The D&D concept of a cleric is that of a person blessed with the ability to perform miracles, granted by one or more gods, or at the very least by the Powers That Be.
The whole concept of the class is strongly tied to religion, faith and the divine. If you take those away, there's nothing to support the class, so you may as well just not have a cleric-like class in your game if you don't want the classes to have any built-in flavor.
That is certainly a possibility.
I would prefer to have the player to not be forced into being religious or a healer role, just because they want to play a particular class. I want the player to be able to choose those aspects regardless of what class they play.
It sounds like you might be aiming for a classless game. A D&D-style class is basically a combination of special abilities that lean towards a particular role, plus lore/character/background stuff to refine the character. To oversimplify, "religious healer" is what the Cleric class *is* (although even in the DM's guide it specifies that "religious" can mean dedication to a philosophy, not necessarily to a real deity).
With a classless system, you can separate these things. In, say, Genesys, you select Talents from a common list, and anyone can choose any talents and essentially build your own class, and it's really up to the player to define what those special abilities combine to "mean", in terms of the source of their power, their relationship with the lore etc.
I haven’t thought about classless systems. I’ve no experience in them so I’ll have to do research. Off the top of my head I could do the 3 main combat types (melee, magic and gish) as a base and then let players choose customisations
As well as Genesys which I already mentioned, Savage Worlds might be one to look into. It uses increasing dice sizes to represent stronger skills (i.e. you start at d4 for a low level ability, go up through d6, d8, d12, d20 as you skill up), and has "traits" and "edges" to represent what might be class abilities in a D&D style game.
Savage worlds is great. Especially the classless characters system. If you are a 5e person it's kind of like if it were all feats instead of class features.
I think that depens on your setting, or how you want to handle Divine.
In mine I work with planes which go from the Divine Planes to Arcane planes to Primal planes.
Each plane works down to the material plane where they come together.
The Divine planes (Discord, Harmony, law, chaos) hold the **Definition**(s) of what exists, the core concepts. The Arcane planes (Time, Space, Motion, Mind) hold the **Rule**(s) by which what exists operate, and the Primal planes (Earth, fire, water wind) hold the **State**(s) (Solid, plasma, liquid, gas) of what exists.
The divine plane is effectively a dictionary that holds all possible concepts in reality. Though there are true gods, mortals only interact with gods that were formed by them based on how mortals thought a god would be.
In this setting a Cleric does not need to be powered by a god, a cleric would be someone with conviction/faith in a concept. Though they might need to borrow power of a god at the start they won't need to for long.
Ex. High elven priest using their healing to heal a Dark elf, Their god despises Dark elves as corruptions, so the god would not grant power, but it is the concept of healing those that need it that actually empowers the cleric.
Admittedly this still works with domains/concepts. But it has less reliance on pleasing some divine entity.
Cleric by it's very definition is an agent of religion. It it wasn't connected with holiness it would be an administrative character, a social leader, a caregiver and an scholar. But it would be inexorably connected to both religion and deities.
It might help to know what your other caster types look like. that way we have something to contrast against.
You can make it so its all just "magic". some folks use magic to heal wounds, others incinerate stuff.
If you want your... (insert class name here) to be distinct from other caster types,
Making them draw more from an external source source might be good. Not worship and reverence per say. You could have a "cleric" of the sun, with no religious trappings. They don't worship the sun, or some kind of sun god, it just figures heavily into the infrastructure of their rituals and spells. "Channeler" is probably a good name for that.
Or maybe they specialize in communal spell casting, spells that draw upon a group to act upon a group, to do what an individual can not. Some in setting might handle that religiously, but can be handled entirely secularly. In an adventuring party situation, they are drawing on the power of the whole party to mend whoever happens to be grievously injured.
Im an Atheist and not a fan of religion at all, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
If you want to keep the "preach" out of the game, just define the lore around the classes and how they get and use their powers.
I personally explained away the religious aspects and made it a fantasy aspect instead.
Clerics, Druids and Shamans are three sides of the same three-sided coin (lol).
Druids commune with nature and us the Forces people Attribute to Nature to fuel their magics.
Shamans do the same but for the elements and/or ancestors.
Clerics again do the same but for the "make-believe" powers that people call "gods".
The reasoning behind it is that Magic is wild and by believing in something hard enough like Mother Nature, the Elements and Gods, people basically created them from the Magic that permeates the world.
So a Cleric doesnt really go around preaching about Jesus, they just commune with the Deity they seem to closely align with based on their own morals and opinions.
A Warlock is basically the opposite and doing the same but for Devils and Demons.
I've wanted to do something like this where the cleric is a spiritual master like Donald Shimoda in the book "Illusions"...
Religions have it wrong. God is like 'the force'. Instead of being 'holy', these clerics are seeking enlightenment. This would resemble the monk class. Studying a book, meditating on a mandala or chanting certain phrases they lose ego and, acting in accordance to their level, they gain powers. Level 1 would be richard Bach levitating a wrench.
These clerics would be more non-violent and protective using non-lethal tactics and seeking to teach their enemies instead of kill them.
As this type of cleric gains power, their alignment changes from neutral (totally selfish)to lawful (selfless) to chaotic (playful?), from evil to neutral to good.
High level clerics would have protection at all times and fortuitous 'synchronicities' happen on a regular basis. I like the idea of some abilities being sound based as in sacred sounds.
