The Quintessential Cleric
The Quintessential Cleric is the third in Mongoose Publishing's Collector Series. Each book in the series adds new options and ideas for a particular character race or class. The first to volumes in this series were The Quintessential Fighter and The Quintessential Rogue. These books bear an uncanny resemblance in appearance and concept to the "Complete" series of books produced for AD&D 2e by TSR.
The Quintessential Cleric has some big shoes to fill. The 2e AD&D Complete Priest's Handbook was the first product to provide some detail for altering clerics to fit different deities. This is something that I feel 3e clerics can use as well.
A First Look
The Quintessential Cleric (TQC) is a 128 page perfect-bound softcover book. It is priced at $19.95, as with all of Mongoose's currently published 128 supplements. This is good price for a d20 system product of this size.
The cover of the TQC has a mock leather print, somewhat similar to the old second edition "complete" classbooks.
The interior of TQC is black-and-white. There book has a lot of artwork. The artwork is tasteful and generally well done. One of my favorite Mongoose artists, Danilo Moretti, makes a return appearance here. There is also some outstanding artwork by such artists as Marcio Fiorito, Eric Lofgren, Rick Otey, Stephen Shepard, Phil Renne, David Griffiths, and others. Even Reynaldo Batista, whose work on normally don't like, did a few very nice illustrations.
The typeface used in TQC is compact, though block paragraphs are used. Overall, Mongoose's pricing of products in this price range is comparatively quite affordable.
A Deeper Look
TQC is divided into various topical sections.
Character Concpets
The first section is entitled Character Concepts, following the lead of prior books in the series. Character Concepts are basically alterations to the character class (in this case cleric) in hopes to produce a character that is more faithful to a given specific character archetype. Examples of Character Concepts include the missionary, the proselyte, and judge, and the vengeful survivor.
Character Concepts work by giving the character class some benefits along with some drawbacks, much like kits in the AD&D 2e Complete handbooks. In some cases this works well enough, and is similar to a technique recommended in the D&D 3e PHB, though a little more formalized. However, too many of these Character Concepts work by granting a bonus to one skill and a penalty to another. If the intent was to make the character good at one skill and bad at another, this is easily addressed by simply assigning one's skill ranks accordingly.
The Prestige Cleric
The second section, the prestige cleric, provides some prestige classes to further define the role of a Cleric character. The prestige classes are not related to any specific type of religious belief, but seems to be specialized roles for Clerics. There are a total of 6 new prestige classes, all having 5 levels:
- Investigator: This prestige class is a Cleric that looks after the affairs of the faithful and ensure their safety. The investigator has some investigative skills, but not many points to spend on them. The investigator has a suite of magical abilities that help them pursue justice, in addition to continuing spellcasting advancement. The investigator has a non-standard Base Attack Bonus progression.
- Church Provisioner: The church provisioner is a specialized cleric that provides for the welfare of the flock. The church provisioner has class abilities that let him create large amounts of food and water, as well as potions at higher levels.
- Divine Emissary: The divine emissary is a cleric charged with the duty of speaking with the minions of her deity. The divine emissary has class abilities allowing her to be understood by any intelligent being, and abilities revolving around her supernatural presence.
- Divine Hammer: The divine hammer is a cleric specialized in battling clerics of other deities. The divine hammer gains special abilities relating to combat. At 5th level, the divine hammer gets a rather questionable ability: the ability to prevent the resurrection or reincarnation of a slain enemy by any means, wishes notwithstanding.
- Redeemer: The redeemer is a class concerned with the raiding and protection of religious sites. The redeemer gets an altered spell list despite continuing to advance in their original spellcasting class. The redeemer seems to be specialized at summoning allies to guard holy sites.
- Bloodchild: Intended for high level characters, the Bloodchild is a character with the blood of divinity, though nothing in the prerequisites so restrict the character. The bloodchild gains abilities owing to its divine blood. For example, at lower levels, the character may shed his own blood to avoid using a material component.
All of the classes have full clerical spellcasting advancement in addition to their new class abilities. This makes some of them seem a little powerful, especially those with powerful class abilities like the divine hammer. Conceptually, none of the classes bowled me over, but I thought that the bloodchild and redeemer were fairly interesting.
Tricks of the Trade
The tricks of the trade section introduces a number of new techniques for tasks a cleric is likely to perform. This starts off with a method for converting NPCs to one's faith using the d20 system rules. There are many other useful techniques like crafting holy symbols and incorporating them into other gear, divine geometry (basically geomancy), emergency care, harvesting relics (um, from the body of deceased clerics), recovering divine sites, assisting others in shrugging off negative levels, and a means of clerical dueling called a "test of faith." These are mostly details that you may add to your game to increase the role and utility of a cleric in the game.
Cleric Feats
TQC introduces a number of new feats of use to clerics. It has three types of feats. There is one general feat, combat coordinator (allows a character observing a combat give instructions that grant allies bonuses). The remainder are cleric feats and divine feats.
Cleric feats require levels in the cleric class and seem to hinge around the cleric's position in society. For example congregation allows the clerics with a congregation to use hymns of power, see the section on congregations. Inspired leadership doubles the followers of a cleric with the leadership feat so long as half of the followers are members of the cleric's faith; I am not so sure the latter feat is that productive since they cleric could have merely taken leadership again. The sense infidel feat, which basically allows the cleric to detect faithful of an opposing deity, seems like it should have more prerequisites.
Divine feats require the ability to focus positive or negative energy. Per the text, each requires the expenditure of turning attempts for the day, but some appear to merely be continual bonuses and the general statement that they all use up a turning attempt seems a bit off. For example enhanced turning allows the character to turn more HD of creatures, while master of undeath increases the HD of undead that a cleric can control. More interesting divine feats put the cleric's energy channeling ability to more creative use. Intensify poison allows a cleric who channels negative energy to make the poison more potent.
