Alright, let's take a look at the Priest/Cleric class and what we can do with them.
One of the cliches we get with this class is the devout, cloistered cleric that is suddenly thrust into the real world by their god, they are lawful stupid, and essentially sit there and complain about what the other people in the party are doing. Granted, they aren't as bad as paladins, but they're certainly not good about this. Also, and perhaps more importantly, the class is just ... boring. I mean seriously, I have never ever met someone who actually said or thought the phrase, "You know what, I really want to play a Cleric." Not once. Generally what happens is there's already a group formed and another guy shows up and says, "Hey, what can I play?" and then everyone says, "We need a healer so you get to be a Cleric."
But fundamentally, they're boring. I mean, they're basically sheep to their gods, if they do something against their god, they lose their power so they have to follow that. Generally, they don't have a personality, not necessarily because of the class, but because people simply don't know how to roleplay them interestingly. Still though, Clerics certainly seem to be one of the least sought after classes in the game. To repeat a phrase that I think describes the class perfectly, "If you ask people if they want a Cleric in the party, everyone will raise their hands, but if you ask who wants to play a Cleric, all you get is a bunch of stuffed pockets."
So that tells me right there that we need to spice the class up a hell of a lot.
What can we do to change it up?
Well, my suggestion is that even though this is going to be a Faith based class, perhaps the character doesn't have to believe in a god. Sure, if they want to, they can, but they don't have to. People can have faith in anything, not just gods, they can have faith in themselves, faith in humanity, faith in ... whatever really, faith is something personal, and just because they don't believe in gods doesn't mean they can't gain powers from it. Also, their god shouldn't choose their spells for them, they should get to choose their schools and focuses for themselves, my opinion is that their powers can come from a god, if they so choose, or it can also be inherent and come from within, if they choose that as well.
Actually, I think that's what the difference between arcane users and divine users in our game should be, divine users have inherent magical talent, arcane must study/make pacts, etc. to get their magic. Arcane magic damages, divine creates. If an arcane user's magic can make him fear for his soul, a divine user's magic can make him fear for his humanity, as it can cause him to ascend to another plane, which may sound good but isn't, because, I've always thought of ascended beings as ... removed and uncaring, similar to Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen.
Perhaps we shouldn't call them priests at all, since not all of them have a god. Perhaps ... martyr maybe? I say this because, even if you don't believe in a god, you will still fight, and die, for your faith.
Enough on all that, onto the mechanics!
- Light Weapons and Shields (No Armor?)
- +3 to Religion, History, Linguistics, and Heal
- Ability to use Divine Magic
- Half Faith stat, determines how many schools/focuses known
- Double Faith stat determines mana pool
Divine magic is listed here:
- Destruction (school) - same as above
- Light - When a generic light spell is cast, 1d6 touch damage and creates a light that lasts for 5 rounds
- Darkness - When a generic darkness spell is cast 1d6 touch damage and creates a 10 foot cloud of darkness for 3 rounds.
- Creation (school) - works similarly to the Illusion school, except the item lasts for a day, and can only be up to 5x5'. They can use this to create whatever, be it food, water, items, etc, so long as they are common items. NO MAGICAL ITEMS. These items cannot be sold, because a store owner can tell that it's magical and it will eventually go away.
- Protection (school) - a generic protection spell grants touch 1d6 damage absorption
- Focuses???
- Alteration (school) - a generic alteration spell can either: fix a broken item (as long as all the pieces are there), make something 1 category larger or smaller on touch for 3 rounds.
- Focuses???
- Holy (school) - Anything extra that Arcane users don't have?
Now onto added bits
- Can communicate to their deity (if they have one) once per day
- Magical Healing - same score as mana pool, they can heal that many points of magical healing, split up however much they want. They can use them to cure diseases at a rate of 4 points per condition cured.
- Visions of the future...?
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