D&D General If faith in yourself is enough to get power, do we need Wizards and Warlocks etc?

[MGibster]

A Fighter who doesn't have faith in themselves isn't going to be a great Fighter.

Sure. But a Fighter who has great faith in their abilities isn't going to last long without the training to back it up.

 

[Fanaelialae]

This is nothing new.

As far back as 3e, clerics could gain power from a philosophy rather than a deity. Might even go back earlier, since I played a 2e specialty cleric that followed a philosophy (maybe my DM was just being nice, I don't recall).

Even back in the early days of the game you had folks fresh off the farm who decided to go adventuring and thus were 1st level fighters. Nevermind that being able to use all weapons and armor implies a significant degree of martial training.

By the OPs reasoning, it seems to me that if my fighter prays to a deity, then he should be justified in having access to the same spells as a cleric. But clearly that isn't so. A far more reasonable conclusion, IMO, is that those who can draw upon the power of faith to that degree are the exceptions, rather than the rule.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Sure. But a Fighter who has great faith in their abilities isn't going to last long without the training to back it up.

Lack of faith in their abilities will mean they won't bother training.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, a divine caster like a Cleric, Paladin, Druid etc don't need any actual divine link to power and can just use "The power of my inner belief )or love or friendship or self respect etc) to gain divine powers.

So why would a Warlock ever make a deal with Cthulu or a Fey Princess? Why would a Wizard spend thousands of hours pouring over spell books? They can just "Believe in themselves" hard enough and gain magical power. Cannot a Warlock just make an Oath to himself and gain spells? A Wizard Believe in magic so much he just finds it deep inside (but not like a Sorcerer who is just born with it!)?

Do Bards need colleges? Do Druids need a connection to nature? Do Monks need to train in the martial arts to gain a kamehameha?

Or can they just believe in the friends we made along the way and gain the power of love and self respect?

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Faith in yourself shouldn't be enough. Divine power comes from believing in something other than yourself.

At least, not in D&D. I won't denigrate Scott Pilgrim.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure, okay. Let's work with that.



Some possible reasons:
1) The person doesn't have inner belief such that they can access divine powers.
2) There are other powers out there, that are not accessible via inner belief itself, and the character wants them, rather than the divine power.

Another, more metaphysical approach is that, in fact, everyone is already accessing power via that inner belief. All the trappings are merely the frameworks that support that belief. The wizard believes magical power comes from study. The warlock believes that power comes from their patron, and so on.

This idea implies that everyone is delusional. Not sure I want to play or live in a world like that.

 

[Scribe]

This idea implies that everyone is delusional. Not sure I want to play or live in a world like that.

Too late for that!

 

[CleverNickName]

I've learned to be very suspicious of what D&D "needs," according to the Internet. Because most of the time, in this context, people say "the game" when they really mean "the DM."

The game does not "need" wizards or warlocks, any more than it "needs" clerics, bards, or sorcerers. It's true that the books recommend a balanced party, and they have some suggestions about what a balanced party could look like, and one recommendation is that there be some kind of spellcaster in the party. That's it. Now the DM might be planning a campaign that might not have gods or blood magic, and that might affect certain classes and options...but that's the DM's prerogative, not a game requirement.

If you decide to play a cleric, that's fine. If you decide to play a druid, that's fine too. You don't "need" to also add a wizard, and a warlock, and a bard, and etc. to fill an arbitrary requirement. You just need to chat with your DM and ask about spell selections and subclasses.

 

[Tonguez]

Some of those Fey Princesses are kinda hawt though

but only Divine power can be channeled by Faith, apparently Arcane magic needs ritual and formula to activate unless you have an X-gene or a willing patron.

personally though I’m not sure how Cleric differs from Celestial Warlock

 

[Scribe]

personally though I’m not sure how Cleric differs from Celestial Warlock

Without Faith/Piety, it's blurry.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah, this is why I always disliked the concept of godless clerics. It just gets weird and silly. I tend to build metaphysics of my worlds so that divine magic is explicitly about channelling power from an external source.