Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
That's a setting issue and not a cleric class issue that stems from any falsely imagined "deviations" to the cleric class. I do not have to be playing a cleric to find that an issue in Eberron. The cleric, however, is not changing; it plays the same.
You made the claim that Eberron did not alter the cleric class. The cleric class includes gods that are up close and personal. If those aren't allowed in Eberron, then it did change the cleric class.
The 3e cleric description admits that the campaign presence of deities vary, that temples/churches/cults may be the primary motivations for cleric adventures, and that clerics are not even necessarily serving deities but rather philosophies or alignment. But if we believe that flavor text ist über alles, then we must regard Forgotten Realms as an exception and rules-break from D&D clerics since the 3e PHB flavor text for clerics establishes Pelor as the norm for humans.
It does not say the campaign presence of deities may vary. It says that individual clerics may have varying experiences, such as some being clerics of ideals or causes That's very different. Of course, that's just the baseline and individual settings will alter the classes like Eberron does.
But arguing that somehow Eberron creates a rules exception for clerics or changes the class due to the nature of the setting seems antithetical to the nature of D&D and its lifelong embrace of homebrew settings.
Seriously?!? My saying that a setting changes the class is saying that it's wrong for settings to change classes? I didn't make a judgment call about whether Eberron was good or bad for altering the class. I simply noted that it did change the class. My opinion is that changing things is just fine and dandy, and I do it a lot.
It reeks of OneTrueWayism when it comes to the cleric.
At worst it's one true RAWism. I haven't so much as implied that there's only one way to play the class. Change it however you like. I altered the crap out of 3e paladins to the point where each god has virtually a different paladin class. You won't find me pretending that my alterations are RAW, though.