Explain Clerical magic in D&D to me.

The Game Room
1

I’m thinking about starting a new campaign in D&D, after having been out of the roleplaying world for 10+ years. To do so I’d have to depart from Gary’s vision on a couple of rules, mainly instances in which I think the rules detract from storytelling.

One issue I’m having trouble wrapping my head around is cleric spells. If I understand correctly, a cleric gets their abilities from some sort of divine being. I have a hard time believing that gods would be eager to give semi-miraculous powers to people who use them as casually as adventurers.

Let’s imagine that our intrepid cleric, Bob, is lawful good. He goes on a dungeon crawl with a group of mercenaries, otherwise known as “the party,” which happens to include Joe, a true neutral thief. During the adventure Joe takes a bite out of the bitter cupcake of death. Bob casts Raise Dead and the adventure continues. Seriously, what god in their right mind would approve the use of their divine power to bring back from the dead a person who was not a worshiper, engaged in conduct antithetical to that required by a lawful good deity, and who put himself in the situation that led to his death?

So far I can come up with two theories to deal with this. One is that gods in D&D are more interested in having power and worshipers than enforcing strict moral standards. In other words, the gods are perfectly fine with giving clerics powers to use as they see fit, but only as an incentive to keep preaching the good word. In this case a cleric could use their abilities for trivial purposes, but if they waver in their duties as officers of their religion they risk getting cut off.

The second, and to my mind more interesting, possibility is that nobody truly understands where clerical abilities come from. They just meditate and get their spells from some sort of force that is never fully detailed. Over the centuries mythologies have sprouted up and religions have been established, but whether Odin actually exists is ultimately a matter of faith - he’ll never show up in-game.

The third possibility is that Gary needed a class that could heal PC’s, but field medics would have been out of place.

Does anybody else have any theories about this?

2

If a cleric uses his spells in a way that isn’t consistent with his deity’s wishes, he loses his abilities. The real question is what counts as “consistent with his deity’s wishes”-- If that neutral thief is helping out on a quest to defeat an evil force trying to take over the world, then raising him is certainly consistent with most LG deities’ wishes, even if the thief is only doing it for a share of the treasure. On the other hand, if the thief has been taking bribes from that same evil force and is actively trying to sabotage the rest of the party’s efforts, then raising him probably isn’t so consistent.

3

In D&D, a cleric is a direct agent of their deity, the instrument through by which that deity influences events in the world. So long as the cleric is promoting their deities agenda, they generally have a fair amount of latitude in how they employ the powers granted to them by their god. In the example you give, Joe the Thief may not be a follower of Bob’s deity, but without a the thief’s skills, Bob won’t be able to complete the mission. Additionally, Joe might have been helpful in previous missions that the deity had an interest in, and be willing to reward him for those efforts, even though Joe isn’t a direct follower. Since Bob’s god is lawful good, so he’d probably approve of the healing on the grounds that it’s a good thing to heal people in general. Joe’s deity might be associated with Bob’s deity in some way, so Bob’s god might be willing to send some juice to Joe as a sort of divine quid pro quo, for the next time one of his followers is in a tight spot, and the only cleric around is of the other god. Lastly, all gods want more followers, but a dead man can’t convert. Keeping Joe alive, and in the company of Bob the cleric, increases the chances of Joe converting to Bob’s religion. If Bob’s god has regularly been saving Joe’s life, that makes the chances of conversion even greater.

4

It should also be noted that a Cleric can do actions or missions a god doesn’t approve of so long as they don’t make a habit out of it, so long as they can justify if they’re called on it (and unless you’re planning on running these characters into the 40th level, that probably won’t happen because they probably won’t end up influencing events on a grand enough scale to really notice). For example, if Joe has some backstory quest that would end up violating one of the parts of Bob’s faith it could be justified by saying that it was necessary because Joe’s presence is an unfortunate necessity in furthering Bob’s god’s plan. Whether this justification will be bought and whether or not it’s technically a chaotic action is obviously up to the DM, the god’s canonical personality, and the severity of the tenant Bob had to break in order to complete the quest.

5

There are other options as well. This is really something that the DM should have in mind when he creates the game world, or at least something he should be ready to answer if it comes up.

In the Eberron Campaign Setting, for example, clerical abilities are known (to us, the players who read the rule book) to not be granted abilities of a specific divine personage. The great faith of the cleric allows him to draw magic from Siberys, one of the three dragons who had a part in creating the world. This means that in Eberron, even if a cleric acts counter to his deity’s alignment…for example, a cleric of the lawful good Church of the Silver Flame using torture to extract information from a captured foe…as long as he has faith that he is acting in accord with his religion, he will continue to draw magic.

