Quote from: jhkim;1061008I suspect you're talking about very different things. From the sound of it, I thought S'mon is talking about the change from Greyhawk (1975) to the original Player's Handbook (1978) - where they changed to give the paladin cleric spells and druid spells to the ranger. tenbones - I suspect you're talking about changes from 3rd edition or later (1999+).

Yeah I think you're accurate.

I actually like the idea of a "holy warrior" being slightly more martial as an Order for some God vs. a Cleric that could also be martial - but less so and more of a miracle-worker. In 2e I tossed out the Cleric. I preferred 2e's Specialty Priests to give more distinction to the Gods and their portfolios as well as the Priests in which they invested their powers. This made the bog-standard Paladin even more distinct from the "Cleric" - since I didn't use them. This had the added effect of making them more playable.

3e watered it all down... and it only got worse from there.

Quote from: jhkimI suspect you're talking about very different things. From the sound of it, I thought S'mon is talking about the change from Greyhawk (1975) to the original Player's Handbook (1978) - where they changed to give the paladin cleric spells and druid spells to the ranger. tenbones - I suspect you're talking about changes from 3rd edition or later (1999+).

Quote from: tenbones;1061682Yeah I think you're accurate.

I actually like the idea of a "holy warrior" being slightly more martial as an Order for some God vs. a Cleric that could also be martial - but less so and more of a miracle-worker. In 2e I tossed out the Cleric. I preferred 2e's Specialty Priests to give more distinction to the Gods and their portfolios as well as the Priests in which they invested their powers. This made the bog-standard Paladin even more distinct from the "Cleric" - since I didn't use them. This had the added effect of making them more playable.

3e watered it all down... and it only got worse from there.

I've got a slightly different take on it. I generally prefer having relatively broad classes that represent a wide range of characters. So I'd say that the Fighter class should be able to represent Galahad, Lancelot, and other fighters. Conversely, I don't like special elite / snowflake classes that only rare PCs are capable of - like the 1e paladin or bard, or many 3e prestige classes. To me it feels a bit like having a "Spiderman" class or "Flash" class in a superhero game. The point of those characters is to be special, rather than a repeated archetype.

I might instead have something like a Templar class as an option of Fighter, but it would represent a member of a knightly order - rather than being a uniquely holy individual. There can still be very special devout and/or holy individuals, but not a class of them.  Based on this, I'm not wholly satisfied with either the 1e or 5e approaches.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1060248To be honest, I never much liked the Paladin.  It was the start of a change of the Cleric from "holy warrior-saint" to "priest", which I always found stupid.

Paladins should be Clerics. Or at least a sub-type of Cleric. Otherwise, Clerics shouldn't have bonuses to combat, they should just be religious spellcasters.

I also found it odd that clerics always get a lot of martial training. There's no clear way to get more of a cerebral priest as opposed to fighting type like Friar Tuck. I never used the 2e specialty priests, but maybe those were a more flexible way to handle it?

I've been seriously considering doing away with the cleric as a class and expanding the magician. It's a lot of work, but if you customize the spell lists for guild or temple and make a couple of other changes for learned vs granted magic, it seems like you can get the non-martial agent of the gods effectively. Then, the paladin becomes God's asskicker.

Quote from: jhkim;1061706There's no clear way to get more of a cerebral priest as opposed to fighting type like Friar Tuck. I

Which is entirely appropriate. "Cerebral priest" isn't an adventuring profession any more than "cerebral blacksmith" is.

Quote from: Baron Opal;1061785I've been seriously considering doing away with the cleric as a class and expanding the magician. It's a lot of work, but if you customize the spell lists for guild or temple and make a couple of other changes for learned vs granted magic, it seems like you can get the non-martial agent of the gods effectively. Then, the paladin becomes God's asskicker.

That's how they do it in Fantasy Craft. I don't know of any other specific game that does it like that where the Arcane casters do the healing. I'm sure they're out there.

Quote from: jhkimI've got a slightly different take on it. I generally prefer having relatively broad classes that represent a wide range of characters. So I'd say that the Fighter class should be able to represent Galahad, Lancelot, and other fighters. Conversely, I don't like special elite / snowflake classes that only rare PCs are capable of - like the 1e paladin or bard, or many 3e prestige classes. To me it feels a bit like having a "Spiderman" class or "Flash" class in a superhero game. The point of those characters is to be special, rather than a repeated archetype.

