Way back in January I wrote Clerics as Anti-Magicians. It’s my (latest) attempt to rehabilitate the class; to turn it into something people will actually want to play. Personally, I think it’s one of my better posts, which is why it ended up in my hastily assembled list of “greatest hits” over on the sidebar.
Dan D, the blogger over at Throne of Salt apparently agrees. He’s taken it on himself to tinker with my version of the class to create a cleric for his own game. This is particularly interesting for me, because I’ve actually been working on my own update to that class. It’s nice to get another perspective just around the same time that I’ve decided to reevaluate.
There’s some parallel thinking, and some crossed wires between us. I don’t wanna dig into what I’m planning, but I think both Dan and I saw the problem with the cleric being too reactive. Dan’s cleric is generally more capable of taking assertive action than my original draft of the class.
I also like that Dan’s cleric has some social powers. That’s something I strongly considered doing myself, even in the first draft. “Priest” is an inherent persuasive occupation. The only reasons I didn’t do that myself are firstly that I’d already posted a couple social-focused classes; and secondly that I was aiming for broad appeal with that post. I didn’t want it to be limited to people who use a lot of social rolls in their games.
I will say Dan’s removal of all the anti-magic stuff doesn’t appeal to me. I suspect he may have been trying to prevent the class from becoming overpowered, but I don’t think being overpowered was ever the issue with my cleric. Also, it’s the mechanic that I literally named the class after, so obviously it’s near and dear to my heart.
(July 16th 2018 Edit: Dan has clarified the change was made for flavor reasons, rather than balance. )
I’m also not a fan of making players pick between nine different holy orders when they create their character. for reasons I’ve explained elsewhere. Different strokes for different folks, as they say.
So, my loyal minions, GO FORTH TO THIS PITIFUL BLOG THAT DARES TO UTTER MY NAME. DESTROY THE BLOGGER PEASANT. RETURN TO ME BATHED IN HIS BLOOD, AND I WILL BLESS YOU WITH A +2 TO YOUR NEXT SAVING THROW.
(Note: Please do not destroy Dan. Dan is a good dude. LS is joking about destroying people).
So we need to make a 10th ‘holy order’ and then it can be randomized on a d10
fixed it, now y’all can live in harmony once more
On a roll of 10, roll two times again, you belong to both orders. Reroll further 10s.
Definitely keep joining more orders if you roll more 10s. I made a d10 list of clerical orders, but the formatting screwed up and went over the page column… so I added two more.
I love seeing the different takes coming from different directions in the cleric/priest role. One of these days I want to take a jab at one of those mad sorcerer looking Eastern Orthodox Great Schema monks.