Powers of the Prophets (Part 2)

[continued from here; sorry that took awhile!]

But in a GAME where your character is simply a figure on the playing field, getting killed takes you out of play…as does being poisoned or paralyzed or diseased or reduced to so few hit points that the next blow WILL kill you and take you out of the game. And being out of the game means not playing. And the point of the game is to play, right? So how to provide an in-game reason to bring someone back from the dead (i.e. “back into the field of play”)?

“Lazarus come OUT!”

Christianity may not have the first tales of resurrection (Osiris came back from the dead after all…though he was already a god himself, and his “raising” simply put him back into heaven rather than raising him to new mortal life on earth)…*ahem* Christianity may not be the first tales of bringing someone back from the dead, but it is certainly a well-known and prominent place for such tales. MIGHTY HEALING one might call it…with the power of God anything was possible, even the raising of the dead. So the Bible would tell you (and so it’s been telling many, many people for centuries).

[as a side note, I was reading Julian Johnson's Path of the Masters a few years back...about enlightened masters and the importance of finding a guru for one's own path to enlightenment...and one thing claimed in the book was that ANY enlightened teacher (i.e. "a sainted master") has the powers exhibited by Jesus in the Bible: things like healing folks and raising the dead; however, according to the book, most enlightened masters choose NOT to do this, because suffering individuals are working off karmic debt, and preventing them from doing this (as Jesus did with his miraculous healings) is a BAD THING and will in fact place a negative karmic burden on your own soul. To me this is a load of bunk...even if such were the case (i.e. that suffering people should be allowed to suffer for the good of their souls), I personally can't believe someone would take a negative "hit" to their karma by freeing someone from their suffering; that just doesn't jibe with my world view of a caring God...maybe I'm a rosy idealist, but I'm guessing Christ didn't reincarnate as a cockroach because he cured a bunch of lepers]

SO...having a mighty Saint in your game, one able to channel the power of God (and hopefully doing His Will on Earth by acting in such a way) gives you an in-game justification for a mechanic that allows you to bring PCs back from the dead. Meaning your game can continue.

Even if your player characters aren’t high enough level to have such a miraculous supplication granted, the mere presence of such in the rules implies characters may encounter or entreat NPC clerics to do their “raising” for them (probably for a cost that helps to keep the PCs' bulging bags and backpacks light of their cash). Likewise with other clerical spells…originally, all were in aid of PRESERVING party members (including the creation of food and water for the starving and thirsty). For the most part, the cleric spell list…and here I mean the true cleric spells, not the magic-user ones deemed “appropriate” for clerics…the unique clerical spells are game mechanics designed to “save” PCs who failed their saving throws or took their damage or got themselves killed. They are spells designed to MITIGATE the impact of BAD LUCK and POOR PLAY.

[ooo…now THAT sounds harsh!]

That is to say, those spells other than the Mosaic spells (God always showed up as more of a “vengeful god” back in the days of the Old Testament). At least the speak with animals and plants gives you the ability to circumvent altercations before they begin (mmm…as does find traps). But the spells that see the MOST use in game tend to be the curing and healing and raising spells. And yeah, in a game where a single blunder of bad judgment can mean as much disaster as a single bad die roll, it’s kind of important to have something that can off-set or mitigate these effects.

Maybe.

Remember, the original point here was to figure out WHAT the inclusion of the cleric brings to the game that the class’s exclusion would cost you. In looking at the spells here I have a couple thoughts twisting through my skull:

#1 Including these spells in this form allows PCs to mitigate such things as poison, disease, damage, death, etc. In effect, this makes the campaign setting a very forgiving world (no pun intended)…which may or may not be your cup of tea. Do you want PCs to plunge ahead, heedless of consequence, knowing that only a single survivor is necessary to “bring ‘em back alive?” Are you afraid that without such easy magic close at hand your players will get all tentative and skulky and invest in a herd of cattle to drive through the dungeon before them, setting off traps and distracting monsters? How deeply do you want this to impact your world (pro or con?)?

#2 Having these spells as a “divine” form of magic preserves a LIMIT on what magicians (and sorcerers and wizards etc.) can do, which I LIKE. I like the idea that magic-users can’t create permanent effects (like healing), without resorting to magic item creation. It echoes myth and folklore and fairytales…like the magician who has the stupendous castle created wholly with magic that dissolves into nothingness when the enchanter dies. Or the sword & sorcery stories where magic spells are mainly of the mesmerize and mind control (illusion) style magic…with the exception of the occasional hideous death attack hex.

If you decide you need to keep this preservation mechanic, but don’t want to have the divine trappings of the same….either because you don’t want monotheist-style holy men in your game, or you can’t find a way to rectify a Judeo-Christian-themed spell list with a pagan priesthood…then your only option is to include these “get out of jail free cards” in the magic-user spell list…and that's a pretty f’ing lazy way to go.

I mean, in my opinion, it’s no less lazy (and nonsensical) to give magicians “healing spells” (just for the sake of having them in the game), then it is to simply keep clerics in the mix (just for the sake of having them in the game). Because if you have magicians bringing people back from the dead (for instance), you are stepping out of established folklore and myth to do so. Meaning you’re establishing YOUR OWN GENRE OF FANTASY…which is no better (nor worse) than what Gygax/Arneson did with their inclusion of the cleric.

At least the cleric makes SOME semblance of sense: again, from the original Holy Man of Christ concept that seems to be present in OD&D. Once you move out of the realm of Christian myth (whether that move is to ancient “hyborian” times or some weird-ass world where people worship Odin but no one’s ever heard of Jesus)…well, you’re pretty much in Lala Land at that point, so who cares whether or not you have clerics…or dragon-born or half-halflings or whatever!

Where'd I leave my plate mail?

Powers of the Prophets (Part 1)

[I know the last couple posts were pretty long, and this one is longer still, so I'm breaking it up into two parts...the second will be posted later today]

So now, back to our original series starter (“what clerics bring to the table”) when I wrote I could see only two real positive contributions that actually impact the party in-game with its mechanics. The first was the cleric’s undead turning ability (already discussed), and the second are the classes particular suite of spells. Let’s take a close look at those spells.

