Clerics and the DCC

[Hamakto]

Let me preface this with the statement, that everything is subject to change (per Joseph). We are running an version of the cleric that earlier play test may or may not have run, but I feel it is worth discussing here to get additional input.

I played a 2nd level cleric (at Gamers Plus) and sat next to the cleric at GaryCon.

Spell casting for clerics is both like and unlike Wizard spell casting. I am not going to go over Wizard spell casting again (at this time), but instead will illustrate some of the differences between them.

1. Clerics do not lose their spells (prayers) from memory when they are cast.
2. They get all spells of their level in memory
3. Gain Lay on Hands class ability (detailed later)
4. Gain Turning ability (detailed later)
5. Invoke Divine --- similar to a Wizard invoke patron ability

What is same is that a Cleric must roll a spell check to use ANY of the abilities or cast spells. This mechanic works just like the Wizard but with the following exception. This spell check is modified by how much displeasure you are in with your god or goddess. This mechanism works like this:

If you fail to cast a spell, heal, turn... or any other class ability that requires a spell check. You get a -1 on all future spell checks (this is cumulative)
If you are successful on a spell check, heal, turn, etc... you take one of any previously accumulated -1 off the list (if any were accumulated).

In practice this seems pretty interesting, because the more you fail... the greater chance that you have to fail. It really does compound fast.

In the Thursday night Gamers Plus session, I did a dozen heals, cast detect magic, bless and a myriad of different spells. Sometimes, multiple times. I would miss one here and there, but the next roll would be positive and I would lose the penalty. I probably used at least 30 class abilities in the first 2 1/2 hours of the game session...

then.... *DUN---Dun... dunnnnn...*

I missed eight spell checks in a row. At that point my normally +3 spell check had fallen to a -5 spell check and my Cleric was out of action [i.e. rolling a 12 or higher on a d20-5 is not so easy to do]. My god had abandoned me and left me that fickle god he was....

I had not played anything like this before and the mechanic was initally fairly cool. I will list what the positive and negatives that I came away with from my experience:

positives:

1. A cleric does not have to ration his heals
2. You are not wasting spell slots on heal spells (i.e. not just a heal bot)
3. Turn any number of times per day
4. Plenty of class abilities to choose from.

negatives:

1. Streaky. If I missed 5-6 rolls at the beginning, I could of destroyed the effectiveness of the character for the entire session.
2. Over powering in options to Wizard: If they miss a check, their spell is gone (i.e. spell burn can get it back, but that is another discussion)
3. Current healing matrix is rough to opposing alignments. The way it is structured will make it so that NG Clerics will be the norm in DCC. [next post in this thread will cover healing matrix].

[Hamakto]

Healing Matrix:

This is prefaced with that fact that I do like the underlying idea, but I think it needs some tweaking before public beta:

For a cleric to determine how well she heals someone with a successful Lay On Hands, they have to map everyones alignment in the party.

Draw a matrix:

LG|LN|LE
---------
NG|N |NE
---------
CG|CN|CE

If you are exactly the same alignment, then your healing spells are the most powerful. If you are one alignment step away, they are slightly less powerful. If you are two steps away, then they are fairly week.

Here are some examples:

A LG character would do healing at max for a fellow LG
Medium level healing for LN, NG, N --- characters
and poor healing for everything else.

What does this mean? (I cannot find my copy of the character sheet and I would have to ask permission from Joseph to put exact numbers here anyway)

So these are just approx numbers to give you a feel. Note: DC is the spell check number rolled, CL=Cleric Level)

Exact match: DC10 (d8+1+CL) DC15 (2d8+2+CL) DC20 (3d8+3+CL)
One Step Off: DC10 (d6+CL) DC15 (d8+CL) DC20 (2d6+CL)
Two+ steps: DC10 (d3) DC15 (d6) DC20 (d8)

If you notice the healing for two steps away, it is almost useless at higher character levels. So a LG Cleric would almost never be able to heal a Chaotic Good party member. Which brings me to one of my earlier points that a NG or True Neutral Cleric would be best for a group that has alignments all over the place. NG would be one step off for all except evil alignments. A True Neutral cleric would be one step away from EVERY alignment.

