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

[Minigiant]

Meh?

There is no reason the bar would have to be impossibly high. We are again discussing the hypothetical where a Cleric of Megalomania is so into themselves, that they begin tot manifest power.

By definition, they have 'draw his gaze' at that point.

I am reminded of Braveheart. "In order to find his equal, an Irishman is forced to talk to God." wasn't that the line?

They don't have to draw his gaze. There just has to be power somewhere.

For example, could someone manifest their own divine power on a Dead God world like Dark Sun.

I'd say no because there is no Divine to draw from and clerics there couldn't manifest their own.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, a divine caster like a Cleric, Paladin, Druid etc don't need any actual divine link to power and can just use "The power of my inner belief )or love or friendship or self respect etc) to gain divine powers.

So why would a Warlock ever make a deal with Cthulu or a Fey Princess?

Because:

• not all people can manage that sort of thing.
• unlocking that kind of power can take time, time people don't have.
• they've been manipulated into a bad situation.
• someone or something is blocking their access.
• it never occurred to them to try something else.
• it's socially unacceptable for them to choose that path.
• it doesn't fit with their abilities, skills, and/or personality.
• they started on such a path (e.g. Warlock or Wizard) first.
• they tried the so-called "easy" path and didn't like it (or couldn't use it.)
• it isn't an option for this specific character (e.g. maybe warforged can't be druids.)
• they ARE a cleric/paladin/whatever, but it isn't enough somehow.
• they lost their old powers somehow, and this is a ready replacement.
• they were a Cleric/etc. before, but they retired and picked up a new skillset.

I could keep coming up with these all day. I hope a baker's dozen is adequate to demonstrate that there are ample reasons.

I believe in Crystal Lite, 'cause I believe in me! I've always disliked the idea of clerics who get their powers from abstract concepts, or the "warm and fuzzies" as I like to call it. I prefer them to have a connection to a deity and for said deity to remove powers when the cleric doesn't keep the faith.

Personally, I find the "god pulls the plug if you've ever been naughty" thing incredibly tedious. It's much, much more interesting to have a far more complicated relationship between faith and power, e.g. 4e's Investiture concept, where the church has to be picky about who it offers Investiture to...and the people who go astray have to be hunted down, not "all heresy is instantaneously nixed because Divine Sugar Momma cuts you off the instant you misbehave." Suddenly, churches have to care. People who stray in small ways can go a long, long time without ever having a problem. Actual traitors can rise incredibly far through the ranks if they're careful. Divine "internal police" are something that actually has to have effort put into it. Etc., etc., etc.

Far more, far better stories than "god pulled the plug" could ever produce. Because there's literally just one story there, and it only has three endings: you lose the powers for good because you were naughty, or you get them back for being a good little child, or you get a new deific parent who lets you break curfew and smoke if you feel like it.

 

[Clint_L]

Just because you find something incoherent does not make it inherently so. I think it is perfectly coherent, since we are talking about things that exist only in make-believe and not based in any objective reality.

The argument from personal incredulity is a pervasive logical fallacy. For many folks, their inability to understand something must mean that it cannot be true. Even when they have no qualifications whatsoever.

For the purposes of this thread, I can assure people that clerics or paladins without religious beliefs are perfectly coherent within D&D 5e. My proof is that I currently have such characters in my campaigns, and the game and narrative work just fine. If you don't believe that it is possible, you are just objectively wrong.

That's not to say they have to understand or agree with it for their games. I support people doing whatever floats their boat, as long as it isn't impinging on someone else. Trying to dictate how my players and I should play the game is impinging on someone else.

 

[MGibster]

Personally, I find the "god pulls the plug if you've ever been naughty" thing incredibly tedious. It's much, much more interesting to have a far more complicated relationship between faith and power, e.g. 4e's Investiture concept, where the church has to be picky about who it offers Investiture to...and the people who go astray have to be hunted down, not "all heresy is instantaneously nixed because Divine Sugar Momma cuts you off the instant you misbehave."