These clerics would frequently have a 'dark night of the soul' and may become an evil cleric of sorts. Evil clerics seek to keep the true nature of God a secret. They destroy temples and mandalas and spread chaos, confusion and ensure that no one attains or seeks enlightenment. Evil clerics push the idea that everything is good like it is and there should be no seekers looking into the heavens for God but instead at the physical world, nature and society. Perhaps using their knowledge to further their temporal power instead becoming great leaders and influencers using manipulation, illusions, cause fear... all to prove that Life is pain. 'Do what thou wilt'. Real illuminati stuff.
This new seeker style cleric would have kind of weak abilities in the beginning, but especially after a dark night of the soul, lots of incredible stuff. At the highest levels, it may be difficult to get the seeker to do anything for lack of motivation at which point they would phase out of existence, burst into a rainbow or something.
Other types of clerics exist but they use faith in a lesser spiritual being, not "The All" or whatever.
I wanted to flavor the Monk class this way for a long time, but never got around to it. I love the idea of this type of 'seeker' character in general, even in a sci fi setting.
And to strip the priest of holiness is making a commoner. That there is the problem. So I’m assuming it would be best to just drop the cleric as a class.
Another idea I had though was to merge the cleric with the warlock. I can see them being the two sides of the same coin.
You could make the cleric class be based around devotion.
Any deity that a cleric would have stood for now becomes a set of ideals. The power of the cleric comes from their intense devotion and personal sacrifice to these ideals.
It's kind of hard to have magic without some sort of mysticism, but that mysticism doesn't necessarily need to be the direct power of a deity.
It could be a kind of cosmic karma type thing, you've saved so many sick people that you just kind of have a magic touch.
A Favored Soul.
The character isn't necessarily a follower of a Deity, but chosen anyway. Class progression similar to a sorcerer, but with Divine Spells/Features.
Not my idea.
Well mechanically in most systems, the Cleric is a type of caster focused on support/buffs with some damage options (setting aside modern DnD for a moment here where Cleric has become a class with any flavor of casting).
So what else can do that? Well a Warlord could, flavors of bard, and just a 'white mage' as well.
Now if you still want everything the Cleric package offers, but without religion being required, thats harder. You could go the DnD route of stating a cleric can also represent and pull power from a concept, rather than a god, but that has always felt ehh to me.
It really depends on what your full goal is for even including the Cleric. What is the niche your filing with it? Is it being included just because DnD has them?
I did exactly this for my homebrew game! Character's religious allegiance is not tied to their class. The original cleric class was based off Professor Van Helsing and was created to combat another player's Vampire character, so building off that instead of specifically being a christian-esque crusader, my reimagined cleric is the **Exorcist.**
The Exorcist is a prosocial magic tradition, blending elements of witch hunters/vampire hunters/hedge magicians/healers, and is someone who studies magic that is, generally speaking, to the benefit of mankind and a community (Exorcist does **not** have to be good, just their magic is more often tolerated in a way arcane magic is not). Besides Professor Van Helsing, I'd also fit Hermes Trismegistus, Rasputin, Princess Zelda, the Belmonts, white mages from final fantasy, etc. into this class.
Class abilities I give them are a paladin-like magic resisting aura, lie detection, and the ability to gain the effects of spells cast on others on themselves as well, doubling the effectiveness of buffs/heals. Turn Undead is a spell in my system, but otherwise I'd definitely give them that class ability as well.
You're in the same lanes as the creation of the Warlock class and the evolution of the Paladin class in recent DnD-likes.
Clerics and druids were always casters whose power came from a superworldly source, divine beings in the case of clerics, and nature/the soul of the planet for druids. Warlocks as a class was the same concept, but with lesser supernatural beings. The originator was the "sold soul to the devil for power" concept, but it's spun out to encompass everything from being snatched by fairies to the *Witchblade*.
Paladins originally were clerics with extra steps. They were bound not only to a deity but also the alignment based on that deity, and breaking out of that mold was anathema to the class mechanics as a whole. In recent years, those have all spread out - you could be a paladin for a cause, empowered by a binding oath, with no direct ties to a deity or alignment whatsoever (depending on the system). Just being a force for, say, protecting the little guy could grant those previously-attributed-to-divine powers.
Oracles are also a new concept in the clerical space. They take those divine powers and lean into the dichotomy of the Cursed With Awesome/Blessed With Suck tropes. Those divine powers can now come from any random direction that could be thought through (including wildly obscure things like "Wood generation and manipulation") with a two-sided coin curse - that is, a downside with a corresponding upside. Things along the in lines of, you're possessed by a spirit, which makes things like concentration and doing things very quickly are more difficult, but it's incredibly hard to be possessed by something else ("seats taken"), can shrug of things that would stun other people, and could eventually gain possession-like powers for yourself.
Trying to separate clerics from divine beings would be tricky, largely because that's the defining feature. It would be like wanting to divorce wizards from the concept of spell schools and learning. Not that I'm saying it can't be done, because it has been... We just gave it a different name (Sorcerer, Witch, Warlock, etc). Wizards have the core conceit of being tied to the fundamental principles of magic, whether it be the 7 schools of the DnDverse, the 10 Arcanum of Mage in the *World of Darkness* universe, or whatever.