Since you have to do a spell check for every lay on hands, you would have to do multiple lay on hands to even heal minor wounds of someone that is of an alignment that is far away from you. And true to form, DCC RPG keeps Law-vs-Chaos as an important alignment distinction and it is represented here. But the flip side of that is that you will get burned performing spell checks at one point in time.

[Hamakto]

Now that I have listed (in VERY broad strokes) some of the cleric class abilities...

I would like to suggest some changes to the class. Some are for class balance, some are for survivability and some are to not overshadow other classes abilities.

Spell check penalties
---------------------------
I like the concept of spell check penalties for deity displeasure. But mechanically, it needs to be corrected. It seems to play ok at low levels. But should a 2nd level Cleric use 20-30 powers one adventure and then fail to get anything to successfully work the next session? That is WAY too streaky. Especially for a character that performs healing for the party. If any other character has a bad day it just makes things interesting for the group. If the Cleric has a few bad rolls, the entire group could die.

Plus, because the way things are structured for recovering a -1 on the die roll it makes it fairly easy for a high level cleric to NEVER (ok not really never) suffer a complete collapse.

At 2nd level, I had a +3 spell check bonus. To successfully cast a spell, I need a DC12 or higher. To successfully perform a heal is a DC10 check. What I didin the play test was to cast a spell, and if I failed it... perform a lay on hands (higher percentage chance of success) to recover the penalty.

At higher levels (or with a high ability score), I could see this spell check climbing to +5 or even +8. At that point, you would be very unlikely to fail multiple lay on hands and you could recover penalties with relative ease. And since you do not lose spells from memory, you could effectively cast spells indefinitely. (example: Fail a 3rd level spell effect then heal someone to get the penalty reversed).

Now that I have pointed out a problem, I need to present a possible solution to the problem. There are really two issues here to deal with for the Cleric.

1st issue: Party healing and recovery comes at the hands of the Cleric. If you do not have an effective cleric (i.e. healing), a series of minor encounters can be deadly. While that works good in a novel, it really puts a cramp in people enjoyment of a RPG.

2nd issues: Spell memorization. Since a cleric does not memorize spells, they just need to perform prayers to their gods to achieve the spell effects. Eventually a god will get tired of answering prayers for their worshipers. With the cumulative negative effect, this is reflected. But currently it is too easy to get around for a higher level character. [Covered in the post after this one]

Here are my suggestions for enhancing the way the Cleric plays at all levels.

Make healing function like the following:

The chart only has two tiers:
--- 1st tier covers alignments that match or are one step away.
--- 2nd tier covers everything else (note an opposing deity or someone allied with an opposing cause always falls into 2nd tier no matter what their alignment)

The DC check for both tiers will go 12,17 and 22 --- to match the effects of a 1st level spell

Each time you are healed by the cleric and the spell check is not successful, the healed character tracks a cumulative -1 modifier on the next lay on hands spell craft check for that cleric.

If you are a 1st tier alignment difference and the successful roll is a 12-17, then the character still accumulates another -1 cumulative modifier on the next lay on hands spell craft check.

If you are a 2nd tier alignment difference and the successful roll is a 12-21, then the character still accumulates another -1 cumulative modifier for the next lay on hads spell craft check.

If you roll a natural 20 on the roll, you can take away a previously assigned negative modifier.

The purpose of the negative modifiers on a successful roll is to provide a limit to the amount of healing a character can provide for their party. Once you hit a spell craft check of +8 or higher, you become an effectively infinite healing machine. A DC10 is really easy to hit. With the proposed changes above, you will slowly stop being able to heal someone. And the higher level you are, the longer it will take for the healing to become ineffective for a particular character.

[Hamakto]

Deity favor penalties & casting spells
---------------------------------------------------------
If my suggestions for changes to the lay on hands above are workable, we do not need to change much on the mechanic for casting spell.

We can make the following changes to the cleric casting rules we should do the following:

On a spell failure check, you take a cumulative penalty modifier equal to the spell level.

While this seems harsh, it prevents a situation where a caster tries a 4th level spell. Fails it, then casts a 1st level easy spell to recover the -1 modifier that was incurred. It helps limit the possible abuse of the system.

The only other thing that I would add would be to add a result for a spell craft check of a natural 1 on a d20. Every other class has something bad happen on a natural 1 except for the cleric. So on a natural 1, the cleric loses the ability to cast the spell for a period of time. The god is displeased with the cleric and punishes them for a period of time. Since a lay on hands is not a spell by this definition, we do not gut a primary class ability form the character.

