The Priest
-Bless:  Unlike the Paladin’s bless, the priest’s bless is party-oriented.
The higher the priest’s level and statistics, the more party members affected
by the bless.  For instance, at level five, the priest is only able to bless
one person at a time.  At level 15 the bless checks for other party members
in the room and blesses two.  The number blessed and the strength of the bless
are determined by the stats and level of the priest.
-Heal:  I’d like to consolidate old cleric heal and greater healing. 
Essentially, a priest targets the limb of an ally for healing.  The healing
power of the priest increases greatly with level and stats, therefore at higher
levels, it will often exceed the max health of the given limb.  This healing
energy will bleed over to the other limbs of the target, giving it a ‘greater
healing’ effect.
-Cure:  Again, I stress consolidation.  A low level priest may only be able to
remove one instance of poison or disease at a time, whereas his higher level
counterpart may remove many or all of the afflictions on a given ally.
-Remove Curse:  It is what it is.  Items and people.
-Last Rites:  This is loosely based on the Shryasuo prayer.  During a combat,
the priest may ‘invest’ an amount of mana, based on level and stats, by
performing this prayer.  After the monster dies and its soul is delivered, the
mana invested is returned to the priest,perhaps minus a small deduction, and
all party members’ mana is replenished by the initial amount.  Can you say happy
party members?
-Banish:  Turn undead goes byebye and instead, we have a skill versus all
extra-planar creatures.
-Protection:  Protection vs. Evil, Protection vs. Good.  Moral relativism at
its finest. A Mullah who calls on the jihadist to blow up a bunch of innocents
and Jerry Falwell both felt they were doing was right.  Let the douchebag
roleplay however he wants.  Alignment restrictions/bonuses should go the way
of the Gogo Dodo.
-Shield of Faith:  This is loosely drawn from the old Paladin sect.  A priest
wears any shield and invests mana in it by performing this prayer.  The amount
of mana invested is plainly seen by how much the shield is glowing:  faintly
glowing-blindingly bright.  The shield is a mana sink.  It’s AC and other
protective properties are determined by the mana the priest continues to dump
into it.  The shield can also have quite good offensive capabilities such as
stunning, blinding, and burning enemies.  This can be quite a powerful tool for
the priest willing to spend exorbitant amounts of mana for upkeep.
-Divine Synergy:  This is loosely based on old circle-bless.  A Priest and
Paladin can pray together, each contributing a large amount of mana.  For a
very limited time, the entire party which contains these two characters gains
some enormous bonuses above and beyond what is normally available.
-Divine Guidance:  The Priest prays for his or her god to divinely inspire his
fellow party member’s next skill attempt.  A thief’s next ambush will have a
bonus to hit.  A barbarian’s rage will be the equivalent of a barbarian two to
three levels higher.  Basically, add temporarly level/stats for one skill only.

-Resurrection (Priest only):  With a player’s corpse handy, the priest may resurrect the fallen for a lesser XP/Stat penalty.
-Divine Intervention:  I’d hate to see Moira’s Divine Intervention taken out, so I propose giving priests the ability to summon a cherubim/seraphim/archangel/avatar/etc NPC.  It would work the same as
Moira’s DI.  It doesn’t follow unless the NPC wimpies.  Combined with a fully charged Shield of Faith,
a priest would be able to solo tough eq mobs for an obscene mana cost.

My chief ideas were as such:  Everyone should welcome a priest in a party, as they have something for everyone.  Priests should be able to solo effectively.  Priests and Paladins work well together.  Alignment is bullshit.

I thought I posted when I read this in the morning ... guess not.

In short, I like this.  I can definitely see this as a good class for newbies and those amongst us who are more Carol Gilligan and less Lawrence Kohlberg.

I’d like to see a few more prayers in the Cleric though - things like Mass Obscure Pulse ... that hides your parties from aggro NPCs. or Hide from Undead that prevents undead from auto’ing the cleric.  Maybe even give the highest level cleric an avatar that comes and fights alongside them for one fight

I like it though; I like it

in other games the priest is the third ranks.  The fighters are up front tanking damage, the magic users in the second ranges doing ranged damage, and the priest is further back dealing out cures and heals.  It sounds like a pretty crappy and boring job except that everyone wants a good priest in their group, the priest is the only thing that keeps them alive.

So maybe give the priests some area of effect healing spells, group blesses, maybe even damage type resistance spells.

Yea, in some games, but if you go back to old school DND Clerics wore armor, cured, healed, and all that good stuff.. and was in the front lines, had not so great melee but could wear any armor… where pallys, could also wear any armor but had less spells and less powerful spells, but had better melee.. (was more of a fighter then a cleric)