How many priests are Clerics?

[SilverLeaf167]

If an official answer doesn't exist, I'm also curious about your personal ideas.

In the staff in any given religious institution, what portion of the "clerics" can you expect to be actual spellcasters as opposed to, say, Experts?

Assuming there's a mix of both, how are they ranked? Are spellcasters automatically superior, being clearly favored by their deity and all? Do all priests learn magic over time, and if not, why not (apart from subpar Wisdom)?

[the_david]

There's a section in the 3.5 DMG that can help you with figuring this out. It's supposed to be used for communities, but from there you could extrapolate the number of Clerics and Adepts by dividing them in churches.

The domesday book comes up with one clergyman for every 40 citizens, and 1 priest for every 25-30 clergyman. That seems like a lot of clergymen...

[Pugwampy]

In Pathfinder there is a priest class who is just a more magical , less martial version of a cleric.

In my opinion the Cleric is the sandwich between Paladin and Priest but all can perform marriage ceremonies .



In the staff in any given religious institution, what portion of the "clerics" can you expect to be actual spellcasters as opposed to, say, Experts?

Well in DND la la land physics , its just so easy to get powers from praying . I assume anyone above layman is powered up .


Assuming there's a mix of both, how are they ranked? Are spellcasters automatically superior, being clearly favored by their deity and all?

Assuming its not a god of magic or war.
The gods need a good sword arm just as much as they need a specialist healer . Fragile Priests need protection . Warrior priests need extra healing because of their 200 hp .
A paladin would not be less rank than a priest.

Its possible a monk might be less ranked as a personal choice . As far as I am concerned whomever is the oldest and / or most clued up on holy scripts would be head of that church .

[umbergod]

Its really up to the DM on that question tbh. In the e6 game im working on right meow, clerics are quite a bit more rare than adapts, experts, and others whom are merely followers of the religion within the church.

[KillianHawkeye]

In my opinion, Clerics and Paladins would be more favored for their magical connection to their deity, but a priest's job is really to perform the religious services and educate the masses about the god's message. Anybody with decent Knowledge (religion) and Perform (oratory) can do that.

I would expect that most non-adventuring Clerics (or Druids, if a nature deity) would be priests at least part-time, but the clergy probably also includes Monks, Experts, Adepts, and possibly even retired Paladins (or Rangers). A Bard might make an interesting priest as well, for an appropriate deity. Favored Souls don't even get Knowledge (religion), and they're said to not quite get along with their deity's other servants, so I don't think many of them would go into priesthood.

[Darth Ultron]

Very Few.

The problem is that this is one spot where D&D has not updated itself out of the idea that ''the whole world is based around combat dungeon adventures''.

A church would be made up of a ton of people with access to divine power and spells that are not walking masses of armor and weapons, just waiting to kill, loot, repeat.

But D&D 3.5 does not have a ''priest'' or ''divine follower'' type class in core, but there are a couple floating around.

So a church would have some thing like say 50% not-cleric divine casters, 40% a mix of other classes, and 10% ''kill, loot, repeat'' clerics.

[Tiri]

Very Few.

The problem is that this is one spot where D&D has not updated itself out of the idea that ''the whole world is based around combat dungeon adventures''.

A church would be made up of a ton of people with access to divine power and spells that are not walking masses of armor and weapons, just waiting to kill, loot, repeat.

But D&D 3.5 does not have a ''priest'' or ''divine follower'' type class in core, but there are a couple floating around.

So a church would have some thing like say 50% not-cleric divine casters, 40% a mix of other classes, and 10% ''kill, loot, repeat'' clerics.

This is a completely inaccurate statement. Commoners, Adepts and Experts fill the 'priest' and 'divine follower' roles quite well, and they are all in core. The NPC classes are even explicitly for those who don't earn a living from 'combat dungeon adventures'.

[Calthropstu]

In Pathfinder there is a priest class who is just a more magical...


I just checked the pfsrd... where is this priest class? I see warpriest, but not priest.

nvm, I found it. It's a third party class from a company I've never heard of before.

[Darth Ultron]

This is a completely inaccurate statement. Commoners, Adepts and Experts fill the 'priest' and 'divine follower' roles quite well, and they are all in core. The NPC classes are even explicitly for those who don't earn a living from 'combat dungeon adventures'.

I'm talking about people who get abilities from divine power and spells. Not just ''anyone'' who just follows the god.

And like I said, D&D 3.5 does not have a good non combat type priest that gets abilities and spells from their god, but is not and ''adventurer type''.


I just checked the pfsrd... where is this priest class? I see warpriest, but not priest.

You gotta got to the third party stuff. Sadly the ''priests'' are ''just like clerics, but like with simple weapons'' are are ''kill, loot, repeat adventurers that, er, um, just stay in the back or something''.

[Calthropstu]

I'm talking about people who get abilities from divine power and spells. Not just ''anyone'' who just follows the god.

And like I said, D&D 3.5 does not have a good non combat type priest that gets abilities and spells from their god, but is not and ''adventurer type''.



You gotta got to the third party stuff. Sadly the ''priests'' are ''just like clerics, but like with simple weapons'' are are ''kill, loot, repeat adventurers that, er, um, just stay in the back or something''.

Yeah, they look like specialist wizards with divine spells instead of arcane. More spells per day, and nothing else... I can see why I have never heard of that publisher before. That class has no purpose. It doesn't fill an unfilled niche, it is not really an improvement on the cleric, the fluff is bad, it has little imagination in it...

