Post/Author/DateTime	Post
tyrandor 04-28-08, 08:12 PM	The flavor just doesn't fit. Not to mention that while my world is a higher magic setting then most, I think Divine magic is actually a bit to much. Flying Castle and sphere of destructions are one thing and ultimately only 'mimic' technology and allow you to simulate a world that evolved based on the idea that magic is around, rather then following science... but the bringing back the dead to life and spontanous healing seems a bit much. Especially ressurection... I do wants gods and religion... I'm just not sure how fit this class in and how exactly they don't 'take over the world' - what ruler wouldn't want to be ressurected if he dies? And if you have something every powerful person in the world want, you ultimately are the most powereful person in the world. Looking into it I also noticed that your 'typical' fantasy world doesn't have Clerics. Lord of the Ring, the Wheel of Time, Runelords... no cleric. In many case, they don't even have 'Cure Spells'. Heck, most of those settings don't have what appears to be organised religions... in fact, religions are left vague and non-centralised. So where does the Cleric concept come from? A gary gygax idea? Most of the 'healing class' I know from fantasy setting are in videogames, where the priest/whitemage/whatever is usually a offensively weak class with powerful protection and healing spells... I'm not quite sure where the idea that Cleric can walk around in plate armor came from... and I'm having a hard time making them fit in my world view. But I'm not sure how succesful how my players will be in a world where magical healing is rare to inexistant... Anybody else had to deal with something like this?
Orloff 04-28-08, 08:43 PM	I've never had to deal with anything like this personally, but I'd probably do one of 4 things: 1. Incorporate some of the weaker healing spells into other spellcasting classes. Leave out dead raising spells to your heart's content. 2. Create magic items which aid in the healing process. This makes sense especially if your world operates along the lines of magic mimicking technology (beds that restore any who sleep in it to full hitpoints, etc). 3. Alter the healing skill in such a way that it actually heals hitpoints in the short term, and possibly open it up to other classes. 4. Hold out until 4.0 is released, in which people are apparently able to heal themselves to a certain extent.
tyrandor 04-29-08, 03:18 AM	Well, the main issue isn't so much healing or even resurrection, but rather logical chain of event that would happen if some people had those abilities. The idea that wandering minstrel and group of druid living in remote area have healing abilities and even power over life and death doesn't bother me... it's the idea that if little timmy get's his foot cut off while chopping wood, you can just take him to the temple of Pelor, toss some coins and voila - the leg's brand new! The idea the a powerful king might have hundred of thousands of gold invested into making himself damn near unkillable by using a bewildering array of magical items and wards is fine... it's the idea that all he need to do his have someone pay 5k gold on his behalf on the off chance someone does manage to kill him. End result, anybody that's even remotely wealthy can't die anymore. Or even be hurt in any permanent fashion really. Now unlike Druid/Bards and other healers, Priest aren't wanderers. They want to preach their god's laws... they build temple in the middle of cities... they are not hard to find. And then there's the ramification and social power such groups would get... organized religions are some of the most powerful and wealthy organization in our world... imagine if they could actually perform divine spells? Imagine how much more respect ands social clout your local priest/rabbi/whatever would have if he could actually cure wounds with a few words? Organized religions would rule and control everything. Nobody would want to displease them, because if you do, when you die, you won't come back. More so then the mechanical/game balance issue with healing/resurrection... it's the fact that I don't know how to include priests in my world without having them become a monolithic social power.
Aneutralshadeofblack 04-29-08, 06:55 AM	Clerics are stupidly easy to integrate into any setting. Keep in mine that Clerics are not priests. Clerics are the armed, crusading arm of the Church - the guys who walk around raiding infidel settlements and generally trying to convert people by shouting the loudest and killing the most. This is why they adventure. Priests, if they were a player class, would be closer to Wizards in terms of saves/HP - the Cloistered Cleric was an attempt at this, but didn't go far enough. Think of Clerics as the Knight Crusaders from the Crusades - defending their faith by attacking the followers of another religion, sword in hand, raping and pillaging and all that. By contrast, in case you're wondering, Paladins are more akin to Joan of Arc - individuals with extreme conviction in their cause, who are directly chosen by the gods to do something. It's unfortunate that D&D, needing a healer for game mechanics, misrepresents that, but the Spontaneous Domain feat from Complete Champion (or Divine, one of the two) means you're much closer to what a Cleric should be than to a healbot. After all, why would a Cleric of a god of destruction have Cure spells? He'd be much better off with Flamestrike and Blade Barrier. Just replace spontaneous Cures with spontaneous domain spells and you should be good to go, as long as any one of your Churches trains men to fight for it professionally.
