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Old 11-10-2011, 06:06 AM   #1
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Default [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

Just about any power can be justified in theory by being the cleric of the right deity. Just pick a god who is in charge of whatever you want to create or control and you have your justification.

However, perhaps not every power is suitable for a dungeon fantasy cleric. They might infringe too much on niche protection, or not be appropriate powers for DF, or must just need to be carefully limited.

So what powers do you think a dungeon fantasy cleric should not be able to have, or should only be allowed to have in carefully controlled amounts?
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:21 AM   #2
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

I'd say that it's mostly a style issue, i.e. while the effects (and advantages used) might be pretty close to what a "Wizard" would do, it shouldn't look that way. I'm not averse to "direct damage" powers, meaning attacks that cause normal damage. But the "direct" part should be a bit more muddled, so if at all avoidable no streaks of color emitting from the clerics hand. I'd favor area effects, bombardments, maledictions etc., avoiding single-target to-hit rolls. DF already tries to circumvent powers where you need to roll for success (e.g. Healing). The Gods don't roll dice.

Extending that, it's probably best to avoid low-level damage spells. They infringe upon normal magic-users, and you probably don't have the points to make them look like acts of divine intervention. Don't go for pew-pew fire bolts, wait until you can get the more appropriate Pillar of All-Consuming Flame.

For lower level attacks, Afflictions (esp. Maledictions) work much better. Make the heathen kneel down in pain, not dodge a glowing sphere.
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:22 AM   #3
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

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Originally Posted by Greg 1 View Post
Just about any power can be justified in theory by being the cleric of the right deity. Just pick a god who is in charge of whatever you want to create or control and you have your justification.
However, perhaps not every power is suitable for a dungeon fantasy cleric. They might infringe too much on niche protection, or not be appropriate powers for DF, or must just need to be carefully limited.

So what powers do you think a dungeon fantasy cleric should not be able to have, or should only be allowed to have in carefully controlled amounts?
As you can probably assume, I like Divine Favor and use it in my DF game (after all, I wrote Dungeon Saints). Personally, I feel that the oy niche that clerics should not be allowed to "invade" is the wizard's and mentalist's: No mind control, no analizing magic effects/spells/etc, not affecting magic directly. I don't fear a cleric's intrusion on the night's or swashbuckler's niche, since that's what the Holy Warrior/Warrior Saint does, and in the end, you see that they need many more points to be both a good holy man and a good fighter. Invading the wizard/sage niches is much easier, and clashes much more with my view ofholy men:

Holyness is a question of faith, not knowledge. The holy men accepts that there are mysteries beyond his comprehension. In fact, he can see the seeking of such understanding as blasphemous! Also, faith has a basis of choice (since you must chose to believe), so it can't be used to force the choice of another being.
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:24 AM   #4
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

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I'd say that it's mostly a style issue, i.e. while the effects (and advantages used) might be pretty close to what a "Wizard" would do, it shouldn't look that way. I'm not averse to "direct damage" powers, meaning attacks that cause normal damage. But the "direct" part should be a bit more muddled, so if at all avoidable no streaks of color emitting from the clerics hand. I'd favor area effects, bombardments, maledictions etc., avoiding single-target to-hit rolls. DF already tries to circumvent powers where you need to roll for success (e.g. Healing). The Gods don't roll dice.

Extending that, it's probably best to avoid low-level damage spells. They infringe upon normal magic-users, and you probably don't have the points to make them look like acts of divine intervention. Don't go for pew-pew fire bolts, wait until you can get the more appropriate Pillar of All-Consuming Flame.

For lower level attacks, Afflictions (esp. Maledictions) work much better. Make the heathen kneel down in pain, not dodge a glowing sphere.
I wonder, did my vision as exressed in Dungeon Saints in the DF pyramid fit your view?
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:24 AM   #5
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

Restrict the amounts of gods available.

Or have them have only a narrow range of abilities tied to that god.

Or an interesting alternative, be creative. Say a god of war that doesn't confer any directly harmful powers, but a handful of manipulative powers to enable the cleric to persuade kings to declare war. That's not very DF'esque, though.

In order to let mages keep their roles, I think clerics should be restricted to supportive powers, whereas mages would be more free.

No world-shattering powers (assuming the gods want to keep their world and not see their playground wrecked).

Healing is always a good one, but if too much is available, no encounter is ever dangerous. This problem is even more present if they have ressurection readily available.

Protective buffs - sure. But in moderation!

Fireballs and lightning bolts? This is stretching it. Maybe for a god of thunder or the mighty fire serpent, but really, become a mage.
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:33 AM   #6
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

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They might infringe too much on niche protection
Pretty much any two similar enough professions can start to step on each others toes if they're built to be similar. Although niche protection goes a long way to diminishing this and makes it harder to exactly reproduce each others perks and special powers, it can't stop you funnelling all your cp into a slightly right angled aspect of that profession and thus looking very similar to another one.

As such, niches in DF are not just the domain of the professions the group chooses, but also stem directly from the groups composition and roles that they're providing. So if your group has an Elementalist who was focused on fire, having the Cleric follow a god of fire and produce much of the same benefits wouldn't really be fair. Equally if your group has a Holy Warrior it would be quite unfair to allow the Cleric to follow the god of War and let them run about in heavy armour with a big weapon with a load of divine powers to buff their ST.

So I wouldn't ban any powers outright, but I would heavily reduce their area of prowess if it turns out they've picked a god who would produce powers that would start to overshadow another member of the party.