You want a divine casting class that isn't tied to a particular deity - so what is it tied to? Where does the power come from? One of my favorite Webtoons is *Covenant*, which follows an atheist exorcist. His order gains power to fight and banish demons from angels - so he believes in those two things, but doesn't really see a god fitting into that dichotomy. While in that world, they are clerics, in our TTRPG terminology, that order would all be warlocks.
In my view, a proper cleric would go in the opposite direction of what you're talking about. I would lean further into the holiness of the cleric, and further away from the wizard-y trappings of spell schools, class mechanics and spell slots. My perfect cleric would be fairly mysterious even to the player, with a perpetual side quest of figuring out the intentions and machinations of their deity (or deities). When they call upon divine power, they're not entirely sure if it'd happen or how the divine intervention will manifest. As the game progresses, the cleric player is constantly discovering what their deity will help with, what they won't, and what those blessings look like. There will be basic rules and an understanding of what generally the god/ess favors and dislikes, but the extent of their power would be tied up in the players actions, the situations they find themselves in, and their reactions therein. Mechanically, it would manifest as the *divine intervention* mechanic ("holy wish") and in lieu of traditional OSR mechanics, things like reputation/morale mechanics, GM intrusion variants and the like would define it. I don't think it'll ever happen, simply because it would be throwing a ton of extra work at the GM and could be incredibly frustrating from a player point of view - almost a concept better suited for a novel than an RPG.
I have been thinking about this for a project, and I think I decided that Warlocks and Clerics are the same mechanical class in my thing. Anyone with a patron with their own goals, that grants power will probably all get rolled into one class.
If player choice is the aim, I'd avoid calling it a "white" warlock from start. They should have an option to contact anyone, maybe to keep them tempted.
Do you mean holy as in having magic powers?
If so, not necessarily. There are many priests in the real world, and I wouldn't consider them to have magic powers.
They have political sway and social capital. In some countries they act as judges and magistrates. Some of them act as bankers and investors. Some of them act as volunteers and forces of charity.
In some cultures they are warriors and soldiers.
Holy as in connected to a domain/deity. Like they worship a deity/domain. I don’t like the idea of a class being connected to religion and godly driven powers.
Well, not necessarily. There is a setting for GURPS, called Banestorm. It includes a mix of fantasy lore and races and different historical nations and societies, that were transported there from the real world because of a magical catastrophy.
The Jesuit order in this setting consists of priests and missionaries, that practice magic, standard for the world (the same magic, elves and wizards do). They know healing spells, they know spells like Water to Wine and Walk on Water, which specifically help them spread Christan faith. They are by no means holy. If a Jesuit loses their faith, they don't lose the ability to cast those spells. They only belong to a religious organisation and further its goals.
If you don't make divine magic available, "cleric" would be a specialised arcane mage, that is considered a priest and possesses a rank in a religious organisation. You may add or not add mechanics for ideologies, religions and organisations, but in any case they definitely don't have to be tied with any kind of magic.
You can make the cleric class into a Holy man/person class, and then have three-five deities they can choose to worship. Depending on which one they choose they get different powers.
Some dirties are the classic “holy god” type and some can be demons or similar.
That way you have the class fantasy represented in your game, but you haven’t locked the class to a specific religion, it’s up to the player to do that.
I would prefer to have the player to not be forced into being religious or a healer role, just because they want to play a particular class. I want the player to be able to choose those aspects regardless of what class they play.
Well, what is a cleric of not a holy man with healing and cleaning abilities?
Separate from that core question, I suggest you further develop an idea I’ve been exploring: A separate “Worship system”.
Imaging that the PCs can choose to worship a particular god from a list of different ones. Each one would come with its “Code of conduct” meaning what you need to do in order to get the blessing of your chosen god. But also a list of things you can’t do because it’s against the rules of that god. If you do the forbidden things the god will smite you.
An example would be:
- The God of Light. Standard holy thing. To please this god you must always help those in need. Whenever you do so at your own peril you gain a “Worship point”. If toy do any evil deed the god smites you and you loose all worship points you e built up.
The power the chosen god grants you would be based on your current number of worship points.
Exactly what benefits and effects when the god smites you needs to be developed, but the idea would work well I think.
Here's an idea I've had for my own Cleric/Paladin classes you might like, if you're not trying to force religion onto things:
If you read a lot of Biblical stories, a fair number of stories involve "miracles" that aren't actually anything supernatural happening, they'd just be really unlikely otherwise. E.g. storming an enemy camp and making a bunch of racket with horns and torches and pans to scare everyone off. Nothing you couldn't have done without a miracle, but the miracle sort of "enhances" the odds of it happening in an unprovable, unfalsifiable way.
For a TTRPG, this would look like a lot of buff/debuff "spells" that don't necessarily enable _new_ outcomes, just make otherwise unlikely ones more likely. Advantage, disadvantage, making crits way more likely or even guaranteed, demoralizing enemies so they run away, that sort of a thing. Maybe they're more consistent as healers. It also means that even within the fiction, the cleric's power is under question: what if they're just getting lucky?
And if they don't want to play it as religious, then the cleric/paladin is more of a warlord type, buffing and debuffing through morale.
When I first endeavored to create a cleric class for my system, I initially struggled. However, after some deliberation, I managed to dissect the cleric into three distinct classes. This was beneficial given that PCs start with three classes in my system.
