Hi guys,
Lately I've been thinking a lot about one of the core assumption of the game:
The healer cleric.
I can get behind clerical magic from domains - if you have a lot of faith in a god, or if the god blesses you, or if you study the traditional scriptures of that deity, etc, you start to channel some of the essence of the deity themselves. It works for me.
What I don't think I've ever seen is an in-setting explanation of why goodly clerics can heal wounds and assorted health problems, and relatedly, why they can use their channel energy to harm undead (and why eeevil clerics can hurt you and... heal undead? Doesn't make sense to me).
Of course the cleric is mechanically the healer and undead-turner, traditionally, and that's because, well, it's always been so (and many archetypes help you emphasize or downplay these and other aspects, good, fine).
But from a *setting* point of view, I'm not sure I get it.
Take Desna, for instance. Her domains are the stars, dreams, luck and journeys. Any spell related to these domains would fit perfectly with her, but... healing people? Protect sleeping people, sure, freeing people from tyranny, okay, lead people to safety, bring good luck, even unmake curses, it's all in the job description. But healing you? Where exactly does that come from? And turning undead? Desna doesn't give a crap about undead. She'd probably be more interested in turning demons and other fiends, if anything, and night and dream hags, and probably alien aberrations. Now *Pharasma* would certainly have undead-turning clerics, and Sarenrae healing clerics, without a doubt. But what do Asmodeus, Shelyn, Nethys and company have to do with healing spells and with undead?
Again, I understand creating a personal spell list for each deity would be too much. Mechanically it makes sense that clerics have their thing, and since PF comes from 3.5 that thing is healing people and harming undead (or vice versa if you're evil). What I don't get is the explanation for this in the lore (or, hell, why they do share the same spell list, with only the domain spells and powers differentiating them. I think a cleric of Iomedae and one of Rovagug should have absolutely nothing in common barring the fact that they're channeling divine essence).
So, yeah, I'm really quite at a loss here. Have you ever read a good motivation about why it is so? In a PF product, in a PF novel perhaps, or directly from a developer maybe. Or maybe there's an archetype that changes all of this. I'm just trying to wrap my head around this and it just makes little sense to me. Shamans I can understand, witches too, druids, bards... it seems more like wizards should have come up with healing magic at this point, too. But *all* clerics healing the sick and injured and blowing up undead?
Not really sure how that fits with the "deity's champion" concept.
Thank you in advance!
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In your example, Desna is still a champion of good and an enemy of evil. Not the most militant by any means, but still, she cares.
And, you know, healing tends to be a nice thing to do, usually. Otoh raising undead is always evil, as are undeads themselves more than 90% of the time.
That said, there are issues with it, obviously. I think that's a fairly well agreed upon thing, short of the ultra-traditionalists.
It's the way it is because PF1 is a direct heir of 3.5 : it wasn't marketed as 3.75 in the early days for no reason. This is what it was designed for : a continuation and an improvement, not a revolution.
Back then, Paizo was probably not yet in a position where they could break all the old rules - not for what their ambition was.
Now however, we already know PF2 will do things differently, with each god choosing what its cleric will be allowed to channel. And while a lot will stick to what they have, we know some others, including big ones, will switch things around.
...
For the rest ... there are literal hundreds of worshippable entities, expecting too much unique things for each and every single one of them is madness.
What a mere mortal can handle of divine power is limited, no matter the source, and takes a specific form. That's your explanation.
Much like other classes have their own limitations themselves, why noone can do everything, or why light and gravity are things that exist. Such are the laws of nature and supernature, if you will.
Divine casters have overall limitations on aligned spells no one else has to deal with, arcane, psychic or alchemical.
Based on their deity of choice, they also get, of the top of my head:
- domains/blessings/whatever - which can also directly affect the archetypes they can grab,
- a specific flavor of channeling - moreso with variant channeling and feats,
- for many, special access to a few specific spells other clerics can't cast (or early access at least),
- And with every detailed god description we have there is mention of a few unique planar allies they can call on.
Also obediences, but those are available to all worshippers.
That's already quite a bit of customization, I'd think.
Plus, channeling and spontaneous casting are often affected by archetyping. Maybe less than domains, but a close second.
Finally, a lot of clerics are just bad at channeling and barely ever do it. It really only is a core feature of the class if you want it to be.
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I get the feeling, that the deities of Golarion are more interested about what's the planar matters and their divine realms than what happens on the Material Plane. The Material Plane is only improtant for them as a first step in the journey of souls, the place where souls mature and gain beliefs and alignment. Compare with the First World: since the souls there never leave it, and thus are useless to the divine, the gods abandoned it completely, the Good gods included.
