D&D 4E 4e Races and Classes: "Why we changed the gods"

[mhacdebhandia]

You need a deity of agriculture in your setting for it to feel plausible: yes.

You need a deity of agriculture statted and described in the Player's Handbook so that you can play a templar-style cleric of a deity of agriculture: no.

That's all they're saying.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I don't know... a god of agriculture doesn't lend itself to adventuring better or worse than, say, a god of death or a god of warfare. Followers of the former would likely man funerals and death rites (just as his agriculture counterparts attend harvest and fertility rites) and followers of the latter would be tied to large bodies of armed men, unlikely to go treasure-hunting on their own.

I guess I just see causing death as part of worshiping a god of death and fighting things as worshiping a god of warfare. Both of which happens in abundance on adventures.

Either that or preventing death and perfecting warfare. Or destroying the undead and protecting great heroes who might turn the tide of war by themselves. Or continuing the cycle of life by returning the goods of the dead to the living and recovering the ancient weapons of war.

Yes, funeral rites and armies are likely things that would ALSO be done by clerics of those faiths. Which is why they make good gods and they have both adventuring hooks and world building hooks.

However, short of creating an adventure where if the PCs don't succeed the crops will fail or the weather will turn bad, there is nothing tying agriculture to adventuring.

 

[Wormwood]

I'm 37 years old, and I've been DMing for over 25 years.

And I have every intention of playing 4e in it's "Core Setting" only. No Realms, no Eberron, and no 500 page homebrew opus.

The fact that 'points of light' will be vaguely defined is appealing to me. The fact that I don't have to deal with 'canon creep' is a feature, not a bug. The fact that each official module can be used off the shelf, without substituting my own history and place names is a major plus.

 

[Voss]

I even think that things like agriculture will be part of the gods' portfolios in the PHB. I think they point they were making is that a god of Magic, Weather, Nature, and Agriculture (in a world where people believe that magic comes nature) is a much better god for a world than having one god for each of those things. It allows the players to easily remember which god is which and have a GOOD reason for a cleric of all of of the gods to be a member of an adventuring group.

I think at that point, you'd be better served by just declaring the world is governed by one creator god, and they can just pick whatever domain (or 4e equivalent) tickles their fancy.

Or just go with a pantheon approach, and declare that clerics worship all the gods equally.

 

[infax]

I can actually agree with the R&C decision. I hope they will at least mention there are likely to be other gods. I prefer, however, not having a God of Beauty and a God of Agriculture in the PHB. Inevitably they have to show stats for "Clerics" and Paladins of said gods and while I see the priests of a god of Beauty in loose robes and elaborate coifs and those of the god of agriculture with hay in the hair and dirt under their nails, they would inevitably wearing medium armor and have the power to call lightning from heaven while having very few ways of improving crops, keeping plant diseases at bay and making farm animals fatter.

Besides, what god of beauty needs paladins? shudders at flashing memories of 2e paladins of Selan

 

[DandD]

I think at that point, you'd be better served by just declaring the world is governed by one creator god, and they can just pick whatever domain (or 4e equivalent) tickles their fancy.

Or just go with a pantheon approach, and declare that clerics worship all the gods equally.

Which in a polytheistic community they should anyway, and as soon as your culture gets more than one god accepted and revered, it is polytheistic.

 

[Wulfram]

A cleric of the god of Agriculture makes perfect sense as an adventurer.

He is the shepherd. When a beast threatens his flock, he defends them from it, and if necessary hunts it down and kills it. When one of his flock is lost, he sets out, finds them, brings them back to safety and if necessary nurses them back to health.

Farms must be defended, crops must be protected. Who better to do this than the servant of the god of agriculture?

Perhaps this is not the main role of the typical cleric of agriculture, but few adventurers are typical. It certainly does not stretch my credulity that one might specialise in this.

A martial cleric of the god of doorways is also easy to imagine. He is the guard, the defender of hosts and the protector of guests. Though this is a god that could be happily merged with another.

 

[Bluenose]

I'm probably wrong here, but it seems to me that the deities that are included in the PHB should be the ones that are likely to have followers that often become adventurers. Other deities might be just as important or even more important, but is it possible that those will be included in the DMG? Perhaps they would be part of a chapter on world-building. It could make the point that there are deities other than those listed in the PHB, but that their clerics rarely become adventurers simply because they have other roles in society.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Perhaps this is not the main role of the typical cleric of agriculture, but few adventurers are typical. It certainly does not stretch my credulity that one might specialise in this.

One might, sure. However, I dislike the idea that each adventurer is the 1 in a million different than all the others like him.

Besides, there's a difference between being martial specialized and being an adventurer. Anyone could know how to fight.

Adventurers are the ones that specifically go into ancient tombs looking for lost treasure or who answer notices posted on inn walls asking who is brave enough to go into the forest and wipe out the tribe of orcs that is threatening the village. The ones that travel down the road looking for danger or people in need to help.

I can certainly see that it would be more likely for a cleric of Death to stare death in the face and come back alive as a test of faith than a cleric of Agriculture.

 

[Hussar]

This implied setting will have nothing but a sketchy reality as presented over the years in various core books and splatbooks. In order to make the setting somewhat believable you will need to do a ton of work. To give the implied setting any real meat on those bones you will essentially have to homebrew it.

Yet, for those of us who really, really don't care, this is the best news ever.

Not everyone who plays wants to get into several hundred page homebrews. Some of us just want to sit down and play. That means that we ignore a lot of the silliness around the table like why this guy is a monk in a eurocentric world, and just play the damn game.

In other words, if you want to homebrew, go ahead. Nothing, not one thing is stopping you. But, for those of us who want to play the game out of the box, FINALLY, after 30 years, we finally get some loving.