Clerics and Celestials

[Sir Bedivere]

I say show us what you got and let us decide from there...

I'll second the motion.

[Joe the Rat]

Allrighty then:

At the core, this is a chopped version of the Paul Crabaugh's "Customized Classes" formulation from Dragon 109, with some value retweaks based on Michael Curtis' New Classes and Racial Variants for Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Mostly, I was looking for a weighting system to be able to trade off weapons, armor, magic, and powers with one another. The values I've pulled up here were reworked with the assumption that I should be able to balance the Cleric and two published 'Sub-classes": Druid, and Monk.

What I have is a system that can build a cleric using 20 points. You could try and build your cleric variant from the ground up, or swap points around, making sure you've got things balanced in the end.

What is constant:

• Saving Throw Table
  BAB Progression

I didn't want to mess with these particularly. That way lies madness.

Traits & Costs
Hit Die (I almost fixed this one, but decided to leave it in for now)

• 1 : d4
  2 : d6
  4 : d8

Allowable Armor

• 0 : None
  2 : Leather (Light)
  3 : Chain (Medium)
  4 : Plate (Heavy)
  -1 : Chain/Plate Only
  +1 : Shield Use

Each of these means that armor or lower is allowed. Chain/Plate only means that ONLY that armor - or none - can be worn (3 points to wear chain or leather, 2 points if they can only wear chainmail for armor). This would be for clerics that have to wear certain armor for symbolic reasons - scale mail for a sea god, for example. You'd also use that for clerics that MUST wear metal armor - chain or plate for core armors.

Allowable Weapons

• 0 : Prohibited (no weapons)
  1 : Ritual / Symbolic (1 -2)
  2 : Tight Group (3 - 6)
  4 : Broad Group (?)
  8 : Any

Counts are based on the core weapons lists. Swords count double.
Prohibited means just that - the cleric is not allowed to use any weapon. This may mean they are expected to be pacifistic, or follow the God of Good Ol' Fisticuffs.
Ritual / Symbolic represents a Magic-User sized set of options - one or two weapons, deeply connected to the symbols or ritual tools of worship. This could literally be staff-and-dagger, or the hammer of a blacksmith, or a sea god's trident.
Tight Group is the Traditional Clerics list (impact weapons), but this would also cover other tightly related sets, like Stone Weapons (potentially warhammer, maul, sling, spear, and handaxe), hunting weapons (spear, short bow, sling) or farm implements (sickle, scythe, flail, shepherds crook/walking stick).
Broad group would cover a wide range of weapons, but not the entire list. All once-handed weapons (Druids), All missile weapons, or any weapon made of specific (but not too difficult) material (Bronze, Silver(ed)) would work here as well.
Any means just that. This is pretty much here for the War Priests.

Magic Use

• 0 : None!
  8 : Cleric Progression (start at level 2)
  10 : Magic User progression (start at level 1)
  -1 : Delayed start (per level)
  -? : Limited advancement (max levels, slowed progression)
  -? : Limited spell list (fewer overall options)
  +? : Expanded spell list (More overall choices)
  +5 : MU spells available
  -3 : Spell book ("Prayer Book") Required

This one was tricky - and may in fact be under-costed. Alternate spell lists with significantly more or fewer options than the standard list can be adjusted accordingly. A "Fey Mage" like Cleric would count as having a limited list. MU spells means the cleric can pray for a fairly significant portion of the MU lists - this is probably under-rated points-wise.