[Darth Ultron]

Yeah, they look like specialist wizards with divine spells instead of arcane. More spells per day, and nothing else... I can see why I have never heard of that publisher before. That class has no purpose. It doesn't fill an unfilled niche, it is not really an improvement on the cleric, the fluff is bad, it has little imagination in it...

I agree.

A true Priest class would have it's own spell list, one with less combat only spells and more utility spells. And it would have it's own Domains with custom spells and non-combat domain abilities.
And it would need other divine abilities related to the god.

[Coretron03]

Uh, Why can't clerics just do that? I mean, They have equal spells per day to a specialist wizards using domain spells and I don't see why every cleric is forced to prepare combat spells and murder monsters like your average adventurer and something like a cloistered cleric could fill the lack of armour and weapons bit. You could also use the Adept npc class to represent a less powerful follower as their list mostly contains utility spells with some combat spells in between. What your asking for is basicly a filled niche as a cleric could deicide he's too weak to wear heavy armour and to fight effectively so he stays at his church with unfilled spell slots so he can deal with people problems as they arise, plus a couple cure spells for safety. Hey look, simple preist that can channel some good spells.

Seriously, your class isn't needed

[Calthropstu]

Uh, Why can't clerics just do that? I mean, They have equal spells per day to a specialist wizards using domain spells and I don't see why every cleric is forced to prepare combat spells and murder monsters like your average adventurer and something like a cloistered cleric could fill the lack of armour and weapons bit. You could also use the Adept npc class to represent a less powerful follower as their list mostly contains utility spells with some combat spells in between. What your asking for is basicly a filled niche as a cleric could deicide he's too weak to wear heavy armour and to fight effectively so he stays at his church with unfilled spell slots so he can deal with people problems as they arise, plus a couple cure spells for safety. Hey look, simple preist that can channel some good spells.

Seriously, your class isn't needed

Cadderly fits this description well. He didn't wear armor, he didn't really fight with weapons (sorry, his yo-yo I still don't consider a weapon) he relied almost entirely on spells and companions.

[Dagroth]

I'm talking about people who get abilities from divine power and spells. Not just ''anyone'' who just follows the god.

And like I said, D&D 3.5 does not have a good non combat type priest that gets abilities and spells from their god, but is not and ''adventurer type''.

The Healer class from Miniatures Handbook.

[Piranha424]

I've always run games that in general the leader of a church is a Cleric, the rest are Adepts at best and frequently just Commoners or even Experts. If you pop into a small town with a couple hundred people they MIGHT have a 2nd level Cleric that's 70 years old running the church. A town of a couple thousand probably has a couple up to maybe 4th level or so, major cities will sometimes have higher level characters running things or even a retired adventurer or some such. I know there's a chart/guide in one of the books for highest level NPCs based on population which you can use to get an idea. Then again you might also run into a small town of a couple hundred that is fanatically religious with a 10th level Cleric showing them the mighty wonders of a devoted life praying to his god and him.

[Coidzor]

I'd say less than 1/4 are PC-classed for a standard religion, with about 2/3 of the remainder being Experts or Aristocrats and 1/3 being Adepts.

Then again, if one includes Healers, I'd probably bump it up to less than 1/3 being PC-classed.

[Pugwampy]

Yeah, they look like specialist wizards with divine spells instead of arcane. More spells per day, and nothing else... I can see why I have never heard of that publisher before. That class has no purpose. It doesn't fill an unfilled niche, it is not really an improvement on the cleric, the fluff is bad, it has little imagination in it...

The priest obsoletes the cleric .

Any tactical player given a choice of priest or cleric chooses the priest. This class punches undead harder and heals better , chucks more spells .
Priest with selective channel feat is a serious pain up the bum for any DM.
The weapon , armour and HP nerf is bad comedy.

The only time a cleric sees any action in my group is a training wheels PC for new guys .

[Calthropstu]

The priest obsoletes the cleric .

Any tactical player given a choice of priest or cleric chooses the priest. This class punches undead harder and heals better , chucks more spells .
Priest with selective channel feat is a serious pain up the bum for any DM.
The weapon , armour and HP nerf is bad comedy.

The only time a cleric sees any action in my group is a training wheels PC for new guys .

I wouldn't touch that class, or that publisher, with a ten foot pole.

[johnbragg]

A lot of this runs into the problem (or nonproblem if you just decide to ignore it or live with it) that it's very hard to make the XP math work for there to be both A) a lot of 1st level people running around a decidedly unfriendly environment and B) a lot of high-level people who XP'd their way up the ladder.

If the world-at-large is safe enough that sizable 1st level populations exist, then there's not enough XP to go around to fuel the creation of high-level folks, of whatever class.

If the world-at-large is dangerous enough to regularly generate a sizable population of high-level types, it's hard to explain how the Commoner 1s and Expert 2s are still alive.

The D&D classes are ALL built around the idea of dragon-slaying and dungeon-delving etc. The Adept shouldn't be, but it is, because nobody really thought through what sort of spellcaster class a fantasy-medieval population would actually want for non-monster-slaying purposes.

You'd want something with abilities a lot more like the Unearthed ARcana Incantations--things like gather the population of the village together on the Solstices and Equinoxes and lead them in the Song of Fertility to raise the year's crop yields by 10%, etc. Things like 4th/5th edition Rituals to help ensure safe childbirth. And access to some way to try to cure disease way before 5th level.

[Dagroth]

In the more advanced rules in 2nd edition, Clerics got 50xp x spell level for every spell they cast. Wizards got 25xp x spell level. There were a number of other ways classes gained XP for things besides killing, so it made perfect sense for there to be many high-level NPCs around. Even if those NPCs didn't go out adventuring.

