D&D General The Role and Purpose of Evil Gods

[Maxperson]

The MM specifically states that Cult Fanatics are 4th-level spellcasters who use Wisdom and have cleric spells prepared. It's exactly the same wording as the Priest, who is also in the MM. By RAW, a Cult Fanatic is a spellcasting cleric. Also, the flavor text of the Cultist from the MM says this: "Cultists swear allegiance to dark powers such as elemental princes, demon lords, or archdevils." and that Cult Fanatics are their leaders.

NPCs don't use PC classes or rules. The MM tells us that they are using the cleric spell list in order to let us know where to find them. At the beginning of the NPC section is the spell swap portion. We need to know what list to look at and in this case the cultist uses the cleric spell list.

There isn't another appropriate list for a cultist to use that would let him get his divine powers from Hell itself or from personal belief, so cleric list would have to be the default in those situations. This is further backed up by looking at their special abilities which do not match the cleric class. Just like the archmage, while a powerful arcane caster, is not a wizard.

 

[Helldritch]

So I think you're at least partially wrong here. The MM is pretty clearly indicating that spellcultists are getting their power from arch-things (maybe not every arch-thing, but some at least). Now, it could very well be that the arch-thing is merely channeling the power from something else into their cleric, and instead of

[Arch-Thing] --> [Cultist]

it's actually

[Magic Source] --> [Arch-Thing] --> [Cultist]

But it's almost the same thing. The Cult Fanatic is getting clerical spells via their arch-thing.

So again, the takeaway from this is that D&D doesn't have a consistent rule on this.

In 5ed it is more
[Magic source] -> [Person's belief]
Not even a god is needed anymore... you can worship an ideal now... As long as the person keeps believing it is all good.

This is also why I question the value of a cleric in 5ed...

 

[Helldritch]

NPCs don't use PC classes or rules. The MM tells us that they are using the cleric spell list in order to let us know where to find them. At the beginning of the NPC section is the spell swap portion. We need to know what list to look at and in this case the cultist uses the cleric spell list.

There isn't another appropriate list for a cultist to use that would let him get his divine powers from Hell itself or from personal belief, so cleric list would have to be the default in those situations. This is further backed up by looking at their special abilities which do not match the cleric class. Just like the archmage, while a powerful arcane caster, is not a wizard.

You got a point. In the 5ed itteration of elemental evil, almost all spell casters cultists are.. sorcerers...
This can get confusing doesn't it?

 

[Faolyn]

This is also why I question the value of a cleric in 5ed...

Because cleric is the term for a person who gets their power from belief, is all. Maybe it should be called something else, but so far they fill a role.

 

[Lanefan]

I feel there is a lot of evidence to support the claim that Gygax considered demon lords and archdevils to be deities and that his D&D materials treated them as such, though usually without explicitly saying they were deities. Later D&D had different takes at different points for different beings.

It's perhaps worth keeping in mind the greater politics of the day when looking at this stuff.

By the mid-80s the Satanic panic was getting up a head of steam, meaning that during late 1e and most of 2e sheer political expediency played heavily in favour of having archfiends etc. at least appear as written to rank lower than good/neutral deities, even if in practice they were of equal stature.

 

[Helldritch]

Double post, ignore.
I hate phones...

 

[Faolyn]

NPCs don't use PC classes or rules. The MM tells us that they are using the cleric spell list in order to let us know where to find them. At the beginning of the NPC section is the spell swap portion. We need to know what list to look at and in this case the cultist uses the cleric spell list.

There isn't another appropriate list for a cultist to use that would let him get his divine powers from Hell itself or from personal belief, so cleric list would have to be the default in those situations. This is further backed up by looking at their special abilities which do not match the cleric class. Just like the archmage, while a powerful arcane caster, is not a wizard.

The only people who get cleric spells are clerics, since every spellcasting class (not spellcasting archetype) gets their own spell list. It's not like in, say 2e, where druids got priest spells, but only from certain spheres.

No, the Cult Fanatic isn't a 1:1 match to the cleric, but neither is the Priest that is present in the MM; they effectively have a paladin's smite ability (spend a spell slot to increase damage). So, keeping in mind that NPCs don't have to use PC classes or rules, there's nothing in the Cult Fanatic that says that it's not a cleric, and everything to say that it is.

