I have played 5e for a few years now, weekly with a fixed group of friends. Many characters were built and played, with different classes and races. I found Cleric character is the hardest to build.
Here is why (TL;DR):Cleric is the only class that indicates an occupation. Well, adventuring is kind of another occupation. So which one is your day job? They don't really have much overlaps.
See, clerics are priests, by definition, with a career of providing religious services. So if your job is to adventuring with the party, and at the same time you are providing religious services, then whom to? The party? Then are you part of the party, or are you just a priest the party hires?
I think, in forgotten realms, most priests do their day job in temples or shrines. Then most of them cannot be adventuring!
I played cleric and saw others playing cleric too. I gotta say, most cleric characters were incorrectly played as a paladin, just with a different suite of class features. If you go out there in an adventure fighting for your god(s), then you are not playing a priest, you are playing a religious fighter, aka, a paladin.
I know there are ways to combine these two jobs into one. Maybe your temple needs to send out a priest with a mission. Maybe the tradition of the temple is to train the young priests through an adventure "internship". Maybe the elder sees a vision of this adventurer party and send a priest to assist them and guide them. There are ways. But they are so limited! It's not like any other classes, because you just have to really think about it.
Then, if you are multiclassing, it's even worse. How can a non-priest character suddenly become a (lv 1) cleric of any god? You are in the middle of an adventure. How can you suddenly learn to provide religious services?
It's so hard to make the story of this class straight.
I kinda disagree, because I don't view a cleric as a priest by design, but rather a fervent follower of a god who has been gifted divine power to spread that god's will. With this in mind, a priest could be a cleric, but so could somebody like a craftsman, skilled thief, or a powerful soldier, or even a gifted mage. The multiple domains support this idea I feel, giving rise to multiple ways to be a champion or servant of your god without being a priest.
If you're in the middle of a campaign and a player wants to adopt cleric, I would suggest that they first explain if their character is religious, and then work from there. If they just want it for stats I wouldn't allow it, but if they have a roleplaying reason it's perfectly fine.
if anything, bard strikes me as more 'occupationy' than any of the classes xD
That and I don't see how they are incompatible. A priest/clerics job is to be a tool for their god at the baseline. Whether thats running religious services or going out and smiting evil or traveling ot foreign lands to bring the good word to other nations, its a pretty broad occupation
Yea, I agree 100% There's a reason for so many different domains, not every cleric is dropping to their knees in a temple. Some are practicing magic, some are making weapons, some are killing folk, some are raising dead folk.
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It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
A Cleric isn't necessarily the same as a priest homebased at a temple. A Cleric doesn't even have to be an official member of any religious organization. They could just be someone who had a proverbial "religious experience" and is now devoted to a particular deity, with their power being a reward for that faith. If they are part of a religious order, they could be a missionary of some kind, meant to spread the word of their deity across the land. Maybe it's a part of their order's tradition for members to spend a certain amount of time traveling the world, so that when they later serve in a temple they aren't completely sheltered. Certain deities probably have different views on what their disciples should be doing as well. A god of healing might want Clerics who travel the world offering aid to the downtrodden. A God of war or justice might want their Clerics seeking out evil and thwarting it. A God of trickery or chaos might want Clerics out in the world causing mischief and tweaking the noses of people who deserve it(like a certain Tiefling Cleric on Critical Role...).
The inherit problem of the Cleric in D&D is that was originally based (if you read class descriptions from 1st & 2nd edition) on the knight's of the crusades and their religious orders - Templars, Teutonic Knight's etc.). That's why fighting in armour is still one of the core ability of D&D clerics. The paladin's core is being on a quest (for the holy grail, if you want to go back to the original inspiration), the cleric's core is to serve (a divine power or a clergy of the divine power).
Back to your problem: Why does a cleric "adventure"? Some ideas I used in the past when playing a cleric (not all will fit D&D rules, but you should get an idea) > A cleric with a "travelling domain" (e.g. Hermes) will be on the road with caravans. His job is to keep travellers safe, so seek out new routes of travel, new means of travelling (air ship !!), apprehend bandits, make deals with inn owners, buy new horses ... > A cleric with a "duality domain" will get visions telling him to shift the balance into one direction or the other. Evil cultists need to be hunted down, but also a smuggler should be freed from prison, because the order in the city has slowed down development and more chaos is needed to shake things up. > A cleric of a "war domain" will have different roles in war times and during peace. In war times, he wants to be where the fighting is, to help the side his god favours. In times of peace he will be the reminder that all peace will end eventually and you have to prepare for battle. He will try to train new troops, write fighting manuals, build castles etc.
Perhaps re-evaluating your premise of the cleric class could help you with a more broader perspective. I agree with most others that a cleric doesn't necessarily mean you are a 'priest' or religious leader in your understanding. A cleric is just a word that we assign to a mechanical class. I have seen many clerics that are nothing like a 'priest'. You simply have a devotion to a deity or ideal that grants you powers.
I disagree that Cleric automatically means priest.
I've brewed up a life cleric for a game I'm going to be starting in a few weeks. He's a follower of Ilmater, and believes there's a certain amount of Suffering in the world, and so it's his duty that the suffering is directed towards evil beings and thus protecting good. He is gonna fulfil this mission by adventuring.
Cleric following a God's will to it's goal through adventuring as his occupation.
