AuldDragon's AD&D Blog

Amongst the clergy in the priesthoods of most of the goblinoid pantheons are both shamans and witch doctors. There are a number of different versions of shamans available to players and DMs to use; the most prominent being the Shaman kit for clerics in the Complete Book of Humanoids and the Shaman class in Player’s Option: Spells & Magic/Faiths & Avatars. However, the only option for Witch Doctors is the kit in the Complete Book of Humanoids. One thing I’m going to do is create a class, similar to the S&M/F&A shaman class, as another option. Basically, this would be used in games that prefer the more detailed and powerful shaman to the earlier kit. Purely optional, of course, so DMs can allow either one, or both (perhaps as a greater/lesser witch doctor or something, so some faiths or tribes would have one or the other).

I haven’t worked out the details, but I’m thinking that the witch doctors would have most of the details of the Shaman, but with wizard spell access instead of spirit access. Alternately, I may allow SOME spirit access as well as wizard spell access, as witch doctors are supposed to be pretty similar to shamans. I’m interested in hearing what other people think.

Okay, it is time to finally quantify what I’m planning for Draconic Specialty Priests before I work on any of the dragon deities. This method is a mixing of the dragon-priest class from Council of Wyrms and the Specialty Priest from Cult of the Dragon (which I find too limiting).

Dragons may elect to become Specialty Priests at any time during the hatchling age category, or upon achieving a new age category. That age category becomes known as the first age category. Subsequent age categories are called second age category, third age category, etc. All granted powers are given in terms of the required relative age category of the draconic priest.
Shadow dragons, for example, typically can first cast priest spells when they are mature adults, thus, they would have to elect to become a specialty priest no later than achieving that age category. A shadow dragon who becomes a priest at that point would reach the sixth age category upon attaining great wyrm status. Red dragons, on the other hand, can typically first cast priest spells when they are of venerable status. Thus a typical red dragon could elect to become a specialty priest no later than that. Upon becoming a specialty priest, dragons then begin utilizing the spell progression granted to dragon-priests in the Council of Wyrms campaign setting.
For example, a dragon starting off at hatchling could max out at “level (age category) 12,” but if they started at age category 3 (Young), they’d max out at “level (age category) 10,” thus missing out on 7th level priest spells (not necessarily a big deal, some of the more popular gods are Lesser gods anyway).

That is compared to the Cult of the Dragon Specialty Priest information as follows:

The age category at which a dragon first receives priest spells determines when it can become a specialty priest of a draconic power. This age category is called the first age category. Subsequent age categories are called second age category, third age category, etc. All granted powers are given in terms of the required relative age category of the draconic priest.
Shadow dragons, for example, typically can first cast priest spells when they are mature adults. A typical shadow dragon would reach the sixth age category upon attaining great wyrm status. Red dragons, on the other hand, can typically first cast priest spells when they are of venerable status. Thus a typical red dragon could never reach higher than the third age category, which it could achieve upon reaching great wyrm status. Note that in very rare cases, some dragons are capable of casting priest spells earlier than their brethren, and they can thus achieve much higher levels of proficiency as specialty priests.

A final addition that was not part of that quote:
“As with all draconic specialty priests, annihilists can cast double the normal number of priest spells granted to a normal dragon of their age and subspecies.”

On the other hand, re-reading this, it looks like there is an out that I misinterpreted before (“Note that in very rare cases, some dragons are capable of casting priest spells earlier than their brethren”); however, the doubling of priest spells doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in that regard, since we have no spell progression for those unique individuals (although it could be left to DM fiat). They could be talking about the Dragon-Priests from Council of Wyrms, I suppose; although that doubling of spells part would then make them reeeeeeeally powerful.

Thoughts?