Dragon 370 - Invoker Preview

[gribble]

I personally don't see clerics the way you do, mired in Church Bureaucracy and seeing it all as just ritual rather than a personal diefic connection. I personally find it difficult to be a getting divine power from a god if you don't have a personal connection to them.

And that's fair enough. Not everyone has to agree...


Although I wouldn't say that I see Clerics as "mired in bureaucracy" or lacking a "personal deific connection", IMC a Clerics perception of their god (and how best to serve/worship/draw on power from their god) is definitely coloured by "church-tinted glasses". While Clerics very strongly believe they have a connection to their god, it is via the rituals they are taught are the proper (and possibly only) way to maintain and draw upon that connection.

So as I see it, Invokers fit a very real niche - the Moses, Joan of Arc, Gandalf type of characters who have a very strong connection with one or more deities without also having a strong connection with a church (and hence an organised way of worshipping said deities).

 

[Rechan]

Although I wouldn't say that I see Clerics as "mired in bureaucracy" or lacking a "personal deific connection", IMC a Clerics perception of their god (and how best to serve/worship/draw on power from their god) is definitely coloured by "church-tinted glasses". While Clerics very strongly believe they have a connection to their god, it is via the rituals they are taught are the proper (and possibly only) way to maintain and draw upon that connection.

Hm. I can dig that. It's a decent point; that 'The God won't answer the prayer unless you wave your hands this way. Can't offend her.'

Actually, it reminds me of certain Chinese practices, about how very ceremonial they are. I remember seeing a documentary where a Buddhist (or was it Taoist?) priest did a dance that represented him descending into the Underworld to retrieve the soul of a departed loved one and bringing them up to Heaven. I could imagine such a thing, with the assumption that 'well, if the Cleric doesn't do the ritual, then the soul won't get where it's going...' Similar to the notion that if you don't give a body a proper burial, the soul would wander the earth, or rise as an undead of some type.

But I would think it depends on the deity, too. Some are likely more about ritual than not. The Goddess of the Wilderness and Frontier may not really have many "Churches" to begin with, but wandering preachers. Same with the God of Doorways and Roads. And I can't imagine a whole lot of ritual involved in a God of War; punching the other guy in the face is the proper method of prayer.

 

[Ahglock]

You suck at powergaming! You'd rather take Skill Training in Bluff or what?

I know it was a joke. But if it fit the character then yes. Though my general preference in feats is to take feats that give me an ability, not feats that give me a small bonus to what i do.

 

[Ahglock]

That's an issue with the wizard AoEs in general. It doesn't make a bit of difference for these feats. I doubt your main concern when an ally happens to be in your burst will be +1 damage from a feat. OTOH, if you can catch 8 enemies in it, it's +8 damage total, and that's not negligible.

-O

It is not 8 damage it is 1 damage to 8 opponents, and yes that is still negligible. There is a big, huge, whopping difference between 8 damage and 1 damage to 8. 8 damage has a decent shot of meaning something, I think it is fairly rare for 1 point of damage to actually pan out as making a difference. How often are foes dropped by knocking them to exactly 0? How often are they knocked to just 1 HP, that is how often 1 HP to 8 dudes matters, like on the fist of almost never.

 

[gribble]

But I would think it depends on the deity, too. Some are likely more about ritual than not.

Yep, definitely. For some churches, the "ritual" may be little more than "if you don't spend at least one day in ten in the woods communing with <nature god>, she will stop answering your prayers", whereas clearly others would be a lot more rigorous.

And I see Invokers as more "Bah, humbug. I know that if I talk to <war god> and he wants to answer me he will, regardless of how I hold my sword or whether or not I've been to church services this week!".

That, I believe, is the real difference between Clerics and Invokers, and is unrelated to how devoted the individual is to their god or whether they are devoted to one god or many. It doesn't even have to be related to the battle between the Primordials and the Gods.

Invokers are also a pretty new concept in D&D (even when you consider 3.5 Favoured Souls), and I imagine they'll cause some people to reconsider a lot of the religious background of their world/campaign. I could see the followers of some gods - especially those gods not overly concerned with ritual - consisting almost exclusively of Invokers, wheres the followers of other gods would be almost exclusively Clerics.

 

[Rechan]

[sblock]One thing that I don't see explored much in settings are different sects/followings within the same Deity's church, with different approaches or avenues. One could explore this with invokers and clerics too, but just in general, I see less 'Well, we worship the same God, but we are radically different in our approach!"

Most settings generally have 'Everybody of X behaves pretty much like Y', across the board. And that's also when it comes to specific religions. But perhaps that's a little more deep than most are willing to plunge.

I could see the followers of some gods - especially those gods not overly concerned with ritual - consisting almost exclusively of Invokers, wheres the followers of other gods would be almost exclusively Clerics.

Well hell, I can see some religions with more Warlocks than either (even if it's another power source).[/sblock]

 

[Rechan]

Incidentally, I'm very curious about seeing the Avenger.

 

[Staffan]

But to use your example, the Invoker is praying to Odin one minute, and Bast the next, then Zeus the third, because D&D has "The Elven Pantheon, the Orc pantheon, the Dwarf pantheon..."

Not in 4e, you don't. 4e just has "the gods", which include both Moradin, Corellon, and Gruumsh in the same pantheon. They've taken care to point out that while many eladrin worship Corellon, that's mostly because Corellon's portfolio matches up pretty well with what eladrin like (arcane magic, fey, beauty). You'll find plenty of eladrin worshiping other gods as well (like Bahamut or Kord for eladrin warriors, or Ioun for eladrin scholars), and you'll find lots of non-eladrin worshipping Corellon (like mages and artists).

And in most of your pantheons, you didn't have Mwahaha Evil deities. Zehir, Lolth, Vecna, and Asmodeus.

Loki. Hades.

But okay. Let's crack open the 4e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. It spells out on page 80 the 'Pantheons of the World'. Five different Pantheons: The Greater Gods, the Gods, the Exarchs, the Primordials, and the Archdevils.

That's, at best, three different pantheons. "Greater gods", "Gods", and "Exarchs" are just three different power levels, but they're all part of the same pantheon.

Primordials are different, and I probably wouldn't have Divine classes involved with them. That sounds like something for the Primal or Elemental power source.

 

[Rechan]

Not in 4e, you don't.

I've answered that all ready multiple times in this thread.

Loki. Hades.

Not evil.

Hades was at best a Neutral deity. He just was in Charge of the underworld. He wasn't a cackling, bad man who was blamed for evil things that happened, no one was afraid of him, and he wasn't conspiring to hurt the other gods/go after people/etc. Hades was, at the end of the day, the guy in charge of the jail for souls.

Loki was CN. Trickster deity. He didn't do anything overtly evil.

That's, at best, three different pantheons.

Except that the FRCS categorized them differently.

 

[Vendark]

Loki was CN. Trickster deity. He didn't do anything overtly evil.

He conspired to have Baldur murdered.