D&D 5E Clickbait we didn't fall for: "Wizards is copying Critical Role"

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Sounds like a lazy player and/or DM. I try to fine tune things that happen to my players Clerics (and Palys etc) based on their chosen religion. Not to mention Warloc patrons.

Being a bland "I get divine magic from my good feelings" sounds bland to me.

To each their own, I guess.

I double checked with the SRD -- a cleric without a specific god has been a 'thing' that's an option since 3.x at least.

"If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies."

Yes, there's the Wall of the Faithless, but Faerun is also full of interloper gods. That's where Tyr and some others came from

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

One of my current players at school has stipulated that his cleric worships ALL gods - he wears an assortment of holy symbols and grabs the one he thinks most relevant to a particular situation. It's entertaining.

As for this book: it's a pretty vanilla collection of adventurers. Kinda lame, IMO. At least there's a tiefling.

Is your player's character named Benny?

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

More people need to read Dracula.

The un-redacted after-action report? The Dracula Dossier

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Could I get a cited example?

"a cleric might instead serve a cosmic force, such as life or death, or a philosophy or concept, such as love, peace, or one of the nine alignments." DMG

Also this is not exclusive to 5e. This was in prior editions from at least 2e.

 

[see]

There have been a lot of contradictory things written about gods in the Forgotten Realms, going at least as far back as the 1987 Old Gray Box simultaneously saying that the gods of the Realms are not organized in pantheons (in accordance with Ed Greenwood's original take in "Down to Earth Divinity" in Dragon #54, 1981) and presenting the organized pantheons of the demihumans (as taken from 1985's AD&D Unearthed Arcarna).

Anyway, we had a major upheaval regarding the gods in the "Second Sundering", and our only canon statement on the relations of gods and clerics since then, in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, is that "A typical cleric in Faerûn serves a single divine patron". Which of course leaves plenty of room for non-typical clerics.

 

[Turgenev]

I double checked with the SRD -- a cleric without a specific god has been a 'thing' that's an option since 3.x at least.

"If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies."

Yes, there's the Wall of the Faithless, but Faerun is also full of interloper gods. That's where Tyr and some others came from

Well back in 1983, you had the Mentzer Basic D&D Players Manual (p. 24) that states: "A cleric is a human character who is dedicated to serving a great and worthy cause. This cause is usually the cleric’s Alignment; for example, a cleric may be dedicated to spreading law and order."

I'm not sure about the Holmes or Moldvay versions. It's been a while since I've read them.

Cheers,
Tim

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's probably to distract people while they twirl their moustaches and tie helpless victims to railroad tracks.

Yeah, probably.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Press releases aren't meant for fans. They're meant for the press. These are written as mass emails sent to people who have to pump out 20 articles a week, not the superfan that reads thousands of words of nuance into a single sentence.

And yet fans see them and analyze them and post about them. You put something out in public, it's for the fans. Heck, you talk in a business meeting about D&D being "undermonetized" and it's for the fans.

That really stuck with me.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I double checked with the SRD -- a cleric without a specific god has been a 'thing' that's an option since 3.x at least.

"If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies."

Yes, there's the Wall of the Faithless, but Faerun is also full of interloper gods. That's where Tyr and some others came from

And they follow the same rules as all the other gods.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There have been a lot of contradictory things written about gods in the Forgotten Realms, going at least as far back as the 1987 Old Gray Box simultaneously saying that the gods of the Realms are not organized in pantheons (in accordance with Ed Greenwood's original take in "Down to Earth Divinity" in Dragon #54, 1981) and presenting the organized pantheons of the demihumans (as taken from 1985's AD&D Unearthed Arcarna).

Anyway, we had a major upheaval regarding the gods in the "Second Sundering", and our only canon statement on the relations of gods and clerics since then, in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, is that "A typical cleric in Faerûn serves a single divine patron". Which of course leaves plenty of room for non-typical clerics.

And yet why include a non-typical cleric is your otherwise focus-grouped, sanitized, made-by-commitee CW party? Because they have an agenda.