The DMG says this about Adventurer NPCs: "NPC supporting characters are easier to play if you limit their class options. Good candidates for supporting characters include a cleric with the Life domain, a fighter with the Champion archetype, a rogue with the Thief archetype, and a wizard specializing in Evocation."

Which means that NPCs may not be built using PC rules, but they are considered to have PC classes.

Also.

In the 5e DMG, under "Other Religious Systems," it says: "Monotheistic religions revere only one deity, and in some cases, deny the existence of any other deity. If you introduce a monotheistic religion into your campaign, you need to decide whether other gods exist. Even if they don't, other religions can exist side by side with the monotheistic religion. If these religions have clerics with spellcasting ability, their spells might be powered by the one true deity, by lesser spirits who aren't deities (possibly including powerful aberrations, celestials, fey, fiends, or elementals), or simply by their faith." (emphasis mine)

So right here, the 5e DMG is saying that fiends can grant cleric spells.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Completely wrong, which would prove pretty definitively that you did not perfectly follow what I said. I was in fact not upset that the conversation started between you and @Helldritch. Where the conversation started had nothing to do with what I said to you.

Then I am curious why you declared "That's between you and him. I'm not sure why you want to argue with me about it." when the question of why the discussion that was being had was being had. That seems to have plenty to do with where the conversation started, since that is what I was talking about immediately before you said this.

If you opt in, sure. Since optional rules are not the default, they cannot be assumed to be in play during discussions about the game. They are by definition out of play, since the default does not include them.

We assume optional rules all the time. And since our discussion is more about the general, then demonstrating that the rules were not only perfectly fine with, but had sections to continue utilizing Archfiends as basically gods is relevant.

By RAW clerics require a god. I think it's a shame that they removed the ability to follow an ideal, but that seems to be gone.

"Clerics are intermediaries between the mortal world and the distant planes of the gods."

And by RAW a Cultist who worships a Elemental Prince, Demon Lord or Archdevil has clerical magic. Also, that wuote has some interesting phrasing doesn't it? Between the mortal world and "the distant planes of the gods". Not the gods themselves, but their planes.

Where does the Goddess Tiamat reside? The Nine Hells.
Where does the Goddess Lolth reside? The Abyss.

And I'm sure we can track down many, many more. So, we don't need gods to have clerics, per that quote you just gave. It is their planes that they are acting as intermediaries to.

Some followers are religious. Many are not. Especially when it comes to fiends. Let me ask you this. Kim Kardashian has 228 million followers on Instagram. How many of those do you estimate worship her?

Well, I guess that depends. How many have joined a cult in her name and worship at a shrine with her image? People from the Cult of Orcus do that, and the Cult of Graz'zt and the Cult of Mammon and the Cult of Fiernia. These are all real religious organizations in DnD. So, your "especially when it comes to fiends" is a bit disengenious, because they ARE worshiped as religious idols.

There aren't hundreds published, either. At least not official D&D ones. No idea how many third party archfiends there are.

I've read the lists. They are quite extensive, and I'm sure they are not comprehensive for all of DnD ever published.

 

[Minigiant]

So again, the takeaway from this is that D&D doesn't have a consistent rule on

D&D has a issue when it comes to older settings or setting neutral items.

However I don't think such inconsistency would fly in completely new product.

If/When D&D 5th edition or 6th edition introduces a completely new original setting, an extremely inconsistent power source and cosmology will likely not be tolerated by the ultra critical fandoms of today since they'd expect more of designers today.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Is Michael Jordan a D&D god or arch-thing? No? He has nothing to do with D&D. However, discussing different ways to use and understand D&D gods, including completely homebrew ideas, is totally relevant.

Not when the discussion is about what the books tell us is the case.

So actually the gods don't squabble over the "constantly," like you said.

And new gods have "appeared" in the Realms often--by which I mean, the writers came up with them and inserted them into a book or adventure or novel. Those new gods each had portfolios which were new to the Realms. So the portfolios exist. You aren't aware of them until some god is written for them. It's not like there's a list of portfolios you get to cross off when you assign one.

