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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 6043980" data-attributes="member: 79401">No, it does not for me. To me, the assumed polytheism of the system and its settings should trump the mechanical and thematic restrictions of a single class.I don't get any immediate connection to that construction because that's what it is, a construction. At no time prior to the publication of the original D&D system had there ever appeared in history, myth, legend, fiction, or fable that particular peculiar combination of benefits and restrictions that made up the original D&D cleric.The armoured crusading priest who forswears edged weaponry because they're not allowed to shed blood (because beaning someone in the head with a mace won't cause bleeding? uh-huh) is <a href="http://l-clausewitz.livejournal.com/394539.html" target="_blank">a misunderstanding of history</a>. (We also already have an adequate class to represent the historical  crusading clergy-man: the Fighter. After all, the priests of the  Crusades fought Muslims, not the undead, and generally speaking had a  distinct lack of magic of any sort, healing or not.)The clergy-man who can chase off the undead is largely borrowed from Hammer horror films, and in none of those that come to mind do the clergy run about in armour or have magic spells.The original D&D spells that bring about plagues of insects and turn sticks into snakes are obviously Moses references (and I don't recall any tales of Moses going about clad in armour, or about him fighting the undead, but maybe I skipped that part). Raise dead? That's a whole other biblical figure. Pretty sure he didn't use weapons or armour of any sort. I can't say that I've seen the film or played the game. I'd say it's also significant that a rather more famous and successful series of Japanese videogames that were clearly inspired by D&D fill the magical healing role with White Mages wearing robes, rather than mace-wiedling psuedo-crusaders. I'm sure more people have heard of Final Fantasy than of Dark Souls.---I think I should probably clarify my position by listing a few of the things I'm not saying.- I am not saying that no Cleric should be able to heal.- I am not saying that no Cleric should turn undead.- I am not saying that no Cleric should wear armour.- I am not saying that no Cleric should have weapon restrictions.Instead, I'm saying that all of those should be optional aspects of the class. If one wants to play a OD&D style Cleric it should definitely be one of the possibilities of the class.But at the same time, both you and KaiiLurker commented on classes carrying unwanted baggage, and to me, these things can be just that. Why is every Cleric expected to have abilities that specifically combat the undead? Are we building into every existing setting, and every possible not-yet-made setting the idea that ALL gods have grudges against the undead? That all possible interpretations of what undeath is in your campaign world must be anathema to what the divine is?Clerics of war gods should have better arms and armour than clerics of healing gods. It makes no sense at all for a Cleric of Kord, Bane, Ares, Týr, Odin or any other war-god to have the old-school restriction against edged weaponry. Clerics of healing gods should have (far) more healing than clerics of war gods. I want it to be possible to have a pantheon in which divine magical healing isn't a universal gift of all gods, but something that only the god of healing can bestow. The system should be flexible enough to allow either approach.To me, if we're to consider Cleric to be one of the four core classes, then it should be the broader "primary divine spell-caster" and not the narrower "specific artificial archetype combining pseudo-Crusader with Hammer vampire hunter, Moses, and an unprecedented in legend and lore degree of magical healing".Heck, if it's the semantics of the whole thing that are bugging people, then sure, let's rename the class the Priest, and make the classical Cleric a subtype of that.</blockquote>

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