy.

Why Wisdom was associated with clerics and not charisma has to do with the archetypal ideas of a priest that informed the original class, which must have in Gygax's mind seemed more like the later idea of piety as those that love the gods rather than the ones that gods love. Certainly the 1e cleric spell-list has a certain biblical bent to the sort of things a cleric can do, as about half the spells we could point to a biblical verse that serves as the obvious inspiration and point of separation between what was considered 'divine' and 'arcane' when spell powers were being initially doled out. But if you don't think this is the 'right answer', because it offends you, then certainly you can invoke different definitions that make 600% more sense to you and arrange your cosmology accordingly.

Any more said on the subject would violate the board rules more than this thread already is doing. There might be a non-provocative thread you could have about the virtues of charisma versus wisdom for clerics in the context of D&D, but it certainly wouldn't be a thread that started as a proxy argument about real world religion.

No it isn't, you just chose to interpret it that way and react accordingly, presumably out of defensiveness. I made no arguments concerning the validity of real world religion. My argument was simply that wisdom and piety are not intrinsically connected the way D&D assumes they are within the cleric class, and that wisdom actually counteracts dogmatism, when D&D religion very much centers around dogma. Generally speaking, a very wise person may or may not be religious, while a very religious person might or might not be very wise. But a dogmatic person is rarely wise, regardless of their level of spirituality. This is because wisdom gives you to ability to understand the nuanced nature of reality and to understand a variety of perspectives.

More importantly for the context of this conversation, D&D clerics are typically of the crusading, evangelizing warpriest sort, as opposed to the calm, enlightened spiritual leader sort, so Charisma makes much more thematic sense than wisdom does. If D&D clerics were thematically represented to be more like how Monks are, Wisdom would make some sense.

 

[mrpopstar]

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?

In the game of Dungeons & Dragons, the ability to cast cleric spells relies on an intuitive sense of a deity’s wishes, and Wisdom reflects intuition. -- Makes perfect sense to me.



That being said, I've never understood how a sorcerer's ability to interact effectively with others gives rise to balls of fire.

 

[Einlanzer0]

In the game of Dungeons & Dragons, the ability to cast cleric spells relies on an intuitive sense of a deity’s wishes, and Wisdom reflects intuition. -- Makes perfect sense to me.



That being said, I've never understood how a sorcerer's ability to interact effectively with others gives rise to balls of fire.

Charisma is not really "ability to interact with others", it just bleeds into that. Fundamentally, it's about force of will and having a commanding presence. This is why it makes more sense for clerics.

 

[mrpopstar]

Charisma is not really "ability to interact with others", it just bleeds into that. Fundamentally, it's about force of will and having a commanding presence. This is why it makes more sense for clerics.

"Charisma measures your ability to interact effectively with others." -- Basic Rules, 62

 

[KahlessNestor]

No it isn't, you just chose to interpret it that way and react accordingly, presumably out of defensiveness. I made no arguments concerning the validity of real world religion. My argument was simply that wisdom and piety are not intrinsically connected the way D&D assumes they are within the cleric class, and that wisdom actually counteracts dogmatism, when D&D religion very much centers around dogma. Generally speaking, a very wise person may or may not be religious, while a very religious person might or might not be very wise. But a dogmatic person is rarely wise, regardless of their level of spirituality. This is because wisdom gives you to ability to understand the nuanced nature of reality and to understand a variety of perspectives.

More importantly for the context of this conversation, D&D clerics are typically of the crusading, evangelizing warpriest sort, as opposed to the calm, enlightened spiritual leader sort, so Charisma makes much more thematic sense than wisdom does. If D&D clerics were thematically represented to be more like how Monks are, Wisdom would make some sense.

That was the same impression I got, a rather backhanded way of taking a jab at real-world religion, especially when we have given many examples of how your argument falls apart realistically. Your consistent use of opposing "dogmatic" with "wisdom" is evidence. You assume only the secularist negative connotations of the word, when many religious people see wisdom in dogma. (Cf. C.S. Lewis, Tolkein, Dorothy Sayers, etc.)

So, yeah, forgive me if we do get a bit defensive, because it was definitely in there.

 

[Celebrim]

Wisdom has just become a bucket that anything associated with clerics, druids, rangers or monks gets shoved in, which is why it has such an eclectic collection of skills.

Wisdom is a bundle of separate ideas, but so are all the different attributes.

But as it pertains to clerics, what wisdom primarily represents is very clear, and its importance to clerics and all the related 'spiritual' classes is equally clear.

Clerics in D&D are paragons of morality of some sort. Evil clerics are paragons of evil. Good clerics are paragons of good. And so forth. This is why the cleric cannot depart from their chosen morality. By exemplifying an ideal, they become proxies for the deity that they serve, and as proxies are empowered to act as conduits for their deities divine power to act on the world.

