Cloistered Cleric
The Cloistered Cleric is a Variant Class for the Cleric (duh) that's in Dungeons & Dragons, with the term initially appearing in 3.5E. In normie terms, this is what a Priest normally is, rather than the hammer-swinging warpriests that Gygax and Arneson romanticized and codified, being more focused on prayer and knowledge rather than violence. In a way, one could compare them to holy Wizards.
3.5E[edit | edit source]
The Cloistered Cleric sacrifices a lot of combat ability for the sake of their casting.
- BAB degrades to a poor progression akin to the Wizard.
- Class Hit Die degrade to d6, more befitting of a primary casting class.
- Lose Medium Armor, Shield and Martial Weapon proficiencies.
- Class skill points is improved to 6 + Intelligence Modifier per level.
- Gain Decipher Script and Speak Language as class skills.
- Gain the Bard's Bardic Knowledge ability, letting the cleric add half their level as a bonus to any checks in skills they are untrained in.
- Gain the Knowledge Domain in addition to any domains they'd already have access to, regardless of if the god the cleric worships even has Knowledge as a domain. Not only does this give all Knowledge skills as class skills, but it also provides access to Knowledge domain spells.
- On top of this, the Cloistered Cleric gains some extra spells to their class spell list, though all of them are utility spells.
Pathfinder[edit | edit source]
The Cloistered Cleric would return as an archetype of the Cleric, though it takes a few extra hits too, making it less of a casting class. In fact, it kills a lot of the appeal of taking it, to the point where it's actually considered kinda absolute garbage.
- Class skill points is improved slightly to 4 + Intelligence Modifier per level.
- All Knowledge skills are class skills.
- On top of this, the cleric can attempt any knowledge check untrained and add half their level as a bonus when doing so.
- Proficiencies are drastically reduced to an anemic list of Simple Weapons and Light Armor.
- Lose one domain as well as a non-domain spell slot for each level. Clearly the most severe loss, as this robs the Cleric of versatility, Hit Die be damned.
- Level 2 gives them a +2 bonus to skill checks, caster level checks, or saves regarding to scripts, runes, scrolls, or other written things.
- Level 3 gives them the ability to use the Aid Another action on someone 30 feet away. This can be spread among another ally every three levels.
- Level 4 gives Scribe Scroll as a bonus feat.
Second Edition also had a cloistered cleric, though it's nowhere near restrictive and one of the fundamental subclasses of the main class. The Cloistered Cleric essentially focuses more on casting, providing a better casting proficiency progression as well as a free domain, which plays more to the inherent strengths of the class moreso than the Warpriest subclass opposite it.