Fluff, Rules, and the Cleric/Warlock Multiclass (WITH POLL!)

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Corellon commands you to work closely with his trusted servant, the ancient unicorn Ri Darin. Boom. Cleric/Warlock.
Asmodeus commands you to assist and guard his daughter Glasya. Boom. Cleric/Warlock.

Too many people are stuck on the idea that gods are jealous. Only some of them are.

[MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION], those are great citations about the cleric serving the deity. I don't dispute any of them.

But those citations don't mention a lot of exclusiveness. None of them say that the gods won't allow their servants to also make pacts. I think that's something you're bringing to the game.

The only thing I see that comes close is the part about "...defeat its rivals." Now, you could take the stance that every god is rivals of every other entity in the multiverse, but that's not typically what "rivals" means.

lowkey13 said:

So, sure, it is certainly possible to imagine a person who is so devoted to their deity that they have been raised from the ranks of "mere" priest to be imbued with divine power to be an agent of their deity, and that person ALSO being so self-absorbed in their quest for individual knowledge and power that they make a separate pact with a different being, and that neither the deity nor the patron has any conflict ... I mean, anything is possible.

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Possible to imagine??? My understanding (weak though it is; I'm not a history or anthropology specialist by any means) is that this is exactly how people behaved for most of human civilization.

"Jealous God" is a concept from relatively modern monotheism. In ancient times, when "loose pantheons" were actually a thing, there was no problem with people worshipping multiple gods. It was not at all unheard of for a Holy Person devoted to a particular god to ALSO dabble in mysticism and mysteries of another god or a whole 'nother religion.

Again, if you're interpreting the gods to be jealous, protective, or restrictive of their followers, that's fine! A lot of people would run it that way. I just don't think the text of 5E supports such strictness as the default normal behavior of deities. Deities are established as having rivals; but the notion that everyone is a rival doesn't match the loose-pantheon model.

Also, I don't necessarily see this as a rules vs. fluff issue, but rather an issue of DM authority vs. Player authority.

Proof:

1. The DM controls the entire universe.
2. The player only controls their one single PC.
3. So, jeez, DMs, let the player play the character they want to play, because it's the only thing they have control over!
4. ...except, if the choice of character implies something about the setting, now the player is taking control away from the DM!
5. Therefore, friction.

In general I think anytime the DM disallows a specific game element it should be because it conflicts with something consequential in the campaign setting. Disallowing MC in general is fine, but if you are going to rule out certain combos like cleric/warlock then gods and patrons need to be more than an afterthought, not just something you pay lip service to at character creation but real plot drivers for your character. Something like the faiths in The Book of the Righteous can be useful to set up motivations and boundaries for a cleric or paladin and explain why they can't have a warlock patron and also serve a specific deity. I don't have a lot of patience for "I don't think it should work that way, and I'm the DM, so that's final. Rule 0!" That's a win-lose outcome. Show me the win-win. Tell me how I'm going to have fun even though this combo isn't allowed. "Deities and their followers are prime movers in organized society in this campaign and a cleric will have their hands full dealing with the demands of your superiors and your deity. Warlocks and witches also hold an important position as intermediaries with benign or malevolent spirits. These spirits are demanding for their services so we would have to talk about the specifics of your pact. Warlocks are viewed as heretics and cultists by the main faiths, so clerics and warlocks are often rivals. It wouldn't make sense to be both in this campaign. Whichever class you pick, you'll have a lot of fun and you'll be too busy to miss being multi-classed. Let's go with one or the other now and see where the story goes and maybe we can talk about it later if it makes sense at the time." I can respect that and now I'm looking forward to the game with my single-classed character.

Overall, I think the warlock class gets a lot of undue criticism because players are getting all the benefits but aren't suffering any consequences for being beholden to a patron, and so far WotC hasn't published anything to help DMs bring patrons to life. Off the top of my head, the patron's contract might require the character to trade one of their permanent magic items in exchange for learning a new invocation. I'm sure others could come up with better. Warlock should be a class that some players avoid because they decide the cost isn't worth it.

lowkey13 said:

A warlock? "Warlocks are driven by an insatiable need for knowledge and power, which compels them into their pacts and shapes their lives. ... Once a pact is made, a warlock's thirst for knowledge and power can't be slaked with mere study and research. No one makes a pact with such a mighty patron if he or she doesn't intend to use the power thus gained."

