Priestly hierarchies not of clerics

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

There are two approaches that I favor.

First, in a campaign that had little to no divine magic, there were clerics they were simply very miraculous, I developed what I like to call a 'Jesuit' class who were a bunch of very very adept skill users with little other benefits other than extreme sense of devotion and a certain 'luck' factor to take that into account and the benefit of the respect granted to them from the populous and the gods.

Think of them as bards except without the spells and weaponry, and you could take another skill, such as healing, and get a whole host of special benefits from it in the same way that a bard does, or did, with performance. I could post what I had up here if it is desired.

Second, in Swashbuckling Adventures and Aracana Unearthed there are, or will be, feats that make your character a priest and give your character the social and educational benefits that come with having been trained and ordained as such. In some of my campaigns, these characters, who can come from any class, make up a large portion of the clergy of a church and clerics make up the military and service arms. Often times non-cleric members outrank cleric members since the relationship of the clerics to their deities makes it extremely difficult for them to act outside of the boundaries of the religion whereas the non-cleric members are less limited.

In my opinion, the above arrangement with wizard 'priests' running the show makes a lot more sense for a church devoted to magic than a bunch of wizards kowtowing to some armored guy or gal who's domain barely allows them to use a wand crafted by somebody else.

 

[Agback]

I’ve thought about that too, and yes, I agree that the system should take some account, however small, of a wide variety of ecclesiastical roles that non-spellcasting, “ordinary” people would fill in a semi-magical society such as D&D postulates. By which I mean, not everyone uses magic, and possibly very few do, so that vast majority of societal roles would be filled with “ordinary” folk.

That' s very true, but not such an urgent problem, since once a GM recognises the point it is a simple matter to stock up religious hierarchies with experts, aristocrats, and commoners.

I was more concerned about the fact religious hierarchies and gods both have a presumable interest in giving divine spellcasting power to a category of persons who are needed to cast 'cure' spells, 'Atonement', 'Consecrate', etc. etc., but who have no need to learn heavy armour proficiency and who have no need for d8 hit points per level. You can make a strong case that a lot of churches in a D&D setting ought to have deacons healing the sick, priests blessing water and consecrating things, bishops sanctifying churchyards and raising the dead, etc, etc. who have never worn armour or swung a mace. But as it stands, D&D gives the GM no way to represent these people without crocking their spellcasting abilities.

There ought to be a full-strength divine spellcaster without the semi-fighter BAB and hit dice, and without so many weapon and armour proficiencies. There isn't.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Olive]

There ought to be a full-strength divine spellcaster without the semi-fighter BAB and hit dice, and without so many weapon and armour proficiencies. There isn't.

Why does it matter? Why can't you just assume that all parish clerics have some skill in arms to defend their communities?

One thing I've done is allowed some feat swaping. E.g. Heavy armour prof. for martial weapon (shortsword) for a god of thieves. You could swap out all sorts of those sorts of feats for Skill Focus (knowledge:religion) etc. That would be easy and uncomplicated. Otherwise, just have your clerics not wearing armour.

 

[Agback]

Spellcasters would doubtless have prominent and powerful roles in a church, but the idea that devote and intelligent people who did not chose to learn spellcasting would not also prosper is a fairly repugnant one to me.

Is it a matter of choosing to learn spellcasting? I always thought that D&D gods (and their functionaries) granted spells to devoted and pious people without those people having to study, and more or less as a result of the god's choice, not the cleric's. So in my vision, neither choosing nor learning is involved.

Sure, the player chooses whether to raise his or her character's cleric level, but that doesn't mean that the character is making that choice, or that his or her choice would be effective if he or she were. It is a minor instance in which the character-player is able to make routine decisions for an NPC.

So there are no necessary reasons to conclude that D&D religions deny hierarchial status on snobbish grounds. It may well be that intelligent and devoted people who don't choose to study spell-casting do flourish in the churches, and that the gods routinely grant them sacrammental (divine spellcasting) power as they win promotion.

Unfortunately, there are reasons to suppose that only characters with proficiency in heavy armour and all simple weapons, and with at least a BAB of +2 and 3d8 hit points can Consecrate, and that only characters with those proficiencies, a BAB of +6/+1, and 9d8 hit points (in short, some pretty tough sons of gods) can Hallow. There are also reasons to suspect that most churchmen are going to be pretty bad at such basic pastoral skills as Gather Information, Perform (preaching, plainchant), and Sense Motive.

We have three choices:

(1) We could design a non-combat NPC 'grunt cleric' class corresponding to the cleric as the warrior to the fighter.

(2) We could accept that the rules of D&D actually reflect the way that D&D universes operate, and give some thought to how gods and ecclesiastical hierarchies might adapt to the circumstances they face. This might include pacifistic churches teaching their novices to wear armour and use maces, just so they can get priests and bishops who can heal, cure, remove, raise, and resurrect. The extra hit points may come from being charged with positive energy, but the BAB is going to have to come from regular practice with arms: an odd but necessary exercise for ecclesiastics.

(3) We could conclude that many ecclesiastical hierarchies in D&D worlds must include parish rectors who can't Bless Water or Consecrate, hierarchs who can't Hallow or cast Atone. Many of these lame-duck ordinaries will be experts, aristocrats, and commoners. Some may be druids, paladins, wizards, and bards--with some spellcasting ability but without some of the things we might think of as essential.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Hmmm, your clarification of the question is intriguing.

