Dungeon Fantasy Clerics are described as “mortal agents of the Powers of Good”, though the exact nature of those powers is, as mentioned previously, left as an exercise for the GM. This does match the original D&D description pretty closely, but the mechanics here are a bit different. DFRPG clerics are much better spellcasters than they are frontline fighters, though they have an easier time “multiclassing” into Holy Warrior than anyone else. If divine-powered frontline fighting is your thing, though, you should play a Holy Warrior instead.

Basic Stats

Clerics start out with ST 12, DX 12, IQ 14, and HT 12. This is pretty good and could be taken in several directions with earned points, though it still leans towards a caster-type.

Advantages

All clerics have Clerical Investment and Power Investiture 3. The former makes the character count as a properly ordained priest whenever that matters. This gives a positive reaction bonus to people who share their religion, lets them perform exorcisms without penalty and is a pre-requisite for Power Investiture, their spellcasting talent. It’s quite possible your players will care more about the latter two in a Dungeon Fantasy game.

Power Investiture does for clerics what Magery does for wizards: it lets them cast spells and acts as a bonus to their skill level with those spells. It also gives a bonus to rolls for Holy Might powers. We’ll talk about both below.

In addition to these advantages, we get 45 points to distribute among a set of choices. Aside from the usual enhanced attributes and Luck entries, we get a few categories here:

  • Be a better caster! This includes more Investiture and Energy Reserve.

  • Guard yourself from evil! This includes advantages that give bonuses against fear, disease, and harmful mental influence.

  • Be better at your actual job! This includes things that make you better at interacting with spirits, healing people without relying on magic, and speaking extra languages.

But that’s not all! We can also choose to spend these points on Holy abilities, which we’ll see below.

Disadvantages

Clerics must choose a specific -10 point disadvantage from among Honesty, a Sense of Duty to all correligionists, or a Vow to never use edged weapons. It’s part of the “divine power” package, and represents the core vows the cleric has made to access them.

A Sense of Duty means you must help the specified group when they need it, and can’t voluntarily abandon them; a Vow is exactly what it sounds like. Neither have self-control rolls, so there is no circumstance where it’s okay to ignore them. Honesty does have a self-control number, though “resisting your honesty” too often probably counts as breaking your divine vows.

The rest of these disadvantages are mostly split between “compassionate holy man” and “intolerant inquisitor” personality traits, with a side order of extra vows and ritual behavior that can work with either.

Skills

For weapon skills, you can pick the traditional “mace and shield” package, or follow Friar Tuck’s example and just take Staff. Your one-handed weapon could also be an axe, flail, or sword too - you don’t have to imitate D&D on this particular detail. Your skill will end up as either 15 or 14, which means combat isn’t necessarily your strong suit compared to some of the other delvers.

All clerics know the basic skills required of their trade, like Religious Ritual, Public Speaking, Theology, and a few others. They also know how to diagnose health problems and apply first aid, and a bit of lore about one type of traditional foe (demons, spirits, or undead). Optional skills include all the standard Adventurer stuff, plus some things like Research for the religious scholars, Panhandling for the mendicants, and additional enemy lores.

Spells

Clerics start with 20 spells from the clerical spellcasting list, picked by the player, with 1 point spent on each. More on how that works below.

Special Cleric Traits

Clerics can raise their Will to 25 instead of just 20. Clerical Investment is described in this section too, along with two esoteric skills that require it:

  • Esoteric Medicine (Holy): A hard skill to learn, but it can replace mundane First Aid and Surgery in places with any level of sanctity above “none”.

  • Exorcism: Rituals for cleansing cursed areas and treating posession victims.

The bulk of our special traits are supernatural powers, though. Cleric powers fall into two categories, both of which are granted by those campaign-specific Powers of Good. Holy Might comes from the “divine within” and costs no Fatigue to use. Clerical Spellcasting draws from the ambient sanctity, and does cost Fatigue.

The cleric’s Power Investiture acts as the “power talent” for both of them. The character needs at least one level in this talent to buy the related abilities.

Clerical Spellcasting

The cleric’s spell list is smaller than the wizard’s, but also much simpler. The only prerequisite for learning a given spell is a minimum level of Power Investiture. Another advantage clerical spellcasting has over the wizardly variety is exclusive access to certain types of magic - most notably healing spells.