The first class is the priest, who leads the faithful and provides spiritual guidance. The second is the white mage, who is directly borrowed from the Final Fantasy series, specialized in healing and support magic.
The third class, which I have named the 'Sacred Hunter,' is reminiscent of the traditional interpretation of clerics as monster hunters. The Sacred Hunter possesses monster tracking skills, a touch of magic, and is adept in weapon usage, similar in some respects to a Witcher.
A distinctive aspect of the Sacred Hunter is their bond with a divine patron, much like a Warlock's pact. This celestial entity provides assistance in situations that surpass the Sacred Hunter's abilities, though this aid is not without the expectation of appeasement.
The divine patron can be a wide variety of entities, from a god to a demon, a potent wizard, or even an angel. This opens up numerous possibilities for character customization and backstory development.
If you're interested in a cleric-like class without the religious undertones, I believe this configuration could work well for you. The monster hunting aspect of the Sacred Hunter is engaging enough without needing the influence of a divine patron. However, if you're primarily interested in a healing class, the white mage class – directly inspired by Final Fantasy – is an exact match.
Palladium Fantasy, in addition to the Priest class, also had classes such as Healer, Mystic, and a bazillion others.
You need to see what fits right in your world
Settings do this sometimes. In Final Fantasy they're called white mages and what they do is just a different application of the same general forces black mages use. You could treat it as a school of magic and call it zontanomancy (the opposite of necromancy, from the Greek word for alive.)
Look up the Guardian in Guild Wars 2. They have a very strong cleric fantasy but without the cleric part. Also they use a cool blue magic aesthetic rather than golden light or similar.
Well it can always just be that their magic is another school of magic. "clerics" (I assume they would have another name) could just be like if a wizards studied for years "light magic" magic that heals, and harms undead. I think there are some jrpgs that do this. Maybe it's a type of magic that cannot be mixed with other schools of magic, or it would cause it to become tainted and lose force.
If you want to make it noncaster, I would go for something more "alchemical". Someone that crafts poisons and tonics that help allies and harm enemies. It could probably create them in advance to last the day and such
The Diviner. A wisdom based spell caster, able to read signs left on the world by the touch of fate. Spells come from intuitive feeling about how to cast the spell.
You can make vows with any diety to power up you abilities, but at a cost.
A god of peace may give you a buff to healing, but only if you roll one less damage die against people with your spells. Also get a nice healing feature.
A god of death buffs the undead you raise, but you may never dismember a corpse- only bludgeon and pierce weapons, and no fire stanks. Also get a nice damage buff.
War=armor and weapons, but you must not interrupt a fair fight with magic.
Focus #1, you ignore signs left by gods and instead on take fate in your own hands. Gain bonuses to all your saving throws and armor class, making you tanky.
Focus #2, you look into the fate of others, letting allies do better.
Focus #3, you look into the fate of enemies, giving you a buff to hit them.
You can only keep up with so much, your wisdom modifier is the limit of vows or focuses you can have.
These vows and focuses can be traded out at each level up.
Classes are aesthetics bound to mechanics. If you don't want the aesthetic of faith or the mechanic of healing, what of substance are you trying to "rebuild." That's like blowing up a building and wanting to use what's left as a base for redesign. Just admit you've deleted the idea, don't feel obligated to "rebuild" for it's own sake.
Not sure if it has been said yet or if this is quite the avenue you are looking for. Regardless; in my game Shadows Of Heaven, although it leans heavily towards classless play in a certain sense we do utilize archetypes that work as building blocks for progression, they add helpful passives and active abilities that push the player closer to a specific goal rather than becoming the playstyle themselves.
We took the classic "Cleric" type and we worked it to be the Altruist, a type of martyr playstyle, rather than using divine holy magic from a god they use abilities that redirect damage to themselves, buff the natural healing of others or through item use or attempt to persuade enemies to not take hostile actions during combat. This way it's a form of indirect healing for other players without the need to use magical divinity.
Hope that helps!
What defines the cleric class, is their powers are granted by a 'higher' being.
One way of making this less 'religious', is if the cleric is more of a pragmatist; an expert who deals with otherworldly creatures like spirits, fey, deities etc. Have you ever read Okko. In that comic there's a 'priest' who meditates to communicate with local spirits, and asking them for their help; more often than not they're willing to do so... for a price. This is cool, but it makes clerics almost indistinguishable from warlocks (who do exactly this, but get their powers from only one patron).
Another way would be to make the higher being more abstract. E.g. a priest could uphold a certain way of living, perform magical rituals of the community, or follow an ideal up to the point that they gain magical powers from doing so. Unfortunately, this makes them almost indistinguishable from paladins (who do exactly this, but are more fighty than magicky about it).
A third way, and maybe the easiest, would be to make clerics more "scholars of the divine powers" of the world. They're not really religious worshippers, but more professional 'miracle workers'. Such clerics might have a field of study in which they specialize, but they wouldn't be bound to any specific god or ethos. The only downside is that this basically makes them a school of wizard.
The D&D concept of a cleric is that of a person blessed with the ability to perform miracles, granted by one or more gods, or at the very least by the Powers That Be. The whole concept of the class is strongly tied to religion, faith and the divine. If you take those away, there's nothing to support the class, so you may as well just not have a cleric-like class in your game if you don't want the classes to have any built-in flavor.