[Machpants]

Before your take I thought this:
Well that looks cool to me, a bit like the sorcerer and mystic in DW. I would change the alignment restrictions to make a diagonal = 2 steps, thus the NG cleric would be good for 3 other alignments. Corner clerics (extreme alignments LG/LE/CE/CG) just 2. I may even make every step = 2 for TN clerics, that'll teach em to be so wishy washy with their alignment! Rather than corner clerics 3 and xN or Nx 5 (with TN 8!). LG to CE would be 4 steps and impossible, it would be anathema for a LG deity to heal a CE character and v/v

[Hamakto]

Turning class ability
---------------------
Turning is no longer restricted to undead and/or demonic type creatures. Turning now effects everything that you deity would find offensive. It could be a basalisk, undead, a dinosaur, etc.

The turning class ability works just like everything else for the character, it requires a spell craft check. It suffers the same cumulative -1 modifiers for the spell craft check on both success and failure. It has a base DC10 and gains additional effects for the spell craft check that is rolled.

This table is a fixed table that shows a result based on the spell check roll indexed by HD. It can result in some damage, causing targets to flee, or even killing them. I always found turning table to be a bit annoying because it slows down the game, but that is personal preference

My suggestion of a change for the turning class ability would be the following:

DC = 10+ (2xHD)-1 of target creatures
If you exceed the check, you can keep 1 creature )+ 1 creature for every 2xHD points you exceeded the DC number) from approaching within 10' of the cleric
If you exceed the check by 5, you cause the specified number of undead to flee
If you exceed the check by 10, those creatures are destroyed (saving throw allowed)

By moving the DC higher, it eliminates having to consult a table to effect creatures. It also brings it inline to be considered a 'known' spell that has a higher difficulty if you are targeting more powerful undead.

[Coleston the Cavalier]

Sometimes you just gotta go on faith because your god might be testing you. I think the rules as they are make a mechanical way of showing that.

I too played a cleric at GaryCon. I guess my rolling was pretty good because I never had a bad streak provlem.

I hear what you are saying, but I think these bad roll penalties work for me. They do limit the power of a cleric at times. And, if you get in a bad streak, maybe that is you god's way of saying they have some smaller, easier tasks/missions they want you to do before you head back off on something epic. It adds a uniqueness to a class that is often out-of-place in a true swords & sorcery game.

[smathis]

Good insights, Andy. Thanks for posting.

If you notice the healing for two steps away, it is almost useless at higher character levels. So a LG Cleric would almost never be able to heal a Chaotic Good party member. Which brings me to one of my earlier points that a NG or True Neutral Cleric would be best for a group that has alignments all over the place. NG would be one step off for all except evil alignments. A True Neutral cleric would be one step away from EVERY alignment.

Knowing how alignment is used at 99.8% of all RPG tables, I'd say that a True Neutral cleric would be the defacto in DCC if this is the case. It's too punitive to play any other alignment.

Most groups don't understand alignment and so it goes that alignment becomes another useless descriptor on the character sheet. Like Eye Color. Or Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream.

I'd go one further and say DCC only needs three alignments -- Lawful, Unaligned and Chaotic. With a fer realz explanation of what those MEAN. Like REALLY MEAN. So that the lightbulb goes off and groups play them the way they're meant to be played.

That way, no one's ever more than two steps away. And there's none of this "diagonal" tomfoolery to worry about.

The Good-Neutral-Evil axis always bugged me anyway. Because it takes a determinist viewpoint of morality. People are just "born evil" or whatnot. Psshaw. I call Bollocks! Why not let the PCs' actions tell the story of if they're good or evil?

The absolute deterministic silliness of the Good-Evil alignment axis is one very good reason why no one ever really used alignment, why it's not in the latest edition of the game (outside of the singular LG alignment) and why B/X did it right.

On a spell failure check, you take a cumulative penalty modifier equal to the spell level.

While this seems harsh, it prevents a situation where a caster tries a 4th level spell. Fails it, then casts a 1st level easy spell to recover the -1 modifier that was incurred. It helps limit the possible abuse of the system.

