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Post by llenlleawg on Sept 14, 2012 9:33:55 GMT -6
In Men & Magic, it is said that Magic Users cannot change their class to Clerics, nor can Clerics become MUs. I think this sits well with the unspoken influence of the Medieval/chivalric/Christian background of the Cleric class and the parallel view of magic in that same tradition. In short, I think it makes good sense.
However, I wonder whether it might not equally work to hold that all Chaotic Magic Users and Clerics (i.e. anti-Clerics) operate as do elves, viz. that they can switch classes freely between adventures (i.e. between MU and Cleric). I would likely limit the armor and weapons to those allowed to MUs, or minimally disallow any casting of MU spells while in armor, magical or otherwise. (This gives a little nod to the elves as innately magical, and thus able to cast spells while wearing magical armor.) In any event, it would support the idea of black magicians as at least implicitly, likely explicitly, diabolists. It would also support the idea of Chaos as a real temptation for greater power (i.e. allowing access to both MU and clerical spells and magical items). It would also, I think, match up with more Conan-esque, less chivalric campaigns, since the priests of those gods tend to be more like MUs than anything else.
Thoughts?
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Post by Stormcrow on Sept 14, 2012 14:09:56 GMT -6
the priests of those gods tend to be more like MUs than anything else. In early D&D, there is no metaphysical difference between the spells of magic-users and clerics. Both are just "magic." If a priest casts magic-user spells, wields only a dagger, and doesn't wear armor, his class is magic-user. |
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Post by talysman on Sept 14, 2012 16:26:03 GMT -6
the priests of those gods tend to be more like MUs than anything else. In early D&D, there is no metaphysical difference between the spells of magic-users and clerics. Both are just "magic." If a priest casts magic-user spells, wields only a dagger, and doesn't wear armor, his class is magic-user. In fact, the first druids (in Greyhawk) had M-U spells. No biggie. My personal assumption is that healing and resurrection magic in particular and clerical magic in general is based on asking spirits for help, rather than knowing the secrets of the universe. So, clerics and magic-users represent two different mind-sets, which why you can never change from one to the other. Anti-clerics are just like clerics, but they bully spirits into obedience and make pacts with demons. So, I wouldn't let them switch to M-U or back. But that's just my interpretation, rather than anything explicitly in the rules. |
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Post by Stormcrow on Sept 14, 2012 20:18:19 GMT -6
It occurs to me that another name for "anti-cleric" might be "witch."
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Post by talysman on Sept 14, 2012 20:59:12 GMT -6
It occurs to me that another name for "anti-cleric" might be "witch." I use "heretic". And the name level is "heresiarch". |
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Post by llenlleawg on Sept 15, 2012 8:40:22 GMT -6
In early D&D, there is no metaphysical difference between the spells of magic-users and clerics. Both are just "magic." If a priest casts magic-user spells, wields only a dagger, and doesn't wear armor, his class is magic-user. I think it may be too much to make the claim that there is no metaphysical difference when the game is basically agnostic about such things. To be sure, spells cast by clerics can be discovered through detect magic and can be undone by dispel magic. On the other hand, there are notable differences between the two. Obviously they are thematically distinct. They also differ quite notably in the kinds of magical items that can be produced (e.g. there are no wands of cure light wounds, indeed, no wands of clerical spells at all). Magic User scrolls are embedded in an arcane language requiring the use of read magic to be cast, and they can be used by high-level thieves. Clerical scrolls require no such magical reading before casting, and cannot be employed by thieves. And, of course, what initiated this thread, while a cleric or MU can become a fighting man, or vice versa, a cleric may not change classes to MU, nor and MU to cleric. My point, I guess, is that there is a lovely but ambiguous "metaphysics" in the varied rules about kinds of magic in OD&D without having, e.g., the formal distinctions of "power sources" found in recent versions (3/3.5 and 4e). What I was exploring here was extrapolating some of those ideas along one interpretive line, viz. that clerics cannot become MUs, nor MUs become clerics, in light of a fundamental conflict between heavenly Law and the Chaos of magic, and thus, perhaps, granted the Chaotic origin of anti-clerical magic, one could envision Chaotic cleric/MUs as "fitting" this scenario. All the same, de gustibus and all that! |
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