Saintly Saturday: St. Nicephorus the Confessor

Today is the feast of St. Nicephorus the Confessor. Born about A.D. 758, his father Theodore was embroiled in the first wave of iconoclasm that hit the Byzantine Empire. Under the iconoclast emperor Constantine V Copronymus, Theodore was imperial secretary. When it was revealed that he was an iconodule, the emperor tortured and then banished him.

Nicephorus followed in his father’s footsteps and became imperial secretary when the iconodule Irene and her son Constantine VI came to the throne. With the help of the Patriarch St. Tarasius, the Seventh Ecumenical Council was convened to defend the use of icons. Nicephorus was secretary.

He later decided to take on the monastic tonsure. He also founded several monasteries. After the death of Tarasius, he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople in A.D. 806. When Leo the Armenian came to power, he set off the second wave of iconoclasm. St. Nicephorus was attacked, deposed and exiled. He died in one of the monasteries he founded in A.D. 828.

As I have noted before, the title Confessor is given to those saints who are tortured, imprisoned and/or exiled for the faith but not martyred. One might be surprised that people would be willing to go to such lengths to defend icons. For Orthodox Christians, it is a matter of Christology and the ability to defend the incarnation of Christ.

To illustrate this, I am going to touch upon something that might appear to be politically incorrect, but it does a very good job of making my point. Recently, there has been some scholarship into the historicity of the Prophet Muhammad. Evidently there are enough uncertainties in this history that it is possible for Robert Spencer to ask the incendiary question Did Muhammad Exist?

Islam is militantly iconoclastic — it is unlawful to depict Muhammad in any way. Indeed, Muslims tend to react violently when their prophet is.

In the face of historic criticism, however, this iconoclastic stance becomes a liability. If the critical study of the origins of Islam raise serious doubts over the historic reality of the prophet, than this militant iconoclasm only reinforces those doubts. Indeed, one is forced to ask: Is the reason Muhammad can’t be depicted because he was never a real person?

These same questions could be leveled at Christianity if we didn’t insist that there must be icons. We insist on those icons because we insist that Christ entered into history as a real human being.

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The Confessor Prestige Class

For those of you who have read this blog for a while, there are some things from the later editions of D&D that I do like. One of them happens to be the idea of the Prestige Class and I have fiddled with the idea in order to make them old school. The Confessor is an example of a prestige class that arises out of game play.

In order to qualify as a Confessor, one must have been tortured, imprisoned, exiled or otherwise violently persecuted because of one's faith. Upon reaching 4th level (or higher), the player of any class may elect to become a Confessor.

Disadvantage: Due to the hardship of defending one's faith, the character has developed a serious physical handicap. This can be decided with the Referee according to the history of the character. Examples: Loss of the use of a hand/arm (no shields or T-H weapons); loss of an eye (no missile weapons); loss of voice (no spell casting with verbal components); bum leg (half movement rate).

Advantage: The Confessor has developed a tremendous amount of willpower in order to ignore pain. In addition to the normal abilities that the Confessor gains in their base class, they get a DR of 2 verses one type of damage. As the Confessor gains more levels, an additional DR of 2 is added which may be cumulative towards a type already chosen or it may be applied to a different type of damage.

The Bard as a Prestige Class Old School Style

Interesting. Just this morning I went to look at Dragon #56 to remind myself about Jeff Goelz's iteration of the bard in the wake of the interesting discussion that ensued from my post on St. Romanos. In addition, I also reviewed several other versions because I am interested in trying to allow the germ of an idea to flower — allowing the bard to be a prestige class, old-school style.

Though I have always hated the actual application of the 1ed AD&D bard, it is one of the first examples of a prestige class in D&D. I also appreciate the concept — after traveling the world, a bard has accumulated enough stories, tales, songs and information to be able to do all the things a bard does.

Thus, at 4th level a character may choose to become a bard (and this choice must be made at 4th level) — any character. This helps account for such diverse bard-like concepts as St. Romanos, Gandalf, King Henry V as well as the fast-talking, puffy sleeved fop.

In order to gain the abilities of a bard, the character must sacrifice all of the abilities they would have gained for that level from their own class, save hit dice. Thus, fighters would continue to fight as a 3rd level fighter, magic users and clerics would cast spells as at 3rd level, thief skill would remain at 3rd level, etc. Once a character becomes a bard, they advance according to the x.p. requirements of their original class. At each level they may choose to either improve their old class skills or their bard abilities by one level.

I realize that this is unbalanced in that it is much more expensive in x.p. to gain bard abilities for a magic user than a thief. I made this choice for ease of implementation — there need not be any kind of complicated X.P. chart, etc. The differences can be explained by class affinity to the bardic abilities — thieves are more naturally good at being bards than are magic users.

In thinking about how to do a bard (in a way that I'd be interested in playing one), I personally think three abilities are more-or-less universal in everyone's concept of the class:

• Legend Lore
• Charm
• Battlefield Morale Bonus

Legend Lore is the ability to attach a story or piece of history to places and things found while adventuring. I would begin with a simple 1 in 6 chance to know something interesting. This chance goes up by 1 for every level taken in bard abilities.

