A different take on priests

[zot]

[PLEASE NOTE, THE NEW THEURGY TOOLKIT DOCUMENT IS HERE]

I posted about this in the Priest and Theologian thread but I think that thread's pretty old, so I thought I'd move it to another thread.

My document is here. There's plenty to read in the document but here is some summary text from it so you have an idea of what's in there:

The Priest and Theologian talents allow a character to perform time consuming ceremonies (around 15 minutes) that can only be done "when the time is right". A group must wait for an "appointed time" before a priest can perform a ceremony (there are 5 appointed times each day) and even then the priest can perform only one ceremony. Despite these limitations, I feel that priests will be fun to play and, power-wise, fall somewhere between wizards and non-wizards, offering both support and utility.

I think allowing ceremonies to be performed only at certain times has quite a different feel from giving the character "spell slots" they can use whenever they want. Also, I think this system has a more "religious feel" because the character is dependent on something outside himself (appointed times). Note that "before a meal" times are important so the priest can purify food before a party eats and also provide some time-wise flexibility.

Some observations about ceremonies:

1. Priestly effects don't require a new attribute, use points like magic, or use Vancian “spell slots”
2. A priest cannot perform ceremonies during combat
3. Ceremonies take a comparatively long time (15 minutes)
4. Meal times provide some flexibility with appointed times
5. Priests are limited to only one ceremony per appointed time, period (around 5 per day and this doesn't increase with experience)
6. Priests can normally only choose one effect per chunk of game time
7. Ceremonies require a priest player to make potentially difficult decisions
8. Combat effects must be prepared in advance
9. Some ceremonies are "mass-effect" because, for instance, a physicker can attend each person in the party but a priest can only perform one ceremony per "appointed time"
10. Priests aren't WoW-style battle-healers, but they can seriously patch up a group AFTER a combat, which helps general survivability without defaulting to a D&D-style cleric
11. During combat, priests can use normal weapons and fighting talents

[JLV]

Personally, I really like the "ceremonial" approach to this topic. I think that it is a very valid approach.

I note in passing that a LOT of the magic in the existing spell lists would actually be more "ceremonial" magic, done over a period of time measured from minutes to hours as well, but for the purposes of AW it was all compressed into a few seconds. (Can anyone really draw a Pentagram correctly in X number of five-second game turns as opposed to X number of minutes or hours? Much less summon a Demon?)

[Jim Kane]

As do I JLV. The wonderful work which ZOT is expressing is exactly what graduates the whole concept of Priests and their strange religious rituals and magics, to that of a character-type functioning as a bona fide literary device which aids the GM in setting scene and story; and up from that of a *cardboard cleric* - being the low-combat-value party-healer and the guy who's other specialty is to scare away the undead.

JK

[zot]

Thanks guys,

I put in some fertility ceremonies and curses for more folk-religion appeal -- trying to imagine what villagers would want from their priest, especially when they can't afford the steep prices of the Wizard's Guild. Several of the new ceremonies are just notes at this point.

I really don't have much in the way of religions or ceremony lists for them but I'm slowly working on it.

Suggestions here are, of course, more than welcome!

[Jim Kane]

Welcome to the fold ZOT.

For additional ceremonial reference material, you may wish to check out the long out-of-print, Temple Book, by the old Judges Guild; therein you may find some *very* interesting random tables on ceremonies, sacrifices, curses, etc; which may be of helpful interest to you. I will be very interested to see how you continue to develop your work on this subject for TFT. Keep up the good work.

JK

[JLV]

Originally Posted by zot

Thanks guys,

I put in some fertility ceremonies and curses for more folk-religion appeal -- trying to imagine what villagers would want from their priest, especially when they can't afford the steep prices of the Wizard's Guild. Several of the new ceremonies are just notes at this point.

I really don't have much in the way of religions or ceremony lists for them but I'm slowly working on it.

Suggestions here are, of course, more than welcome!

Well, I for one, will be VERY interested to see where you take this. I think you are really on the right track here. Much more so than anything my somewhat random thoughts had come up with thus far.

One question I would like to ask;

Have you ever considered making "True Names" a "thing" in any of your games? And if so, have you considered a "Naming Ceremony" as one of your religious rites?

I'm thinking of Beyond the Wall and some of the clever stuff they did with true names there, but I'm not sure if it would be even slightly desirable to add something like that to TFT, or if it would merely screw things up.

[zot]

Originally Posted by JLV

One question I would like to ask;

Have you ever considered making "True Names" a "thing" in any of your games? And if so, have you considered a "Naming Ceremony" as one of your religious rites?

I'm thinking of Beyond the Wall and some of the clever stuff they did with true names there, but I'm not sure if it would be even slightly desirable to add something like that to TFT, or if it would merely screw things up.

In the priest system, it seems like at a minimum you could use a true name in a curse instead of hair or nail clippings (adding a note to the doc on that). Maybe there are other possibilities.

There were two instances of true names I'm ever used, 1) a sorcery system where true names of demons allowed you to summon them but not control them and 2) a very narrative magic system based on true names, where a wizard who "understood something" could make it operate by itself (like in Name of the Wind). I didn't run either of these systems much, though :(.

I haven't heard of Beyond the Wall but I'll take a look.

[zot]

I made some tweaks to Theurgy which actually shrunk the rules by several paragraphs :)

• Removed the spell casting prohibition for theurges, based on Nils' observation
  

  Originally Posted by Nils_Lindeberg

  And I am not quite sure why theurgy needs to be excluded from wizardly magics and vice versa? If you want them to exclude each other, just make the Priest talents cost triple for wizards.

  Probably the normal double-cost for talents is enough since getting Theurgy 1 costs 5 talent points (which would be 10 for wizards).
• Made accounting a no-brainer by simply allowing theurges to have one pending ceremonial benefit per theurgy level, so players don't have to worry about when benefits expire, etc., which also removed a specific restriction on creatures
• Simplified ceremonies and activation by getting rid of the extra "activation type" concept (just merging it in with benefit type)
• Reduced the base number of ceremonies per Theurgy level so that Theurgy 5 now accounts for 18 ceremonies instead of 25 to better justify the ST value of ceremonies.