In OD&D (the original entry of clerics into the fantasy world), the total number of spells available to clerics was 22, spread across five levels (though, as with magic-users, clerics were given the ability to pursue spell research to expand the spell list). Many of these spells were nothing more than the equivalent of magic-user spells, like light and protection from evil. As these spells were already listed for magic-users in CHAINMAIL, it might be presumed (well, I'm going to presume anyway) that they were added to the cleric list simply because “these seem like they’d make good clerical spells, too.” Regardless of the actual reason (spell list padding?) we’re going to leave them out of the equation as such duplicates are redundant, unnecessary in a (game) world that can already get these spells from a magic-user (elfish or not).

Cutting leaves us with a total of 17 spells:

1^st level (adept or higher): cure light wounds, purify food & water

2^nd level (vicar or higher): find traps, bless, speak with animals

3^rd level (bishop or higher): cure disease

4^th level (bishop or higher): neutralize poison, cure serious wounds, turn sticks to snakes, speak with plants, create water

5: level (lama or higher): dispel evil, raise dead, commune, quest, insect plague, create food

Now, folks who are familiar with the Bible…even a cursory, Sunday School knowledge…will recognize many of these spells as the divine miracles associated with Biblical figures, as well as those attributed to various saints and such. Curing wounds (light and serious), disease, and poison (not to mention raising the dead) are all abilities associated with Jesus. Creation of food and water, turning sticks to snakes, and summoning an insect plague are all abilities demonstrated by Moses and his brother, Aaron. Finding traps, blessing, and speak with animals (St. Francis) are all associated with Saints and other “holy folks”…as is the ability to know God’s Will (commune) and exorcising demons (dispel evil).

Quest is just a renaming of geas, but while an example of magic-using geas can be found in Clark Ashton Smith, one might consider a Papal edict (like the one ordering the Crusades) to be the equivalent example of quest applied on a mass scale.

The only spells that seem truly odd to me are purify food & water and speak with plants. I’m not sure where the latter comes from, unless it is based on the symbolic references of a holy person not being hindered by any form of nature (being able to pass through a forest, for example). And I’m really not even sure of what use purify food & water is…it’s not a spell I’ve seen used more than once or twice in my 30+ year history of gaming. I didn’t notice any rules for food to go bad, but perhaps this is a resource management tool (the dropped rations of a dead companion might spoil before there is the chance to eat them, and this allows a party to “waste not, want not”)…maybe food and water spoilage was a bigger deal and more frequent occurrence in the way they game was originally envisioned? No idea. Certainly it’s helpful against the AD&D water weird.

So in the main, we have a spell suite for clerics that is based wholly on a Judeo-Christian tradition, slanted heavily towards the “Christian” (although most Christians would call the spell-slinging Jesus a “god” and not an “adventurer”). Which is kind of ironic when you consider that anything pertaining to an actual Christian religion (or any type of monotheism) is conspicuously absent from any post-OD&D game product up until the 3^rd Edition Deities & Demigods (in which a monotheistic option is presented as a possible campaign setting).

CHRISTIAN. Wasn’t this the game that was decried for causing kids to worship Satan or something? I know my Born Again Christian buddy was forbidden from playing D&D for this reason (though maybe his mom didn’t like him associating with a Catholic family like mine…who knows?).

Here’s the thing (well, one of the things): if you’re playing a game where clerics are simply “priests” of some “deity” …like Thor or Athena or something…why would your god be granting you a bunch of loaves & fishes type magic? If Odin is my lord, what does he care if I can turn sticks to snakes?

See this shit doesn’t really make any sense.

But we’ll get back to my harsh judgments in a moment: let’s say, just for the sake o discussion, that the spell suite does make sense for a priestly individual. Either because the game has an explicit (as opposed to implied) Christian setting OR because creating food and curing leprosy actually was a common granted power of Horus-Ra (it wasn’t).  What does this provide to the players in your game?

Welp, it provides a bunch of “get out o jail free” cards. Character gets diseased? Bam, cured. Poisoned? Bam, cured. Damaged? Same deal. KILLED?! Zapomatic, you’re back to life.

Now remember in my earlier discussions of the genesis of The Game via the remembered recollections of Dave Arneson that there was no “hit points” in the beginning, simply a Chainmail system of “kill or be killed.” What I infer from his statements was that HPs (and variable damage) was created to prolong PC longevity. Then, of course, they had that great idea to “get better” (i.e. go up in level) after playing for awhile, which would lead to more HPs and, presumably, MORE attachment to one’s character.

Because that’s what’s stated: after a number of adventures, one develops an ATTACHMENT (if not an outright personality) for their character. I’ve seen this occur in serial board games often enough, even when there’s little real “character development.” A regular player of Siege of the Citadel wants to always play the Bauhaus guys, or always wants to use a panzerknacker. Or in Blood Bowl, my wife had a tendency to talk to her players and play favorites with them based on what they did in a particular match (based on the luck of random dice rolls), regardless of any actual skills the figure had.

Pretending to be someone, even in a game, and experiencing drama and trauma and triumph and fear is a BONDING experience. And woe betide you of you DON’T like your character…it can be miserable being stuck with an avatar you detest!

So enter the cleric…well, first let’s enter the magician. The magic-user (or wizard or sorcerer or whatever) is a figure we see throughout fantasy literature. Wizards and their “magic spells.” But there are LIMITS to what wizards can accomplish: you don’t generally see a magician bring someone back from the dead for instance…the arena of “life and death” has long been held to be a purview of God (or the gods) alone. And I know it’s not often, even in mythology, that you find folks coming back from the dead. For many, many centuries of human existence, dead was considered dead.

[to be continued]

Armored Spell-Casters

Previously, I wrote that a cleric’s ability to wear armor wasn’t “worth mentioning” by which I meant “isn’t pertinent to the subject at hand,” said subject being what the cleric brings to the game that isn’t there otherwise.

Red commented that the cleric’s ability to use spells and wear armor is a special ability…that what the cleric brings is a hybrid of the magic-user/fighter class for humans that isn’t already present (said hybrid being present with elves) and that prior to the thief class, clerics were the jack-of-all-trades class (for humans) in the game.

Okay, I guess it does bear discussing. Let’s discuss.

First off, I disagree that the cleric is a “hybrid” anything. Elves, with their ability to fight as fighters and magic as magic-users are the only hybrid in the game. Clerics are spellcasters (that discussion is in the next post…which has been put off because I need to write this, thanks a lot!), but they do NOT cast magic-user spells…they have their own suite of spells, different in nature and effect from wizards.

