A Particular Deity

[Belbarrus]

A Particular Deity

In the PH 3.5 section for Clerics, p 32, it states, "If your cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, you still select two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities."

Since there is not much information on that, my players have taken this to mean that if your cleric worships, lets say "goodness" instead of a specific god, that you can then use any domain from the entire listing of domains. This seems odd to me, because it is as if you are penalizing clerics that do worship a god. A cleric of Pelor, for example may only select 2 domains from Good, Healing, Strength and Sun, but a cleric that just worships "goodness" can select from any of the Domains.

So, here is my take on this. The "non-god" cleric must still select two domains that represent their "spiritual" inclinations. How do you represent this? Alignment. The chart 3-7 also has a column for "Alignment". Therefore "non-god" clerics are limited to selecting domains from their "alignment listing". For example a Lawful Good cleric with no particular deity would select their 2 domains from Good, Law, War, Earth or Protection.

Sound fair?

How is this handled in your campaign?

B

 

[mikebr99]

A Particular Deity
How is this handled in your campaign?

B

I don't allow it... all Cleric's HAVE to select Deities... Clerics are powerful enough without allowing every domain as a choice.

YMMV

If you are ok with it... you might want to remind your player about raise dead and resurrection needing a Deity in the mix... at least in FR.


Mike

 

[DarkMaster]

For me a cleric without a diety or its equivalent in the game world (like the force in star war, or the spirits of american indian, which also provide access to only limited number of domain) is equivalent to a wizard with INT 8, fine you get the HP the saves, the BAB but you can't cast spell.

 

[CRGreathouse]

In my campaign you need to get power from somewhere. Gods are a ready source of power, but you could just as well worship "Goodness" (one of the 4 alignments), "Fire" (one of the 6 Powers), etc.

Each source of power has a list of domains available, but they're all broader than the standard domain lists. In exchange, it's a lot harder to follow the Power -- in general, they aren't willing to forgive any mistakes and loss of power is permanant (even atonement is insufficient).

I could post more if someone's interested.

 

[I'm A Banana]

You're not penalizing a cleric who chooses a specific deity, because domains are all pretty equal. All you're doing by providing domains for a deity-worshiping cleric is saying "this is what exists in the world now." So Pelor doesn't have a faction dedicated to War....well, if you want to be a War cleric, don't worship Pelor! That's why there's Heironeous! What, you want Sun, too? War and Sun? Well, then why even bother worshiping any deity, since none represent your clerical inclination?

Forcing clerics to choose a deity is a bit pointless as a 'balancing' force. The only reason would be for world reasons -- and by default, clerics could worship Goodness and choose any two domains they wanted. And that's not a powerful thing, since all domains are roughly equal; he's getting no more benefit from War and Sun than he would from Healing and Protection. And it's not a controlling penalty on the god-worshiping cleric because they get to choose their own gods -- if a god existed that could grant War and Sun, you could choose that, and there's no real reason such a god doesn't exist.

By default, there isn't a deity for every eventual combo of domains, so clerics can worship something else and get spells no problem.

Belief is the force of a cleric's power. Belief in Goodness, or belief in Hieroneous doesn't matter. It's just that belief in Heironeous, you tend to particular domains, because the god wishes to encourage certain powers, and not others. You could worship Heironeous and choose any domains,too....but the God wouldn't nessecarily be supporting your choice.

 

[Nightfall]

Forcing clerics to choose a deity is a bit pointless as a 'balancing' force.

Yeah but some us like gods. Anyway my ruling would be this: You can't pick a domain that goes against ethos or morality. Thus being LG, you can't pick Undeath and Magic. You could pick Magic if you believe magic is a potent source for goodness, but certainly not undeath. Undead are (as a general rule), evil. Now picking Magic and Repose, that could be doable. But he can't just pick war and sun for the hell of it.

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

Yeah but some us like gods. Anyway my ruling would be this: You can't pick a domain that goes against ethos or morality. Thus being LG, you can't pick Undeath and Magic. You could pick Magic if you believe magic is a potent source for goodness, but certainly not undeath. Undead are (as a general rule), evil. Now picking Magic and Repose, that could be doable. But he can't just pick war and sun for the hell of it.

This is what I use. I take it one step more however. I treat the occurance of godless clerics as a rarity. This means they cannot fall back on aid from their church and so on. They're own their own. Most churches loathe them for their rejection of the gods and so on.

 

[Hardhead]

I don't allow it, because it's dumb. FR doesn't allow it either.

 

[jarlaxlecq]

Could you substitute something else aside from a God, say Demons or Celestials?

 

[Qvintus]

In my opinion if you want to worship goodness as a priest you got to take good as on of you domanies and so on...
That way you can make a cleric with out a god... If you want to but I think that by droping a god and you get two domanies of choce you get to much of an edge 'cause some of the domanies are pretty powerfull.
Just my two centes.