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I have played 5e for a few years now, weekly with a fixed group of friends. Many characters were built and played, with different classes and races. I found Cleric character is the hardest to build.
Here is why (TL;DR): Cleric is the only class that indicates an occupation. Well, adventuring is kind of another occupation. So which one is your day job? They don't really have much overlaps.
See, clerics are priests, by definition, with a career of providing religious services. So if your job is to adventuring with the party, and at the same time you are providing religious services, then whom to? The party? Then are you part of the party, or are you just a priest the party hires?
I think, in forgotten realms, most priests do their day job in temples or shrines. Then most of them cannot be adventuring!
I played cleric and saw others playing cleric too. I gotta say, most cleric characters were incorrectly played as a paladin, just with a different suite of class features. If you go out there in an adventure fighting for your god(s), then you are not playing a priest, you are playing a religious fighter, aka, a paladin.
I know there are ways to combine these two jobs into one. Maybe your temple needs to send out a priest with a mission. Maybe the tradition of the temple is to train the young priests through an adventure "internship". Maybe the elder sees a vision of this adventurer party and send a priest to assist them and guide them. There are ways. But they are so limited! It's not like any other classes, because you just have to really think about it.
Then, if you are multiclassing, it's even worse. How can a non-priest character suddenly become a (lv 1) cleric of any god? You are in the middle of an adventure. How can you suddenly learn to provide religious services?
It's so hard to make the story of this class straight.
Thoughts? Ideas?
I kinda disagree, because I don't view a cleric as a priest by design, but rather a fervent follower of a god who has been gifted divine power to spread that god's will. With this in mind, a priest could be a cleric, but so could somebody like a craftsman, skilled thief, or a powerful soldier, or even a gifted mage. The multiple domains support this idea I feel, giving rise to multiple ways to be a champion or servant of your god without being a priest.
If you're in the middle of a campaign and a player wants to adopt cleric, I would suggest that they first explain if their character is religious, and then work from there. If they just want it for stats I wouldn't allow it, but if they have a roleplaying reason it's perfectly fine.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
i disagree on a few things
if anything, bard strikes me as more 'occupationy' than any of the classes xD
That and I don't see how they are incompatible. A priest/clerics job is to be a tool for their god at the baseline. Whether thats running religious services or going out and smiting evil or traveling ot foreign lands to bring the good word to other nations, its a pretty broad occupation
Yea, I agree 100% There's a reason for so many different domains, not every cleric is dropping to their knees in a temple. Some are practicing magic, some are making weapons, some are killing folk, some are raising dead folk.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
A Cleric isn't necessarily the same as a priest homebased at a temple. A Cleric doesn't even have to be an official member of any religious organization. They could just be someone who had a proverbial "religious experience" and is now devoted to a particular deity, with their power being a reward for that faith. If they are part of a religious order, they could be a missionary of some kind, meant to spread the word of their deity across the land. Maybe it's a part of their order's tradition for members to spend a certain amount of time traveling the world, so that when they later serve in a temple they aren't completely sheltered. Certain deities probably have different views on what their disciples should be doing as well. A god of healing might want Clerics who travel the world offering aid to the downtrodden. A God of war or justice might want their Clerics seeking out evil and thwarting it. A God of trickery or chaos might want Clerics out in the world causing mischief and tweaking the noses of people who deserve it(like a certain Tiefling Cleric on Critical Role...).
The inherit problem of the Cleric in D&D is that was originally based (if you read class descriptions from 1st & 2nd edition) on the knight's of the crusades and their religious orders - Templars, Teutonic Knight's etc.). That's why fighting in armour is still one of the core ability of D&D clerics. The paladin's core is being on a quest (for the holy grail, if you want to go back to the original inspiration), the cleric's core is to serve (a divine power or a clergy of the divine power).
Back to your problem: Why does a cleric "adventure"? Some ideas I used in the past when playing a cleric (not all will fit D&D rules, but you should get an idea)
> A cleric with a "travelling domain" (e.g. Hermes) will be on the road with caravans. His job is to keep travellers safe, so seek out new routes of travel, new means of travelling (air ship !!), apprehend bandits, make deals with inn owners, buy new horses ...
> A cleric with a "duality domain" will get visions telling him to shift the balance into one direction or the other. Evil cultists need to be hunted down, but also a smuggler should be freed from prison, because the order in the city has slowed down development and more chaos is needed to shake things up.
> A cleric of a "war domain" will have different roles in war times and during peace. In war times, he wants to be where the fighting is, to help the side his god favours. In times of peace he will be the reminder that all peace will end eventually and you have to prepare for battle. He will try to train new troops, write fighting manuals, build castles etc.
Perhaps re-evaluating your premise of the cleric class could help you with a more broader perspective. I agree with most others that a cleric doesn't necessarily mean you are a 'priest' or religious leader in your understanding. A cleric is just a word that we assign to a mechanical class. I have seen many clerics that are nothing like a 'priest'. You simply have a devotion to a deity or ideal that grants you powers.
Valaith "Rimehand" Kalukavi - Chronicles of Arden
I disagree that Cleric automatically means priest.
I've brewed up a life cleric for a game I'm going to be starting in a few weeks. He's a follower of Ilmater, and believes there's a certain amount of Suffering in the world, and so it's his duty that the suffering is directed towards evil beings and thus protecting good. He is gonna fulfil this mission by adventuring.
Cleric following a God's will to it's goal through adventuring as his occupation.