2019-02-08 Still No Clerics

I just read JB’s post on clerics, Making Clerics Work, which he wrote in a reaction to a video by Delta talking with somebody about having eliminated clerics from the game. And so have I!

Making Clerics Work

so have I

So how has this been working out at my table?

• Clerics that fight are fighters.* No problem. Characters still dedicate themselves to this god or that god because I am a strong believer in divine intervention (in the low percentage range, or rolling a 12 with 2d6 in a “divine reaction roll”) and because of diplomatic or political benefits in-game.

• Clerics that cast spells are magic users*. No problem. I occasionally make cleric spells available so any magic user or elf can learn *cure light wounds* or *silence*.

• No undead turning*. No problem. It just makes undead a little more dangerous as they never roll reaction rolls and they never fail morale checks.

• No holy water*. No problem. I removed holy water together with clerics because I didn’t understand the benefit of holy water compared to flaming oil. It seems like flaming oil should work just as well. Same damage! You just save yourself the effort of lighting the oil. Nobody has to throw a torch. But if you have enough retainers, that’s not a problem. In my game, throwing a torch to light the oil is a simple ranged attack vs. AC 9.

• Very little healing magic*. No problem. I don’t compensate by having many healing potions. Healing just extends the adventure: fights can go longer, or expeditions can go longer because you can go on for one more fight before returning to safety. Whether that matters or not depends on many things, however. In my case, I think there are various other factors coming into play:

• *Sessions are short*. We play for two and a half hours during week days. Our expeditions are always short.
• *Plenty of characters*. Some players like to take advantage of the retainer rules and so we regularly have between fifteen and twenty characters in the party. My monsters attack random characters and so a large number of characters distributes damage very effectively.
• *Protecting each other*. Not only do we have many characters but I have a house rule allowing each character to take the blow aimed at one other character. That is, bodyguards actually work. Damage distribution can be influenced.

So, all in all, removing clerics has been a success in my game.

​#RPG ​#Old School

Comments

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Appreciate the way you’ve been doing the old school “link to blog posts and comment” thing. Everybody kind of stopped doing that when social media really got big.

– Derik 2019-02-08 12:39 UTC

Derik

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Yeah! Keep the blogosphere alive! 🙂

Keep the blogosphere alive!

– Alex Schroeder 2019-02-08 13:14 UTC

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I’m starting my latest campaign without clerics, but I’m considering reframing them wholesale as weird angelic guardians wandering the human world: https://www.acodispo.net/rpg/posts/malakhim/

https://www.acodispo.net/rpg/posts/malakhim/

– acodispo 2019-02-08 14:23 UTC

acodispo

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Nice explanation for their weirdness. 🙂

– Alex Schroeder 2019-02-08 14:33 UTC

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Treasure Hunter HQ is also unhappy: “In AD&D and going forward the official literature seems to indicate that people are busting out with miracles left and right. Every village has a cure light wounds guy. Every city has a raise dead guy.”

Treasure Hunter HQ

– Alex Schroeder 2019-09-17 19:49 UTC

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What is your experience of No Clerics when playing published adventures (to the extent you use them)? Does it throw the intended balance/level span way off? Does it make something with like Barrowmaze with lots of undead completely unfeasible? Does it change how you GM encounters (with undead or otherwise)?

– Björn Buckwalter 2019-10-01 12:33 UTC

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I make no changes whatsoever. But remember, my group also travels as a huge group with 12 to 20 characters and war dogs and lizards and dinosaurs and so on. What usually happens is that they blow through simple stuff because of numbers and are then severely below level suggestions as they continue because XP is distributed between all of them. And it continues to work for a very long time. *Shields shall be splintered*, *cover an ally*, and *death & dismemberment* are three house rules that provide players with ample warning before hit-points run out. I also make changes like changing all the level 3 thieves and level 5 guards all to level 1 characters so players are never too surprised when they meet mobs.

Examples on the blog:

2013-03-01 Old School Red Hand of Doom

2013-04-12 More Old School Red Hand of Doom

– Alex Schroeder 2019-10-01 13:02 UTC

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Rethinking clerics and religion, part 1 is about thinking of cultural needs, fist of all, and then of rituals to satisfy them, and everything else come later — names, cults, whatever.

Rethinking clerics and religion, part 1

That also reminds me of 2009-09-08 Ye Gods I listed gods and demons with their benefits and drawbacks for society.

2009-09-08 Ye Gods

Oh and all the links in 2019-01-04 Episode 10 and 2019-10-03 Episode 28.

2019-01-04 Episode 10

2019-10-03 Episode 28

– Alex Schroeder 2020-01-27 21:40 UTC

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I appreciate other people not having clerics in their games.

Here’s how I’m getting rid of Clerics and Druids and Paladins in my OSE based game: The classes are unavailable for both PCs and Players. Their spells - with the exception of Cure Light Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Commune, and Raise Dead - are available to Magic-Users. … That’s it. – House Rule: How to Get Rid of Clerics (& Druids & Paladins)

House Rule: How to Get Rid of Clerics (& Druids & Paladins)

– Alex 2022-05-24 08:14 UTC