Topic: Priests and Magic users in same party

I like the 16th to 17th century real earth setting but it's a period where witch hunters and inquisition agents like to burn witches and heretics left and right.

Now, spell casting priests in a real world setting is already kind of strange, but my main problem is how to explain a priest and a magic user adventuring together.

I am curious to know how people get around this.

Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

Clerics are often suspected of heresy. As adventurers, they operate outside the normal channels of ecclesiastical authority. A cleric's ability to perform miracles might make her popular with common folk, but bishops will be suspicious of the challenge to their authority.

Large gifts of treasure to the church will encourage most priests to look the other way...

Therefore, clerics and magic-users are both outcasts. They might not agree with how the world works, but neither can deny the powers of their companions. They can survive better together.

At the end of the day, they are both adventurers and treasure-hunters, which matters more than philosophical perspective.

Last edited by CironeAE (2014-08-27 19:21:37)

Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

i definitely like this one.

thanks.

Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

Don't be shy about leaving it up to the players; they will hopefully have fun coming up with reasons why two characters of such disparate beliefs tolerate each other, or are even close friends. Things from the past, maybe they are siblings and the cleric still holds hope of saving his brother's/sister's soul?

Bottom line, though; don't get too stuck on the details. This is still LotFP. If you just get them started playing they will, in no time, either be dead, be bonded by such horrific experiences that the mere question of the immortal soul seems insignificant or they will have committed such an atrocity together that they are united by the simple fact that everybody else hates them... smile

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Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

We deal with it by letting the players, not the background, define their relationships. Our priest is quite bombastic and chides the 'witch' for having intercourse with the devil, but all his threats are made with an implicit some-day-there-will-be-a-reckoning caveat.

Practically speaking the cleric's player has no wish to give the magic-using player a genuinely hard time, but revels in the opportunity for banter.

You can probably guess that our games have a good mix of the lighthearted punctuated my brief periods of OMGWTF is that.

We don't really campaign anymore, so I haven't had cause to try and rationalise a bigger picture. Options run from having Clerics (capital C) in charge of the church either overtly or covertly, to spell casting clerics (small c) being thought of as no better than their arcane brethren.

I think James has mentioned in the past that he no longer has Clerics in his home game (or Dwarves, Elves and Halflings) but I don't know if he still has Clerical NPCs, or whether this implies that some distant future edition of the game may also remove all of those options.

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Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

I agree with the above; most adventuring clerics are probably more mystics than traditional clergy, so they are used to being on the edges of society themselves. They may not like magic, but they understand it and may realize that they actually have more in common than they don't.

Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

Thanks for all the advice

Cutter wrote:

I think James has mentioned in the past that he no longer has Clerics in his home game (or Dwarves, Elves and Halflings) but I don't know if he still has Clerical NPCs, or whether this implies that some distant future edition of the game may also remove all of those options.

Kind of weird tbh. So what is left is fighter, specialist and magic user. I sometimes have the impression the system is intended for another type of game rather than the setting James wants to base his game in.

I mean i could imagine of a more classless way of handling LOTFP for the intended setting.

On the other hand i really love the simplicity of the system for a dark, gritty and weird DND type game where dwarfs, elves and halflings would not be all that common but all the classes would be playable while making sense in the world.

I know i can do whatever hell i want with it but still like getting peoples opinion on it.

Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

goret wrote:

I mean i could imagine of a more classless way of handling LOTFP for the intended setting.

I have moved to a classless system.  It uses LotFP as its base (including some of the alternate rules suggested in Green Devil Face #4 and #5).

It allows players to create virtually any character concept they want, and allows me to phase in new ideas via titles/special abilities when I think them up (or more likely, "steal" them from other systems, blogs, etc.)

http://thegruenextdoor.blogspot.com/201 … class.html

Re: Priests and Magic users in same party

Thanks for the link, it adds a little bit too much for my taste but nice work still.

I think cutting the cleric out completely and allowing multi-classing into the fighter or specialist class when they level up will do the trick for me.

Cheers