D&D (2024) The Cleric should be retired

[Jack Daniel]

Red Wizards are the gish then?

They're pretty much 2e bard, less music.

FF1 is heavily based on BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia D&D. Fighters and thieves are self-explanatory, white mages and black mages are clerics and magic-users, the black belt is the mystic, and red mages are sort of standing in for the druid and the elf — especially the elf.

(I let this feed back into my own house-rules, where I use six basic classes, and the one that occupies the "red mage" niche is a combination of the BECMI elf class and the human version of that selfsame elf class, the Thyatian forester from Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis & Alphatia.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not a particular Final Fantasy fan (I don't think I've ever finished any of them), but I agree that the FF1 mage archetypes are extremely strong with recent generations, certainly much stronger than the antecedents of the OD&D cleric.

I'm not sure I'd say white mages are sorcerers, though. I'd probably just make new classes to simulate them. Certainly they do the pious holy person archetype a lot better than the guy with the mace dented from repeatedly smashing it into the faces of unbelievers.

That said, the reason clerics were made into superheroes is that no one wanted to play them consistently before then. Taking them off the table means that, realistically, most healing spells will be going with them.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I don't think that's quite true. the White Mage is explicitly bad with weaponry, and pretty exclusively casts spells, while the cleric has this "casts some spells, then uses a mace" thing going on, in addition to the armor point.

It’s very true. FF1 was their version of a D&D video game. See also TLoZelda.

 

[TwoSix]

You don't need to get rid of the cleric, per se. Simply make them start with light armor and simple weapons only as the default, with armor and/or weapons or better spellcasting and cantrips as a low-level opt-in feature.

The conceptual problem of the cleric is that is has two "core" identities; one as the champion/chosen of a single god in a henotheistic pantheon, and the other as a defensive/healing magic specialist, the mirror to the offensive blasting core of the wizard. And those two cores can be difficult to reconcile, especially if the god is evil or focused on concepts that aren't amenable to being healers and protectors.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The cleric has three fundamental problems as a class.
The first is that there are basically no fictional clerics outside near-explicit D&D fiction that match D&D clerics.
The second is that their holy spellcaster schtick is pressed on from all sides by people who do it better.
And the third is that thanks to the nature of prepared casting that their magic is very cookie cutter with, other than domain spells, all clerics being able to prepare the same spells.

OK, 1 & 3, sure.
In 5e, at least, there isn't another Holy Spellcaster encroaching on the Cleric's schtick the way the Wizard has Sorcerers, Warlocks, arguably Artificers (originally a kind of Wizard) and even Bards encroaching on the Arcane Spellcaster schtick.
The Druid is arguably a priest, but it's nature thing is pretty far removed from Clerics, outside of the odd nature-oriented domain.

That said, I could certainly see the wisdom(pi) of folding the Cleric and Druid into a Priest class without either the Christian or Celtic baggage, one able to cover a wider range of concepts better than the Cleric does now.

 

[Pedantic]

It’s very true. FF1 was their version of a D&D video game. See also TLoZelda.

Right, the historical connection is clear, but I think the White Mage archetype as it exists now differs from the classic cleric specifically in that:

• It doesn't wear armor
• It isn't effective with weapons
• It primarily casts spells in combat
• It isn't tied to a specific religion, but is generically "holy"

 

[Mephista]

I don't think that's quite true. the White Mage is explicitly bad with weaponry, and pretty exclusively casts spells, while the cleric has this "casts some spells, then uses a mace" thing going on, in addition to the armor point.

I would like to suggest rechecking the original Final Fantasy. The original white mage used hammers and maces inspired from the D&D counterpart. The class evolved from there to be more of a robe-and-staff kind of person over time, but there's no denying its roots originated from the D&D cleric. Hells, the original game even had spell slots instead of MP, with level 1 to level 9 magic.

And that's ignoring that the modern cleric (both 4e and 5e) cleric has the pure-caster, no-weapons builds too.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What is gained by retiring the Cleric?

And indeed, what is gained by condensing all the classes down to four, and making the rest all subclasses?

I find it funny how so many people have gotten bent out of shape over the years because WotC never released additional splatbook material fast enough to give the players more mechanics for all the classes... and yet some people want to condense the classes down to four and thus throw away 66% of the original class mechanics that are out there. Just take a look at all the "We want a Psion class!" threads and ask yourself whether people really would be happy with just four classes whose only mechanical differentiations occur four times at 3rd, 6th, 11th, and 14th levels (more or less.)

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not a particular Final Fantasy fan (I don't think I've ever finished any of them), but I agree that the FF1 mage archetypes are extremely strong with recent generations, certainly much stronger than the antecedents of the OD&D cleric.

I'm not sure I'd say white mages are sorcerers, though. I'd probably just make new classes to simulate them. Certainly they do the pious holy person archetype a lot better than the guy with the mace dented from repeatedly smashing it into the faces of unbelievers.

That said, the reason clerics were made into superheroes is that no one wanted to play them consistently before then. Taking them off the table means that, realistically, most healing spells will be going with them.

The thing is there were basically no antecedents of the D&D cleric. It was based on Van Helsing plus healing magic to bring down a vampire PC in a wargame at Lake Geneva, and anything else was more or less a retcon. And although the White Mage was based on the cleric they took away the armour and the maces. They're also not just a Final Fantasy archetype, they made it through to WoW. And the longer they've been going the further they've moved away from (a) weapons and (b) armour. The second is archetypal to the cleric and the first was until 4e.

And I don't think most healing will be going with them; clerics aren't a whole lot more popular than druids and probably less than paladins. And I for one would prefer less healing in the game.

 

[Mephista]

And lets stop ignoring that there's plenty of clerics that don't use the mace in D&D anymore either. So....