Every edition of D&D has put its own stamp on the cleric, in the process rendering the class more incoherent than it was to start. Gary Gygax contributed further to this mess in his article "Clerics Live by Other Rules," which appeared in issue #92 (December 1984) of Dragon. To be fair, Gary's article is actually pretty good, but it laid the seeds for much mischief later. His intention was to suggest that individual referees, for the purposes of fleshing out their campaign settings, could change the rules under which clerics (and, by extension, druids) operate, either restricting their opportunities or expanding them (or, preferably, both).
In the article, Gygax gives an example of a sect worshiping the woodland deity Ehlonna, from his Greyhawk campaign setting. Owing to tragic events in the past, this sect operates differently than others of its kind, having a unique selection of spells, armor, and weapons, in addition to having certain ritual taboos placed upon them. Thus, for example, they're not allowed to use fire-based spells of any kind, but clerics, after proving themselves – gaining levels – can wield broadswords and druids can wear elfin chain.
Normally, I loathe this kind of stuff, in large part because I think it contributes further to the dilution of what the cleric class is – and it's already pretty diluted as it is. What makes Gygax's approach work, though, is that a) it's solidly grounded in the setting and b) he's limiting these changes to a particular sect, not establishing it as a baseline. That's how I think things like this ought to be done. Unfortunately, players (and later designers) didn't care for these nuances, instead using them as a template for "fixing" the cleric class. This led, in my opinion, to a variety of changes over the years that have rendered the cleric one of the least coherent classes, both mechanically and as an archetype. But I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority in feeling this way.
Interestingly, Gygax himself warns against taking what he wrote in this article as an official, universal change. In his concluding paragraph, he says some very sensible things:
Now when you hear someone, DM or player, mentioning something about "unknown" cleric spells or similar difficulties, don't panic. It could well be a cleverly planned campaign where difference and the unexpected are desirable -- and who can fault that?! Perhaps you might wish to try it in your own campaign, too. A cautionary word is necessary, however, for there is a problem with such variations. Unless the full and complete details of the differences are known to other DMs, they might well not wish to have clerics or druids of such nature participating in their games. This is their right, and skepticism on their part is justified. Players of these clerics and druids must be forewarned that such characters might be "one-campaign-only" adventurers who are not welcome elsewhereIt's good advice, but it's also, I think, advice rooted in an older style of play that was already on its way to dying out by the time this article was published. Campaign hopping of the sort Gary envisions was already rare in the early '80s when I was most deeply immersed in the hobby and I have a hard time imagining that it was any more widespread on the cusp of 1985. Ironically, the advent of the Net and online play make well lead to a resurgence of the Old Ways in this regard, in which case Gary's advice might well prove useful again.
My main issue --perhaps I should call it a pet peeve-- with the Cleric class is that, while D&D PCs are generally meant to be outsiders, the Cleric is implicitly tied to a larger organization.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. That's actually a reason why the way we played clerics makes sense in-game to me. When a larger allied organization identifies a significant threat, they often embed experts into informal groups:
DeleteThe US Army provides professional military advisors to makeshift guerilla groups, the adventuring Conquistadors would sometimes adopt a priest to attend to the supernatural unknown, the Old West posse would bring along a minister to attend a hanging: because outsider mercenaries and treasure hunters were most likely to encounter the unholy, the allied Church was most likely to lend a blessed holy warrior/investigator to their more worldly adventures.
TSR should have straightened this all out when they published Dieties & Demigods. Guess Gary thought of these things a bit too late.
ReplyDeleteWhat really helped my group - very nearly entirely unwittingly - was that EVERY DM, regardless of the setting (and most of the DMs fabricated their own, and if Greyhawk was used at all it was to provide plug-in areas of the original world*) for some reason included, historically, a recent apocalyptic incursion of the undead into the world. Hommlet, Tomb of Horrors, Saltmarsh, Giants, Lost City, Isle of Dread, etc., regardless of the DM or world, all included a recognition that the rising dead was not a quotidian part of the setting (like orcs) but a historic, apocalyptic problem to be addressed. I'm sure it didn't hurt that we were big fans of Romero's "Living Dead" movies but also the Universal quintet of Lugosi's Dracula, Karloff's Monster, Chaney, Jr.'s Wolfman, Karloff's Mummy and the poor nameless dudes who played The Creature from the Black Lagoon**.
ReplyDeleteEnter our cleric class - every cleric, regardless of deity, was a medieval Solomon Kane, and nearly all clerics got along, as the world had called them into service, Van Helsing-style, to investigate and stem the rising tide of undead. Healing was an outgrowth of the simmering War on Death. Evil clerics - to a man - were basically Saruman, betraying their order to cast his lot in with the Death faction.
It wasn't conscious at the time, but I think that's why by the time we got to Ravenloft, as soon as our long-time cleric died (Strahd zoned in on him early), the PCs threw in with him, becoming vampiric diplomats to other evil nations (well, that and the uneasy reaction we had to the railroady backstory and fog).
*Our PCs were likewise practically world agnostic, and our campaigns were so loose that we could switch DMs and respective locales seamlessly, and still consider it all a part of the campaign. This freeflowing character-centered playstyle got broken as soon as we started on DragonLance, and we started having PCs operate in more traditional "static" campaigns and settings, per DM.
**Random related side memory: In March of 1983 our rural area launched its first UHF television station: A 4th Channel! (Not counting PBS) To promote it, the station distributed free cardboard 3D glasses, I think in partnership with the Casey's General Stores present in every small town, and then broadcast The Creature from the Black Lagoon in its original 3D print. With our 6th grade group of players, this was a sensation. We played Shrine of the Kuo-Toa a few months later. This same channel would broadcast the uncut Night of the Living Dead in the following October. For my birthday party in the December before, we had marathon-vhs-watched the other 4 Universal pictures (not realizing at the time that The Creature was a 5th). Combine that with late night reruns of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and it is not hard to imagine why our cross-setting "Alliance of Clerics" really set the tone for how we played them.
