I am not happy with the current list of divine classes

[Sadrik]

I don't think that each deity should have a different and separate class, as I don't think it really makes that much sense. I really disliked the 2nd Edition era where we had a Forgotten Realms book with essentially 80 different Cleric/Priest classes, one for each god.

Absolutely not. I would much prefer 5 classes to accomplish the goal of having a different feeling divine character for the various gods.

Again:
Paladin (fighter/cleric)
Priest (a more scholarly cleric- wizardy cleric)
Cleric (your regular semi-militant cleric)
Mystic (a more self contemplative cleric- psionicy cleric)
Servant (rogue/cleric)

Then, every god could have everyone of these five, it would just be more common that paladins would be a part of militant deities and priests for gods of magic and knowledge.

I think that religion should be most de-coupled from the character class system, as I think that would make more sense. It seems to me that the "high priest" of a god of War would be more likely to be a Fighter than any other class, perhaps with a touch of divine favour enhancing his martial skills.

Not a bad idea but it just is not D&D anymore which has its own particular fantasyisms.

I think it robs the Paladin of must of its flavour to simply make it a divinely-powered warrior. I prefer the older concepts of the Paladin as a warrior devoted to the ideals of good, and he receives his power from that devotion, not granted by a specific deity, which essentially makes the Paladin into a Cleric with worse spells and slightly better hit points and attack bonus.

A paladin based on "the philosophy of good" is not a problem. I think the class should be broad enough to encompass that. However, the way the paladin is right now it is a mechanical straight-jacket. It allows for only one way to have a divine warrior. It should be opened up to any alignment so that all religions or other philosophies can be included in the mechanics.

I like the idea of a divine-powered Mystic who spends a lot of time in isolation, pondering the mysteries of the divine and of the world; he's a fairly well-rounded character. But if he's a Mystic because he's a priest of the God of Philosophy and Navel-Gazing, then that strikes me as a bit silly.

The Mystic is the class that would take their religion to the extreme and not necessarily fit into a church like setting, they could be in the role of cultists, hermetics, divine prophets, ascetics, disciples and even messiahs. Their deities are often of little known or little understood deities. Many deities could fit into this class. In fact, at least half of the deities would fit into this type of class.


As long as nearly every deity can fit into every class I am fine. No, you may only use this class if you follow "the philosophy of good" or the Tyr or any other one off restrictions like that. The game does not need 80 classes to cover every god. They only need ~5 and make sure they are not overly restrictive. Then just like allowing dwarven wizards (which would have been seen as blasphemy from 1st and 2nd ed they need to have "Paladins of Asmodeous" and "Servants of Tyr".

 

[Sadrik]

Even the difference between monotheistic and polytheistic religion changes this very little (since I would argue there is not a well-defined distinction between the two...).

I think that D&D should remove its residual Christian world-view-isms from the game and increase the Roman religious world-view-isms. The game is obviously has a very polytheistic nature. But the games classes cleric, paladin are very (VERY... VERY) tied to Christian ideas and ideals. Remove that flavor and make the classes embrace the polytheistic nature of D&D more. But also open it so that if the game master wanted they can put their own religion, philosophy or whatever into the game.

 

[Sadrik]

Yeah, my gnome illusionist/bard, whose race and neither of whose classes will appear in the PHB, weeps tears over the unfair exclusion of the shugenja and archivist.

Yeah but it has been confirmed that you will be getting those things. What I am arguing for is that the Paladin and the cleric be expansive and that the other divine roles simply come out!
Paladin and Cleric in PHB I
Mystic and Priest in PHB II
Servant in PHB III

I would be happy with that. These are new concepts though.