The only other thing that I would add would be to add a result for a spell craft check of a natural 1 on a d20. Every other class has something bad happen on a natural 1 except for the cleric. So on a natural 1, the cleric loses the ability to cast the spell for a period of time. The god is displeased with the cleric and punishes them for a period of time. Since a lay on hands is not a spell by this definition, we do not gut a primary class ability form the character.

I think all those are good ideas. I'd rather have the penalty/bonus inverted though. Such that the gods choose to test most strongly those who rely on their favors.

So a Cleric SUCCEEDING at a 4th level spell will get a -4 on their next casting. And a Cleric FAILING a 1st level spell will get a +1.

I wouldn't make it cumulative either. But maybe that's me.

That will end streakiness. And, while it may not follow with how the system is intended at this time, I think it would play better.

And I agree that Clerics should have some nastiness befall them if they roll a 1. Some sort of divine smackdown.

[mntnjeff]

Very interesting take on the cleric, Andy.

I was intrigued to hear about the mechanical differences between clerics and mages, and I think you've outlined them quite thoroughly.

Again, I'd love the hear how these classes play out in a longer "campaign" based game though. It's tough to imagine keeping your spirits high in regards to playing the next session if you've ended the current one w/ a -8 casting penalty. I like the old-school, tough-as-nails feel...but if all you're doing is digging yourself a hole from session to session, then I'm not sure how much appeal this holds.

Let me qualify that last statement btw. I'm an individual that LOVES the old-school feel. I love reading older fantasy novels (appendix 'N'). I love playing the older games (B/X, Swords and Wizardry, AD&D, etc.). But I'm rather unique in my interests. And not necessarily unique in a good way, in regards to finding a group to play with. So my concern is with finding others that grok the old-school way. Exploding wizards and excommunicated clerics, while loads of fun in a one-off scenario, are tough to sell on a session by session basis. (I think...maybe not though?)

Don't mean to derail the original post Andy.

I think (mechanically speaking) the cleric looks like they just might become the defacto spell caster in the long-term game. Which would be a VERY interesting turn of events. How many games have you attended in where players are clamoring to play the cleric? In my experience it's pretty rare.

[Hamakto]

Sometimes you just gotta go on faith because your god might be testing you. I think the rules as they are make a mechanical way of showing that.

I too played a cleric at GaryCon. I guess my rolling was pretty good because I never had a bad streak provlem.

I hear what you are saying, but I think these bad roll penalties work for me. They do limit the power of a cleric at times. And, if you get in a bad streak, maybe that is you god's way of saying they have some smaller, easier tasks/missions they want you to do before you head back off on something epic. It adds a uniqueness to a class that is often out-of-place in a true swords & sorcery game.

I sat next to you at the table. I was the halfling warrior.

I do not disagree with what you said for it working for a level 1 or level 2 character. Where I think they fail is when the spell craft check starts to climb. At that point, the chance of making a heal becomes very easy and the penalty can become meaningless because it is very easy to eliminate.

It plays VERY well at low levels... my entire concern is how it plays at higher levels... (Yes, high level is range 5-8)

[Hamakto]

On a spell failure check, you take a cumulative penalty modifier equal to the spell level.

While this seems harsh, it prevents a situation where a caster tries a 4th level spell. Fails it, then casts a 1st level easy spell to recover the -1 modifier that was incurred. It helps limit the possible abuse of the system.

The only other thing that I would add would be to add a result for a spell craft check of a natural 1 on a d20. Every other class has something bad happen on a natural 1 except for the cleric. So on a natural 1, the cleric loses the ability to cast the spell for a period of time. The god is displeased with the cleric and punishes them for a period of time. Since a lay on hands is not a spell by this definition, we do not gut a primary class ability form the character.

I think all those are good ideas. I'd rather have the penalty/bonus inverted though. Such that the gods choose to test most strongly those who rely on their favors.

So a Cleric SUCCEEDING at a 4th level spell will get a -4 on their next casting. And a Cleric FAILING a 1st level spell will get a +1.

I wouldn't make it cumulative either. But maybe that's me.

That will end streakiness. And, while it may not follow with how the system is intended at this time, I think it would play better.

And I agree that Clerics should have some nastiness befall them if they roll a 1. Some sort of divine smackdown.

