Cleric Rework - Miracles, Holy War, and You

We killed the spell slots.
Time to kill the spells!

Main Deal

The core of this Cleric class is fundamentally the same as the Generic Cleric from the previous post.

The main change is the removal of the standard Cleric Spell List in favour of three unique Miracles by Religion.
Replacing the whole Cleric spell list with a smaller group of unique Miracles means they can be powerful and thematic.
A minor addition is the Sect Bonus - allowing any character class (including the Cleric) to gain a benefit from their Religion.

Also conveniently it's Easter Sunday today. I didn't intend to time it like this, but it's good timing for Cleric mechanics!

Core Cleric

Core: HD, Saves, Experience per level, etc of a normal Cleric.

Lay on Hands: Heal the wounded by drawing points from your Healing Pool.
Each dawn, roll 1d6 per level + Wis Mod. This is your Healing Pool for the day.
As an action, you can draw points from the Healing Pool to heal as much HP to a touched target.

Religions: You belong to one of several different religious sects. Each Religion has a unique set of Miracles that you can cast, Observances to follow, and a relationship with other faiths.
See Religions below.

Faith: You cast Miracles through Faith.
Your Faith total will change as you cast Miracles and trigger Observances.
At dawn each day, roll 2d6 + level + Wis Mod. This is your starting Faith total for the day.

Miracles: Each Religion has 3 unique Miracles.
Calling forth a Miracle is a normal Action - the Miracle is cast instantaneously.

After you call forth a Miracle, 2d6 and attempt to roll equal to or less than your current Faith total.

• Success: Your Faith total is set to either the result of the roll or your Cleric level, whichever is higher.
• Failure: Your Faith total drops to zero, and you can no longer call forth Miracles until your Faith resets at dawn.

Observances: Each Observance is an act that will cause you to gain or lose Faith.
Observances can be triggered once each. After you call forth a Miracle, this resets so you can be affected by each Observance again.

Lead Prayer: As a true Cleric, your passion and truth outshine petty sectarian divides.
When you deliver a Sermon everyone in the congregation unlocks their Sect Bonus, no matter their faith.

Religions

There are many Religions.
They slot into the core Cleric to basically create a bunch of sub-classes.
If you don't want to choose an established Religion, you can work with the DM to create your own.

Each Religion comes with three unique Miracles.
Each Religion comes with a set of unique Observances.
Each Religion grants a unique Sect Bonus.

Miracles are the equivalent of Cleric spells.
Observances make you gain or lose Faith.
Sect Bonus is a permanent perk - explained later to keep this tight.

Here are some examples from my game so you see what I'm on about.
We recently went post-apocalyptic so they're all apocalypse cults.

Hyperchurch of Powerlad

What's their deal?

Lightning, Hammers and Heroism - live up to POWERLAD's example.

Miracles:

• Sacrifice: Sacrifice your HP to grant it to someone within 50’.
  Plasma-globe lightning connects you, dealing the same amount of Lightning damage to creatures in between (they get a Save vs Blast to avoid).
• Storm Hammer: You grow huge and buff (+4 Strength Mod). Lightning crackles as a great weapon - the God-Hammer - appears in your hands.
  It deals 1d10 Lightning damage (1d12 with Sect Bonus) and lasts 1 round/level.
• Storm Shell: Create an electrical barrier against weather effects and airborne particulates. Crossing the barrier deals 1d6 Lightning damage. Lasts 10 minutes/level or until you dispel it.

Observances:

Sect Bonus:

Hammerfall: Hammers you wield deal +2 against all armour types and boost damage die by one size.

Forebearers

What's their deal?

Survive and repopulate the post-apocalyptic world.

Miracles:

• Abjure Poison: Grant touched target immunity to poisons, toxins, and drugs - even Omnipoison.
  Lasts 1 Turn/level.
• Forecast: Gain divine knowledge of the current weather systems. See Weather Chart and where the weather is right now. If you wish, also trigger an immediate weather change.
  *This one will make more sense when I've tested my Hexcrawl rules better. Based on this.
• Enhance Vigour: Prepare a person for the great work of repopulation!
  Touched target is cured of all Disease and become extremely virile/fertile until the next dawn.