From the deity's point of view, the main role of a priest is to direct the souls of mortals, bringing them towards the ideals of a given deity. For that goal they are granted powers that allow them to become a central or at least important figure of the community. It's the same with Erastil as with Lamashtu.
Regardless of the alignment, all souls (except undead) are powered by positive energy. The River of Souls and the Outer Planes create by god are dependent on that fact - the souls filled with negative energy, the undead, are a corruption of the cycle and as such cannot be claimed by most gods (with an exception of Urgathoa who have discovered a loophole, and possibly other similar dieties). Therefore it makes sense to me that all cleric get a basic energy manipulation power to make sure that the journey of the souls thay take care off is going properly. It's a crude ability, channeling just fills an area with a given type of enrgy and lets it do its thing; usually the cleric doesn't have any power to direct it in more sophisticated way. Still it allows them to fight of the undead corruption. That it also allow to heal the living may be a side effect.
What I'm surprised, is that there evil deities DON'T give their cleric the ability to command positive energy, but require them to use negative enrgy instead. With the exception of Urgathoa (who has undead as minions) and Rovagug (who doesn't have his own divine realm in Outer Sphere, doesn't care about the souls of followers and just wants to destroy everything), I don't see any sense in this. Clerics of Lamashtu or Asmodeaus could be much more useful to their deities if they could use positive energy.
Hi guys, thank you for giving your 2 cents.
Nyerkh: yes, healing is certainly a nice thing, that's true. And a lot of people are always in need of healing - even though the main problem is usually disease instead of actual injuries. Historical shamans were important in a myriad ways, but one skill they *had* to have was being able to cure illnesses/curses (often thought of as the same thing, or at least related, iirc). So PF shamans make a lot of sense as healers. Hedge mages covered the same role, so witches are fine too. Priests... I'm not sure. As you say, *mechanically* there's a thousand reasons why clerics work that way. That's not what I'm interested in though - I'm trying to understand if there's a reason in the lore for that.
You say that's simply the main way a cleric is able to channel their deity's power, and this explanation has merit. Essentially, a cleric can't perfectly mimic the kind of powers of their god, and most of it gets lost in translation as simple positive/negative energy, correct me if I'm wrong. Not a bad interpretation. Not ideal, perhaps, but it could work.
Adjoint: the River of Souls is an interesting element to bring to the discussion. Indeed gods would be very interested in perpetuating their realms, and for that they need souls, and can't work with undead (as you point out, Urgathoa definitely can, and Rovagug doesn't give a crap, but those are the exceptions). So they just try to eradicate them, and the healing is incidental (or a welcome bonus in Sarenrae's case, for instance).
As you say, clerics of evil deities present a problem: their gods want much the same thing, but they channel negative energy, which means they have no inborn power against undead, they actually cure them, and it doesn't make sense.
I'm also not 100% convinced the gods are mainly interested in the cycle and "recycling" of souls. Sure, that's an important part of the setting and something every deity wants to see preserved, absolutely. Pharasma dedicates all her time to overseeing that, even. But it's not really like the other gods care little about mortals - they do try to spread their faith, get more followers, and pursue their interests. I think more powerful domains would make sense, perhaps like a psychic's choice of discipline, or even more. If I want to dedicate my whole life to Desna, she probably wants me to protect sleepers, guide caravans and travellers, defeat Lamashtan horrors, teach people they can always fight fate and work towards their good fortune... yes, she definitely wants Cynosure to keep together, and she needs believers and aligned souls for that, but that's only part of the equation imvho. She wants me to further her agenda, not just smite undead. Also because *there is* a goddess who explicitly looks over the River of Souls full time, whether I'm good or evil and whatever my agenda is, by default.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I still think clerics should reflect their individual deities more. Mechanically, you can apply archetypes in first edition - I need to check to what extent they allow you to focus on the domains - and in the playtest for second edition, well, channeling depends on the god, but is still perhaps too big a part in most clerics' abilities... then there's the idea that divine magic influences life and spirit (while arcana works on matter and mind, primeval on life and matter, and occult on mind and spirit, right?). I'm not sure I get where these divisions come from. Why is all divine magic geared towards life and spirit? I think it's to leave clerics recognizable more than anything, and that goes back to "PF clerics heal & turn undead b/c 3.5 clerics healed and turned undead", which from a lore point of view can't be satisfying.
I really should read the novels, particularly something with at least a cleric protagonist and a good explanation of the way they see it. If you have suggestions, please do tell ;)
(PS: Ultimate Magic's variant channeling is a good step in the right direction imvho. The Idealist archetype too, which can be applied to any cleric. Still spontaneous casting of healing spells, but you channel the essence of your deity's plane, not positive/negative).