I just want to clarify something in the class function (just in case I was not clear). A cleric does not lose their spells on a failure. So unless you have some sort of mechanism to 'run them out of spells' (i.e. cumulative failure chance), they would have an infinite number of spells with your suggestion.

I do like the base idea that you have. I actually tried to think of someway to incorporate that into the cleric design. But right now, I have not come up with anything similar that works yet.

[Hamakto]

Again, I'd love the hear how these classes play out in a longer "campaign" based game though. It's tough to imagine keeping your spirits high in regards to playing the next session if you've ended the current one w/ a -8 casting penalty. I like the old-school, tough-as-nails feel...but if all you're doing is digging yourself a hole from session to session, then I'm not sure how much appeal this holds.

Joseph said that when a cleric rests for the night, their cumulative penalty goes to zero. Sorta resets.

I think (mechanically speaking) the cleric looks like they just might become the defacto spell caster in the long-term game. Which would be a VERY interesting turn of events. How many games have you attended in where players are clamoring to play the cleric? In my experience it's pretty rare.

The spell selection is more old school for the clerics. While they do get more spell chances than wizards, the offensive spell selection seems far more limited. They are definitely into the divination and warding set of spells.

The only offensive spell I had as the 2nd level cleric was Command. It did work fairly well to be honest, but the ability to keep using it might be too unbalancing.

[goodmangames]

Great ideas, Andy. As always, thanks for the insights. Let me give a little "historical perspective" and then I will answer the specific questions.

There aren't a lot of "archetypal" clerics in Appendix N, but where they do appear ("Hiero's Journey," the Silver John series by Manly Wade Wellman, Poul Anderson's "The High Crusade," etc.), they invariably have moments where their faith is tested. That's part of the idea behind the cleric mechanic: in addition to the "D&D-ish" ideas we all know and love around calling on your deity for assistance, there's a little bit of wondering "did my deity abandon me?" when the dice move against you.

And one clarification (not so clear in a one-shot): a cleric who rests and prays recovers their "baseline" modifier, so the "minuses" typically reset every night.

In the first playtests, the mechanic was really simple: for EVERY spell/turn/heal a cleric used, their next check was at -1. Always, whether it failed or succeeded. And there was no mechanism to reverse this progression. Clerics under this rule had a lot of versatility (they could cast any spell, do any heal, turn a lot, etc.) but they usually only pulled off 4-6 castings consistently before they were racking up big penalties and failing.

It was too harsh. So the next iteration was that clerics took a -1 penalty only on a FAILED check. This worked pretty well, but, again, it was unforgiving -- a cleric with a few bad rolls ended up completely useless with no recovery mechanism.

So now we're on Version 3.0 of the cleric mechanic, which is the -1 on failures and offsetting +1 on successes. Ignoring the mechanics for a second, we're "almost there" in regards to Really Cool Implications For Role Playing. Despite the tons of tables in this game, I love working on mechanics (and tables) that also open the door for more adventures and/or change the way a character interacts with the fantasy world. The coolest suggestion for "how can clerics role-play with faith in their god?" came from one of Harley's games, where he had a character offer to sacrifice the party's treasure haul to her deity. Right on! Thaat is exactly the sort of player behavior that the rules should encourage. In this case Harley concluded that such an act of faith (which, of course, the other PCs objected to - "You're sacrifing ALL our gold to your deity???") should offset all the cleric's penalties. Andy, in our game, when you rolled that natural 20 to recruit 8 rescued villagers to your party (and indirectly to your cleric's faith) it was a similar thing (and why I agreed with you to take off 2 points of minuses) - your character did a service for his deity and that should be rewarded.

So what I'd love to get to, eventually, is a system where acts in accordance with the cleric's faith result in "offsets," and drains on the deity and/or acts opposite of the faith (such as healing a character of opposed alignnment) result in "drains."

Now, all that said, I love some of your ideas and they generated some thoughts.

I really like the idea of the "drain" corresponding to the spell level. A 4th level spell should totally accumulate 4 points of penalties if it fails - good idea and a natural extension of the system.

This also makes me think that healing should function similarly. Healing a character at +2 alignment steps should be a penalty EVEN IF IT SUCCEEDS - after all, you are going outside the parameters of your deity's belief system. Maybe I'll change the "steps" to "-1" and "-2" instead of +1 and +2, and that's the penalty of a heal (i.e., heal someone at -1 steps away and you take a -1 penalty, on a failure OR success).