6

Typically in D&D the player characters will be adventurers siding with the good side. i.e. They’re the ones rescuing the princess, making sure that evil lich doesn’t cause any trouble, and topping the regime of the evil king. No matter the alignment clerics are just representatives of their gods in the world. Adventurers aren’t the only ones who have access to clerical magic either. You can always go down to the local temple and get a Clerical spell cast for you.

D&D has always handled polytheism is a strange manner. I find it really strange that in a world with multiple gods that the players, and, by default it seems, most non-player characters essentially practice monotheism. They certainly acknowledge the existence of other gods but they don’t worship them. At any rate, who knows why gods do what they do? Maybe that thief was part of the gods plan without being a worshiper.

Clerics are restricted in alignment to whatever approved set of alignment their god has for his or her cleric. This means that they’re likely going take actions that the god approves of.

In 2E they introduced some clerics of nebulous concepts like Good that essentially did just meditate to get their spells. In 4E a cleric can stop worshiping his god and he still gets to keep his spells. Who knows where they hell he’s getting his spells these days.

Or this is just one of those things he hand waved because, who cares? It’s an adventure game and we’re here to kill stuff, take their things, and gain levels.

Odesio

7

If clerics could only use their powers to help those with the same alignment, they would literally be preaching to the choir. Well, almost literally. A god who allows powers to be used on all sorts of trivial-in-the-grand-scope-of-things-but-crucial-to-a-few-mortals situations, that is good PR.

8

For world building I see no harm in a proper polytheistic view even if the text of the rules doesn’t support it. Treat the gods as a pantheon even if a cleric might be acting as the intermediary of a specific one. So our neutral thief might have a personal shrine to the suspiciously specific god of low spot checks in his house but he would acknowledge the power of all of the gods in the pantheon. Unless his god has something specifically against thieves he wouldn’t care one way or the other about raising him.

But really, don’t think about the theology of D&D as given in the rules. It makes less sense than the most lunatic of fundamentalist theology.

9

Helotheism is the term. It’s a religious belief that recognizes the existence of multiple gods while focusing worship on one god.

10

Actually, D&D looks more like Monolatrythan Henotheism, at least going by the wiki articles. Both let you acknowledge the existence of other gods, but Monolatry is ‘my god is better than your god, so nya!’, while henotheism is ‘man, I really dig Vulcan, but Zeus is cool too, pleasedon’tkillme’.

Incidentally, does anyone know of any societies that have done monolatry on a personal basis? I mean, in D&D, a big city will have several churches, but citizens will only worship one of the gods, and may actively dislike others - to the point of full-on holy wars, in some cases. I’m not aware of anything even approaching that level of tolerance in the real world, but I guess that’s something D&D’s always glossed over.

11

I don’t think it’s ever made particularly clear what the religious practices of the common citizens are. A cleric generally has one and only one god, but they’re the priests of that church, and historically in polytheistic societies, the deities did generally have separate clergy. But while the rulebooks do mention non-clerics worshiping gods, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that says that they’re necessarily exclusive, so you could have, say, a fighter who mostly reveres Heironious, god of valor, but who will also pray to Farlaghan, god of travel, before a long journey.

12

The Christian God would, for a start. When the Roman soldiers came to arrest Jesus, St Peter cut the ear off one of them, but Jesus healed the injury. The soldier was presumably a worshiper of Mars or another god. He also raised from dead some people who were not necessarily his followers. (Not witnessing, just pointing out that real world religions have stories featuring this sort of thing.)

13

Well, probably not Mars-- By that time, the Olympians weren’t really worshiped per se, but viewed more as legendary figures that didn’t really exist, but who were fun to tell stories about. What we’d think of as religion was more the province of the mystery cults such as Mithraism or Zoroastrianism, especially among the army. The point remains, though, that he certainly wasn’t Christian, and probably wasn’t Jewish either. For that matter, when Jesus healed the centurion’s servant, he even specifically called attention to the fact that the centurion wasn’t a Jew.

14

Adventurers are exactly the kind of people any god in his or her right mind would give spells to.

‘You want to go out and impress people/help people/oppress people (depending on the god’s alignment and personality) in my name? A wonderful way to get worshippers! Have some spells!’

‘You want to fill my church’s coffers through adventuring? They can then afford to spread the word! Have some spells!’

‘You’re protecting my worshippers from being eaten by the monster/oppressed by the tyrant/rooted out and killed by authorities that don’t agree with my doctrines? That’s my work if ever I heard! Have some spells!’

‘You’re preaching in my name (to fellow adventurers, or people you encounter)? Go, my servant, spread the word! Have some spells!’