Powers
These are the special abilities of the class. I have broken this into Major (4 points each), Minor (2 points each), and Skills (1 point). This is by no means complete - just examples based on existing classes, and what comes to mind.
Major Powers Examples:

• Turn Undead
  Animal Affinity
  Progressive Bonuses (AC, movement, unarmed damage)
  Progressive Powers (magical abilities that grow, or show new variations, depending on level)
  Protections (always-on)

Minor Powers:

• Fixed Bonus (one-time)
  Bonus level for progressive powers (e.g. Turn Undead as one level higher)
  X/day abilities (Lay on Hands, Self Heal, Protections)

Skills

• Tracking
  Notable craft ability (blacksmithing, for example)
  Lore
  Thief abilities (each)

So what happens when you go over-budget? Pick up some Prohibitions and Requirements

Prohibitions are specific limitations or banned actions as demanded by their faith. Failure may mean falling out of grace and losing spell/power access. This may also represent game mechanic limits as well.
Examples:

• -1 : Tenets of Faith - following the expectations of your god and religion.
  -1 : Restrictions on behavior - additional requirements expected of priests, such as vows of poverty, celibacy, exceptional codes of conduct, rituals or superstitions that must be followed (good freak out the locals / roleplay stuff), limited magical possessions, required service/action (must help children, must not harm birds). "Must not loot bodies" is always a fun one to have - and is probably worth double in most campaigns.
  -1 : limited item usage - You cannot use a class of magic items normally accessible to Clerics. A Mace cleric does not get this for not being able to use magic swords, but would get it if not allowed to use magic maces.

Requirements are additional character requirements needed to qualify for the class. The assumption here is that all Clerics require WIS 9 - this one is "Free"

• -1 : Additional Stat with 9 requirement
  -2 : Any 11 requirement
  -3 : Any 13 requirement
  -4 : Any 15 requirement
  -1 : Race requirement

Stat requirements are cumulative: Having a WIS 11, STR 9 is worth -3. This may be over-priced, particularly at higher numbers. It may be wiser to redo this by taking your highest requisite, and adding another -1 for having any additional stat requirements.

Experience Adjustment
I'd considered this, but left it alone for now. The simplest option would be to assign values for 10% XP penalty, Use Fighter XP, and Use Magic-User XP. For a ball-park figure, each point represents about 75xp required to reach level 2.

Next up, some examples at work.

[Joe the Rat]

Using the above, here are some build examples

Example 1: Classic Cleric
Hit Dice: D6 (2)
Armor: Any, Shield (4+1)
Weapons: Tight (bludgeon only) (2)
Magic: Cleric Progression, standard list (8)
Powers: Turn Undead (4)
Tenets of faith (-1) - said cleric should act sufficiently holy, depending on the specifics for the game.
2+4+1+2+8+4-1 = 20

Example 2: Druid
Hit Dice: D6 (2)
Armor: Leather, Shield (2+1) [Wooden shield only is noted, but doesn't affect points here]
Weapons: Broad (any 1-handed, sling, short bow) (4)
Magic: Cleric Progression, equivalent list (8)
Powers: Animal Affinity (4)
Tenets of faith (-1) - Circle of life or something.
2+2+1+4+8+4-1 = 20

Example 3: Ascetic Monk
Hit Dice: D6 (2)
Armor: None (0)
Weapons: Tight (bludgeon only, or as determined by GM) (2)
Magic: None! (0)
Powers: Progressive AC (4)
Progressive Unarmed Strike (4)
Chi Powers (4)
Progressive Move Bonus (4)
Self Heal 1/day after level 5(?) (2)
Thief Skills (5)
Str9, Dex9 requisites: (-2)
Tenets of faith (-1) Something Disciplined
Vow of Poverty (-1)
Limited Magic Item possession (-1)
Human (-1)
10% XP penalty (-1)
2+0+2+0+4+4+4+4+2+5-2-1-1-1-1-1 = 20
This is one that really shows the seams. Some of the powers are probably worth more than I've assigned, some less.

