D&D 5E MTOF: Elves are gender-swapping reincarnates and I am on board with it

[jasper]

Please please can I have a beer belly elf riding a pinto doing a drive by knocking the horned helms off dwarves......
On the Subject of art can we have some art of fantasy critters that look normal and not like they are force fed roids for breakfast?

 

[jasper]

Maybe.

Or maybe the art dept. is suggesting these creatures have built-in water or nourishment storage analagous to the humps on a camel... ?

"at last a river" proclaimed the dragonborn, " me waterskins were getting kind of flat!"

 

[Yaarel]

I'm not sure any class that literally means "religious leader" is better designed without religion being part of it. As a designer myself, and with a real job of being a systems analyst/project manager, any time you miss the primary scope of what you're designing, we'd call that "horrible design", not "better designed".

What you're wanting is a magic user or sorcerer or any other caster class that isn't tied to religion being it's thing. Stop trying to change the cleric into something that is literally the opposite of what it's supposed to represent.

For example, Buddhists can have ‘clerics’ and a ‘religion’ without ‘gods’.

To think ‘religion’ means the same thing as ‘gods’ is ethnocentric.

D&D benefits from being open to the religious traditions of more ethnic groups.




The cleric class can welcome religions that are ‘nontheistic’. For example, both reallife Daoists and fantasy Dark Sun clerics, can be characterized as ‘nontheistic elementalists’.

The core rules work better when they get out of the way of cosmology and world building.

Setting books are the place to flesh out cosmological assumptions − whether Dark Sun or Forgotten Realms or Lord of the Rings or Modern d20 or homebrew.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For example, Buddhists can have ‘clerics’ and a ‘religion’ without ‘gods’.

(Snip)

For example, both reallife Daoists and fantasy Dark Sun clerics, can be characterized as ‘nontheistic elementalists’.

That’s not entirely accurate. Buddhist thought consistently rejects the notion of a creator deity. However, in its Saṃsāra doctrine, it teaches the concept of gods, heavens and rebirths; none of the gods is a creator. Buddhism posits that mundane deities such as Mahabrahma are misconstrued to be a creator.

Religious Daoism has its own temples, priests, sacred writings, rites, and gods. It is polytheistic, meaning it recognizes many gods, each of whom is worshipped for different functions.
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Taichi/gods.html

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have a problem with more shamanistic/nontheistic descriptions of faith traditions, but those two wouldn’t be the best examples.

 

[jasper]

hussar ...5e. Light Domain cleric. Done. 100% strictly legal. No reference whatsoever to any diety.

What's the difference?....

Strictly illegal. By the way, illegal in AL.

Too many references to gods everywhere else in the Players Handbook and other core rules.

Impossible to play without running into gods.

Ok I just passed my 100th dming session for AL. I been way to busy to double check someone player sheet to see what gawd they get their voodoo from. Can you give both a SRD, PHB, and any other AL document that forces me to kick someone from the table if they don't have a gawd listed.
PS on the downloaded pc sheets from dm guild please tell where is the gawd location.

 

[jasper]

That legal for home play, but its against the AL rules so its against the rules of organized play. Clerics and those who take the Acolyte Feat has to choose a deity from either the PHB FR and Monster Deity lists, SCAG, MTOFs. Its right in the Adventurer's League Players Guide v7 except for the mention of MTOFs which has its own rules document at least umtil they update the ALPG to v8.

page 3
Deities. If your character worships a deity, those deities listed in the Deities of the Forgotten Realms and Nonhuman Deities tables in the PHB or any deity listed in the resources listed in Step 1& 2, above are available. While paladins don’t have to worship a deity, clerics do. If your deity doesn’t include suggested domains in the resource in which it is found, only the Life domain is available

 

[jasper]

I don't recall ever seeing an AL DM demand a player insert religion into their roleplaying of their cleric. Players either did, or didn't based on their own style. And frankly, if you want to play a class without having ties to religion, try choosing a class that doesn't literally mean "religious leader". There are lots to choose from.

but but but
whaaaa whaaaaa I want to be healer but don't worship Jasper the evil, Morrus the Menance or Sure real Scrosanct.

 

[Lanefan]

But in any case, with regard to gaming design, the paladin class works better without alignment mechanics, the cleric class works better without gods mechanic.

Without alignment restrictions (arbitrary in most previous editions, enforced by Oaths in 5e) what's the point of having Paladin be its own class at all?

And without some sort of divinity backing them up, Clerics might as well be Sorcerers without the pact and with vastly expanded spell lists.

 

[Yaarel]

That’s not entirely accurate. Buddhist thought consistently rejects the notion of a creator deity. However, in its Saṃsāra doctrine, it teaches the concept of gods, heavens and rebirths; none of the gods is a creator. Buddhism posits that mundane deities such as Mahabrahma are misconstrued to be a creator.

Religious Daoism has its own temples, priests, sacred writings, rites, and gods. It is polytheistic, meaning it recognizes many gods, each of whom is worshipped for different functions.
http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Philosophy/Taichi/gods.html

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t have a problem with more shamanistic/nontheistic descriptions of faith traditions, but those two wouldn’t be the best examples.

I have a friend who is a Theravada Buddhist from Sri Lanka. His family follows a specific stream that is nontheistic. Indeed, his family is proud of this. Once his dad was trying to open up a new store, and the Hindu employees went on strike because that calendar date was inauspicious to Hindu gods. To resolve the matter, his dad had no religious problem bribing a Hindu Brahmin to lie and tell the employees that that day was in fact auspicious. (Heh, tho it should be noted, this Brahmin also had no difficulty taking the bribe.)

Any way, it is true, Buddhism adapts to whatever culture it is in, and some traditions have gods, maybe sort of like some Medieval Christian traditions had elves. But the socalled ‘philosophical’ nontheistic traditions are core and retain reverence. To be fair, the Buddha himself is nontheistic. According to one tradition, someone asked the Buddha if the gods actually exist. His answer was, it doesnt matter.

 

[Sacrosanct]

but but but
whaaaa whaaaaa I want to be healer but don't worship Jasper the evil, Morrus the Menance or Sure real Scrosanct.

Then play a bard


Seriously though, with the amount of healing available in 5e, no one needs to play a cleric to have a party healer. Heck, the druid fills that role (and did in 1e as well) pretty well.