They do, they just don't succeed. That's because a God succeeding is usually a major adventure or "world-shaking event".

And yes, new writers add things all the time, this is another problem with Maxperson's position that the Cosmic Order is always maintained, but it is a meta-textual issue, and less relevant because it has to be addressed meta-textually, not within the world, which is what we are discussing.

Again, show that this is the case. You are claiming that portfolios aren't just laying around for the taking. Show that Vecna stole or was granted the portfolio "secrets of magic" from some other god.

Didn't I just do that? What makes you so willing to dismiss what I just showed you?

Show us the cosmic balance.

Wouldn't that be better directed to Maxperson who made that claim?

Then, show us that when, a mortal ascends, it unbalances the cosmos.

Haven't I done that by showing the incredibly high likelihood that adding a new god seems to have taken pieces from other gods? Instead of demanding that I show you things, why don't you respond to why what I have shown you is somehow insufficient?

Unless you have some source I don't know about, you have no idea how much is needed to unbalance the cosmos. Prove that the ascension of a mortal will change its balance, especially to the point that other people (possibly including mortals) will even notice.

Part of Max's claim was that an Archfiend getting a portfolio would unbalance the cosmos, getting AO involved to stop Archfiends from becoming gods. If you need proof on that, maybe address the person who made the original claim,

For all you know, it may take two, ten, hundreds, maybe thousands of mortals ascending to godhood to change the cosmic balance--if the cosmic balance can even be changed in this manner. And maybe it can't. The third layer of Arcadia was, thanks to the Harmonium, changed from Lawful Neutral Good (or possibly LGN) to Lawful Neutral and got sucked out of Arcadia and became a cog in Mechanus--and the balance of the cosmos remained unchanged. Sure, people got really pissed at the Harmonium and worried about what would happen if things got worse, but the Great Wheel keeps chugging along. At least until 4th edition, but it's back in shape now.

Ravenloft, once a demiplane in the Ethereal, got moved to the Shadowfell. The paraelemental and quasilemental planes got turned into a single unit, the Elemental Chaos. Entire new Material Planes come into existence, not only with the creation of each new setting but with the start of each new game. The cosmos contains an infinite number of infinite layers. But the Great Wheel keeps chugging.

One mortal becoming a god is literally nothing in comparison to that.

Hey, you know who would be a great person to address those concerns to? Maxperson. The guy who made the original claim. He seems like a great guy to address these concerns to, since he is the one who was must concerned with the cosmic balance and how the Portfolio's going to the wrong beings would be met with an overgod reversing that so that the Cosmic balance is maintained.

I wasn't talking about the discussion we're having. I was talking about creating gods and sticking them in the pantheon, and you insisted that it has to be done by determining their role and purpose first ("you're doing it backwards," which is literally the same as "you're doing it wrong.") and then only using them if they're "necessary" (i.e., if you're using them when they're not necessary, you're doing it wrong").

Not "I personally think it should be done role/purpose first." Instead, you outright said I was doing it wrong because I wasn't doing it your way.

That's what you were talking about? I thought you were talking about how to have the discussion we are having about the role and purpose of Evil Gods in DnD.

I don't care how you go about creating gods. What does that process have to do with anything we are actually discussing?

Pretty much everything you've said has been against having redundant gods. Even the bit you misunderstood above was you saying that having redundant gods was unnecessary.

So, if you don't care if redundant gods exist, and you don't care that people have them in their games, then what's your purpose in harping on their redundancy? Are you simply not going to be happy until everyone participating in this thread says "Yes! These gods are redundant!"

No, the bit I misunderstood was thinking you had any interest in participating in the discussion. Yes, I personally find their redundancy undesirable, but I'm not pushing my preference on anyone.

Instead, this conversation has continued because the position of "Yes, they are redundant, here are facts to support that claim" is being met with "No, they are not redundant, your facts are wrong, and these real facts prove it." So, yes, I do expect that this conversation is going to continue until we can reach a consensus.