15

The last campaign I played a cleric in, was set in a Viking-ish world. So my cleric worshipped the Norse gods in general and Freya in particular. Healing spells generally came from the godess Gullveig. Gulveig is also known as ‘gold thirst’. Since we offered her more money each time we needed healing (we kept going up in levels, killing bigger monsters, and getting more treasure), she kept healing us.

My character was briefly cursed ( a sword he couldn’t let go of) for offending Freya. I made an impassioned speech about painting Freya’s glory in the blood of my foes and the sword became vampiric- giving me hp from the damage I did to others.

However, when the sword first appeared, my character asked if Freya wanted him to fall on it. The DM did not respond. So, I said I fell on the sword. It turns out the DM was not quite finished chewing and thought he heard raccoons trying to get in. He hadn’t intended for my cleric to commit suicide. He ruled that I managed to miss. As Emari Belsen had a dexterity of 7, this was believable.

MHO On Clerics In General

Any cleric not willing to kill himself just because his god tells him to, is not worthy of his spells.

A cleric is NOT just another kind of spellcaster! A cleric’s every waking moment is about their patron god or gods. They perform a prayer of thanks when they wake up. They thank the gods for their breakfast. They ask the god’s blessing on the day’s endeavors. etc Until they thank the god for another day before they go to sleep. A cleric should seek to embody the principles of the god they serve. They should seek converts. They should (in keeping with their patron god) help those in need. For good clerics- healing spells, plant growth, purify water, goodberry, heroes feast, etc are great for convincing townsfolk that your deity is the best. For evil clerics- the right spells can get you right to the top of the assassin or thieves guild. Or help you organize the appropriate savage horde. If your deity is historic, do a ton of research. If your deity is not historic, make up a bunch of stuff.

On The Gods

Most gods are incredibly vain. Giving spells to their clerics shows just how mighty the gods really are. Letting Bob raise Joe is showing off to the party.

Gods don’t have to give anything for free. The cleric gives his time, effort and devotion in return for spells. A DM might rule that Joe the thief is raised, but finds that he has been geased. He is now under a divine, mystical obligation to Bob’s god. As I said, the Norse gods demand money or that enemies be slain in their name. Bob’s god might demand that Joe donate gold, or sneak into a stronghold of evil and rescue good prisoners etc.

Gods will often do something just to piss of another god. Emari was planning to build a temple. Various gods appeared to him and demanded that the temple be in their special honor.

Gods can be mysterious. The DM does not necessarily need a good reason for a god to do something. Maybe the god of Bob can see into the future, when Joe the Thief will render him a great service. Or maybe, Joe the thief rendered him a great service unknowingly in the past.

16

Since it’s only the cleric who is required to have an alignment the same as or close to that of his deity, it’s entirely possible that the True Neutral rogue worships (or at least gives lip service to) the same god the Lawful Good cleric worships.

The important thing to remember in D&D (and this is actually spelled out in the 4th Edition rulebooks) is that the deities are not omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, and so they require mortal agents to advance their agendas. And as others have pointed out, if advancing that agenda requires giving aid to a non-worshipper, well then, so be it.

17

A couple of clerics that I’ve played have insisted that the characters they’ve healed, raised, uncursed, etc. should donate favors or money or skills or valuables to the cleric’s god, if the cleric (and her god) went above and beyond the call of duty for that character. It can’t be extortion if a Goodly cleric does it, right? :wink: Usually, just a prayer of thanks would satisfy my cleric, she generally didn’t insist on someone converting to her god, just some acknowledgement.

I did manage to get the whole party pissed off at me when my cleric spoke with the anti-paladin the party had just killed, offering to raise him and lift the curse so he could become a paladin again. The DM rewarded the whole party, though, and gave me extra XP for roleplaying (the cleric was Neutral Good, leaning towards Chaotic). The fight was a boss fight, and it was supposed to end with the anti-paladin dead, and not raised. The DM thought for a few minutes, and ruled that this was consistent with our general party goals, and allowed the raise.

One thing that I do with spellcasters is use up the day’s remaining spells, if I can. If I’m a Goodly cleric in town, this means going to my god’s temple, or to the temple of the god closest to mine, and offering free healing. This is a form of donation, as well as earning brownie points with my god. It’s harder to do this with a mage, unless I’ve deliberately learned something like Vermin Riddance (whatever they call that now) cantrips.

18

You can always put on magic shows for orphans, they just love watching random crates melt under acid spells.

19

Judaism, initially. There are lots of passages in the oldest books of the Old Testament which talk about not worshipping other gods but not yet about Our God being The Only God. Mind you, “tolerance” isn’t quite what comes to mind for what the Jews and their neighbors were doing to each other, but back then it was kind of a novel concept.

20

Roman empire, too. They were huge on it, they just insisted that your god was an aspect of one of theirs, so it was cool.