Where are all the Priests?

[Yellow Sign]

While the cleric is a great core class in my opinion, I have begin to wonder about where the scholarly robed priest is? Are all temple holymen platemailed clerics? Where is the wizen old priest who is confident in his deity but does not run around in heavy armor swinging a heavy mace? I guess you could run your cleric like a priest and shun such martial pursuits but why limit yourself with nothing gained. Any Ideas people?

 

[alsih2o]

right here- http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=675

they are called county clergy, and they are the [reachers and minor healers who serve a community rather than adventuring

you can thank mark at www.creativemountaingames.com for that one

and only .40 cents!

 

[Olive]

they're experts.

 

[s/LaSH]

It depends. Priests who cast spells, or 'real world' priests? The former, lots of people have done versions of that. Or you could just take a mage or a sorcerer or something and use the cleric lists instead. The latter, Olive says Experts and I can't disagree. Especially in a medieval paradigm, priests are going the be the best-educated people in the land, bar none. Religion and healing are probably their highest scores, but experts aren't limited by just those. Why, they're probably even literate!

 

[kenjib]

Another problem is that domains and alignment alone are woefully inadequate in differentiating the priests of widely differing gods.

 

[I'm A Banana]

That's why you need flavor, Kenjib. And maybe PrC's...

I have a class I'm working on for Silicon Phoenix that is designed to at least partially solve this problem...more wizardlike than clericlike (casts divine spells, but gets something else instead of armor proficiency and weapon proficiency)....if they get back to me ever you may see it in print soon. Otherwise, I'm going to shop it around to a few other publishers and see what kind of damage I can do....

As far as being constructive, I'd say use the Sorcerer or Wizard as the base. Make the spells divine, though, and maybe give them some divine powers.

Also, for free:

The White Magician

It's an arcane caster who specializes in healing. Bump up it's HD to something like d10 or d12, and you've got a nice healer without massive armor.

 

[Tonguez]

While I agree on Experts I think you also should remember Adepts - Divine Spell casters without the heavy hitting - that sounds awfully like a priest...

 

[Will]

Playing with http://www.custoscogitatum.com/classcalc.cfm, here's a thought:

d4, low BAB, Will high save, 4+int Skill points, add ten appropriate class skills (perhaps multiple knowledges), add a third domain, only proficient in simple weapons (and no armors), and spells are freecast. Spells per day and per level otherwise normal.

There. (I think a priest should also be more skill-focused)

Freecast = particularly blessed, miracles come easily to an acolyte of the gods

 

[Mark]

While I agree on Experts I think you also should remember Adepts - Divine Spell casters without the heavy hitting - that sounds awfully like a priest...

The Culture Class - County Clergy from CMG (as mentioned by alsih above), uses portions from both the Adept and the Expert NPC classes to create a well balanced "minor cleric." It speaks to the limited abilities of the general clergy by lessening the number of spells available per day and reducing the types of spells, focusing more on healing and rituals, rather than combat.

 

[Olive]

While I agree on Experts I think you also should remember Adepts - Divine Spell casters without the heavy hitting - that sounds awfully like a priest...

maybe multicalssed?

I like adepts, but I'm unsure about the caster list. I mean, lightening bolt? for a village priest?