So, gods are real and act in the world in a real way. Minimally, they grant the Clerics their spells so the Clerics may go forth and do whatever it is that the deity wants done.
Layfolk (obviously) are not Clerics. They may pray to one or more deity, but they don't expect to be granted special powers for it. Their closest brush with the divine might be the local church worship they go to every week.
Priest(ess)s are also not Clerics. They are the keepers of the local church and help the faithful in every day life in a way that an adventuring Cleric cannot. However, being faithful, why aren't they granted powers by the gods? Minimally, they'd at least ought to have access to healing and protection abilities.
Now, obviously, the Adept could work here for an NPC Cleric. But, are all Priest(ess)s Adepts and if not why not?
I've seen references in the past (nothing in front of me at the moment) that suggest that, in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, in addition to adepts, low-level clerics and bards often serve as local priests/priestesses, with druids sometimes doing the job in rural communities. With the addition of the witch and oracle classes, I have no doubt that they also serve in this capacity, even though oracles technically adhere to a mystery rather than a patron. Yes, bards and witches are arcane spellcasters, but they can have access to cure spells and some other shared beneficial spells with the cleric spell lists.
As for why the bard or witch doesn't have cleric levels, they don't need them if they have access to the magic through other means. Even if their magic is arcane, perhaps it was the god who arranged for the bard to study with the maestro where he picked up his talents, or send the mysterious patron/familiar with whom the witch studies to gain her spells. Direct access to divine magic isn't the only way that can be interpreted as receiving the deity's favor.
The Kellids of the land of Sarkoris (notably now the Worldwound) believed that all magic ultimately came from divine powers, and their faiths could have basically any type of spellcaster as a priestly figure, except wizards and magi, who were considered Southern heretics because they claimed to master magic independent of divine power and store their spells in books. Even summoners were called "god callers" and their eidolons were considered manifestations of local deities. (The Sarkorians would worship practically any entity real or imagined though, part of the reason why their land was suceptible to the demon Deskari's depredations.) (This information is from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Empires.)
Now of course I'm responding about the Pathfinder Campaign Setting particularly and your campaign may be different. This is the Homebrew section, of course, so it's up to you how you set-up your homebrew. I'm just giving the Pathfinder Campaign Setting's way of handling it as an example.
I'll dot this thread for later reference.
Seems this is going to be an interesting debate.
|
According to Gods & Magic, tons of classes can serve as a 'priest.'
The write up for Asmodeus, for instance, says that 'Priests of Asmodeus are clerics, blackguards, diabolist mages or thaumaturges.'
It's been a few years since that was written, and the Book of the Damned Thaumaturgist class isn't really name-dropped as much (nor the 3.5 Blackguard), but that's still a fair cross-section of classes.
Other more interesting examples include Illusion-specialist wizards being able to serve as 'priests' of Sivanah, the priesthood of Irori consisting of mostly clerics and monks (with a few druids) and 'any user of magic' being able to serve as a priest of Nethys. Several gods, including Desna and Gozreh include rangers among their priests, or, in the case of Iomedae, paladins. Calistria, Cayden and Desna also are among the gods who allow bards to serve as priests.
Gods & Magic or no Gods & Magic, I'd allow not only adepts to serve as priests for *all* gods (and demon lords, empyreals, etc.), but even have the majority of NPC 'priests' represented by adepts, instead of full-on clerics or druids or oracles. I'm a fan of the PC classes being less common among the NPC population, and the PC clerics, wizards, fighters, etc. being rarer and 'more special' than that.
As for 'lay clergy,' who know the rites and rituals, and run the behind the scenes not-so-miraculous parts of the church, I'd go with making them just NPC experts. If they really need to call up holy powers, the 'church expert' can have Use Magic Device as one of his 10 class skills (along with Knowledge - religion, Heal, Diplomacy, etc.), and be able to read off the occasional holy scrip (scroll) made by one of his more magically enlightened brethren, or even bust out the sacred arm-bone of St. Lucius the Twice-Martyred (wand of cure light wounds) and invoke it's holy power.
That being said, some sort of Divinely Touched feat for such lay clergy that grants them limited use of divine power (such as a single at will orison, or a small selection of low-level spells roughly equivalent to what a Gnome gets through his Gnome Magic racial trait) could be neat.