Personally, I dislike calling a thief a “jack-of-all-trades” but I guess it really is the closest thing prior to the bard class of AD&D. They have the full use of weapons, the ability to read magic scrolls, attack ability equivalent to a cleric (if none of the cleric’s other abilities) at the cost of wearing heavy armor. The latter, while probably a game balancing effect, at least has an in-game justification that a big noisy human can’t perform their thiefly skills while bedecked in clinking mail. I don’t see any reason to rule that a thief can't wear armor (when not performing their thief skills)…I mean, it’s not like it burns their skin or something to put it on.

[likewise, you can justify making any thief that wears armor fight as the equivalent of a 1^st level fighter, regardless of actual level; his better attack rolls at high level are in part due to his “thiefly fighting style” and being constricted by armor hamstrings his ability to duck and weave and feint and throw sand and fight dirty, etc.]

But the baseline human in OD&D has the ability to wear armor. Any of the NPC men found in the monster section could be kitted out in full armor and suffer no worse for it (they’re not the equal of an adventurer in fighting ability anyway, but they are unhindered by a little plate and mail). A cleric’s ability to wear armor isn’t unusual…the magic-user’s lack of ability to wear armor IS.  The real question isn’t why the cleric can wear armor and cast spells; the real question is why CAN’T the magic-user? After all, the elf can wear armor and cast spells, the cleric can wear armor and cast spells, what’s the bug up the wizard’s ass that prevents him (or her) from doing the same?

Under the elves’ description (in LBB #1) it states they “may wear magic armor and still act as magic-users.” The implication here is that magic-users can wear armor (like any other human) but their magical ability dries up (at least for the duration of wearing armor). Why?

The short, pithy answer is, of course, “game balance.”

In CHAINMAIL originally, wizards were of variable ability but all fought the same: as two armored foot, or as two medium horse (when mounted). For recognition of scale, an “armored foot” is the equivalent of a dismounted knight on foot (presumably with all the armor, weapons, and know-how to use them). A medium horse is the equivalent of pre-plate armored cavalry (the examples cited as "medium horse" are mail-wearing equivalents, like “Norman knights” and “Saracens” while “heavy horse” are simply “knights”). That wizards fight as two men gives them double the effectiveness…quite a bit more effectiveness than a single fighter, in other words.

Now whether this advantage is due to the actual wearing of armor or some magic that protects the wizard and strengthens his sword arm is not said (Chainmail is an abstract war game, not an individual-scale skirmish game), but either interpretation could be valid with the same end effectiveness. Certainly nothing indicates the wizard in Chainmail does NOT wear armor. In the list of spells presented for wizards none of them are of a “shield” or “armor” variety (the spell “protection from evil” IS present and simply keeps all “evil” opponents outside of a 12” diameter circle). If the wizard’s “armored” value is based on magic, then it is inherent magic that does not need to be cast to be effective.

So really, the only reason I can see for taking away a magic-user’s ability to wear armor (at least presuming OD&D is based on the standards of the Chainmail war game…and there is ample evidence that this appears to be the case) is one of “game balance.” If all magic-users can wear armor AND cast spells, it provides too much of a “leg up” over all the other character classes…despite the fact that elves are already doing this. The only reason not to play an elf is the level restrictions on the character for being a non-human…but to exceed an elf in magical prowess means achieving 9^th level (“sorcerer”) with 100,000XP…a long, hard road indeed!

[especially considering the elf maxes out at both fighter (4^th) and magic-user (8^th) with a paltry 83,000XP]

Now an elfish warlock never achieves the ability to cast 5^th and 6^th level spells, so certainly missed out on some crucial ones (like teleport, animate dead, disintegrate, and weather control)…but everyone misses out on these high level spells unless your campaign lasts up into the 9^th and higher levels of experience.  It took roughly four solid months of weekly gaming, with a LOT of treasure to get guys up to the 3^rd to 5^th level range in B/X (about 8000-9000XP apiece), and even if I kept the same rate (scaling treasure) it would take close to a solid year of gaming to hit 9th level…maybe longer. My recent experience (the last couple-three years) indicates gaming groups get bored a lot faster than that.

But whatever…that’s really straying from the point which is that there is no in-game justification for magic-users to not wear armor. It’s a stylistic (or silly) game balance choice. I mean, at low levels, wizards could simply don their plate armor after their spells had been exhausted, right? Even if it wrecked their “fighting ability” to do so (it’s a lot poorer in OD&D than Chainmail anyway), at least armor could give them the breathing room they need to make it out of the dungeon alive.

Now, why am I wasting all this time discussing the magic-user (and elves) when this post is supposed to be about clerics? Because a comparison was drawn between clerics and magic-users stating that clerics had the ability to be human AND cast spells while wearing armor (bonus!) while both elves and magic-users miss out on some part of this (magic-users lose the armor, elves lose the “human-ness”). As a "hybrid," clerics gain the ability to attack with both magic AND weapons, and are not limited in level like elves.

Okay, they’re not limited in level.

However, the cleric’s spells are NOT attack or combat oriented. For the most part (and I’ll write about this more in the next post), all the cleric’s spells are of the curing, detection, or protection variety. The clerics spells are designed to AID the party members (whether this be with a light spell, locate object, or raising the dead)…whereas the magic-user spell list provides more variety of both type and effect, including a lot of offensive spells along with the miscellaneous/helper offerings.

This, to me, doesn’t suggest a hybrid. If the character is still dealing damage with one’s weapons then there’s nothing “hybrid” about it: armor is necessary to get “stuck in” and fight. Magic-users don’t get stuck in, and they don’t need to due to the types of spells they know.

Does this make sense? Maybe I’m not being clear here. Let’s try this:

It’s not a class feature to wear armor (combat/defensive mechanic) and cast spells (aid/utility mechanic) when the two features are used at different times under different circumstance.

OD&D clerics aren’t casting flame strike and spiritual hammer, and blade barrier while simultaneously soaking up damage with their +3 plate mail. They are fighting like a fighter (armor and weapon), and then casting spells after the fight for other reasons (like healing buddies or detecting traps). There’s no double use one’s getting out of the two attributes of the cleric class. It’s one or the other.

On the other hand, contrast that with the elf. The elf does wade into battle with sword and armor…and then can switch to spell use (Fireball! Lightning bolt!) before switching back to sword and board. Afterwards, the elf might use detect magic or remove curse or wizard eye or whatever, but it’s in the midst of battle that you see the true "hybrid character."

