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

[Jedi_Solo]

I'm going to back WotC on this one.

In the first book of the system I'd rather have a handful of new feats/talents and or spells than a fully fleshed out pantheon.

In a setting book then go ahead and give detailed writeups on the gods of Agriculture, Doorways and Pocket Lint.

In the FR setting book? I want the juicy details on the pantheon. In the first Core PHB? I want a bigger Feats chapter.

 

[Mirtek]

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

Doesn't this happen as soon as he's a PC anyway? Adventures are a dime a dozen anywhere. Just one short trip to the kobold cave can earn them more than 10 years of working the soil of their farms.

For 99.9% their short trip to the kobold lair ends with a short spear in their guts, only the PCs are the 1 in a million who come out alive and with a fortune.

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.

Of course others prefer to call them sellswords, tomb robbers, mercenaries or thugs

 

[Wulfram]

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

I dislike the idea that adventuring should be a common profession. 1 in a million isn't all that far off the amount of people who should be doing it

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.

Tomb looting isn't especially likely, but defending a village from a bunch of orcs is very much a sensible job for agricultural clerics. You can't run a farm while having your crops burnt and your livestock stolen, not to mention while being dead.

Who are the people in need of help most likely to be? Farmers, I'd say.

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.

I disagree. Why does a cleric of Death need to go out into the wild? There's plenty of death going on in cities, after all. On the other hand, particularly in a "points of light" setting, the front line of civilisation against the wild will always be farmers. These farmers will need a championr, or they will fail and their farms will be abandoned. Who better than a priest of their god to serve this role?

 

[DandD]

Aren't D&D clerics supposed to be more like Crusaders (for example the Templars, or something like that), anyway, instead of priests? I mean, if they wear armour and have clubs or other weapons, they're not your regular priest who attend ceremonies, but actual combatants who go out and bash gribblies for their faith.
Of course, some people might think that a Paladin should be the Crusader, but the Paladin is rather shown to be a champion to the cause of good and justice (will change in 4th edition, of course), a knight like at Arthurs round table, that Galahad guy, or Parcival, whoever was the most purest and heroic of them dudes.

 

[Mirtek]

I dislike the idea that adventuring should be a common profession.

It should be a very common profession in almost any D&D world (and especially PoL settings). It's just that most of them end up dead in a forgotten cave or the belly of a big monsters instead of making the haul of their life.

The lure of the riches one could make through being an adventurer instead of the meager living by toiling the hard soil for 30 years would lead to countless adventurers. A shop called "adventurer market" shouldn't be unusual in any bigger town.

Frontier cities could have most of their economy being based on them. With an "adventurer market" and special "adventurer offers" in taverns and stuff like this.

Imagine the city at the feet of the mountains of X, where the ruins of the old empire Y are rumored to be hidden. Such a city could be crawling with adventurers during "adventuring season". The entire economy being based on this one season of the year when countless neverdowells come to the city to spend their coins before marching off to their deaths somewhere in the mountain range.

The PCs would merely be one of a hundred different adventuring groups scouring the mountains and keeping a new find secret from the others might be just as difficult as making the find in the first place!

During the day the PCs are climbing through the mountain slopes and fighting off scavengers and worse, while in the evening they're drinking at the adventurer's dream tavern and the bard and rogue are using their social skills to lead the fellow adventurers away from the place where the PC group supposes the hidden entrance to the tomb of Z (or trying to sound their fellows for their findings as they didn't make any own discoveries)

 

[Stogoe]

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.

I've done the homebrew thing, and I enjoyed it. But for 4e, I'm starting out in the generic PHB setting, detailing the starting locale and winging it from there. It's going to be a lot of fun.

 

[Wormwood]

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.

You said it better than I could have. Thanks!

 

[Danzauker]

Ah. At least here, I've got some hard evidence that there was at least one significant COMPLETE FAILURE OF IMAGINATION from the 4e team.

"Gods don't need to make sense for anything other than PC's" is over-simplistic and ends up with nonsensical results. Gods need to be campaign elements, suffusing the setting and adding sort of names and faces to the forces that shape the world, including things useful for PC's and things that would be more useful for barkeeps, merchants, and farmers.

Well, here we're talking about a pantheon of deities that appear in a book called PLAYER'S HANDBOOK, so it doesn't sound so illogical that it't focused on choices for PLAYER CHARACTERS...

Just like the vast majority of people in the fantasy world are NOT Fighters, Wizards, Rangers or Paladins, so I expect them to worship deities different from those most appealing to adventurers.

But I expect all of this to be included in the DMG, not the PHB...

 

[TwoSix]

I disagree. Why does a cleric of Death need to go out into the wild? There's plenty of death going on in cities, after all. On the other hand, particularly in a "points of light" setting, the front line of civilisation against the wild will always be farmers. These farmers will need a championr, or they will fail and their farms will be abandoned. Who better than a priest of their god to serve this role?

Dang it....I was going to try to not play a cleric in 4e, but that sounds like a fun concept.

 

[heirodule]

I can't believe they don't think a god of doorways would be interesting to ADVENTURERS WHO GO INTO DUNGEONS PICK LOCKS AND BASH DOWN DOORS!