Idea for Domains/Specialty Priests

[Greg K]

Here are a few sample domains, with a few sample spells.

Healing
Alignment: Any non-evil
Channel Divinity: Turn Undead
Spells: Cure light wounds, bless, remove disease, etc.

I wholeheartedly agree with your general premise. However,
1. I would prefer all clerics to be specialty priests.
2. I would prefer Turn Undead not be the Channel Divinity feat for the Healing Domain. I would rather see it as a spell and domains like Repose (Keeping the dead in the Realm of the Dead) and/or Life have increased ability to turn undead or greater Turn Undead Spells. I would rather the Channel Divinity ability for the Healing domain have increased ability with healing type spells or something like the Paladin's Lay Hands ability.

 

[tuxgeo]

If Wizards of the Coast is going to go that way, then I would prefer it if they would adhere even more closely to 3E by letting each cleric choose 2 domains, not 1, with this one requirement:

If both domains are within the portfolio of any one deity, then no problem.
However, if the two selected domains don't both belong to any one deity, then the player of the cleric must get DM approval for that selection of domains before playing that character.

 

[Texicles]

4. The Druid is a kind of specialty priest.

Generally, I like what you've come up with, but I take issue with this point right here. Thumbing through my AD&D PHB (oldest edition I've got), I can clearly see that there is an historical precedent for the Druid-is-a-Priest idea. However, I am too fond of the way that Druids have come into their own (literally) in more recent editions, and don't wish to see them return from whence they came.

I'm also in the pro-Paladin/Ranger-as-a-class camp, so there's that. Point being, if you want to try and make a Druidesque Priest, with nature domains and, wilderness backgrounds and all that jazz, I don't have a problem with it, but don't exclude the class in it's own right.

 

[steeldragons]

I disagree. This is the mentality Mike Mearls has,

Then I am in good company, I suppose, though I've never met the man.

this is the mentality I'm trying to fight.

Why?

Its very easy to just take a passing glance at D&D's history and say "Clerics follow gods," when every single edition of D&D that I know of says Clerics don't have to worship a single deity, and many champion a whole pantheon, a philosophy, or just an alignment.

Ok, so by your own admission, that would be "every single edition that [you] know of..."

(I don't have any pre-3e books, but 3e, 4e, and every retroclone I've found concur.)

Well then...it MUST be true! Check out some "pre-3e" material when you get a chance.

From the ORIGINAL "Expert Rulebook" by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, edited by David Cook and Steve Marsh...

"Clerics
At the first 3 levels of experience, the power of the cleric is extremely limited. As characters advance to higher levels (possibly as high as 36th), clerics obtain more spells of greater power, having proven their faith to their god or goddess."

From the 1e PHB...written by Gary Gygax...

"The Cleric
...

This class bears a certain resemblance to religious orders of knighthood of medieval times. The cleric has an eight-sided die (d8) per level to determine how many hit points (q.v.) he or she has. The cleric is dedicated to a deity, or deities, and at the same time is a skilled combatant at arms."

*All emphasis/bold/italics applied by me.

It's easy to house rule either way, of course, but I'd like to have it be an official assumption in the setting.

Well, you are totally entitled to want what you want. No argument here.

But what you want as an "official assumption of the setting" has no correlation to what I view as "D&D."

What you view/perceive as "historical" is hardly but.

--SD

 

[Stormonu]

I'd also like to see Channel Divinity be something that can be specific to a single deity - not just a sphere/domain, like what was done in 4E.

Channel Divinity: Zeus - lets you throw lightning bolts or use something akin to Command
Channel Divinity: Loki- lets you turn into an ephemeral flame

 

[GX.Sigma]

Check out some "pre-3e" material when you get a chance.

I'll try to get my hands on the AD&D DMG when the re-release comes out, but at the moment I don't own any RPG products from before 2008. I realize I should have researched my statement more thoroughly, and I'm sorry to have offended you.

Regardless, the Cleric of philosophy is an option that has been available for over 10 years, and it would suck for 5e to remove that option when it's supposed to be the unity edition that lets people play whatever they want.

 

[tuxgeo]

I'll try to get my hands on the AD&D DMG when the re-release comes out, but at the moment I don't own any RPG products from before 2008. I realize I should have researched my statement more thoroughly, and I'm sorry to have offended you.

Regardless, the Cleric of philosophy is an option that has been available for over 10 years, and it would suck for 5e to remove that option when it's supposed to be the unity edition that lets people play whatever they want.

I cannot give XP to GX.Sigma again so soon, so I'll state my (brief) agreement here:
Yes! A unifying edition should include each option that the edition is attempting to unify.

 

[Sadrik]

Why?

I'll take a stab at this. There have been several campaign worlds where clerics are not simply puppets of the gods. This is the assumption in most campaign worlds, as this is a very DnD thing. However it does go against many other fantasy worlds. I think the OP, and I feel the same way, that the cleric can fill more than one role in a campaign world than just a puppet of a god. Again I don't think that this precludes that notion but can be written to accommodate both concepts of the class.

I will give you an example. Suppose an inventive DM wanted to have his campaign world set in an 1890's like fantasy world with steam power and all that. He does not want to have organized clergy being clerics perhaps clerics in this world are mystics who learn secrets through meditation and hidden unknowable knowledge that cannot be learned by those who do not tap into that inner of most inner spiritual unknowns. Cool, right? But if the class is written with the assumption that powers are granted by a single god of many, this class may not work in the campaign without a bunch of house rule tweaks.

Bottom line is it can be written to accommodate more than one campaign world assumption. Open design vs closed more specific design.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

To clarify my position: while i pointed out that clerics of philosophies are clearly a 3Ed innovation, I think they're a GOOD innovation. Definitely something to be kept.

However, I still maintain that their CD power should be linked to their ethos; to their Domains.

 

[BobTheNob]

Quite like alot of the idea's puit forward here.

I especially like the notion that not EVERY cleric turns undead. That the ability to turn undead is a related to who you worship. I think that would be a worthy evolution for releasing undead from this unique position of
a) Being hyper-vulnerable if you have a cleric, and
b) Being designed super tough to accomodate, making them unnecesarily too hard if you dont have a cleric.

I like it because it clears up the potential design and usage of undead monsters.