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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6223313" data-attributes="member: 2067">See I think you got this backwards.A cleric in OD&D, 1e, 2e, 3e, 4e, and, presumably, 5e, is a wielder of divine magic, granted by the gods.That is the thing that is consistent -- definitional. That is not mechanical, it's purely, entirely, and completely story-based. It's about the cleric's role in the narrative of the world, the kind of hero the cleric is, how the cleric relates to the powerful forces of the universe...all story things. They don't need flavor to fill an expository role, they are 100% expository, almost the only thing that has been true about the cleric in all incarnations is its exposition. That, to me, means that that is the most important thing about the class. That is what a class does: it gives you an expository role. What mechanics go on  under the hood there -- whether you're a caster or a summoner or a healer -- are subordinate to the story. Mechanics is not really what a class does, speaking about D&D in general (it might be what a subclass does!) -- mechanics are only there to support a given story. A cleric is a healer because "healer" is a great mechanical representations of "a heroic character who gains powers from the gods." It starts with the story, and gives mechanics to support that story.The other way around (healers are clerics because a hero gaining power from the gods is a great story representation of the healing mechanic) is flawed because it fails to embrace the story as its core element, and so leads to a design philosophy centered on making "healers," rather than making divinely sanctioned heroes. And when you play D&D -- especially when you're a n00b to it -- the mechanical role is not as relevant as the story role.</blockquote>

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