Removal of Deities (and Clerics) in our game

[SmootRK]

So about the biggest thing I might be missing is Turn Undead, making even mundane undead creatures a scoach more formidable without a cleric to thin them out quickly. As I think about it, this is almost a plus overall.

Now I guess I just need to get down to business of sorting out various clerical spells, eh?

[saskganesh]

I like your ideas of different colours of wizards.

I think without Clerics (or even with), its wise to have other options for healing besides spells. In my game I use various herbs, which can be wildcrafted or bought in a market. I'm also playing around with a first aid skill, which restores a few pips (1-3) after a fight.

[SmootRK]

I like your ideas of different colours of wizards.

I think without Clerics (or even with), its wise to have other options for healing besides spells. In my game I use various herbs, which can be wildcrafted or bought in a market. I'm also playing around with a first aid skill, which restores a few pips (1-3) after a fight.

You are probably right, and I should include some options for Healing.

Perhaps if I break the options up
White Mage, gets healing spells (duh)
Grey Mage can mix minor elixers of healing in the Alchemy sense (1d3 point healing, 'x' cost, max of 1 such per level per day assuming materials and equipment available)
Black Mage does not get healing, but their spells have Inflict variants that grant Undead Healing.
Brown/Green gets Herbalism variant of Grey Mage (no equipment necessary except maybe a mortar/pestle)

This would give most parties some ability to heal some (except those with Black Mages which are to be NPC only anyhow)... although perhaps my options above need to be toned down; those are just initial thoughts.

[saskganesh]

I like how each type of mage has different abilities.

I think that as long as the healing alternatives are less than a cure light wounds spell, it's in the right ballpark.

How much is too much? Well it really depends on how much damage your players typically take. In my game alternatives (herbs, first aid) mean that I get to have characters with longer adventuring days and the clerics get to be more than a heal bots, spellwise. Works for us.

[Sudsy]

Interesting...

Being Catholic I understand the feelings in regard to polytheistic beliefs with powers in games. I just stick to the fact its fiction... After all, J.R.R. Tolkein was a devout Catholic and instrumental in bringing C.S. Lewis into faith from atheism... What do we see in Middle Earth? Many gods throughout the entire cosmology... But I digress...

...on to the gaming.

One sourcebook to look for that is fairly inexpensive these days is GURPS 3e Fantasy. Why? Yrth is an alternate world in which humans from Earth were sucked in through the Banestorm. I like the world setting because when it was designed, it was done so with the explicit purpose of taking historical medieval humans (Knights Templar, the Feudal System in Europe, Feudal Japan, etc.) and placing it into a world inhabited by Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Lizardmen and the like. Magic is arcane, any divine magic is up to the GM. The setting leaves wide open the possibility of the One True God as we understand it at any level from realistic (as a Believer, turning un-dead and exorcising demons are not novel concepts but something I've know people to do... Long story...), to more fictional with calling in fire and brimstone from heaven on command; all the way to the completely opposite spectrum of God doesn't exist, spirits don't exist, magic is purely arcane.

Just a thought.

Myself, I've looked at writing an adventure where arcane magic is incredibly rare if non-existant, and divine magic is indeed limited to the 'turn undead' and other tasks that flow from the plot from the GM rather than are able to be called upon. More of a pure fighter type campaign, with R.E.H. influences for the few magic practitioners being rather power villains for the fighters to have to find a way to defeat...

[SmootRK]

Yes.. good points.

I don't mind magic in general... family sees enough of that in various TV, Movies, Books. It is all very common in this day, even more so than when I was young. Harry Potter, LotR, etc. make it seem almost standard. But, even now in this age, it is rare to see divine magic in our media.

Then again, my kids have not had a problem so far with the concept. The one cleric they have in their group (who only now got to second level) looked at his Turn Undead ability as simply what a Vampire Hunter type of person would do while fighting undead.... which makes me think, perhaps I just need to re-explain clerics as something more like "Undead Slayer", whom uses old incantations and such to empower himself to fight the beasts of the underworld... still kinda removing the religious undertones and making the character more like a Buffy the Vampire Slayer with specialized magical ability. Constantine, Peter Vincent or Van Helsing with spells to work with as well.

In 3.5 games, there was a class in a horror oriented book called an Archivist, which was a lot like a Studious Divine Caster, like a MU with the Clerical Spell repertoire. In this concept, old religious information exists, and reciting various prayers can produce effects usable by those who 'know', yet the players are not the priests or even inherently religious followers... they just simply use this information like any other tool. Constantine (movie and graphic novel/comic) makes a good example of how this might work.

[MedievalMan]

Interesting topic I always liked the thought of dividing wizards up into different orders based on color.
As to comment on the cleric as an undead slayer from what I understand the cleric was first introduced in Dave Arnesons game as an undead slayer in the vein of Dr Vanhelsing from Dracula, I guess over the years it took on more religious overtones until it morphed into the holy man it is today.

[SmootRK]

Interesting topic I always liked the thought of dividing wizards up into different orders based on color.
As to comment on the cleric as an undead slayer from what I understand the cleric was first introduced in Dave Arnesons game as an undead slayer in the vein of Dr Vanhelsing from Dracula, I guess over the years it took on more religious overtones until it morphed into the holy man it is today.

Nice little trivia... good to know that I might be on track for truly old-school mentality here.

[MedievalMan]

Yeah its an interpretation of the Cleric you just don't see too much anymore, that and a crusading warrior type which it also fills in. Clerics just never did seem like normal priestly types to me at least.

[Dimirag]

The "original" Cleric is a cross between an undead hunter and a battle priest. So you can make a "conversion" with little problems.
The clerics that fought on battles used blunt weapons with the purpose of defeating an enemy for later conversion, in the games this is replace with the "don't shed blood" excuse, I've rather prefer the "piercing/slashing weapons are of little or no effect against most undeads, so this make that the Cleric only train in blunt weapons", which sound something like an undead-hunter type...