"2e AD&D Priests, by the Numbers, PO: Spells & Magic" Topic

Since my 1e days, I have always felt that the Druid was short-changed on powers and abilities. They always struck me as being very weak, compared to the regular Cleric class, based on Granted Powers, and spell lists. When I first read the Specialty Priest (SP) entry within the 2e PHB, in the store aisle, I was super-excited to dive into SP's. The instructions were scant, in the PHB, so I went into it, adjusting it every few years, based on how it felt to me, as the DM, and as to what I got for feedback from players running them within my games.

I immediately saw that the Generic Cleric, as detailed within the 2e PHB, was quite powerful -- considerably more powerful than even the 1e Cleric class!

I finally picked up a copy of Player's Option: Spells & Magic, around eight years ago. I recently dug into the Specialty Priest (SP) rules, which quantify the building of an SP, by the numbers, using Character Points (CP's). I started by calculating the CP tally of the PHB's Generic Cleric: 172 CP's!!! The PHB Druid clocks in around 97-102 CP's: the Granted Powers at higher levels, and the competing for higher level advancement, was ignored, as there is no system to count the CP's for those aspects of the class. This means that the BtB Druid, is 70-73 CP's lighter than the BtB Generic Cleric! My feelings that the Druid class was decidedly weaker than the Cleric, is proven by the CP's. How much weaker the Druid is, can now be quantified, and it is shocking, to me, how much weaker they really are, and that they always have been so very much weaker than the original 1e Cleric, by the numbers! I know that the CP values are all 2e, but they are close enough to the 1e valuation, that they still give a really good idea of the power differences between the 1e classes.

I run a home-brew game, with only the non-human deities being used from published books; I made up my own pantheon for Humans, and I made up a number of unique deities for non-humans, as well. I do not use the PHB's Generic Cleric, at all. Every deity has SP's for their Clerics. When/if I use them in a game, I stat out their Granted Powers, along with their Major & Minor Spheres, weapons and armor allowed, etc.

I had the majority mapped out, and they played very well in my games, for more than 30 years. Then I began to stat my SP's out, to see how they all measured up: they typically run in the 100 CP area, some a little more, some a little less. I decided to see how they would be if I increased their CP's to match the PHB's Generic Cleric, by granting them new Granted Powers, new weapons, and new Spell Spheres to increase their CP's to meet the Generic Cleric's CP tally (adding roughly 70 CP's)… They became super-munchkin PC's. It threw off the entire feel of my SP's, giving them uber more spells, armor, weapons, and/or Granted Powers. Some gained the unlimited weapons Granted Power, but that made them into spell-casting Fighters!

How about you? Do you use SP's in your 2e games? If so, do you stat them out with CP's, buying Spell Spheres, armor types, and Granted Powers?

We have found it quite fun to play with SP's who cannot cast any healing spells, who cannot Turn Undead! Others have Mage-like Granted Powers through their Holy Symbols (limited so as not to overshadow the Mage class); some wield limited Fighter-type weapons (unlimited weapons is too much for me, for my SP's). I find making up SP's to be an incredibly fun DM adventure! it is particularly rewarding to receive feedback from my players about how much they enjoy playing my SP designs. They even told me to avoid adding more CP's to their characters -- they're powerful enough, as it is!

I think the Player's Option: Spells & Magic book's section on building SP's with CP's is really quite good. I just don't like the 2e PHB's Generic Cleric's CP totals -- way too powerful for my taste. Cheers!

I had the Player's Options book but only used the Complete Priest's Handbook if not playing a regular book cleric. It's been so long since I played 2nd but I never felt very powerful as a cleric, and I was always the cleric. I never saw many people play druids though.

A video I watched recently mentioned Druids and one of the top despised player classes. I think in my almost 50 years of various forms of DnD I've had one exactly once.

As a 1st ed dnd DM and player, from long ago, here is the problem with Druids ( and to a certain extent, Rangers). They are designed as outdoor characters, and where do most adventures take place? under ground, in the dungeon. The style of play that quickly developed, kind of make it obsolete, ( kind of like the paladins warhorse, or the stronghold and followers. )

Now take the Druid and put it into a Wargame campaign, it quickly becomes one of the most powerful.

I am currently starting to redo my campaign world, maps mostly, so that they can be used for hex crawling. something I never really did, but always wanted to, Put that same ranger or druid into a hexcrawl, and now they are extremely useful, especially if you keep track of gear, encumbrance, time and supplies. in the correct context, they would be great, in the current style of play, not so much.

People often say they same thing about the thief, especially in later editions. when I taught my son and daughter to play, I showed them how useful a theif really was. just by scouting ahead, make many adventures so much more survivable, but now in later editions what is the thief? he is the Damage dealer, and the fighter is no longer a damage dealer, but just something to absorb damage, ie the tank. Damage dealing has been "given to the theif and ranger" and magicusers are no longer needed either, everyone can do that .

Ive toyed with the idea of specialty clerics, similar to how you have, by kind of using the domains, but my problem is when you started taking spells away from specialty clerics, the spell ists become quite short on choice, and I didnt have a good list of aditional spells/ abilitys to compensate, so mostly everyone was just typical clerics.