Agreed on the scale for healing and turning - should also start at 12 and move up in same progression as the spells.

Good point on scalability / high-level plays. We have indeed had clerics "burning heals" to offset penalties. I think your idea of recording "heals per character" works mechanically, but I want to avoid adding anything else to keep track of. Agree in spirit but I need to think about this some more to see if I can come up with something else that requires less record-keeping.

And finally, at the "test of faith" moment - like the streak you ended up on, where it was all failures and your PC was probably questioning if their deity had abandoned them - maybe there needs to be solid mechanical advice for acts to reverse that streak:
* Sacrifice gold or baubles to your deity = offset -1 of penalties for every 50 gp sacrificed
* Convert followers = offset -1 of penalties for every new conversion
* Build an altar or other place of worship = offset from -1 (for small altar) to -100 (for a cathedral) depending on what is built
* And so on

[Ravenheart87]

So, this means we've got the cleric Design Diary?

Does your alignment/god define, which spells a cleric gets? Is there a pantheon in DCC RPG? I hope the answer is no for the latter, unless you're using some general gods (The Holy Lord, The Lord of Chaos, God of Storms, etc...) or mythological ones (Thor, Athene, Set) as examples.

[Hamakto]

Great ideas, Andy. As always, thanks for the insights. Let me give a little "historical perspective" and then I will answer the specific questions.

There aren't a lot of "archetypal" clerics in Appendix N, but where they do appear ("Hiero's Journey," the Silver John series by Manly Wade Wellman, Poul Anderson's "The High Crusade," etc.), they invariably have moments where their faith is tested. That's part of the idea behind the cleric mechanic: in addition to the "D&D-ish" ideas we all know and love around calling on your deity for assistance, there's a little bit of wondering "did my deity abandon me?" when the dice move against you.

I was not trying to come off as too critical about the cleric process. But instead try to delve into what I think needs to be adjusted. I would have to say that I did have fun playing the cleric because they had a myriad of options available all of the time.

This also makes me think that healing should function similarly. Healing a character at +2 alignment steps should be a penalty EVEN IF IT SUCCEEDS - after all, you are going outside the parameters of your deity's belief system. Maybe I'll change the "steps" to "-1" and "-2" instead of +1 and +2, and that's the penalty of a heal (i.e., heal someone at -1 steps away and you take a -1 penalty, on a failure OR success).

This is gong to bring a DnD-ism into the discussion. But in DnD a deity does not have just worshipers of one alignment. But instead can have worshipers/clerics of alignment that is one away from the starting alignment. (i.e. LG god would have worshipers of LN, LG, NG).

Since a god looks favorably on his worshipers, should not healing for those alignments be at full power? Or how about this:

full power heals (-1 on failure) === only true devoted worshipers of the deity & alignment in one step of deity
2nd tier heals (-2 on failure) === same alignment & 1 step away from the deity ... or worshipers who are more than 1 alignment step away.
3rd tier heals (-3 on failure) === 2+ steps away from deity alignment

What is a worshiper that is more than one alignment step away? A god of war is CN in alignment. But he has followers of LG. Because they are worshipers of the god, they fall into the second tier.

Good point on scalability / high-level plays. We have indeed had clerics "burning heals" to offset penalties. I think your idea of recording "heals per character" works mechanically, but I want to avoid adding anything else to keep track of. Agree in spirit but I need to think about this some more to see if I can come up with something else that requires less record-keeping.

I know extra paperwork is not good, but I had to try to come up with some mechanic to avoid the infinite hp loop at higher levels.

And finally, at the "test of faith" moment - like the streak you ended up on, where it was all failures and your PC was probably questioning if their deity had abandoned them - maybe there needs to be solid mechanical advice for acts to reverse that streak:
* Sacrifice gold or baubles to your deity = offset -1 of penalties for every 50 gp sacrificed
* Convert followers = offset -1 of penalties for every new conversion
* Build an altar or other place of worship = offset from -1 (for small altar) to -100 (for a cathedral) depending on what is built
* And so on

I love this as an idea. But it needs to be relative to the number of -1 points you are trying to drop off. Example, 50g per -1 point. So if you had 8 -1's on the sheet (yes I hit 10 when I was play testing), it would take 400gp to take #8 off to get to #7. 350gp to get to #6, etc. Or maybe 50gp per character level? A god requires a larger sacrifice from a higher level character to take a point off.