[Calthropstu]

A lot of this runs into the problem (or nonproblem if you just decide to ignore it or live with it) that it's very hard to make the XP math work for there to be both A) a lot of 1st level people running around a decidedly unfriendly environment and B) a lot of high-level people who XP'd their way up the ladder.

If the world-at-large is safe enough that sizable 1st level populations exist, then there's not enough XP to go around to fuel the creation of high-level folks, of whatever class.

If the world-at-large is dangerous enough to regularly generate a sizable population of high-level types, it's hard to explain how the Commoner 1s and Expert 2s are still alive.

The D&D classes are ALL built around the idea of dragon-slaying and dungeon-delving etc. The Adept shouldn't be, but it is, because nobody really thought through what sort of spellcaster class a fantasy-medieval population would actually want for non-monster-slaying purposes.

You'd want something with abilities a lot more like the Unearthed ARcana Incantations--things like gather the population of the village together on the Solstices and Equinoxes and lead them in the Song of Fertility to raise the year's crop yields by 10%, etc. Things like 4th/5th edition Rituals to help ensure safe childbirth. And access to some way to try to cure disease way before 5th level.

Actually, politics explain a lot of it, and gods as well. If you decide to go on a "Let's wipe out a million people wheee!" killing spree, you'll attract the notice of a deity or two, who can simply step in and bitch slap you back into reality. No matter how strong you are, there is someone stronger who can kick your high level ass. Politically, this transforms into subtle and secret maneuverings so that the high level person most likely to take notice and bitch slap you will either be otherwise occupied when you make your move, or you can get a leg up on him and ultimately win.

[Coretron03]

I wouldn't touch that class, or that publisher, with a ten foot pole.
Yeah, more spells per day is a bit much and thenloss is a little armour class and hp. and some weapons you shouldn't be using and they can use variant channeling which has some very powerful effects. A bit much.


Actually, politics explain a lot of it, and gods as well. If you decide to go on a "Let's wipe out a million people wheee!" killing spree, you'll attract the notice of a deity or two, who can simply step in and bitch slap you back into reality. No matter how strong you are, there is someone stronger who can kick your high level ass. Politically, this transforms into subtle and secret maneuverings so that the high level person most likely to take notice and bitch slap you will either be otherwise occupied when you make your move, or you can get a leg up on him and ultimately win.
Pun Pun would like a word with you. High OP wizards too. Infact, High op anyone that doesn't rely on a Gods power.

Why don't deities bitch slap the BBEG exactly? Or is he "Dm fiat immune" to the deities for reasons but its ok for the deity to bitch slap PC's for reasons?

[Darth Ultron]

Seriously, your class isn't needed

Clerics are for pure combat and everything about them is combat related. A priest would be non-combat and does not really if into the ''all combat'' D&D rules. But sure you can just be a cleric and pretend to be a priest type.


Cadderly fits this description well. He didn't wear armor, he didn't really fight with weapons (sorry, his yo-yo I still don't consider a weapon) he relied almost entirely on spells and companions.

Cadderly was a cleric, just not a super heavy tank type blaster divine murderohobo type of default cleric. Cadderly was heavily armed: Walking Stick/club/blow gun, Yo-Yo and crossbow with arrows of exploding oil. He just ''forgot'' to cast a lot of common useful cleric spells..and most of his adventures where written from a 2E perspective.




The D&D classes are ALL built around the idea of dragon-slaying and dungeon-delving etc. The Adept shouldn't be, but it is, because nobody really thought through what sort of spellcaster class a fantasy-medieval population would actually want for non-monster-slaying purposes.


This, exactly. A priest would have very few combat type spells, and tons of non-combat ones. In short, they would make a ''bad D&D class'' as D&D classes are all about combat. Look through the cleric spell list for the spells that no player of a cleric ever casts on a typical all combat adventure...they are the priest type spells.

[Coretron03]

Clerics are for pure combat and everything about them is combat related. A priest would be non-combat and does not really if into the ''all combat'' D&D rules. But sure you can just be a cleric and pretend to be a priest type.
Uh, What? A cleric can just not prepare the spells and while you call that "pretending" I call it "preparing non-combat spells" which is kind of rediclous saying a cleric has to prepare combat spells and if they don't their "pretending" to not be a cleric. I though you were all about roleplaying?




This, exactly. A priest would have very few combat type spells, and tons of non-combat ones. In short, they would make a ''bad D&D class'' as D&D classes are all about combat. Look through the cleric spell list for the spells that no player of a cleric ever casts on a typical all combat adventure...they are the priest type spells.
What would be the point of making a class thats the cleric with all the useful spells removed exactly? No pc would play the class unless its a specfic type of game and a dm could just use a cleric that you know, just prepares the non combat spells. No point to making a class for it.

[johnbragg]

What would be the point of making a class thats the cleric with all the useful combat spells removed exactly?

You left out an important part. I fixed it.


No pc would play the class unless its a specfic type of game and a dm could just use a cleric that you know, just prepares the non combat spells. No point to making a class for it.

Well, yeah, no PC would play the class. So there was no point writing it for a sourcebook.
The point is that there is no class (unless it's really obscure third party) that's a good reflection of what actual NPC village and town holy men are doing--keeping the crops and animals and townsfolk blessed and healthy, not so much fighting zombies and bugbears all the time. The divine-caster answer to the Eberron magewright class. Most of the spells they'd reasonably be expected to cast aren't even written, because they're pretty lousy at killing things and looting their bodies.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Almost none. A healthy portion are adepts, though even they are still a minority.

Clerics (the class) aren't just priests. They're divinely mandated warrior-priests; the elite of the elite amongst their gods' clergy. They're supposed to take the fight to the enemies of the faith and to recover lost relics and generally safe-guard and advance their deity's cause in the material world.

