Good aligned Clerics and the needy

[Conradine]

I was thinking: in any realistic settings, should we figure that almost every good-aligned attracts long chains of sick, maimed and crippled pilgrims from everywhere?

Neutral and - obviously - Evil temples could simply negate healing or requires payment, and even a Good aligned temple would require gold or service from wealthy characters.

But if a poor commoned comes begging to the temple, has no money to pay, and the Cleric has a Cure Disease or similar spell - without xp or gp cost - that he still has not casted, there's any reason to not cast it?

Another implication: should we assume that Good aligned cleric spend most of their time , or at least every spell they can spare - providing healing and mabye also food for the destitues?

[Troacctid]

Depends on the individual, and on the church. Most good-aligned individuals would probably give aid to an injured stranger, but many churches would ask for a donation or some other service in return as a matter of pragmatism. After all, spell slots are limited, and a deity like Heironeous, for example, might want his clerics out in the world fighting the forces of evil, not in the streets tending to the sick and injured masses.

[PacMan2247]

The Book of Exalted Deeds gets pretty heavily into the nature of good, including the fact that a good act- like feeding the hungry or healing the sick or wounded- remains a good act even if the recipient of the aid is evil, and much like Gollum's role in Lord of the Rings or Wormtail's in Harry Potter, it creates a bond and an obligation on the recipient. Withholding aid, especially when it costs you nothing more than 6-18 seconds of your life, is at best a neutral act in that context.

So yes, I would agree that temples of good-aligned deities would be foci for those in need and nuclei for civilizations.

[Geddy2112]

Short answer, yes. Good clerics would try to help others. No good cleric would withhold aid for the needy if they had the ways and means to provide such.

Long answer- it is not this simple. Seconding that it depends on the individual cleric and their particular deity. What determines if they have the ways and means, and who is truly needy varies greatly between LG, NG, and CG as well as various faiths. I would assume that most good clerics are going to try and teach a man to fish rather than give him one, that it does more good to treat the cause rather than the symptoms.

Again, it varies from deity to deity. How much time and magic they can dedicate to such also varies on their location and their circumstances.

[jiriku]

Even evil temples would be patronized for their healing. When you are desperate and have nowhere else to turn, most would beg aid from an evil church rather than simply lay down and die. For the very poor, evil churches might even be a more reliable source of spells, because they've got a broader array of non-cash things they might accept from you instead of money.

Ultimately what keeps churches from being the equivalent of modern-day hospitals is the arbitrary decision to make spellcasting expensive. If you make spellcasting services affordable to the poor, the fantasy medieval setting quickly morphs into something entirely different. It's often said that the typical D&D campaign setting could never survive the implications of the magic it contains.

[Vizzerdrix]

Even with evil clerics, it would depend on the god in question. I cant imagine Lolth allowing her clerics to heal anyone not a drow or serving a drow advancing cause, but could see clerics of Cas giving aid if you had no place else to turn.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Not really.

Remember that the healing that clerics can do easily is limited to relatively minor and moderate physical injuries. The big stuff; curing disease, restoring the maimed to wholeness, removing blindess and infirmity; are all spells of mid-level that have to be prepared ahead of time. There are precious few clerics that are even capable of such miracles much less both capable and in the habit of having them prepared on any given day.

Between this and the fact that most clerics have better things to do, yes even the Good ones, it's just not really particularly likely that they woud develop such a following. Then you add to the above the fact that they frequently hurl themselves into mortal danger, where followers start dropping like flies, and only the desparately ill will bother to approach a temple of a healing god when more "traditional" medicine fails them.

Then add to this that experts and even adepts (who also get cure spells and are dramatically more numerous than clerics) have or can have heal as a class skill, an adequate method of dealing with most disease, and it gets even less necessary to badger real clerics with such things.

So yeah, clerics don't have much problem with being bothered over such things unless something special (read; plot-related) comes up.

[Florian]

I think that overgeneralization on what is "good" in this context doesn´t help when it comes to the actual deities involved, as those tend to play a heavy role in the ethic outlook of their clerics.

Golarion actually has some good examples on this. Erastil is a LG deity, but would teach "Give alms to the poor and they are fed for a day. Teach the poor how to hunt and give them a bow, they´re fed for a lifetime"

[Conradine]

I would assume that most good clerics are going to try and teach a man to fish rather than give him one, that it does more good to treat the cause rather than the symptoms.

You can't teach a man how to grow a new limb or how to heal from a cronic disease. Well, teorically you can but I don't think everyone has the talent to become an high-level cleric.

[Honest Tiefling]

Not to mention, if you heal the sick and injured but an unjustified, bloody war breaks out, you haven't actually helped anyone in the first place. So I could see some clerics saving the spell slots to muck about with monsters or nobility, to prevent even worse situations from arising.

Also, I wonder how much holy Oomph a god gets from a quick prayer from a thankful pilgrim? Especially if the pilgrim had to undergo a ritual beforehand or underwent a strenuous pilgrimage first...

[frost890]

I think it all depends on the teaching of there church. LG may require a tithe first or a favor in return. NG just wants to do good so they may be more inclined to help. CG may help if it suits there purpose but may refuse the next person in line becomes they don't feel like it. Chaos go figure.