Wouldn't it make sense to have more theocracies in your typical D&D fantasy setting? IRL it made more sense for the Church to form a relationship with kings because the Clergy needed a militant arm to defend themselves. But in D&D a Cleric is a spell-casting powerhouse that can also wear heavy armor and hold their own in melee in a pinch. And on top of that even if they need assistance for a frontline they can always just grab a Paladin or two.
At that point the Church doesn't even need a king to protect it so why bother? Why not have a theocracy?
>"Hey guys, a thing in DnDogshit is moronic!"
Yes. Yes, we know. Have you tried not playing DnDogshit? At least keep your b***hing in the containment thread if you can't find any better systems to play.
Not OP, but what are some games that are similar to DnDogshit, but actually GOOD?
Fantasy Craft.
>Fantasy Craft.
What makes it so much better than DND?
Similar in what way?
Shadow of the Weird Wizard
>"I want something similar to absolute shit, but not shit."
The DnD brainrot is real.
You stood by and did nothing.
if it's similar to d&d it's not good.
What specifically about d&d is so bad, so we know what not to look for in other systems?
>trolls gotten so desperate that he's replying to himself
lmao
Kings and lords and senates also have high-level characters working for them, it doesn't change the relative balance of power, everything is just more powerful.
>Kings and lords and senates also have high-level characters working for them
No gods, however.
Neither do clergy.
Why not? You’d probably expect high-level clerics and paladins to at least show the church some respect and consider their quest requests if nothing else.
Clergy work with gods who regularly manifest their will through them. Annoy their clergy enough and they're going to take a more direct hand to punish you for meddling in the enactment of their will.
The Church and King being sperate is mostly down to a wierd twist of history in the first place. In most civilisations the King and the highest priest of the land are one and the same, because why wouldn't the guy in best with God be the leader?
Even Europe didn't entirely get away from this trend. Kings are anointed to make them holy figures. Popes ruled territory as absolute monarchs. There were great struggles between the the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor as to who highest authority in Christendom.
So yes, if God or the gods play favourites then those favourites would be in charge unless there's a particular reason for them not to be.
Of course, but kings should also be more open about fighting as [insert god] chosen. Why choosing between being the pen or the sword when you can be both?
True clerics are noted as being fairly rare, with most members of the clergy being simple priests.
>but the head of the religion will—
Be the god. In a polytheistic context, with gods that have competing needs, you’d be unlikely to see a unified, centralized church in the mortal world. Hell, even in our world, the Pope and the Dalai Lama are the only two religious heads that spring to mind.
Are there any D&D settings that actually handle religions well in a world of holy magic and real gods, and what lessons can we learn from them when making religions for our own campaign settings?
Fantasy worlds aren't earth.
What about magocracies then? Fantasy settings are lousy with wizards and other magic users, why don't more have nations ruled by cabals of wizards, or by kings with sorcery in their blood? Hell, just the nobility would probably love to get spouses with magic to strengthen their houses.
This already happens a lot. The result is stuff like Thay or the wasteland fiefdom of a petty dark lord ruling from his ominous tower like a third-rate Sauron.
Lets just look at some fricking examples from existing settings:
Eberron:
Theocracy: Thrane. Arenal.
Magocracy: Droaam being ruled by the daughters of Sora Kell counts. The Dragonmarked Houses are exactly what you'd get if a bloodline had magic powers; family-run megacorps and a bourgeois parallel nobility. The old actual nobility of Galifar seem increasingly superfluous in the face of the sheer wealth and means-of-production-ownership of the Houses.
Golarion: There's literally a two nations ruled by two wizards who haven been at war for forever. There's theocracies and militant atheists and magocracies, democracies and fascist regimes.
Like, I don't get what you're complaining about.
Also like... name a drow society in any setting. The red wizards. Any society building Outsiders (not modrons, I guess). The entire dragonlance setting. The Sorcerer-kings of dark sun.
Dnd is fricking RIFE with these sorts of societies.
Why 'do' Drow follow Lolth to begin with?
The threat of slow and painful death if they do anything else.
Oh, of course.
Wizards have super autism.