Tending the flock is for parish priests madeup mostly of experts with adepts sprinkled around for a bit of divine magic.

[Darth Ultron]

Uh, What? A cleric can just not prepare the spells and while you call that "pretending" I call it "preparing non-combat spells" which is kind of rediclous saying a cleric has to prepare combat spells and if they don't their "pretending" to not be a cleric. I though you were all about roleplaying?

It is the classic optimization fallacy: that you can make a hard core roll playing all combat optimized character, ignore everything on the character sheet and role play. A cleric can role play being a priest, but it would be false.





What would be the point of making a class thats the cleric with all the useful spells removed exactly? No pc would play the class unless its a specfic type of game and a dm could just use a cleric that you know, just prepares the non combat spells. No point to making a class for it.

Well, see your saying the only ''useful'' spells are the combat related ones, right? Your stuck on the pure action and combat game. And it's true a great many players would have no interest playing a non-combat type class in a typical D&D game. That is why here is nothing like that in the core rules.
The D&D classes are ALL built around the idea of dragon-slaying and dungeon-delving etc.

[Coretron03]

It is the classic optimization fallacy: that you can make a hard core roll playing all combat optimized character, ignore everything on the character sheet and role play. A cleric can role play being a priest, but it would be false. I... I don't even. Never heard of this before. I feel like your saying that roleplaying as something you didn't build your character for is badwrongfun but that doesn't really make sense. This is like saying "a fighter can roleplay being guild boss but that would be false" or something. Or, are you saying that roleplay has to be backed up by mechanics? that would make a bit more sense but honestly doesn't matter. If I want to play a priest I would build my character around that, maybe taking cloistered cleric and such and wear no armour and be purely for utility I would try to back it up but according to you thats false? I don't really understand what you mean.

Also, Did you ever make that thread about how the stromwind fallancy is full or hot air and is false?



Well, see your saying the only ''useful'' spells are the combat related ones, right? Your stuck on the pure action and combat game. And it's true a great many players would have no interest playing a non-combat type class in a typical D&D game. That is why here is nothing like that in the core rules.
The D&D classes are ALL built around the idea of dragon-slaying and dungeon-delving etc.
???

So why would you need a class for it then? Sides, the games called dungeons and dragons, which should hint it might just ever so slightly revolve around that.

You really don't seem to be making sense at all , Darth. I'm not sure what your point is.

[Calthropstu]

Yeah, more spells per day is a bit much and thenloss is a little armour class and hp. and some weapons you shouldn't be using and they can use variant channeling which has some very powerful effects. A bit much.


Pun Pun would like a word with you. High OP wizards too. Infact, High op anyone that doesn't rely on a Gods power.

Why don't deities bitch slap the BBEG exactly? Or is he "Dm fiat immune" to the deities for reasons but its ok for the deity to bitch slap PC's for reasons?

Pun Pun can be beaten by the temporal assassin if I remember correctly.
And I have yet to find a "High OP Wizard" that was completely unbeatable.

Most BBEG are out to dominate a city or some such. Take over a kingdom, destroy something... Deities have many many tricks they use to smack people down. Normally it is a minor investment into an artifact, or imbuing heroes with great power to end a threat. RARELY do they directly intervene. But when it becomes apparent they must, they can and will. The way I see it, the PCs are such deific investments.

But all that aside, the mere THREAT of a god possibly intervening is generally more than enough to prevent most powerful entities from acting rashly.

[atemu1234]

I mean, it depends how we qualify 'priest', do we mean it in the sense of any kind of head-of-church person? Or only the basic catholic variety?

[Calthropstu]

I mean, it depends how we qualify 'priest', do we mean it in the sense of any kind of head-of-church person? Or only the basic catholic variety?

If I remember correctly, there are canon noncombatant priests that simply spread the word, similar to our catholic priests. They are clergy, and of the priesthood, but not actual clerics. I forget what story it was from, but it was described kind of like monastery with priests taking care of and watching children. No spellcasting was mentioned.

[johnbragg]

Or, are you saying that roleplay has to be backed up by mechanics?

It doesn't have to be, but it helps.


that would make a bit more sense but honestly doesn't matter. If I want to play a priest I would build my character around that, maybe taking cloistered cleric and such and wear no armour and be purely for utility I would try to back it up but according to you thats false?

It's false in that you're not using a good chunk of your class features, and half of what you're trying to do on a daily basis isn't really supported by your spells and class features.


So why would you need a class for it then? Sides, the games called dungeons and dragons, which should hint it might just ever so slightly revolve around that.

We obviously don't need a class for it--we've been playing the game in various editions for 40 years. But we "need" the class to flesh out, mechanically, what the NPC priests in towns and villages and the less fashionable parts of the cities are doing on a daily basis when the PCs aren't there to get healed for sizable donations.


You really don't seem to be making sense at all , Darth. I'm not sure what your point is.

The point is that the Cleric class, written mostly with Crusader orders like the Templars and Hospitalers plus an over-interpretation of a mace-wielding bishop from the BAyeux Tapestry, doesn't represent the "civilian" village priest, whose life revolves a lot more around midwifing animals and boiling up healing salves (Heal, maybe Craft:Alchemy) and keeping the village in the good graces of the pantheon than around, well, dungeons or dragons. And neither does it's various divine-caster variants like Favored Soul or Spirit Shaman; or it's more-martial variants like PAladin or Pathfinder Warpriest

[Crake]

I'm talking about people who get abilities from divine power and spells. Not just ''anyone'' who just follows the god.