This is more of an OSR-kind of view. One that I think has its place in OSR style mechanics that tend to be a lot lighter than say 1e/2e. I'm totally fine with that. The real question (a perennial one around these parts) is "what is a class?". Galahad etc. *certainly* are portrayed at having the skills and martial acumen that people popularly ascribe to the "Fighter" (at least circa 2e and earlier). But there is this 'purity' thing that people ascribe to the concept of the Paladin - specifically the Knights of the Round that eventually was turned into "Holy" for obvious reasons. The mechanics of 1e/2e do encapsulate that.

The problem with broad classes, to me, comes when you try to add those things into context of a larger campaign world. This is not to say I can't run a campaign using OSR style rules, but it's the demand for granularity that makes the distinction between "Everyone is a Fighter" but my European-style Knights and their way of fighting is exactly the same as my Parthian Horsemen analogs who fight largely from horseback with an emphasis on bows - should matter. If you WANT it to mechanically matter the system should support that. To what degree... that's the rub, isn't it?

This is my issue with broad-class use in my kind of games. I want a little more fidelity to granular style and ways and means of doing something more than a broad umbrella that attempt to do one-size fits all. Which is probably why I'm not a particular fan of GMing OSR games (but I'd happily play one). I think 2e's Kits is/was an excellent way to split the difference. In act - it's probably the only way I'd go back to playing D&D or a D&D Heartbreaker.

Quote from: jhkimI might instead have something like a Templar class as an option of Fighter, but it would represent a member of a knightly order - rather than being a uniquely holy individual. There can still be very special devout and/or holy individuals, but not a class of them. Based on this, I'm not wholly satisfied with either the 1e or 5e approaches.

Yeah there's lots of ways to skin that cat. You can beef up Clerics to be more martial - sure that would work too. Or you could do Kit-based off of a primary class. Or you could go specialty class like in 2e for Priests. I think it makes perfect sense for only certain Gods to have military orders, for instance (but this is the snowflake class effect - so may not be your thing).

Quote from: tenbones;1061812The problem with broad classes, to me, comes when you try to add those things into context of a larger campaign world. This is not to say I can't run a campaign using OSR style rules, but it's the demand for granularity that makes the distinction between "Everyone is a Fighter" but my European-style Knights and their way of fighting is exactly the same as my Parthian Horsemen analogs who fight largely from horseback with an emphasis on bows - should matter. If you WANT it to mechanically matter the system should support that. To what degree... that's the rub, isn't it?

This is my issue with broad-class use in my kind of games. I want a little more fidelity to granular style and ways and means of doing something more than a broad umbrella that attempt to do one-size fits all. Which is probably why I'm not a particular fan of GMing OSR games (but I'd happily play one). I think 2e's Kits is/was an excellent way to split the difference. In act - it's probably the only way I'd go back to playing D&D or a D&D Heartbreaker.

I'm not an OSR person, myself. I started with D&D back as a pre-teen and I'm running D&D currently, but mostly I've played skill-based systems like Hero System, GURPS, Call of Cthulhu, Amber, etc. I haven't used 2e's kits, but I've tried some other class-based options like True20.

Under the structure of 5e, a European-style knight and a Parthian horseman could in principle be handled as Fighters with different class options as well as different feats, skills, and proficiencies. To start with, one will have fighting style dueling vs. fighting style archery (a class option). Overall, there are a lot of ways to differentiate between two characters of the same class as compared to 1st edition AD&D.

Quote from: jhkimThere's no clear way to get more of a cerebral priest as opposed to fighting type like Friar Tuck.

Quote from: Zalman;1061806Which is entirely appropriate. "Cerebral priest" isn't an adventuring profession any more than "cerebral blacksmith" is.

I meant "cerebral" in the sense of a wizard being cerebral. A wizard is an adventurer, but they rely more on their magic and skills than on arms and armor. I think a lot of inspirations for a priest as a PC are less like Friar Tuck and more like saints and exorcists and such.

