RP Tip - The Cleric

[Blue_Wyrm]

Why? Why does a cleric have to be an evangelist? Are all people in the actual clergy evangelistic in nature? Why can't a cleric serve their god without trying to get everyone else to?

I think something very important is being forgotten, which greatly adds to GBX's RP guidelines to playing a cleric. Since the Time of Troubles, Ao added a little clause to every deity's contract...

~ Deity Accountability ~

Because Ao was angry that many deities did not care enough for their worshippers, after the events of the ToT he made it so that all re-ascended deities now derive a good chunk of their power directly from the number of worshippers they have.

This applying to every last one of them, any deity -wants- to have as much worshippers as they can to make their view triumph, and in turn they will ask their cleric to do everything in their power (employing methods appropriate to the deity) to convert the masses to their point of view. It's not necessarily about going to "church", but about believing in (or fearing) something.

Many people have chosen a priest because healing is handy in Sundren and the class is powerful at later levels. There's nothing wrong in that if you don't completely disregard the RP obligations tied to the class beyond chosing the right domains. A cleric is a representative of a timeless moral concept, and must spread it if he doesn't want that concept to be engulfed and disappear under the opposed concepts of enemy deities.

That's the jist of it to me. It's the same thing as making a druid but not saying anything when they see adventurers running by their forests and wantomly slaying dire bears. It's the fundamentals of the class to -have- a moral position, to defend it and spread it. Forgotten Realm druids don't keep to their forests 24/7... because they'll soon lose it to lumberjacks if they don't do anything. Some collaborate with rangers to teach farmers how to grow their crops effectively while respecting the land, others act as doctors for sick horses and livestock, making them popular amongst the people that will then lend a ear to what they have to say.

I think the main point of GBX was mainly "Be proactive in regards to your deity and your faith".

My 0,02 $ CAN. (it's true, they -are- worth more ^_^)

[Dark presence]

Well, I think this has to be careful with just what this whole thing means. Overall I would agree in the very general sense that clerics should play up their connection to their god more. But they in no way should be forced down one path. Even in the books there are several examples of faiths which have very different sects in them, who do rituals differently, or at different times or whatever. A god chiefly wants worship above all, and if a cleric worships, even in a non-standard way, but at least one which the god can accept, I think that should be sufficient.

Now, clerics are not all going to be evangelical. There is absolutely no requirement anywhere that clerics be charismatic, diplomatic or evangelical (Similarly like there is no requirement that a rogue be able to disarm traps or pick locks). AO's decree is irrelevant to a single cleric, and in any case is directed more at the gods, not mortals (who are eventually going to forget about AO entirely, anyways). A single cleric is not the entire scope of his/her god's efforts to expand their worship or preach to the masses. There are always other clerics, and one of them can be the evangelical one, assuming it is a faith that uses evangelism to spread faith, while the player cleric could be a dull, boring person that is better used in a more active manner, spreading, or simply maintaining faith through actions not words.

Real life should be a great example of this. How many of us know of religious leaders who are dull, uninspiring, and probably couldn't even convert a seminary student?

One thing I would caution against is getting too anal about clerics worshiping their gods at X time of day or whatever. For reasons of reality here, this isn't really a great idea. Time passes incredibly fast here for one, and for another I would be loathe to be forced out of a good RP situation because we have spent 20 game hours and its time to pray again. Now I don't think thats what GBX intended, but still it can raise fears.

Another issue I have is that while I've seen some servers require more from clerics, there is zero reciprocity. Clerics remain ignored by their gods. Gods need to influence their clerics, sending them visions, messages, even appearing before them sometimes. There is a reason godly appearances and manifestations are written about in the books. You can't expect a cleric to be super devoted to their god if their god totally ignores them, aside from the spells granted. Obviously it shouldn't be a common thing, but if a cleric needs some RP improvement, or needs a push in the right direction, then the DMs have the IC tools to provide that without just zapping away their spells. I guarantee you, if the DMs start giving clerics some prompts, RP hooks from their gods, cleric RP would improve dramatically, as the player and character see some real reason to be more devoted and RP that connection more.


Now thats just my opinion. But I do agree that clerics should be more active in their worship, but not necessarily to strictly follow the books. I don't find the books to be conducive to a PW environment in this case. This goes especially for clerics of evil gods who generally may want to hide their worship and especially their rituals, but there is a very finite amount of areas they can be in and someone can very easily randomly run into them, because they can't even worship in their own home or other out of the way, secret areas with virtually no traffic.

[GodBeastX]

God, you guys have too limitted of a view. Getting stuck on charisma for preaching is pretty retarded. I used multiple examples intentionally, and many of you DO try to preach and enforce your personality and views, even on evil. "Turn from your evil ways evil doer as I try to convince you with my 7 charisma and no diplomacy, bluff, or any other RP skill."