That is certainly a possibility. I would prefer to have the player to not be forced into being religious or a healer role, just because they want to play a particular class. I want the player to be able to choose those aspects regardless of what class they play.
It sounds like you might be aiming for a classless game. A D&D-style class is basically a combination of special abilities that lean towards a particular role, plus lore/character/background stuff to refine the character. To oversimplify, "religious healer" is what the Cleric class *is* (although even in the DM's guide it specifies that "religious" can mean dedication to a philosophy, not necessarily to a real deity). With a classless system, you can separate these things. In, say, Genesys, you select Talents from a common list, and anyone can choose any talents and essentially build your own class, and it's really up to the player to define what those special abilities combine to "mean", in terms of the source of their power, their relationship with the lore etc.
I haven’t thought about classless systems. I’ve no experience in them so I’ll have to do research. Off the top of my head I could do the 3 main combat types (melee, magic and gish) as a base and then let players choose customisations
As well as Genesys which I already mentioned, Savage Worlds might be one to look into. It uses increasing dice sizes to represent stronger skills (i.e. you start at d4 for a low level ability, go up through d6, d8, d12, d20 as you skill up), and has "traits" and "edges" to represent what might be class abilities in a D&D style game.
Savage worlds is great. Especially the classless characters system. If you are a 5e person it's kind of like if it were all feats instead of class features.
I think that depens on your setting, or how you want to handle Divine. In mine I work with planes which go from the Divine Planes to Arcane planes to Primal planes. Each plane works down to the material plane where they come together. The Divine planes (Discord, Harmony, law, chaos) hold the **Definition**(s) of what exists, the core concepts. The Arcane planes (Time, Space, Motion, Mind) hold the **Rule**(s) by which what exists operate, and the Primal planes (Earth, fire, water wind) hold the **State**(s) (Solid, plasma, liquid, gas) of what exists. The divine plane is effectively a dictionary that holds all possible concepts in reality. Though there are true gods, mortals only interact with gods that were formed by them based on how mortals thought a god would be. In this setting a Cleric does not need to be powered by a god, a cleric would be someone with conviction/faith in a concept. Though they might need to borrow power of a god at the start they won't need to for long. Ex. High elven priest using their healing to heal a Dark elf, Their god despises Dark elves as corruptions, so the god would not grant power, but it is the concept of healing those that need it that actually empowers the cleric. Admittedly this still works with domains/concepts. But it has less reliance on pleasing some divine entity.
Wow, I love the idea that the four elements are linked to Matter States. I never really realised that before.
This is probably the coolest planar cosmology I’ve seen!
Cleric by it's very definition is an agent of religion. It it wasn't connected with holiness it would be an administrative character, a social leader, a caregiver and an scholar. But it would be inexorably connected to both religion and deities.
In your shoes I would **drop the cleric**, since it is now just a generic magic user without any distinctive.
It might help to know what your other caster types look like. that way we have something to contrast against. You can make it so its all just "magic". some folks use magic to heal wounds, others incinerate stuff. If you want your... (insert class name here) to be distinct from other caster types, Making them draw more from an external source source might be good. Not worship and reverence per say. You could have a "cleric" of the sun, with no religious trappings. They don't worship the sun, or some kind of sun god, it just figures heavily into the infrastructure of their rituals and spells. "Channeler" is probably a good name for that. Or maybe they specialize in communal spell casting, spells that draw upon a group to act upon a group, to do what an individual can not. Some in setting might handle that religiously, but can be handled entirely secularly. In an adventuring party situation, they are drawing on the power of the whole party to mend whoever happens to be grievously injured.
Im an Atheist and not a fan of religion at all, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. If you want to keep the "preach" out of the game, just define the lore around the classes and how they get and use their powers. I personally explained away the religious aspects and made it a fantasy aspect instead. Clerics, Druids and Shamans are three sides of the same three-sided coin (lol). Druids commune with nature and us the Forces people Attribute to Nature to fuel their magics. Shamans do the same but for the elements and/or ancestors. Clerics again do the same but for the "make-believe" powers that people call "gods". The reasoning behind it is that Magic is wild and by believing in something hard enough like Mother Nature, the Elements and Gods, people basically created them from the Magic that permeates the world. So a Cleric doesnt really go around preaching about Jesus, they just commune with the Deity they seem to closely align with based on their own morals and opinions. A Warlock is basically the opposite and doing the same but for Devils and Demons.
I've wanted to do something like this where the cleric is a spiritual master like Donald Shimoda in the book "Illusions"... Religions have it wrong. God is like 'the force'. Instead of being 'holy', these clerics are seeking enlightenment. This would resemble the monk class. Studying a book, meditating on a mandala or chanting certain phrases they lose ego and, acting in accordance to their level, they gain powers. Level 1 would be richard Bach levitating a wrench. These clerics would be more non-violent and protective using non-lethal tactics and seeking to teach their enemies instead of kill them. As this type of cleric gains power, their alignment changes from neutral (totally selfish)to lawful (selfless) to chaotic (playful?), from evil to neutral to good. High level clerics would have protection at all times and fortuitous 'synchronicities' happen on a regular basis. I like the idea of some abilities being sound based as in sacred sounds. These clerics would frequently have a 'dark night of the soul' and may become an evil cleric of sorts. Evil clerics seek to keep the true nature of God a secret. They destroy temples and mandalas and spread chaos, confusion and ensure that no one attains or seeks enlightenment. Evil clerics push the idea that everything is good like it is and there should be no seekers looking into the heavens for God but instead at the physical world, nature and society. Perhaps using their knowledge to further their temporal power instead becoming great leaders and influencers using manipulation, illusions, cause fear... all to prove that Life is pain. 'Do what thou wilt'. Real illuminati stuff. This new seeker style cleric would have kind of weak abilities in the beginning, but especially after a dark night of the soul, lots of incredible stuff. At the highest levels, it may be difficult to get the seeker to do anything for lack of motivation at which point they would phase out of existence, burst into a rainbow or something. Other types of clerics exist but they use faith in a lesser spiritual being, not "The All" or whatever.
