D&D 2E Specialty Priests

[James Gasik]

This is something that, despite having read many books, I never saw addressed. I know how it was ruled at tables I played at, but I'm curious if there are hard rules somewhere.

1) do Specialty Priests have multiclass options? Druids do, but the PHB is silent on this point. I know some Specialty Priests specifically say you can multiclass, but the ones I know of are in Forgotten Realms books, and are for Human Gods (as Humans cannot normally multiclass). If they do, are they same as Clerics in this regard?

2) do Specialty Priests use the same xp table as Clerics? I vaguely recall it being mentioned that they might have their own table in another book, but the PHB remains silent on this point.

If anyone has any insight, I'd appreciate it.

 

[delericho]

The PHB places the "Priests of Specific Mythos" section under the Cleric write-up, suggesting that they multiclass as do Clerics and use the Cleric XP table. The "Complete Priest's Handbook" is even more explicit - it states that the priests defined therein all use the Cleric table and multiclass as Cleric.

Other books that introduce speciality priests may, of course, do things differently, but if they don't make a statement, I'd default to treating them as Clerics.

 

[James Gasik]

That's how groups I've played with ran (I have, for example, a Gnome Fighter/Specialty Priest of Flandal Steelskin), but I got into a discussion about this recently and I was wondering if anyone knew the answer definitively before I hit the books.

Either way, thanks for the answer!

 

[James Gasik]

I did find a Specialty Priests xp table in Faiths and Avatars for the Forgotten Realms. Also, the FR Demihuman Deities presents different level limits for Specialty Priests, and only certain Gods allow multiclassed Specialty Priests.

Nothing setting-agnostic, however, and having the rules split into different books just makes it extra fun, lol.

 

[Alzrius]

The closest I've been able to find is the following section, from page 13 of PHBR3 The Complete Priest's Handbook:

Experience and Spell Progression

It would be possible to come up with an Experience Levels Chart and Spell Progression Chart for every priesthood of specific mythoi, but it would also be crazy; there's no reason to have the extra complications in your campaign.

All new priesthoods introduced in the next chapter use the Cleric experience progression and the basic Priest spell progression, both from page 33 of the Player's Handbook. If your DM, when creating a new priesthood, decides that it is observably less powerful than the Cleric or the priesthoods written here, he can choose to use the Druid experience progression, which allows for faster acquisition of experience levels.

 

[Cruentus]

Iirc, in the Greyhawk From the Ashes box, specialty priests used the normal cleric xp table, but certain specialty priests (I guess from their abilities) would have an extra 5% or 10% added to their xp charts, so certain priests would need more xp than others. Likewise, they were specific under each specialty priest who could multiclass, if at all.

in 2e, I know, that specialty wizards could not multiclass at all, you had to be a straight Wizard (mage?, I forget the nomenclature) to do that. I don’t think there was a blanket similarity with specialty priests.

But yeah, the rules could be all over the place, and different settings had different rules about it. It’s part of the fun of the archeology of the older editions…

 

[James Gasik]

Specialty Wizards could normally not multiclass, with the exception of Gnomes, who had to be Illusionists.

It would follow that Specialty Priests could not multiclass, but the Druid is the primary example the PHB uses for a Specialty Priest (and this nomenclature is consistently used throughout 2e), yet the Druid has xp progression and multiclass options unique to itself.

Now granted, PHB Specialty Priests are loosely defined, more of a "the DM can do this" and unlike the Druid, only get a few, minor abilities to separate them from the Cleric.

The Complete Priest's Handbook attempts to rebalance the Cleric, and thus Specialty Priests therein are balanced against this much weaker Cleric (I'd have to check if they do anything to the Druid at all).

But by Legends & Lore, this trend is reversed, and Specialty Priests are (mostly) brought in line with the Cleric, some with some wild abilities (Specialty Priests of Coyote, for example, gain all the abilities of a Thief, to a maximum of 10th level)!

 

[Staffan]

The PHB places the "Priests of Specific Mythos" section under the Cleric write-up, suggesting that they multiclass as do Clerics and use the Cleric XP table. The "Complete Priest's Handbook" is even more explicit - it states that the priests defined therein all use the Cleric table and multiclass as Cleric.

Other books that introduce speciality priests may, of course, do things differently, but if they don't make a statement, I'd default to treating them as Clerics.

Faiths & Avatars gave specialty priests their own XP table that was essentially the same as the druid table except the XP didn't reset at level 15ish. That was the result of someone not reading things properly, and assuming that just because the numbers on list B are higher than those on list A at the start and end, that means they're higher all along. That's not the case, because druids (and by extension specialty priests) absolutely zoom up the levels from about level 5 to something like 12 before hitting a wall at the levels where they start fighting one another for position.

Demihuman Deities had a revised XP table for specialty priests. I can't be hedgehogged to check it, but I think it's basically cleric+33%.

Not sure if either one had anything on specialty priests multiclassing.

 

[James Gasik]

Demihuman Deities does, but only for specific deities. In general, you can't multiclass as a Demihuman Specialty Priest by the rules in that book.

Though at least they increased the level maximum for Specialty Priests over Clerics to make up for that.

It's still so odd that Specialty Priests xp and multiclassing was never addressed in a non-setting book, but there you go. Unless maybe there was a Sage Advice about it.

 

[delericho]

It's still so odd that Specialty Priests xp and multiclassing was never addressed in a non-setting book, but there you go. Unless maybe there was a Sage Advice about it.

There was such a wide range of powers and spell access that any general rule was unlikely to work. So it was down to the individual books to address it as needed.