Does anyone miss the generic cleric?

[Bregh]

#108, or thereabouts--it's not *that* old. [Using, of course, the "was it before i started reading Dragon?" standard of age. ]

#68, actually, the Dec. '82 issue.

And reprinted in Best of the Dragon, vol. IV.

 

[Brennin Magalus]

The Priest - which could include, temple priests, friars, village pastors, healers and mad hermits - is sadly is absent from DnD base core classes. Adept/Expert can model this especially if you give them 'Domains'

AEG''s Good has just such a class. Their concept is good, but its execution is flawed. It would be nice if WOTC or another company with a better grasp of the rules tried their hand at it.

 

[Arani Korden]

WoW! What do you do with wizards in that scenario, then? They are just as miraculous as clerics.

Sure, but their miraculousness doesn't involve having God on speed dial. I have no problem with high magic, I'm just not wild about easily accessible gods.

 

[Arani Korden]

Arani Korden

I agree that the predictability of spellcasting is a 'problem' of DnD and most RPGS. Divine intervention (ie Clerical spells) are even more problmatic but personally I can't think of any good ways of modelling 'Divine favor' that isn't predictable

I can't either, but I'm not sure that modelling it is all that important.

 

[Jakathi]

hmm

well. to answer the problem about easily or semi-easily accessible deities is the simple fact that in most D&D settings or scenarios, the forces of heaven and hell are actually clashing in the form of 'good vs evil'. If the gods, goddesses and greater powers didn't take a hand in ensuring that their people were kept reasonably safe, then the opposition would enslave, kill and otherwise do naughty things to their people. Then they wouldn't have anymore worshippers.
It's really in their best interest to be semi-accessible at least. And that semi-accessibility means priests and priestess' who actually do have their gods' on the preverable speed-dial.

 

[woodelf]

#68, actually, the Dec. '82 issue.

And reprinted in Best of the Dragon, vol. IV.

doh! First, i thought of it as more recent than it was because i also have all the Bests of Dragon, so i'd seen it more recently than the first printing as a "new" thing. Second, i was thinking of the barbarian cleric (#109), and possibly conflating with the new paladins and expanded ranger stuff (#106), to boot.

 

[woodelf]

But then, the healer's pretty weak in comparison to the cleric, and we're back to square one -- no one wants to play the holy man.

Sorry to yank this outof context, but how many people have actually experienced this? I remember some discussion from teh designers of D&D3E that they deliberately beefed up the cleric, perhaps overbalancing it, precisely to make it more attractive, because "no one wants to play the cleric". And Monte Cook makes a similar observation when explaining his new classes, and the unification of the spelllists. And when i read about it in Monte's Design Diary, it was the first i'd ever heard of the phenomenon [i read the interviews with the 3E designers only much more recently]. In all my years playing D&D, and talking to D&D players off-line, i've never run across this. Even in games that only used the general cleric (AD&D1/2), wizards were the hard one to get played, not clerics. Admittedly, my games, where i used specialty priests from the the day AD&D2 PH came out, might not be representative--but maybe they're also indicative. My experience was that specialty priests were near the top of the list for player choice--even priests that were decidedly and obviously underpowered. But i didn't have a single cleric in the game once AD&D2 came out. While we didn't have a problem with lack of cleric in our D&D3E game, there *was* only one person who wanted to play a cleric--that was simply enough--and once he left the game, none of the new players ever chose cleric (or paladin). So perhaps they missed the boat with the cleric of D&d3E? Maybe the trick to getting people to play clerics isn't more power, but more flavor? I'm not a good judge, 'cause this whole "nobody wants to play the cleric" thing is news to me--i've never had the problem, so i've never had to actively solve it. But i wonder if AD&D2 *did* solve it, and they threw the solution out? It sounds like those in this thread who heavily embraced the specialty priest idea/mechanics with AD&D2 had similar experiences to mine--maybe not people clamoring to play priests/clerics, but at least no problems with a shortage.

 

[woodelf]

Actually, they match up in part with Turpin from Song of Roland, and the other part matches up with the stories of people like Moses and Elijah.

What would you say is the archetypal holy man? because there isn't one, IMO. Fakirs, to Knights Templar, to Buddhist Lamas, to obsidian-knife-weilding-and-heart-carving Aztec high priests, the archetypes are across the map. But I agree, automatic proficiency in heavy armor and all simple weapons still doesn't fit most divine servants - a priest of Aphrodyte with plate mail and a morningstar?

Exactly--you answer the question yourself: since there isn't a single clear archetypal holy man, why does D&D3E (well, and every edition of D&D save AD&D2) represent them with a single archetypal class, barely customizable?

 

[woodelf]

WoW! What do you do with wizards in that scenario, then? They are just as miraculous as clerics.

I don't think that's the issue--it's not that hurling spells removes the mystique of magic, it's that getting responses from gods removes the mystique of divinities.

 

[Altalazar]

I don't think that's the issue--it's not that hurling spells removes the mystique of magic, it's that getting responses from gods removes the mystique of divinities.

That can also depend on the campaign. In my world, while there are plenty of gods, and speciality priests to go along with them, how the god is actually worshipped and the structure of the organization is actually completely up to the worshippers. There is no divine intervention, no divine communication at all. If you worship a goddess of love, and you find a bunch of like-minded worshippers, you can form a church and make your own structure. If someone else also worships the same goddess of love, they get the same powers, but the structure of the organization might be different - if one order doesn't like what another is doing, they can try to force it, but they won't have any divine help in doing so, beyond their normal granted powers. In other words, in that sense, it is like real religions - which are totally and completely structured according to what the adherents can make of it.

So some gods have rather uniform, well disciplined orders, others have many different ones. It depends partly on the nature of those who would worship a particular god/goddess. It also depends on how much real power a given order has, through whatever means are available - for instance, one order might have government or monarchy sponsorship and funding. That would make it more widespread than one without.

During an early campaign, the BBEG, a necromancer, intended to become a god, which he finally managed to do after taking over a country and building a vast army, ready to invade the nation of the PCs. And then an interesting thing happened - because in leaving to become a god, he left behind a power vacuum, and no longer had his direct control - so things sort of fell apart. Now, those who worship him can be clerics, but he himself is gone - it is up to the clerics to decide what that worship means.

Of course, other campaigns do things differently.

I'm still working on transferring over my speciality priests from 2nd Ed. I have them set up for 3rd ed - the problem is some of the extra powers are less balanced because I can't balance with spell circles like I could before. I'm considering just keeping them as they are, with the domains I gathered for them for 3rd ed, and seeing how it goes. It might be somewhat unbalancing, the extra powers for some, but it never was a problem before. I'll put them in the House Rules this weekend.

I suppose I never did like the generic cleric... but then I don't like generic characters. It is more fun to come up with something unique. Thankfully, 3rd Ed allows avoiding generic fighters, wizards, and thieves as well.