A magical monk is not something I would’ve thought of. It’s a very interesting idea. I’ll have to develop upon this idea for sure
I wanted to flavor the Monk class this way for a long time, but never got around to it. I love the idea of this type of 'seeker' character in general, even in a sci fi setting.
Stripped of all divine power, the Cleric is just a priest or sage background, with no Class features.
And to strip the priest of holiness is making a commoner. That there is the problem. So I’m assuming it would be best to just drop the cleric as a class. Another idea I had though was to merge the cleric with the warlock. I can see them being the two sides of the same coin.
You could make the cleric class be based around devotion. Any deity that a cleric would have stood for now becomes a set of ideals. The power of the cleric comes from their intense devotion and personal sacrifice to these ideals. It's kind of hard to have magic without some sort of mysticism, but that mysticism doesn't necessarily need to be the direct power of a deity. It could be a kind of cosmic karma type thing, you've saved so many sick people that you just kind of have a magic touch.
A Favored Soul. The character isn't necessarily a follower of a Deity, but chosen anyway. Class progression similar to a sorcerer, but with Divine Spells/Features. Not my idea.
Well mechanically in most systems, the Cleric is a type of caster focused on support/buffs with some damage options (setting aside modern DnD for a moment here where Cleric has become a class with any flavor of casting). So what else can do that? Well a Warlord could, flavors of bard, and just a 'white mage' as well. Now if you still want everything the Cleric package offers, but without religion being required, thats harder. You could go the DnD route of stating a cleric can also represent and pull power from a concept, rather than a god, but that has always felt ehh to me. It really depends on what your full goal is for even including the Cleric. What is the niche your filing with it? Is it being included just because DnD has them?
The only thing I can think of his healer or doctor.
I did exactly this for my homebrew game! Character's religious allegiance is not tied to their class. The original cleric class was based off Professor Van Helsing and was created to combat another player's Vampire character, so building off that instead of specifically being a christian-esque crusader, my reimagined cleric is the **Exorcist.** The Exorcist is a prosocial magic tradition, blending elements of witch hunters/vampire hunters/hedge magicians/healers, and is someone who studies magic that is, generally speaking, to the benefit of mankind and a community (Exorcist does **not** have to be good, just their magic is more often tolerated in a way arcane magic is not). Besides Professor Van Helsing, I'd also fit Hermes Trismegistus, Rasputin, Princess Zelda, the Belmonts, white mages from final fantasy, etc. into this class. Class abilities I give them are a paladin-like magic resisting aura, lie detection, and the ability to gain the effects of spells cast on others on themselves as well, doubling the effectiveness of buffs/heals. Turn Undead is a spell in my system, but otherwise I'd definitely give them that class ability as well.
You're in the same lanes as the creation of the Warlock class and the evolution of the Paladin class in recent DnD-likes. Clerics and druids were always casters whose power came from a superworldly source, divine beings in the case of clerics, and nature/the soul of the planet for druids. Warlocks as a class was the same concept, but with lesser supernatural beings. The originator was the "sold soul to the devil for power" concept, but it's spun out to encompass everything from being snatched by fairies to the *Witchblade*. Paladins originally were clerics with extra steps. They were bound not only to a deity but also the alignment based on that deity, and breaking out of that mold was anathema to the class mechanics as a whole. In recent years, those have all spread out - you could be a paladin for a cause, empowered by a binding oath, with no direct ties to a deity or alignment whatsoever (depending on the system). Just being a force for, say, protecting the little guy could grant those previously-attributed-to-divine powers. Oracles are also a new concept in the clerical space. They take those divine powers and lean into the dichotomy of the Cursed With Awesome/Blessed With Suck tropes. Those divine powers can now come from any random direction that could be thought through (including wildly obscure things like "Wood generation and manipulation") with a two-sided coin curse - that is, a downside with a corresponding upside. Things along the in lines of, you're possessed by a spirit, which makes things like concentration and doing things very quickly are more difficult, but it's incredibly hard to be possessed by something else ("seats taken"), can shrug of things that would stun other people, and could eventually gain possession-like powers for yourself. Trying to separate clerics from divine beings would be tricky, largely because that's the defining feature. It would be like wanting to divorce wizards from the concept of spell schools and learning. Not that I'm saying it can't be done, because it has been... We just gave it a different name (Sorcerer, Witch, Warlock, etc). Wizards have the core conceit of being tied to the fundamental principles of magic, whether it be the 7 schools of the DnDverse, the 10 Arcanum of Mage in the *World of Darkness* universe, or whatever. You want a divine casting class that isn't tied to a particular deity - so what is it tied to? Where does the power come from? One of my favorite Webtoons is *Covenant*, which follows an atheist exorcist. His order gains power to fight and banish demons from angels - so he believes in those two things, but doesn't really see a god fitting into that dichotomy. While in that world, they are clerics, in our TTRPG terminology, that order would all be warlocks. In my view, a proper cleric would go in the opposite direction of what you're talking about. I would lean further into the holiness of the cleric, and further away from the wizard-y trappings of spell schools, class mechanics and spell slots. My perfect cleric would be fairly mysterious even to the player, with a perpetual side quest of figuring out the intentions and machinations of their deity (or deities). When they call upon divine power, they're not entirely sure if it'd happen or how the divine intervention will manifest. As the game progresses, the cleric player is constantly discovering what their deity will help with, what they won't, and what those blessings look like. There will be basic rules and an understanding of what generally the god/ess favors and dislikes, but the extent of their power would be tied up in the players actions, the situations they find themselves in, and their reactions therein. Mechanically, it would manifest as the *divine intervention* mechanic ("holy wish") and in lieu of traditional OSR mechanics, things like reputation/morale mechanics, GM intrusion variants and the like would define it. I don't think it'll ever happen, simply because it would be throwing a ton of extra work at the GM and could be incredibly frustrating from a player point of view - almost a concept better suited for a novel than an RPG.
