D&D 2E Specialty Priests

[Alzrius]

Ah yes, page 33 of the first print of the PHB has this to say:

View attachment 253567

The Complete Priest's Handbook notes that this is somewhat problematic, compared to the Priests of a Specific Mythoi, and suggests limiting them to Major Access to only three spheres (one of which must be All, and the other two are of the player's choice), as well as Minor Access to two spheres of the player's choice.

The Tome of Magic, however, does not assign the new Spheres to the Cleric class, though perhaps Sage Advice had something to say about it- Alzrius pointed out in a previous post that the deities from Legends & Lore had the new Spheres assigned to them starting in Dragon #198.

EDIT: to my knowledge, the Forgotten Realms books (and perhaps other books with Specialty Priests, such as From the Ashes) instead kept the Cleric as-is, justifying the greater power level of Specialty Priests in those settings.

Whether or not the Cleric should be powered down compared to the Priesthoods in Legends & Lore, Monstrous Mythology, and Dragon Magazine is left for the individual DM to decide, but given that these Priesthoods generally outstrip the ones in the CPH, I'm assuming the staff decided not to revise the PHB Cleric.

For what it's worth, what spheres clerics (and druids) had access to was tweaked slightly later on in the life of AD&D 2E. For instance, here's the listing as per the first volume of the Priest's Spell Compendium (affiliate link):

EDIT: I overlooked that, just prior this listing, it notes that all priests (cleric and otherwise) have access to the All sphere. It also notes the following:

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, it was an interesting ride in 2E.

Objectively speaking Clerics are one of the most powerful classes, especially since elves and half-elf fighter/mages casting in armor got hit hard with the nerf bat, but in practice they still didn't have the offensive spells and shine of the wizard, and since they were commonly expected to spend a lot of their spells supporting everyone else, it was still extremely common for someone to get "stuck" playing them.

The Complete Priest's Handbook was designed with the theoretical high power of the Cleric in mind, so aimed to give variety but at the cost of overall lower power for most of the priest variants therein.

By the time they got to the Specialty Priests from FR it really felt like they realized how many players disliked being the Cleric, and they overcompensated making SPs awesome.

Then when 3E came out WotC again erred on the side of awesome for Clerics.

 

[James Gasik]

When a good chunk of your spell list consists of vital "stop sucking/stop dying" spells, and the interesting and fun spells are fewer and farther between, and you're a character most enemies would like to destroy, some considerations need to be made, I feel.

I never had a problem with Clerics having 2nd tier fighting abilities and high AC- you don't want to give them many combat spells, then sure, let them thwack something with a mace when they're trying to conserve resources. Don't want to give them ranged heals, give them armor to survive being at the front lines.

But it was still a chore to have all your first level spell slots be "cure light wounds" because otherwise the game grinds to a swift halt after a fight or two. So I didn't mind the Specialty Priest power up at first, but it did get a little ridiculous when you could play a Cleric who gets exceptional Strength or extra attacks on top of spells and granted powers, while not even being multiclassed!

And yeah, 3e went a similar route, by having Domains (which I thought were a swell idea) granting powerful Wizard spells and cool granted powers.

It took me awhile to realize what the problem actually was- the game was married to this concept of the front line battle medic as the premier healing class, when there were other ways to do things.

(I was perfectly happy in 4e to play a "laser cleric", healing and blasting from the back row, though it still felt a little weird that I was allowed to have thick armor while doing it.)

 

[Rils]

There are some clarifications on this in the "Faiths & Avatars" book, which should be noted is an FR-specific book, but references many other source books when it comes to mechanics. A couple of notable snippets:

Page 18: "To put it plainly, the terms priest, cleric, specialty priest, and clergy members are used with specific meanings in this text. Priest is a character class group. Clerics, crusaders, druids, specialty priests, mystics, monks, and shamans are types of priests. Clergy members (or clergy, or members of the clergy) can be of any character class, including priests. When a condition applies to all priests of a deity, it does not necessarily, therefore, apply to all clergy members."

Page 182, Appendix 1 Priest Classes "This appendix lays out the basic classes of the priest group in use in the FORGOTTEN REALMS campaign setting other than the many specifically defined specialty priests detailed in the entries for each of the deities discussed in the bulk of this book. The Player’s Handbook (PHB) describes two types of priests: clerics and specialty priests. While clerics are intended to serve as a generic model for an adventuring priest character, specialty priests reflect the aims and powers of the different deities of the FORGOTTEN REALMS setting. The druid is presented in the Player Handbook as an example of a specialty priest, representing any power that stands for nature—or even Nature itself."

The next page includes the following XP table, which addresses OP question 2:

It also goes on to outline a lot of info about the "Priest Default Class", as well as distinctions for 6 types of priest classes: Clerics, Crusaders, Druids, Monks, Mystics and Shamans (also referencing "Player's Options: Spells & Magic" for a few of those).

