5e needs a Faiths and Avatars style book

[Irennan]

The difference is, whilst clerics are usually dedicated to one deity, each deity does on have it's own religion. They are all parts of the same religion.

Ok, but each deity has indeed its set of values, common rituals, common goals that especially their clerics strive to achieve, and duties of the clergy (once again, to avoid misunderstandings, I don't mean preaching to the massess). The worship of a given deity is drastically different from that of another one.

Exactly. It has been done before, and without stat blocks and crunch there is no point in republishing what has already been done with "5e" stencilled onto the cover. There is no-one in the world who cannot use Google if they are all that interested.

A lot of things have been done before as well. The lore part in MToF has been done before, but many people still sang its praises. Idk if I'd buy this book when I can find pdfs of Faiths&Avatars, Powers&Pantheons and Demihuman Deities on the guild, because the depth of the lore 5e offers will never get even remotely close to that. However, there are people new to D&D who would be happy to have such a book.

 

[Satyrn]

I would just like to see cleric (and paladin and druid) players actually acknowledge that they have a patron diety once in a while and do anything at the table to make that part of the game.

Sounds like a good reason to hand out inspiration.

Heck, you could even call it divine inspiration and have it stack with the mundane, so clerics could hold on to 2 at once - and maybe even use both at once.

 

[gyor]

Ok, but each deity has indeed its set of values, common rituals, common goals that especially their clerics strive to achieve, and duties of the clergy (once again, to avoid misunderstandings, I don't mean preaching to the massess). The worship of a given deity is drastically different from that of another one.




A lot of things have been done before as well. The lore part in MToF has been done before, but many people still sang its praises. Idk if I'd buy this book when I can find pdfs of Faiths&Avatars, Powers&Pantheons and Demihuman Deities on the guild, because the depth of the lore 5e offers will never get even remotely close to that. However, there are people new to D&D who would be happy to have such a book.

There are new gods now that these books don't explore, so a 5e version of the books would still have value for old timers.

 

[Irennan]

There are new gods now that these books don't explore, so a 5e version of the books would still have value for old timers.

I wouldn't call 50$ for 3-4 gods "good value". Then again, perhaps my views are rather niche. I'm not even that much of an old timer (I found D&D in late 2011 or early 2012, can't remember--if we exclude PC RPGs), and yet, back when I started, I tried to get the old book over the new ones for lore. However, I know for sure that a lot of new people will get much more exicted to see lore in a new 5e book, rather than getting the old books (actually, it's possible that they won't spend money on the old books at all, while they would buy a new book about the same topic).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You don't need to spend money on the old books, since it is all on the internet anyway!

 

[gyor]

I wouldn't call 50$ for 3-4 gods "good value". Then again, perhaps my views are rather niche. I'm not even that much of an old timer (I found D&D in late 2011 or early 2012, can't remember--if we exclude PC RPGs), and yet, back when I started, I tried to get the old book over the new ones for lore. However, I know for sure that a lot of new people will get much more exicted to see lore in a new 5e book, rather than getting the old books (actually, it's possible that they won't spend money on the old books at all, while they would buy a new book about the same topic).

It's not a 3-4 gods, it's a couple dozen new ones, but others could use having their lore updated to the current date for the Sundering. And who knows how many new Gods are coming.

 

[Irennan]

It's not a 3-4 gods, it's a couple dozen new ones, but others could use having their lore updated to the current date for the Sundering. And who knows how many new Gods are coming.

No god is actually new. All the Seldarine deities that have been added were pulled out of some dragon mags issues, or gods that had been killed or merged in the ancient history of the Multiverse and that have now returned (like Zandilar), they're not really new.

In any case, a single book detailing all the human gods and all the non human gods, including the dozens of new gods, would probably end up with a mere SCAG-like entry for each deity, with little to no room to dedicate to details. It would make it worth to newbies, that's for sure (which is why I'm hoping that this book will be published), but not to people who have access to (or are willing to grab) the super in-depth lore of the old books (not to mention that you can get all three on the DMGuild for far less than $50, and the lore in all 3 is mostly up to date, because the Sundering did nothing but restore all the gods that had been lost along the way, including the merged ones).

Honestly, thinking about that, the sheer amount of deities that need to be included, and the knowledge that WotC will never dedicate more than 1 book to this topic, kinda defeats the original point of having this book, to begin with. It would end up being a repetition of the SCAG and MToF sections about gods, with a few other gods getting a small writeup in addition to the ones that have already received one. It could never include the kind of info that you suggest in the op, or a detailed insight into how the clergies work (such things would be quite amazing to read in a book, but WotC isn't going to include them, realistically speaking).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

On the other hand, if you where dealing with some other campaign setting than the Forgotten Realms, with a much smaller number of gods, you could go into much more detail about each one.

 

[Carlsen Chris]

It's too bad there's no You Tube instructional videos on how to use ones imagination.

Yep. WoTC should stop printing books and we'll just all use our imaginations.

 

[Satyrn]

Yep. WoTC should stop printing books and we'll just all use our imaginations.

You say that like we're not already using our imaginations.