D&D General If faith in yourself is enough to get power, do we need Wizards and Warlocks etc?

[mamba]

Well, better is a highly subjective standard. What would you consider "better" or "acceptable"?

it's subjective, but better to me is one that makes a modicum of sense to me. I do not need a full on scientific explanation, but just saying 'you so strongly believe in e.g. Stoicism that Stoicism grants you the power to ...' just doesn't work for me. Same if you instead have 'you never bothered training, but you are convinced you can jump across this 100 yard gap, so you try and succeed'.

If you do not want gods for this, then give me something else that is not essentially 'this person is crazy, but somehow that grants him powers'. Let it be ancestral spirits, being exposed to some powerful magic flux in his youth and having become a mutant / superhero due to this. Something that is not just 'delusions grant powers'....

 

[Hawk Diesel]

It sounds like you are really just using your gut to figure out what you might enjoy. Which hey, nothing wrong with that. But it makes a discussion on the topic at hand much more difficult. I'm not trying to convince or persuade anyone to my side. But if you don't have an objective standard to guide your critique, then it just feels like I'm trying to justify my position which is not a lot of fun.

 

[mamba]

That's only true if you take the perspective that there are no limits. In this example, there's no limits on what belief can accomplish. But that doesn't mean that belief can allow a person to do anything. A fighter still functions as a fighter. A wizard still functions as a wizard. The fiction that grants them their powers can be quite broad, but without multiclassing, would not allow a mechanical fighter to cast spells without taking levels in Wizard or Eldritch Knight.

Why, if conviction is all there is to it, then there are no limits

Heck, I can be convinced I can do anything at all, esp. if my conviction that I can do X and Y essentially made it so... so now I am convinced that means I can also do Z, and doggone it, when I try that for the first time, I actually can. I just keep on believing more powers into existence.

 

[mamba]

It sounds like you are really just using your gut to figure out what you might enjoy. Which hey, nothing wrong with that. But it makes a discussion on the topic at hand much more difficult. I'm not trying to convince or persuade anyone to my side. But if you don't have an objective standard to guide your critique, then it just feels like I'm trying to justify my position which is not a lot of fun.

This has nothing to do with enjoyment. Why would a cleric that just believes in themselves be any more or less enjoyable than a cleric that for all intents and purposes is their identical twin, but gets their powers from a god.

It is about coherence, the premise does not work for me.

 

[Scribe]

Why would a cleric that just believes in themselves be any more or less enjoyable than a cleric that for all intents and purposes is their identical twin, but gets their powers from a god.

There are folks who cannot accept the concept of Gods, even in their Fantasy, as being above them, or worthy of worship.

Without getting into the weeds of that, as it flirts with the rules on the forum, I have always liked Fantasy Gods, because just like Fantasy Species, they are part of what makes Fantasy, Fantasy (to me).

 

[mamba]

There are folks who cannot accept the concept of Gods, even in their Fantasy, as being above them, or worthy of worship.

I am surprised anyone cannot accept the concept, I can understand not believing in one, but the concept itself is not that hard to grasp.

If you are so opposed to having to believe in a god that you cannot even do it in a make-believe world, then maybe play something other than a cleric... or discuss an alternative with your DM, there still is no need for WotC to make incoherent classes just to accommodate that

 

[Scribe]

I am surprised anyone cannot accept the concept, I can understand not believing in one, but the concept itself is not that hard to grasp.

If you are so opposed to having to believe in a god that you cannot even do it in a make-believe world, then maybe play something other than a cleric... or discuss an alternative with your DM, there still is no need for WotC to make incoherent classes just to accommodate that

Sure, but the ship has sailed. It left port a very long time ago, and really never is coming back.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

It is about coherence, the premise does not work for me.

See that's the problem. You say it doesn't work for you, but that's not what the premise of the thread is. We are discussing the merits of a variety of play styles around the fiction used to explain a character's capacities. We can't engage in a discussion of those merits if your criteria is just whatever you feel like. Essentially, I'm trying to explain why my favorite color is blue, and you seem to be saying blue doesn't exist because you're color blind.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Sure, but the ship has sailed. It left port a very long time ago, and really never is coming back.

I'm an atheist, and I've never met another atheist that was offended by the concept of fantasy gods/pantheons. I've met some that dislike depictions of certain fantasy gods and their actions (you remember my objections to the Dragonlance pantheon), but I'll just have to disagree that the reason why people want to play atheistic/antitheistic clerics is because of some irrational phobia of the idea of fantasy gods. I personally prefer more nuanced and open ended depictions of fantasy religion (Eberron, Dragon Age, the Cosmere, etc) to the weirdly unnuanced henotheistic D&D pantheons of the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk.

 

[Scribe]

I'm an atheist, and I've never met another atheist that was offended by the concept of fantasy gods/pantheons. I've met some that dislike depictions of certain fantasy gods and their actions (you remember my objections to the Dragonlance pantheon), but I'll just have to disagree that the reason why people want to play atheistic/antitheistic clerics is because of some irrational phobia of the idea of fantasy gods. I personally prefer more nuanced and open ended depictions of fantasy religion (Eberron, Dragon Age, the Cosmere, etc) to the weirdly unnuanced henotheistic D&D pantheons of the Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk.

Thats cool. I have met people who are, for lack of a better word, militant in their opposition to the concept of gods, even in a Fantasy setting.

I, older as I am, have zero issue with a view on the pantheon like Dragonlance had, or a more varied take like FR, or even the ambiguous nature of Eberron.

Its all good to me.