No such hybrid is viewed with the cleric. The magic-user, too, can put on armor (after her spells are exhausted)…so what?  I don’t consider it a class feature that the cleric spends less time changing in and out of their clothes.

Hopefully that all makes sense. Now, let’s talk about the cleric spells, since those ARE something “new” being brought to the table by the class.

Clerics: Turning Undead

I don’t remember how old I was when I was first exposed to Dracula and/or vampires. I’m sure that the two were synonymous in my mind for a good long time in my youth, but I don’t remember when I got the concept. Certainly by age 5-6 I had a good knowledge of the monster, because by kindergarten my knowledge of Halloween was pretty solid, and I’m almost positive that my initial knowledge of the undead came in the form of a Halloween costume.

In fact, now that I consider it, I know my mother made “vampire capes” for my brother and I pretty early on (a semi-triangle of black cloth with a purplish, satiny lining sewed in. I believe my brother’s was the same but with pink lining instead of purple). And I know we had those fake plastic fangs that you wore over your own teeth and that didn’t allow you to talk right…and that my hair back then would just not do the Bella Lugosi “widow’s peak” no matter how hard I tried (always ended up being a blonde, bowl cut-looking vampire).

But those capes might have been a little older…like 1^st grade (age 6-7). Certainly there were a couple years in there where my little brother and I liked to dress up in the Halloween costumes on days other than Halloween and play pretend.

[*sigh* Good times. Need to work on getting Diego a little brother one of these days]

So, anyway, my vampire “lore” certainly wasn’t very refined back then. In fact, I’d says it was pretty much limited to three things:

Vampires turned into bats. They sucked your blood. And they were held at bay by crosses.

I’m not even sure I knew about them being killed by stakes and sunlight or needing to sleep in coffins. Television shows like The Munsters, Scooby-Doo, and The Drak Pack were probably as much responsible for my knowledge as anything else…and vampires in kids’ television tend to go a little light on the darker aspects of the undead (for example, they usually aren’t getting killed).

So the idea that a cleric with a holy symbol can “turn undead” was never a very foreign concept to me…though I honestly don’t remember my 8-year old brain’s recollection of what I thought about turning skeletons and zombies and wights as outlined in the Basic set. Probably not much judging by the fact no one ever played a cleric until we picked up the Expert set, when we only had the “B” in B/X, players were either fighters or thieves or elves or halflings. There may have been a dwarf, too, but I really don’t remember ANY magic-users or clerics.

And why would there be? A 1^st level cleric in B/X (because we were playing B/X when we first started and all new characters were dutifully created at 1^st level) has very little to recommend it. Fighters have more hit points and do more damage. Elves and magic-users at least get some sort of spell power. The only thing a 1^st level cleric has over other classes is it’s ability to “turn” undead…and then, only skeletons, zombies, and ghouls.

And any DM throwing zombies and ghouls against 1^st level characters is engaging in genocide and mass TPKs.

All of these undead were actually pretty foreign to my brain. I’d seen a couple of Harryhausen’s Sindbad films and Clash of the Titans, but not Jason and the Argonauts, so I didn’t really have an idea what a fight with animated skeletons was all about. B2: The Keep on the Borderlands (included with the Basic box set) has one cave complex filled with undead (mostly skeletons and zombies) but it is the highest, most difficult set of caverns to reach, and a killer for most 1^st level parties that even bother to try (as undead don’t negotiates and never break morale there’s no way to deal with the scores of monsters except by combat…an extremely risky proposition for those first couple levels of experience). I can’t remember anyone trying back in my “B-Only” days.

Likewise, even when I moved into “X” (and it was shortly thereafter that I received my first Monster Manual, too) I wasn’t including wights and wraiths and mummies. For a young child (and I was under the age of 10, which I consider to be young)…your eye is drawn first and foremost to monsters that are illustrated (which begin percolating ideas), and afterward to monsters that you are intimately familiar with…like the Cyclops and Minotaur and Vampire. As I didn’t read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings till high school, might only exposure to a wraith was in the animated Return of the King film (which I first viewed circa age 11 or 12)…and I really had no idea what I was watching. I even created a “unique” monster based on the Lich-King seen in the film for use in an adventure…but only because I didn’t understand the creature was already present in the books.

But as I said, even without any real fantasy literature under my belt, I still knew what a vampire was, and I knew that they were driven back by crosses. I’d imagine that it was sometime AFTER I received my Expert set (with clerical turnings that included Vampires and Mummies) that the whole “cleric turning” thing started gelling in my mind. Cleric presents cross (“holy symbol”) and vampire recoils…if the cleric’s faith is strong enough…makes perfect (movie) sense. But why did it only work for clerics?

Originally, it worked for everyone.

The write-up for the vampire monster in OD&D (Book 2) is the most extensive of any monster presented. Towards the end of the passage, it states the following:

Vampires cannot abide the smell of garlic, the face of a mirror, or the sight of a cross. They will fall back from these if strongly presented.

Note this is not related to turning…the other undead (all turnable in OD&D) make no such mention. Now, in typical clear-as-mud OD&D fashion, there’s no system given for how to judge whether or not the item is “strongly” presented, but at least it’s there: a cross will keep a vampire at bay.

Which leads me to infer that the turning effect is very different in OD&D compared to the fashion in which it’s presented in later editions. And what do ya’ know? It is. There is only a “cleric versus undead monsters” table (located beneath the cleric spells table), not a “turning table.” Here’s the ONLY text regarding the table:

Also, note the Cleric versus Undead Monsters table, indicating the strong effect of the various clerical levels upon the undead; however, evil clerics do not have this effect, the entire effect being lost.

[note again the problematic issue of “evil” in the text when there is no “evil” alignment in OD&D, only “Law” and “Chaos.” It seems apparent that this is with regard to Chaotic “anti-clerics” mentioned in the text (seeing as how most of them have the term “Evil” added to their title (with the notable exception of the “shaman”)]

There are a couple really important pieces to this. One is that the table represents an “effect” that the cleric has on undead monsters. This is not an action that is taken by the cleric…no holy symbol is being presented, for example. This is just the effect the (good) cleric’s (holy) presence has on the undead.

Presumably, anyone can present a cross against a vampire (there are two available for purchase in the equipment list: a wood one for 2gp, and a silver one for 25gp). “Strongly presented” might mean the character can take no other action (no attacks or spell-casting for example) instead focusing on the “presentation” while chanting The Lord’s Prayer or some Latin benediction.

