Priest game

[Matthew Gagnon]

A thought I have had, and forgive me if anyone else has ever suggested it.

Religion in BM is excruciating, and I think that one of the main reasons is that to play a priest, you essentially have to sacrifice one of your nobles, and their military capabilities and the like, and turn him into "an adventurer for religion."

While some people like that, most don't I think. While recruiting for a religion I created, that has been some of the most oft repeated reasons why people dont want to become priests: they just don't want to lose their warrior.

So here was my thought: what if priests became bonus characters, like adventureres?

In other words, you had your same number of nobles allowed as you always did, but the adventurers you are allowed to have are actually adventurers OR priests.

I have three adventurers now, and given that option I would probably maintain two priests and one adventurer if given the chance... maybe even three priests.

Ultimately it is a lack of clergy spreading the word that holds things back, and I think categorizing priests how we do now not only cannibalizes warmaking units for the priest game, it also just makes religion in general a much smaller part of a Medieval-ish life than it should be.

I think it would be an easy and productive change.

[Anaris]

The trouble is, it's not an easy change, because the character limits are quite complex, and priests are full nobles, with all the rights and privileges they enjoyâ€"including the ability to change class.

I'm not fundamentally against the ideaâ€"the nobility sending second sons into the priesthood was definitely A Thing, and having priests be not "normal nobles" makes some senseâ€"but "easy", it's not, I'm afraid.

[Matthew Gagnon]

Forgive my poor choice of words, Tim. I didn't mean to imply the programming change was easy. I more meant that it was "easy" in terms of not needing a fundamental reinvention of the wheel, and that it was mostly a reclassification of sorts. I understand it would probably be a pain in the ass to make happen.

Ultimately, though, I just think it would allow the religion aspect to more easily flourish. Thanks for considering it.

[Matthew Runyon]

The other thing I've often wondered about this is whether nobles being priests actually makes sense...Or rather nobles being something like Bishops and such would make more sense, having charge over NPC priests.  Bishops and such often did fight and all...

[Anaris]

The other thing I've often wondered about this is whether nobles being priests actually makes sense...Or rather nobles being something like Bishops and such would make more sense, having charge over NPC priests.  Bishops and such often did fight and all...

I mean, "priest" is the general term. "Bishop" is specific to Christianity, so we're not going to use that.

There very much are NPC priests of every religionâ€"they're the ones running the temples, etc. PC priests are just much more effective, because when you've got a noble of the highest order preaching, it carries more weight than just any other random commoner.

[Constantine]

I don't think there is much difference between priest and bishop in that regard. They're both indigenuous to western christianity. Only that we're used to calling officials of other religions "priests" but that's obviously as questionable as calling them bishops.

I don't want to see people titled as Priest of X in game anyway. Why not use the titles created by every religion itself? I'd rather prefer to see Archdruids, Augurs, Luminaries and Tidespeakers instead.

[Ardent]

Regarding the original post:

I actually kind of enjoy playing a character that is distinctly not all about toting soldiers about but is still a noble and doesn't have to slave away at the whole fatigue/rest side of things. Priests are fun that way.

Maybe a new class that is like the Courtier or trader. Limited unit sizes but with some of the priestly commands of  rough equivalents? A kind of warrior holey man?

Regarding titles:

I love the custom titles but I still need SOMETHING to help me figure out what in the world some mean. Is a Tidspeaker a priest of a water focused religion or the Judge of sea faring kingdom?

[pcw27]

I think part of the problem is the way religion usually turns out in this game. As I mentioned in another thread I've had tons of fun playing priests. Conducting an auto-de-fei in Freke as Turin was more memorable than any battle I ever participated in. The problem is most religions don't get up to such hijinks. Most sit around, tolerate each other and stick to one main realm. It makes for a very boring player experience. If more exciting things happened with respect to religion more people would want to play priests.

I have further notes on that here:

https://forum.battlemaster.org/index.php/topic,9083.0.html