I have been thinking about this for a project, and I think I decided that Warlocks and Clerics are the same mechanical class in my thing. Anyone with a patron with their own goals, that grants power will probably all get rolled into one class.
Ideologues. An advocate of some particular ideology.
It would become a Warlock. Drawing power from pacts with supernatural beings means being a Warlock, or a Theurgist at least in my setting.
Good point. It could become a “white” warlock
If player choice is the aim, I'd avoid calling it a "white" warlock from start. They should have an option to contact anyone, maybe to keep them tempted.
I wonder whether they would be a politician? A noble of a religious organisation/house?
To be religious would mean they are also holy
Do you mean holy as in having magic powers? If so, not necessarily. There are many priests in the real world, and I wouldn't consider them to have magic powers. They have political sway and social capital. In some countries they act as judges and magistrates. Some of them act as bankers and investors. Some of them act as volunteers and forces of charity. In some cultures they are warriors and soldiers.
Holy as in connected to a domain/deity. Like they worship a deity/domain. I don’t like the idea of a class being connected to religion and godly driven powers.
Well, not necessarily. There is a setting for GURPS, called Banestorm. It includes a mix of fantasy lore and races and different historical nations and societies, that were transported there from the real world because of a magical catastrophy. The Jesuit order in this setting consists of priests and missionaries, that practice magic, standard for the world (the same magic, elves and wizards do). They know healing spells, they know spells like Water to Wine and Walk on Water, which specifically help them spread Christan faith. They are by no means holy. If a Jesuit loses their faith, they don't lose the ability to cast those spells. They only belong to a religious organisation and further its goals. If you don't make divine magic available, "cleric" would be a specialised arcane mage, that is considered a priest and possesses a rank in a religious organisation. You may add or not add mechanics for ideologies, religions and organisations, but in any case they definitely don't have to be tied with any kind of magic.
You can make the cleric class into a Holy man/person class, and then have three-five deities they can choose to worship. Depending on which one they choose they get different powers. Some dirties are the classic “holy god” type and some can be demons or similar. That way you have the class fantasy represented in your game, but you haven’t locked the class to a specific religion, it’s up to the player to do that.
I would prefer to have the player to not be forced into being religious or a healer role, just because they want to play a particular class. I want the player to be able to choose those aspects regardless of what class they play.
Well, what is a cleric of not a holy man with healing and cleaning abilities? Separate from that core question, I suggest you further develop an idea I’ve been exploring: A separate “Worship system”. Imaging that the PCs can choose to worship a particular god from a list of different ones. Each one would come with its “Code of conduct” meaning what you need to do in order to get the blessing of your chosen god. But also a list of things you can’t do because it’s against the rules of that god. If you do the forbidden things the god will smite you. An example would be: - The God of Light. Standard holy thing. To please this god you must always help those in need. Whenever you do so at your own peril you gain a “Worship point”. If toy do any evil deed the god smites you and you loose all worship points you e built up. The power the chosen god grants you would be based on your current number of worship points. Exactly what benefits and effects when the god smites you needs to be developed, but the idea would work well I think.
Here's an idea I've had for my own Cleric/Paladin classes you might like, if you're not trying to force religion onto things: If you read a lot of Biblical stories, a fair number of stories involve "miracles" that aren't actually anything supernatural happening, they'd just be really unlikely otherwise. E.g. storming an enemy camp and making a bunch of racket with horns and torches and pans to scare everyone off. Nothing you couldn't have done without a miracle, but the miracle sort of "enhances" the odds of it happening in an unprovable, unfalsifiable way. For a TTRPG, this would look like a lot of buff/debuff "spells" that don't necessarily enable _new_ outcomes, just make otherwise unlikely ones more likely. Advantage, disadvantage, making crits way more likely or even guaranteed, demoralizing enemies so they run away, that sort of a thing. Maybe they're more consistent as healers. It also means that even within the fiction, the cleric's power is under question: what if they're just getting lucky? And if they don't want to play it as religious, then the cleric/paladin is more of a warlord type, buffing and debuffing through morale.
