Clerics and Celestials

[Joe the Rat]

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good C-word tied to myth-building?

This is spinning off of a line of thought from the orison discussion, and an idea I'd been puttering with off and on. It can also be a tricky topic, depending on how closely one hews to existing faiths, but I thought I'd test the waters.

In short, Clerics need Religion. Mechanically, they are well set out. They have a few proscriptions and prohibitions needed to maintain divine favor, but outside of a setting, they are operating in a vacuum. Rules aside, why must a cleric only use blunt weapons? What manner of religious order sends its members tomb raiding? What are you, the GM putting in that big chair in the sky, and how might that affect play?

What I was thinking of was some advice on myth and religion, particularly in regard to Clerics. Obviously, your setting will set what the faiths are, and how they interact, but it might not be a bad thing to give some pointers and guidelines for the would-be world builders. Part of this will tie into some justifications of existing rules - possibly highlighting alternative restrictions. Why must clerics use blunt weapons? Do you want to address multiple faiths? How will a Monotheist system work in a Polytheist setting? Do you follow one deity, or do you regard the whole pantheon? What are the holy days? Are there specific requirements of behavior a cleric must follow? Dietary laws?

Another piece that might work into this is having alternative restrictions and allowances for different deities, possibly blending into subclassing, quasiclassing, or specialties.

Any thoughts?

[SmootRK]

Clerics do need a little love.

Ideas that you may want to explore:
Druid (already a supplement, but could be referenced)
Alternative Spell lists for each Deity/Faith. A God of Magic might have a list that mirrors MU. A War God might only have battlefield worthy spells (at the expense of healing, divination, or other non-combat useful spells).
Cloistered Priest (a less combative sort of Cleric, more spells/abilities at the expense of Armor/Weapons)
Favored weapon (of deity) gets improved ability like the Specialization rules of Combat Options Supplement - I suggest that they are slower than standard fighters though.
If any class was to get dedicated followers, Clerics should be on top of the list. Devout (and varied) followers of the Deity should gravitate to one who is a direct servant and agent.
Temple Animals (favored type of the particular god) might be something to explore... sorta like familiars or druid animal friendship, but only to the animals associated with deity. In the real world, Cows running about Hindu areas, Monkeys around some Asian Temples, and I even saw something about Rats in a Temple (Budhist I think).

[Joe the Rat]

Karni Mata.

Okay, to organize what's under consideration:

- Religion, Faith, and Clerics - a brief discussion of religion in a game setting (role in society, with rulers). Why clerics do what they do. Clerics & Priests. Rituals & Holy days

- Making religions I: How many gods? (Monotheist, Polytheist & Pantheist, "Other" Powers, Animist, Forces, Philosophical...). Golden rule: As simple or as complex, organized or mishmash as you want to make them.
- Making religions II: Making a Deity (Identity, Domain, Symbols, holy days, requirements of followers, boons and banes).The pros and cons of creating vs. borrowing
- Making religions III: Gods & Prayer. Do gods need prayer, or are they fine without worship? Cleric of one god, several gods, or the pantheon as a whole?

Mechanically:
- Different Clerics for Different Deities: how to get clerics to fit a specific religion
- Limits on weapons, armor, spells, special powers - and how to balance them.
- Alternate spell lists, favored weapon option, Boons & Banes (special bonus/limitation for the cleric)
- Examples: Druid subclass (reference and discuss alterations, not recreate!). new example for a specific deity
- Priest subclass/NPC class - Not a church militant

This one seems a bit difficult to wrangle. The big part I'm concerned about is the non-mechanical stuff - how much "how to build a setting" do we want to have here? And does anyone want to take a stab at any of this?

[Sir Bedivere]

The Cleric class in D&D never made sense outside of a medieval European Christian setting. The word 'cleric' itself was specifically a reference to Christian offices and only later came to be applied to similar positions in other religions.

However, we're Old School, so we're stuck with it. What to do now? House rules! I like a lot of the above suggestions. I'm reworking the class for my own house rules, so I've been thinking about this as well. Here are some ideas based on that.

First, it doesn't make any sense to have a religious character class if there are no religions in the campaign. This is a pain for the GM, however, and why I used the old Deities and Demigods book for my AD&D campaigns. Joe's idea of doing essentially a 'how to make a religion' is excellent. It should be a quick and dirty guide, maybe even with random tables, because I think most GMs and gamers aren't really interested in the ins and outs of theological inquiry and debate.

Second, the rest should follow from the first. I plan to set up weapons and armor requirements, of course, to fit the various religions in my campaign. However, really the spell list should also be based on the religion. E.g., a fire god may not give any healing spells, but would probably give things like Fireball and so forth. Turning undead should also be changed to suit the religion.

