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

[Blue]

Sure, I have no problem with a character who starts the game good but has made a pact with a fiendish power. The fiend is going to string them along and try to tempt them at every turn. But if they continue to resist the Fiend and use its power against itself willfully, eventually that Fiend is going to stop giving them more power.

I have no problems with a good character making a deal with an evil parton either out of dire expediency ("our village will be wiped out in the flash flood") or ignorance ("he promise me power to do what I thought was right, little did I know that he'd try to warp that sense of right over the years.") In general, I do see patrons have have immortal-level patience, continually tempting, treying for the small pebbles of easy that slowly turn into an avalanche - I'm not going to default to telling a player that by the time they are mid level that they will be stripped of their powers. Rather work out with the player to tell the best story we all will enjoy - which might be the stripped of the powers, or something else entirely up to the point that the patron keeps granting for the length of the campaign, always looking for that 'first slip'.

 

[Shiroiken]

FYI, you forgot the ranger.

I have had in-game discipline happen to characters before for failing to follow their patron's will. Spells and class abilities may become unreliable or fail completely, until such a time that the player appeases their patron, since that is the source of their power. Normally I grant warnings first, either as omens, dreams, or some other sign, but if those are ignored, steps are taken. Characters know that they get their power from an outside source, and displeasing that source is obviously a bad idea.

 

[Yaarel]

For me,

D&D 5e is on the right track when migrating toward the character personality:
• quirks
• flaws
• bonds (persons, organizations, and places)
• ideals
• alignment (plus one or a few ways how the character tends to express this alignment)

Everything depends on the character concept, and the personality is the location where to elaborate it.

For example, a Paladin Code belongs in the ideals section, a Cleric sacred devotion belongs in the bonds section (personification, religious organization, sacred site) or the ideals section (ethical or philosophical worldview). And so on.

The Paladin class does well to suggest typical ideals for each archetype, but it is the player who decides if they like that character concept or not. And it is the player who decides what the ideals will actually be.

Likewise, if the DM wants to reward roleplay (or punish inconsistency), the personality (ideals, bonds, etcetera) is the character description that the DM needs to be looking at.

 

[Leatherhead]

This may be a setting, but I don't see this as any sort of universal. It's not supported in the class fluff nor in the default setting. As a matter of fact, the opposite is supported in the default setting with clerics historic cases of clerics changing their god.

What part are you challenging?

Divine magic, as the name suggests, is the power of the gods, flowing from them into the world. Clerics are conduits for that power, manifesting it as miraculous effects. The gods don’t grant this power to everyone who seeks it, but only to those chosen to fulfill a high calling.

Also

Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of 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 of authority and involving no communion with a god at all. True clerics are rare in most hierarchies.

Later on

Once you’ve chosen a deity, consider your cleric’s relationship to that god. Did you enter this service willingly? Or did the god choose you, impelling you into service with no regard for your wishes? How do the temple priests of your faith regard you: as a champion or a troublemaker? What are your ultimate goals? Does your deity have a special task in mind for you? Or are you striving to prove yourself worthy of a great quest?

Quite simply, you do not choose the Cleric life, the Cleric life chooses you. And you can totally be a non-consenting Cleric.

 

[Blue]

Quite simply, you do not choose the Cleric life, the Cleric life chooses you. And you can totally be a non-consenting Cleric.

The same section you bolded also showed that you can pursue cleric life. It choose you is not the only way it can happen.

 

[Blue]

For me,

D&D 5e is on the right track when migrating toward the character personality:
• quirks
• flaws
• bonds (persons, organizations, and places)
• ideals
• alignment (plus one or a few ways how the character tends to express this alignment)

Everything depends on the character concept, and the personality is the location where to elaborate it.

For example, a Paladin Code belongs in the ideals section, a Cleric sacred devotion belongs in the bonds section (personification, religious organization, sacred site) or the ideals section (ethical or philosophical worldview). And so on.

The Paladin class does well to suggest typical ideals for each archetype, but it is the player who decides if they like that character concept or not. And it is the player who decides what the ideals will actually be.

Likewise, if the DM wants to reward roleplay (or punish inconsistency), the personality (ideals, bonds, etcetera) is the character description that the DM needs to be looking at.

I see where you're going, but don't quite agree. There's an old question:

"Who's a better Christian, one who following the precepts of the religion come naturally, or the one whom is constantly tempted to go other paths, but instead chooses to follow the precepts?"

(Please, generalize this out - I am not trying to make a comment on any RL religion, just repeating the question.)

Both of those make great ideals, bonds, etc. But the Oath isn't internal - it's from an outside source. So you can play a paladin like the first one - where their own ideals and bonds line up perfectly with their Oath - and that's cool. But you can also play a paladin where there is tension and friction between their character and their Oath, and they must work to fulfill it. Maybe they are mostly in alignment but there's a particular trigger like protecting family, greed, fear of something that could cause a problem. Or perhaps it's a bigger deal, that the deity in it's vaster viewpoint has still picked this person as part of their ineffable plan.

