Specialty Clerics: St. Cuthbert

Rumored to have once been a mortal man, Saint Cuthbert is an intermediate deity. His alignment has been variously interpreted as lawful neutral (lawful good tendencies) and lawful good (lawful neutral tendencies). Saint Cuthbert hates evil, but is more concerned with law and order, with converting the uninformed, and preventing backsliding among the faithful.

Clergy

Saint Cuthbert's priesthood is divided into three major orders.

• The Chapeaux, whose symbol is a crumpled hat, seek to convert people into their faith. They are equally divided between lawful good and lawful neutral characters. Paladins of Saint Cuthbert, known as Votaries or Communicants, have an honorary position in the Order of the Chapeaux. Their role is not just to convert others, but to actually fight enemies of the faith.

• The Stars, whose symbol is a starburst, seek to enforce doctrinal purity among those already dedicated to the saint. Most are lawful neutral, and they do not shy from using mind-reading magic in order to ensure that even the private thoughts of their flock are pure.

• The Billets are the most numerous of Saint Cuthbert's clergy. Most are lawful good, and they seek to minister to and protect the faithful. These are well-beloved by the common folk. Their symbol is a wooden club. The Chapeaux often come into conflict with the Billets, because the former order wants to seek new converts while the latter wants to care for the worshipers they already have.

- Wikipedia

New Prime Requisite: WIS (must meet minimum)
Alignment: LN or LG
XP Penalty: 0%

Level 2: Piercing Club
Level 2: Friends (Billet Ministers only)

Level 3: Shillelagh (Chapaux Recruiters only)

Level 4: ESP (Star Inquisitors only)

Level 6: Heavy Club

Level 12: Brutal Club

Level 16: Fast Club

Description of Benefits:

• Bonus Spells: Another straightforward benefit. Normally characters join only one order.
• Piercing Club: The standard vs. AC adjusts for a club are -4 (plate), -2 (chain), 0 (leather), +1 (none). Change the heavy and medium adjustments to -2 and -0 respectively. Once per day, the character may treat a club as a magic +1 weapon; this effect has a 1/6 chance to end at the end of each round (if Shillelagh is also active, treat club as a +2 weapon).
• Heavy Club: Roll 1d6+1 for damage vs. small-medium creatures with clubs.
• Brutal Club: Increase club damage vs. large to 1d4
• Fast Club: Reduce speed of clubs from 4 to 3.

The total cost is 5%, as only one minor spell of fairly marginal utility is gained but the player recieves substantial improvements to an otherwise neglected weapon. If the player joins more than one order, a 10% XP penalty is reasonable to compensate for the extra spells.

Specialty Clerics: Celestian

In the World of Greyhawk campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, Celestian is the god of Stars, Space and Wanderers. His symbol is a black circle set with seven stars. His color is black.

An Oeridian god, he is called the Far Wanderer, and is brother to Fharlanghn. It is said that the two followed similar but differing paths. Celestian is Neutral Good, but his worshipers may be any alignment of good.

- Wikipedia

New Prime Requisite: INT
Alignment: NG
XP Penalty: 10%
Level 1: Featherfall

Level 3: Jump

Level 5: Levitate

Level 7: Spider Climb

Level 9: Fly

Level 11: Dimension Door

Level 16: Teleport

Description of Benefits:

• Bonus Spells: Most of Celestian's benefits come in the form of bonus spells. Very straightforward.

The calculated cost should be 15%: 7-1 spells = 6 for a cost of 15% penalty to XP earned. However, some of the spells are of limited utility (Jump) or come at very late levels. They are handy though. I toned the XP requirement down to 10% -- as originally suggested in Greyhawk, actually -- but I tend to play no higher than name level. If I were to play up beyond that I'd be tempted to go with 12.5% or the full 15%. As a note, this variant cleric is essentially unchanged from the original specialty priest from Greyhawk. You could rearrange the bonus spells to go into the dead levels or increase the XP required as a variant on my variant.