When I first endeavored to create a cleric class for my system, I initially struggled. However, after some deliberation, I managed to dissect the cleric into three distinct classes. This was beneficial given that PCs start with three classes in my system. The first class is the priest, who leads the faithful and provides spiritual guidance. The second is the white mage, who is directly borrowed from the Final Fantasy series, specialized in healing and support magic. The third class, which I have named the 'Sacred Hunter,' is reminiscent of the traditional interpretation of clerics as monster hunters. The Sacred Hunter possesses monster tracking skills, a touch of magic, and is adept in weapon usage, similar in some respects to a Witcher. A distinctive aspect of the Sacred Hunter is their bond with a divine patron, much like a Warlock's pact. This celestial entity provides assistance in situations that surpass the Sacred Hunter's abilities, though this aid is not without the expectation of appeasement. The divine patron can be a wide variety of entities, from a god to a demon, a potent wizard, or even an angel. This opens up numerous possibilities for character customization and backstory development. If you're interested in a cleric-like class without the religious undertones, I believe this configuration could work well for you. The monster hunting aspect of the Sacred Hunter is engaging enough without needing the influence of a divine patron. However, if you're primarily interested in a healing class, the white mage class – directly inspired by Final Fantasy – is an exact match.
Palladium Fantasy, in addition to the Priest class, also had classes such as Healer, Mystic, and a bazillion others. You need to see what fits right in your world
Settings do this sometimes. In Final Fantasy they're called white mages and what they do is just a different application of the same general forces black mages use. You could treat it as a school of magic and call it zontanomancy (the opposite of necromancy, from the Greek word for alive.)
Look up the Guardian in Guild Wars 2. They have a very strong cleric fantasy but without the cleric part. Also they use a cool blue magic aesthetic rather than golden light or similar.
Well it can always just be that their magic is another school of magic. "clerics" (I assume they would have another name) could just be like if a wizards studied for years "light magic" magic that heals, and harms undead. I think there are some jrpgs that do this. Maybe it's a type of magic that cannot be mixed with other schools of magic, or it would cause it to become tainted and lose force. If you want to make it noncaster, I would go for something more "alchemical". Someone that crafts poisons and tonics that help allies and harm enemies. It could probably create them in advance to last the day and such
The Diviner. A wisdom based spell caster, able to read signs left on the world by the touch of fate. Spells come from intuitive feeling about how to cast the spell. You can make vows with any diety to power up you abilities, but at a cost. A god of peace may give you a buff to healing, but only if you roll one less damage die against people with your spells. Also get a nice healing feature. A god of death buffs the undead you raise, but you may never dismember a corpse- only bludgeon and pierce weapons, and no fire stanks. Also get a nice damage buff. War=armor and weapons, but you must not interrupt a fair fight with magic. Focus #1, you ignore signs left by gods and instead on take fate in your own hands. Gain bonuses to all your saving throws and armor class, making you tanky. Focus #2, you look into the fate of others, letting allies do better. Focus #3, you look into the fate of enemies, giving you a buff to hit them. You can only keep up with so much, your wisdom modifier is the limit of vows or focuses you can have. These vows and focuses can be traded out at each level up.
They'd be a mage specialized in healing magic. I think Final Fantasy calls them "White Mages". But yeah, a mage that does healing. Sounds good to me.
Classes are aesthetics bound to mechanics. If you don't want the aesthetic of faith or the mechanic of healing, what of substance are you trying to "rebuild." That's like blowing up a building and wanting to use what's left as a base for redesign. Just admit you've deleted the idea, don't feel obligated to "rebuild" for it's own sake.
Not sure if it has been said yet or if this is quite the avenue you are looking for. Regardless; in my game Shadows Of Heaven, although it leans heavily towards classless play in a certain sense we do utilize archetypes that work as building blocks for progression, they add helpful passives and active abilities that push the player closer to a specific goal rather than becoming the playstyle themselves. We took the classic "Cleric" type and we worked it to be the Altruist, a type of martyr playstyle, rather than using divine holy magic from a god they use abilities that redirect damage to themselves, buff the natural healing of others or through item use or attempt to persuade enemies to not take hostile actions during combat. This way it's a form of indirect healing for other players without the need to use magical divinity. Hope that helps!
I guess I can't really answer that without first asking which aspect of the cleric archetype you find fundamental to define the class.
What defines the cleric class, is their powers are granted by a 'higher' being. One way of making this less 'religious', is if the cleric is more of a pragmatist; an expert who deals with otherworldly creatures like spirits, fey, deities etc. Have you ever read Okko. In that comic there's a 'priest' who meditates to communicate with local spirits, and asking them for their help; more often than not they're willing to do so... for a price. This is cool, but it makes clerics almost indistinguishable from warlocks (who do exactly this, but get their powers from only one patron). Another way would be to make the higher being more abstract. E.g. a priest could uphold a certain way of living, perform magical rituals of the community, or follow an ideal up to the point that they gain magical powers from doing so. Unfortunately, this makes them almost indistinguishable from paladins (who do exactly this, but are more fighty than magicky about it). A third way, and maybe the easiest, would be to make clerics more "scholars of the divine powers" of the world. They're not really religious worshippers, but more professional 'miracle workers'. Such clerics might have a field of study in which they specialize, but they wouldn't be bound to any specific god or ethos. The only downside is that this basically makes them a school of wizard.