And like I said, D&D 3.5 does not have a good non combat type priest that gets abilities and spells from their god, but is not and ''adventurer type''.



You gotta got to the third party stuff. Sadly the ''priests'' are ''just like clerics, but like with simple weapons'' are are ''kill, loot, repeat adventurers that, er, um, just stay in the back or something''.

Are you completely ignoring the adept NPC class, which does exactly that? Adepts are divine casters, recieving their power from a deity, but are not an "adventurer type", they are an NPC class. The way I run it in my game it depends entirely where you are. In a small town, or a place with a small presence of that particular deity, you may be looking at one actual cleric, no higher than level 5, with maybe two to four adepts as clergymen, plus a few experts and commoners who perform volunteer work. In a more major city, or a religious capital, you may be looking at an entire clergy of nothing but clerics, all of whom are level 10+ with the high priest being capable of 9ths or even epic level spells.

[johnbragg]

I mean, it depends how we qualify 'priest', do we mean it in the sense of any kind of head-of-church person? Or only the basic catholic variety?

I'd say most anyone whose full-time occupation involves hanging around the temple. In most D&Dverses, they fill the IRL roles of the medical profession because they have magic that can do that. Plus some number of specialty priests doing certain expert jobs (priests of knowledge at the Great Library, priests of the sea and/or storm gods on ships, etc.)

[AtlasSniperman]

Was going to reply last night but didn't have the time. So sorry if this has already been mentioned.

I recommend picking a set of classes(Cleric, Priest, Paladin, Adept, and Expert should work) to start. I know there is a table or rules or something for proportions of different classes by level in a settlement. I'd treat the religious hierarchy as a single settlement and the classes you chose as the only classes available in the 'settlement'. And ranking is based on character level not really the class.

[Flickerdart]

Let's take a look at the basic structure of a church, to understand who its members ought to be.


Seat of power: Organized religion needs to be organized. Determine some place that is most holy to this particular church, and set up shop there. Build your greatest temple, place your high priest and his retinue, throw in a treasury to house all the tribute from the faithful. A barracks full of paladins is not out of the question. If high priests in your realm bow to kings, each kingdom may have its own seat of power. If this faith is not so centralized, proceed to the next level.
Holy sites: In addition to the super-holy place, there will be many holy-ish places. Each of them needs a smaller temple, more junior priest, and a more minor treasury. But these places are still mighty bastions of the faith.
Monasteries: A temple is no place to house a population of full-time faithful - they have to eat, they have to sleep, they have to study far away from the temptations of the marketplace. A monastery will frequently have its own temple, treasury, and fancy priest.
Churches: These are built for everyday worship in towns and cities. They will be led by a fairly junior priest and some disciples. Churches have a small treasury, since they will not receive too many donations that won't immediately be used for upkeep of the church, distributed as alms to the poor, or sent to the nearest seat of power.
Altars: If you're a level 0 commoner living out in the boonies, nobody's going to build you a church. But you might have a house with an altar, or a sacred well, or whatever. It will probably be ministered by an even more low-level priest than churches, and he will have no underlings, except maybe the village kids that he's teaching to read and write.
Journeymen: There are even more remote areas that the faith may wish to project its influence into, without so much as a dedicated altar. Wandering priests will accomplish this goal.



So, where are all the clerics?

Monasteries will probably be 90% cleric. Being a cleric takes a lot of study, and these guys can afford to devote their time to it. Most of them would be low-level trainees that do the grunt work. Seats of power and holy sites would constantly recruit their highest-level clerics for service to the high priests of the faith. Most if not all of the upper crust will be real clerics, and lower-ranked clerks will not have the knowledge. They will also send out powerful clerics to handle the problems that plague their smaller conclaves. Churches are probably led by a cleric or at least an adept, who might have taught the priests under him a handful of cantrips. Altars and journeymen are priests with no powers, because anyone who can cast spells has long since been reassigned to somewhere that matters.

[Coretron03]

Pun Pun can be beaten by the temporal assassin if I remember correctly.
And I have yet to find a "High OP Wizard" that was completely unbeatable.

Most BBEG are out to dominate a city or some such. Take over a kingdom, destroy something... Deities have many many tricks they use to smack people down. Normally it is a minor investment into an artifact, or imbuing heroes with great power to end a threat. RARELY do they directly intervene. But when it becomes apparent they must, they can and will. The way I see it, the PCs are such deific investments.

But all that aside, the mere THREAT of a god possibly intervening is generally more than enough to prevent most powerful entities from acting rashly.

So your classic destroy the world plot gets a A ok from the deities not to bitch slap but god forbid (literally) a player trying to murder a ton of people who gets bitch slapped directly ? Rather then do what your saying and sending in a powered up hero?
I'd also like some links about the beating pun pun thing, My google fu failed.

It doesn't have to be, but it helps.
I agree



It's false in that you're not using a good chunk of your class features, and half of what you're trying to do on a daily basis isn't really supported by your spells and class features.

Which class features are unused? I'm using their light armour prof and their spells, its not like I could use every spell by default and use weapon prof with quarterstaves/ other basic stuff. Thats like saying fighters aren't using all their class features because they wear heavy armour when they have light armour prof.


We obviously don't need a class for it--we've been playing the game in various editions for 40 years. But we "need" the class to flesh out, mechanically, what the NPC priests in towns and villages and the less fashionable parts of the cities are doing on a daily basis when the PCs aren't there to get healed for sizable donations.
Adept is a class.



