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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6861860" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't follow the last sentence - who is saying that they don't want to play a cleric? I'm not. I GM far more than I play, but the last character that I played was a Dungeon World paladin (with cleric spellcasting option) who before that had been statted as a 4e STR paladin (with secondary WIS and CHA), who before that had been statted as a 2nd ed AD&D S&P cleric (with lots of fighting bolted on via the S&P build options).What I'm saying is that I don't feel that playing a traditional D&D cleric, who is a divinely inspired and miracle-working warrior broadly in the mould of the crusading orders and the Knights of the Round Table, has more to do with WIS than with CHA. Heck, the S&P version of my PC had the Religious Fanatic personality trait, which to me at least screams CHA ahead of WIS. As later developed in his 4e and DW versions, he was Knight Commander of the Iron Tower (the headquarters of his order, where he had trained and to which he returned after his time of errantry).It seems to me that it doesn't take WIS to know the goals of one's god - at least, not in all cases. In the case of this particular character, he knew what his god required by way of direct revelation and also by straight-forward extrapolation from the divine teachings. As I have mentioned more than once upthread, I see that case of a wise hermit or oracle quite differently - these characters do intuit the purposes of the divinity by carefully studying signs and portents, parsing out the meaning of obscure visions, etc - but the classic D&D cleric doesn't exemplify this archetype. The traditional D&D cleric wields heavy weapons and wears heavy armour; s/he constructs a chapel or castle at 8th and 9th level, receiving divine aid to do so, and thereby attracting fanatical followers (both soldiers and civilians). To me that speaks of charisma (in the natural language sense), of force of personality, and not of intuiting the hidden nature of reality or of the divinity.There are specialty priest options that are different in this respect, of course. And 4e has the invoker. And D&D has (almost) always had the druid, who also seems a much more oracular and "mysteries of the universe" sort of figure (and the true neutrality suits this, too).Finally, as to the selection of spells: that is almost always a player choice, and is not dependent on WIS. WIS sometimes affects the number and level of spells available to cast - depending on edition - and sometimes affects the potency of attack spells - again, depending on edition - but it has never been a factor in choosing spells. When the AD&D DMG, for instance, talks about the GM overriding the player's choice of spells, nothing in there even hints at that being connected to the cleric PC's WIS stat.(Even when we look at more oracular spells, like Augury and Divination, WIS is not a factor in their chances of success, only level.)As I posted upthread, I think that you are focusing on a very narrow conception of what CHA is - broadly, what you call "PR" or propagandising - and perhaps therefore on a correspondingly narrow notion of evangelism. From p 20 of the Basic PDF:Clerics are intermediaries between the mortal world and the distant planes of the gods. As varied as the gods they serve, clerics strive to embody the handiwork of their deities.Clerics play an exemplary role. They exemplify the divine to the rest of the mortal world.The SRD (p 31) says of paladins "you have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does." Yet paladins use CHA, not WIS, as their casting stat. As the SRD (p 31) says, "Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your paladin spells, since their power derives from the strength of your convictions."I don't see any great difference between conviction and devotion in this context. Furthermore, the paladin casts spells as a cleric does. To me, the overall upshot seems to be that attempting to anchor spellcasting stats to any close reading of the flavour text in the rules is not going to take us very far. That's why, in my posts, I am  pointing to broad, archetypical features of the classic cleric (and distinguishing those from other character types for whom WIS does seem more appropriate - the mystical, hermit, oracular sorts of characters).</blockquote>

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