But the cleric just “shows up” and there’s a chance the undead run away…it’s the character’s very presence that sets ‘em running (or dissolves/destroys them). It’s like a Papal aura (in the sense of “the Pope” – can you believe the current one is resigning by the way? In the middle of Lent! Watched his helicopter leaving the Vatican this morning)…a holy “something-somethin” that just causes the abominations to head for the hills. Presumably, it doesn’t do anything to prevent the cleric making normal attacks or casting spells. Heck, the priest wading into battle, mace in hand may be even more frightening…though I really like the image of the aged vicar that hobbles into the room, leaning on his cane, and watches passively as undead monsters explode around him.

That’s a pretty cool effect.

It also gets rid of all that later complicated discussion about how many times it can be used, or “turning attempts,” or what order of the round it takes place in, or how many times can it be attempted against the same monster, or whatever. The DM simply checks to see if this particular monster is affected by this particular cleric when encountered. No extra effort needs to be taken by the cleric…the “effect” is always “on.”

SO, in regard to our original topic of conversation, this turning as originally presented is a neat class effect…call it the effect of any “saintly type.” If you want a classification of adventurer called “holy person” or “saint,” this is a happy little effect. Of course, it’s also alignment-specific…that’s the second piece of the effect’s description that is important. It is only an effect of non-evil clerics (which, again, we can infer means non-anti-clerics, i.e. non-Chaotic clerics). There is no opposite effect for anti-clerics; no worship or control of undead that automatically occurs when the anti-cleric shows up. Instead, the trade-off appears to be anti-clerics’ use of reverse spells (like finger of death).

Which, interestingly enough, is pretty much exactly how I was running clerics in 5AK, with the added restriction that only monotheists (of Lawful or Neutral alignment) could engage in turning, and polytheistic clerics (even those of non-Chaotic alignment) could use reverse spells at will.

But I’m not talking about spells yet.

While it’s a “neat effect,” what exactly is the impact of the cleric’s turning “aura?” What does it give the adventurers? Is it necessary/appropriate to include a “saintly” class of character that has this impact on undead?

The undead subject to the clerical turning effect include the following: skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wights, wraiths, mummies, specters, and vampires. The “greater” undead require silver or magic weapons to hit them, but these shouldn’t be too hard for the average PC party to come by after a couple-three levels, so all of the monsters are “killable” without a cleric.

What the undead do have that appears to make the saintly cleric necessary is a number of special powers for which there is no saving throw. Ghouls paralyze party members “as per wights in Chainmail” (this means party members are paralyzed for ONE TURN…either 10 minutes or 1 day depending on the scale of “turn” being used). Unlike later editions, there is no save for this effect in OD&D. A mummy inflicts disease on characters (no save) that can only be mitigated by a cleric’s cure disease spell, not cured. Wights, wraiths, specters, and vampires all do level drain (no save) of either 1 or 2 levels.

None of these special attacks have any recourse in the game besides “have a better Armor Class.” Even ghoul paralysis has no “cure” in OD&D (later editions state cure light wounds will remove the effect). There is no restoration spell in OD&D to deal with level drain, and as stated a cleric’s cure disease only changes the effect of “mummy rot” from healing taking 10 times as long to healing taking twice as long. As such, the best defense against these creatures is the presence of a high level cleric to turn them away or dissolve/destroy them. Without the cleric’s turning ability, these undead will eventually hit in combat (especially unarmored magic-users) and inflict their ills, all of which are extremely potent. In this regard, the cleric’s “aura of turning” is extremely useful against some of the deadliest monsters in the game.

Now what if the game doesn’t have level drain? What if paralysis carries a saving throw the same as a giant spider’s poison attack?

My game doesn’t have level drain. Not because I have anything against it particularly, but because I can’t really justify the ability. When did a vampire’s touch (in fiction) ever cause someone to forget their past experiences and training? And if I don’t have these kind of “no save” attacks, is it necessary to have a character class that prevents the attacks from happening (via “turning”)?

Knowing the origin of the cleric class, it makes me wonder whether these undead effects came first, or if they were added to give the cleric’s ability more “oomph.” After all, zombies and ghouls and wights and wraiths are all present in Chainmail and none of them have any type of “draining” attacks. Instead, they all simply paralyze an opponent: ghouls and wights for one turn; wraiths (as a Nazgul/specter) until such time as the character is touched by an “elf, wizard, or hero-type.” Also interesting to note that the paralysis doesn’t affect elves, wizards, or hero-types (or any of the creatures listed in the “fantasy supplement” section, including dwarves, etc.)…only “men.” It leads one to believe it’s a kind of “paralysis of fear” effect, that stronger willed types aren’t affected at all against the types of individuals that make up the player characters. A direct translation would be:

-        Paralysis affects only (non-PC) mercenaries and normal humans, AND

-        Fighting-men (fighters) under 4^th level (“Hero” status)

[in fact, based on a literal interpretation of the OD&D line “as a wight in Chainmail,” the paralysis of a ghoul might be ineffective against any PC other than fighters of level 1^st – 3^rd]

If your undead don’t have “no save” attacks, or ones that aren’t this potent, then the addition of a “cleric class” may be rather superfluous. Likewise, axing the cleric and then including such dangerous monsters might make your game overly dangerous/difficult unless such monsters are few and far between.

Clerics: What You Get

So let’s start this off with a good hard look at why you need a cleric in your game. Actually, “why” is not really the right question…I mean, you don’t need any particular class really (you could have a classless RPG and just pick a number of “add-ons” or “skills” for your character, right?). What I mean is, let’s discuss what it is that the cleric provides to the game.

Now, there’re a couple things we need to throw out, right off the bat. First off, we need to throw any thought that the cleric gives us “variety.” Sure, of course it does. All classes provide variety or options, and if your sole priority is having more options you end up adding a gazillion new classes and races to the game (see D&D post 1999, or even 2^nd edition AD&D “kits”). If that's your main reason for keeping the cleric in your game, then you might as well stop reading now ‘cause there’s no reasoning with you.

After we throw that out as a reason for keeping the cleric, we need to also throw out any reason for keeping it based on self-perpetuating expectations. This is any line of reasoning that runs “well, the cleric class has always been in the game” or “even World of Warcraft has a priest class.” Just F that noise, okay? This is deconstruction, and we’re looking at REAL CONCRETE PLAYABLE ASPECTS OF THE CLASS. If we decide we can live without the cleric (which we might), that might lead us to creating different expectations down the road. Certainly there are a lot of expectations that have been attached to fantasy RPGs over the years that (IMO) need to be reexamined anyway…like the stupidity that WotC holds up as the “foundation” of D&D.

