priest and theologian

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Rick_Smith

Hi Everyone, JLV.
Having a healer is a needed job in an adventuring party, but it is kinda dull. I think you are missing a bet if you make the priest all about healing.

Also, lots of religions are not about healing. Thor is the god of partying and smiting. He is not a clever god, but he drank a lot and killed a lot of giants in the sagas. I would like to keep that sort of flexibility for my various religions.

As for not allowing miracles to be too powerful... just don't give over powered abilities.

The trick to making 'active clerics' fun, is to find quirky and cool rites for priests that open up roleplaying possibilities. I also usually give them one or two good combat rites so that they don't feel they've wasted attributes every time there is a fight.

Warm regards, Rick.

Clearly you missed my point. My point was that I want Clerics to be DIFFERENT from Wizards or Warriors. They should have power, but they need to be applying it INDIRECTLY instead of directly. That is, they help, but don't (generally) get involved in the "toe-to-toe nuklear war with the Russkis" stuff unless there's a dire emergency or they get ambushed. And then they should have some skills, but perhaps surprising ones. Such a character could be enormously fun to play -- something like a Jedi, as opposed to a tank.

When I said make the Clerics the primary healers, I meant (as I pointed out later) that they should be the primary ones taking that kind of skill. They should also have other skills that support the party, as opposed to just being another tank or Wizard wearing a different color of cloth. I've very seldom read of any warriors of the middle ages who were also physicians. (In fact, I think there should be another healing talent, call it "Medic," that warriors can take easily which basically just involves stabilizing someone or maybe healing a single hit point.) Real healing is an art, and a time-intensive one at that, especially during the medieval period. Which is why Monks and Nuns were the ones learning it and doing it. It's also why today's doctors generally go to school a lot longer than say, a Marine Corps grunt needs to. Which is not to belittle the grunt's skill set, just reminding you that it's acquired and exercised differently.

Trying yet a third explanation; if tanks and Wizards are the infantry and artillery, then Clerics are the logistical support needed to get them there and keep them fighting, and as everyone has heard before, amateurs talk about tactics, while professionals discuss logistics... ;-)

As far as role-playing goes, I think it would be VERY interesting to play a character who has little opportunity to directly attack an enemy, but who, at the same time, can indirectly manipulate things to ensure that enemy is defeated before the first arrow flies. Besides, as we've pointed out in other places on this forum, building and running TFT characters is so easy that there's no reason why you can't have one of each kind.