Edit: WARNING: The following three points are purely opinion (read "rant") and have little to do with what should be done w/ a Cleric supplement for BFRPG. Getting them out makes me feel better, so you can now all charge me for psychiatric services rendered. Though I won't be paying, of course; I consider this Open Source Therapy, and free as in both beer and freedom.

Third, I'm dropping the name 'cleric.' No, don't adopt this or so many people will have cows that we'll have to start a ranch. But 'cleric' is the root word for 'clerk;' no one with that title should be down in a dungeon. ('Clerk in holy orders' means the same thing as 'cleric.')

Fourth, they aren't spells; they're miracles, or (my preference) invocations. (Yeah, I know, maybe I shoulda been a cowboy ...)

Fifth, people keep acting like faith has something to do with it. In an RPG world where every Cleric gets at least one miracle a day, there is absolutely no need for faith. "What do you mean, 'can I prove my god exists?'" ZAP!!! "Any more dumb questions you'd like to ask? Oh, sorry. Maybe I should resurrect you and ask again." (Brings the fool back from the dead.) "Okay, now, any more dumb questions you'd like to ask?" (Though, of course, 'folk of faith' is how the class is officially portrayed, so I can't blame the players for playing it that way.)

I look forward to seeing what you'll do with this, and I'll pester you with more of my ideas as I think of them (and try to keep the rants down).

[Sir Bedivere]

Come to think of it, in the Morgansfort module, Solomoriah has set up a Catholic-like religion, which makes a lot of sense.

[SmootRK]

Come to think of it, in the Morgansfort module, Solomoriah has set up a Catholic-like religion, which makes a lot of sense.

He even put in a rudimentary version of Druid in that module along with his pseudo-catholic/protestant religion.

When you make up the pantheons, just make sure to include Norse somewhere. Cannot go wrong with Vikings.

[Sir Bedivere]

He even put in a rudimentary version of Druid in that module along with his pseudo-catholic/protestant religion.

That's true. It's really the only campaign (BF or D&D) I've seen that puts the Cleric in a reasonable context.

Cannot go wrong with Vikings.

Hear-hear!

[Joe the Rat]

Schism-Era Tahists, Druids, and Late Roman Polypantheopolity (During their "You worship who? Well, toss 'em in with the rest." era) - or maybe it's just Greyhawk . They even fall roughly into an Ordered/Balance/Chaotic kind of thing.

Quick and dirty would save a lot of digging into philosophy. Really, I suppose we need to start with Question 0: What is the role or religion in your campaign? That's really going to be the foundation of anything you build on - and gives you an idea of work scale. The more important it becomes, the more thought ought to go into it.

I'm seeing a set of tables or a decision tree of sorts for basic guidance, and at least a list of common deity domains, probably organized by type of domain (natural forces, societal domains, personal/emotional, philosophical/conceptual) - not so that you have to build entirely out of one of these, but just for a pool of ideas. As a thought experiment I was making up a set of twelve gods based around society and craft roles (with "Fate" and "Transition" for good measure) - and did not have anyone to be patron for love or marriage. I shoehorned love into 'artist' and marriage/fertility into 'farm' - but I wasn't happy with it. Having a list would help.

Fire gods could grant healing, depending on your interpretations of fire. Maybe they're limited to minor & light wounds (cauterizing). Maybe 'fire' in the world philosophy also represents the driving spirit, the physical 'spark' of life. This is part of the issue here - you need to decide on the domains, boons and banes of each god, and set it out clearly. Is Fire creative, destructive, or both? Is the Sun Fire, or something else?

I'm going on vacation in a couple of weeks, and want to get a 0.5 of my other project up before then. This will give me something to chew on though.

[Joe the Rat]

Okay, I've been chewing on this for so long, I'm out of pencils.

I've got a fair body on the thoughts and theories, but it needs reworking. It's a bad sign when you have to stop and remember "Oh yeah, you probably want to think about the role of religion in your campaign beyond "it's what clerics do for spells" before defining how a set of intricately interwoven pantheons have influenced the political and commercial systems in the greater world setting."

So I'm switching tacks for a bit and looking at cleric customization.
Good news: I think I have a workable point-buy system for building cleric sub-classes.
Bad news: I think I have a workable point-buy system for building cleric sub-classes.

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, a 20-point account for figuring out what your priest-type does looks a bit, er, GURPS-like. But on the other hand, this is something that is part of world-building, not character creation. It's the final product (and one that fits the setting) that is presented to the player as an option when they're rolling up, and actual play should remain simple and straightforward. And on the gripping hand, I'm essentially walking into the 'custom class' debate and handing out lollipops and shotguns.

There's a bit of tweaking needed for balancing abilities, but before I powered on, I wanted to see if this is the right direction - if this is what folks would want for BFRP, or if I should dial it back a bit in terms of build complexity.

[dymondy2k]

I say show us what you got and let us decide from there.. It sounds interesting on the surface and if you don't think it would trip up the game mechanics I would like to see it.