Overall, the feats are a decent addition to the game for cleric players who might rightly feel that not too many feats seem to be a good match for the cleric's abilities.
Tools of the Trade
TQF's Tools of the Trade section introduces some new items for use by clerics. Some of these might be of practical use, such as tools, kits, containers, and armor appropriate for clerics (such as shields with the holy symbol's emblazoned on them, or armor granted by one's deity.) Many, however, seem to be trappings more than anything else, such as various ceremonial tools.
Congregations
This section addresses the needs and benefits of a congregation of followers of a cleric's deities. Covered are means of assembling such a congregation, and benefits of having a congregation. In addition to mundane benefits of a congregation such as labor, military, and political power, a cleric with the congregation feat can realize an additional benefit: hymns of power.
Hymns of power are limited by both the size of the congregation and the cleric's level. Hymns of power have levels from one to nine, and there is one hymn of power per level per domain, and the cleric may only use hymns from the domains he has chosen. Some hymns require a significant part of the congregation be present and sing in order to activate; others simply require the cleric sing and expend a turn or rebuke attempt. Generally, hymns are on par or less powerful than spells of the same level, but seem to benefit from much greater duration and range.
While hymns of power are thematically compelling, the author actively tries to dissociate them from spells, which make them seem like an odd fit to the system. Still, it seems like they would add a feeling of divine power to the campaign and may be worthwhile.
To Serve the Gods
This section is chiefly concerned with the topic of religious vows. The nature of vows is outlined for each of the nine alignments. Then sample vows are provided for various levels of severity. As you might expect, chaotic alignments have less severe vows than lawful alignments. To some, it may seem like deities that espouse a chaotic lifestyle wouldn't impose vows at all, but the nature of some vows deal with attempts to relinquish control and constriction, such as a vow to engage in bouts of intoxication
After the vows are a set of guidelines for handling the effects of breaking vows on clerics. Minor vows have no real effects on the clerics power, but may be frowned upon by the church. Major vows can cause the loss of spell levels and powers. Mortal vows effectively end the relationship between the cleric and their deity.
Domains of the Gods
You might expect that a book like this would add a flurry of new domains for cleric characters to choose from. That's not quite what it does. Instead, it introduces the idea of estates. Estates aren't new domains, but variations on the existing domains in the PH.
There are two estates for each domain. You can choose one estate for each domain. If you choose an estate, it replaces the odd level spells of the domain with spells that fit the theme of the estate, making the character more specialized. For example, the luck domain has estates of fortune (with the spells remove curse, death ward, contingency, and miracle) and ill omen (with the spells bestow curse, false vision, misfortune [new spell], and antimagic field.)
This idea, while simple, holds a lot of appeal to me. It may not seem that different from new domains, but it has tow advantages. First, it can be used to make finer distinctions. Second, it appears that it would be easier to retrofit estates than to shove in new domains.
I recall my first point of anguish in converting my campaign setting to 3e was that deities with slightly different areas of interest looked precisely the same under the domain system. I could immediately see how this system would have immediately addressed that problem. For example, my campaign's goddess of wind, song, and freedom would provide access to the wind estate of the air domain, while the god of storms and chaos would provide access to the tempest estate of the air domain.
Divine Spells
This section introduces a variety of new spells for use by clerics. Many of these are new spells created for the estate system, but are cross listed as general spells to make them more generally available. You can equip your clerics with the agony spell from the pain estate of the evil domain, the mindcrypt spell from the secrets estate of the knowledge domain, or cavernous travel from the depths estate of the earth domain. Overall, the spells seem fairly useful, interesting, and balanced, and the use of the estates as an impetus makes them seem less haphazard than many of the spells in Defenders of the Faith.
The Fallen
This section covers the topic of clerics who turn away from their faith for whatever reason. Much of it is exposition, but there are some rules guidelines for handling the situation such as effects of those who betray their faith, two skill checks and rules for handling those who wish to return to the faith.
Sacrificial Rites
This section describes what sorts of things different churches might accept as offerings, divided by domains. This may be mostly flavor, but there is a rules related implementation. Characters who faithfully perform the required rites may gain points of divine favor. A character may only ever gain a number of divine favor points equal to their level. A character may expend these points to gain a boon in the form divine intervention. At the lowest level, a minor boon merely negates the effects of an injury or spell. On the other end of the spectrum, an extraordinary boon turns a very bad result into a very good one.
Boon may seem unbalancing, but it seems as if they were made so that the characters can only rarely use them.
Temples
The last section covers the construction of temples. Covered are costs and requirements for building temples as well as upkeep and staff.
Other Material
The book has the obligatory designer's notes that Mongoose puts in every book, as well as an index, rules summary, and character sheets.
Conclusion
This book is not exactly what I had expected or was hoping for. In many ways I was hoping for a book a bit more like the AD&D 2e Complete Priest's Handbook whose footsteps it follows. That book was the first real effort in 2e to make priests better fit the nature of their deity. The d20 system cleric does this somewhat with domains, but it still seems rather generic and "one size fits all." Estates is quite easily my favorite concept from this book, but I would have like to seen more of that sort of thing.
Inasmuch as it didn't do what I was hoping, it does seem to do what the author set out to do: address many details that should pertain to clerics in the campaign and add a more everpresent feel to divinity. Some of the options presented are of pretty good utility. Given that and the fact that the book comes at an attractive price point, I think I can recommend this book to anyone looking to add some details to cleric characters.
-Alan D. Kohler