EDIT: Although Kuroshima does bring up a good point that studious magic and the mind are not normally the domains of the gods nor their holy men. Faith and knowledge often are at odds with each other afterall, so that might be a logical place to draw the line.
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:34 AM   #7
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

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Restrict the amounts of gods available.

Or have them have only a narrow range of abilities tied to that god.

Or an interesting alternative, be creative. Say a god of war that doesn't confer any directly harmful powers, but a handful of manipulative powers to enable the cleric to persuade kings to declare war. That's not very DF'esque, though.

In order to let mages keep their roles, I think clerics should be restricted to supportive powers, whereas mages would be more free.

No world-shattering powers (assuming the gods want to keep their world and not see their playground wrecked).

Healing is always a good one, but if too much is available, no encounter is ever dangerous. This problem is even more present if they have ressurection readily available.

Protective buffs - sure. But in moderation!

Fireballs and lightning bolts? This is stretching it. Maybe for a god of thunder or the mighty fire serpent, but really, become a mage.
I like the fact that Divine Favor requires that you take Cosmic, no roll required, on abilities. Gods don't roll the dice! this means that attack abilities are quite a lot more expensive. Gods don't miss! Also, the cost makes it so it means that they need to jave a much higher Divine Favor advantage (I view characters with 14+ Divine Favor as basically avatars of the god in question, given the amount of divine power they can channel)
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:39 AM   #8
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

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Originally Posted by Kuroshima View Post
I wonder, did my vision as expressed in Dungeon Saints in the DF pyramid fit your view?
Regarding the power structure? Yeah, certainly. I really liked the new Learned Prayers. While my current campaign isn't straight-forward DF and thus not entirely filled with the skullcap-and-goatee style of evil priests, there's more than enough inspiration for different styles in there. I like it a lot better than the hodgepodge of abilities current D&D clerics do get ("Sound Burst"?), definitely separates the Man (sorcerer/wizard) from the God.
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Old 11-10-2011, 06:46 AM   #9
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

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Regarding the power structure? Yeah, certainly. I really liked the new Learned Prayers. While my current campaign isn't straight-forward DF and thus not entirely filled with the skullcap-and-goatee style of evil priests, there's more than enough inspiration for different styles in there. I like it a lot better than the hodgepodge of abilities current D&D clerics do get ("Sound Burst"?), definitely separates the Man (sorcerer/wizard) from the God.
Well, a note of the divine symphony would be a suitable effect for a cleric. Now, I would say that this is probably a Smite!

Simply giving them a direct damage ability isn't something I would look forward to, mind you. If you look closely, you'll see that I tried to restrict the damaging abilities to those that made sense... I feel bad about Evil Clerics in that they don't have something as amazingly powerful as Holy Fire (Enhanced) but they get nasty things too.
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Old 11-10-2011, 07:16 AM   #10
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Default Re: [DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

Anyone who's played enough D&D (Especially 3rd edition) is familiar with this problem. The COD-zilla (Cleric or Druid who is better at everything than anyone else is) starts showing up around level 10-ish if played by a really determined player, and can cause a lot of cranky feelings amongst everyone in the group.

Keeping Clerics from infringing on non-magical classes is generally easy. The problem (as noted) is keeping Clerics from infringing on Wizards - mostly because the standard spellcasting system means that the abstract Wizard occupies such a sprawling magical space it's hard to avoid stepping on his toes.

You can restrict the "meta magic" area to Wizards, and that helps, but depending on the wizard and the cleric, the two can still end up tromping all over each others toes. I'm with PseudoFenton - "niche protection" is really more about "What is this PCs niche?" rather than "What is this character classes niche?". The fire-god/fire wizard example is especially apt.

I like the Divine Power/Dungeon Saints approach to clerics, and I'm inclined to prioritize it over the DF1 clerics for my game... along with Magic As Powers for wizards too! This actually makes things easier, as Divine Power/Dungeon Saints already establishes a 'style' for Saints that makes them easier to distinguish from wizards.
  • Saints are Cosmic - they don't roll, they don't spend FP, it just happens
  • Saints provide a lot of "support" buffs - healing, supplies, etc.
  • Saints provide combat enhancements, but they tend towards the "useful against evil or spiritual foes" types rather than generally effective ones
  • Saints provide area damage effects, but again these are largely aspected towards "useful against evil or spiritual foes" than generic destruction.
  • Saints damage effects are "fixed" - they come in one size only.
  • Generic destruction area effects tend only come in Very Large with long preparation time and dedicated effort required (e.g. Earthquake)

Most of the above applies to Evil saints, just swapping the word "evil" for "good", although Evil saints can have Toxic single target damage effects that cost FP (I would be reluctant to add other damage types for Evil).

Just because someone is a Saint of a fire god or a war god doesn't seem like they should be violating these rules willy-nilly. Establishing what Saints are means that establishing what Wizards are is much easier - they're taking over the space that isn't filled with Saints:
  • Wizards are NOT Cosmic: They have skills and FP costs
  • Wizards excel at rearranging the battlefield environment to assist allies and annoy enemies, instead of directly blessing their allies or cursing their foes.
  • Wizards share the support role with clerics but do it with a different flair. Wizards provide more creature comforts, clerics provide more survival necessities! The wizard would create a floating umbrella, the cleric makes you endure the weather :)
  • Wizards have general combat utility with no restriction on valid targets, and almost never have "friendly fire mode".
  • Wizard damaging effects are Variable, and have full access to Explosive or Area Effect without requiring special targets or circumstances, and without requiring hour long rituals

So a wizard might animate or conjure a dancing shield to protect you or raise a stone wall, while a cleric might give you a DB bonus or DR bonus.
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