Example 4: Temple Priest
This one is for Smoot.
Hit Dice: D4 (1)
Armor: None (0)
Weapons: Ritual (Big Stick) (1)
Magic: M-U Progression, standard cleric list (10)
Powers: Turn Undead (4)
Lay on Hands (lvl/day, 2+WIS bonus healing)(2)
Prot Evil (radius, can be conferred, 3/day) (2)
Bonus level for spells ("per level" values) OR for turning undead (2)
CHA9 requirement (-1)
Tenets of faith (-1) - said cleric should act sufficiently holy, depending on the specifics for the game.
1+0+1+10+4+2+2+2-1-1 = 20

Example 5: Priest of the Blessed One, Brian, Demigod of Boisterous Bruisers
This one is for me
Hit Dice: D8 (4)
Armor: Any, no shield (4)
Weapons: Symbolic (Pick one: Maul, Great club, Great Mace, or humanoid) (1)
Magic: Cleric Progression, Max spell level 4, standard list (7)
Powers: Progressive Unarmed Combat damage (4)
Save bonus v. fear, beer (2)
Inspire morale/cause fear (as proposed Bard songs) (4)
Str 13, Con 9 (-4)
Vow of Well-Spent Poverty (-1) - Wealth must be shared with those in need. You are expected to give 30% to local temples & charities (those in need of help), and spend the rest at the Inn (those in need of ale).
The Manly Way: Whenever possible, fight unarmed. Yes, you are expected to wrestle the dragon. (-1)
4+4+1+7+4+2+4-4-1-1 = 20

[Griff]

@Joe: Looks pretty good. I think you're right that the prerequisites might need to take the highest bonus, with an additional -1 for other prerequisites. I think it's pretty balanced otherwise, although very few of my players are willing to play a cleric of any stripe. A Druid is the closest thing and she has identity crises frequently; thinks she's a magic-user more often than not.

I'll have to go back and look at 109. It's been a long time since I've looked at some of the articles.

Post more when/if you have any. The examples looked pretty good and I think my players might actually be willing to use a couple of them.

[SmootRK]

While I think that class design is more of an art than a mathematical model, I do like to see how things might compare while developing. Being able to roughly equate the bulk of the major abilities is very cool.

I would only suggest that some sort of disclaimer be put into your model to the effect of saying that this should only serve as a set of guidelines for class development, and that other factors may still alter the (supposed) balance significantly. For instance, a dark cult of an unholy deity cannot operate in the open in most societies (a big factor in bad guy design, and often a reason that bad guys seem to have power levels that surpass their good counterparts). Similarily, a deity of mountain dwarves would be limited usefulness in maritime adventuring. These are big factors in the overall campaign to bear in mind... especially if one significantly tweaks spell choices to suit individual deities.

Also, it needs to be explicitly implied that Class Designs (as are any optional/supplementary materials) are solely at the discretion of the Game Master. (of course)

[Griff]

Also, it needs to be explicitly implied that Class Designs (as are any optional/supplementary materials) are solely at the discretion of the Game Master. (of course)

I definitely agree with this part. Although there aren't a lot of choices, my son is king of points vs. power when it comes to anything like this.

[Joe the Rat]

Yeah,
This whole system is intended as a start-of-campaign GM tool - a guideline to keep variant clerics more or less comparable. The piece I hope sees the most use is the weapons and armor. If nothing else, it gives you a target number of options for clerics that aren't mace-bound.

Something I forgot to note is that swords require the Tight group at minimum - even if one sword is your only option. Swords are fairly significant weapons.

Oh yeah, the 2nd and 3rd are a couple of the published subclasses - or at least one take on the Monk/Adept of the Way class. The druid spell list might be useful for sorting out your "shaman" issue.

I've got a couple of simpler approaches to the Mace Issue to toss in as well (Sort of a Method I: keep it really simple, Method II: Quick swap approach, Method III: Everything Up For Grabs.

[Griff]

The druid spell list might be useful for sorting out your "shaman" issue.

I've been trying to limit the actual spells, but in Pathfinder I've been mostly using the Druid spells, fewer Cleric ones, and just a very few Wizard 0 level spells. I want to keep a certain flavor about the character but don't shaman as being a major fighting force. I feel like most of their magic is more incidental and showy, but not very direct in nature.

After looking at your ideas I can definitely see some applications, especially if I need a "cleric" from a particular cult or religion quickly. A few minutes to build a reasonable class rather than the usual several hours.

[Joe the Rat]

Just so you know, I've still got this brewing. The deity side has gotten a little revamping, and I have a couple of different ideas to play with.