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There is a good recent book about this sort of thing: Collapse, by Jared Diamond (professor of Geography at UCLA, IIRC). It's not as masterly as his Guns, Germs, and Steel, but more relevant to this issue. In the more specialised area of the effect of ['pre' civilised] hunter-gatherers on the...

To a great extent human use fo the landscape in (say) Europe has become much more productive since Mediaeval times because it became more intensive, not more extensive. True, the Cistercians are famous for having (grown extremely wealthy by having) brought unexploited land into use on a...

Yes. But the 'City' where I live is invalid. I wonder if there is a list of valid cities somewhere. I could pick the nearest--Sydney is only 450 km (280 miles) away….

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I don't agree tha that is true. The player may gain a +1 if his or her rolls happen to be right (odd numbers in the right ranges), but he or she does give up something. And even if it were true, so what? A player gets something for nothing when he rolls a high set of abilities. That doesn't...

I haven't had it come up in play, but I've always intended to use teh rules as written. It doesn't seem like a problem to keep track if you do your levelling-up methodically. And it makes more sense that having an increase in intelligence retroactively increase how effectively you studied before...

No. But then, I never told any careers guidance counsellor that I want to be an economist. I was financially coerced into it. So is picking fruit or washing dishes. They aren't morally wrong either.

I think you're onto something here. This wouldn't work for a player who was too attached to his or her kewl powerz to reveal an honest opinon, or who had a sense of good and evil that was much laxer than that or the rest of the group. But subject to those caveats I think a lot of the unhappiness...

If you consider this a problem (it isn't necessarily bad) I suggest that you try settling on a simple, prominent character trait that your character is going to have that you (or your usually character) do not. It is hard not to forget or get lost among the characteristics of a complicated...

Indeed. But that would be the case no matter what it said in the rules, because of Rule Zero. You see, I am not asking about the discretion of the DM, because I know that it is unlimited. What I am asking (and please feel free to ignore this thread if you find the question pointless, boring, or...

The flavour text implies it by using the word 'divine'. And then explicitly denies it under the 'religion' heading, sayig that some devote themselves to a particular god, but that devotion to righteousness is enough for most. The purpose of this thread (well, my purpose in launching it and...

Sorry, I asked the wrong question. I ought to have asked "Is there a rule somewhere in the D&D core that says it is this way [unless the DM declares otherwise, of course]?" I would agree that one must consider how it comes about that a paladin loses his or her powers, which I think you might...

If you don't share my curiosity, I guess that it doesn't have much point for you. Of course. That settles teh practical matter. But it doesn't satisfy my curiosity. But then, the argument in this thread isn't satisfying my curiosity either.

Must it be as you say? If so, why? And how does this gibe with paladins who do not serve any god?

I think you ought to turn again to the class descriptions of the cleric, druid, ranger, and paladin, and there read the explicit statements that members of these classes can receive divine spells without devoting themselves to a god, direct from the forces of Nature, or through devotion to...

Yes. but someone tried to make an arguement based on a dictionary definition of the word 'divine'. I pointed out that if this argument were correct, the same argument about the same word would mean that something was true about rangers which the ranger class description explicitly denies. In...

That is not my original question. That is indeed the title I gave this thread as an indication of its content. But the question I actually asked was in the original post, and is more specific than that. Check the original post if you have to. My original question was "Is this supported by the...

I had an opinion, based on the paladin class description and the mechanics of the Atonement spell. But I wasn't confident of that opinion, because I thought that there might be some other rule somewhere else that established that the gods choose paladins, that the gods grant paladins their...

No, it's because his lawfulness, goodness, or purity got too low to use them. He lost a necessary qualification.

Nope. I conclude that (under the RAW and in the absence of any use of Rule Zero) the dependency of cleric spells on the gods is a special quality of clerics, and not a mere special case of the presumable power of gods to impose arbitrary ability loss on any character.