This book doesn't address multiclassing, as the deities listed are all "human" deities and IIRC humans can't multiclass in 2e. Multiclassing IS covered in "Demihuman Deities", in Appendix 1 "Demihuman Priests" starting on page 224. It clarifies how some aspects of multiclassing work, and then mentions specific multiclassing combinations allowed under each of the racial groups over the next few pages (most of them are fairly restrictive).

Hope that helps.

 

[GreyLord]

So, the way I did spheres for Clerics after the first few years was an article that came out in Dragon (I photocopied the heck out of those pages) where it redefined what spheres Clerics and Druids got.

Ah yes, page 33 of the first print of the PHB has this to say:

View attachment 253567

The Complete Priest's Handbook notes that this is somewhat problematic, compared to the Priests of a Specific Mythoi, and suggests limiting them to Major Access to only three spheres (one of which must be All, and the other two are of the player's choice), as well as Minor Access to two spheres of the player's choice.

The Tome of Magic, however, does not assign the new Spheres to the Cleric class, though perhaps Sage Advice had something to say about it- Alzrius pointed out in a previous post that the deities from Legends & Lore had the new Spheres assigned to them starting in Dragon #198.

EDIT: to my knowledge, the Forgotten Realms books (and perhaps other books with Specialty Priests, such as From the Ashes) instead kept the Cleric as-is, justifying the greater power level of Specialty Priests in those settings.

Whether or not the Cleric should be powered down compared to the Priesthoods in Legends & Lore, Monstrous Mythology, and Dragon Magazine is left for the individual DM to decide, but given that these Priesthoods generally outstrip the ones in the CPH, I'm assuming the staff decided not to revise the PHB Cleric.

I've probably read that and realized that a long time ago, but forgotten I suppose. After that, just glossed over it.

I think a LOT of that has to do with what I even use today with Clerical Spheres. There was an article in Dragon that came out that defined what spheres of magic a Cleric could use and what a Druid used. Photocopied the heck out of those pages. That has been my go to standard for Clerical spheres ever since (It's not quite as beneficial or broad as with what the PHB gives in your post above though). I still have the photocopies (and the Magazine too, just I'm not quite certain which magazine out of over 200 that I have which it is in these days, still have the photocopies I made of the pages though) and use them today!

Admittedly though, I DID change it a bit for my own liking, so it's a modified version of that, with me basically designing which sphere's/spells the Clerics had by default, but based off that article VERY closely.

 

[Zardnaar]

Wonder if we could give the SPs a go over with 20+ years of hindsight.

Spells and Magic also errated the spheres.

 

[James Gasik]

Well the idea, to separate Priest spells into defined roles, wasn't bad, though some of the implementation was wonky. Some Spheres were basically devoid of many spells, while others were jam-packed with goodies. It's also hard to pick and choose- if you've ever seen a Specialty Priest who can't heal damage or remove conditions, it's a pretty sad thing.

What I'd do, personally, is combine the concept of Spheres and Domains. So there's a list of spells in the All Sphere that are just that, the things you expect every Cleric to be able to do. Then each Domain adds a chunk of spells to it's list based on it's role- it's ok for there to be some overlap here, as well as a Channel Divinity/Granted Power for each Domain. And then select two Domains and that's what your Cleric can do.

The result means that there'd be quite a variety between one Cleric and the next, and each God would have a noticeable identity. Two War Gods could be very different, if one focuses on a concept like Luck, and the other Strength, for examples.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Also, the FR Demihuman Deities presents different level limits for Specialty Priests, and only certain Gods allow multiclassed Specialty Priests.

Yeah Demihuman Deities definitely thinks they can't by default, and the impression we had in 2E (possibly from DD but I think from an earlier book) was that the default situation was that Speciality Priests could not MC (though we let them).

Clangeddin for example has a specific allowance that his SPs can MC with Fighter and also specifically outlines that they can take a Kit which an F/C could take (which of course leads you directly to the Kit in the Dwarf Handbook which lets an F/C take Weapon Specialization even though MC'd characters were not supposed to be able to - though I believe a number of Kits overrode that restriction).

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah Demihuman Deities definitely thinks they can't by default, and the impression we had in 2E (possibly from DD but I think from an earlier book) was that the default situation was that Speciality Priests could not MC (though we let them).

Clangeddin for example has a specific allowance that his SPs can MC with Fighter and also specifically outlines that they can take a Kit which an F/C could take (which of course leads you directly to the Kit in the Dwarf Handbook which lets an F/C take Weapon Specialization even though MC'd characters were not supposed to be able to - though I believe a number of Kits overrode that restriction).

Think they realized MC fighters without specialization sucked. Dual class fighters could and essentially you could splash the fighter part eg Ftr2 dual class into whatever.