Quote from: tenbones;1061812Yeah there's lots of ways to skin that cat. You can beef up Clerics to be more martial - sure that would work too. Or you could do Kit-based off of a primary class. Or you could go specialty class like in 2e for Priests. I think it makes perfect sense for only certain Gods to have military orders, for instance (but this is the snowflake class effect - so may not be your thing).

   I was intrigued by HARP's "pick several skill categories as Favored appropriate to your deity or order--if you pick Combat, you're a Paladin" approach to the Cleric.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1061829I was intrigued by HARP's "pick several skill categories as Favored appropriate to your deity or order--if you pick Combat, you're a Paladin" approach to the Cleric.

That's exactly how I think it should be. A "Class" *IS* just a bunch of specific skills that exist as a conceit to a setting - for whatever reason makes them relevent. This is why as D&D has gotten further and further from some specific "setting assumption" we're seeing this bizarre bloat of non-contextual class-titles to represent things that have emerged from gaming vs. concepts rooted in myth and history and folklore.

And very little of it makes sense. HARP's method is just a very elegant way of doing. Would be fun to see D&D would evolve into that direction.

Quote from: jhkim;1061814Under the structure of 5e, a European-style knight and a Parthian horseman could in principle be handled as Fighters with different class options as well as different feats, skills, and proficiencies. To start with, one will have fighting style dueling vs. fighting style archery (a class option). Overall, there are a lot of ways to differentiate between two characters of the same class as compared to 1st edition AD&D.

The problem with this method is the relative weakness of Feats in relation to Class-Level progression. Having a "schtick" shouldn't mean being trapped by it. This is why the problem of the Mounted Cavalier on the Ship problem exists. In order to be effective at their "schtick" they're forced to hyper-specialize in it to the exclusion of other options that in the long run make you inferior or sub-optimal. There is a sweet spot that D&D misses.

I'm not advocating for hyper-optimization. I'm advocating for powerful flexibility. I don't think characters *are* schticks. D&D post 3e. have largely relegated characters to just that schtick - often hypenated with their class. That's Borg the Two-handed-Fighter. Or the Fimble the Nimble - he's a duel-wielding rapier/knife guy. And that's largely where they will stay put because the Feats are too granular and narrow.

I like the "Quigley Down Under" vibe - when he unloads with a pistol and kills everyone after using a rifle like a God throughout the movie. He says looking at his pistol - "I said I never had much use for one. Never said I didn't know how to use it."

I'm not saying you CAN'T do it in 5e. I'm saying that 5e is so arbitrarily spread out that it's sub-systems overtake its core systems because they're not really balanced against one another. This is *exactly* why the Paladin and the Fighter feel "bleh". Or worse - that we can easily pigeon-hole one into two other classes and agree it works (then why have it other than having another sacred cow in the herd? We can park it next to the Druid cow.)

Quote from: jhkim;1061820I meant "cerebral" in the sense of a wizard being cerebral. A wizard is an adventurer, but they rely more on their magic and skills than on arms and armor. I think a lot of inspirations for a priest as a PC are less like Friar Tuck and more like saints and exorcists and such.

Agreed, it's not that being "cerebral" disqualifies someone from being an adventurer. My point is that the "cerebral adventurer" class already exists, and it is, as you say, the Wizard.

A "cerebral priest" is not an adventuring archetype in my psyche. An archetype? Sure. Adventurer? Nope. "Exorcists" fit just fine as clerics in the D&D canon. But a person has to do more than "be saintly" to be considered an adventurer to me.

Of course, that's not to say a character of any class can't be cerebral in personality.  But a class (and its powers) based on a cerebral archetype is a different animal.

Quote from: Zalman;1061851My point is that the "cerebral adventurer" class already exists, and it is, as you say, the Wizard.

A "cerebral priest" is not an adventuring archetype in my psyche. An archetype? Sure. Adventurer? Nope. "Exorcists" fit just fine as clerics in the D&D canon. But a person has to do more than "be saintly" to be considered an adventurer to me.