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Except "The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you" who could have accidently "infected" you with a pact by touching an item infused with its power. I have a Warlock, who thinks he is a Sorcerer because he doesn't know the difference and a cult experimenting with dark powers used him as one of many test subjects to attempt to draw power to grow their forces from one of these entities. He woke up not knowing were or how he got the power but used it to escape once he became aware of it. I actually intend to cross class Tempest Cleric following the Deity of the Leader of our party. The two are not in conflict and both tied to our story.

lowkey13 said:

So, sure, it is certainly possible to imagine a person who is so devoted to their deity that they have been raised from the ranks of "mere" priest to be imbued with divine power to be an agent of their deity, and that person ALSO being so self-absorbed in their quest for individual knowledge and power that they make a separate pact with a different being, and that neither the deity nor the patron has any conflict ... I mean, anything is possible. But, that's not how I roll. Which is what I said.

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Which, is possible though and a possible player choice. Also, what about the repentant soul? Made a deal with an evil Fiend or Arch Fey and now you regret it but can't discard your power or escape your pact so you swear fealty to a Deity to suppress the power and redeem your self by doing good deeds. That being said you can also continue to use the power you received to stick it to your patron. (like Spawn, Ghost rider, or any number of other "I am going to take this curse and shove it up your.... well you get the idea "Heroes")

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lowkey13 said:

In my group, the idea of "designing out" a character is anathema. You start at level one, and things happen from there. I prefer an emergent story; but I (and my table) are not representative of everyone. *shrug*

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This concept doesn't come from 'designing out' a character by necessity either, so your assumption that it is shows that you really don't understand the situation.

lowkey13 said:

So when you go on about creating a "Spawn" character, or a "Ghost rider," all I can think is, "Well, more power to ya, but that's not what I'm doing." And it would be truly awesome if you would accord the same respect back. Know what I mean?

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You attribute people who want to build that back story of trying to build literal comic book characters.

And you demand respect? Give it first.

lowkey13 said:

I'm glad you are happy with your interpretation of the rules, and that works for your table! Go at it, my friend, just don't pee on my leg and demand that my table says that it is raining.

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Don't frame other people's arguments as one-dimensional and shallow in the face of many people presenting versions that aren't and then cry 'wow you guys are so unfair'.

You're a hypocrite arguing in bad faith, and unless you start engaging with the best arguments put forth by the people with opposing viewpoints, rather than your own little internal straw man, you're wasting everyone's time.

lowkey13 said:

I truly meant that. Now, it happens to be my opinion that the Venn Diagram of those who come up with post hoc rationalizations for Warlock/Cleric "stories" and those who use the phrase "Warlock Dip" as something other than tasty Orc food is a perfect circle- but again, that's just me.

As I already stated, people come into this with different conceptions. In my group, the idea of "designing out" a character is anathema. You start at level one, and things happen from there. I prefer an emergent story; but I (and my table) are not representative of everyone. *shrug*

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I think that part of the issue that people are having with the way that you are stating your views is not that you are associating post-hoc rationalisation "stories" with people who take a few levels of warlock as the same category.

I would suggest that it is because you seem to be stating that anyone who multiclasses cleric and warlock must be in that category, as opposed to coming to the decision to multiclass organically through character decisions in play.
You are heavily implying that anyone multiclassing cleric and warlock is doing so for optimisation reasons and attempting to justify it through RP reasons afterwards.

Furthermore you appear to be mischaracterising the combination as mixing only a few of the more stereotypical concepts and attempting to dismiss all the other options provided through subclass, setting and imagination as "edge cases".

No one is arguing that you can't rule how you like in your games. But if it sounds like you're not actually understanding the entire issue, people are going to try to explain it to you.

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