Cleric of no deity and the War domain

[Knowledge Sinkhole]

So.. how's it work? Is there an official ruling on the subject? Does the cleric just get to choose whatever weapon he/she so desires to get proficiency/focus with? Does he/she not get the domain power?

 

[AGGEMAM]

A cleric with no diety is an ex-cleric for all intent and purposes.

 

[Knowledge Sinkhole]

A cleric with no diety is an ex-cleric for all intent and purposes.

Well.. no. To quote the SRD:

If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. The restriction on alignment domains still applies.
Each domain gives the cleric access to a domain spell at each spell level he can cast, from 1st on up, as well as a granted power. The cleric gets the granted powers of both the domains selected.

 

[Naar]

I don't see a problem with a cleric devoted to some general principle choosing any martial weapon, since I don't believe there are any restrictions.

However, if you feel like being restricted, you could go with the weapon that is summoned by the spiritual weapon spell for a cleric of no particular god:
Chaos - Battleaxe
Evil - Light Flail
Good - Warhammer
Law - Longsword

 

[Camarath]

I would say just choose any one non-exotic weapon to use in place of your deities weapon.

 

[AGGEMAM]

Well.. no. To quote the SRD:

I forgot to include: IMC.

I don't think a patronless cleric could/should exist. Where would the character get their divine power from?

 

[Knowledge Sinkhole]

I forgot to include: IMC.

I don't think a patronless cleric could/should exist. Where would the character get their divine power from?

I think the intent was to allow there to be clerics for religions/spiritual beliefs that are not dependant on deities.

 

[Wippit Guud]

I don't think a patronless cleric could/should exist. Where would the character get their divine power from?

What if the campaing doesn't have gods, but rather just certain beliefs? (such as one game I'm in at the moment)

 

[RingXero]

Not only does it allow for a cleric to just follow a non-diety centric religion/philosophy (if DM permits) it also allows for a cleric to worship a pantheon of dieties simultaneously. Pray to the War god for War spells, pray to the god of Healing for those, god of the hunt, or hearth, or sky, or etc...



RX

 

[Jhyrryl]

It's actually a fairly "common" plot twist for a given deity to answer the prayers of (grant spells to) someone in a guise other than their own.

For instance, while gnolls venerate the demon lord Yeenoghu (who is not a deity), any actual "clerics of Yeenoghu" have their spells granted to them by Erythnul. Another example from FR is the Cult of the Sphere (or something like that), detailed in Lords of Darkness.

In my campaign, while there may be hundreds of religions, patron deities, local deities, etc., there is only 1 pantheon of 12 actual deities, none of whom are worshipped directly (and no, it's not anything like DragonStar). Whenever one or more of those deities sees a mortal need for divine intervention that advances their cause, they take on the most appropriate guises to the situation and start intervening.

But back to the original question, I think the suggestion of using spiritual weapon as a guide is good. While there's nothing unbalancing with letting them pick any martial or simple weapon, the concept is that the weapon in question is the *deity's* favored weapon. From that perspective I would choose the weapon for them.