Scion9x 04-29-08, 07:48 AM	I don't have true Clerics in my setting and it has never suffered for it. I do have religions, and among the clergy I typically have a group of spellcasters that use arcane magic (only one source of magic in my world) with a variant spell list at the upper echelon. I have custom classes, but one could be something akin to a sorcerer, or a bard and still qualify for the mantle of "Priest". Theological scholar-mages. They could also be completely non-magical theologians, but I couldn't suggest an appropriate class for that in standard DnD. They also learn magic from mysticism and enlightenment rather than strictly straight book learning like a wizard does. In Yoga and other Vedic traditions they describe three 'paths'. The path of the arrow, which is the religious path. You gain closeness to the divine through Karmicly sound deeds that produce good results and lead to enlightenment. There is also the path of the magical, which is essentially the short and dirty path to the same end as the path of the arrow. People use various tricks to exert their will and desires over the cosmos. Then there is the path of the world, which lacks any greater knowledge or desire to be connected to the divine, or supernatural. My campaign uses similar conceits. Wizards study and know magic, while the Priests are enlightened and their magic comes from having an expanded mind. If you wanted to equate this in normal 3.5 terms, you could use the sorcerer class with a variant spell list to represent the priest. I also have Templars which are the monastic military orders that take their orders directly from the church(s) or are granted levels of free organization to raise their own Warrior-Priests within their ranks as a reward for longterm service and trustworthiness. They are similar to the concept of a Paladin, but I suppose could also fill the niche of the heavily armed and armored Cleric as well. They learn magic through the same kind of religious enlightenment as the priests do. The orders don't employ magic down to the last man though. They could be just straight fighters or any other martial class with the appropriate religious beliefs. In my world the Gods don't exactly grant powers in a direct way as they do in normal DnD. They are alien and sometimes capricious. "The Lord works in mysterious ways." Wheel of Time does have a religion, but it is completely hegemonic, which means it doesn't exactly get discussed in the books much. The characters all seem to universally believe in an all powerful Creator that made the world and bound the Dark One outside of it at the moment of creation, that eventually worked his way into it with the aid of mortals. So, there are essentially two "Gods" in WoT, The Creator and The Dark One, and all of the characters fall on one side of the conflict or the other. Their religion is completely incorporated into their culture on the side of 'The Light', so the normal observances of their daily life probably qualifies as "worship". There are examples of religions like this in the real world at various points in history. In modern times most people look at orthodox religious sects as blind adherence to outdated rituals. The truth of the matter is, is that most likely at one point in history what they are doing was the norm, and not from religion but culture. It is easiest to see in a lot of the modern Middle East, where you have upscale prosperous areas like Dubai, and they have large groups that express their faith in a way mostly consistent with 11th-13th century interpretations of the Sunnah ("The Way of the Prophet"), and it seems to be another example of blind adherence to outdated ritual. Then you can look at villages in Afghanistan that behave in a very similar fashion, among an almost completely illiterate populace that has never even read the books that mandate the Sunnah, but it is perfectly synonymous with their way of life and their behavior is cultural rather than 'orthodox'. The Wheel of Time seems to be presenting a religion that is completely synonymous and makes sense in comparison to culture. Technology and cultural norms haven't forced religion to be at odds with the way people want to live. You could write a religion around wearing bowler hats in the early 20th century, and everyone would be doing it because they were popular. If the religion caught on and people were still wearing bowler hats today, it would seem like blind adherence to an obscure article of faith. DnD somewhat presents a modern view of religion, where worshippers make sacrifices that cut against the grain of daily life to be closer to the Gods. If you wanted religion to take a backseat in general but still wanted some divine overseer(s) you could present a world with a religious hegemony and the rituals of 'worship' are just every day things, that are represented in the construction of buildings, preparation of food, harvesting and slaughtering of animals. It is religiously appropriate, but people do it because "That is just the way things are done" and they might not even be able to tell you why they put coins on the eyelids of the dead, or throw them into wells.