For the sorcerer nobility question, the elevated races already do this. Elves etc with magical abilities do practice light magico-eugenics. For the lower races it's a difficult practice to establish since sorcerer genetics are unpredictable, getting an identified sorcerer to agree to an arranged marriage is pretty difficult, and the commonfolk are superstitious, racist, and generally moronic. It does still happen occasionally but it'd be difficult to form it into a continual practice.
>Wouldn't it make sense to have more theocracies in your typical D&D fantasy setting?
Yes. But nerds as a rule of thumb, lean r/atheism much more than Christian Nationalism. So avoiding the logical theocracies spares some OOC friction.
You're asking all the wrong questions and bringing in lots of nonsense assumptions.
The typical D&D setting has way more Italian-style City-States than monarchs claiming a divine right to rule. Also, the religions of D&D settings aren't monotheistic and don't dictate the social order in the way Medieval Christianity did, because most D&D settings are not really medieval.
The way D&D gods/temples operate is in a lot of ways analogous to some sort of corporation; if they're involved with the government, they're more likely to have the equivalent of a juicy government contract where they provide something related to their diety's portfolio.
Clerics in D&D are kind of stupidly designed. But also you are assuming that Gods want to have kingdoms of mortals. Of course in the real world nearly all religion is tied into secular social structure but in a fantasy setting where the Gods directly communicate with people this doesn't have to be the case. Especially with D&D and its concept of Planes, Gods don't necessarily give a shit what's going on in the mortal realms.
>Clerics in D&D are kind of stupidly designed
How would you fix the design of D&D clerics then?
Make Clerics ritual casters that can only perform most of their magic, beyond basic shit like Turn Undead or Lay Hands, in Temples or other consecrated lands. Let them focus on purifying the land and healing and performing religious rites instead of being battlemages.
This, and make it so that the party are basically the door-kickers for the faith, with the priests waiting in their temple to heal the returning heroes.
Okay, so how would their niche be filled instead, besides maybe giving wizards healing spells?
You already have Paladins. Arguably the availability of consistent martial damage output and healing from Paladins is what turned Clerics into battlemages in the first place where they used to be fairly frail like Wizards. So I'd prefer pushing Paladin off into a prestige class for high level Fighters and Clerics, and Bard as a prestige class for Rogues, Fighters and Rangers, to incentivize people to actually value Clerics and make them important in party composition again.
Magic is already insanely powerful in modern D&D and its derivatives, you don't need a built-in battlemage as a standard class.
Ideally the Cleric would be a back-line party member that can do "chock the door for Long Rest" but with the power of God, as well as shut down certain types of enemies altogether and not just Undead and provide useful buffs that anchor the team. Everyone does not need to be the frontline fighter or DPS minmaxer.
>make them useless in basically every location they will go
Fascinating
If it wasn't clear, the idea is that Clerics can turn sections of dungeons or whatever structures/places into mini consecrated areas in which to cast their rituals, and that is in fact their whole purpose. They just can't sling magic around wildly during combat like a Wizard, which is counterbalanced by them being resource-free and very consistent where typical magic may be resource-intensive and inconsistent.
The biggest Cleric spells like Resurrection require actual hard consecrated Temples or etc. but the value of having the Cleric in your actual party is still preserved because a player Cleric has a more direct link with their god than an npc functionary member of the clergy, and may be able to perform rituals which the NPC clergy cannot.
NPC "clerics" and Player Clerics aren't necessarily the same thing.
Clerics are busy doing holy rites for their gods, and Paladins are busy smiting evil, they don’t have the time.
The short answer is that Clerics are much, much rarer than Fighters. Paladins even more so.
Why are they so rare? You’d have to have at least one cleric per temple, right?
Characters with classes are circa 1% of the population and clerics are circa 10% of that amount. A d&d big ass metropolis would have an average of 92 clerics (of various cults so not necessarily allied to eachother) the level distribution of which is on average is 4 13th - 16th level ones, 8 6th - 8th level ones, 16 3rd to 4th level ones, 16 2nd level ones and the rest first level ones. As you can see a single church alone, even assuming is the monolithic force in a settlement, is not nearly enough to have the (man)power necessary for all petty local legal enforcement duties, let alone scaling to more important ones. At least a non-caster commander that controls a large militia is always a necessity.
Source: the 3.5e DMg settlement rules.