So why then should their spell casting ability be based on Wisdom? Because if intelligence represents knowing something, then wisdom represents being able to act on what you know and believe. High intelligence gives a person the ability to clearly lay out the principles that they believe in a coherent manner. High intelligence gives you the ability to elucidate complex moral philosophies. But high wisdom gives you the ability to live like you claim or believe that you should. High wisdom gives you the perceptiveness and discernment to recognize the actual crucial factors you should act on, even when you couldn't necessarily explain them clearly to yourself or others. High wisdom gives you the willpower to act as you claim you should act, even when doing so is difficult or frightening. High wisdom lets you act on faith in what you claim to believe, even when you aren't clearly able to see the end results.

Now sure, some deities might prefer their clerics to also be of high intelligence. A deity with dominion over reason and knowledge will want their proxies to also exhibit the traits of intellect that they themselves prize. And sure, some deities might prefer than their clerics also be of high charisma, if they themselves have dominion over things related to charisma and emotion, or if the deity believes in evangelism and encourages its proxies to engage in oration and so forth. But all deities will expect their clerics to generally exhibit the traits of wisdom, because it is wisdom that makes a proxy trustworthy and faithful in their service. Intelligence may allow you to write an essay on the attributes of a deity, but it is wisdom that gives you the discernment to apply that knowledge to this particular situation.

There is also another very good reason why clerics (in general) shouldn't be based on charisma, and that is we already have an archetypal servant of a deity class that has a very different relationship to the deity and to the deity's worshipers. And that class is the Paladin, which does prioritize charisma over wisdom. The Paladin, rather than a being a proxy for the deity, acts as the living embodiment of the deity in the world. People looking at a cleric see the deity's servant, but when they look at the Paladin they are looking at someone who is the deities physical representation. And as such, the Paladin is empowered by both how attractive it makes the deity appear, and how attractive it is to the deity who sees in the Paladin someone like unto themselves (and who may even have the blood of the deity in their veins or is in some fashion specially anointed). That isn't to say that Wisdom isn't also prized in the Paladin, but its a secondary stat the way that Charisma is a secondary stat of the Cleric.

Now, we could of course write into the rules in either 3e or 5e, exceptions to this general rule. It might be the case that clerics if a CN deity with dominion over emotion, foolishness, insanity or spontaneity, don't prize wisdom at all because their deity likewise doesn't prize wisdom at all. In that case, I would expect to see an option (or feat) which altered which ability spell-casting was based on - probably to Charisma. Likewise, a deity of logic, reason, knowledge or magic, might care considerably more for how intelligent that the cleric was than how wise they were, since only those able to plunge into deep mysteries reflect the god's character anyway. But those are departures from the norm we would expect for clerics.

I will say - at the risk of nudging over the line on the board rules - that one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a GM with a varied polytheistic cosmology is assume that any or all of the deities have religions and beliefs that are fundamentally congruent with Judeo-Christianity, as if Judeo-Christianity was the only religion that existed or as if all religious belief in the real world was basically alike. Nothing is weirder than having a bunch of polytheistic deities with varied ideologies, all acting like the monotheistic, jealous, fatherly, self-sufficient, faith demanding, evangelical Christian God, or having the lawfully inclined organized church of that deity with a hierarchy that mimics it, even when those deities are supposedly representing a radically different system of morality and belief. 'Faith' is not going to be considered a virtue by most polytheistic deities, either in the real world or most D&D cosmologies as presented. D&D clerics are not performing miracles based on Faith; they are casting spells that have been entrusted to them to use as they will. Most D&D deities are not going to care if you only worship them, and many will actively encourage the worship of spouses, sons, daughters, or lieges as part of their worship. Most D&D deities are going to have limited dominions that make worship of them limited anyway, so that even actual clerics of a deity will not be exclusive worshipers of that deity but celebrants of other deities as well. As much as 1/3rd of D&D deities will have no organized 'church' and no hierarchy at all, because they reflect a system of belief that finds organized religion and hierarchies repellant anyway. Indeed, some chaotic deities might discourage worship and supplication to them, preferring their beliefs to be expressed through equality, self-actualization, and mutual respect. Many D&D deities will have religions that are secretive and esoteric and will not actively evangelize or spread their teachings. As such, they won't care in the slightest whether their clerics are great orators or magnetic personalities. Most D&D deities will not love their worshipers or expect love as an emotional regard you have for them, and for that matter most worshippers will not love the deity either. In fact, most D&D clerics would probably consider it weird to suggest that they love their deity, as their deity would certainly not consider this to be the most appropriate form of worship. Many if not most deities will be perfectly happy to be propitiated and appeased, and really won't care why you perform rituals in their honor or what is in your heart when you are doing them so long as you perform them. In short, arguments that D&D clerics should have the attributes or theology that the person perceives in a real world institution like the Catholic Church are fundamentally flawed and based on ignorance both of the great variety of real world religious expression, and often even on simplified stereotypes regarding the Catholic Church.

And to be even more pointed about it, the ideal that piety has no relationship to reason I find both self-evidently wrong and personally insulting. You can speak about your own piety however you like. Maybe your piety has no basis in reason, or maybe you see piety without reason as ideal. But the idea that someone like Thomas Aquinas didn't base his piety on reason ought to be self-evidently wrong.