[DF] What Powers Should Clerics Not Get?

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Bruno

• 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)

While I agree with this list, it wouldn't be so hard to come up with good exceptions to several items.

FP seems a bit too lenient for divine intervention, but I could easily see a whole liturgy of HP-based Learned Prayers. Not necessarily your own HP…

The same with skills, although more in a supportive role. Not Fast-Talking your deity, but lighting candles and puttin' on the Barry White for the Thunder God…

And for the magnitude and target selection, the existing material (DF itself and the Dungeon Saints article) is heavily oriented towards the more biblical Good vs. Evil conflict. Not everything has to be about utter destruction, and I could easily imagine a slightly more "mundanely" focused cleric/deity. Instead of "eeeevil", what about mischief? And instead of smiting your enemies, what about teaching heathens some lessons and keeping the congregation in line? An "evil priest" could do some low level witchcraft, and a "good" one could give the local drunkard some serious low back pain issues. Altogether more minor miracles, but probably more frequent.

Now, I don't think this would be in addition to the usual smiting/desecrating stuff. Either different gods (Zeus vs. Hera / Baal vs. Loki), or different sects of the same god. So in civilized lands, the followers of Dogyllis are roguish, secretive scoundrels with a few small curses on their hand, but not much more (i.e. "multi-classed", not too many DF ranks), whereas in the wastelands, he's revered in a more primal form as "Dogylli'soston", harbinger of the end times. They won't bother with making merchants incontinent, they bring on the deluge itself!

I think there's room for both archetypes in a DF campaign (or most other fantasy campaigns). The D&D cleric tends towards the more epic, but there's enough precedent in genre fiction for the other aspect (cf. Lankhmar's Street of the Gods).

[ULFGARD]

Out of curiosity, has anyone tried using both DF1 clerics and dungeon saints? I actually like both notions, but for different reasons, and I'm not altogether certain that there's any reason they couldn't exist side by side in a campaign.

[mhd]

Kinda like clerics vs. specialty priests in AD&D 2E, or for different deities/sects/pantheons?

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by mhd

Kinda like clerics vs. specialty priests in AD&D 2E, or for different deities/sects/pantheons?

Yes, absolutely. I was excited by the saints approach, especially for my current non-DF campaign. This perfectly models the "paladins" of a certain deity, as well as the notions I had for clerics of the old gods (who are making a comeback) -- far more miraculous.

In DF, I can see both side-by-side as well, but I'm still curious as to the thoughts of others -- especially actual experience -- before I go live with this.

I'd worry about this being a thread jack, but it seems completely in line with the OP -- what powers are out of line for clerics? In this case, my more specific question is:

"Can a campaign support both DF1 style and Dungeon Saints style clerics side-by-side without ending up broken in some way?"

[Greg 1]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

I'd worry about this being a thread jack, but it seems completely in line with the OP -- what powers are out of line for clerics? In this case, my more specific question is:

"Can a campaign support both DF1 style and Dungeon Saints style clerics side-by-side without ending up broken in some way?"

As the one who wrote the OP, I find your question interesting, so don't worry about threadjacking.

I like the original clerics and Kuroshima's saints.

[Fnugus]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

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)

This reminds me that I should read those supplements a bit more thorough sometime soon!

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

Yes, absolutely. I was excited by the saints approach, especially for my current non-DF campaign. This perfectly models the "paladins" of a certain deity, as well as the notions I had for clerics of the old gods (who are making a comeback) -- far more miraculous.

In DF, I can see both side-by-side as well, but I'm still curious as to the thoughts of others -- especially actual experience -- before I go live with this.

I'd worry about this being a thread jack, but it seems completely in line with the OP -- what powers are out of line for clerics? In this case, my more specific question is:

"Can a campaign support both DF1 style and Dungeon Saints style clerics side-by-side without ending up broken in some way?"

I'm probably the only forum mmber with months of experience with saints at the moment, unless one of my players has an account, or one of my proofreaders used the article and did not tell me. The answer is yes, you can have clerics and saints in the same game without issue. The article makes this cler whe it offers Beatified as a Cleric, druid and shaman Powerup.

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

I'm probably the only forum mmber with months of experience with saints at the moment, unless one of my players has an account, or one of my proofreaders used the article and did not tell me. The answer is yes, you can have clerics and saints in the same game without issue. The article makes this cler whe it offers Beatified as a Cleric, druid and shaman Powerup.

Ah, okay -- I didn't realize you had been using it for months. Just seeing the possibility doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good idea to me -- after all, DF has the templates for Ninja-Scholars! (Not that it's recommended.) That clears up my question. Thanks!

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

Ah, okay -- I didn't realize you had been using it for months. Just seeing the possibility doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good idea to me -- after all, DF has the templates for Ninja-Scholars! (Not that it's recommended.) That clears up my question. Thanks!

The article was submitted to Pyramid on the 4/24/2011 according to my sent email folder, and prior to that, it had already been tested at the table (I try to test my articles at the table).

Anyway, I'm glad that you guys like the Saints. I'll give you my experiences with them, playing at the 500 point level (that's what you get after 2 years of DF). I have one Dark One Evil Saint, and a Human Cleric of the Sun/Messengers and Rogues/Beatified. The Evil Saint can pull crazy stuff (obviously), and is rather fond of Petrify, while the Beatified instead uses learned prayers to complement spellcasting.

That remains me, I must get that Designer's notes ready and post them on the forums...

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Fnugus

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.

Most pagan pantheons seem to have arisen in a time when war was assumed to be the natural state rather then peace. I don't think they would picture a god of war manipulating powerful people the way an Evil Chancellor would simply because it wouldn't have been hammered into them that someone had to be to blame for a war. Not because they wouldn't expect that if the question was put to them but because they wouldn't think of it. I think rather they would look on war as rather like weather and a war-god as like a weather god.