And no, CONVERSION AND PREACHING is not the only thing I said clerics could be doing. As I said, if you read about a god, there's a TON of things you could be doing, even without preaching, converting, or otherwise. But I fail to see why a cleric would wake up in the morning and say "You know, for the rest of my life, I think I'm NOT going to teach people about my god and keep it to myself." Riiiiight. But it's fine I can live with a server of clerics like that. I would think a cleric of someone like Kossuth would be all about fire all the time, and half of their conversations would relate to it.

Then add to it that everyone's major argument was "Clerics are not the same for every diety" which I of course know to no end, but what I do notice is that people are CERTAINLY playing them all the same. "We need a healer, now we have a cleric who can buff us to grind" and that is about where their clerical ideals end.

The POINT of this thread is to bring awareness that your god DOES expect you to perform some sort of benefit to them with the powers given you. The Wiki's layout tons of rituals, rites, practices, prayers, etc that a cleric could be doing in RP. What I heard as a reply to my attempt to raise awareness is "I don't know GBX, the whole thing sounds very pushy to make people act how you want them to act." When I'm trying to get people to act the way their gods would want them to act.

Just leave clerics to RP the way they feel they should be played..

I don't leave anyone on the server to RP the way they want to RP, otherwise we would have cybering everywhere, griefing, undead walking around sundren city, every other person a son of a god, every other person a lich, and worse. We have guidelines, gods have guidelines, and after you fit in those guidelines it's totally up to you.

Notice I havn't done anything to any clerics? Even the ones with 6 charisma? I don't even force them to RP out the fact a 6 charisma with no social stats essentially means your character is probably be unable to interact with people in a social way at all.

I'd hardly let a cleric do whatever they want with powers of their god like I would let paladin behave like an evil bastard or a blackguard behave like the lovable winnie the pooh. The reason I am UBER lenient with Clerics though, is, as players said, they differ so much per cleric, and their organizations too, but I'd like to see people at least TRY to act like they are the forefront of their god's worship instead of just another tom dick and harry who just happens to have spells.

[ RANT ]
Somehow I feel that other servers have less issues with this. It's like everyone wants to be told "There's absolutely no requirement for you to RP anything." We certainly didn't have as many issues when everyone had to submit a biography to play anything at all, that's for sure.
[ /RANT ]

People, this isn't a whipping, this is an awareness, if you don't know how to be a cleric of your god, that's fine, we are putting up all the deities on the wiki for that very reason. We know some of you don't know what's expected.

[adventurer]

Well said GBX. XD I notice similar reaction of non-cleric characters to clerics. Certainly not all cleric characters behave in major 'unfavorable' ways. It is fun to RP cleric's divine gifts. A player may choose not to use certain or all available NWN2 spells and powers for a number of fun RP reasons. Doesn't take tailor made DM encounters to play this way. ; )

[Vekin]

I think GBX is making some very valid points here. Too many clerics seem to have no connection to the god they follow what so ever. Each deity has a dogma and that code clerics should be striving to live by. You might not be a success at it but you should be trying to live by it.

[ThePaganKing]

Clerics

One thing that we really need to get away from is, hey, look at today and compare this with RP on Sundren. What???

AD&D is loosely based on Medieval Europe. They were damn superstitious and went to church every day for hours on end and if you didn't go to church, many times you were considered an outcast or witch or worse. Now add to this real magic, real gods that interact with the world, real demons that can gobble you up, real other races and evil creatures, and then tell me that hey, well, look at today and compare what is going on in Sundren society with todays society.
It is a bunch of hogwash! At least read a bit about the world, AD&D, and Faerun before you go about comparing todays society with Sundren please.

If a God gives you certain powers, I am sure there are strings attached to these powers. It isn't buffing your friends. If you buff your friends, there should be some, hey, these buffs I am giving you come from my God, so and so, would you like to hear more. Now, if the person says, hey, I am an atheist, so bugger off, well, then don't buff him anymore, unless you really want to try and convert him.

And GBX isn't saying that you have to be evangelical, but you do have to at least play the part of a cleric once in awhile and at least adhere to your Gods tenants. If your God hates undead and you see someone summon an undead to fight for them, well, you should have a big problem with that! If you are part of the triumvarate and they go to War, then you should be there also. If someone denigrates your God, then you should have a problem with that.

You also have to realize that clerics have certain skills for a reason, so if you ignore them, then it is a perogative of the DMs to do something about it.

I am not saying that you have to be "turned on" all the time, but at least make some pretense of RP with your cleric and the God you worship. Hell, I wasn't even a cleric, but a fighter who worshiped Tempus and after every successful battle, he would kneel and pray to Tempus, thanking him for the victory. Could he do that in a temple, I don't think there is a temple to Tempus yet?

You don't have to get on a soapbox in the middle of the Trade Tier and evangelize.