No, what I want to look at is what does the inclusion of the cleric class give you that its exclusion would cost you? Variety? No: you can always add more classes (maybe a beastmaster!). Expectation? No: we’re doing this in part to change expectation. I’m looking at the direct impact the character class has in-game; how does the cleric’s inclusion (or lack thereof) affect game play?

And since I want to make this a POSITIVE exercise, I’m going to try to look only at POSITIVE EFFECTS. For example, some might say “including the cleric makes the game cheesy,” or “forces at least one player to take up a support role as the party medic,” or “wrecks any chance of a gritty sword & sorcery feel to your game.” These phrases are not positive and thus not helpful. When I say I want to look at what the cleric gives you by its inclusion, I mean the positive, “thanks we needed that in the game” things.

Okay…everyone groks the ground rules? Let’s start.

For my purposes, it’s not all that helpful to look at the later iterations of the cleric class…that is, it’s not useful to look at the class as it’s changed over the years (whether you’re talking D20 or 2^nd Edition or even B/X). Why not? Because by the time those later iterations of the cleric came about the cat was “already out of the bag,” so to speak. The cleric was in the game from the get go, and as a major player (one of the original three classes) so any changes/variations in class abilities or spells or whatnot can be viewed simply as “tweaks” to bring the class more firmly in-line with the present edition of D&D and/or balancing certain aspects of an already existing class based on feedback from actual play/players.

*whew* That last bit was a mouthful. What it means is that I’m only looking at OD&D, where this whole cleric mess started.

Now the origin of the cleric class as a playable PC type is fairly well-documented (or well enough for my purposes): in the primordial soup days (before OD&D was actually published), the wargamers who were playing this “thing” were sometimes placed in adversarial roles to each other. This isn’t all that strange to me (as I saw a lot of adversarial relationships between PCs back in my early AD&D days), but for youngsters raised on the “let’s all cooperate together” versions of D&D (basically, any version from Mentzer to the present) this may seem pretty alien. Nowadays, the most you hear/see is some light ribbing at the table and the occasional paralyzed PC being teabagged by a companion…but it was different in my youth when high level play often meant pitting (PC) political powers against each other, or when rivals clashed (over love and/or loot) and vendettas were enacted against each other.

ANYWAY…back in the primordial ooze days, one PC managed to get turned into a vampire (I assume in the usual fashion, but perhaps he’d been allowed to start play as one), and used his brains along with his vampiric powers to excellent effect against the other PCs of the campaign. Sir Fang was, apparently, a nightmare in the hands of this particular PC, and as a method of “balancing” his impact on the campaign, a Van Helsing-style holy man was introduced as another PC’s character. This “anti-vampire” character was the basis for the cleric class…at least once it was mashed with a couple historic figures and given some typical holy powers similar to what one finds in the Bible (especially the New Testament). The cleric as a class was included in Book 1 of the LBBs, and has been with us ever since.

Of course, by the time of OD&D we actually have something that looks like TWO classes: a “cleric” and an “evil priest” (which becomes an “Evil High Priest” or EHP and appears to have been a major villain type in OD&D). We’ll be talking about the EHP, too, since including “good” clerics mean including their reverse as well.

So what are the attributes of a cleric in OD&D?

1.     Their prime requisite is Wisdom.

2.     They have HPs and attack ability nearly equivalent to a fighting man of the same level (and thus a little better ability in this regard than the magic-user).

3.     They have the ability to wear all armor and use shields.

4.     They are restricted in their use of edged weapons, and specifically precluded from magic swords and arrows, the purview of the fighter (and generally more important with regard to Chainmail).

5.     They have the ability to turn undead which, in OD&D, includes the following monsters: skeletons, zombies, ghouls, wights, wraiths, mummies, specters, and vampires.

6.     Beginning at 2^nd level they have the ability to cast spells, using a substantially different list than the magic-user (i.e. most spells are new, and many of them modeled on Biblical accounts of prophets, saints, Apostles, Moses, and Jesus). EHPs have the ability to reverse certain spells to cause evil effect (it is stated that Lawful clerics will do so only in direst need).

7.     A high level cleric receives divine aid (“extra funds”) when building a stronghold and attracts legions of “faithful” followers assuming they’ve been “true” to their faith.

8.     They have some alignment restrictions, being forced to choose between Law and Chaos…i.e. “good” and “evil”…in order to advance beyond a certain level.

9.     They are restricted to the human race (no elves, dwarves, or hobbits).

And that’s it…nothing else distinguishes the cleric from either of the other adventurer classifications presented in Original Dungeons & Dragons.

So of those nine attributes, which ones are pertinent to the discussion at hand?

#1 No. In OD&D the three prime requisites (STR, INT, and WIS for fighters, magic-users, and clerics respectively) have NO MECHANICAL IN-GAME EFFECT, save that they describe how good a class is at its “profession” (a high prime req gives a character a bonus to earned XP, thus facilitating rapid rise in level, while a low prime req carries a penalty to the same). Without the inclusion of the cleric class in OD&D, you might as well remove wisdom as an ability score. It serves a mechanical purpose solely for the cleric class; it can be surmised that it was only added as an ability score because of the inclusion of the cleric as a class. It adds nothing, so is not pertinent.

#2 Not particularly. In a way the cleric sets a “baseline” for PC combat ability (HPs and attack chance) with fighters being “a little better” and magic-users being “a little worse.” Without the cleric class, one of these other classes serve as the baseline with the other being exemplary (if the MU is baseline) or hopeless/pathetic (if the fighter is baseline).

#3 No. There’s nothing special about the ability to wear armor. The fact that magic-users cannot is notable…it indicates a restriction of some sort based on their magic. In another game, if being unable to wear armor was “the norm” than the cleric (like the fighter) would have an “exceptional ability.” However, such does not appear to be the case here (there are no armor restrictions for other humans in the monster section)…the magic-user class with its LACK of armor is exceptional (i.e. exceptionally bad). This isn’t worth mentioning.