This would be necessary to do at higher levels because the amount of treasure that is available would be far greater. But I like the direction this is heading.

[jmucchiello]

And finally, at the "test of faith" moment - like the streak you ended up on, where it was all failures and your PC was probably questioning if their deity had abandoned them - maybe there needs to be solid mechanical advice for acts to reverse that streak:
* Sacrifice gold or baubles to your deity = offset -1 of penalties for every 50 gp sacrificed
* Convert followers = offset -1 of penalties for every new conversion
* Build an altar or other place of worship = offset from -1 (for small altar) to -100 (for a cathedral) depending on what is built
* And so on

My instinct tells me that sacrifices should be limited to once per day/week and use some kind of exponential scale:

up to 50 gp = -1 (2^1 x 50)
51 - 200 gp = -2 (2^2 x 50)
201 - 400 gp = -3 (2^3 x 50)
401 - 800 gp = -4 (2^4 x 50)

Using a scale like this the time period has to be long between sacrifices or the cleric would just do 4 50 gp sacrifices for -4 instead of only -2 for 200 gp. The cathedral doesn't need a specific entry. It has a cost and that cost is just plugged into the sacrifice table to determine what penalty it offsets.

You might want to change these penalties/bonuses into a stat that only clerics have called "Karma". After all, if you build a cathedral for your deity out of pocket for a +70 bonus. That bonus should not vanish the next morning. Perhaps Karma "resets" after 8 hours of prayer by cutting the karma value in half instead jumping straight to 0. The cleric would never get the +70 bonus on his spells (that maximum is already fixed). The +70 just creates a huge buffer that decays slowly. (Of course with the exponential scale, +70 is just ridiculously high.)

[JRR]

positives:

1. A cleric does not have to ration his heals
2. You are not wasting spell slots on heal spells (i.e. not just a heal bot)
3. Turn any number of times per day
4. Plenty of class abilities to choose from.

I don't see 1 and 2 as positives. Tracking spell slots is a resource I like managing. The cleric was one of the most powerful classes in 1e D&D if played properly. If you just followed the fighter around as his pocket healer, then yeah, it sucked to be a cleric. But played as intended, a holy warrior laying the smite down on his enemies and healing mostly during down time, he's a force to be reckoned with.

negatives:

1. Streaky. If I missed 5-6 rolls at the beginning, I could of destroyed the effectiveness of the character for the entire session.

I can see where this could be unbalancing. A few bad rolls and you're pretty much a gimped fighter. You play a cleric because you want to cast spells, not be the party's torch bearer. An occasional fail is fun, a string of them is not.

[Fabio.MilitoPagliara]

Some possible solution to the problems above

1) infinite healing
then person healed must save with no effect on a failure (unless some sort of sacrifice to the god is done?) and if a 1 is rolled the god is offended and put a geas/quest on the character
If one want to get really obsessive on this the save could be linked to the devotion/Standing of the character to that particular god or with a cumulative penalty for successive healing

2) bad things on 1
maybe on a 1 a priest is tempted by some other force?

[smathis]

And finally, at the "test of faith" moment - like the streak you ended up on, where it was all failures and your PC was probably questioning if their deity had abandoned them - maybe there needs to be solid mechanical advice for acts to reverse that streak:
* Sacrifice gold or baubles to your deity = offset -1 of penalties for every 50 gp sacrificed
* Convert followers = offset -1 of penalties for every new conversion
* Build an altar or other place of worship = offset from -1 (for small altar) to -100 (for a cathedral) depending on what is built
* And so on

I think something like this has to be in the rules. Otherwise, you'll have a Cleric having a bad day casting 8 Light spells to get back up to +1. I think there should also be some guidance in there for DMs to do what Harley did... allow negative points to be burnt off via appropriate roleplay (or for negatives to be added for inappropriate roleplay).

It could be something as simple as that, really.

I have a Cleric with a spell check bonus of -5. I'm done for the day unless I do something. So I negotiate with the DM and we figure if I spend the next scene trying to convert the Fighter I'll get back a -1. Or if I can sacrifice a magic scroll to the god, I can get back 2.