Observances:

Sect Bonus:

Endurance: -1 Encumbrance level, minimum zero. Always run at unencumbered speed during a Chase.

Faithless

What's their deal?
Fuck Gods. Burn Heaven. Why worship beings who couldn't stop the end of the world?

Miracles:

• Silence of God: Reduce target Cleric’s Faith to zero. 50’ range.
• Abjure Religion: Grant immunity to Lawful magic to everyone within 50’. Lasts 1 round/level.
• Debate Me!: You and a target within 50' are transported to a pale infinite plane of Law. You are a blinding white soul, they are white, grey or black depending on Alignment.
  You understand each other's needs and drives and if you speak the same language you can communicate.
  You can try to change their mind or compel an action, and if you do so they get a Save vs Law to resist.
  When you return to the world you have only been gone a brief moment.

Observances:

Sect Bonus:
Shatter Faith: +4 to Saves vs Law. At will, cancel the Sect Bonus of everyone within 20’ - even your own and other Faithless.

Yes, there is a "no religion" religion. Is "no religion" a type of religion? Is bald a type of hairstyle? Who can say but God himself?

Tolerance and Apostasy

Different religions have different stances towards each other. Classic. 

Bring holy war into your game with this one neat trick!

While all Religions believe themselves to be the most true, they may put up with other Religions whose beliefs are relatively compatible.
Of course, some Religions are straight up heretical. These Apostate Religions must be shunned.

The most obvious thing is the social impact.
You get a +2 to Reaction Rolls with people of your own religion, and -2 to Reaction Rolls with those who hold your faith to be Apostate.
It's no use trying to hide your faith, people can Just Tell.

The other impact is in Sermons (see below).
Sermons are more effective if you're in a congregation made up of your own Faith, listening to a preacher who is at least Tolerated by your religion.
Sermons are less effective if you're in a congregation made up of filthy Apostates.

Tolerance and Apostasy is not necessarily mirrored, which is fun. You might tolerate someone's faith, but they think yours is complete heresy.

You don't have to do this, but I made a grid for my ones!
There's fluff reasons for everything. eg. the Sinners hold the Enlightened as apostate because their gods clearly left them to die on this poisoned earth, while the Enlightened tolerate the Sinners in turn because their gods clearly saved the Sinners for some greater purpose.

Generally, each Religion holds two as Apostate. Equality, kinda.

Sect Bonus

Religion isn't just for Clerics! If you participate in a Sermon, you too can unlock a special faith ability called a Sect Bonus.

The ability itself is unique per Religion, see examples above.

Sermon:

Every ten minutes of preaching, the preacher and everybody in the congregation rolls a Save vs Law.
If the preacher is from your own or a Tolerated faith, +1 per member of your faith in the congregation.
If there are any members of an Apostate faith in the congregation, -1 per Apostate present.
Passing the Save means you unlock your Sect Bonus.

Sect Bonus:
Once it's unlocked, you retain your Sect Bonus indefinitely.
You lose your Sect bonus if you wield Chaotic magic. This includes casting a spell, using a magic item, or gaining a buff from a Chaotic source.

Lead Prayer:
If a Cleric is leading the Sermon, everyone in the congregation passes their Save automatically.
A party with a Cleric is almost always going to keep that buff... and almost certainly have to listen to a lot of preaching.

Discussion

So this is much more of a departure from the standard Cleric, but seeing as my current group has 3 Clerics right now they've had a bit of playtesting! What a treat!

Bespoke Miracles:

My main takeaway is that it's real fun and they're very powerful. Constraining Clerics to a smaller set of powerful spells means they're more likely to use them, and use them in interesting ways.

The most obvious effect is, of course, that Clerics of different religions feel very different. 

The heroic Hyperchurch Clerics - combat oriented - are very powerful in combat, and even more powerful in combination.
The stoner UFO cult Cleric has been going around abducting enemies and, notably, caused a deadly combat to chill out for long enough for people to escape to safety.

