C&C Houserules pt 1 Clerics

Inspired by houserules from the D&D 3.5 campaign that I'm playing in and comments from my 101 days of Castles & Crusades thread at RPG net I've decided to start developing my own houserules for C&C.

Start off with Clerics, a class I seem to play with some frequency in all versions of D&D or similar class based RPG. In fact one of my first three D&D characters back in the original days of the White Box was a cleric, Eskel, along with a fighter Agrippa and Theo the elf (of course this was when an elf was as much a class as a race).

Domains:
Initial thoughts are to use a set of domains based on what a deity is a god of, including the four traditional elements and things which I might use a synonymous domain for like harvest and fertility.

First cut list: Earth; Air; Fire; Water; Healing; Thunder; Fertility; Death; Sun; Moon; Hunting; War; Love; Sea; Sky and gods with trade or skill based domains like brewing, smithy and weaving. One that I might add is something like Trickery because of gods like Loki in the Norse pantheon or the West African Anansi.

This is very much my inital thoughts and many would overlap so much that I'd probably make them synonymous like Air and Sky or Sea and Water. The domains would be used to give a limited list of spells so that it was appropriate for each god and avoided the usual D&D cleric trope of combat medic, which is not particularly satisfying to me.

I'll add some spells as well as the first edition of the C&C PHB has a relatively limited set of spells for clerics so depending on domain add some Wizard or Illusionist spells would fit quite well. For a trickery domain I'd certainly think that a lot of illusion based spells or things like polymorph fit into. Fire domain has things like fireball and burning hands.

Joining the (Castles &) Crusade

I've recently been reading through my copy of the Castles & Crusades Players Handbook to write a review, which got me started on a thread in the 101 days format at RPG.net. C&C looks like a good system for my fantasy gaming as it combines a lot of features that I was looking for, such as: unified mechanics, easy character creation, and a rule framework that allows ready customisation.

Weaknesses: with the first edition of the PHB the amount of typos is high and this can affect some of the rule interpretations, I think my biggest example is Power Word Kill where there are two different figures for the total HP of creatures affected. Not enough examples of play are present which is not a weakness for the veteran gamers that C&C has attracted to date, but is less helpful for newcomers.

Strengths: Price, C&C is reasonably priced; Consistent rules: pretty much everything works on the basis of roll D20 add modifiers and try to beat target number; simple and easy to learn, largely due to limited options, but this makes it easier to customise than 3e D&D where you have to replace existing rules and consider the impact on everything else.

Though I will still use other RPGs (Conan for example) I suspect C&C will now become the default fantasy system for me to use as a GM.

I'll start to develop houserules to expand my version of C&C with my blog as a workspace for this.