I enjoy clerics without gods

[HellHound]

This is one of those points that Alan (Psion) and I never see eye to eye on. We've managed to reconcile all our other d20 mechanical and style differences, as far as I can tell.

But I *love* the godless clerics of 3.0

If psionics is the power of personal faith, as Alan states, I feel that we then need yet another set of rules for what psionics have always been in our games, which is the pure power of the mind to perform change - not the power of faith to perform change, but the power of thought.

Religion is a personal thing for many people, not the worship of a god, but a set of beliefs and philosophies that make one a 'spiritual person' and that guide your moral and ethical decisions and actions. For me this is important because I spent 20 years of my life figuring out my own personal spirituality.

And I think that people like me, in a D&D world, would have access to divine spells too.



Thus, I love the idea, but I agree that the execution has often been poorly done as it makes power gamers twitch with the chance to pick and choose from the full set of domains.

 

[carpedavid]

For inspiration, you may want to check out Sepulchrave's story hour in the Story Hour forum. He does an exceptionally good job of having multiple faiths and gods exist, while still retaining the uncertainty of who is actually *right*.

 

[blargney the second]

Here's the setup in my new campaign:

1) The High Kingdom has a pantheon of Greek/Norse-style larger than life gods. There's an All-Father, a goddess of wisdom, etc.

2) The Southern Empire is monotheistic, with various saints representing different facets of the one god.

3) The players are going to Liberty, a free city-state that was started by pirates, then taken over by the Empire, reclaimed by its ousted prince allied with the northern Queen, and finally seceded from the High Kingdom. There are temples to all of the major polytheism gods, and the Imperial University evangelises monotheism.

I think it's gonna be fun.

-blarg

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

This is kind of rantish, so bear with me...


I think that one of the greatest additions to DnD in 3.0 was the idea that clerics could gain power from a force or philosophy. It changes divine magic into something mysterious. Clerics are not fundamentally sure about the beginnings of the universe, or the state of a soul after it dies, or even if there are more powerful beings influencing their actions.

The whole "I'm a tool of a 40th level immortal who I incidentally know exists without having to have faith because he provides me with spells and I can plane shift to his home" type of cleric bugs me.

And then I pick up Forgotten Realms: Gotta have a patron diety to get spells. Hell, even to get rezzed you have to have a patron. And Dragonlance? You have to follow a god even to cast arcane magic...


One of my favorite worlds was Dark Sun, because most clerics followed some sort of elemental force, however even that isn't really good enough for me:

I would like a published campaign world without a simplistic pantheon or pantheons of gods that created the universe.

I would like a world where a cleric of culture #1 follows Rathnar the Destroyer and a cleric of culture #2 follows the teachings of Guzmat and Futhno, and both clerics claim their gods created the universe. Throw in cleric of culture #3 that believes in both Rathnar AND animism AND a bit of ancestor worship, while the culture #4 cleric proclaims the benefits of Good without any sort of anthropomorphic personification.

All along they all gain spells.

In addition, Rathnar and Guzmat and Futhno do not exist, at least in any concise Manual of the Planes type mythology, where all LG deities hang out and shoot pool afterhours in the rec hall.

I'd like a world that more accurately describes the interplay between ancient Egypt, China, Gaul, and some such...


Anyway, I think the FR mythology of four million different gods each with a different portfolio is silly. "The god of cockroaches, please stand up! You have infringed on my domain for the last time! I AM THE GOD OF ESPECIALLY LOUD NOISES!!!"
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Anyway, I think that is enough for my rant. I'm not really trying to convince anyone of anything. It's just been bugging me.

 

[FireLance]

I would guess that in the case of published settings, having gods that are known and described helps add to the flavor of the setting and gives cleric PCs a hint of how to behave. Some players, when faced with a blank slate on which to write their PC's philosophy and beliefs, give up and play a "Bror smash!" barbarian instead.

 

[DragonLancer]

The whole "I'm a tool of a 40th level immortal who I incidentally know exists without having to have faith because he provides me with spells and I can plane shift to his home" type of cleric bugs me.

Well, I am forced to query why said cleric wouldn't have faith in his deity? If he didn't have faith in that deity, he wouldn't be a cleric.

Personally, I prefer the standard idea of the cleric being a priest of a deity. I'm also not too adverse to large pantheon's providing that they make sense are not just huge in number.

 

[Beale Knight]

I would like a world where a cleric of culture #1 follows Rathnar the Destroyer and a cleric of culture #2 follows the teachings of Guzmat and Futhno, and both clerics claim their gods created the universe. Throw in cleric of culture #3 that believes in both Rathnar AND animism AND a bit of ancestor worship, while the culture #4 cleric proclaims the benefits of Good without any sort of anthropomorphic personification.

All along they all gain spells.

In addition, Rathnar and Guzmat and Futhno do not exist, at least in any concise Manual of the Planes type mythology, where all LG deities hang out and shoot pool afterhours in the rec hall.

I think that's a pretty cool idea. I do something like that IMC. Each region has their own small pantheon of gods, but they're all rather distant and mysterious. The gods of a given pantheon get along well enough, but for the evil one(s) doing their evil things, and so do their clerics (which are extremely rare; most things religious are handled by "priests", Experts focused on Knowledge: Religion etc). However, things are unlikely to be peaceful when clerics, or even the devout, of one pantheon cross paths with those of another pantheon. A battle between clerics dedicated to Lawful Good gods is certainly a strong possibility.

I haven't made use of clerics devoted to a force or philosophy, except for a culture that worships a quartet of elemental gods (who, naturally, created the world and still run it; at least so far as that culture's concerned). I'll have to keep that in mind as I expand things.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The fact that you need a deity to get divine magic in the FR is anchored in the background. I wasn't always that way, it was changed when the gods didn't take an interest in the world and cared only for their own schemes. So the local overpower bound the deities' power directly to their worshippers.

I prefer having gods who grant you divine magic, especially in a vanilla fantasy setting like Greyhawk or the Realms. Their churches provide players and DM alike with organizations they can join, ally with, or fight. They also provides with a code of conduct the players can follow (either closely or loosely).

The Idea that gods do not exist but you worship them anyway isn't my idea of proper fantasy, where the gods sometimes take personal interest in things.

I do like other settings where it is handled differently, like the mix of animism, ancestor worshipping, philosophy and reverence of deity-like beings you find in Rokugan.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

I hear what you are saying. Honestly I have a big problem with the "no god" concept. Everytime I've seen it used its by a powergamer who wants a free pick of domains.

If someone were willing to write up their philosophy and really role play it I'd allow it.

 

[Deadguy]

For my first 3e campaign I wanted to avoid deities entirely, so I reworked the Cleric into the Theurge - a sort of philosopher with magic. It was only afterwards that I realised I could've just used the 'Cleric without a God' as my model. Doh!

For some campaigns I think that it works really well. For others less so. I think the deciding factors are things like:

• how 'real' are your gods? Do they very obviosuly manifest so that anyone with eyes can see them, or are they more mysetrious acting at a distance?
• how 'human' are your gods? A Greek or Norse pantheon seems to behave in ways which represent humans writ large, whilst others are far more alien and mysterious.
• how much is reality objective, and how much is it a subjective experience of the actors who participate? Can you really visit heaven, or is it just an 'experience', different for each person.

I like your ideas, ConcreteBuddha, and for some campaigns they'd be really useful. For others, like the Realms, they'd chnage an integral aspect of the setting (objective reality and deities).