#4 No. Similar to the magic-user’s lack of armor, the restriction on weapons is a lacking on the cleric’s part as other humans are not so penalized. This is a restriction; one purported to be based on a historic figure (a crusading priest who did not use blades as he did not want to “spill blood”), but is more likely included in aid of “game balance” (allowing fighters a certain niche protection when it comes to magic weapons). This is more important with the use of the Chainmail combat system as magic swords and magic arrows have specific rules. Likewise the inclusion of other magic weapons AND an alternative combat system in OD&D renders this a useless restriction for the most part…a magic mace or hammer (both useable by the cleric) has the same attack ability as a magic sword and does BETTER damage (in OD&D, magic swords do not add their “+” to damage and they top out at +3 just like the cleric weapons; ALSO, in OD&D there is no variable damage by weapon type…all weapons do D6 damage). Since this is a RESTRICTION, probably done in the name of game balance, it does not add anything to the game. It thus doesn’t bear as part of the discussion.

#5 Yes. We will discuss turning undead below.

#6 Yes. We will discuss the cleric’s unique spell list below.

#7 Yes, this should be included in the conversation, though its value is dubious. Clerics require less XP to advance in level, and thus achieve a higher level with a lesser acquisition of gold than the fighting-man. Having a rule that allows them to increase their funds for strongholds allow them to build castles at an equivalent level, even with a lesser treasury. By the same token, the cleric’s attraction of loyal followers cuts down the costs associated with hiring mercenaries to stock said stronghold. It may be hypothesized that some of this rule was included to give a newly created character class (in the primordial days) a “leg up” when it came to catching up to the baronies of longstanding, existing PCs of the campaign: the newly minted Van Helsing character getting a boost when it came to building a stronghold in opposition to that of Lord Fang’s evil barony. However, what it also adds (which I find more compelling) is a ROLE-PLAYING REQUIREMENT not found in either of the other basic classes. The player must pay attention to the tenets of his faith/alignment in order to receive these benefits. This is a marked departure compared to the other classes (who have no such strictures) and encourages role-playing “in character” for the cleric PC. That being said, I’d prefer to have some sort of “role-playing reward” system in place for ALL character types, not just the cleric(!) and it’s difficult to pin this as a “pro” of including the character in the game. It only affects/impacts the cleric PC (and only if he’s pursuing endgame action) only indirectly impacting game play for other (non-cleric) PCs.

#8 A very hesitant yes. As with #7, this actually encourages role-playing and sets up potential drama and conflict in the game. However, it impacts other players at the table even less directly than #7, especially in light of the lack of mechanical consequences/effects of alignment. If I say, “all clerics must have blue hair” or some other cosmetic difference, it DOES distinguish the PC from other classes, but it really doesn’t add anything, nor impact game play.

#9 No. As a restriction (and another one tied mainly to a stylistic choice), this attribute adds nothing to game with the cleric’s inclusion.

So there. As suspected there are only really TWO things the cleric class really brings to the table that have a real impact on game play, both for themselves and for others. Those things are:

-        The ability to turn undead.

-        A unique spell list with a divine theme.

We’ll talk about these in the next post.

[to be continued]

Looking at Film

Last night, I spent my evening (after putting Diego to bed) watching the old 1982 film Beastmaster. This was not for fun or entertainment (though I’ve viewed it many times in the past for just that reason), but with a critical eye towards the film as a model of cinematic “swords & sorcery” or “D&Dish fantasy.” Afterwards, I spent the remainder of my evening reading through the novelization of The Sword & The Sorcerer, the other main fantasy opus of 1982.

[no, I spent no time watching Schwarzenegger’s epic first Conan film…I’ve owned that one for years and have pretty much memorized it in its entirety]

Now, I’m the first to admit these are no great cinematic masterpieces in the traditional, Oscar-worthy sense of the term. But I’m not looking at them for inspiration in creating my own film. Instead, I’m looking at them in light of how they relate (cinematically) to a genre that I’d like to adapt, at least in part, to a fantasy adventure game. Or rather (since the game is mostly written at this point anyway…here I’m talking about 5AK) I’m looking at how to refine my setting.

And considering whether to junk it altogether and start from scratch.

The thing about these fantasy “epics” is they have free reign to include fantastic monsters and fabulous treasures and supernatural magic and violent adventure and steamy romance all under a single, semi-coherent whole. They also have an advantage over “historic-ish” fantasy fiction in that, being non-historical, they don’t have to pay any attention to real history. Which, of course, is useful when building an RPG setting, since it gives both DM and players full freedom to move and shake the world however they wish without guilt or complaint from armchair historians in the group.

Having such freedom contributes to stress-free fun.

; )

[interestingly, I was surprised to find that The Sword & The Sorcerer IS set in our “real world,” somewhat. The novelization makes reference to Egypt and Rome and Persia and Zimbabwe being contemporary cultures, and the main bad guy is the King of Aragon (a medieval Spanish kingdom), even though the main city/kingdom of Ehdan has no apparent counterpart in our real world]

Anyway, mainly what I was looking for was HOW each of these films dealt with the subject of religion, priests, and the cleric class…because right at the moment I’m having a really damn hard time justifying its inclusion in my game.

I have blogged about and dissected the cleric class in many, many posts over the years. I’ve discussed how to justify it in terms of Old School adventuring; I’ve talked about how it doesn’t have to be the “team medic;” I’ve discussed the character in relationship to the paladin class (and how the latter is fairly redundant with the inclusion of the cleric, save for the cleric’s weapon restrictions); I’ve discussed how the cleric as a concept renders moot the whole idea of “character death” being a substantial penalty; I’ve written what I feel is the difference between clerics and “temple priests;” I’ve written about my own experiences with the class, both as a player and as a DM…just a lot of different clerical posts can be found on this blog.

What I don’t think I’ve written about is DROPPING the class altogether.

A few years back I was inspired to write my own fantasy RPG, using Tolkien as a model. This game did not include clerics (there aren’t any clerics in Tolkien, unless you count Aragorn). It also, really didn’t make it out of the game (my main aim was to incorporate a clever mechanic I’d devised into an RPG, but a single clever mechanic does not an RPG make). Call this game “L.”

A couple years ago I again started working on something very much like my own version of B/X D&D (this was even before I started tossing around the concept of “D&D Mine” though it was a fantasy heartbreaker in all the usual regards). The magic system actually had a little similarity to that “clever mechanic” mentioned earlier, but otherwise it was a lot of keeping B/X as B/X, save that it shaved the total number of classes down to three: fighter, magic-user, and “adventurer.” While it lacked an actual clerical class, it provided rules for playing a “holy man/woman” that would be added onto the normal character class, giving you a few benefits (turning the undead, healing wounds and illness by “laying on hands”) in exchange for certain vows and alignment restrictions. Aside from the obvious differences, this game was actually largely inspired by the Good Parts found in DCC, but reflected and modified some of my frustrations found within the DCC system. It still wasn’t great and I decided to junk it. That game was called “FFA.”