The cleric is odd because in its current form, it isn't an adventuring archetype in fantasy fiction outside of D&D. Most of the other classes have clear examples in fantasy fiction:

fighter -> Lancelot, Gimli, etc.
paladin -> Galahad
ranger -> Aragorn
wizard -> Gandalf, Merlin
barbarian -> Conan
monk -> Iron Monkey

But for cleric, it is hard to see. There is Friar Tuck, but he doesn't have any spells, which is a very significant difference. I think the main inspirations are religious figures like Saint Patrick, Moses, Father Merrin (The Exorcist), and such - but none of those were into heavy armor and weapons.

Quote from: jhkim;1061858But for cleric, it is hard to see. There is Friar Tuck, but he doesn't have any spells, which is a very significant difference. I think the main inspirations are religious figures like Saint Patrick, Moses, Father Merrin (The Exorcist), and such - but none of those were into heavy armor and weapons.

I'm pretty sure Gronan (Old Geezer) had said that the main inspiration was Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter with a smattering of saints so that somebody could be a foil for Sir Fang the vampire PC.

Quote from: jhkim;1061858The cleric is odd because in its current form, it isn't an adventuring archetype in fantasy fiction outside of D&D. Most of the other classes have clear examples in fantasy fiction:

fighter -> Lancelot, Gimli, etc.
paladin -> Galahad
ranger -> Aragorn
wizard -> Gandalf, Merlin
barbarian -> Conan
monk -> Iron Monkey

But for cleric, it is hard to see. There is Friar Tuck, but he doesn't have any spells, which is a very significant difference. I think the main inspirations are religious figures like Saint Patrick, Moses, Father Merrin (The Exorcist), and such - but none of those were into heavy armor and weapons.

Greetings!

I've always thought of the Archbishop Turpin, who fought by Roland's side against the Muslim hordes, defending Europe.

"Turpin - The archbishop Turpin, who fights and dies alongside Roland at Roncesvals, represents Christendom's turn towards militant activity at the time of the Crusades. The way he battles against the pagans reflects the views put forth in Pope Urban II's famous speech at the Council of Clermont in 1095, the direct inspiration for the First Crusade. He is a stout and valiant warrior--"[n]o tonsured priest who ever sang a mass/performed such feats of prowess with his body" (121.1606-1607). He is the last to die besides Roland; when he sees Roland faint, Turpin tenderly sets out for a stream to fetch some water for his dear comrade, but, mortally wounded, he falls down dead before reaching the water. Along with Olivier and Roland, he is taken by Charlemagne's men back to France for burial."

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/songofroland/characters/

I don't know why the image of a warrior-priest seems strange to so many. On all of the medieval literature and stories I read even when I was a kid--or such was read to me--valiant, warrior priests have always been present. The Arthurian tales, the Re-conquest of Spain, the Dark Ages of Europe, the Crusades--warrior priests are always around, fighting alongside the warriors and knights, and usually also serving as some kind of advisor to the hero of the story. Certainly, the "archetype" is not as prominent as the straight out Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, or Wizard--but at least to my mind, warrior priests and devout clerics of the Faith have always been there. Friar Tuck can also be added to the mix--though much of the story examples I remember where not added for comical relief--but were devout and righteous men of God, eager to help and serve in whatever way they could.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: jhkim;1061858The cleric is odd because in its current form, it isn't an adventuring archetype in fantasy fiction outside of D&D. Most of the other classes have clear examples in fantasy fiction:

fighter -> Lancelot, Gimli, etc.
paladin -> Galahad
ranger -> Aragorn
wizard -> Gandalf, Merlin
barbarian -> Conan
monk -> Iron Monkey

But for cleric, it is hard to see. There is Friar Tuck, but he doesn't have any spells, which is a very significant difference. I think the main inspirations are religious figures like Saint Patrick, Moses, Father Merrin (The Exorcist), and such - but none of those were into heavy armor and weapons. .

Elrond.

Seriously. He's a kick-ass fighter and probably the best healer in Middle Earth. Many of ME's elves seem more like clerics than the "fighter/MU" concept of old school D&D, both in the type of magic they do, and the way they get their magic.

(Note: I'm not claiming Elrond was the inspiration for the Cleric class. The prohibition against edged weapons isn't ME at all.)