Charm is potentially the most powerful and therefore abusive ability of the bard. As I see it there are three ways to limit this potential power:

1. Understand it as a spell and therefore limit the number of uses per day. This could be either a static number (3/day) or a number based on level (1/every three levels).
2. Limit its potency by allowing two saving throws — one based on the level of the bard (some kind of skill check) and another based on the level/HD of the target (normal save vs. spells). I would start this skill check at 1 in 6. This chance goes up by 1 for every level taken in bard abilities.
3. Remove the spell effects and tie it to monster reactions. On a successful skill check (again, beginning at 1 in 6, but with the understanding that this can be mitigated through good roleplaying) allows the bard to move a reaction check one or more categories up or down the reaction table.

Personally, I am inclined to choose the second, but include the other options for the purpose of discussion and allowing some flexibility for both Referees and players.

Battlefield Morale Bonus is normally emulated by a simple bonus to various combat rolls. Personally, I never liked this choice. It becomes necessary, however, if this ability is to have a positive effect upon PCs, who never have to check morale. In order to make the mechanism more interesting and unique, I would offer a negative effect — one per combat, a bard can force opposing monsters within 30 feet to make a morale check. This check would suffer a penalty for each subsequent improvement in bard ability. A morale check of '2' always succeeds and monsters with a morale of '12' are unaffected.

Any thoughts?

Prestige Classes Old-School Style

One of the concepts in 3.5 that I do like is the prestige class. Conceptually, they are a great way to personalize a campaign world and to allow players to interact with that world in order to go down the paths necessary to become a member of a prestige class. In practice, however, it always seems to encourage optimization and a character progression divorced from what is actually occurring in the campaign.

Recently, I posited a couple of thought experiments. One of the more interesting comments was from Anthony who reminded me of the career system from WFRP. That got me to thinking if something could be tacked onto an older system of D&D.

Jeff Rients and Beedo, among others have pointed out that there is plenty of textual evidence to support the idea that the first several levels of character development are apprenticeship levels. In addition, around 4th level characters move beyond being an apprentice to some kind of hero status. Herein I see a means for understanding and implementing the concept of the prestige class. [BTW I am going to go human-centric here, but the concept is easily applied to demi-humans and demi-human classes.]

All characters begin the game with one of the basic three (four) classes. The first three levels are apprenticeship/proving ground levels. Those that survive and prove their worth then embark on one of several career paths depending upon the campaign, what has become available to them and player desire. The most obvious path is the class as written; however, if the character is willing to make a trade-off in powers/abilities/obligations for other class abilities, they can chose what amounts to a prestige class. They continue to advance as their original class in terms of XP requirements. Here are some for instances for each class:

Cleric

One interpretation of the normal class progression of the cleric is ordination. Prior to gaining 4th level, clerics are alcolytes — trainees trying to decide whether or not ordination is their path. Alternative career paths for cleric characters could represent choices made by those who decide either not to get ordained or ordained into a specific order/ministry. For example, one could become a Healer.

Disadvantage: Healers do not improve in their ability to Turn Undead beyond 3rd level; Healers acquire spells as a cleric one level lower (no new spells are gained at 4th level; at 5th level, they gain spells as a 4th level cleric).

Abilities: Healers may Lay on Hands at 1hp/level per day; they may spontaneously use any spell slot as a cure spell (they can prepare several non-healing spells but cast them as cure spells). The efficacy of the spell must be of an equal or lesser spell level as the spell slot used.

Fighter

At 4th level, fighters may choose to take the path of a Berserker.

Disadvantage: There is a 5% chance that every time a Berserker goes into a Rage that they will lose control and attack the nearest person regardless if they are friend or foe.

Abilities: In combat, a Berserker can go into a Berserker's Rage. While in a Rage, the Berserker can trade AC for a either a bonus to hit or a bonus to damage or a combination. That maximum bonus available is +4. Thus, at maximum, a Berserker could decrease their AC by 8 and gain a +4 to hit and damage. Note: this maximum is only achievable if the Berserker has the AC to give. For example, if the base AC of a Berserker is 6, the maximum number of AC they can give up for a bonus is 3 (where AC 9 = no armor).

Magic-User

At 4th level, a magic-user may choose to take the dark path of the Necromancer.

Disadvantage: Necromancy is illegal in most civilized lands; a necromancer sacrifices a level of spell progression in order to gain the ability to Control Undead. There also may be physical signs of necromancy (pallid complexion, yellowed eyes, sunken cheeks, etc.) that get worse as the ability to Control Undead increases.

Ability: The Necromancer can Control Undead using the Turn Undead table as a 1st level cleric. As the Necromancer progresses in level, they may choose to gain more spells or gain another level on the Control Undead table.

Thief

At 4th level, a thief may choose to pursue the path of the Assassin.

Disadvantage: The Assassin forgoes improving normal Thief abilities for each level that they wish to improve their Assassin ability.

Abilities: Assassins may use their backstab ability any time they attack from surprise (during surprise rounds as well as when using Move Silently and Hide Shadows) as well as any time they hit by 5 or more than they need. At additional levels, Assassins may sacrifice increasing their Thief skills in order to increase their backstab multiplier.

All of these can be fiddled with according the needs of a particular campaign world. In addition, there is no limit to the number of possibilities: monks, knights, paladins, battle mages, spies are just a few I can think of off the top of my head.