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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorhook" data-source="post: 6314790" data-attributes="member: 58401">You raise an interesting question: exactly what distinguishes the concept of the cleric from the concept of the paladin?Are clerics supposed to be the priests and preachers, while paladins act as holy defenders of the faith? This definitely seems like the dominant approach, but there's precedent in D&D to distinguish clerics from clergy. At least as far back as Eberron in 3.5E, clerics were presented as holy warriors, a subset of priests, particularly within large, unstructured faiths like the Sovereign Host. In the D&D Next playtests, "priest" was background that a character of any class could take, and which was certainly not required for clerics; under these rules a cleric could have a background as a "thug" or "sage" or "soldier" just as easily as a fighter or mage or thief or even paladin could be a "priest". (This a feature of the system, not a bug, and I hope it made it into 5E.)Honestly, as much as my perfectionist streak wants neat lines between classes that direct characters down the plinko board into a particular concept-hole, I'm not sure the distinctions even matter. For as long as D&D has been producing player/character options, D&D has had issues with "concept creep" and thematic overlap. How do we distinguish mage, sorcerer, and warlock? Is a bladesinger a spellsword, a hexblade, a swordmage, or an eldritch knight? What's the difference between bones animated as a bone golem and bones animated as a skeleton? The truth is that most of these distinctions are arbitrary, and exist for the sake of narrative and for the sake of giving players and DMs new mechanical elements to game with.Feel free to chime in.</blockquote>

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