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Pinjata
2018-01-14, 09:14 AM
My campaign starts at the 4th year after Protector Angel is gone from the Land. Her liutenants are dissapearing and once powerful militant wing of the Church has ever less Paladins and Clerics to confront the ever-growing horrors of vampires, werevolves and cultists. Cultist raids and gruesume murders are on the rise and divine protection of the Realm is fading.

A group of four "members" of the Church is sent into a Borderlands region to retrieve a certain artifact. In the old days, this group would consist of at least one Paladin, a few Clerics, accompanied by at least 20 militiamen. In current setting time, it is four people: A disillusioned priest of the Church(has no/almost none magical powers), former mercenary, who likes the Church for coins they pay him, young sorcerer, who had her face branded in a cultist ritual and keeps herself going purely on hatred toward Cultists and an ex-convict who got sort of parole if he/she joins the cultists.

Ma question is twofold: What do you think of background? What sort of classes would you attribute to these backgrounds? I was thinking Fighter, Fighter, Sorcerer, Rogue. One option I was playing with was a paladin, that has to roll 1d10 whenever he/she casts any divine magic. On a roll of 1, spell fails.Its DnD 5e btw.

Lvl 2 Expert
2018-01-14, 09:50 AM
The priest seems to be the least clear cut one. Monk fits thematically, as does some sort of not quite fallen but temporarily depowered paladin. The group can probably use some healing, so paladin or cleric would be nice, or any other class that gets healing powers. If the priest is a fighter the sorcerer and rogue might need to try to get as much healing as possible in their build, maybe with use magic device or something. Maybe the mercenary could be a ranger, but everything that gives you in healing magic/skills it loses in tankyness and not needing to be healed.

Anymage
2018-01-14, 10:03 AM
I'm tempted to crib a bit of 4e fluff here, because it makes so much more sense than the alternative. Priests don't just get magic because seminary school teaches them how to successfully request miracles. Priests are imbued with the ability to do magic through a ritual, and retain whatever juju indefinitely. This explains both why every priest doesn't have spellcasting ability, and how your character isn't the one bossing around a god to get their spells.

As always ask the player. But float the idea as an option, so a disgruntled priest can still perform the same party role as a cleric instead of losing their power. Because if the disillusioned priest was primarily doing some form of non-priestly duty, what class most closely met their primary role would be clearer.

(Assuming 5e here, too, background != class. Anyone can have the Acolyte or Outlaw background without necessarily being a cleric or rogue. Again, float the ideas if your players want to try playing against type.)