Splitting the cleric into the Holy Trinity

I really don't like the cleric class. I feel that is assumes so much out of your world. That you have gods that you can worship and dedicate your life to and that you have undead that can't be reasoned with. I find these weirdly specific and Runequest kind of helped me visualize what a different way to approach gods can look like. I like how different cultures have different (and sometimes contradictory) myths and legends. I find it harder to achieve in Dungeons and Dragons as I couldn't focus on all the gods of a setting as the cleric's god had to have an increased importance than the rest of the pantheon because the cleric's god was the only god that mattered mechanically. 


Furthermore, undead are boring to me and would like to add more unusual creatures. The undead I include often talk or are smarter than the average skeleton. I am not a fan of prescriptive 100% spelled out character abilities. I like that there are multiple applications for a lot of spells and magic items. Turn Undead feels too prescriptive. Only undead? what about demons, heretics and non-believers? It sure would be nice to turn them as a cleric but I am yet to see a cleric that can do that level of turning. I also find it hard to see a "good" cleric. DCC has a great Fighter, LotFP has a good thief and Whitehack has the best spell caster I have ever seen. I never hear of a game that has a great Cleric.


I try to give my players something to do in every dungeon. Something magical for the wizard to mess with, a creature for the Fighter to calm and something to show off something the thief can do. Clerics are the most prescriptive. You have to have either something related to the cleric's god in the dungeon or there has to be undead. It feels the least flexible. My goal is to cut and slice the Cleric into pieces to slot onto the other classic three. 


The M/U gets the blunt weapon restriction. This has no explict reason to happen, I just think it's thematic and cool. Plus, M/Us make the perfect candidate to be weirdly paranoid about what they hold. Alazar the Amazing once used an axe while casting charm person and the blade cut the spell, spilling it everywhere.

A Fighter Turning (Adobe Stock)
 

The Fighter gets Turn Undead, but not the normal one. They get Turn. Once they critically hit a monster, that monster can be turned like the Turn Undead table. Over a campaign they change what they turn as they can only turn up to 1 monster per HD. For example If I critically hit a goblin, that means I can turn a goblin. If i critically hit a blink dog, I can turn it as well. But if I critically hit a halfing, I can't turn a goblin as it is replaced by a halfing. I can still turn a blink dog.

 

The Thief gets the cleric's spell list. That is because they can use local traditions and superstitions to appeal to the supernatural and get magical things done. They swear to something they don't entirely understand (deity, devil or otherwise) and in return they can use clerical spells. 

Clickables

Crumbling Keep has a very good video on low magic settings 

Explorer's Design talks rumored lands and riso printing.

Prismatic Wasteland organised a conclave for bloggers, here's his post

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OSR games should have a lot of classes

Image
I couldn't post to my blog due to life being a lot and various tech issues. I did however back the newest Shadowdark Kickstarter so now I feel it is time for a theory post, as I didn't post one in a while.  From The Arcane Library In OSR games, you die often. There are often around 4 to 7 classes (if the game sticks to the B/X model) and it doesn't take too long to play them all, at least each class's early levels. In shadowdark's newest kickstarter, there is plans for 20 classes to be in the one book. I like this. In modern games, having a lot of classes feels overwhelming as I am playing each class for a long period of time due to the lower lethality in those games so my choice matters a lot. In shadowdark, this isn't the case. Death is not only around the corner but right behind you and should your plans go south, that's the end of the character. It is unlikely I will be playing a character for a significant amount of time in shadowdark.  The 24 classes t...
Read more

Everything-as-XP (my home game)

Image
My in person game is starting up. I have chosen to avoid a system for a number of reasons: I am given an hour and a half per session. 90% of my players are new to tabletop. My player count varies. So I have chosen a simple system that they create. One thing I love to leverage is what fantasy does everyone have in their heads. Some have LotR, Harry Potter more lesser known books or movies. There is also video games. Because of this, "fantasy" isn't a singular set of tropes and conventions but multiple.   But how? Characters are simple. Here is the character sheet drawn in Microsoft Paint: a rough mock up of the character sheet Path:  There are only 2 choices. Steel for martial warrior types and Spell for spellcasters. These set how many wounds you can take, whether you get access to magic or deeds. Steels get 2 wounds before getting unconscious, the ability to do mighty deeds of arms if their dice matches. (this is a 2d6+mods system). Spell gets the ability to cast magic (...
Read more

Every system teaches you something. Even bad ones.

Image
Introduction I have played many systems, from narrative focused games to more simulationist games. Over time my tastes have changed from wanting the rules nearly out the picture to wanting the rules to be the focus of the game. Nowadays it leans somewhere in between. Here is a list of all the games I have played and what I learnt from them.  The Games Dungeons and Dragons 5e: advantage is a great mechanic for simply adding to a roll with little tracking.  Pathfinder: It's very hard to make a one-trick pony so every character has at least a dozen toys. Shadowdark: The perfect amount of character abilities (at least from the get-go) is 2. From The Arcane Library's website GURPS: I love how the numbers are done in the beginning meaning once character generation is done, you just need to look at your sheet.  Dungeon Crawl Classics: I love level 0 as it answers the only question a backstory should have and that's why are you here. Troika: Give your players weird and cool toys ...
Read more