I think it's difficult to list out everything a player could do in a situation like this. So maybe some guidelines and then leaving it up to negotiation at the table is a good option?

I think the problem with writing out a list of "if you do this, then that" is that people get "List Blindness" and don't think outside of the box. I think we see that with Feats in 3e and Powers in 4e.

I think Harley handled it correctly. It's just making sure that people who buy the book know they can do that and have some ideas of comparable sacrifices to bonuses or transgressions to penalties with the explicit caveat that it's really up to the DM and what's going on at the table.

Off topic, we instituted a house-rule once where a player got a "free 16" if he failed to roll above a 10 in the first couple of hours of play. Something like that could help with streakiness. I know I used that "free 16" at least a few times. Too bad it didn't count when I was DM.

[Hamakto]

positives:

1. A cleric does not have to ration his heals
2. You are not wasting spell slots on heal spells (i.e. not just a heal bot)
3. Turn any number of times per day
4. Plenty of class abilities to choose from.

I don't see 1 and 2 as positives. Tracking spell slots is a resource I like managing. The cleric was one of the most powerful classes in 1e D&D if played properly. If you just followed the fighter around as his pocket healer, then yeah, it sucked to be a cleric. But played as intended, a holy warrior laying the smite down on his enemies and healing mostly during down time, he's a force to be reckoned with.

I usually play the cleric in the group and I agree with you. I am not a heal bot and I have a bunch of fun with the Cleric. The ability to have unlimited spells appear to be tempered by a highly restrictive set of spells. I am thinking about suggesting that a Cleric can only prepare 4+CL number of prayers (spells) at a certain time. It provides a good list that can be used, but limits their utility.

negatives:

1. Streaky. If I missed 5-6 rolls at the beginning, I could of destroyed the effectiveness of the character for the entire session.

I can see where this could be unbalancing. A few bad rolls and you're pretty much a gimped fighter. You play a cleric because you want to cast spells, not be the party's torch bearer. An occasional fail is fun, a string of them is not.

I do not want to mislead you or anyone else. The mechanic played pretty well in the play tests, but as a play tester I wanted to point out what COULD happen if something goes drastically wrong. It is a negative, but it is part of the mechanic. If you look at a Wizard, they could miss all six of their spell checks and end up never casting a spell in DCC RPG. So it does 'fit' with the overall mechanic.

[GnomeBoy]

Do Clerics need an alignment mechanic/edge, in a similar vein to what the Thieves have? Would this avoid the "all-Neutral, all-the-time" clerics that have been forecast owing to the lay-on-hands rules?

I have no idea at the moment as to what they would be, but I like the shape of the general idea myself.

Maybe some kind of overall alignment mechanic for all characters???

[Machpants]

Mmm not sure about the 50GP amount. I don't like in game gold giving mechanical advantages. Maybe sacrificing 90% of all your wealth, but exact numbers I don't like.

[JRR]

Healing Matrix:

For a cleric to determine how well she heals someone with a successful Lay On Hands, they have to map everyones alignment in the party.

Yeah, there's no way I'd ever keep track of that. That's way too fiddly. Enough to make me never play a cleric - and I LIKE clerics.

[smathis]

Yeah, there's no way I'd ever keep track of that. That's way too fiddly. Enough to make me never play a cleric - and I LIKE clerics.

What if healing someone who's alignment differed from the Cleric earned him negatives on his casting? For every shift over it would earn a -1?

So a NG Cleric, healing a CN fighter would gain the Cleric a -2. At the extreme would be a LG Cleric and a CE not-nice-person. The cleric would take a -4 in that case. The LG Cleric healing a LE paladin would gain a -2. But maybe the LG Cleric healing the LG paladin could get a +1?

No fiddling with Healing. It's just a normal roll. But the diety is far from pleased.

[JRR]

You still have to track everyone's alignment that you heal. Which means that dirt farmer the dm was using to dispense information? He has to know his alignment. And how is the cleric to know whom he can and can't heal? An evil person falls and breaks his leg, is the cleric supposed to just walk by and not help him? That's not the act of a good cleric. This method makes a simple healing spell way too complicated. I'd rather handle the implications of a cleric healing someone of opposite alignment via roleplaying.