D&D General Holding non-Paladins to their class vows

[MechaTarrasque]

Sure, but does this angry angel keep having to deliver your spells to you every day?

You get one spell for every time he smacks you upside the head. I usually have the cleric make an easy wisdom check to see if he/she gets the message; much like commentators on the Internet, some clerics are purposefully obtuse.

I figure your god invested a lot of effort to make you a cleric, so he/she doesn't want you dead, just corrected and disciplined.

 

[5ekyu]

In the recent discussions about Paladins and their oaths, @Oofta pointed out correctly that there are many other devotional classes. How often do as a DM do you take players of other classes to task for not following their devotions, up to and including taking features or spells from them until they atone?

In my games, there us a cire house rule that applies to paladins, warlocks, clerics, druids (to varying degrees) and even to certain backgrounds for other classes.

It covers that the GM and player just come to agreement about the details and particulars of these bonds and obligations and consequences for the PC to be approved.

So, there will be discussion, tenets, expectations etc all agreed to both in general and in specific.

When a recent charscter was multi-clasding into cleric there was a write-up explaining the roles, tenets etc.

The key is, once you get on the same page at start, I find you get more buy-in as those play out in play.

Of course it cant all be presented as one-sided but there can still be surprises.

As for removing class features- anything is on the table, especially when dealing with divines and other such powers.
.

 

[Seramus]

I see the lowest example is currently Monks. Anyone want to share an actual play issue where they had to discipline a monk for not following their vows or devotion?

Back in the day when monks had to be lawful I had a player who stopped being lawful. When he tried to take another level of Monk I described how his mind kept wandering to other important issues and he couldn't focus. I don't know if that counts as discipline, since he didn't lose his existing powers.

In any case, there is merit to the idea that a God or patron invests their power unwisely, and now the character uses those Powers against the god/patron. So I'm much more inclined to let the character keep their powers, and the NPC has to deal with their poor decision.

 

[Salthorae]

No one at my table ever had stats to do a Monk in the AD&D days and the 3.x monk was relatively weak compared to the other classes so never had any love there.

I think we only had 1 played in the 3.x/PF days of my group and he quickly multiclassed out after he changed alignments. He kept his previous features, but no going back.

 

[Charlaquin]

I don’t think any of the options are consistent with what I do. I went with “I never discipline character’s for not following their class devotion” because I never take away characters’ class (or subclass, etc.) abilities. But it’s also not entirely accurate, because characters of any class might face story consequences for actions that go against what is expected of people of their station. Basically, I don’t want to punish the players with mechanical consequences for playing their class “wrong.” But if your monastery has a code of conduct, or you swore an oath to your king, or you are part of an organized crime ring, and you break the rules you’ve agreed to, there will naturally be in-character consequences if you’re found out.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Salthorae]

I don’t think any of the options are consistent with what I do. I went with “I never discipline character’s for not following their class devotion” because I never take away characters’ class (or subclass, etc.) abilities. But it’s also not entirely accurate, because characters of any class might face story consequences for actions that go against what is expected of people of their station. Basically, I don’t want to punish the players with mechanical consequences for playing their class “wrong.” But if your monastery has a code of conduct, or you swore an oath to your king, or you are part of an organized crime ring, and you break the rules you’ve agreed to, there will naturally be in-character consequences if you’re found out.

It's curious to me that you're willing to punish players with the natural outflow IC social consequences at the "human" level, but not any natural outflow consequences between a character and their divine patron who gives them the ability to even cast spells.

Maybe we have a different metaphysical starting point on the source of divine powers and spells that explains our divergent view points?

And I'm not talking about playing "wrong", I'm talking about playing in a way that is inconsistent with the tenents of a god/oath/code/whatever that the player agreed to play from the start.

Players chose a certain combination to start a character. I have a discussion with them about what that means at the beginning of the game, what their god expects, etc. Then I let them play their character. Occasionally I will remind them or give them a Wisdom check or something to allow insight into a planned course of action. But if they persist in playing a character in a way that is divergent from the god/code/oath/whatever, then for my games not only are there potential social consequences, but their patron/god/power source is also going to be ticked and pull their power from that player. Or stop teaching them new things (warlock), until they either make it right or abandon that faith and take up a new god.

 

[Krachek]

I prefer to see divine power as a neutral force that cleric and paladin bind according to their faith.
It allow more freewill and thus temptation, inspire by the Jedi style.
In DnD gods can be defeat, castaway, do their clerics become powerless?
I would not make so.
They would have to adjust their faith or work to recall their god back.

 

[Salthorae]

I prefer to see divine power as a neutral force that cleric and paladin bind according to their faith.
It allow more freewill and thus temptation, inspire by the Jedi style.
In DnD gods can be defeat, castaway, do their clerics become powerless?
I would not make so.
They would have to adjust their faith or work to recall their god back.

In historic lore? At least for the FR, Yes they do become powerless.

I'm not up on other settings nearly as much for this, but given that FR is now the default setting I think the older lore applies to the setting in general.

When Bane died in the Avatar Crisis, his priests lost their spells until they switched to worshiping another god. Most jumped to Cyric or Iyachtu Xvim. Same with Leira when she died, though being priests of illusion and deception, they pretended. Some started to get their spells from Cyric as well.

From 3e's Faiths and Pantheons, page 5:

"The constant clash of deities also ensures a steady supply of dead deities whose temples now lie in ruin about Toril. Moreover, death doesn't necessarily end the career of a deity of Toril. The possibility of resurrection always exists, as evidenced by the recent return of Bane. Small cults dedicated to the resurrection of one lost deity or another appear everywhere in Faerun. Sometimes the deity is beyond the reach of such cultists or never existed except in myth, and its adherents receive no divine backing in their endeavors. Other times, a dead deity retains enough power to provide divine backing to a handful of worshipers. Occasionally, another deity masquerades in the guise of a dead deity, in hopes of expanding its portfolio."

 

[MechaTarrasque]

To expand a little more seriously on my previous answer, I think the gods/patrons/nature spirits/whatnot invested a certain amount of power in the classholder. That is why even war gods don't field armies of 10,000 paladins. It is a pretty big deal to "defrock" one, and a lot of Powers find it easier to headhunt or poach someone else's minion than create their own. And the PC might not even have a choice in the matter: your lips can say "Bahamut" all you want, but your actions direct your prayers to Tiamat (and if Tiamat has to pretend to be an awfully accommodating Bahamut for a while, that's a small price).

Also (and this is one of the reasons I rarely explain what the gods are thinking), it might be Vainglorious the Solar who is more in the wrong than the PC, and this is the god's subtle way of fixing one or both of them. Of course, even the DM might not know that until we see how the dice roll......