I think people forget how strange B/X era clerics were. At 6th level, a cleric attained two new levels (3rd and 4th?) of spells. I think that was done to allow for the cleric to Cure Serious Wounds and an appropriate level (4-14 HP, I think?) relative to the party's "take damage" capacity, but if that was the case, why not just make it a 3rd level spell instead of 4th?
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, cleric spell levels were arbitrary, on top of the fact that the cleric could pick that day's spells at the appropriate level. It made spell levels sort of incoherent. You had to be seventh level (appropriately so) to have a chance to "raise dead" but also to "conjure lunch." I think that had some sort of Christian symbolism behind it, but as a mechanic, it was weird. Why would a 7th level cleric ever really need to "Create Food" when Raise Dead, Dispel Evil and Quest were available? (To be fair, I think in decades of play, a cleric of mine cast Quest rarely, but never Create Food.) Also, as long as a Cleric could justify the use of Finger of Death for non-Chaotic ends, it was fine too. Insect Swarm (which we called "Collect Bugs") was likewise entirely irrelevant to dungeoncrawls, and outdoors it was very nearly practically useless. Yes you could use it to drive away 1st level/2 HD opponents (at least displace them about 30 feet in maneuver) but anyone in melee with the opponent was equally blind, and misslefire into the cloud of bugs was useless. Commune simply didn't work very well - 3 questions in yes/no answer format never yielded significant knowledge. There is a reason why the game "20 Questions" doesn't stop at three!
Raise Dead, Holy Quest, Dispel Evil, Create Food, Commune and Locust Swarm were supposed to be the pinnacle of Biblical gifts - the mastery of holy discernment and judgment by the acolyte cleric at 6th and 7th level. This could have been cool had it been incorporated more explicitly, clearly and mechanically into a "XP and loot game." But as it played out, even 9th level clerics always picked the same two top-level spells for the day, usually Raise Dead and Dispel Evil.
A more subtle bit of weirdness was that the tables of 0e and B/X were for some reason entirely adjusted for the ghast. Instead of saying that all 2HD monsters except the ghast Turn at such and such a roll on the d20, the table itself includes a ghast column between the 2HD and 3HD columns! This means that a PC's turning progression jumps in difficulty from 2HD undead to 3HD undead and beyond. This NEVER made sense, and you could sense it in the game. Why was a 2HD zombie so easy to turn but a 3HD thoul such a pain? Because a 2HD ghast got its own column on the table, not because it made any sense in game.
In an instance of S1 - Tomb of Horrors there remains a party contained within a permanent Leomund's Tiny Hut. It is surrounded by an ever burning and all consuming fire. Without Create Food it's inhabitants would have died years ago.
DeleteThat. Is. Awesome. Did they dungeoncrawl by recursively casting Tiny Hut every day? I can see it now: The Z-series: Escape the Russian Nesting Doll Huts of Existential Ennui
DeleteI believe Gygax first gave clerics additional powers back in Dragon 67 with the inaugural "The Deities and Demigods of the World of Greyhawk", with clerics of Heironeous, Hextor, Iuz, and St. Cuthbert all gaining special abilities at some point in their progression (none having them at first level). And they're purely adds to the class; none have any balancing drawbacks, with the possible exception of clerics of Heironeous being limited to chainmail (the Greyhawk boxed set included xp adjustments later).
ReplyDeleteI never really noticed clerics (or any other individual PC with "pure adds") ever unbalancing the game (until the drift from human centered to sentient-centered fantasy was completed in 4th edition, with the insufferable playable dragonborn/tiefling plague) as we played it. Basically, any "overpowered" or "unbalanced" character drew a massive target on his back. In fact, that's how our party was crippled by the loss of a single character more than once. The "unbalance" may have been marginally in favor of the overpowered character, until it was massively against the party following a surgical strike by the crafty opposing sorcerer or whatever.
ReplyDeleteClerics drag things in a direction that is inappropriate mostly through their easy magical healing (which doesn't make a ton of sense however you interpret HP). With that aspect gone, they work a lot better thematically and conceptually. Of course, with that aspect gone, other aspects of combat etc suddenly look very different and need wild rebalancing.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, not my experience at all. A 3rd level Cleric can conceivably fill his two memorized slots with Heal Light Wounds before an adventure starts , but depending on the setting, good luck making it four hours of playing time in a dungeon before having "shot the bolt" entirely. I can't think of many wilderness adventures, even, where there is enough time in the morning (or the required "good night's sleep" for that matter!) for a higher level cleric to fully recharge his available list of spells to meditate on and store. Fortunately, Cure Light Wounds takes half as long to memorize once as, say, Augury (2nd level spells took half an hour, I think, per slot memorized), so conceivably, on a good nights rest (i.e. never in the middle of a dungeoncrawl and occasionally in the wild) a Cleric could pray for 45 minutes in the morning and re-bank 3 1st level spells. Of course, Light was also an important consideration at lower and middle levels.
DeleteIn any case, most adventures, whether B/X or AD&D (or my unique, semi-incoherent blend of both) simply don't allow for the Cleric to be unbalanced, especially given the practical obstacles of his spell restrictions. And I didn't even mention if spells are denied by the angel, high saint, or other servant of the deity, which happens infrequently, but not never.
Cleric healing for me is a triage and resource management issue that really enhances the game. Especially when we all were adventuring in worlds where most of the clerics were there as undead-protection first, fighters second, healers if available.