D&D 5E How I would have done the Priest/Cleric class differently with Hindsight

[GlassJaw]

What's wrong with Domains, besides the weird implementation? My only issue with it is that I wish Clerics had gotten two of them, like in 3.X.

Agreed. But easy enough to let a cleric choose 2 and then a choice between each ability when a domain feature is granted.

 

[Krachek]

It come from the large Pantheon of gods offer by most setting.
A god for everything, then a cleric for everything.
A cleric that look like a rogue, a ranger, a bard, a wizard, a Druid,
Cleric try to stay close to their root, but it’s getting harder and harder.

 

[Perun]

The D&D cleric has always struck me as a bit of an anomaly. We have this other class, the paladin, that covers the crusading warrior, who dons armor and weapon to vanquish enemies of the faith. And I think it does that job well. So what is the cleric, then?

Well, the answer seems to be a paladin but with a lot more spells, and somewhat less combat ability, and untethered from the Lawful Good alignment. A paladin variant.

But the vast majority of religious practice does not involve putting on armor and hitting things. It seems like the idea of Elfcrusher's priest would be the natural mode of divine spellcasting, with classes like the Paladin being dabblers in divine magic.

I think if you go through adventure modules you will see a lot of NPCs that, if the priest class were available, would be priests, but instead are clerics who don't know they have weapon and armor proficiencies.

I remember that one possible distinction offered back in the day ran along the lies that (virtually) anybody could become a cleric. You did not need any special talent, apart from having a half-decent Wisdom score. The paladin, on the other hand, was selected by the deity; you could not decide to become one, you were chosen.

 

[dave2008]

I would like to see complete removal of arcane/divine split in spells.

That is what 5e does; however,..

all spells for all casters.

...5e does create list by class though. So all spells are not for all casters.

make wizard specialization more or less equal in power to cleric domains.

I like that idea as well.

 

[Ludovino]

The D&D cleric has always struck me as a bit of an anomaly. We have this other class, the paladin, that covers the crusading warrior, who dons armor and weapon to vanquish enemies of the faith. And I think it does that job well. So what is the cleric, then?

Well, the answer seems to be a paladin but with a lot more spells, and somewhat less combat ability, and untethered from the Lawful Good alignment. A paladin variant.

But the vast majority of religious practice does not involve putting on armor and hitting things. It seems like the idea of Elfcrusher's priest would be the natural mode of divine spellcasting, with classes like the Paladin being dabblers in divine magic.

I think if you go through adventure modules you will see a lot of NPCs that, if the priest class were available, would be priests, but instead are clerics who don't know they have weapon and armor proficiencies.

I think you are spot on here.

The original D&D Cleric is now far better represented by the 5E Paladin than any 5E Cleric. I would argue the 5E Paladin is so far from what the 2E Paladin was that it makes more sense to erase the 5E Cleric and make the Paladin into the Crusader/Oathbound/Oathkeeper/Man of the Word/whatever you want to call it/Holy Warrior.

 

[dave2008]

I just had a thought:

• A paladin is devoted to a particular god. Their holy avenger, enforcer, protector, whatever. They can only draw power / spells from their single gods domain (s).
• A cleric is devoted to a faith (pantheon) and can draw from any domain of that faith / entire pantheon.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I think you are spot on here.

The original D&D Cleric is now far better represented by the 5E Paladin than any 5E Cleric. I would argue the 5E Paladin is so far from what the 2E Paladin was that it makes more sense to erase the 5E Cleric and make the Paladin into the Crusader/Oathbound/Oathkeeper/Man of the Word/whatever you want to call it/Holy Warrior.

They tried to distinguish the two with "god" vs. "oath", but really the conceptual line between D&D Cleric and Paladin is really...blurry.

I would have rather had one "holy warrior" class, and one "priest in a robe" class.

But that wouldn't really be D&D.

 

[Raduin711]

I remember that one possible distinction offered back in the day ran along the lies that (virtually) anybody could become a cleric. You did not need any special talent, apart from having a half-decent Wisdom score. The paladin, on the other hand, was selected by the deity; you could not decide to become one, you were chosen.