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What's interesting to me about the concept is how the assumptions changing can lead to changed mechanics.
For instance, logically, a negative energy empowered undead that drains life-energy with a touch, such as a wight, wraith or specter, at the very least (and possibly even a shadow or lich, which inflicts negative energy damage and / or drains life-energy in some measure other than negative energy levels), *should* be able to metabolize the positive energy a priest channels as effectively as a life-force it steals from a living body. (This doesn't *have* to be the case, as my ability to metabolize meat doesn't mean that I'm going to be nourised by a frozen turkey being shot into my face out of a cannon. Delivery matters! So it's not completely ludicrous that life- and soul-eating undead take damage from clerics splashing them with yummy stuff-of-life. But I do like the idea of making at least some life-stealing undead into these 'Life-Force-Eaters,' who can also metabolize channeled positive energy or cure spells.)
And that would make a terrifying encounter for someone expecting positive energy to damage a bunch of wraiths 'just because that's how it works in D&D,' for them to shudder and waver *and grow stronger, because he's feeding them the life-force they crave!*
Those same undead, feeding on life-energy, would be, like living creatures, *damaged* by negative energy, even by their own life-draining attacks (allowing them to attack and cannibalize each other!), as the negative energy rips away at the stolen life-force that sustains them, leaving them weaker and closer to destruction.
Similarly following that logic, a negative energy empowered creature wouldn't naturally heal every day, but would require that stolen life-energy to repair damage to itself, and might even *lose* hp every day, instead of gaining them, as living creatures do (the 'metabolism' of the undead proving less efficient than that of a living creature, 'unnatural' in the sense that the world itself seems to be eroding them away, so that they have to feed pretty much daily just to break even, and even more so if they find themselves damaged). This would have major role implications as any undead so prone to weakening and possibly 'dying of hunger' like this couldn't be found in a 1000 year old tomb or something, where there's no daily source of renewable life-energy. (Unless there is! A permanent link to the positive energy plane in a fountain, meant as a healing shrine for the long-buried temple, step into the glowing waters and be healed!, now serving as a never-ending buffet for the wraiths that are all that's left of the clergy to this forgotten god...)
It can also be fun to delink positive = good and negative = evil in other ways as well. Negative energy could be seen as an entropic force, necessary for new creation to occur (as the old is broken down and recycled), while positive energy is associated with stability and changelessness and order (resetting everything, including damaged bodies, back to the status quo, but also limiting opportunities for the young as it allows the old to get back into action). And like that, you've instead linked them to Chaos and Law, instead of Good and Evil.
A fine example of the disconnect since they got 'de-Neutraled' and made more explicitly 'good = positive, evil = negative' is the remove disease and contagion spells. Logically, since remove disease is *killing living creatures,* albeit microscopic critters with terrible PR, then it should be using *negative energy,* antithetical to life, to do so (just as we, in the real world, use tailored toxins or destructive radiation on unwanted germs or tumors). Similarly, contagion is *creating life.* That's not something negative energy is known for. It doesn't create life, not even if that life is bubonic plague.
Applied consistently, there would indeed by *evil* uses of positive energy, creating and nurturing *nasty* living things like ebola and cancer and parasites, and there would be *good* uses of negative energy, surgically targeting and killing those exact same plagues and afflictions.
But instead, we've kind of got a bastard system of 'negative energy hates life, unless that life is icky?'
Interesting stuff, Set.
One thing you got me wondering is why some undead drain life force. They're sustained by negative energy, right? So draining positive energy from living beings should perhaps weaken them.
Unless their life drain ability doesn't reflect their feeding off positive energy, instead showing how their negative energy snuffs out the positive in living beings, *without* absorbing it?
As for positive energy curing illnesses, and thus killing off germs, which are living beings, I'm not sure. In theory Remove Disease, which is conjuration, could even summon negative energy in a very precise fashion to exterminate the germs, while Contagion, being necromancy, could harness positive energy to create viruses and bacteria. What I mean is, I can't find any text in which these spells are explicitly called out as conjuring respectively positive and negative energy.
I agree that replicating 3.5's mechanics as they are without taking into consideration your cosmology can make little sense at times.
Also, the cleric was born in ye olden days, explicitly to counter a vampire pc, as far as I know - so having it turn undead and heal wounds in the best Abrahamic tradition made sense, but I don't think it's a good fit for all the various fantasy pantheons which have sprouted since then. Imvho their powers should be intimately tied to their individual deities. Having them channel positive and negative energy is a powerful statement about the setting, but I don't think it's the right one.