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Short Fey
Posts: 398
Joined: Sat 03 Dec 2022, 14:45

Re: No Clerics

Thu 26 Jan 2023, 09:35

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That's a priest, not a 'cleric' by modern gamer lexicon (At least in the West, across The Pond). Which ironically, D&D never made as a type of 'NPC'. They always made them the armour wearing knights. Or they there were just people who worshipped but had no Divine casting ability.

The issue to making 'clerics' I have is the way that Animism is described, it's very witch or herbalist druid, rather than a form of actual holy worship. But that's NOT a problem. I'm fine with healers being more woodsy, and having actual Priests with Magic Power, especially high up in a local religious establishment having two Magic power sets, depending on their object of worship.
Then i wanna play as Priests then. Xd i'm a little tired how a lot of games make the "faithful" class gravitate towards armored warriors, smiting the evil and protecting their flock with weaponry. Maybe i just wanna be a jolly monk spreading the good word.And sure i can in a lot of cases still do that, i just want them to embrace the "priest" archtype more

But regardless.

Maybe instead of a school of magic, powers gained by faith could be introduced as a secondary skill in an expansion?

Like you draw holy/unholy powers by reciting prayers, performing sacred rites, using icons of faith etc. This would give it an uniqe flare from magic and it would be open to any character, but the dedicated proffession would start with it trained like a mage with magic.
Beware the fey!
 
JohnWithAgun
Posts: 134
Joined: Sat 18 Jun 2022, 14:27

Re: No Clerics

Thu 26 Jan 2023, 11:11

The main bad guy(Azrahel Koth / page 6) of the adventure book started his days as priest, and with the aid of an outside/remote power(demon in this case) his magic grew really powerful.

So there is some lore for it already. Tho him starting out as a priest might be unrelated. But the getting power from(or help to gain it) an "outside" source is in the lore of this version of the setting :)
 
zcthu3
Posts: 121
Joined: Wed 29 May 2019, 10:34

Re: No Clerics

Thu 26 Jan 2023, 20:10

Could just pick a mage and reflavor it to be cleric. "I got my magical powers in service of my god". If anything Animism is a good option for "Holy" magic, having healing powers but also Banish/purge which deals with "Unholy undead and demons".
I agree. If you move away from D&D clerics as source material, there are plenty of examples of priests in fantasy fiction just using the same magic as everyone else, albeit with a religious slant. The Sovereign Stone setting (novels then a D&D setting) had one of the human culture’s priesthoods teach magic to their priests (and pretty much prevent anyone else from learning it). Other cultures in the setting had different traditions. Sorcerers in Conan stories are also often priests.
 
Nagisawa
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu 19 Jan 2023, 22:53

Re: No Clerics

Sun 29 Jan 2023, 21:22

Could just pick a mage and reflavor it to be cleric. "I got my magical powers in service of my god". If anything Animism is a good option for "Holy" magic, having healing powers but also Banish/purge which deals with "Unholy undead and demons".
I agree. If you move away from D&D clerics as source material, there are plenty of examples of priests in fantasy fiction just using the same magic as everyone else, albeit with a religious slant. The Sovereign Stone setting (novels then a D&D setting) had one of the human culture’s priesthoods teach magic to their priests (and pretty much prevent anyone else from learning it). Other cultures in the setting had different traditions. Sorcerers in Conan stories are also often priests.
Conan of Cimmeria and other Sword and Sorcery stories do that. Which again, is fine!
 
Ugglefar
Posts: 115
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Location: Sweden/USA

Re: No Clerics

Wed 01 Feb 2023, 20:01

Thank you all for the replys.
I agree that clerics in armor are a clyche (maybe D&Dish) but it is one of the Iconic charakter archetypes at day.
A Cleric without armor could be for shure made with the beta rules and the animism spelllist. Especialy druids or priests of nature related gods are no real problem. But what about
a hammer whielding warpriest? Shouldnt they wear armor? In my undestanding this edition of the game is designed to work as a generic system. A generic system should deliver everything to play the stereotypical charakters from other worlds and backrounds.
Do you think the restriction to wear armor as a spellcaster is because of ballancing or a leftover from previous editions?

In Dragonbane I think the closest you can do is either play a Knight that is part of a religious order, or a Mage using Animism (and just flavour it as holy magic). The game will surely have further modules expanding on the rules, so you can request to have a new magic school that feels more cleric, or that new heroic abilities will feature some type of holy warrior/templar/paladin heroic ability for the Knight.
 
Raven
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Posts: 48
Joined: Thu 12 Jan 2023, 23:09

Re: No Clerics

Wed 01 Feb 2023, 21:07

For shure there will be expansions but I think that divine magic should be covered in the base rules. Some of the Animism spells already use holy symbols as focus .
Thank you for the suggestions to take other views but D&D herritage of armored priests is not the problem. The problem is that spellcasters cant use armor in Dragonbane and there is no skill on religious knowledge. A generic system should not cancel out stereotypical character concepts by default.

ATM I run a D&D campaign in the Forgotten Realms. I like the Setting but simply dont enjoy running 5e as a gm. my Idea was to port over the Pc‘s to try the Dragonbane ruleset, hopefully convincing my players to leave D&D.
For the test I want to stay as close to the rules as possible. I think that Dragonbane is definitively not aiming for good balance but in my actual view spellcasters in armor could be overpowered.
For this Test there where two pc‘s, a Warlock and a Warrior Priest of Tyr, difficult to portrait in Dragonbane. I endet up with the Warlock as an Mentalist Mage and the priest as a Knight.
 