Specialty Clerics: Fharlanghn

Fharlanghn, the Dweller on the Horizon, is the Oeridian god of Horizons, Distance, Travel, and Roads. He is a well-known deity on the world of Oerth. He wanders that world in person, his petitioners present in spirit form at crossroads and in mysterious oases. His symbol is a disk with a curved line representing the horizon, and an upturned crescent above that.
- Per Wikipedia

New Prime Requisite: CON
Alignment: TN
XP Penalty: 5%
Level 2: Bonus Language, Enchanted Quarterstaff
Level 6: Mount
Level 12: Bonus Language
Special: Traveller's Luck
Special: Overland Speed Bonus

Description of Benefits:

• Bonus Languages: At the designated levels, clerics of Fharlanghn may learn an additional language due to their propensity to wander and meet individuals from all over the realm. This ability is hard to evaluate in cost according to our rubric; one could argue that mastery of languages is a magic-user class feature, but if it is, it is a weak one. -1.25%.
  
• Enchanted Quarterstaff: The cleric may use the magic-user's spell Enchanted Weapon, but only on quarterstaves. Note that the quarterstaff is generally an inferior weapon except for magic staves which can be excellent; this allows a cleric of Fharlanghn to use his deity's favored weapon without it being a totally sub-par choice. Normally a spell costs -2.5%. However, this is a very limited application of the spell, so 1/2 seems appropriate.
  
• Mount: Clerics of Fharlanghn may cast the mount spell as a bonus spell. This enhances their mobility and ability to wander. This is a useful travel and utility spell, and worth the full -2.5%.
  
• Traveller's Luck: The cleric enjoys a percentage chane equal to their level that a baneful overland travel or random encounter is avoided. The DM should secretly roll, and if the dice show a result lower than the cleric's level, the encounter does not occur or is replaced with a neutral or friendly encounter. This is another hard to evaluate ability that nicely scales with level and is useful at all times in the cleric's career. We could argue that classes like the Ranger also have an ability to avoid baneful encounters, and this is a more limited application of that. 2.5%.
  
• Overland Speed Bonus: The cleric gains a bonus to overland speed in inches equal to their level divided by four when marching on foot. Thus a 5th level cleric of Fharlanghn with a normal move of 9" enjoys an overland travel speed of 10". This allows a cleric of Fharlanghn to wear heavier armor yet keep up with lightly-clad and fast moving groups. This is another quite limited benefit, difficult to evaluate. Perhaps worth 1.25%.
  

This gives us a total of 10% in costs, -2.5% for the blanket offset for a total of 7.5%. However, because few of the abilities are really directly combat related, I will reduce it to a 5% XP penalty.

AD&D Specialty Clerics Series

Sorry for the light posting! It has been a busy and beautiful summer in Alaska. Given that we're still in the midst of hunting season I expect posting to remain light until the winter closes in on us.

As a holdover for my loyal readers (and Chinese Gold Farming Comment Bots) I'm going to start a weekly series that discusses specialty clerics for AD&D. The purpose of specialty priests is to differentiate the different types of priesthoods. It also slightly power-ups the cleric class. Clerics are already very formidable -- I think they are the most potent class in the game. However, there is usually no surplus of them at the gaming table. Nobody wants to be the "medic" or "heal bot." However, clerics are the heart and soul of a party. I'm alright with "souping them up" if it means they are more popular.

Expect these posts about once per week.

GYGAX'S SPECIALTY PRIESTS

Specialty clerics have long been thought about for AD&D; in A Guide to the World of Greyhawk (Gygax, 1983), Gary introduced a series of specialty clerics. These variants on the core class gave specialized benefits at the cost of XP penalties. Unfortunately, there are problems with implementation.

Gary's benefits are not evenly spread out. Some are front loaded (i.e., you get all the goodies in early levels) and others are delayed until name level or later, when they won't really come into play at all. For example, the Cleric of Heironious puts up with a 10% XP penalty his entire career to get a 1x/week bolt of energy (which is pretty awesome) at level 11. That's great if you're playing a name level campaign but useless if the campaign will end by level 7. Others are front loaded, which makes them prime candidates for a quick dual-class dip.

As previously mentioned, Gygax imposes XP penalties on clerics who take advantage of their special abilities. After some analysis, this is the rule of thumb I've drawn from his work:

• Adding a Class Function from another class: -5% XP
• Adding a Bonus Spell, perhaps from another class: -2.5%
• Blanket Offset: +2.5% (this basically means a specialty cleric gets "something for nothing")

Thus, clerics are generally souped up a small amount by Gary's work, at least gaining a spell for free. These are VERY approximate formulas, and I don't know how much Gary tested them out.