In all my years of running games, I've never actually played that card on anyone in D&D. Come to think of it, I've never even played that card on a Paladin. At least with the Investiture concept there's some connection between the god and the Cleric. For the most part, the people I game with who play Clerics actually try to have their characters behave according to the tenants of their faith.

 

[Hawk Diesel]

meh, I see no value in the discussion you seem to be interested in. Of course you can explain anything with anything, it just needs to work for you. So knock yourself out with wizards powered by self-confidence instead of studying. 400 pound fat slob martials that eat all day and so strongly believe they are in top form and insanely agile, able to kill dragons with one swing of a hammer that they physically should not even be able to lift, that they then proceed to do exactly that.


It was explained several times what is incoherent about this. If you just want to ignore that, this is going nowhere.

If this is about explaining other classes in the same incoherent fashion, then I fail to see the point of even having a discussion. Of course you can explain anything that way if the incoherence does not bother you, I see no value in this however, so I guess you got your wish and I am out.

Reading your post made me wonder if I was missing something in your responses. So I went back and read all of them. First of all, you never define what makes something coherent or incoherent aside from your own gut feeling. So it seems to be completely subjective, and you seem to refuse to offer a coherent definition of "coherent."

Going back over all your posts, your argument, as best as I can distill it, seems to be:

1) WotC shouldn't offer an "out" for people who want to eliminate gods from the game. As best as I can interpret this, you have an opinion of what the game should be, and the fact that WotC even suggests other ways of playing exist is offensive.

2) You mention the idea that worlds should follow rules. However, you ignore the fact that rules suggesting a being can be powered by belief in themselves may be internally consistent with the fiction of a given game, even if it would be inconsistent for another game that exists in a different fantasy/reality.

3) Lots of stating things are "nonsensical" without further explanation or evidence to support your claim.

4) Reiterating that the ideas proposed don't make sense to you, and your preference that the designers of D&D only allowed for your very narrow perspective.

5) The idea that a god is different than a person, ignoring that in many fantasies gods started as mortals and attained godhood.

6) Suggesting that the idea could be internally consistent within a given setting, and then when explanation was given on how it is consistent in various settings, saying the explanation wasn't good enough without providing what objective measures you use to base your standards.

7) Suggesting that a system that allows belief alone to empower a character must use a Skill Buy system, suggesting that fiction must inform a game's mechanics, which I find to be an incredibly narrow perspective and also ignores the fact that mechanics are an abstraction that allow for the story to be told and the game to be played.

8) Stating that belief in oneself doesn't make sense, but being a mutant or exposed to some power does (ignoring that this is make-believe and there are numerous stories that exist in which belief can empower individuals and alter reality).

So no. You've said a lot, but NONE of it amounts to more than personal bias and personal inability to accept perspectives outside your own.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

If we want to get grammatical about it - divine powers need to come from gods.

But there's no law saying paladins, clerics, or druids have to have a divine origin for their abilities. My default fantasy setting just has the Laws of Magic. Anyone can learn them and use them to cast spells. Those person may also priestesses/priests. Or not. No requirement one way or the other.

As for people developing powers from within - why not? There's tonnes of fantasy media in which characters cultivate themselves and develop super powers. Call it cultivation. Call it being on the path of the Buddha. Call it ultimate self-belief. It's all good.

As to the original question - which IIRC is something like "why make pacts with other-worldly powers?" Well, it really depends on the campaign setting. In a kitchen sink setting like default DND, yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense for a person to do a deal with Cthulhu when they can just pray to Sarenrae.

But maybe you need to know Saranrae's true mantra's to activate spells in Her name, and Sarenrae's church is a closed shop. Maybe Wizard's College is too expensive. Maybe you're not cool enough for Bard School. Maybe you just really like deep fried calamari. Any of these and other "real" world issues could force you to take the sell-your-soul path.

