Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

I believe the Pope of that time prohibited the crossbows because they easily pierced through armor....
This mean that crossbows ignores any AC????? How lucky for the fighters that BFRPG is NOT an historical game!!!

It's not a religious controversy, and I'm not suggesting this for religious reasons. I'm just saying, we shouldn't use specific historical organizations in the game, though of course the whole game has a historical basis. For example, I would also object to calling a class "Knight of the Round Table."

Steveman wrote:If we're gonna ban Templar for religious reasons, then we should also ban Paladin, too.

Well, the word 'paladin' first referred to a type of official in the pagan Roman government. Then it changed to mean the Peers of Charlemagne, then it expanded to include pious knights in general. If I remember correctly, there was even a Muslim paladin in the later literature, so the word isn't absolutely tied to Christianity.

The word 'Templar' has no such history. It still refers to a specific medieval religious order, or to a specific Masonic order. It hasn't jumped the line from specific to general usage.

Steveman wrote:the name Templar moved away from being specifically the priests of the Temple of Solomon.

I don't think so, though maybe you could link some examples of a generic use of the word. In general, I think non-gamers who know the word Templar at all will think of the Catholic religious order of knights who fought in the Crusades. Unlike the paladins, the Templars were an officially recognized religious order of the Catholic Church.

Also, if you want to make language arguments, note that we don't generally capitalize 'paladin,' which shows that it is considered a generic noun, but we do still capitalize 'Templar,' showing that we still consider it a proper noun, an official name.

Steveman wrote:We should also probably change the clerical weapon allotment, as it is a throwback to a Papal decree during one of the Crusades; and thus implies all clerics are Catholic.

The standard weapon list is generic. It's based on history, but so is the whole game. I don't see any problem with this. (Side note, I do; I have a weapon list for each deity in my game. But that's not because of the list's historical connection. It's because it's silly to have a priest of a war god not be able to use edged weapons.)

To look at it another way, the weapon list might carry a subtle implication that class members have some connection to Catholic history, but the name Templar states boldly that class members absolutely ARE members of an officially recognized Catholic religious order. That's the difference.

Let's look at another example that Smoot brings up.

Smoot

SmootRK wrote:... I have no problem with some sort of class based upon a historical group, at least in the proper place. For instance, the Morgansfort module has a deity system based loosely upon early Christianity alongside druidism and some pagan potential (other gods).

If you read the Morgansfort module, it is clear that one religious organization is based on the Catholic Church. There is even a kind of Reformation in the background and a division has occurred in the church. However, it isn't called the Catholic Church, the reformers aren't called Protestants, etc. I don't see any problem with this, either.

My second point was that the name is also misleading. If we did have a class named "Knight of the Round Table," and the class was for specialized armored infantry archers, it would be the same problem.

We expect certain things when we see "Knight of the Round Table," and we have certain expectations when we see "Templar." This class has nothing to do with the Templars, so the name is misleading.

I am generally on Steveman's side of this, but from the standpoint that any such crossing over of terms further complicates my family life with respect to gaming. Generally a devout family, I try to get my children into the gaming, and sometimes even bring in my wife who is a very devout Catholic, in fact, she is Opus Dei (of course, if you think Da Vinci Code, you are just absolutely mislead).

Anyhow, I struggle sometimes even with the inclusion of Clerics only because I don't want to have to explain all over again, that it is just a game. Even worse when I am trying to explain to some friends who are total Evangelical Super-Church members. Druids, I can get away with by calling them something like Nature Mages, folks that like animals, faeries, and trees. Other Wizards are like Gandalf, Merlin, or others. Fighters & Thieves are self explanatory... but clerics of pagan gods, holy warriors, divine spells, etc. are just a little more complicated to explain. Everyone I game with seems to grasp the whole 'its a game' thing, but it is sometimes strained.

Adding more fuel to that fire only means more explaining for me. So, I avoid most aspects of religion. Clerics are more often explained these days as "Undead Hunters" with various healing and protection spells to assist. I even plan to re-write the class description material in my House-Rules document as such.

It is not a matter of Allowing the use of the term in a Supplement... optional material to begin with. I don't really care if someone wants to call a class Templars. But I probably would not use the name for this class in my own campaign. I might use such a class, just called differently (as I already stated).

So, what abilities do you propose for a "templar" like character, and what name would it have?
An what name should you give it for this sub-class?
BTW, non of my English-corrector-programs recognizes neither the word templar or Templar...
I know the class is stripped of any divine connection, but as the "Templar Institution" par says they can work for religious orders.
Dark Sun, 3.X & 4Ed uses Templars as characters, the first and the latter have divine powers.
None of my players have any problems with the name or abilities as this sub-class was made by request an due to a talk about some templar legends, so I wont change the name but you are encourage to change any part of the sub-class yo don't like it.
I hope you don't offend but I'll appreciate if from now on we direct any commentary towards the sub-class mechanical benefits/drawbacks instead of historical/religious accuracy.

The best connection I'm seeing here is Knight Templar the Trope, not Knight Templar the Historical Organization. They have that crusadey, anti-magic-in-the-wrong-hands extremism sort of feel. Justifiable when "named" items tend to have that dangerous artifact quality, but troubling if they get to the "No scroll for you!" level. It would rather depend on the usage in the campaign.

Reading it this way, the name brings a specifically negative connotation to the class (much like Assasin, Necromancer, and Gnome). If this is the intent, we could come up with a more neutral Ministry of Information-themed name.

Taken as a positive (Safeguarding the world against things that might break it), you want a name with a Moral Guardian or Secret Agent type feel, some sort of MiB (Men in Brigandine).

The one thing to revisit here is this is not necessarily a religious or temple-aligned order. It feels more like The Librarian or Warehouse 13.

Lots of interesting ideas and definitions in this thread. I think for me the class presented in the first post is almost too anti-magical (apologies for any repeated thoughts/comments from posts above) - but the concept works well in a campaign where divine power it's at odds with magic. It would be interesting to play, I think I'd enjoy making a PC of NPC or this class a little paranoid - to the point that the other characters have to get to the treasure first in case he/she unmagics and devalues all of the good relics!

A religious sword wielding class is always fun to have - perhaps "Crusading Knight" would be a good term or "Fighter Devout". I think I would like to see a class which worked with any code/religion or alignment - a fighter with some perks and moral limitations - failure to follow the code would lead to simply becoming a Fighter.

A while back, I was looking briefly at Epees & Sorc. and S&W Whitebox, where, since damage from weapons is pretty much the same, class-weapon restrictions don't really matter as much - so that a priest or cleric may as well be using a sword or chosen weapon of their deity. This meant that I could create a Templar-like character -who was essentially a priest (cleric), but they used a sword. By applying similar logic one could have a sect of clerics with swords (one-handed or even two-handed, but are no more effective than a mace) - they have the perks of turning undead and the odd spell, but perhaps deny them missile weapons altogether -because faith is open, honest and hands-on -bows are for bandits and the hesitant! I think it's important in BF / D&D not to get too sucked into the ethos of non-bladed weapons, because it reduces Lawful religious characters to being too mono-theist-European-Christian - when part of the fun is having clerics with different religions.

Anyhow. Interesting idea for a class (whatever you call it). In my perfect campaign, using the basic classes, the guys who act, or look like, medieval crusaders (Templar Knights) would probably be clerics (with swords).