Some more approaches might be:

A.) Clerics truly are slaves of the church/deity. They are universally taught to defend themselves as they are the obvious targets of those who seek to disrupt the magical operations of the church as a whole. They wander from community to community responding to emergencies and dedicating themselves wholy to their role as the deity/church's strong but rarely used right hand.

B.) Something about the ideal of risking one's life and soul in combat is necessary to the proper formation of the vocation of clerichood. Even a pacifistic church finds the training useful in forming good clergy.

Both of the above make good sense in a world such as Kalamar where the power of a deity is directly related to the level of its clergy not the numbers of its members.

I do think a lot of it depends on the world in question. I mentioned Kalamar above, and I think the high level of horrible conflict in Faerun certainly justifies the militarisitic nature of clergy.

There was an excellent Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser short story that illustrated the importance of armor proficiency to a pacifistic clergy.

In a lot of worlds, however, I can see the necessity of creating a non-combat oriented cleric type. I might suggest something like the Greenbonds from Arcana Unearthed or allowing non-cleric 'priests' to cast spells from highly specific public rituals. Which would make the cleric more like a highly mobile church than a highly armored priest.

 

[Agback]

Why does it matter? Why can't you just assume that all parish clerics have some skill in arms to defend their communities?

Well, at that level it seems innocuous. A parish priest may be a mere 3rd level cleric, with 'only' a +2 BAB and about 15 hit points.

But a decent bishop has to be able to Hallow, which means a +6/+1 BAB and about 44 hit points. Do we really want to imply that the only holy men holy enough to dedicate a church or to help a paladin atone must be tough enough to go toe-to-toe with a dire tiger?

Then there are pacifistic healing gods and, for example, goddesses of love. Should a priestess of Aphrodite need a +6/+1 BAB to Break Enchantment?

As for swapping in and out abilities: by the time you set up a system for doing so that has an adequate scope and made sure tht it doesn't contain explosive loopholes, you will have down a lot more work than is involved in designing a new class. Besides which, it is not consistent with the D&D approach.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Agback]

(3) We could conclude that many ecclesiastical hierarchies in D&D worlds must include parish rectors who can't Bless Water or Consecrate, hierarchs who can't Hallow or cast Atone. Many of these lame-duck ordinaries will be experts, aristocrats, and commoners. Some may be druids, paladins, wizards, and bards--with some spellcasting ability but without some of the things we might think of as essential.

I have just realised that an obvious strategy for a cult in this situation is to make magical items that will let their non-cleric priests provide the essential divine spell effects: Wands of Consecrate, Mitres of Atonement [1/day], that sort of thing.

Regards,


Agback

 

[jasper]

No no no no! No need to change the system.
The system has given you two cleric types, Charles the Cleric and Andy the Adept.
If you do think the stats and skills are not a match to your priests hierarchies, use your imagination.
Williard the Wizard High priest of magic. No divine caster spells but he thanks the gods every time he blows the orc party to bits with his fireball.
Ed the Expert call tell you the three hundred and one ways to perform cure light wounds.
Charles the Commoner boy! Can the boy having them in aisles on Sunday.

I have seen nothing in the book that says the DM can not have these priest cast a spell once in while. So you can have Bishop William traveling through New England and once twice a month his god granting him Hallow with the god not caring if dear William can turn undead.

You want an adept of Jasper to cast from both spell lists. Make is so. You are the DM. The Big Cheese. The Gawd of the Gawds. Don’t worry about a npc being totally balance. You want the Cracked in the Head Jasper the priest of the Divine Coffee Cup to have 8 hit points but cast Raise Dead what is stopping you. The rules are a guideline and only really need to be enforced during tourney play.

 

[Emiricol]

Well, the role of pastor and its equivalents can IMHO be filled by anyone the worshippers find worthy. I would imagine most would multiclass, but not necessarily. I view actual clerics as being something special - people touched by their god directly. Special Agents of the church, if you will.

True, most every village has a Cleric and some Adepts, and these are most commonly the church people, but I wouldn't make it a *requirement*, or even make the clerics/adepts present interested in preaching. Some might lead by example, leaving the teaching of their creed to more intellectual, less PC-class-focused NPCs.

My 2 bits.

G'day

I was just discussing in another thread the fact that the 'cleric' character class in D&D is not designed to represent an ordinary ecclesiastic, a village pastor or a clerk in a big temple. <snip>

 

[Emiricol]

This got me thinking. It could easily be accomplished by allowing "ceremonial magic". Mundane priests, knightly orders etc could use it, as could rebellious teenagers who discover a demonic tome.

Let's say you need to pass a Knowledge (Religion) test to know the right ceremony and maybe a Perform(??) test to do the ceremony properly. Ceremonial Magic spells are +2 levels to the spell, and performing it properly requires 1 participant per effective spell level. The time to cast each spell is longer than book, not sure by how much.

Such a system would not be a useful replacement for PC classes magic, but might explain why people go to churches, why knightly orders might spend the day before a battle in prayers and ceremonies, etc.

-Emiricol

I have seen nothing in the book that says the DM can not have these priest cast a spell once in while. So you can have Bishop William traveling through New England and once twice a month his god granting him Hallow with the god not caring if dear William can turn undead.[/B]