Sorry about the long response.

[Infernal_Havok]

Blue_wyrm is absolutely correct. GODS ARE DEPENDENT on their followers and having more worshippers means securing their position in the Pantheon. Gods who are no longer worshipped or are slain end up in the Astral Plane (dormant purgatory for Gods) and get inhabited by Githyanki which is a really crappy way to go.

So as you can see, Gods want to maintain their ranks and would promote their dogma in an appropriate way to their ideology through their most Devout (clerics). That is why EVERY cleric that wants power from their god should be an active recruiter of their faith not a warrior with God granted powers. Frankly, the only warrior cleric or warpriest type that justifies melee combat exclusively are the ones that have War in their domains IMHO.

And this is not about Playing or limiting playing on your character. You choose to be a patsy for a greater power, if that power tells you jump off a cliff with spikes in it, you do it or suffer consequences if you don't. If you don't like being limited in that small aspect of responsible RP then choose another class like a Fighter/mage or Eldritch knight since that is how many players RP their clerics out to be.

[Cyrgon]

As i see it, cerics are also tending to the existing flock, providing advice.
Yes they are priests. In real life, some priests are very charismatic, and evangelistical (High CHA). Some are more the advisor kind, caring for their flocks spiritual needs and offering guidance (WIS). ("you should look into your heart, child, but remember... ").

Some of course are both. Dedication to their deity is the most important trait.
They are agents of their god, and follow their diety's will, nost often because they agree with their diety.

[Orodir]

Very inspiring post neosonic.

[Iso]

This will be my first post on the Sundren forums. It is resurrecting an old thread, but the content is an enduring subject that many, if not all of us should take into consideration in our daily role playing in Faerun.

The original topic of the post was to remind players of the Cleric class of some prerequisite background knowledge and practices expected of Cleric characters to remain one of the faithful. Initially this was a statement that Clerics needed to start practicing a role as outlined by their chosen religions or suffer from their lack of faith and as a result of this many people chimed in with their two cents on the subject, much as we see I am doing now.

Of the things discussed (you did read this tread to help put my post fit into context, didn't you? ) the thing that seemed to strike a chord with players the most was the statement that Clerics should be showing their faith, assuming the majority of Clerics on the server at that time were somehow failing in this respect, and such would be failing as priests of their lords and soon would be denied their divine powers (although it seems this did not come to pass).

Regardless, it did bring up a topic I find important to each and every single one of us. In Faerun, Gods walk among men, demons devour souls, and eternal damnation is a very real threat that even the most simple of peasants knows in the back of his mind. It is not a world of atheists, but one of true faith where divine influence is felt every day across the face of the planet of Toril.

It is a known fact that atheists are doomed to not to eternal damnation, but a lengthy one with absolute oblivion at the end of their path, so even the slightest shred of faith in even a sadistic and murderous evil deity is a greatly more desirable end to someone's life than to be one of The Faithless.

These are facts, these things are known and preached and taught throughout the lands because the priests of these deities are not just evangelists but conduits of the very Gods themselves. These blessed people are not just spreading sermons about theoretical deities, but existing entities that once rained thunder and fire down on nations in an epic struggle to survive and regain their powers. The Gods are understood to be very real and the destruction left in their wake during the Time of Troubles still echoes to this day.

So here our Clerics stand, messengers and engines of divine providence; Clerics not only crusade in the name of their lords but they are also some of the brightest worshipers keeping their deity alive. To some of the Gods, their Clerics are cherished and important servants, while to others they're expendable assets.

For whatever end a Cleric serves and even for those who travel with them, the presence of the Gods is undeniable - through a Cleric's fingertips and words flows holy power that allows them to perform incredible works of magic that no mere mortal can conjure without faith. Even Wizards and scholars of the arcane know full well, if not better, that the magic wrought by the hands of Clerics is not of mortal design.

To the individual Cleric their time of prayer is a display of holy devotion. Unlike a Wizard who memorizes and activates their spells in a moment of freedom and meditation or a Sorcerer who lets the charged energy in their blood leak out into the world on a whim, a Cleric prays to their God and gives up thanks. They speak, but more importantly, they are heard. A Cleric knows in his heart that in a moment of need when he again asks his God to hear his prayers those prayers will be answered - this is a kind of faith perhaps unknowable to anyone else, not even in full to the zealous Paladins.

Faith. A Cleric's faith is like no others. It is absolute knowledge they serve a higher power; conviction. There is no question, only raw, hard fact.

To a Cleric their entire existence revolves around service to the Gods. Without their deity a Cleric is nothing but a crusader with no direction but his own. Every thought must be saturated with purpose and consideration because to a Cleric they are serving a higher power than their own. One can not simply trick a God. This is represented by the alignment requirements, a Cleric who does not believe in the ideals and purpose of their deity has lost their way and accordingly no longer serves their God. Their lack of faith and lost conviction is reflected by a loss of their connection to the divine.