Great fun.

Observances:

In a similar way, the different Observances have made the various Clerics feel unique. The stoner Cleric keeps toking up between miracles, while the Hyperchurch Clerics are always on the look out for people to romance and keep taking their tops off in storms.
And since all Clerics need to give a Sermon to boost their Faith, they're preaching all over the place.

Good times!

Altered Miracle Mechanic:

Getting rid of the spell list means getting rid of spell levels!
Cleric Faith starts at 2d6+level+Wis Mod, with all Miracle Rolls on 2d6.

This means a level 1 Cleric of average Wisdom will start a day with around 8 Faith. That's at least one Miracle, with good odds on another. Especially if you follow your Observances.

A level 7 Cleric with the same Wisdom will be more like 14 Faith at dawn, guaranteed second Miracle! And more importantly - since your Faith resets to the higher of the Miracle roll or your level, a successful roll leaves them with at least 7 Faith after each Miracle. Good odds for chaining many together in the same day.

Something to note is that I'm assuming a de facto level cap of Level 7, so this is a comfortable balance. If you've got Clerics going beyond level 12 they'll essentially have infinite Miracles.
I'm fine with that personally, but it's something to keep in mind if you're the sort of person who doesn't start new characters off at level 1.

Sermons:

I'm pretty jazzed about Sermons and the Sect Bonus.
Since there are Clerics in the party, everyone's constantly boosted by their Religion - perfect!

We haven't experienced the other side of the coin yet - a Sermon by a lay priest.
The intention is to make a mono-religious party gain easy access to their Sect Bonus, and make it mechanically advantageous to shun apostates (or at the very least, make them leave the room).
We'll see how that pans out!

Sermons are required because I think the idea of pausing a dungeon delve for a spot of preaching is funny - especially since they'll have to do it more often if the Wizards keep casting spells and want their boost back.

If you want to see what I've got for my game:
Religion Pamphlet here.
Religion Spreadsheet here.

GLOG Class: The Parasite Brain

I was going to post more Cleric stuff but here I am, jumping on a bandwagon.
I don't write stuff for GLOG, but maybe I've nicked enough stuff that it's time to give back!

To my players: Don't worry I'm not going to convert this into a class for our game... yet.

For those not in the know, GLOG's schtick is every time you level up you add a Template to your character, 4 max.
Basically this ABCD thing is what you get each level up to level 4.

Also: The others involved!
Oblidisideryptch, Micah, Type1Ninja, Ambnz, Coalfiber, Lexi, Isaak Hill, Chuffer, Martin O, Wizards, and Wr3cking8a11

Class: The Murmurer

Murmurer A: Parasite, Threading, 2 Threads.
Murmurer B: Mindshift, +2 Threads.
Murmurer C: Infinite Thread, +2 Threads.
Murmurer D: Backup Brain, +2 Threads.

A Murmurer, more properly "The" Murmurer and sometimes called a Parasite Brain, is a tenacious parasitic mind that colonises the heads of humanoids.
This isn't a particularly evil act from the Murmurer's perspective. After all, it's the only way it can survive!

The part that a Murmurer may admit is kind of evil is the way they worm their threads into the cerebellum of living creatures and take direct control of them, forming them into a colony under the Murmurer's mental control.

The Murmurer itself is a sort of parasitic sludge, rapidly liquefying and replacing the neocortex of the host. The most obvious sign of the Murmurer is the reverse-face. A face grows on the back of the creature's head over time. This is usually covered by hair, if possible, or a hat.
Yea it's basically like Voldemort in the first Harry Potter plus a Yeerk.

A Murmurer is permanently attached to their Core Host and relies on it to survive.
If it is ever removed from the host by some means, or the host takes so much damage that their brain shuts down, the Murmurer dies with it.

Murmurers can extrude long web-like Threads from their Core Host. Usually these emerge from the ears or nose, but it's not unknown to have them emerge from the mouth or the corners of the eyes.

