The rationale of the modification comes from my family's Catholic faith. While I do not have any problem separating my games and fiction from real world religion and faith, I wonder if my children might just be better off without having to make comparisons. Also, my wife is extremely devout, and largely does not game; I think she would have the weirdest time reconciling it all if she begins to game with us (the rest of the family). My thinking is that it is just easier to avoid the whole idea, than to try to make the concepts mesh... at least if I want my wife to participate without feeling like she is doing something wrong.
...And this is just while the members of family become accustomed to the gaming concepts. I have no doubt that later, once mature views have developed that we can get to 'normal' games in due time.
So with rationale detailed, what could be done to make this work smoothly and without much alteration to the game otherwise.
My first inclination is to simply expand MU roles a bit. Perhaps the spell lists can be re-defined a little differently, and each MU must choose his/her affiliation between:
- White Mage - protections and healing in the spell list
Grey Mage - Normal MU for the most part
Black Mage - think Necromancer/Grave Master, probably NPC only for my family
Brown Mage - Nature MU, think druid magic re-skinned for a MU
What other things should I consider to fill any voids left with the removal of clerics? Clerics do fill a role as a backup to fighters... but then again, I allow several fighter flavors in my campaign (ranger, knight, gladiator, and quasi-class variants as well).
fyi - it is really a shame that I do this, as I really like clerics (and druids) for characters. I even have a Priest (cloister cleric) sort of class on the forums here somewhere. Lots of good role-play to be found in trying to preach and teach for each deity's values. In the Marketstone Campaign, Nivek is always extolling the virtues of toiling away! Honest pay for honest day's work... and all that.