Clerical errors.
May. 22nd, 2012 11:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerinSo, when it comes to D&D clerics, I also am not overly fond of the concept of spell lists, and for the opposite reason that I don't like spell lists for wizards: it makes them too wizardly.
The idea of a priest having a direct line to the divine and being able to enact miraculous feats of what seems like magic isn't entirely strange to me; I was raised Catholic. But modeling it along the lines of how wizards work their will over the world seems off to me. That just makes true believers seem like a slightly different kind of wizard.
To me, the supernatural qualities of a divinely-charged character should more often be passive and automatic than those of a magic-using character. A wizard can cast a spell of protection or construct a magic circle against demons or the undead; a divinely empowered cleric would be more likely to have abilities that protect them and repel demons or the undead.
Now, the idea behind A Wilder World's character creation system is that what I think of as a Ranger and what any given player thinks of as a Ranger isn't going to be the same thing so here are a bunch of pieces that can be assembled freely in almost any combination. So there's no rule in the game that says Priests Don't Use Magic, and in fact, there are abilities you can choose that tweak the default magic rules in a divine direction.
But I firmly feel that you shouldn't need to be able to pull an indistinguishable-from-magic miracle out of your pocket every five minutes to play a priest. In fact, it should be possible to make a credible and effective cleric without any demonstrable supernatural abilities. If not, we wouldn't have so many of them in our world.
Spiritual leaders are also often community leaders. Being of the cloth (or of the book, or other vestment or icon) can both require an affinity for people and confer a measure of respectability. So a clerical-type character is a natural choice for the party's "face". Any number of abilities that are a natural fit for bards (compelling oration, the medieval fantasy equivalent of diplomatic immunity, etc.) work for priests, as do abilities that confer an actual rank within society or a temple hierarchy. Those same qualities within a party can be used to explain abilities that boost morale, and therefore effectiveness.
Priests are also often better educated than their peers, whether it's in the "only person in the village who knows what all the plants in the forest are good for" sense or "had the leisure and wealth to go to all the best schools growing up" sense or "spent the last three decades cloistered away with a notebook and a garden full of pea flowers" sense.
A Wilder World gives you enough option slots in character creation that you could easily make a character who is split down the middle as far as the mundane and metaphysical--the temporal and spiritual--aspects of the priesthood, or one who is all pomp and prestige and charisma (an unusually adventuresome bishop) or one who is all divine blessings with none of the knowledge or social leverage (a pilgrim or holy fool figure, or perhaps a minor demigod or unrealized avatar).
Of course, then we get to the other shortcoming of the standard D&D cleric, which is that it's standard. The original version was roughly modeled after a romantic ideal of a crusading warrior-priest and had arbitrary weapon limitations stapled on for balance purposes. Later editions softened the edges of the mold and allowed for a wider range of accessories to customize it, but the original shape of the thing is still there under the surface.
A cleric of the Very Quite Civilized And Respectable God of Perfect Law and Order and a cleric of the Seriously Depraved God of Vaguely Reptilian Chaos With Lots of Tentacles who traded places on an exchange program would both be instantly recognizable to adherents of the others' faith as being the same type of person, the same class, the same thing, as if the concept of "clericdom" is found somewhere in the aether between planes rather than arising out of different cultures trying to come to terms with different divine powers for differing purposes.
AWW does something to sidestep this by simply not having a cleric class to begin with. A priest of a deity of love and peace will probably have abilities that relate to love and peace; a priest of a deity of hatred and murder will probably have abilities that relate to hatred and murder. You choose what makes sense for your character. It's as simple as that. Any option available to any character can be said to be a gift from the gods, whether in the traditional sense that one may be gifted or in the literal bolt-from-the-blue SHAZAM! sense.
And just as the magic supplement will list different types of magic with examples of how to work them up with the rules, the cleric one will have a section that lists different types of divinities (cf. domains in D&D) and suggests ways to represent their priesthood, their faithful, and their specially chosen champions.
(For people who want things to be very cut and dried, the cleric supplement will actually include a number of special abilities with names like "Fortune-Favored", "Death-Favored", "Love-Favored" and so on to represent different divine blessings, as well as another set of abilities that specifically represent having a position within specific kinds of religious hierarchies.)
And then, as one final meta option...
One of the reasons that I dislike the use of clerical spell lists is that it doesn't seem like the power divine should be at a mortal's beck and call. D&D has acknowledged this, but often in very lopsided ways... like having explicit and fairly punitive rules for having paladins fall from grace that aren't really matched by anything for actual clerics.
The meta option for divinely empowered/associated characters in A Wilder World works like this: any ability you have that is understood to be divine in nature is treated with a touch more flexibility than mundane or magical abilities. When you're acting towards the direct service or pleasure of your deity, you can get a bit more "oomph" or "stretch" out of it than the rules allow, but employing it in directions counter to your faith/your deity's can result in outright failure or some sort of penalty being applied.
Strictly routine matters of adventuring should be treated as strictly routine; only when the need is great or the cause is directly anathema to the deity should the GM (in character as the deity) step in.
The suggested model is to treat the deity as a distant patron who can grant or withhold aid. If there's any wiggle room or gray area, convincing the deity to intervene should be treated the same as pleading with any NPC for additional aid, with the possible necessities of making a persuasive die roll and/or agreeing to terms involving repayment of the favor.
This option requires extra trust and communication with the GM... if you have very different ideas of your deity's will then it doesn't work. It's strictly an optional rule, with the strong suggestion that both player and GM must agree to use it. If either one doesn't feel comfortable leaving a considerable portion of the character's abilities up to fiat then it's better to just use them as-is.