The point is that the Cleric class, written mostly with Crusader orders like the Templars and Hospitalers plus an over-interpretation of a mace-wielding bishop from the BAyeux Tapestry, doesn't represent the "civilian" village priest, whose life revolves a lot more around midwifing animals and boiling up healing salves (Heal, maybe Craft:Alchemy) and keeping the village in the good graces of the pantheon than around, well, dungeons or dragons. And neither does it's various divine-caster variants like Favored Soul or Spirit Shaman; or it's more-martial variants like PAladin or Pathfinder Warpriest
Adept is still a class. But yes, clerics were designed like that because they were designed for adventuring and basic healing in churches was primarily for adepts to handle. Maybe a prestigous member might a be a cleric from the church.

[Tiri]

I'm talking about people who get abilities from divine power and spells. Not just ''anyone'' who just follows the god.


Again, Adepts. Did you actually bother to look up the things I told you about? They're a weaker divine casting class for NPCs, with their own spell list.


Their explicit purpose is to represent weaker, largely unimportant divine spellcasters in the clergy and tribal-shaman-type NPCs.

[johnbragg]

Adept is a class.

Adept is the NPC class that should fill this role. But I don't think a whole lot of thought went into the Adept--it's a quickie priest for cultures not advanced enough to have real clerics or druids.

But that still isn't doing what real-world polytheists thought their priests were doing--what the Romans called "cultivation of the gods." Their job is to make sure the mercurial divinities are properly honored with the right sacrifices so that they bestow their blessings on the city or kingdom or empire or tribe. And in a universe where divine servants have access to healing, they'll be expected to supply the healing.

[Darth Ultron]

Are you completely ignoring the adept NPC class,

No? The adept class is just a very, very, very lazy non-cleric divine caster class that gets a couple cleric spells. It's not even close to a priest type class.


I'd say most anyone whose full-time occupation involves hanging around the temple.

Or more basically promoting the faith and tending to worshipers in every way possible except killing monsters and roll-playing mindless combat. So they have spells to say bless a marriage, not do 1d6 damage.


Again, Adepts. Did you actually bother to look up the things I told you about? They're a weaker divine casting class for NPCs, with their own spell list.


Their explicit purpose is to represent weaker, largely unimportant divine spellcasters in the clergy and tribal-shaman-type NPCs.

Sure adepts have there ''own'' spell list in the most lazy way possible: they just picked a couple of core spells and said ''oh they can cast them''. Wow...bet that took them like a whole minute....

And true an adept is a weak, unimportant divine spellcaster....but they don't cover the role of priest at all. A Priest would have divine power and spells equal in power to a cleric, just non-combat ones.

[Dagroth]

Adept is the NPC class that should fill this role. But I don't think a whole lot of thought went into the Adept--it's a quickie priest for cultures not advanced enough to have real clerics or druids.

But that still isn't doing what real-world polytheists thought their priests were doing--what the Romans called "cultivation of the gods." Their job is to make sure the mercurial divinities are properly honored with the right sacrifices so that they bestow their blessings on the city or kingdom or empire or tribe. And in a universe where divine servants have access to healing, they'll be expected to supply the healing.

Let's see...

Huh, the Cure (x) wounds spells are on the Adept list.

Commune is a 5th level Adept spell...

So, they can supply healing (as you said) and they can ask the mercurial divinities if they are properly honored (as you said).

[johnbragg]

Let's see...

Huh, the Cure (x) wounds spells are on the Adept list.

Commune is a 5th level Adept spell...

So, they can supply healing (as you said) and they can ask the mercurial divinities if they are properly honored (as you said).

But they can't lead the congregation in a ceremony to ensure the fertility of the crops for the year. (At least none that would have any crunch effect by RAW.) They can't cure your cow's rickety shinglepox until 8th level when they get remove disease.

Now I'm not super mad at the designers about this. Adepts, to be a valuable part of the texture of the campaign world, would need a whole new list of spells and possibly a new mechanic (something skill-DC based like truespeaking or like the UA incantation non-system.) And all for a class that would (or should) be unplayable as a dungeon-delving dragon-slayer.

But if we're just talking numbers, then yeah, most of the temple priests should be adepts and only a handful should be plate-and-shield clerics casting spiritual weapon and flame strike.

[KillianHawkeye]

A Priest would have divine power and spells equal in power to a cleric, just non-combat ones.

Making this assumption is your mistake. There is no reason at all for non-adventuring priests to have 9th level spells. Non-combat spells can all safely be much lower level than that.

An Adept fills the role of village priest perfectly fine, and it's one of the things the class was intended to be used for.

[Shackel]

But they can't lead the congregation in a ceremony to ensure the fertility of the crops for the year. (At least none that would have any crunch effect by RAW.) They can't cure your cow's rickety shinglepox until 8th level when they get remove disease.

Now I'm not super mad at the designers about this. Adepts, to be a valuable part of the texture of the campaign world, would need a whole new list of spells and possibly a new mechanic (something skill-DC based like truespeaking or like the UA incantation non-system.) And all for a class that would (or should) be unplayable as a dungeon-delving dragon-slayer.

But if we're just talking numbers, then yeah, most of the temple priests should be adepts and only a handful should be plate-and-shield clerics casting spiritual weapon and flame strike.

This sounds a little silly; those fall rather heavily into not just world-by-world basis, but GM-by-GM and campaign-by-campaign. It's like demanding every cultist who has a ritual to bring Super Evil Demon #401 must have their list of super evil rituals statted out or something's wrong. Even if they were to stat out the rituals, sacrifices, effects, boons and blessings of every individual god, they'd miss something and the complaints would start up again about how "hey how come there's no rules for X."

[Arkhios]

Just my 2 cents.

