D&D (2024) I have the DMG. AMA!

[Neonchameleon]

So many of us have said over and over that there is a path to restoration. That in game the cleric will need to make some sort of atonement. We've also said that the "stripping away of powers" does not happen all at once in one fell swoop unless the offense is incredibly obviously against the God's core ethic and extreme in effect. When a cleric realizes he didn't receive one of his spells perhaps that alone will steer him back on course. The Deity wants the cleric back on course and not becoming a fighter.

There is a huge difference between "A path to make your PC a functional party member again" and not taking away their functionality.

You just state these sorts of things to get people angry. It's your opinion and obviously you are getting buried in responses indicating your view is not the only one.

I am going to assume therefore that everything you have stated round entitled players being the problem is stated deliberately to get people angry - because that is your opinion and obviously you are getting buried in responses indicating that your view isn't the only one.

However ENWorld is a forum which is roughly 90% DMs from memory. There are way more DMs here than there are non-DMs. (Possibly more perma-DMs than exclusive players). And the DM has far more ability to break the game than any player. I therefore come in here DM critical.

I'm not against setting group expections first. It's all super important. The thing is you can't really do "setting group expectations" until you understand the details of being a DM and making decisions about the game. But this is not a hill to die on.

The entire first chapter is about running the game. You can go into worldbuilding first - but you do not have to. Worldbuilding is an entirely orthoganal skill to DMing.

You are just assuming your entire view as a given. Yes if you combine spell casting with priestly ordination as a single event sure but I don't think most people would default to that thinking who are familiar with D&D.

I am not combining spellcasting with priestly ordination. I am saying that becoming a cleric is a sacrament - and then as a cleric recovering your spells is a rite. Being a cleric can not be withdrawn. It was a terrible and anti-religious rule for the first 35 years of D&D's existence and has rightfully been left on the dustbin of history.

I'm not saying that mine is the only possibility - but I am saying that it is the correct one and that D&D started off on the wrong path.

And yet not an apostate. I don't usually expect a paragon but I do expect NOT an apostate.

But an apostate is still ordained.

That is the debate right? Is WOTC making good decisions here? I'm saying emphatically NO!

And I'm saying that they are making the right decisions from both a religious perspective (as they are both from a Christian-centred one as I have shown and a polytheistic one as @Paul Farquhar has mentioned) and a gameplay perspective. Such versimilitude as there is that can be tied to the actual world is entirely on my side. You meanwhile seem to have nothing supporting you other than the ability to control bad players.

I think you way could be a campaign decision by the DM but I wouldn't see myself doing that every time. The default for me will be what it has been through the first 5 editions prior to 2024.

You couldn't take away the class or the features in either 4e or 2014's version of 5e other than through house rules. It's been over 15 years since the default changed to my way - and when they did not one single thing of value was lost. And the only people complaining are long standing DMs who are used to having arbitrary authority.

 

[Emerikol]

And thus you should challenge the character narratively but not mechanically.

The character is not changed fundamentally. At this moment in time, the Deity is not giving the character their spells which is an in game activity. The actual class remains unchanged. There is a mechanism though in game where the Deity gives spells to their followers which is the foundation of divine powers.

 

[TiQuinn]

Not in this case. The new default clearly gives players the upper hand in this situation.

You make this sound adversarial in nature. Someone has to have "the upper hand".

 

[Micah Sweet]

But to be clear, nothing stops you from changing your fiction to match the rules other than the fact you like the old fiction better.

That's true, but I don't see the relevance to my point.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not in this case. The new default clearly gives players the upper hand in this situation.

Not even close. The players never have the upper hand. The players would only have the upper hand if they somehow had the ability to rewrite the way the clerical orders worked and entirely redesign the god with the DM not being allowed to veto it.

The DM still has overwhelmingly the upper hand. They have just been slightly restricted to point them to not do things that are generally bad for the game anyway.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The only way I can make any sense of Dragonlance morality is with the assumption that Paladine is the Lawful Neutral God of Balance. Even then how the heck did people not realise that the priests could no longer cast spells?

The upper levels of the church hierarchy concerned themselves much more with politics than miracles (or faith really). The lower levels was where most of the believers were, so if course they all vanished on the Night of Doom.

 

[mamba]

As I have pointed out the idea that sacraments are permanent is a religious idea.

there are all kinds of religious ideas with no in-world consequences when it comes to the powers of those that believe in them. Just because something is doctrine does not mean it is actually correct and working in the real world as described.

You can of course model your churches and gods however you feel, it simply is not the one correct way to do so, no matter which side of this debate you are on

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not even close. The players never have the upper hand. The players would only have the upper hand if they somehow had the ability to rewrite the way the clerical orders worked and entirely redesign the god with the DM not being allowed to veto it.

The DM still has overwhelmingly the upper hand. They have just been slightly restricted to point them to not do things that are generally bad for the game anyway.

Bad for the game in your point of view. Not in mine.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think players want the DMG to reflect how they want to play the game so that they do not have to houserule... as opposed to being the one who has to houserule to get the game to be the way they want it.

People still have this reflexive discomfort for houseruling. And it is this discomfort that WotC has been trying to break people of for years. But it's never worked-- if people can't get the book to be written in the manner they want... then it's WotC that has failed.

Needless to say... I do not share in this discomfort with houseruling. Printed rules and house rules are all the same to me.

I want new players to have easy access to multiple options of play, by way of example, not just telling them they can. The new book (and edition) doesn't do that.

 

[TwoSix]

The character is not changed fundamentally. At this moment in time, the Deity is not giving the character their spells which is an in game activity. The actual class remains unchanged. There is a mechanism though in game where the Deity gives spells to their followers which is the foundation of divine powers.

If you're saying a spellcaster with no spells isn't a fundamental change, I don't know how to proceed.