Fluff, crunch, role and concept

[TheThan]

I came up with an interesting NPC to put into a campaign setting I’ve been working on. The character is a Drow preistess of Eilistraee. Now the thing that makes the character interesting is that I made her a bard/bladesinger instead of a cleric. I feel that the class combination fits the description of a priestess of Eilistraee much better than a standard issue cleric would.

I’m missing a few of the “standard” cleric buffs spells and turn undead. But otherwise the character still fills the role of melee support (healing buffing, combat skills), fills the concept and fluff I’ve given the character, and works at a mechanical level.

But I was wondering what other people think of the idea of using classes to fit a concept that aren’t designed to fit that concept. I mean a cleric is supposed to be used to be any sort of clergy, but in this case it doesn’t quite fit what I was looking for. So I’m wondering if I’m the only one that does this? What do you as a player or Dm think about it.

[Jack Zander]

I do things like this all the time. I've made rogues who were the party meat-shield, wizards/sorcerers who were the party meat-shield, a cleric who was a paladin, and I've wanted to play a rogue who was an artificer with UMD.

I usually come up with concept first, then I give my character a class with the abilities that best matches that concept, ignoring any flavor that the class may have. I think another time I played an elven wizard who we flavored was enchanting his arrows and firing them at targets to cast spells. There was no mechanical difference, but it made my elven wizard into the most badass arcane archer anyone ever saw. I think a few players cried foul and said I was cheating, because I only told them I was playing a mystical ranger type.

[Psyren]

Faiths & Pantheons encourages clerics to multiclass where necessary to capture the feel of a god's portfolio. For instance, Clerics of Oghma/Milil multiclass as Bards, Clerics of Mask and Cyric multiclass as Rogues etc.

For your specific example, Divine Bard could work just as well as multiclassing.

[Hat-Trick]

I created a bard as a hymnist once, but he was far from an actual cleric, just a religious bard.

[Dimers]

I believe we're all familiar with a certain samurai who had no levels in either Samurai class ...:miko:

[mucat]

I came up with an interesting NPC to put into a campaign setting I’ve been working on. The character is a Drow preistess of Eilistraee. Now the thing that makes the character interesting is that I made her a bard/bladesinger instead of a cleric.

I respectfully disagree. The thing that will make the character interesting is if she's interesting. Your players won't know or care what classes you've used to model her abilities.

That said, I think separating the game mechanics of a class from its typical fluff can be a great idea. "Priestess" is a social and professional role, not a matter of game rules, so your bladesinger is every bit as much a priestess as a cleric would be.

Crap, I think I just agreed with Miko (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html).

[Daremonai]

I'm largely in agreement with the above posters - For all the classes come with prepackaged fluff, if you want a priest/templar/ninja/pirate or whatever, you shouldn't be beholden to flavour text when choosing how to represent that mechanically.

But that's just an opinion, and your DM may think differently.

[TheThan]

One thing I was a little worried about is how the players would take it when the “cleric” starts busting out party wide buffs ala bardic music. I do plan on making her an interesting character, which is not the hard part.
I feel that a character’s class(es) is part and parcel of the entire package. It’s the mechanical aspects of that character, what that person is capable of doing. I mean after all if your playing a character that can cast spells, it’s a good idea to at least pick up a class that gives you spells to cast.

[mucat]

Well, I don't know your players specifically, but I can't imagine they would find it hard to accept. If her bardic songs are hymns to Eilistraee, her actions center around the goddess's teachings, and her deepest goal is to be worthy of Eilistraee's blessings...then she is a priestess. Even if they can tell that her actual class is bard, they should have no trouble thinking of her as a priestess of Eilistraee.

[TheThan]

Well its just I can imagine some people getting upset and thinking of it as “cheating”. I don’t and if someone came to me with a specific conceptual request like that, I would try to find a way to make it work.

[Jack Zander]

Well its just I can imagine some people getting upset and thinking of it as “cheating”. I don’t and if someone came to me with a specific conceptual request like that, I would try to find a way to make it work.

Yeah you can get some players who will call fowl and say you are playing a broken class: "Ohmuhgawdwut! Your cleric can also use bardic music abilities? That's completely broken! I can't believe the DM let you do that!"

But once they realize that your character is actually a full on bard and is following the same rules as them, I don't think most people would have a problem with the fluff changing.

[BRC]

Well its just I can imagine some people getting upset and thinking of it as “cheating”. I don’t and if someone came to me with a specific conceptual request like that, I would try to find a way to make it work.
It's not cheating, it's Refluffing, the Sonic Screwdriver of the DM's toolbox.

Iv'e refluffed Warlocks into machine gun wielding Kobold Commandos and flying eye-robots that shoot plasma beams. I refluffed Gerivars (From MMIII) into somthing akin to a Tripod from War of the Worlds or Striders from Half Life. I've turned swarms of bats into swarms of crows, simply because it's fit the theme of a particular baddie, who was himself a Warlock with all his stuff refluffed to be crow-themed (Warlocks are fun to refluff).

Refluffing isn't just acceptable, it's great. It can provide a unique feel to your game without too much effort on your part (That "Really Big Human" is a refluffed Ogre.) It can befuddle those pesky players who know their way around the Monster Manual.
Basically, you just need to make sure the final result is the same, and that it makes sense. You wouldn't take a wizard and say "This guy is a skilled Knight", have him ride around on a horse in full armor with a lance and shield, while on-paper he's a guy in a robe shooting magic missiles. But you could take a wizard and say "he's a genius inventor who has built a variety of devices". Fireball becomes a grenade, fly becomes a jetpack. It's easier with NPC's, since there is less chance of your refluff coming into conflict with the game's actual mechanics. A player using that character may run into some problems (Why can't he throw grenades in armor? Shouldn't he need to cart around all his supplies?) But as the DM it's easier to avoid that. In fact, sometimes you can use a

Your character can be a Cleric without using Divine spells. Just as somebody can be a Fighter (Somebody who fights) without fighter levels, a Rogue (a dishonest scoundrel) without levels in Rogue. Technically, any travelling musician could be a Bard, even without class levels. One could be a Monk (as in, a member of a monastic order) without being skilled at punching people. A Character who is a Knight could be a straight fighter. You don't need assassin levels to assassinate, or duelist levels to duel.

The fact is, you're using a perfectly rules-legal build, it dosn't matter what you call it.

[Endarire]

Where's the problem? Really?

You're playing a Bard who calls herself a priestess or "Cleric." That's like making a grapple-focused Wizard who calls himself a "Monk." (http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=13119) It happens.

[Prime32]

And no one would call themselves a barbarian anyway.

[mucat]

It's not cheating, it's Refluffing, the Sonic Screwdriver of the DM's toolbox.

Hell, it's not even refluffing. The elf never said she was a Cleric, which is a game-mechanical concept; she claims to be a priestess, which is a job description. She's a spiritual leader of her church; that doesn't stop her from belonging to any character class.

In every campaign world I've played in, most priests and priestesses are Experts, Aristocrats, or Commoners. Some are Adepts, and a distinct minority are Clerics. A Wizard could easily serve as priest of a scholarly diety, a Fighter or Paladin as priest of a martial god...and for a goddess like Eilistraee who values art and song, it wouldn't be surprising to find lots of bards in the priesthood.

If you said that all priests of Eilistraee are built as bards rather than clerics, that would count as a minor house rule. If it's just some of them, or just this one, then it's not a rule change at all, any more than Miko the Paladin calling herself a "samurai in service to Lord Shojo" was.