JohnWithAgun
Posts: 134
Joined: Sat 18 Jun 2022, 14:27

Re: No Clerics

Thu 02 Feb 2023, 09:29

For shure there will be expansions but I think that divine magic should be covered in the base rules. Some of the Animism spells already use holy symbols as focus .
Thank you for the suggestions to take other views but D&D herritage of armored priests is not the problem. The problem is that spellcasters cant use armor in Dragonbane and there is no skill on religious knowledge. A generic system should not cancel out stereotypical character concepts by default.

ATM I run a D&D campaign in the Forgotten Realms. I like the Setting but simply dont enjoy running 5e as a gm. my Idea was to port over the Pc‘s to try the Dragonbane ruleset, hopefully convincing my players to leave D&D.
For the test I want to stay as close to the rules as possible. I think that Dragonbane is definitively not aiming for good balance but in my actual view spellcasters in armor could be overpowered.
For this Test there where two pc‘s, a Warlock and a Warrior Priest of Tyr, difficult to portrait in Dragonbane. I endet up with the Warlock as an Mentalist Mage and the priest as a Knight.
Playing with the forbidden lands system, i have offered my players to re-flavored the bard class into a cleric type (songs becomes prayers)
Maybe the heroic ability musician could also easily be reworded into a prayer system. Instruments could become tomes/holy scrolls evt :)
 
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Melvin
Posts: 121
Joined: Sun 22 Dec 2019, 01:45

Re: No Clerics

Thu 02 Feb 2023, 14:13

Nice idea ! Thanks for sharing
 
Ugglefar
Posts: 115
Joined: Thu 04 Aug 2016, 21:17
Location: Sweden/USA

Re: No Clerics

Thu 02 Feb 2023, 16:58

For shure there will be expansions but I think that divine magic should be covered in the base rules. Some of the Animism spells already use holy symbols as focus .
Thank you for the suggestions to take other views but D&D herritage of armored priests is not the problem. The problem is that spellcasters cant use armor in Dragonbane and there is no skill on religious knowledge. A generic system should not cancel out stereotypical character concepts by default.

ATM I run a D&D campaign in the Forgotten Realms. I like the Setting but simply dont enjoy running 5e as a gm. my Idea was to port over the Pc‘s to try the Dragonbane ruleset, hopefully convincing my players to leave D&D.
For the test I want to stay as close to the rules as possible. I think that Dragonbane is definitively not aiming for good balance but in my actual view spellcasters in armor could be overpowered.
For this Test there where two pc‘s, a Warlock and a Warrior Priest of Tyr, difficult to portrait in Dragonbane. I endet up with the Warlock as an Mentalist Mage and the priest as a Knight.

The thing is that this is a generic system, but that is not the same as having a direct equivalent to all the D&D classes. 5e has been my most played TTRPG the last three years, but I always thought that the cleric was in a weird place, especially the close combat battle cleric. Purely looking at game mechanics you are better off using cantrips and magic for damage as a cleric, and if you choose to fight with weapons in close combat you will under-perform and have a weird overlap with the paladin class. So if you want to play a cleric well in 5e you should dress like a warrior, but fight like a wizard. Also, D&D, although claiming to be a generic system, is lacking classes represented in the fantasy genre, such as the priest class people have mentioned here in the thread previously.

You can play a priest character in Dragonbane, and the Animism magic school will give you spells with the right flavour. You don't have to take the nature themed spells. But the D&D cleric does not have a good equivalent, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. D&D classes are also much more "magic saturated" than most other fantasy RPGs; almost every class (especially when you count subclasses) uses magic in D&D.

The skill Myths and Legends can easily cover the need for skill checks concerning Religion. I would consider it History, Religion (and partly Arcana) rolled into one.
 
Raven
Topic Author
Posts: 48
Joined: Thu 12 Jan 2023, 23:09

Re: No Clerics

Fri 03 Feb 2023, 11:39

The thing is that this is a generic system, but that is not the same as having a direct equivalent to all the D&D classes. 5e has been my most played TTRPG the last three years, but I always thought that the cleric was in a weird place, especially the close combat battle cleric. Purely looking at game mechanics you are better off using cantrips and magic for damage as a cleric, and if you choose to fight with weapons in close combat you will under-perform and have a weird overlap with the paladin class. So if you want to play a cleric well in 5e you should dress like a warrior, but fight like a wizard.


Good point. But most of the people I play with dont look from the mechanical side (at least that's what they claim :-D). But looking at the followers of Tyr there simply is almost no room for a Priest without Armor. Paladins are an other reason for me to want some kind of divine magic. Maybe I just have different expectations of a generic set of rules. Thats totally ok. When we decide to switch to Dragonbane and I have a better Idea of the balance of this game, I will homebrew rules for magic users in armor. Something like: You can Cast only Spells of Rank 1 an 2 and cant increase the power Level or you have to pay aditional WP or just get a bane on the casting roll. I will find a way for shure. But for now I would like to stay as close to the actual rules as possible.

Also, D&D, although claiming to be a generic system, is lacking classes represented in the fantasy genre, such as the priest class people have mentioned here in the thread previously.
You can play a priest character in Dragonbane, and the Animism magic school will give you spells with the right flavour. You don't have to take the nature themed spells. But the D&D cleric does not have a good equivalent, which is not necessarily a bad thing, just different. D&D classes are also much more "magic saturated" than most other fantasy RPGs; almost every class (especially when you count subclasses) uses magic in D&D.
I totally agree with you on this subject. This should definitely not be a dragonbane vs D&D discussion! D&D 5e is good for what it is but I am here because I have several issues with the mechanics and rules, in particular the oversaturation with magic you mentioned. Its kind of a love hate relationship with me and D&D.

The skill Myths and Legends can easily cover the need for skill checks concerning Religion. I would consider it History, Religion (and partly Arcana) rolled into one.
This is also my idea for now. In the long run, however, I think that the skill, interpreted in this way, would be too broad.

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