Cleric (character class)

This article is about role-playing games. For other uses, see Cleric.

The Cleric, Priest, or Bishop is a character class in Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy role-playing games. The cleric is a healer, usually a priest and a holy warrior, originally modeled on or inspired by the Military Orders. Clerics are usually members of religious orders, with the original intent being to portray soldiers of sacred orders who have magical abilities granted by the gods, although this role was later taken more clearly by the paladin. Most clerics have powers to heal wounds, protect their allies and sometimes resurrect the dead, as well as summon, manipulate and banish undead.

A description of Priests and Priestesses from the Nethack guidebook: Priests and Priestesses are clerics militant, crusaders advancing the cause of righteousness with arms, armor, and arts thaumaturgic. Their ability to commune with deities via prayer occasionally extricates them from peril, but can also put them in it.^[1]

A common feature of clerics across many games is that they may not equip pointed weapons such as swords or daggers, and must use blunt weapons such as maces or war-hammers instead. This is likely based on a popular misinterpretation of the depiction of Odo of Bayeux and accompanying text, which has in modern times been re-evaluated. They are also often limited in what types of armor they can wear, though usually not as restricted as mages.

Related to the cleric is the paladin, who is typically a Lawful Good^{[citation needed]} warrior often aligned with a religious order, and who uses his martial skills to advance its holy cause.

Dungeons & Dragons

Main article: Cleric (Dungeons & Dragons)

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the cleric is one of the four base character classes. Clerics are versatile figures, both capable in combat and skilled in the use of divine magic, which they employ without any restriction due to encumbrance of armour. In earlier versions of the games they were restricted to using bludgeoning weapons, such as maces, staffs, and war-hammers. In later additions this limit was raised depending on the symbolic weapon of their deity, although other martial (non-simple) weapons were still alien to them - requiring a costly feat in the latest edition of the game to employ them. Clerics are powerful healers due to the large number of healing and curative magic available to them. With divinely-granted abilities over life or death, they are also able to repel, destroy, rebuke, or control undead creatures - depending upon whether he/she is good or evil.

Video Games

Clerics are a common character option across many computer RPGs, which share their heritage with the tabletop roleplaying games that originated the class. Although some games hew closely to that older archetype, there exist many variations in the conception, background and abilities of the cleric class.

• Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has the Cleric class as one of the four specialized healer classes, in a form compareable with D&D (heavy armor, low damage output, some anti-undead abilities).
• In EverQuest II, "Cleric" is a term that refers to both Inquisitors and Templars, which are evil and good (respectively) variants on the traditional Clerical roles.
• In Lineage II, human mages may choose Cleric at their first class change. Elven Clerics exist as well, but are called "Elder" instead.
• In Fire Emblem, the Clerics, sometimes known as "Sisters," are all females (their male equivalent being the Monk or the Priest), later promoted into the Bishop class.
• In ROSE Online the Clerics can prevent monsters from talking by making them no longer believe in their souls.

References

1. ^ http://www.nethack.org/v343/Guidebook.html#_TOCentry_2 Nethack Guidebook, entry 2 with character classes.

• Slavicsek, Bill; Richard Baker, Kim Mohan (2005). Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies (Illustrated ed.). For Dummies. ISBN 9780764584596. http://books.google.com/books?id=xNU7E01MCEgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Cleric+Dungeons+and+Dragons&client=firefox-a. Retrieved 04-12-09.