If they do feel comfortable with it, though, it gives a great way of distinguishing "divine magic" from earthly mortal magic. Wizards have to go out of their way to bargain with greater powers; priests commune with them as a matter of course.
The idea of a priest having a direct line to the divine and being able to enact miraculous feats of what seems like magic isn't entirely strange to me; I was raised Catholic. But modeling it along the lines of how wizards work their will over the world seems off to me. That just makes true believers seem like a slightly different kind of wizard.
To me, the supernatural qualities of a divinely-charged character should more often be passive and automatic than those of a magic-using character. A wizard can cast a spell of protection or construct a magic circle against demons or the undead; a divinely empowered cleric would be more likely to have abilities that protect them and repel demons or the undead.
Now, the idea behind A Wilder World's character creation system is that what I think of as a Ranger and what any given player thinks of as a Ranger isn't going to be the same thing so here are a bunch of pieces that can be assembled freely in almost any combination. So there's no rule in the game that says Priests Don't Use Magic, and in fact, there are abilities you can choose that tweak the default magic rules in a divine direction.
But I firmly feel that you shouldn't need to be able to pull an indistinguishable-from-magic miracle out of your pocket every five minutes to play a priest. In fact, it should be possible to make a credible and effective cleric without any demonstrable supernatural abilities. If not, we wouldn't have so many of them in our world.
Spiritual leaders are also often community leaders. Being of the cloth (or of the book, or other vestment or icon) can both require an affinity for people and confer a measure of respectability. So a clerical-type character is a natural choice for the party's "face". Any number of abilities that are a natural fit for bards (compelling oration, the medieval fantasy equivalent of diplomatic immunity, etc.) work for priests, as do abilities that confer an actual rank within society or a temple hierarchy. Those same qualities within a party can be used to explain abilities that boost morale, and therefore effectiveness.
Priests are also often better educated than their peers, whether it's in the "only person in the village who knows what all the plants in the forest are good for" sense or "had the leisure and wealth to go to all the best schools growing up" sense or "spent the last three decades cloistered away with a notebook and a garden full of pea flowers" sense.
A Wilder World gives you enough option slots in character creation that you could easily make a character who is split down the middle as far as the mundane and metaphysical--the temporal and spiritual--aspects of the priesthood, or one who is all pomp and prestige and charisma (an unusually adventuresome bishop) or one who is all divine blessings with none of the knowledge or social leverage (a pilgrim or holy fool figure, or perhaps a minor demigod or unrealized avatar).
Of course, then we get to the other shortcoming of the standard D&D cleric, which is that it's standard. The original version was roughly modeled after a romantic ideal of a crusading warrior-priest and had arbitrary weapon limitations stapled on for balance purposes. Later editions softened the edges of the mold and allowed for a wider range of accessories to customize it, but the original shape of the thing is still there under the surface.
A cleric of the Very Quite Civilized And Respectable God of Perfect Law and Order and a cleric of the Seriously Depraved God of Vaguely Reptilian Chaos With Lots of Tentacles who traded places on an exchange program would both be instantly recognizable to adherents of the others' faith as being the same type of person, the same class, the same thing, as if the concept of "clericdom" is found somewhere in the aether between planes rather than arising out of different cultures trying to come to terms with different divine powers for differing purposes.
AWW does something to sidestep this by simply not having a cleric class to begin with. A priest of a deity of love and peace will probably have abilities that relate to love and peace; a priest of a deity of hatred and murder will probably have abilities that relate to hatred and murder. You choose what makes sense for your character. It's as simple as that. Any option available to any character can be said to be a gift from the gods, whether in the traditional sense that one may be gifted or in the literal bolt-from-the-blue SHAZAM! sense.
And just as the magic supplement will list different types of magic with examples of how to work them up with the rules, the cleric one will have a section that lists different types of divinities (cf. domains in D&D) and suggests ways to represent their priesthood, their faithful, and their specially chosen champions.
(For people who want things to be very cut and dried, the cleric supplement will actually include a number of special abilities with names like "Fortune-Favored", "Death-Favored", "Love-Favored" and so on to represent different divine blessings, as well as another set of abilities that specifically represent having a position within specific kinds of religious hierarchies.)
And then, as one final meta option...
One of the reasons that I dislike the use of clerical spell lists is that it doesn't seem like the power divine should be at a mortal's beck and call. D&D has acknowledged this, but often in very lopsided ways... like having explicit and fairly punitive rules for having paladins fall from grace that aren't really matched by anything for actual clerics.
The meta option for divinely empowered/associated characters in A Wilder World works like this: any ability you have that is understood to be divine in nature is treated with a touch more flexibility than mundane or magical abilities. When you're acting towards the direct service or pleasure of your deity, you can get a bit more "oomph" or "stretch" out of it than the rules allow, but employing it in directions counter to your faith/your deity's can result in outright failure or some sort of penalty being applied.
Strictly routine matters of adventuring should be treated as strictly routine; only when the need is great or the cause is directly anathema to the deity should the GM (in character as the deity) step in.
The suggested model is to treat the deity as a distant patron who can grant or withhold aid. If there's any wiggle room or gray area, convincing the deity to intervene should be treated the same as pleading with any NPC for additional aid, with the possible necessities of making a persuasive die roll and/or agreeing to terms involving repayment of the favor.
This option requires extra trust and communication with the GM... if you have very different ideas of your deity's will then it doesn't work. It's strictly an optional rule, with the strong suggestion that both player and GM must agree to use it. If either one doesn't feel comfortable leaving a considerable portion of the character's abilities up to fiat then it's better to just use them as-is.
If they do feel comfortable with it, though, it gives a great way of distinguishing "divine magic" from earthly mortal magic. Wizards have to go out of their way to bargain with greater powers; priests commune with them as a matter of course.