Which again, seems odd because the Cleric is the one that wields all of the divine power. Paladins are fighters with a little divine oomph behind them. You would think if either were chosen by the gods, it would be the one with divine magic coming out his earballs.

 

[Perun]

Which again, seems odd because the Cleric is the one that wields all of the divine power. Paladins are fighters with a little divine oomph behind them. You would think if either were chosen by the gods, it would be the one with divine magic coming out his earballs.

I'd guess it's all due to tradition and 'holy cows'. In AD&D 1e & 2e, clerics were considered the militant branch of the church. I believe the 2e PHB back then explicitly said they were, in part, based on the Knights Templar. All religions had clerics, partly because it was a dangerous world, and partly because it was (A)D&D. In 2e, the more scholarly type of priest would be represented by a specialty priest, who could have vastly different armour and weapon proficiencies, special abilities, and even a different spell list. This was, IMO, an excellent idea, but required a lot of work -- Forgotten Realms remains (to the best of my knowledge) the only official setting where every deity had a specialty priest write-up. It took two books (Faiths & Avatars and Powers & Pantheons), three if you include Demihuman Deities. This trio of books remains (again, IMO) one of the best sets of accessories released for D&D ever. It was not just the specialty priests, but detailed write-ups on all faiths and deities in FR (even the dead ones... or the ones that were considered dead in 2e), including dogmas, clergy alignments, holy days, etc. If you can find them, the are a fantastic source of information, regardless of the edition you play in.

Later books introduced more priest classes, including the monk (a full spellcasting class that dabbled in martial arts (I remember unnarmed combat rules were... not very good in 2e)) and mystic -- both of which, IIRC, could fill the role of a more scholarly priest, but also the crusader -- a more militant type of cleric, again with full spellcasting.

I've heard paladins likened to special ops branch of the faith, and they were few and far between. This was mostly because of the (insanely) high requirements needed to qualify for the class (Str 12, Con 9, Wis 13, Cha 17, LG alignment and a bunch of other restrictions).

Not the best reasons, I'm aware -- just to show how previous editions sort of defined shaped the classes.

 

[Ludovino]

I've heard paladins likened to special ops branch of the faith, and they were few and far between. This was mostly because of the (insanely) high requirements needed to qualify for the class (Str 12, Con 9, Wis 13, Cha 17, LG alignment and a bunch of other restrictions).

Not the best reasons, I'm aware -- just to show how previous editions sort of defined shaped the classes.

The Paladin lost a huge part of its identity when the Lawful Good requirement was abandoned.

I'm not saying it should go back to that, but the champion of utter goodness with the Holy Sword and Special Bonded Mount and tithes to the local Good Church was slightly different than the Cleric. WOTC making the Paladin function differently than Fighter + Lay on Hands has created a pretty cool class to play, a class which resembles the old school Cleric in everything but name.

I gotta say D&D has never done gods/pantheons/religious organizations well. For me Cleric has lost all the identity it had, and the 5E Oaths are way cooler than the Divine Domains.

Its very bizarre to me that 5E, which bends itself over backwards to allow any kind of fantasy genre a group can think of, insists on retaining the gods as directly empowering mortals and being involved with their affairs. I also find the character concept of Priest of this or that Domain to be...stupid. Back in the day, you were a holy person because you communed with the gods/spirits/other world. Not A god. Its these old strange limitations plus the even more bizarre introduction of a Warlock which represents the archetype of character who is bound to a Singular Greater Power far better than Cleric.


I'm rambling. If there is ever a 5.5 or 6e I would like to see cleric erased and have the Paladin renamed, d8 HD instead of d10, less spells, more spell like abilities, some rituals (totally underused in 5E) maybe some Blessings/Bendictions/Investments/Enhancements to items, and Oaths replace gods and domains. That is now a holy warrior/crusader/mystic/pilgrim. Maybe one Oath means you can't wear heavy armor or use certain weapons and now you gain more spell slots/abilities, there is plenty of room for design there to encompass the whole spectrum of Divine-ish character from Templar to Shaolin to Healbot.