Cleric spells cost FP as normal, but depend on ambient sanctity instead of mana. Sanctity is a measure of how much influence the cleric’s deities have over a given place. It has the same named levels and rules as mana, but is completely independent from it. Most places are “normal” sanctity. Higher sanctity can be found in temples or other places holy to the deity, and makes casting easier. Lower sanctity usually means you’re in a place that’s holy to the deity’s enemies, and makes casting harder or even impossible.

It’s okay for the cleric to have some spell overlap with their wizard buddy, as they will still be able to cast if they find themselves no a no-mana zone that’s still normal sanctity.

Holy Might

These powers depend on living a virtuous life. In addition to having Power Investiture, the cleric needs to accept a specific -10 point disadvantage that restricts their behavior, as we saw above. A player who doesn’t like the three choices can work with the GM to choose some other appropriate disadvantage.

You must obey your chosen principles - failing to do so means losing access to your holy abilities until you make some significant penance. The GM is free to come up with an appropriate one. A generous donation to the temple in town combined with some kind of dangerous quest feel to me like they’d be an appropriate starting point.

The upside to this is that holy abilities are, well, divine powers. They don’t count as “magic”, and so cannot be Dispelled and are not affected by Magic Resistance. They also cost no FP to use and don’t depend on ambient sanctity - a virtuous cleric can use them even in the depths of Hell.

This section contains a list of holy powers typical of clerics:

  • Contingency Casting (14 points/level): Once per session per level, you can cast any divine spell at a skill level of IQ + Power Investiture. Even if you don’t know it, and even if you don’t have the minimum Power Investiture to learn it. You still obey all other restrictions (like ambient sanctity and FP cost).

  • Detect Evil (18 points): With a second of concentration, you can roll to detect nearby sources of evil, by either focusing on a specific object or the general are around you. You also get a hint as to the power level of anything you detect, and a vague clue about its nature. Critical success in the identification roll provides more details.

  • Divine Guidance (14 points): This works like the Intuition advantage. Given a bunch of options to choose, you can roll to figure out the correct path. It’s a bit cheaper because it’s a Holy power, subject to the restrictions above.

  • Divine Omens (14 points): Once per day, you can check for omens in the world around you. There are secret rolls both to detect and to interpret them, and the better you do the more information you get about the future. Critical failure means the GM lies.

  • Faith Healing (33 points): Non-spell divine healing! Unlike the other powers, this one does cost FP proportional to how much you heal, but it’s not dependent on sanctity like a spell. You can also try to restore crippled limbs or cure diseases. Cumulative uses of the same type of healing (spell or power) on the same target give -3 per extra attempt. This resets daily.

  • Turning (24 points): The classic power to turn undead. It works on any undead labeled as “truly evil” or animated by magic described as such. If you win the Quick Contest of Will against the target creatures, you keep them at bay for as long as you concentrate on this power, and for 1d seconds afterwards. No mass undead destruction here - that’s why you have companions.

Note that Holy Warriors also use Holy Might, so a Cleric could also acquire any of the Holy abilities listed on the Holy Warrior’s section and vice-versa.

Customization Notes

Making a heavily armored D&D cleric with a mace and shield is a possibility here, but note that while ST 12 is above average it can still mean your character might be substantially slowed down by heavier armor. There are several ways to remedy that, of course: higher ST is one, and it also helps you do more damage with that mace. Magic armor is also a good alternative, both for reducing weight and increasing the protection of lighter pieces. But you’ll need to adventure under heavy encumbrance for a bit before you gain access to that.

Disadvantage-wise, “intolerant inquisitor” and “compassionate saint” are the two big choices here. The rest of this section is mostly spent on spell list recommendations, with one example centered on buffs, one on healing, and another on supernatural warfare with spells effective against creatures like demons and undead.

Even if GMs don’t allow “multiclassing” (i.e., picking special powers from other templates), clerics still have access to the Holy Might powers listed under the Holy Warrior template. So if you want to go in a more paladin-y direction with your Cleric, you can focus on increasing combat skills and buying appropriate Holy Warrior powers with earned points.

Example Clerics

Rescued from the distant past of 2017, here’s Kyra from the Pathfinder iconic lineup! I don’t think I’d do anything differently if I was building her today.

There’s also Urist, the dwarf cleric I built for my solo Hell’s Rebels campaign.

Next Up

The Druid!