CLERICS


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Notes Regarding Cleric Spells

Number 1st Level
1 Bless
2 Ceremony
3 Combine
4 Command
5 Create Water
6 Cure Light Wounds
7 Detect Evil
8 Detect Magic
9 Endure Cold/Heat
10 Invisibility to Undead
11 Light
12 Magic Stone
13 Penetrate Disguise
14 Portent (tea)
15 Precipitation
16 Protection from Evil
17 Purify Food & Drink
18 Remove Fear
19 Resist Cold
20 Sanctuary

Number 2nd Level
1 Aid
2 Augury
3 Chant
4 Detect Charm
5 Detect Life
6 Dust Devil
7 Enthrall
8 Find Traps
9 Hold Person
10 Holy Symbol
11 Know Alignment
12 Messenger
13 Resist Fire
14 Silence 15' Radius
15 Slow Poison
16 Snake Charm
17 Speak With Animals
18 Spiritual Hamer
19 Withdraw
20 Wyvern Watch

Number 3rd Level -
1 Animate Dead 1
2 Cloudburst 2
3 Continual Light 3
4 Create Food & Water 4
5 Cure Blindness 5
6 Cure Disease 6
7 Death's Door 7
8 Dispel Magic 8
9 Feign Death 9
10 Flame Walk 10
11 Glyph of Warding 11
- Holy Flail 12
12 Locate Object 13
13 Magical Vestment 14
14 Meld Into Stone 15
15 Negative Plane Protection 16
16 Prayer 17
17 Remove Curse 18
18 Remove Paralysis 19
19 Speak With Dead 20
20 Water Walk 21

Number 4th Level -
1 Abjure 1
- Censure 2
2 Cloak of Fear 3
3 Cure Serious Wounds 4
4 Detect Lie 5
5 Divination 6
6 Exorcise 7
7 Giant Insect 8
8 Imbue With Spell Ability 9
9 Lower Water 10
10 Neutralize Poison 11
11 Protection From Evil 10' Radius 12
- Reveal 13
12 Speak With Plants 14
13 Spell Immunity 15
14 Spike Growth 16
15 Sticks to Snakes 17
16 Tongues 18

Number 5th Level
1 Air Walk
2 Animate Dead Monsters
3 Atonement
4 Commune
5 Cure Critical Wounds
6 Dispel Evil
7 Flame Strike
8 Golem
9 Insect Plague
10 Magic Font
11 Plane Shift
12 Quest
13 Rainbow
14 Raise Dead
15 Spike Stones
16 True Seeing

Number 6th Level
1 Aerial Servant
2 Animate Object
3 Blade Barrier
4 Conjure Animals
5 Find the Path
6 Forbiddance
7 Heal
8 Heroes' Feast
9 Part Water
10 Speak With Monsters
11 Stone Tell
12 Word of Recall

Number 7th Level
1 Astral Spell
2 Control Weather
3 Earthquake
4 Exaction
5 Gate
6 Holy (Unholy) Word
7 Regenerate
8 Restoration
9 Ressurection
10 Succor
11 Symbol
12 Wind Walk

Notes Regarding Cleric Spells: ^

All material components required for the various spells are used by
completion of the spell in question with the notable exceptions of standard
religious items, i.e. religious symbols and {prayer} beads or similar devices.

The reversal of some spells might well place the cleric in a questionable
position with respect to alignment. The use of spells which promote weal
must be shunned by  clerics in many cases. Likewise, spells which are
baneful may be used only at peril by clerics of good alignment. Incautious
use of spells will change the cleric's alignment, if such usage continues
unchecked, and it is up to the player to guard his or her character's
alignment with care. In any event, the cleric must decide which
application of a reversible spell will be used prior to learning it, i.e. it is
not possible to have one spell both ways. In like manner, the mere {request}
for a spell (or its opposite) through prayer will not guarantee that the spell
will be given to the cleric. As the spell level becomes higher, confidence
will decrease that that deity will concur.