To me, a priest (disregarding editions and class options) means a person who follows and serves a deity. That doesn't necessarily imply anything more than a religious follower; a rogue might be as much a priest as a cleric might (or might not) be. Clerics come from a completely different mold. They can actually claim a true connection with their deities. I would say that there are only a handful of clerics within a congregation, meaning that while most of the members of a congregation might be priests, not all of them are clerics with spellcasting abilities.

[SilverLeaf167]

So, what do y'all think defines who can become an Adept/Cleric/whatever, and who stays a mere Expert? If they're already devoting their lives to their deity, effort and time can't be the main issue. Wis 11 (enough for lv1 spells) can't be that rare either. A Cloistered Cleric doesn't even require combat training.

Personally I lean towards the simple answer of "all magic, spontaneous or not, requires a vaguely defined spark most people just don't have".

[Fizban]

It's already been said but: you generate the NPCs for the city or town. NPC Clerics who are a static part of that town are most likely part of their church. This page (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm) says that in a medieval-ish world there should be 1 clergymen for every 40 people, and 1 priest for every 25-30 clergy. Take the number of clergy you need and assign your NPCs to them as desired, probably with the higher leveled clerics in positions of power, followed by the higher level adepts, followed by experts, but leaving some adepts and make a couple clerics as independents that still live in the given city. If an adept is high enough level that their spells aren't hugely behind a cleric, the adept is probably the priest while the cleric is a fixer, and the more militant the faith the more likely they use all their clerics for outside work.

[Calthropstu]

It doesn't have to be, but it helps.



It's false in that you're not using a good chunk of your class features, and half of what you're trying to do on a daily basis isn't really supported by your spells and class features.



We obviously don't need a class for it--we've been playing the game in various editions for 40 years. But we "need" the class to flesh out, mechanically, what the NPC priests in towns and villages and the less fashionable parts of the cities are doing on a daily basis when the PCs aren't there to get healed for sizable donations.



The point is that the Cleric class, written mostly with Crusader orders like the Templars and Hospitalers plus an over-interpretation of a mace-wielding bishop from the BAyeux Tapestry, doesn't represent the "civilian" village priest, whose life revolves a lot more around midwifing animals and boiling up healing salves (Heal, maybe Craft:Alchemy) and keeping the village in the good graces of the pantheon than around, well, dungeons or dragons. And neither does it's various divine-caster variants like Favored Soul or Spirit Shaman; or it's more-martial variants like PAladin or Pathfinder Warpriest
Actually, Pathfinder did address this at some point. I am told there was an effort to create all sorts of classes like this but it was abandoned as completely unnecessary. And, in actuality, the cleric fits this role fine.

Just because you CAN wear armor and have that training, doesn't mean you HAVE to wear armor, carry a weapon, and fight in the front lines. A cleric can sit at the temple all day and recite poetry if he wants. A great example of this is the game Neverwinter Nights. You have a ton of clerics all over town, some of them battle priests, others are just out tending the sick. The cleric in part 2 hires the protagonist rather than leave the temple. He's certainly capable of trudging around looking for those werewolves himself, but it would mean leaving the temple and not being there for the sick and injured.

My point is, most NPC clerics are going to be exactly what you are describing. Their spell slots aren't prepped for battle. They are prepped for tending the injured. I bet almost the entirety of the standard NPC cleric's spells for the day are prepped with restoration, remove poison, raise dead, remove disease and the like. And, in actuality, the VAST majority of spells are things that you will never find in a published handbook as they have nothing to do with adventuring.

Spells like "Bountiful Harvest" and "Reinforce Womb" or even "Fix Cramp" and the like will be much more often memorized and cast than the spells in the PHB or Core Rulebook. The standard hedge wizard or a village cleric will have maybe 3 to 6 battle spells, 1 escape spell, and the rest meant for his day to day duties.

[Crake]

No? The adept class is just a very, very, very lazy non-cleric divine caster class that gets a couple cleric spells. It's not even close to a priest type class.



Or more basically promoting the faith and tending to worshipers in every way possible except killing monsters and roll-playing mindless combat. So they have spells to say bless a marriage, not do 1d6 damage.



Sure adepts have there ''own'' spell list in the most lazy way possible: they just picked a couple of core spells and said ''oh they can cast them''. Wow...bet that took them like a whole minute....

And true an adept is a weak, unimportant divine spellcaster....but they don't cover the role of priest at all. A Priest would have divine power and spells equal in power to a cleric, just non-combat ones.

An adept can be a priest just as much as a cleric can be a priest. "Priest" is not a "class" any more than "bodyguard" is a class. It's a vocation, and any number of "classes" (a purely mechanical term) can be used to represent someone being a "priest". Adepts, clerics, hell, even druids can all qualify as "priests". There is literally nothing "unpriestly" about adepts, and if you believe they are, provide some backing for that argument, rather than just openly stating it without any reasoning.


So, what do y'all think defines who can become an Adept/Cleric/whatever, and who stays a mere Expert? If they're already devoting their lives to their deity, effort and time can't be the main issue. Wis 11 (enough for lv1 spells) can't be that rare either. A Cloistered Cleric doesn't even require combat training.

Personally I lean towards the simple answer of "all magic, spontaneous or not, requires a vaguely defined spark most people just don't have".

In my game generally those who recieve power are those ordained by the existing priesthood, and approved by the deity in question. Adepts represent those with less potential, the same way a warrior represents a fighter with less potential. Experts and commoners are generally volunteers or people who merely "work" at the church, rather than making it their entire lives.

