2025-05-08 I am not interested in clerics
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I noticed a bunch of posts on the topic of clerics. I got them via the
fedibot that reposts the blogs from the OSR Discord server
(@osr@social.alexschroeder.ch, feed RSS). They all linked back to
Emergency Bandwagon: Conclave Edition:

> The Pope has died. A new Pope, his hour come round at last,
> slouches towards the Chair of Saint Peter to be ensconced. In the
> meantime, WE BLOGGING.
>
> A new challenge for bloggers: write something in anyway related to
> clerics (perhaps particularly their hierarchy and rituals?) and post
> it between when the conclave begins on May 7 and when the smoke
> emanates from the chimney indicating that a new Pope has been
> selected.

That made me laugh.

Clerics really seem to stir people up!

> I really don't like the cleric class. – Splitting the cleric into
> the Holy Trinity
>
> I don’t like clerics and never really have. – Divine Magic Works in
> Mysterious Ways
>
> Of all the classes, the cleric strikes me as the dullest—so let's
> fix that. – Kill Clerics, Become Warlocks

In my own house rules, there have been no clerics since 2016. Back in
2019 I reported that I had still no clerics. And I still don't. I
also never went back to using "paladin" abilities as mentioned in that
"no clerics" post and I never went back to using reputation for
"divine favour".

As @phf@tabletop.social of ((nil) is (not(null))) also uses these
house rules to run Barrowmaze and I'm an occasional player, I get to
use the rules from the player side, too. And it works! It works even
if the whole dungeon is filled with undead. It's just harder.

I encourage you to give it a try. An adventure that requires a
specific class to be in the party is a dull adventure. Therefore, all
adventures can be played without clerics. It might be a bit harder, or
it may feel different, but it can be done.

And I'm by no means a fanatic. I've played clerics. In my Arden Vul
game, we use AD&D 1st edition rules. And there are clerics, of course.
It's OK. I don't mind. The undead turning doesn't really make much of
a difference. And the highest level cleric just recently started
multi-classing as a magic-user.

In a way that seems to validate my idea: There are no clerics. Cleric
spells are regular spells and magic-users can learn them, if they
want. If you want to cast spells and wear armour and wield weapons,
play an elf.

That brings me to another idea: I am thinking that we maybe don't need
all these classes. We just need fighters and wizards and a multi-class
options. If experience always double for the next level, then a
fighter-wizard – what used to be an elf – is a level below their
peers. Which is exactly the effect of double experience point
requirements for elves in B/X or how OD&D elves work where you need to
pick fighting elf or spell-casting elf at the beginning of the
adventure. That leaves the question of whether comparison: One extra
level of wizard is powerful, for sure. Is an extra level of fighter
powerful? Probably not so much. A fighter with no wizard levels is
simply easier to play. But that's a thought for another day – and no
excuse to bring clerics back.

#RPG #Halberds_and_Helmets #Clerics

2025-05-08. Best quote by @mdhughes@appdot.net:

> The only reason they were ever in the game was Gary had an annoying
> vampire PC, and rather than do anything OOC (unaware that Rousseau
> had published The Social Contract in 1762), he made a grudge class
> for someone else. – Dungeoning & Dragoning and My New Rules, No
> Clerics Allowed