Monday, December 2, 2013
The Cleric: a gamepiece
Regular readers of this blog (All five of you) are aware that the existence of the Cleric (and what sort of religion she might belong to other than the to-me-unsatisfying choice of Fantasy Pseudo-Christianity #326?) is something with which I often grapple. Some might ask why I bother, when instead I could just drop the silly thing from my worlds altogether and save a lot of hassle. To them I would say that it is because I think of D&D mainly as a game, with the classes being different kinds of pieces. Therefore, I am concerned with the unforeseen impact on gameplay that might be had by either denying the functions it provides, or shunting them off to another character class-- most likely the Wizard/Magic-User. Frankly this is mostly just a ramble, but it seems that something or other has to give eventually. Will I stop worrying and learn to love Crystal Dragon Jesus? Will I just kick the cleric to the curb? It remains to be seen.
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3 comments:
Well Pathfinder has the Oracle class which is a neat alternative to the traditional cleric. And the Pathfinder Witch has variations with different patron entities which also make for neat alternatives. Actually I like the witch and oracle better than the cleric.
Just embrace a more truly Catholic, vampire-hunting version like I have, complete with crosses instead of generic "holy symbols". Now there's some flavor!
It actually breaks my heart a little to see so many in the OSR talk about dropping the cleric (granted, I've mostly been reading old posts from 2009, so I'm not sure how much that's changed). Clerics - especially their turning ability - are a big part of what drove me to re-examine older editions of the game
Every known culture has had *some* form of holy person. I can't see kicking the cleric to the curb. Changing it yes. But if you want an alternative healer, look to the Dreamscarred Press book, Psionics Expanded.
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