Cleric change of Faith

[jarlaxlecq]

After reading Extinction a while back i got to thinking, what happens when a Cleric of any level has some kind of change of faith, going from good to evil or vice versa. Do they keep their Cleric level and just have to adhear to new allignment rules, do they become for example a Cleric of Bane lvl 10/ Cleric of Torm Lvl 1? How does it work and if there is no Official Line what do you DMs do in this case?

 

[Flyspeck23]

SRD, Classes I:

Ex-Clerics
A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones (see the atonement spell description).

Conclusion: cleric levels are "bound" to a specific deity. So the special abilites of a cleric who is "in violation" are lost until he atones.
He could gain more levels of cleric, this time of a different deity, but he'd start more or less from scratch.

OTOH, Requiem for a God has some nifty rules for "godless" clerics (IIRC).

 

[jarlaxlecq]

SRD, Classes I:

Conclusion: cleric levels are "bound" to a specific deity. So the special abilites of a cleric who is "in violation" are lost until he atones.
He could gain more levels of cleric, this time of a different deity, but he'd start more or less from scratch.

OTOH, Requiem for a God has some nifty rules for "godless" clerics (IIRC).

But couldn't you look at it like this, CLeric of Bane (LE) has an epiphany and realized supporting Bane is wrong, starts doing LG stuff and even starts betraying stuff to the Church of Torm. Obviously he's gross violation of this code of ethics for Bane and thus gets no more spells from Bane but as a cleric could he then start leveling up as a Cleric again but one of a differant faith. Assuming the DM is satified that the Character has done something monumental for Torm's church to join it. (still using above example)

 

[Flyspeck23]

But couldn't you look at it like this, CLeric of Bane (LE) has an epiphany and realized supporting Bane is wrong, starts doing LG stuff and even starts betraying stuff to the Church of Torm. Obviously he's gross violation of this code of ethics for Bane and thus gets no more spells from Bane but as a cleric could he then start leveling up as a Cleric again but one of a differant faith. Assuming the DM is satified that the Character has done something monumental for Torm's church to join it. (still using above example)

Dunno. Choices made are choices made. You couldn't change your ranger either when you suddenly realize that ranged attacks are so much more your thing than two-weapon-fighting. There's no going back either.

But then, you as a DM are free to invent any rules you need
If the change makes sense and isn't done for mere munchkin reasons, then why not?
AFAIK nothing official, though.

 

[DarkMaster]

Dunno. Choices made are choices made. You couldn't change your ranger either when you suddenly realize that ranged attacks are so much more your thing than two-weapon-fighting. There's no going back either.

But then, you as a DM are free to invent any rules you need
If the change makes sense and isn't done for mere munchkin reasons, then why not?
AFAIK nothing official, though.

I think it would be ok to make a quest or something big for another god and have this god grant him the new power. I am not saying that it should be easily done, but possible. There are example of this already in the core rule with the paladin/Blackguard so I don't see why the same could not apply to the cleric.

 

[Flyspeck23]

I think it would be ok to make a quest or something big for another god and have this god grant him the new power. I am not saying that it should be easily done, but possible. There are example of this already in the core rule with the paladin/Blackguard so I don't see why the same could not apply to the cleric.

But taking blackguard levels hasn't necessarily anything to do with a quest, so it's not as simple as saying "a paladin who changes his alignment to lawful evil becomes a blackguard" - the character has to take levels of blackguard.

OTOH, the paladin/blackguard is a fine example on how to do this... make up a prestige class for it, with the blackguard as a starting point. Any cleric of a good deity could take levels of this prestige class if he previously changed his alignment to evil (or vice versa)...

 

[DarkMaster]

But taking blackguard levels hasn't necessarily anything to do with a quest, so it's not as simple as saying "a paladin who changes his alignment to lawful evil becomes a blackguard" - the character has to take levels of blackguard.

OTOH, the paladin/blackguard is a fine example on how to do this... make up a prestige class for it, with the blackguard as a starting point. Any cleric of a good deity could take levels of this prestige class if he previously changed his alignment to evil (or vice versa)...

I agree