God Amidst the Wastes

I got a few questions from one of my players regarding the ranger advanced move God Amidst the Wastes.

- If he picks it at first level up does that mean that as level 10, he will also be a level 9 cleric in regards to spells (pick spells of total level of 10). Where as if he picks it at level 10 he will only be a level 1 cleric in regards to spells (pick spells of a total level of of 2). So basically, if you want this you would be stupid not to take it as early as possible - and then, why would anyone not pick Ranger instead of a Cleric?

- Clerics can't pick Elves as a race - does that mean an elven ranger can't pick God Amidst the Wastes?

- Can a Fighter with Multiclass Dabbler become as good a cleric as a ranger picking God Amidst the Wastes? Or is it not possible to pick Starting moves like Commune with the Multiclass Dabbler?

1.) Pretty much, but if you take it ASAP you don't get to be half-elven. You wouldn't want to JUST be a "ranger cleric" because you wouldn't get the Turn Undead or, more importantly, Divine Guidance moves.

2.) Nope. Don't see why you'd think so.

3.) No, you totally can.

1) It's best if you take it first -- but if you want to be Half-Elven, you'd do it ASAP; however the ability to cast spells is not always an important thing to have. Magic Missile for instance (from wizards) doesn't get stronger the higher level you get.

2) Clerics have several useful abilities, such as Turn Undead that are pretty useful. Spellcasting is not the only thing that makes Cleric's useful. While elves cannot be clerics (but CAN be "ranger/clerics" as you put it) -- I use this as more of a cultural difference between the races.

3) No, they can take it. There is no such limitation. You can get whatever you want unless the limitations are expressly stated. One thing I like doing with my fighters though.. is going:

Scent/Taste of Blood
Merciless/Bloodthirsty
Multi-class: Viper Strike/Viper Fangs

Dual wielding champion of ass-kicking prowess = 1d10+3d8 damage. The greatest weapons master that ever lived.

*Nobody* wants to tangle in hack and slash range with a fighter that does 19 damage average with hack and slash.

You can't do that if you go with Cleric Spell-casting as a fighter. A combination of fighter penetration and a few other abilities.. and a blacksmith upgraded signature weapon, and if you can touch it (a big if, given the size of some enemies) -- you can kill it.

The fighter can be a true wrecking ball without spell-casting; most of the classes are at their most amazing if you capitalize on their strengths, rather then trying to get exotic-- although given the narrative nature of dungeon world? Ultimately, it's about the kind of character YOU want to make.

There is very little min-maxing in Dungeon World, because it's all relative to how a situation plays out. 1d10+3d8 with 4 piercing is not very useful against a flying, fire-breathing dragon running you down while you're horse-back riding on the road~

My comments here might sound like min-max speculations for a system, where this is not intended to be a factor. But the thing is that players usually would like their character to be unique and as useful and power to the group (or at least their own succes) as possible. And the dungeon world rulebook actually say this too. You are not playing a fighter or a cleric - you are playing The Fighter or The Cleric - a unique character unlike anyone else with (supposedly) unique abilities.

1.) You wouldn't want to JUST be a "ranger cleric" because you wouldn't get the Turn Undead or, more importantly, Divine Guidance moves.

Sure Divine Guidance is nice, but so are e.g. the ranger and paladin starting moves not to mention more hitpoints and better damage dices. I still don't see why anyone would ever pick playing cleric as their starting class in this system going by the written rules, when you can get the most of their special bonuses by just 1 advanced move, as well as the special bonuses of another class, at level 2. In my group both the ranger and paladin (independently of each other and my influence) decided to pick Cleric as a multiclass at level 2. In their words: it seemed like gimping themselves (and hence the group) by not doing so. I had come to the same conclusion. This just emphasize the problem to me - it can't just be me and my players who can see this, can it?. The group also had a cleric (he decided to quit the game), who had no similar nearly equally as powerful Advanced Move to pick at level 2 - far from it actually. I would currently advice our replacement player against picking a cleric as his class, as I fear he will feel like a gimped version of our paladin and ranger.
 
The rotes and the 2 level cleric spells they get from level 2 plus additional level ups every level seems much more powerful than anything the cleric could pick at level 2 - plus the ranger and paladin starting moves to me looks to have more a or at least equal useful applications than the cleric starting moves.