[Darth Ultron]

An adept can be a priest just as much as a cleric can be a priest. "Priest" is not a "class" any more than "bodyguard" is a class. It's a vocation, and any number of "classes" (a purely mechanical term) can be used to represent someone being a "priest". Adepts, clerics, hell, even druids can all qualify as "priests". There is literally nothing "unpriestly" about adepts, and if you believe they are, provide some backing for that argument, rather than just openly stating it without any reasoning.


I have been talking about a non-combat *New* priest class. But sure you can call ''anyone a fighter or a wizard'' too as it's a job, no matter the D&D class they are in the rules.

So my argument, as I guess you somehow don't read my posts, is that adepts are just lazy copies of clerics. They are just watered down clerics with a lot less of the same spells. A priest would have an ability to replace turn undead more like Pathfinders channel divine power, some abilities to make up for the loss of weapons and armor(much like how druids get some) and most of all a huge spell list that is of equal size the the cleric spell list called Priest spells with dozens of non combat spells . There would be some ''crossover'' spells, like dispel magic, but more unique spells.

[johnbragg]

This sounds a little silly; those fall rather heavily into not just world-by-world basis, but GM-by-GM and campaign-by-campaign. It's like demanding every cultist who has a ritual to bring Super Evil Demon #401 must have their list of super evil rituals statted out or something's wrong. Even if they were to stat out the rituals, sacrifices, effects, boons and blessings of every individual god, they'd miss something and the complaints would start up again about how "hey how come there's no rules for X."

This might be a 3X thing, because 3X made it possible to stat most everything, making PC-NPC transparency an implied rule. So if the BBEG is using a ritual to bring Super Evil Demon #401, it's probably planar binding or planar ally (or maybe gate) and the players can look up the spell and poke around for holes in the spell description.

So maybe we've lost the assumption that there are spells not in the PHB because players have little interest in them. A lot of it would actually be under a fixed Heal skill, where DC 25 or 30 checks would actually get you something useful.

[Flickerdart]

So, what do y'all think defines who can become an Adept/Cleric/whatever, and who stays a mere Expert? If they're already devoting their lives to their deity, effort and time can't be the main issue. Wis 11 (enough for lv1 spells) can't be that rare either. A Cloistered Cleric doesn't even require combat training.

Personally I lean towards the simple answer of "all magic, spontaneous or not, requires a vaguely defined spark most people just don't have".

Not all effort is the same. Experts are clerks - they scribe manuscripts, deal with logistics and ledgers, keep the bureaucracy of the church running. The clerics sit in prayer and contemplate the infinite all day.

[Dagroth]

I have been talking about a non-combat *New* priest class. But sure you can call ''anyone a fighter or a wizard'' too as it's a job, no matter the D&D class they are in the rules.

So my argument, as I guess you somehow don't read my posts, is that adepts are just lazy copies of clerics. They are just watered down clerics with a lot less of the same spells. A priest would have an ability to replace turn undead more like Pathfinders channel divine power, some abilities to make up for the loss of weapons and armor(much like how druids get some) and most of all a huge spell list that is of equal size the the cleric spell list called Priest spells with dozens of non combat spells . There would be some ''crossover'' spells, like dispel magic, but more unique spells.

Um...

Why does this theoretical class need to exist?

There's a reason that NPC classes exist and that they're not as good as PC classes. It's called "Heroic Fiction".

The Heroes (the PCs) are supposed to be better than everyone. Sure, there are other powerful good guys.. but everyone is not supposed to be as capable (or as potentially capable) as the Heroes.

Most members of the Thieve's Guild are going to be Experts. Most members of the City Guard are going to be Warriors. In Heroic Fiction, most people aren't "Special Snowflakes", which makes the Heroes stand out even more.

[enderlord99]

This thread made me angry and I'm not sure why.

[Flickerdart]

This thread made me angry and I'm not sure why.

You might be a Barbarian.

[Darth Ultron]

The Heroes (the PCs) are supposed to be better than everyone. Sure, there are other powerful good guys.. but everyone is not supposed to be as capable (or as potentially capable) as the Heroes.

A PC cleric would be ''better'' then a NPC Priest class type. So...



Most members of the Thieve's Guild are going to be Experts. Most members of the City Guard are going to be Warriors. In Heroic Fiction, most people aren't "Special Snowflakes", which makes the Heroes stand out even more.

True.

But again the PC classes are all about combat. The Rouge is a ''sneaky combat striker'' and not a ''thief'' so much. Again a Non-Combat ''Criminal'' class would not be so over loaded with combat stuff. And City Guards should have a ''Guard'' class, semi combative sure, but with a big plus to skills.

[Dagroth]

A PC cleric would be ''better'' then a NPC Priest class type. So...

And the Cleric class is better than the Adept Class. Done.


True.

But again the PC classes are all about combat. The Rouge is a ''sneaky combat striker'' and not a ''thief'' so much. Again a Non-Combat ''Criminal'' class would not be so over loaded with combat stuff. And City Guards should have a ''Guard'' class, semi combative sure, but with a big plus to skills.

The Expert class does almost all of what you're talking about.

A multiclass NPC with levels in Warrior & Expert would be the "investigator" type city guard you're talking about.

Personally, I think you're trying to fine-grain everything too much. Who cares if the Deacon of the sub-church is a 5th level Adept? Are the players going to be killing him any time soon? Who cares if the old man who runs the old church in the town of Squatsville is a Cleric, an Adept or an Expert. Unless he's highly important to the plot, it doesn't matter.

Who cares what class the twelve dudes at the monastery on the hill are? Again, unless they're the enemy it doesn't matter. If the players want to slaughter them, treat them as Level 1 Commoners who die if the PCs stare at them too hard!

Don't get bogged down by the minutia. How many Priests are Clerics? It doesn't matter!