So to me, the fact that the Oath is to an outside source prevents it from just being folded into your character's persona.

 

[LordEntrails]

Well, I didn't make the poll, but how is it worded poorly? The question is: Do you discipline/take powers for not following devotions/oaths/whatever. Then there is a list of options for classes that have powers taken from them by people who have responded to the poll.

The only thing I could see is an "I don't take them from anyone" option, but that is up to Blue if he wants to get that kind of response on his poll or not.

@lowkey13 said it pretty well. But let me specify my position.

So, I have never had to actually remove powers. Discussion has always been sufficient. But I would take it from paladins, clerics, druids, and warlocks without much concern. BUT, their is no appropriate box for me to select to indicate that?

Read the thread title, which is the things we are supposed to vote on. it says "...have you ever..." Well, my answer is "no" but that not a choice, so I can't vote. So one has to assume every vote cast is for those DMs that have actually done it. And that makes the earlier point I was responding too a poor conclusion from the available data. Or think of it this way, if every valid response is positive, then it doesn't make sense to say how common a positive response is based on that survey.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Both of those make great ideals, bonds, etc. But the Oath isn't internal - it's from an outside source. So you can play a paladin like the first one - where their own ideals and bonds line up perfectly with their Oath - and that's cool. But you can also play a paladin where there is tension and friction between their character and their Oath, and they must work to fulfill it. Maybe they are mostly in alignment but there's a particular trigger like protecting family, greed, fear of something that could cause a problem. Or perhaps it's a bigger deal, that the deity in it's vaster viewpoint has still picked this person as part of their ineffable plan.

So to me, the fact that the Oath is to an outside source prevents it from just being folded into your character's persona.

To my mind, a Paladin's Oath is a fairly internal thing. It may have been made to an outside force, such as a deity, your ancestors, or just screamed into the uncaring firmament. However the oath itself is an intensely personal thing - the paladin must believe in it and be dedicated utterly to its fulfilment for it to become the source of their powers as it does.
Anyone can swears an oath. Not every oath has the sheer level of commitment behind it to magically empower the one who swears it.

 

[Yaarel]

I see where you're going, but don't quite agree. There's an old question:

"Who's a better Christian, one who following the precepts of the religion come naturally, or the one whom is constantly tempted to go other paths, but instead chooses to follow the precepts?"

(Please, generalize this out - I am not trying to make a comment on any RL religion, just repeating the question.)

Both of those make great ideals, bonds, etc. But the Oath isn't internal - it's from an outside source. So you can play a paladin like the first one - where their own ideals and bonds line up perfectly with their Oath - and that's cool. But you can also play a paladin where there is tension and friction between their character and their Oath, and they must work to fulfill it. Maybe they are mostly in alignment but there's a particular trigger like protecting family, greed, fear of something that could cause a problem. Or perhaps it's a bigger deal, that the deity in it's vaster viewpoint has still picked this person as part of their ineffable plan.

So to me, the fact that the Oath is to an outside source prevents it from just being folded into your character's persona.

The ONLY oath that matters is the one that the player thinks is interesting and inspiring for the character concept.

 

[Celebrim]

To my mind, a Paladin's Oath is a fairly internal thing...Not every oath has the sheer level of commitment behind it to magically empower the one who swears it.

This is a very modern viewpoint, and in my opinion it's a bit crazier of a superstition than was believed by people who believed in fairies, witches, and spirits living in trees. They might have believed some really wild and far out stuff, but they never believed anything as crazy as that. They at least understood that they were mortal and frail, and no matter how much they really really wanted it to be true, they couldn't cause things to happen just because they really wanted it bad enough. Simple verifiable and repeatable scientific inquiry affirmed that truth again and again.

To people who literally believed in Oaths, they never assumed that swearing on something formed any sort of binding contract that empowered something to be kept and risked punishment and curses if it wasn't because of something in themselves. They always assumed that the Oath was kept and blessed and empowered by something external to themselves that did have the power to make things come true simply because they wanted to do it - something that wasn't much like a frail mortal.

I mean I understand why that modern viewpoint is becoming modern... I mean it's modern. But it's always struck me as a bit internally incoherent, because all the trappings and mechanics and myth built around it are still the mechanics, trappings, and myth of the older sort of view that Oaths were an external sort of thing, and it didn't matter that much at all how much you believed something, but what you believed in. I kind of feel like if you really want to take that and run with it, you'll end up with something that looks really different than D&D or typical consensus fantasy. For example, if matters how much you believe in something, and how much conviction that you have, then being delusional is the ultimate super-power and megalomaniacs are inherently godlike. Pratchett plays a bit of lip service to this in the Disqworld books, where he has magic be the spontaneous result of people believing in something, but I don't think he ever really takes this to the sort of logical extreme that you'd imagine would result from that. The only way to keep reality stable if that is the way it works, and Pratchett hints at this as well, is if there is some sort of external meta-belief - maybe what Great Atu'un the Turtle thinks - that keeps everything mostly in balance anyway.