MY METHODOLOGY

I've added abilities to clerics in exchange for XP penalties, similar in broad terms to what Gary pioneered. However, I have spread out the abilities to fill in "dead" levels where an AD&D cleric traditionally gets nothing. Here's an analysis of the AD&D cleric and what they get at each level:

1. Level I Spells
   
2. Nothing
3. Level II Spells
4. New THAC0 and saves
5. Level III spells, weapon proficiency
6. Nothing
7. Level IV spells, new THAC0 and saves, Scribe Scrolls
8. Followers
9. Level V spells, Weapon Proficiency, Stronghold, Penultimate Turn Undead Chart, Last HD
10. Level 10 - New THAC0 & saves
11. Level VI spells, Make Magic Items
12. Nothing
13. New THAC0 & saves, Proficiency
14. Nothing
15. Nothing
16. Level VII spells, new THAC0 & saves
    

Abilities have been placed to fill "dead levels" as much as possible, or to provide growing benefits over the entire career of the cleric to discourage dual-class dips. "Front loading" abilities at level 2 allows clerics to quickly get a definitive ability. Level 12 abilities should be rare capstones. The exception are deities -- often evil -- which are really intended more for shamans or multiclasses (like half orcs). In this case, they remain front loaded. This is intentional, as it allows those shamans to access the benefits and it encourages a short sighted dual class dip to get power -- at the cost of alignment.

Abilities have also been selected with an eye towards maximizing underused spells and weapons. For example, the Battleaxe rarely gets much love as it is inferior to the longsword, making it ideal for a specialty priest. The same goes for many underutilized spells.

In addition to an XP penalty, each specialty priest adds a few new requirements.

• New Prime Requisite: Wisdom is the default prime requisite of a cleric. It remains so with specialty clerics, but they also usually add a second prime requisite, similar to other subclasses (Paladins need CHA, etc). A specialty cleric must have at least a score of 15 in the new Prime Requisite. They must have greater than 15 for bonus XP. This is actually often a significant cost as it prevents clerics from putting scores in more useful abilities. If the new prime req is WIS, then it requires a 15 WIS (i.e., you can't be a specialty cleric with marginal WIS).
  
• Alignment: A Specialty Cleric's alignment must exactly match that of their deity.

In general, all mentioned abilities are bonuses. So, if a spell is listed, that is a bonus spell slot which does not tie up a cleric's daily memorized quota, although it must be memorized as any other spell must be (time to rest, time for prayer, etc). A weapon proficiency or other feature is also a bonus, unless otherwise mentioned.

EXAMPLES

Here is the example cleric of Pelor, the NG Sun God.

New Prime Requisite: CHA
Alignment: NG
XP Penalty: 10%
Light (2), Cure Disease 1x/week & Lay on Hands as Paladin (2), Cloak of Bravery (6), Sunbeam (12)

• At level 2, Clerics of Pelor take on their two primary roles: That of servants of the Sun (light), and that of exceptional healers. The minor paladin-like abilities grow throughout the cleric's career, encouraging progression in the cleric class.
  
• At level 6 -- normally a dead level -- clerics of Pelor are able to cast Cloak of Bravery one level before they would otherwise. This spell allows them to confront evil. Moreover, this is a spell which is rarely memorized.
  
• At level 12, the cleric gains a capstone ability that really symbolizes his class, the power of the sun and the ability to vanquish the undead.
• A -10% XP penalty is paid to offset the three bonus spells and paladin abilities. Calculated, it should be -15%; three spells (-7.5%), two class functions (-10%), and the blanket offset (+2.5%). Consequently, 10% may seem generous. However, the cleric only gains one new non-cleric spell (Sunbeam) at a high level. Also, the Remove Disease paladin ability, which costs 5% is essentially obsolete by level 5 when it can be easily memorized far more than once per week and by level 7 when it can easily be scribed onto a scroll. Given that most of the spells are clerical -- i.e., little access to out of class powers -- and the cure disease feature is of limited utility past the lower levels, 10% seems appropriate.
  

Here's another cleric, one of Erynthul:

New Prime Requisite: STR
Alignment: CE
XP Penalty: 10%
Scare (2)

This minor ability fills a dead level. It also is a low-level ability, allowing shamans or half-orc clerics to take advantage of it. No XP penalty is needed to pay for this very minor ability.