Your DM might alter the material components of spells,
require only religious abjuncts as material, or just do away with them.
Consult your referee in this regard and ask his ruling and reasoning.

OUT ON A LIMB

Spells not swell?


Dear Editor:
I have read Len Lakofka’s article, “Beefing
up the Cleric” (issue #58), and I was disappointed.
The new spells showed much promise,
but many of them contained flaws which
ruined the spell. Some of the spells were not
useful to adventurers. Also, many of the spells
were concentrated into levels that don’t need
more spells. A few of the spells were ineffective,
due to long casting times, or to too many
limits on them.

Spells which are not useful to adventurers
don’t hurt the game, and can even add spice
to NPC’s. Most of the Ceremony spells are like
this. Players never need to marry anyone in a
dungeon, and only rarely consider marriage
elsewhere. When these spells are put in the
new manual, you should answer these questions:
Why should an evil cleric prevent undead
in a cemetery, and what is the probability
of undead rising in unconsecrated ground?

Combine is another impractical spell. I
cannot imagine a party with five clerics. Two
is usually pushing it. In one melee round, any
undead could make mincemeat of Combining
clerics. The spell is suicide, offensively. I can,
however, envision NPC clerics at a temple
combining to cast resurrections, etc., for a
healthy fee.

Endure Heat or Cold is a useful spell, although
120° F. is a little low; perhaps 140°
would be more in line with the -20° lower
extreme. If you wore clothes, would that extend
the range further? How much damage
does one take without the spell, with or without
clothes?

Magic Stone is the worst spell I have ever
heard of. Who needs a spell that does a couple
of points more than a plain rock? Just save
your spells for cures, and if you want to interrupt
some M-U casting a spell, throw a normal
rock or use a sling. In my campaigns, any
damage done to a M-U ruins his spell.

Portent could use a clearer way to avoid a
bad portent, or else no cleric would use it.

Detect Life is another bad spell. It is so
limited it is of little value to adventurers, and,
worse yet, noisy enough to attract wandering
monsters, or alert the inhabitants of a room.

If Holy Symbol doesn’t radiate magic, then
why is it a spell? If it was modified, “Holy
Object,” I’ll call it, then possibly it could do
slight damage to opposing alignments, or
help turn undead.

The Dust Devil is so weak a M-U could sic
his familiar on it. It ought to be at least resistant
to normal weapons (-1 damage).

Enthrall is a great spell, especially for NPC’s
and old-time gospel preachers. However, if
someone makes a saving throw, why should
they hoot and jeer? They ought to just make a
normal reaction roll, with -25%, perhaps.

Remove Paralysis would be a great spell if it
were more straightforward. I would suggest
that an unsuccessful removal does not double
the duration, and that multiple castings have
simply no effect.

Meld into Stone should have a variable duration,
like two rounds per level, plus a d8,
else high-level clerics wouldn’t use it.

In no case, in my opinion, should Negative
Plane Protection, which surrounds the recipient
with positive energy, give hit points to a
Negative plane creature.

A couple more suggestions concerning
clerics, not related to the new spells: In my
opinion, there is too large a gap between firstand
fourth-level cures. What is needed is a
second-level cure spell, since the third-level
spells already have some curative effects. A
second-level cure should cure something like
2d4 plus 1. That is enough to fix minor injuries,
but not enough to save even a first-level
fighter who’s mortally wounded.


Another spell that would help improve game
balance would be Detect Curse (third level?).
It ought to cost around 100 g.p. per casting,
but it should detect any cursed item, except
artifacts. The cost should discourage overuse 

Last, I feel that one existing spell should be
changed: Chant. How can a cleric know one
turn in advance when he is going to be attacked?
Augury? It ought to take about one
round to cast.

Will Hettchen
Ellicott City, Md.
(Dragon #61)


Len Lakofka's reply

To the editor:
Mr. Hettchen’s letter points out the fact that
he plays much of the AD&D game in the labyrinth.
However, clerics do not live by killing
alone! They are allowed, upon becoming 9th
level, to create a stronghold and can gather a
band of followers if they set up a place of
worship at 8th level. With this in mind, let’s
look at Mr. Hettchen’s letter.

