Clerics with no gods

[HellHound]

One of the things in the 3.0 rule set that made me switch back to D&D after years of other games is the non-deity-specific clerics.

I *love* that you can play a cleric of an ideal instead of a deity.

This has a lot to do with my own personal faith and philosophy, but without getting intot he taboo area of religion, I feel that a person creates his or her own faith, that the form of worship is mutable on a person to person basis, and thus that deities are, if anything, the offspring of faith, not the other way around.

Thus, if there is enoughf aith in something, a deity may arise. But if the faith in question includes that there is no deity as such, then there will be no deity.

This is important to me personally, because I am a very spiritual person with a very strong faith, but you won't find anyone else with the same faith as mine. Divinity is within all mortals, we have but to seek it. Obviously this spark of the divine exists in many game-world versions of mortals, as they have the ability to ascend to being deities.

I guess what I'm getting towards is that I can't hold that some *icon* of faith has more power than faith itself. Thus believing is the source of divine magic, not what you believe in.

(And this is also the one gaming topic that I seem to disagree most with a majority of those I usually agree with - such as Crothian and Psion - but again, I'm sure this has a lot to do with the differences in our own faiths)

 

[HellHound]

I generally think it's silly when people let their real-life prejudices affect their play.

But isn't it he same thing when a player thinks that a cleric must worship a deity? Isn't that a prejudice that we are bringing into the game also?

 

[reveal]

But isn't it he same thing when a player thinks that a cleric must worship a deity? Isn't that a prejudice that we are bringing into the game also?

Not necessarily. I would just wonder where the cleric gets their spells from. How can an ideal give you spells? Wouldn't there need to be some sort of entity that grants them?

 

[Gunton The Terrible]

...
I guess what I'm getting towards is that I can't hold that some *icon* of faith has more power than faith itself. ...

In a fantasy world, specifically a D&D world, yes the Icons do have the power. Just look at their stat blocks.

I have yet to see a stat block for faith.

 

[Turanil]

For me a cleric is a religious figure. However, he could be a Taoist hermit, a Christian monk, or what not, so in pure D&D terms, not worshipping a god from a pantheon. Personally, I hate this concept of pantheon deities, and only have monotheistic faith inspired from real-world religions in my own campaign settings.

 

[Quasqueton]

Since alignment is such a central force in the D&D universe, it is no problem not to worship a specific god. Clerics can be servants of alignment, just as many gods are.

This pretty much describes the paladin - servant of LG.

Earlier editions of D&D had clerics without naming a specific god or gods. I played B/XD&D and AD&D1 for a few years before seeing a god (the GH gods presented in Dragon magazine). It wasn't really until I got the WoG boxed set (that included the GH gods) that we considered actual individual divine beings for clerical worship.

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

Personally, I think clerics should have gods because their spells need to be granted to them by something.

What grants a paladin's, ranger's, or druid's divine spells?

Quasqueton

 

[HellHound]

Wouldn't there need to be some sort of entity that grants them?

I don't see a mandatory entity granting psionic powers, sorcerous magics, bardic spells, wizardly power... so why divine magic? Divine magic, in my view, is the magic of faith, so why does it require some deity to hand down the magic when no other magic type requires the assistance of a deity? There isn't a deity for the core druid either, 'just' nature. Does nature grant the magic, the druid's faith in nature, or some deity pretending to be nature for today?

I have yet to see a stat block for faith.

Which, IMO, is exactly why it is more powerful. You can kill a deity, but killing faith means actually attacking the soul and what someone believes in.

 

[fusangite]

I think WOTC made a bad decision allowing godless clerics and made that slope towards playing D&D like a video game that much more slippery. I don't allow godless clerics in my games and haven't met any GMs who do either.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Then again, a lot of my play of late has been in FR, where that's not an option. (It's also not an option in Living Greyhawk.)

What? Why?

As for non-God clerics, I'm totally okay with them, as long as they are explained--I don't use the PHB Monk background, so PCs have to choose from a campaign specific explanation for their mojo. Same with alignment clerics.