D&D 5E Wonder why there aren't any Elemental Domains (Earth, Air, Fire, Water)?

[Corinnguard]

And most of the "priests" of the various elemental cults use sorcerer spells (with a few warlocks thrown into the mix). I kinda like this, as the Princes of Elemental Evil aren't gods and shouldn't be providing power to clerics.

What about elemental primordials like Grumbar and Kossuth of the Forgotten Realms?

 

[Staffan]

What about elemental primordials like Grumbar and Kossuth of the Forgotten Realms?

Those are for the most part being described as "cold gods", who aren't much interested in being worshipped. The Earth is what it is. It cares not for the affairs of Man, and it won't listen to Man's pleadings.

On a personal level, I much prefer it if these forces exist on a non-religious level. You can learn the Mystic Secrets of the Flame Eternal, and use it to peer into a fire to scry, or to kindle the fire in the hearts of men, or whatever, but that doesn't have to involve any god nonsense.

 

[SkidAce]

Lots of thoughts after reading all the good inputs from ya'll folks.

I agree that a "small" number of domains and theming could cover most deity concepts. But I feel that some of that list should have the basic "fundamentals"* included to kit bash most deities. That said, I would rather not use Light for all fire gods, some it would fit, others it would not.

Reflavoring is good concept, the Light cleric could be all about the concepts of warmth, enlightenment, showing the way, by their OTHER spell selections, while the Fire cleric is about burning, cleansing, lighting the beacons of Gondor.

But I still feel I am missing a few tools from the shed (hehe). Chaos, and the Elements.

Oh, and primordials are not worshipped (or at least they dont grant divine power). The world's nature spirits are their descendants, and those are more venerated, then worshiped. (Druids in my campaign rarely follow gods, more like spirit worship)

Finally, clerics are not just their domain. A Order cleric of Asmodeus would be different in play than an Order cleric of Bahamut. And besides, deities have several domains, Two clerics of Bahamut could have the same general worldview, but devoted themselves to a different aspect.

*of course we will never agree on what's fundamental and what isn't...

 

[SkidAce]

@Micah Sweet did you have those examples?

 

[Kurotowa]

And most of the "priests" of the various elemental cults use sorcerer spells (with a few warlocks thrown into the mix). I kinda like this, as the Princes of Elemental Evil aren't gods and shouldn't be providing power to clerics.

Even if we aren't going with the 4e cosmology, where the gods and elemental powers are explicitly at odds, I feel like the delineation still exists. Divine domains are conceptual and based around the lives of their worshipers, while the elements are more of an abstract building block..

Fire is not a concept. You might see fire used by a God of the Sun, or a Goddess of Home and Hearth, or a God of the Forge. But you don't get a God of Fire any more than you get a God of Roads. Roads fall under the God of Travel, which is a nicely broad concept, while roads are a specific thing.

 

[Voadam]

I think of clerics and gods as more tied to concepts and ideas and outer planes so those would be more primary. Thor as the thunder god works better as storm than air in concept to me. Hephaestus as more forging than fire.

Also doing four elements would be four of the cleric subclasses and really dominate the cleric domain subclass thematic focus from the PH.

 

[SkidAce]

Even if we aren't going with the 4e cosmology, where the gods and elemental powers are explicitly at odds, I feel like the delineation still exists. Divine domains are conceptual and based around the lives of their worshipers, while the elements are more of an abstract building block..

Fire is not a concept. You might see fire used by a God of the Sun, or a Goddess of Home and Hearth, or a God of the Forge. But you don't get a God of Fire any more than you get a God of Roads. Roads fall under the God of Travel, which is a nicely broad concept, while roads are a specific thing.

I understand what you're saying, and its a great theme.

But we have a campaign where a god is the god of Fire as a concept. So it can work. Of course, their domain powers and spells would likely be different from core, primordial elemental type powers, I agree.

 

[SkidAce]

I think of clerics and gods as more tied to concepts and ideas and outer planes so those would be more primary. Thor as the thunder god works better as storm than air in concept to me. Hephaestus as more forging than fire.

Also doing four elements would be four of the cleric subclasses and really dominate the cleric domain subclass thematic focus from the PH.

I'm actually leaning towards making an Elemental Domain instead of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, as mentioned up thread.

 

[Parmandur]

See title.

I found a few things on GM Binder, but not much.

Willing to create my own, but was perusing the internet for ideas and inspiration.

And now I'm just curious...why no official versions?

Princes of the Apocalypse had a suggestion to use the four Elements as deities instead of Domains for Dark Sun, IIRC, and use the standard PHB options to represent their themes. Do, a Light Domain Cleric of the Elemental Fire.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Sacrificing the flavor of Gods to make all divine casters be nearly identical to one another is something I don't like about modern D&D.

The thing that a lot of D&D fandom isn't really ready for right now is that the definition many have of "cleric" (Divine caster powered by the gods) should actually apply to a lot of different classes.

A lot of folks are pointing out that elemental priest = druid. Along those lines, why do we have a War domain when the Fighter is right there? Why do we have a Trickery domain when the Rogue exists? Light....do you mean fire, while we have a Sorcerer right there? Life could easily be a Paladin, too!

The cleric's identity is muddled. Arguably has been since OD&D, there's just more classes in the mix now. When we have 12 other classes AND NPC priests aren't clerics...what does a cleric do differently from anyone else?

(TBF, this is an argument that can be applied to most classes, but it impacts the cleric especially hard once you get the idea that a god of war is going to want to grant abilities to a warrior and a god of trickery is going to want to grant abilities to a trickster, so why do we need a separate class for them all to grant abilities to?)

If WoTC knew this was going to be a problem, why stick with it when they could done what other RPGs did with Cleric archetypes? Both PF and Level Up created archetypes that didn't focus completely on a clerical domain.

I'm sure there's a significant diversity of reasons, but I'd imagine one of them is just because domains have been a cleric-defining quality since 2e when they were called Spheres. Trying to deliver on a class themed around "powered by gods" in a game where gods come in all shapes and sizes leads, necessarily, to a class that struggles a bit with its definition. PF and LU don't exactly thread this needle without fraying, either.

Class design is complicated and high stakes and messy. At the end of the day, WotC probably felt something like: the necessary page count doesn't necessarily translate into more Clerics being played, it's just checking things off an abstract list, and we don't just want to make stuff to fill out a grid, we want to do things that will impact play.