I'm pretty sure that they've both either posted quotes from books that support their stance, or that other people have posted those quotes. In other words, their RULES have textural support. As opposed to your "it stands to reason" claims.

I mean, the gods of Greyhawk and the gods of the Realms work differently--there's no Ao telling the Greyhawk gods they can't have two gods with the same portfolio--and you're treating them like they're the same!

Because that's what Maxperson did. But, here's a funny question, how are the rule's text I've quoted and Pemerton quoted not supporting us? And, why do they need textual support if, as you claimed, they were only caring about their preferences.

Or, are you fully aware that this discussion has basically nothing to do with preferences.

Personality has everything to do with the gods. Its why you have war gods that are good, evil, lawful, chaotic, and neutral.

Really? So what about personality makes a Demi-God different from a Greater God? Because those are the types of discussions we are having. And I don't think personality has anything to do with that distinction.

And yes, Boccob, like probably all other D&D gods, is not omniscient. His goal is to learn all that there is to know about magic. This means that his knowledge is incomplete. That's where Vecna steps in. His goal is to obfuscate information about magic and other things. Boccob uncovers magical knowledge where he can, makes it so others can learn it. Vecna hides magical knowledge where he can.

And before Vecna existed, who stepped in to do that?

Because honestly, your sources have mostly been pretty weak, along the lines of "hah, the archfiends grant 7th-level spells back in 1e, therefore they're just like gods!" (I literally do not care if they also granted 9th-level spells in 3e.)

so, one of the points of difference claimed is that the Gods can grant spells and the Archfiends can't. We've quoted sources from 1e, 2e, 3.X, 4e and 5e showing spells being granted by archfiends. That is slightly different than what you seem to think we've demonstrated.

Yes? I don't see the issues here. Just because he has a canon answer that he's following doesn't mean that he's wrong when he says DMs can change anything they like, or that he isn't arguing canon. I fail to see the problem here.

Because we are discussing what the canon is. And you keep yelling at me because I'm telling him his preference is wrong. Make up your mind, is he arguing canon, or is he arguing personal preference. Am I allowed to discuss canon?

According to this, Cuthbert was first mentioned in The Dragon #2, in '76, whereas Heironeous didn't appear into Dragon #67, in '82.

Huh, I didn't know that. Was Heironeous extant in Gygax's game before Cuthbert's Apotheosis?

Nope. Because Caoimhin still isn't the god of calories. He's the god of food. And that's just moving the goalposts. Honesty was an aspect of being a paladin, but not the only one. And the fact that Boccob and Cuthbert both share honesty doesn't mean one is stepping on the other's toes. It just means they have a trait in common.

Then you can provide me a food that has literally no calories, in any way shape or form?

And, hey, maybe they do share a trait, or, you know, one of those "traits" is a portfolio bound to the fundament of reality. Which makes it a bit different than a personality trait. And Honesty is only one aspect of being a Paladin, true, but if you are a god of paladins and all they represent, then being a god on one of their core aspects seems to be pretty obvious.

Well, Gygax strongly hinted that Cuthbert got apotheosed here on Earth and then went to Oerth, so if there was any sort of alteration to any cosmic balance, it wouldn't be on Greyhawk. Because he was already a god when he arrived.

Huh, I thought he came from Greyhawk.

So, you get annoyed that the conversation isn't 100% focused on what you want it to be, and when people use facts to back up their assertions. So you want people to pay attention to you and only you, and to believe everything you say without question or opinion of their own.

Oh-kay....

So you are literally saying that there is no reason to actually try to communicate with you, unless it's to, what, to tell you that you're right?

You wanted to know why I was "complaining". I assumed you included in that both my increasingly frustrating conversations with you trying to talk about anything except the core discussion and my actual discussions with people in the main discussion lines.

I personally would divide these. I complain about you constantly trying to derail the conversation and constantly getting on my case about the fact that I'm trying to focus on the main discussion instead of following you down these merry little paths. My discussions with the others on the actual debate isn't complaining.

So, let me ask you this. What is the purpose of declaring that I can't continue the discussions that we have been having? Why should I discuss with you how we design gods for pantheons in this thread, when that isn't what the discussions centered on?