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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Al" data-source="post: 311505" data-attributes="member: 2486">So where did they?A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded a passage on Wee Jas (she is in my opinion one of the most interesting deities to worship- better than the standard fluffy bunny type good deities or the mwahaha evil deities).  Below the good solid details on dogma, history, personality and the like, it had the description of her specialty priest, the Archpriests, not to mention quite a few special impositions on her priests due to dogma.  And that made me think: why are all of the clerics in the PHB vanilla flavoured? Fair enough.  The standard DnD punter doesn't care about ethos, background, dogma, rituals, saints or prayers.  He plays a cleric because he wants to be able to bash baddies and heal mates.  He grabs a couple of domains he thinks will be good and hey presto- we have another machine-made, candy-floss generic cleric.  So I didn't blame WotC for catering to the masses.And then they missed another chance: Deities & Demigods.  Now, there would be a few at the far reaches of dungeon hack mentality who would go and stomp on Thor, but for the most part, Deities & Demigods was a book for roleplayers, not for statbuilders.  They could have introduced or adapted some of the old specialty priests, or at least translated the dogma into some concrete guidelines, just to make the clerics slightly more differentiated.That's the lament, really.  That clerics, despite serving radically different gods, adhering to totally alien dogmas and swearing by utterly distinct codes, look so similar.  Yes, they have their domains, and yes, if you-are-good-you-turn-and-if-evil-you-rebuke.  But other than that, where's the distinction?  Forgive me if I'm wrong, ranting or both, but I just find it sad that WotC missed a golden opportunity to adapt some of the old specialty priests.  I like playing clerics.  They always seemed to me the most interesting characters: a warrior of deeper ideals and principles, complex philosophies, unique oaths and idiosyncracies specific to his religion.  Compared to them, many of the other classes seem very shallow.  But the crushing of specialty priests, and the reduction of a broad diversity of religions to just differing in domains and what type of energy they channel seems pitiful.  Now I'll just go and roll up another full-plate-wearing, morningstar-wielding, shield-bearing, undead-turning clone with ranks in Heal, Concentration, Diplomacy and Spellcraft.PS: If you are fed up with my self-pity, I'd be very appreciative for any 3e adaptations of the old specialty priests, or even the sites where I can find the old 2e versions so I can have a shot at them myself.</blockquote>

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