Yes, things are crazy and I’m way behind especially on writing up some stuff for Barbaric! I’ve got an adventure, a setting and another little surprise in the works. But for this post I want to talk a little about Clerics.

Barbaric! is a solid sword & sorcery game. But since many come from the world of d20’s, they’ll notice there’s no equivalent to clerics. There’s just magic. Sure it does the same things but it’s all cast into the same bucket. This is perfectly fine depending on your setting and what tone the GM wants in the game.

There’s a couple of ways that I’ve thought of that you could do this. First, there’s the easy way. Just divide up to the spell list. These spells are for clerics and the others for sorcerers/magic-users. How exactly you break that list down once again will depend on the specific world.

The second method that I thought is via “Blessings”. “Blessings” are just traits. The GM will still make a list dependent on the setting/gods/pantheon. Each “spell” is a separate Blessing, for example, there would be a Respite Blessing and a Convalescence Blessing and so on through the spell list. Each Blessing retains the same TN to cast as the respective spell but the caster/cleric would make a Lore Check. To give this idea an even more different feel, don’t use the Spell Mishaps. Instead, each failure incurs a cumulative – 1 DM on further attempts until the character’s total roll is a 2 or less. Then the character cannot cast/pray for any further Blessings that day. The character’s casting DM is reset after 8 hours of rest+1 hour of prayer/meditation per -1 DM. So a -2 DM would take two hours of prayer.

Yes, I know this a bare bones post. It’s an idea for GM’s to run with use how they see fit for their campaign and setting. Of course, you can also use a similar system for cultists or druids. Enjoy!