Now that we've had a little overview of what it is that drives Clerics, let's cover the more technical side of their training and what it all relates to in game mechanics.

Let's start with what a Cleric is not. A Cleric is not a simple priest. A simple priest can come from any walk of life - some of my most devout and evangelical priests have in fact been Fighters and Rogues who, in their faith, preached the principles and dogma of their God and lived pious lives in service of their church. A high Charisma can be great for public speakers as it helps them to sway people in seeing the benefits in another point of view or to strike fear into the hearts of those who do not believe the same things. Note that some deities require ALL their followers to evangelize, not just Clerics. See the Dogma section of your deity's entry in the wiki.

A fantastic example of the sort of faithful Fighter I am speaking of would be Kelemvor Lionsbane, now known simply as Kelemvor. While he was mortal Kelemvor was said to have had "the heart of a noble Paladin," which goes to show that not everyone of strong faith and conviction must be a Divine caster, however Cleric is not just a priest; a Cleric has faith and conviction beyond anyone else and they can not be compared to another character of the faith.

A Cleric in Faerun is not an Ur-Priest. Clerics do not siphon their power from the Gods, it is given to them. Clerics are devotees and this is not debatable, their power comes only from their lord. In some settings Clerics draw their power from domains rather than deities, but that is not the case in Faerun. Unless a being has incredible power they are incapable of having Clerics because they do not have the power to lend it to them.

A Cleric is not a Favored Soul. A Favored Soul is a living channeling device of their God. A Favored Soul does not pray the way a Cleric does, they do not need to ask for their power, they simply use it. A Favored Soul must be the exact same alignment as their deity because they share a direct bond, having been given some microscopic fraction of the God's own life force to call their own through pacts running far deeper and more extreme than even a Cleric's and a Paladin's. A Cleric asks their God to work miracles based on the belief their prayers will be heard and their God obliges them out of trust that the power is being used to further that deity's agendas. A Favored Soul is more comparable to a Warlock than a Cleric.

A Cleric is not a Specialty Priest. Specialty Priests will deal more with the religious aspects of the priesthood than a Cleric might as Clerics devote more of their training time towards combat.

Since we looked at some of the things a Cleric is not, let's consider some of the things a Cleric is. A Cleric is initially a member of an established religion, similar to the way that Druids share a bond through their Druidic orders.

Similar to a Fighter a Cleric undergoes religious indoctrination and training and then further receives training in martial combat. Clerics are fully trained to defend both the flock and places of worship as well as to combat and destroy the foes of their God. A Cleric is expected to bear arms and fight for their God's cause and as such you will not see as many Clerics serving the more peaceful deities as those that condone violence.

As trained members of established religions or cults, Clerics will be expected to continue many of the same duties other priests have. A Cleric is a Cleric in addition to being a priest.

Lastly, a Cleric is a trained warrior. Many people will cringe when they read this statement but I will go so far as to tell them they have the wrong idea about what Clerics are. Warriors do not need to fight 24/7 and some warriors may never see combat in their entire lives, but Clerics are not simple priests as I have related several times now and the Gods are in a constant state of conflict. Many Clerics have been tasked by their lords to seek out and destroy enemies of their church. Being characters of such strong conviction and faith most Clerics will heed these orders and many would sacrifice their lives in the wars and squabbles of the Gods they serve.

It has been stated earlier in this thread that when it comes to divine characters each and every individual can be like a member of an entirely different class when they are placed side by side. This is entirely true and there is much wisdom in examining the reasons why.

For every church and dogma there are rules and expectations of their Clerics and these rules and expectations are often for Clerics and Clerics alone, much the same that Paladins have special rules they must heed that others do not. Not every Cleric will be tasked with murdering opposing Clerics and not every Cleric will be asked to preach. Furthermore, many churches have separate sects and organizations within them that task Clerics with differing tasks depending on which, if any, of these groups they belong to.

With all I have said I am sure some people will not wish to read something so long, but at this time I would like to thank those of you who have taken the time to carefully take in my words. I hope that this post will cultivate more conversation and debate and I welcome any challenges or praise for what I have said here, particularly from the Dungeon Masters as in the end our experience in D&D will rely on their generous rulings and judgment.

[GodBeastX]

Things on Sundren are a great deal different than the time of this thread's posting. I'm happy to say I havn't seen any clerics today that don't take their roles seriously. I'm only posting this because this thread seems to be linked in other threads.

At the time of this posting, most clerics were basically just buffing fighters. Most the players didn't even know anything about their gods. The information wasn't as available as it is today through the wiki and more. So don't feel like my rants have much to do with today.

Also that post above this one is very insightful

I'm going to lock this thread though, so people aren't tempted to bump it since the rant is pretty old.