I'm reminded of something from the old Palladium Fantasy. To play a Diabolist, one of the best spell casting classes with access to power and summoning circles, you needed something like INT 15. INT 15 and you could summon and (hopefully) control demons. To play a witch, that is someone who has sold their soul to a demon, you needed INT 6. Just smart enough to know what you were doing. Then you cast spells like a wizard of the same level.

Now in these days of point-buy stats one would only have an INT 6 if you wanted it. So it would be a player decision. And maybe that's the answer - a variety of options allows for more players to find something they want to play. I mean, DND is intended to have wide appeal. And sometimes you want to play someone who cries "Blood and souls for Arioch!" when they get into a fight.

 

[M_Natas]

Which is precisely why I would restrict it to only granting you power if you actually worship yourself (either through narcissistic delusion causing a God Complex or a desire of apotheosis, like the Blood of Vol). Self-confidence isn't enough. Religious devotion is.

For the last campaign I DMed I created rules on how the players could become gods.
First they need a divine spark - either from an ancestor or given by or taken from another god.
In that campaign a (weakend) Godess was about to be captured and consumed by one of the Lieutenants of the BBEG, so instead of being captured, she sacrificed herself to give her divinity to the player characters (and their pet dragon).
So everybody got a divine spark (they could have said no, but who would have not accepted that?).

There were 7 tiers of godhood. The lowest one was - I would translate that to Pseudo-god (my rules are in German, if there is interest I can try to translate them to english). Your power as a god was based in the number of worshippers. But I also Levelgated things in order to not break the game completely.
From 0 to 9 worshippers you were a pseudo-god.
At that level the only benefit was just getting advantage for Prof.Bonus/2 (rounded) ability checks, saving throws, attack rolls per day.
The next tier was 10 to 99 (Demigod), than 100 to 999 (rising god) up to the last tier where you need a million+ worshippers (greater god).

And as a rising god, you can get clerics. But at that level you clerics were allowed to have combined level equal to your level. So a Level 10 Character who was a rising god could have a level 10 Cleric or 2 level 5 clerics or 10 level 1 clerics.

so, one of the characters was a cleric and now his god was dead (his second god in the campaign, he had to switch to her in order to save another PC). In order for him to keep his cleric powers, he made himself the cleric of himself (he had the highest follower count, because he resurrected a bunch of children the group used as magical child soldiers in order to stop a Kraken/amphibian mass invasion on the city - when I put a war wizard school into the setting where a bunch of kids learn how to throw fireballs it was meant as a warning, to show how desperate the city is that they train up their children to become war wizards - but my players were like - Kraken? Lets take 20 Children on our boat and let them blast the Kraken! What could go wrong!).

So that was the way I mechanically let a player keep his cleric powers by using himself as the god who gives the powers after his god died.

 

[M_Natas]

Because:

• not all people can manage that sort of thing.
• unlocking that kind of power can take time, time people don't have.
• they've been manipulated into a bad situation.
• someone or something is blocking their access.
• it never occurred to them to try something else.
• it's socially unacceptable for them to choose that path.
• it doesn't fit with their abilities, skills, and/or personality.
• they started on such a path (e.g. Warlock or Wizard) first.
• they tried the so-called "easy" path and didn't like it (or couldn't use it.)
• it isn't an option for this specific character (e.g. maybe warforged can't be druids.)
• they ARE a cleric/paladin/whatever, but it isn't enough somehow.
• they lost their old powers somehow, and this is a ready replacement.
• they were a Cleric/etc. before, but they retired and picked up a new skillset.

I could keep coming up with these all day. I hope a baker's dozen is adequate to demonstrate that there are ample reasons.


Personally, I find the "god pulls the plug if you've ever been naughty" thing incredibly tedious. It's much, much more interesting to have a far more complicated relationship between faith and power, e.g. 4e's Investiture concept, where the church has to be picky about who it offers Investiture to...and the people who go astray have to be hunted down, not "all heresy is instantaneously nixed because Divine Sugar Momma cuts you off the instant you misbehave." Suddenly, churches have to care. People who stray in small ways can go a long, long time without ever having a problem. Actual traitors can rise incredibly far through the ranks if they're careful. Divine "internal police" are something that actually has to have effort put into it. Etc., etc., etc.