Then, of course, WotC announced their D&D Next project (5E) which I thought was pretty stupid and insipid and caused me to do a little introspection into what I felt was the “real core” of D&D. This line of reflection led me to the conclusion that we all just need to write our own D&D…what I call the D&D Mine concept…and stop worrying about editions altogether. I set out to do just that, culling from OD&D and Chainmail and Holmes as much (if not more so) than B/X. My game, which I was calling BSS (Blood, Sand, and Silk) had all four basic classes of B/X including the cleric. It also, in this iteration, threw out a single “subclass” for each (the monk, paladin, illusionist, and assassin), each of which was heavily based on the OD&D supplements with regard to scope and requirements.

[for that matter BSS also included rules for dwarves, elves, and halflings in an appendix, noting that including these particular classes would give the game a “high fantasy” feel other than what had been intended by the author. This was me throwing a bone to people who like to include demihumans]

And then we came to 5AK, which isn’t all that different from BSS, except that it has discarded the “alternative combat system” first found in OD&D (and subsequently copied through AD&D and Holmes and B/X and BECMI) and moved back to a Chainmail-like system. In the process, everything about the game was updated to a D6-based system, and the magic system was reworked and the classes simplified (especially the subclasses) and additional subclasses added. Oh, yeah…and all of the setting material and additional rules stuff was piped in to the mix.

Yeah, actually the latest iteration is quite a bit different from the prior version.

So. clerics…first let me examine these films with regard to clerics.

The Sword and the Sorcerer: despite being (kind of) set in a “real world” setting, there seems to be no recognizable divinities present. The mention of Rome and Egypt as separate entities makes me think the time of the setting is pre-Christian (which would also mean pre-Islam since Islam didn’t arrive on the scene till six centuries after Christianity). The sorcerer himself is pretty demonic in appearance (and is treated as a sort of demon or minor divinity…at least by the witch that raises him) but the whole thing is kind of sketchy. It IS a movie after all: a vehicle to provide certain thrills and chills in an effort to make money. It’s not necessarily a thoughtful, well-constructed setting for use of a “world.”

Conan the Barbarian (also issued in 1982…do you think any of these were produced to capitalize on the marked popularity of a certain role-playing game?) is set in Howard’s Hyboria sometime after the Fall of Atlantis (circa 10,000 BCE for the first destruction based on the Cayce timeline; a bit more recent if you use Solon’s account) but before the advent of the Aryan race (which, if simply meaning “Old Iranian” would indicate 6^th century BCE). That’s a long span of range, and Howard’s world is generally considered to be pre-recorded history. Recorded history is figured to have begun around 4,000 BCE (with the invention of writing allowing history to be “recorded”). In the Conan film we have a villain who purports to be a “demigod” walking the earth…though he may, alternatively, be simply a sorcerer and/or supernatural creature. HE has priests and worshippers, but none exhibit supernatural powers…they simply enforce the tenets of his particular “faith.” The time-setting of Hyboria also puts it long before the advent of any type of monotheism. In other words, no “clerics” in the D&D sense, despite the presence of necromancy.

Beastmaster certainly has the most “ancient” look to the setting. The largest city is a simple (by medieval standards) walled village whose centerpiece is a step-pyramid temple. There are (small) pastoral villages and marauding hordes and that’s it…no real organized civilization to speak of. Fewer population and people are closer knit (a lot of folks are related to each other and everything has a “small town” feel to it), plus names like Imur and Ard are suggestive of Enoch and Ur for “ancient city names.” Technology is slim: there’s agriculture and animal husbandry (including domesticated riding horses) but no metal armor or shields that I recall. They do have steel blades…. nice ones!...but again, it’s not really helpful to try attributing any type of rhyme or reason to the “world design” of a cinematic piece like Beastmaster.

In Beastmaster, the priests really ARE “priests” in the Old Religion sense of the term: with preaching and conversion and sacrifices to an unknown, unseen divinity…likewise, the lives of the people are fairly ruled by religion and there is the classic (and historic) struggle between rival powers of Church and State (the king and high priest don’t get along, causing the drama that drives the plot). As far as supernatural powers go, though, the priests really have none…at least nothing that is divinely channeled. The high priest’s harnessed the aid of witches who work sorcery for him, and he’s instilled fanaticism in his followers, and he’s got some alchemical secrets under his belt…but that’s it. Beastmaster feels a lot like OD&D…if OD&D was played only with fighting men in a semi-neolithic society. Even the priests (of which there are many) are all “fighting men;” they carry swords and crossbows and the heroes worry being outnumbered and killed or captured. The religion means having a willingness to die for the cause and following the instructions of the divine power (as interpreted, sometimes haphazardly, through the mouthpiece which is the high priest).

No “clerics” here either.

If I look back at my Howard or my Moorcock, the only priest-types one finds are sorcerers or illusionists or charlatans or political figures that generally worship demonic (and/or uncaring) entities and rule through intimidation and fear, if not outright lies. On the other hand, even fast-forwarding to more medieval, “non-ancient” fiction doesn’t find anything of a “clerical” example. Arthurian legend has a background Catholicism to it (in some legends) and nature-worshipping Druidism (in others)…but Merlin an Morganna, even in the fiction that considers them “pagan priests,” are more akin to magic-users in their spells and abilities. Healing through herb lore is NOT the same thing as “channeling the power of God” to heal wounds.

Anyone here remember the priest in Dragonslayer? That’s the closest thing I’ve found to an adventuring cleric in cinematic fiction (at least cinematic fiction not derived from D&D)…and we all saw what happened to him. Bacon.

Personally, despite the fact that I’m enjoying playing a cleric in my on-line game (mainly because I don’t play him like a cleric…at the moment he’s in a bare-knuckle boxing match), I’m thinking I need to axe the archetype as a class. Yes, D&D…in ALL its post-Chainmail incarnations…has always had clerics. I understand WHY, too…but I’m thinking of doing away with the whole concept.

And since this post is getting kind of long, I’ll talk about my thought process for “how to do it” in a separate write-up. Cheers.