The Scarred Lands had something called invocations, which were brief prayers that any devotee of a particular god could use to gain a small bonus. A follower of Tanil (goddess of song and archery), for instance, could pray for a full round and get a +1 to hit to a single Perform (music) check or archery attack roll, for instance. In a campaign setting with 20 'major' gods and a dozen 'minor' gods and seventy bajillion demon lord, archdevil, etc. 'demigods,' it might be more trouble than it's worth to include that sort of option...
The way I seem to understand it is a Priest is trained to work in and around the temples...
While the Cleric is trained in more of a Traveling capacity.
You could have a temple of priests be clerics its not like there is a rule against it. But I think i would be a lot harder on PCs if you say had to raid such temple.
Why would it be harder? A temple cleric would probably be lower level anyway since he's not out adventuring regularly. As for the combat difficulty, the cleric will have more options, and possibly more powerful options, at his disposal, but for the same CR he'll be 1 level lower than the adept.
The skillset to be a priest would probably focus on Profession (priest), Diplomacy, Knowledge (religion), and possibly Craft (alchemy) though, so a wide variety of characters might fill the roll. Being able to cast healing spells is useful in the role too, of course.
Why couldn't priests be Clerics?
They could be, but I'm more curious about whether or not anyone can be minimally an Adept. That is, a local village is likely to have a local Priest(ess). The thorps and hamlets probably don't have anything more than a lay clergy who can perform certain (non-magical) rites for the faithful, but whom don't have any magical powers since they are not a Priest(ess). However, the local Priest(ess)s can be visited or might go out to those thorps and hamlets within a reasonable distance from the local village.
Similarly, as Wolf Munroe and Set pointed out, there are several classes that can fill in the role of Priest(ess): Bards, Oracles, Witches, Druids, and (technically) Inquisitors. Wizards, Sorcerers, and Magi also have access to magic early on that could help a community, even though they may not have access to healing magics.
Theoretically any other class could also work if the person leading the prayers is knowledgeable. Paladins would certainly qualify.
But, if a Wizard acts in the capacity of a priest, is faithful and does everything that a good priest should, why isn't the Wizard granted Cleric spells too? What makes a person qualified to receive divine spells and abilities like an Adept or Cleric?
The starting age for clerics is actually in the same bracket with wizards, so some degree of extensive training/knowledge is apparently required.
A bard that serves her community as the local priestess may not advance in cleric because her Wisdom is only 10 and she wouldn't benefit substantially from being a cleric. Or perhaps her Wisdom is high enough but she prefers studying as a bard.
The starting age for clerics is actually in the same bracket with wizards, so some degree of extensive training/knowledge is apparently required.
A bard that serves her community as the local priestess may not advance in cleric because her Wisdom is only 10 and she wouldn't benefit substantially from being a cleric. Or perhaps her Wisdom is high enough but she prefers studying as a bard.
I'm beginning to see why multiclasses tend not to happen much, since most classes seem to act as 'jobs' and some jobs simply don't work very well with others. A priest of Apollo or some other god/ess associated with music, dance, and so on could probably also be a Bard without much issue, though it still begs the question of how divine spells are granted.
You could have a priest in a hamlet as the equivalent of a 0-level cleric. Basically make him a level 1 Expert with the ability to cast a handful of orisons.
Adepts as a class seem to be more tribal - shamans, witchdoctors, medicine women, etc.
Well, I could probably alter the Adept to make a variant that's more priestly as the west or east 'civilizations' would consider them. I was thinking of creating an NPC class for arcane spell-casters anyway. The real problem I see is that unlike Clerics, most priests don't have much of a reason to adventure, yet they would fill in a vital role in society in general.
Having proficiency in something is not an obligation to use it. If i wanted to play a cleric who has never picked up a weapon or worn armor, i can. Proficiency not used may as well not exist RP wise.
Having proficiency in something is not an obligation to use it. If i wanted to play a cleric who has never picked up a weapon or worn armor, i can. Proficiency not used may as well not exist RP wise.
There's also the cloistered cleric archetype from Ultimate Magic, that doesn't have all the proficiencies of a standard cleric.
Cloistered clerics typically live in a temple and rarely interact with the outside world. They are bookish and well learned in the lore of the faith, paying less attention to its magical and martial aspects. A cloistered cleric has the following class features.
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spellcastingClassOptions/c leric.html
Yup that too.