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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 7942472" data-attributes="member: 93670">I'm going to go with the majority and repeat that the difference is largely more in how you access magic (faith  vrs training & everything else).  With that said though, your post is confusing a different issue of "sameyness" in 5e & the lore of settings like fr or greyhawk with the lack of arcane/divine split like you had in prior editions.  There has been a lot of discussion about sameyness between casters recently (f<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/reworking-spell-lists-reducing-sameyness.670253/" target="_blank">or example</a>). & there are a lot of contributing factors as a result of changes that in many cases improved on or resolved other problems like a prior inability to multiclass casters without crippling loss of progress, but that doesn't make it the cause of arcane vrs divine not being distinct enough.On the lore side, even without the hard split, the vague references & general history still pretty cause problems for gm's trying to run settings with magical baselines similar to eberron or to a degree darksun & some takes on ravenloft by well meaning players. Eberron uses a baseline where divine magic comes from the caster's faith in something, usually a god(who even the caster might not believe is a real tangible creature) or some powerful being/force/ideal. Skipping over the complex & murky lore reasons why Athas (darksun) doesn't have divine magic, they do have <a href="https://darksun.fandom.com/wiki/Elemental_Priest" target="_blank">elemental priests</a> who  get their power from a powerful (or not so powerful) being.  Neither of those two themes disrupt a world where the gods are real & divine magic is a gift from the gods, but the reverse makes a mess  because it forces an absolute into being that tends to touch mechanical aspects.  You need only look at the cleric's 10th level divine intervention class feature for  a glaring example & see how it's wording tries to force the gm's hand when the gm wanted to run a campaign with a clerical tradition  following a pantheon philosophy or force as more in line with those other settings. [spoiler="those blurbs"][ATTACH=full]119910[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]119911[/ATTACH][/spoiler]Sure it's easy enough for the GM to sub in some random celestial/fiend/beast/etc, but that still leaves the much more problematic head butting of player & gm as the player keeps making well meaning statements that damage he gm's world construct.  The player can't be blamed too much though since wotc does a good job of indoctrinating them to that setting specific lore baseline with plenty of fluff[spoiler="Cleric"]"Arm s and eyes upraised toward the sun and a prayer on his lips, an elf begins to glow with an inner light that spills out to heal his battle-worn companions.Chanting a song of glory, a dwarf swings his axe in wide swaths to cut through the ranks of orcs arrayed against him, shouting praise to the gods with every foe’s fall.Calling dow n a curse upon the forces of undeath, a human lifts her holy symbol as light pours from it to drive back the zombies crow ding in on her companions.Clerics are intermediaries between the mortal world and the distant planes of the gods1. As varied as the gods they serve, clerics strive to em body the handiwork of their deities. No ordinary priest, a cleric is imbued with divine magic."[/spoiler]1: Tough luck to the gm running a world with a different afterlife or where youcan't call up a god on the phone to prove themselves where any of that isn't true if a player who reads the first section of fluff is at the table & decides they want to make that setting specific factual statement a big part f their character's identity.[spoiler="Healers & Warriors"]Divine magic, as the name suggests, is the power of the gods2, flowing from them into the world3. Clerics are conduits for that power, manifesting it as miraculous effects. The gods don’t grant this pow er to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.Harnessing divine m agic doesn’t rely on study or training. A cleric might learn formulaic prayers and ancient rites, but the ability to cast cleric spells relies on devotion and an intuitive sense o f a deity’s wishes.Clerics combine the helpful magic o f healing and inspiring their allies with spells that harm and hinder foes. They can provoke awe and dread, lay curses of plague or poison, and even call down flames from heaven to consume their enemies. For those evildoers w ho will benefit most from a m ace to the head, clerics depend on their com bat training to let them wade into melee with the power of the gods on their side.[/spoiler]2:  you can't have it be objectively the power of the gods when they do not or might not exist.  That becomes especially problematic when that power comes from something that is not a god like the elementals used by those elemental priests from earlier.3: except when that power is flowing from your faith or something like what you to believe the <a href="http://keith-baker.com/ifaq-warforgedbov/" target="_blank">divine spark within</a> you.  In more than one game I've explained that to players following that faith & had either that player or another player (not the second player's character) keep going back to "gods".[spoiler="Divine Agents"]Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life o f temple service, carrying out their gods’ will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms. In some cities, priesthood amounts to a political office, viewed as a stepping stone to higher positions o f authority and involving no com m union with a god at all. True clerics are rare in most hierarchies.When a cleric takes up an adventuring life, it is usually because his or her god demands it.4 Pursuing the goals of the gods often involves braving dangers beyond the walls of civilization, smiting evil or seeking holy relics in ancient tombs. Many clerics are also expected to protecttheir deities’ worshipers, which can mean fighting rampaging orc s, negotiating peace between warring nations, or sealing a portal that would allow a demon prince 5 to enter the world.Most adventuring clerics maintain some connection to established temples and orders of their faiths. A temple might ask for a cleric’s aid, or a high priest might be in a position to demand it.[/spoiler]4: Great, now the class fluff itself is saying not that the character believes such a thing but that a god not only exists it literally told their character to go do something... way to set up the gm for a rough lore fight over a character wotc.5: Demon princes are part of one specific cosmology used by settings like FR Greyhawk and maybe mystara(not 100% sure on that one).  In a setting like darksun you have something very different & too complex/murkey going on for my loose understanding to summarize. In a setting like eberron you have demon overlords sure, but those fill a massively different role than demon princes & more importantly a god chunk of the faiths are concerned with extremely different things.[spoiler="Spellcasting ability"]W isdom is your spellcasting ability for your cleric spells. The power of your spells comes from your devotion to your deity.6 You use your Wisdom whenever a cleric spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your W isdom m odifier when setting the saving throw DC for a cleric spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.[/spoiler]6: except when it comes from something else or they don't exist.  Meanwhile words like "faith in your beliefs" works for all the variations mentioned.tl;dr:  The OP can't exactly get too much blame for getting the wrong idea on the arcane/divine split when wotc did such a fine job setting him up for failure there.</blockquote>

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