Do non-spellcasting, non-adventuring priests exist in D&D?

[underthumb]

A related point

Okay, so there are plenty of perspectives on this issue, especially where the idea came from. Regardless of whether my assumption of non-spell casting priests was correct, let's consider their rightful (or non-rightful) place in a campaign setting.

The way I see it, if all recognized members of a church can cast spells, it sets the bar too low for supernatural powers. And by "too low" I mean it does not seem fitting of most official campaign settings, even FR.

Consider the following: One needs a great deal of esoteric training or an exotic background to wield arcane power, but one need only have faith and the favor of a local church to become a cleric. In a world where the evidence of the gods is incontestable, strong belief would not be in short supply. Given the large role that religion plays in the lives of D&D's often literate peasants, it seems like being some kind of divine spell caster would be a no-brainer. In other words, the entire world would be swimming in casters.

 

[billd91]

Consider the following: One needs a great deal of esoteric training or an exotic background to wield arcane power, but one need only have faith and the favor of a local church to become a cleric. In a world where the evidence of the gods is incontestable, strong belief would not be in short supply. Given the large role that religion plays in the lives of D&D's often literate peasants, it seems like being some kind of divine spell caster would be a no-brainer. In other words, the entire world would be swimming in casters.

Who says you don't need training to be a divine caster? If the wizard can be presumed to have had an apprenticeship, why not the cleric (druid, spirit shaman, etc)? For that matter, there could be all sorts of onerous rituals or duties they may have had to endure for their divine abilities that just don't make it into the game in any official capacity.
Of course, multiclassing after 1st level does tend to make a mockery of that whole idea (for wizards as well, I might add).
But, in the main, there's no reason to believe that divine casting would inherently be all that attractive to every Tom, Dick, or Harry in the D&D setting or easy to master compared to arcane casting. I would presume it is more common overall due to general setting factors and a modicum of logical reasoning by the world-building DM, but still probably not nearly as common as fighter-types or rogue-types.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

According to medieval demographics made easy, around 1 in 40 were 'clergymen.'

By bizarre coincidence, the number of characters with divine spellcasting ability in the sample hamlet in the 3.5DMG (p. 139) is also 1 in 40: there are 3 clerics, 1 adept and 1 druid in a village of 200.

And 200 is about as close to the mean size of a typical RL medieval settlement as you'll get.

So maybe all clergy are supposed to be divine spellcasters, after all.

 

[Steve Jung]

Was it not explicit in 2E FR, in its much-praised trilogy of books on the religions of the Realms, that in many cases the priesthood included a lot of non-Clerics, including, in at least some cases, non-adventurers? I could have sworn there was a paragraph or two on that very subject for each individual deity.

To a lesser extent I thought this was the case for at least some pantheons discussed in 2E Legends & Lore.

It's on p.21 of Faiths & Avatars.

Clergy: The different character classes open to members of the clergy are listed here. Always remember that a religion can have lay members of the clergy who have no character class. They are treated as 1st-level fighters unless otherwise specified.

 

[Imp]

Back when I played Basic / AD&D, I don't think we ever absorbed the idea that priests would not be cleric-class characters, whether that was laid out in the books or not. There were the clerics, who could do cleric spells, and the followers, who were whatever.

The way I conceive of it now, not only are priests frequently normal people, but the spellcaster/ PC class types can't count on their magical powers being permanent – their gods can grant the powers and take them away as their whims dictate. I don't strip PC divine casters of their powers mid-campaign, but I like the implication that sometime after they retire, their powers may desert them, and so they are taking advantage of the blessings of their gods while they can.

 

[S'mon]

I do hope that you're speaking purely in the context of D&D

From the internal aspect of any belief system, don't its priests/wise men/shamans all have special powers?

 

[Snoweel]

Absolutely. There is a Fighter in our 4E group who is a priest by profession, but isn't a rules-standard Cleric.

Saint Pious?

 

[Eridanis]

According to medieval demographics made easy, around 1 in 40 were 'clergymen.'

Interesting link. I'll have to give it a good reading later.

I always thought the expert-as-priest made a lot of sense in my D&D homebrews. Miracle-workers should be rare, or they're not really miracles, but day-to-day occurances. Certainly, that later approach makes for a perfectly viable D&D campaign, but my homebrews tends to be low-magic, until I need to whack my players upside the head with something possessing a high "wow" factor. Having the local priest of every 200-person village be able to quickly heal broken bones and rescue someone from a near-fatal accident sets a certain tone. Not better, not worse, just different.

 

[Psion]

It's on p.21 of Faiths & Avatars.

Interesting. Thanks for that.

The Faiths & Avatars approach to describing religions as functional, self-consistent organizations was a hit-out-of-the-park for the day. Sadly, many 3e designers failed to see it's brilliance in more ways that one.

Anyone here remember the short lived online for-pay magazine D20 Weekly? I wrote a very non-complimentary review of Deities & Demigods for 3e, ranting about how it was a "deities monster manual", and how the design team made a major mistake in not hewing closer to the Faiths & Avatars model.

I didn't associate at the time I wrote it that the editor of d20 Weekly at the time (Dale Donovan) was also on the editorial team for DDG 3e, who shot down my review. I resubmitted a very "kid gloved" version of the review.

Dale insisted to me that emulating prior DDG's was the "right thing to do", not Faiths & Avatars as I had suggested. The winds had shifted on this issue, and I guess we wouldn't see the idea of religions as complex living organizations resurface until Eberron by my estimation.

 

[Umbran]

From the internal aspect of any belief system, don't its priests/wise men/shamans all have special powers?

Not necessarily.

From the practical aspect of any organized religion, there are people working in the the context of the religion who are not "top rank" priests, wise men, or shamans. If the wise men are busy being wise, they need someone to help with more day-to-day tasks.