D&D 5E Specialty Priests in 5e?

[Dragonhelm]

One of my favorite concepts from the 2nd edition days is that of the specialty priest. These were clerics who were given abilities specific to their deity, rather than just choosing specific spheres (domains in later editions). Each deity's clerics were unique.

This concept was introduced in Faiths and Avatars, and continued with Powers and Pantheons and Demihuman Deities, all for the Forgotten Realms.

Just curious if anyone has converted any of these old specialty priests or have done any work to make your cleric as specific to their deity as possible.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Yeah, if a Cleric or Warlock player is willing I try to swap some features with others from discarded UAs or 3pp to fit their patron more closely.

A nice start is always with the bonus spell list, or changing element type for some features, etc

 

[jgsugden]

I do a lite version of it. There are spells in my campaign that have a God's name in them and they're only available to clerics (and sometimes paladins or warlocks) of that God. I also grant clerics and paladins a divine boon when they do something that their God would notice and really like, such as killing a high level/power minion of an opposing God. Those boons are equivalent to a weak feat or weak class ability and tie in thematically both to what they did, and the God that is granting it.

 

[Ibrandul]

Check out the Faiths of the Forgotten Realms series on the DMs Guild. This series essentially does exactly what you're asking for, and is reasonably well designed.

 

[Mind of tempest]

is sounds interesting but hell to do

 

[Dragonhelm]

Check out the Faiths of the Forgotten Realms series on the DMs Guild. This series essentially does exactly what you're asking for, and is reasonably well designed.

Thanks for the tip on that. I'll be sure to check those out.

 

[Weiley31]

Eh I'm just a simple guy: I just fluff the name of the cleric to whatever the name of the Specialty Priest is. Cleric with the Moon Domain is a Silverstar of Selune, etc, etc, etc.

 

[cbwjm]

I have done some change ups of domains for specific deities, I had posted something here about using the light domain as the base, and updating it for Purphoros, god of the forge from the Theros setting (this was before the forge domain came out).

I found the page, I was putting my homebrew stuff up in a thread for a while. It's a few years old so I might do things differently now: Homebrew Creations

 

[Amros]

I've been using the Piety System as presented in Theros to great effect. At my table, we found that little addition on top of a matching domain to be enough to represent a specialised cleric of <X> god/goddess.
For example, for a Darkcloak of Shar we are using the Trickery Domain, adding Shadow Blade, Darkness and Darkvision as the cleric increases her piety score.
Regarding the requirement those specialty clerics had before, we handle that with roleplaying, personality traits, and piety score. Possible ways to increase your piety to Shar (and thus continue being a Darkcloak):

• Causing loss to someone else, or make someone to forget.
• Taking vengeance on those who has wronged you.
• Pursuing subversive tactics rather than direct confrontation.

If you act in a "faithless" way, you lose your Sharran powers, but you are still a trickery cleric.
I hope this is useful to you.

 

[Greg K]

I would also recommend checking out the Complete Priest Handbook Conversion by member @I'm A Banana . He does something neat with the Adept Background.