Far more, far better stories than "god pulled the plug" could ever produce. Because there's literally just one story there, and it only has three endings: you lose the powers for good because you were naughty, or you get them back for being a good little child, or you get a new deific parent who lets you break curfew and smoke if you feel like it.

That would be an interesting Variant. Instead of "borrowed power" Gods trough potions and rituals change the body and mind of their clerics to grant them innate magic - so Sorcerer Clerics.
And everything they are deemed worthy they get a new potion of transmutation that grants more powers.

I wouldn't make it the main way for gods to give away power in campaigns I run, but it could be there (maybe especially for a Fraud God who has some unicorns bound in his Cellar, drawing their blood to empower himself and make potions to empower his clerics).
But I like the concept of borrowed power as one way of casting magic.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In all my years of running games, I've never actually played that card on anyone in D&D. Come to think of it, I've never even played that card on a Paladin. At least with the Investiture concept there's some connection between the god and the Cleric. For the most part, the people I game with who play Clerics actually try to have their characters behave according to the tenants of their faith.

That's fair. It is how the 3.x rules themselves describe what deities do to anyone who strays from the faith, however. It's straight-up that: your god can cut you off at any time, for any reason, and they always know exactly when you've done something they don't want you to do. Heresy, sometimes even just heterodoxy, is genuinely impossible unless the deity actually does support both sides of the conflict (which is really only a thing evil gods do, generally the "for the evulz" variety.) Having actual internecine conflict, where it's truly unclear who has the divine mandate, is fundamentally impossible under the presentation given by the 3e rules.

But yes, if you altered things so that it's rather more difficult/indirect/slow for the empowering deity to make such moves, then it's possible for some of it to happen...but heresy and internal division within the church still seems to be pretty much impossible. Which is sad, because that's one of the best story arcs you can have when the players are part of a big and sincerely good church--be it a conflict between goodness and secret wickedness, or goodness and well-intentioned extremism, such a schism is ripe for conflict and allows many different possible results (including the possibility that the bad guys win and now the good church must go underground!)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That would be an interesting Variant. Instead of "borrowed power" Gods trough potions and rituals change the body and mind of their clerics to grant them innate magic - so Sorcerer Clerics.
And everything they are deemed worthy they get a new potion of transmutation that grants more powers.

I wouldn't make it the main way for gods to give away power in campaigns I run, but it could be there (maybe especially for a Fraud God who has some unicorns bound in his Cellar, drawing their blood to empower himself and make potions to empower his clerics).
But I like the concept of borrowed power as one way of casting magic.

It's worth noting, Investiture is not truly "borrowed" power. It's more like "sent" power. The TL;DR of it is that after some kind of ritual (which can be conducted by the deity alone, but this requires extra mojo and is something they do only very rarely), the person receiving Investiture gets a little seed of divine power. It's not much--so as to not run afoul of the Primal Ban which keeps both deities and primordials out of the mortal realm--but enough to power divine stuff. Taking the power back is very difficult, maybe even impossible, once it's given--to the best of my knowledge there isn't an equivalent de-Investiture ritual to remove it. Once it's given, it's given permanently, the recipient would have to die to lose it.

So the deity doesn't have the ability to just pull the plug, the power is already "transferred" as it were. Instead, as noted, you have to send out other divine agents in order to track down rebellious ones and bring them in (or kill them.) That's where the Avenger fit into the broader narrative of 4e classes; the whole idea was that they were the covert executioners and "internal police" of the gods, hunting down any heresy or rebellion, which of course then brings in the quis custodiet ipsos custodes questions, amongst others. (And, of course, the Ezio Auditore connection can't be overlooked.)