A Thread, placed on the back of the neck of an unconscious being, grows into the victim's spinal cord and crawls up the brain-stem. When it reaches the cerebellum it grows over it and takes control of the victim's nervous system.

A Thread is wispy and floats on air currents, and very difficult to break without focused effort. It is incredibly slippery, strong, and thin. Even scissors have a difficult time with it unless they are extremely sharp.

The most obvious mark of someone taken over by a Murmurer is the eyes - within hours of Threading the new drone has a bifurcated double-pupil. 

Another obvious mark is a large bubo on the nape of the neck. The Thread emerges from the centre of this bubo, and the lump itself is filled with a tangled spool of Thread.

early onset

Core Host

HD, saves, exp, etc as Fighter.

You begin play embedded in the back of the head of an ordinary human, or maybe an equivalent humanoid common in the region. This is your Core Host, the one whose brain you've grown around.

Ability scores are rolled as normal and apply to your host - even mental attributes. 

If you ever shift into another host, you'll take their ability scores.

Threading

You can Thread up to two creatures per Template.

A Threaded creature must be unconscious and must possess a cerebellum - ie. it must have a spine.
The process always succeeds.
A Threaded creature must stay within 30' of you and must protect you against anything you perceive as a threat, but cannot be controlled directly and will not take orders.
Threaded creatures are otherwise mindless. They will not even feed themselves. Not that they lose their mind - the creature is still in there looking out through their own eyes - you've just hijacked their nervous system.
This is why Threaded creatures often murmur and mumble, they're trying to speak.
They're trying to beg.

If the Thread is ever broken by some means, they fall unconscious for 1d4 hours. When they wake up they regain their mind and remember everything that befell them. It will take some time for their pupils to reform and the bubo on their neck to heal, but they are otherwise back to normal.

Mindshift

You can shift your consciousness into a Threaded creature, allowing you to control them directly. Your Core Host stands stock-still while this is happening, although it is of course defended by any other creatures you have Threaded nearby.

You can control the creature as if it were your own body, although you cannot go more than 30' away from your Core Host.
Your attributes change to those of the Threaded creature you're controlling - physical and mental - and you gain access to all of the creature's natural powers and abilities. You never gain access to the creature's memories, so any unnatural abilities (spellcasting, unsupported flight, etc) are beyond you.

If the controlled creature dies, you take the same amount of damage that killed them (you experience their death) and snap back to your Core Host.

Infinite Thread

There is no range limit to your Threads.
You can directly control Threaded creatures and send them far afield. If they cannot see you they will not know the way back to you, so they will wait wherever they are indefinitely.
Maybe check up on them occasionally - they won't eat or clean themselves without direct compulsion from you.

Backup Brain

By going ear-to-ear with a Threaded creature, you can compel a portion of your goopy Murmurer-stuff to squish out and infest their mind.
The creature must possess a human-scale neocortex - ie. be some sort of primate or equivalent humanoid. Lesser creatures simply don't have enough higher brain function to replace.

It takes a full week for the goop to digest and replace the neocortex, but the creature otherwise acts as normal during the process.
After a week the creature is essentially new Murmurer slaved to you via the Thread - a backup copy of your Murmurer parasite-mind.

There is no limit to the number of Threaded creatures you can turn into backups - turn them all into backups if you like! What could go wrong?

If your Core Host is ever killed, you (the player) can swap to controlling a Backup.

You revert to a Level 1 character in a new body with the Murmurer A template.

You are not shifting in. The original "you" in the Core Host has died. By dying it has unshackled all connected Backups, each of which is now the "real" Core Host.

This is the manner in which The Murmurer reproduces, and why each considers itself "The" Murmurer. Each is the continuation of the one Murmurer, and all others are clearly fakes.
Murmurers hate each other, since the mere act of existing takes the "copies" further and further away from their original experiences. They often kill each other, as though they were seeing their own Clone.

If the Thread to a Backup is severed while your Core Host yet lives, that Backup is unshackled as though you had died. Since it's legitimately the real you and knows everything you know, it will be hard to hide from yourself.