Poll : Do you allow godless clerics?

[Xeriar]

I have another question of those favouring godless clerics: what are examples in history/myth that you are basing this role on? What philosophies have priests? I would argue that movements/institutions that are not theistic do not produce priests; they may produce scholars; they may produce philosophers; they may produce mages but are there examples of them producing priests?

Ever heard of the Dalai Lama?

Or a Buddhist Monk? Serving in something called a Pagoda?

There are frequent walking on water legends (My favourite though is:
Monk1: I've done it. For fifteen years, I have tried and failed, but yesterday I managed to walk on water.
Monk2: You moron, you've wasted 15 years of your life and the ferry is 5 bucks.)

There are also tales of healing and curing, and the ability to raise the dead (though this would be abbhorant, it would be bringing someone back into the land of suffering).

Taoism is best exemplefied by either the monk class or the Force from Star Wars (seeing as how it was based on Taoism). Maybe psionics. There are stories of self-healing but you can't force Taoism on another unless they've already accepted it.

Taoists who would be priests would probably also be Shinto or some other form of Animism-like thing (ie Shugenja in Rokugan).

Buddhism however is in its entirety a much more diverse. Either you make an entirely new spell list or you give them the cleric class and the choice of some domains (not sure what, actually, since IIRC healing has the raise dead and ressurection powers in it).

 

[Xeriar]

The other side of the coin in such a question is what religions have produced clerics of the types we see in DnD, who have such a broad range of real power? The answer is none, which makes the question irrelevant; its symantics. The cleric class is simply a mechanical option, and I see nothing wrong with allowing it to represent the broadly spiritual as oppossed to any formal, dogmatic faith. And I think you will find that there was little historical division between arcane/divine abilities; it's a later pulp coceit.

I believe it's supposed to reflect the 'holy warrior' ideal.

Which made me wonder about Paladins after Skills and Powers in 2e, but that's a digression.

Non-proselytize religions tend to have utterly seperate warrior and 'priestly' castes, as in Hinduism and ancient Persian faith, I believe the Egyptians did as well.

For some the concept of holy warriors is just anethma - ie Jainism.

Proselytizing religions - even Buddhism, have this 'holy warrior' concept, though.

There was a division between arcane and divine abilities in Christendom - wizards and witches got their power from Satan... Division enough for some, anyway.

 

[Xeriar]

Perhaps you were thinking that the class, with vast numebrs of the spells available drawn directly from sources like Exodus, a forbiddance against using edged weapons (now discarded), the ability to heal, and mastery over the undead and demons wasn't designed directly based upon a somewhat warped view of mideaevil Catholicism. If so, you need to do some more research before you start opining on what the class is or is not suitable for.

The no edged weapons was from Egypt, I believe (Amenhotep forbid the use of edged weapons. Preisthood didn't like him and made sure his son, Tutenkhamen, didn't get so far). Those flails often death death with very pointy parts.

But there is no hard line rule that says the cleric class must be modeled after 9th century Christianity. It's supposed to be able to handle other faiths, and by extension, other faith systems (though in my opinion it does so poorly, it's the easist to start with).

 

[tzor]

First of all, it is difficult, if not impossible, to correctly determine or even assume that we can correctly determine the influences that made decisions in the early editions of D&D.

I think we can safely assume that everything influenced D&D and thus the cleric class in various ways, and one of those influences was the preceived view of the medieval mindset which has to by its very nature include the Catholic Church.

People were driving away vampires with crosses long before D&D so the notion of turning undead comes from culture, not per se from medieval sources. The holy water rules are clearly from glances at the Catholic Church, including the early edition notion that he who had the biggest most expensive font made the most holy water.

Of coruse early editions didn't have things like domains or anything else that would have made a deity other than a label which the cleric would invoke as a part of his preaching. The notion of clerical spells is derived from the same Vancian source as all the other spell types (cleric, druid, illusionist and wizard in AD&D) and have no relation to any preceived medieval mindset whatsoever.

Indeed one might even look at the whole situation in black and white ... literally. This is the Leiber model where evil wizards are represented by the black wizards and the good wizards, known as white wizards tend to be in the service of some deity. Leiber does derive his notion from a somewhat misunderstood notion of white magic and dark magic, a notion that was indeed discussed before the general witch craze banned all practice of preceived magic. (Herbalism was generally considered "magic" in the medieval mindset.)

Some elements in AD&D were used merely for game balance. Take the blunt weapon rule. The rule simply allows fighters to have an advantage over clerics, because swords were better than maces. Of course in the first edition, maces, morning stars and flails were hopelessly confused and confusing to many players. I know I was one who thought the "Holy Water Sprinkler" was the mace like thing that priests used to sprinkle holy water on people during Easter.

Of course little of this has a direct impact on the notion of non specific deity worshiping clerics. With a common faith for the most part being the only thing documented, it's hard to derive anything from the medieval mindset. (We tend to think of the medieval mindset as a time of a single religion, but many other faiths especially gnostic ones were also common at the time.) AD&D druids, for example are generally deity less, but they formed a strict heirarchy and had limited advancement.

 

[WayneLigon]

I voted 'Not like for flavor reasons', but it depends on the world I'm running at the time. In most of mine, the mere idea of a cleric not tied to a patron diety isn't possible. Can't do it, no way, no how. I have a couple worlds, though, where that would work; effectively, they are almost tapping the same power source that druids do in the other worlds: they commune with the spirits in and around everything and so draw power from them based on that. In those worlds that do allow 'godless' clerics, the druids serve the archtypical idea of 'the land'. Since it's a creation-based magic (and other blah blah flavor that I won't relate here), it's a Divine source.

 

[Storm Raven]

The no edged weapons was from Egypt, I believe (Amenhotep forbid the use of edged weapons. Preisthood didn't like him and made sure his son, Tutenkhamen, didn't get so far). Those flails often death death with very pointy parts.

No. It came from a papal edict (not much observed) that priests were forbidden from "drawing blood". Some members of the catholic clergy got around this by using maces, and staves which supposedly didn't run afoul of this prohibition.

But there is no hard line rule that says the cleric class must be modeled after 9th century Christianity. It's supposed to be able to handle other faiths, and by extension, other faith systems (though in my opinion it does so poorly, it's the easist to start with).

The point is that is what the cleric class was originally based on, and as such, does a weak to awful job at emulating members of the priesthood of various other traditions.

 

[Arnwyn]

Do you allow godless clerics?

No, I do not, for game world reasons.

 

[jasamcarl]

[/b]

No. It came from a papal edict (not much observed) that priests were forbidden from "drawing blood". Some members of the catholic clergy got around this by using maces, and staves which supposedly didn't run afoul of this prohibition.

[/b]

The point is that is what the cleric class was originally based on, and as such, does a weak to awful job at emulating members of the priesthood of various other traditions.

None of which matters. The concept itself has to be intuitive, it doesn't have to perfectly emulate it. It's an explanation. The specific manifistations can be explained as a product of the caster's will or whatnot. So why do you think its a dumb idea again?

 

[Xeriar]

The point is that is what the cleric class was originally based on, and as such, does a weak to awful job at emulating members of the priesthood of various other traditions.

Well, I see there was an original point about members of godless religions not having (ahem) kewl powerz which is what I was originally argueing against, but noone has responded to the last posts I made on that subject.

 

[Jakathi]

huh

there are a couple of examples of 'godless' clerics
druids might be considered godless, because they worship nature as a whole.

and i suspect that Jedi Knights are a kind of cleric or monk. Instead of worshipping a diety, they serve the life energy itself.