I'm kind of leaning towards a house rule where rotes and cantrips are cleric and wizard only and not gained through multiclass. Also, I kind of decided already that the rotes and cantrips doesn't give experience points on failures, as our wizard has gotten more than double experience than anyone else mainly from failing his cantrips. I hope this will help not to further advocate for future characters to multiclass a spellcaster.

Alternatively I'm considering just removing the multiclass talents for future characters too, but I think that would be a shame too.

Also, I kind of decided already that the rotes and cantrips doesn't give experience points on failures, as our wizard has gotten more than double experience than anyone else mainly from failing his cantrips.

If you make your moves just as hard as other failures, why does it matter what they fail at?

There is an imbalance there.  Our party seems to have solved it by an unspoken "non-aggression" pact, where once someone has Cleric spell casting nobody else tries to take it because that would be stepping on their toes. 

Cleric and Wizard spellcasting and Druid shapeshifting are three cases where the heart of one class can be copied by a single multi class move taken by another.  You don't have to be ruthless in your min-maxing to notice that those are powerful moves. 

There are a few ways to rein this in if your players aren't the kind to do it on their own.  One is to fall back on the "to do it, you have to do it" rule -- make the players explain how they acquire something as amazing as the favour of a god, when they didn't have it last week.  The Cleric probably was born with it, or at least spent years as an acolyte.  What did the Paladin do, save that villager?  The whole party did that, why are you so special?  Play it out.  It could be awesome, and then it's all worth it.

Or else you can houserule in any number of ways, such as requiring more than one advanced move slot, or giving a penalty to spell casting if taken multiclass, or whatever.   But all my ideas here are pretty klugey, and I expect that's why they're not in the rules.

Dungeon World is not a wargame, and has serious flaws if you play it that way (what's the range on a Fireball, anyway?  What's up with Cloudkill?  Or Soul Gem? That's a weird spell.)  But it mostly works out if you focus on making the rules serve the story.  Either the broken thing makes no sense in the story, and therefore you can't do it, or else it pushes you to get creative about explaining it, and that makes it cool. 

If you make your moves just as hard as other failures, why does it matter what they fail at?

Yes, you have to make the GM moves on failure!  The possibilities on spell casting are infinite -- you could start from here:

http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/vortexshadow/magic/unstablemagic.html

I still don't see why anyone would ever pick playing cleric as their starting class in this system going by the written rules, when you can get the most of their special bonuses by just 1 advanced move, as well as the special bonuses of another class, at level 2. In my group both the ranger and paladin (independently of each other and my influence) decided to pick Cleric as a multiclass at level 2. In their words: it seemed like gimping themselves (and hence the group) by not doing so. I had come to the same conclusion. This just emphasize the problem to me - it can't just be me and my players who can see this, can it?.

Your frame of reference is off. What you say would be true if you were delving into an arbitrary, predetermined setting with objective difficulties, but you're not. The GM's agendas do not change because your Paladin takes a level of cleric. They are still obligated to fill your life with adventure, portray a fantastic world and play to see what happens. It doesn't matter if you take a level in Divine Supreme Being. The GM is still your fan and wants to see you strut your stuff. The GM still has to make your life interesting when you roll a 6. Same with my 0 level halfling farmer. It's a zero sum game.

This is how I internally have decided to solve this issue.

• In order for the Ranger-Cleric, Paladin-Cleric and Human Wizard not to have too many similar spells I decided to make some extra spells (based from inspiration from other system) to pick from. In case anyone is interested:
  http://depoilly.dk/ged/Roleplay/DungeonWorld/SpellBooks/ClericSpells.rtf
  http://depoilly.dk/ged/Roleplay/DungeonWorld/SpellBooks/WizardSpells.rtf
  This is first draft - I will probably update them as we go along.
  The number of possible spells for clerics to pick from during commune I didn't change.
• In order for the Cleric class to be anything but a class other classes could steal from, I decided to change the Paladin and Ranger advance move give them their normal level divided by 2 as Cleric level and just 1 fixed Rote spell. That way they will never get above level 5 Cleric spells, but also isn't "forced" to turn cleric at level 2.
• Inspired by zmook I also plan to introduce a house rule that noone can pick a Move as a Multiclass Advanced Move that another player already have if my players think it is a good idea. I assume they will though, since the concerns some of them have voiced is that the unique abilities of their class very quickly started to feel less unique and hence less awesome.