D&D 4E 4E PHB Viewing at Games Plus, what we saw

[pukunui]

There are 5 Alignments
Good
Lawful Good
Evil
Chaotic Evil
Unaligned

Among the gods I did not see any evil or CE listed.

So the evil gods have been left out of the PHB? I guess that's so that players won't be tempted to make evil cleric PCs or something? Do the cleric class powers and such facilitate an evil PC?

What I really want to know is what the relationship clerics (and other divine characters) have with their deities. That is to say, are their Domains? Or is it just those deity-related feats? Do the deities have portfolios? Anything like that? I want to start building my own pantheon but I want to make sure I do it right.

All I know is the names of the "twenty plus one" and the fact that "non-adventuring" things like agriculture and love don't get their own deities but are instead roled up into "adventuring" deities' portfolios (like Pelor, the god of the sun, gets agriculture, which makes sense).

Can anyone elaborate on this at all?

 

[theNater]

...unless there's a bizarre nonlinear mechanic...

Ooh, I hope it's that!
I love bizzare things, I love nonlinear things, and I love mechanics.
Bizarre nonlinear mechanics...they are like candy to me.

 

[Vickrin]

Id say cleric domains are sort of feats, like armour of 'bahamut' in the KOTS and power of 'amaunator' in the DDXP.
Those would be easy enough to change for another god, say if u wanted to play an evil god change power of amaunator to power of bane (dm willing) and make it +1d10 necrotic instead of radiant.

or some such.

 

[Ipissimus]

Why?

It's just what the system needs: less depth.

 

[ZetaStriker]

I don't get how Alignment ever really mattered anyway. It was either used to very poor effect as requirement/trigger off of a spell, or a shoehorn for a player's actions that generally gets ignored anyway. When you think up a story and personality for a character, you don't look back at what's written under the 'Alignment' heading on your character sheet every time a decision is needed. You just know how they'll react, Alignment be damned.

Only place I'm convinced they were ever used to any degree of worth is in the cosmology of the planes, but that's changed now anyway.

 

[Family]

Alignment is what keeps my wagon going in a stright line.

Motivation is what influences how I interact with reality.

 

[DonAdam]

The absence of evil gods makes some good sense. The gods might be capricious, like the Greek Gods, but they are worshipped far and wide. And they can now be worshipped as a pantheon. It's ok for there to be oppositional dynamics among teh gods, but those make much more sense with yin and yang than good and evil, which definitionally rule out "balance" as some sort of optimum. So for the sake of there being a coherent notion of a god, I'm pro.

Most importantly, it opens up the cosmology and gives a definite place to the fiends. The gods don't demarcate the whole cosmos, but are one part of it. The gods rule over the world, the fiends bring in that which is "unnatural."

 

[Cirex]

The following monsters were listed with some info for use as playable character races:
Bugbear
Doppleganger
Drow
Githyanki
Githzerai
Gnoll
Gnome
Goblin
Hobgoblin
Kobold
Minotaur
Orc
Shadar-Kai
Shifter (2 types)
Warforged

No Changeling, but Doppleganger is in. I wonder if Changelings have just been removed in favour of Dopplegangers.

Thanks Thalmin & people for the information!

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No Changeling, but Doppleganger is in. I wonder if Changelings have just been removed in favour of Dopplegangers.

Thanks Thalmin & people for the information!

IIRC, there was something about Changelings and Doppelganger effectively being the same in 4E. Makes sense to me - use the Changeling as baseline for the Doppelganger, and special abilities (like reading minds to get better at "doppelgangen" as racial special ability - a monster ability or a a racial feat)

 

[Cirex]

Now that you mention it, I vaguely remember something about that.

I guess my players can be happy, since all three races they use are in (Changeling, Hobgoblin and Orc).