As fate would have it, one of my player
characters did take the Ceremony of Marriage
into the dungeon! He insisted on marrying his
true love where he found her — tied to a wall
and about to become an important part of a
goblin ritual. All kinkiness aside . . . Ceremonies
will earn money for the “place of worship”
set up by the 8th or 9th level player
character mentioned above. I doubt if the
player character wants to adventure the rest
of his/her life just to keep the church he/she
has built “in the black.”

An evil cleric would throw the reverse of
Consecrate Ground, let’s call it Desecrate
Ground, where undead are likely to rise —
perhaps one extra skeleton or zombie would
be guaranteed. Thanks for the suggestion!

Combine is not impractical at all. It is very
good in two major situations: battlefield play
where armies meet one another (the D&D 
game began as a miniatures game, I might
point out), and in the church/temple to perform
certain functions. In the dungeon it is
more difficult to apply. However, our 8th and
9th level cleric has a band of followers and
might have four of them with him/her in a
dungeon. In any case, using Combine is a
function of encounter distance where combat/
melee is involved. Turning undead that
you can see coming is a very good use for the
Combine spell. Raising a cleric by 1 to 4 levels
means that undead that might not have been
turnable now are. Furthermore, it might mean
that some undead can now automatically be
destroyed where they could only have been
turned before hand. This spell is just dandy
for Commune spells and other divinations as
well. The spell cannot be used offensively, as
stated in the spell text.

Endure Heat and Cold can have limits
changed if you wish them changed. I don’t
feel clothing affects the spell at all. If you are
hit by a damage spell, the Endure spells afford
no protection whatsoever — that is what Resist
Fire and Resist Cold are for.

Magic Stone has not been considered very
long by Mr. Hettchen. What if the beast can
only be hit by magic weapons and the cleric
has none? Note that the stone(s) can be magicked
and put away for 6 rounds plus one
round per level of the cleric. Thus, the cleric
has a magic weapon at hand if needed in that
short time span. What happens to a cleric who
is locked in jail and is guarded by a gargoyle if
he/she has no magic weapon whatsoever?
Many DMs do not allow clerics to throw
stones at all, but might allow it under the guise
of a spell. Clerics cannot, by the way, use
slings. Magic Stone range is: “Line of sight up
to 120 feet.”

Detect Life, as written, can attract attention
but it can tell the players if something alive is
beyond the next door. Its main use is to tell
who is alive that appears to be dead. It has
battlefield uses to see who is “playing possum”
among the dead and wounded.

A holy symbol must be properly blessed to
be usable by a cleric. This does not make it
magic, per se. Every symbol must be so
blessed or it is of no value to a cleric.

Dust Devil is to be used in sand dunes or
where there is much loose debris. It is not a
fighting monster. It is quite good to inhibit
adverse spell casters. By the way, any spell
caster who would send his familiar into a dust
storm is asking for troubles of many kinds.

Enthrall makes them hoot and jeer because
that’s the way I wrote the spell.

Remove paralysis is straightforward. It allows
one to remove spells like Hold Person or
paralysis by ghoul touch at a range of 30 feet
per level of the cleric. The double duration is a
double-edged sword. The damage allows
chaotic evil clerics to combine Hold Person
and Remove Paralysis in an interesting way.

Meld into Stone is of variable duration —
and why favor high-level clerics over low?

I wrote Negative Plane Protection to make
the spell its own possible nemesis; the chance
to “heal” an undead makes the spell more of a
gamble for the cleric.

I think Cure Serious Wounds should be
third level and not fourth. However, the cleric
is not just a hospital, he/she is also used for
fighting and for informational spell value.

Detect Curse has a lot of merit, but a gold
piece cost may not be the best way to discourage
overuse. A temporary drop in constitution,
as with Identify, is likely a bit better.

Len Lakofka