I'm sure this has come up before but I feel like it could still generate some good discussion.

How many of you have done away with the Cleric for your OSR D&D games? I have been tinkering with building another setting for awhile now and one of the things I keep flip flopping on is the Cleric. I just don't really like the feel of it for this particular setting. Particularly as I see the Cleric in older editions as nearly explicitly Christian.

I could replace it with a home brewed version tailored for the setting but that would be a lot of work, which I'm generally opposed to.

I was thinking about just merging the Cleric spells into the Magic User class at the appropriate level and getting rid of anything that was redundant.

Backgrounds along the lines of 5e were something I was considering so perhaps I could just make cleric a background that could be tacked on to any character class.

Thoughts? Opinions? Any potential pitfalls I maybe missing here?

Whenever I can get away with it, I use a white mage (from Final Fantasy) instead of clerics. Basically a wizard but with a focus on healing and buffs. This does involve a little re-shuffling of the spell lists to create the desired class distinction, but it just feels so right when done properly.

That's an option for sure. I had also thought of making healing magic a ritual thing that was much less reliable, of course that carries complications of it's own. It would make an already deadly rule set that much deadlier, of course to make it a little less brutal you I could always do the whole wound point/hit point thing with your Con score determining how much actual damage can be taken. Lots of fiddly work that way.

Actually now that I think about it I kind of like replacing healing spells with rituals.

I wrote a complete homebrewed alternative, and yeah, it's a lot of work.  But you may be able to use it?  The class is a bit too much text for me to post here (bout 20,000 words because it has its own complete spell list), but it's the first article in this magazine:-

Footprints #20 (free download, no registration or other bullshit)

Years ago I came up with a 'Magician' class for classic D&D (0e, B/X, and retro-clones like Swords & Wizardry).

All spells were categorized as forms of 'white', 'grey', or 'black' magic.  Any magician could cast any spell (assuming that they knew the spell, i.e., had it in their spell book), but casting grey and black magic spells could lead to corruption.

If you want an AD&D option, you might look at the original Lankhmar supplement, which distinguishes between 'white' and 'black' mages.

Thanks guys, P&P I will give that a look, Akrasia I seem to remember having used your variant in games before. Should make for good inspirational material.

The more I think about it the more I think that for the setting I'm working on at the moment I want to tinker with the M-U class a bit and rework the way healing outside of natural healing works.

Tunnels & Trolls has no clerics. Not a problem.

You might check out 7 Voyages of Zylarthen, which is an OD&D clone without clerics.

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Oakes_Spalding

It's on Lulu, so it's a pain in the ass to download, but it's free at least.

The big thing is, what do you do about the problem that inspired clerics in the first place? (Undead)? You'd probably at least have to remove level drain.

Quote from: JeremyR;817323You might check out 7 Voyages of Zylarthen, which is an OD&D clone without clerics.

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Oakes_Spalding

It's on Lulu, so it's a pain in the ass to download, but it's free at least.

The big thing is, what do you do about the problem that inspired clerics in the first place? (Undead)? You'd probably at least have to remove level drain.

Yeah I have been pondering that, I was thinking of making turn undead a spell of sorts or otherwise making magic users able to deal with them. That or like you said remove level drain that or replace it with some other effect.

Level drain? Curing level drain is effectively an NPC-only ability for the vast majority of old-school D&D games. So for that at least it's easy to substitute some other process.

Regular healing/ curing is the main obstacle.

Quote from: Imp;817326Level drain? Curing level drain is effectively an NPC-only ability for the vast majority of old-school D&D games. So for that at least it's easy to substitute some other process.

Regular healing/ curing is the main obstacle.

Since I was planning on taking a simple system like Swords and Wizardry, maybe even White Box, and fiddling with it I had planned on doing some revamping to how healing works. I had planned on slowing natural healing a bit, adding a simple skill system that would include a first aid skill for immediate stabilization and a surgery skill for more in depth healing. I had also planned on adding healing rituals that would be more complicated and risky but pay off very quickly.

Basically I had planned on axing the cleric, removing most of the spells that are priesty, porting the rest to the M-U and then making the aforementioned changes to healing.

I am picturing a rather deadly game.

OSR? No.

BX D&D? Yes. Rare have we ever had a cleric in any of the adventures I have played in or DMed for. More or less the same for AD&D. But we'd occasionally get a Druid, and on rare chance a cleric. The current 5e group I am DMing for has no cleric. But the dwarf is wearing a druid... Dont think that counts though?

Another option is to give the Cleric spells to the Elf class instead of them having MU spells. There was a thread at that purple place on that had a few good ides on the subject. One was using Turning for Elves was, but for turning Tolkien style evil instead of undead (using The Light of Eärendil).  Anyway, it's quite a quick and easy way to go about things, the only real work involved is coming up with a new table for turning, though you could just keep that the same if you wanted. Might want to up the XP requirements too.

Turning is only a problem if you feel you need undead; they aren't thematically appropriate for every campaign. If you do feel you need turning, the elf solution works, as does the Paladin.

Personally I think the simplest solution is to merge all the spell lists and call them MUs. If the player wants to play a priest with spells, they can; just have them take some of the more religious spells. It would basically be the equivalent of a background, just without mechanics since it's simply character flavor.

(shrugs)  If you want a religion-free setting, then have a religion-free setting.  No one's call but your own.