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

[Ancalagon]

Or perhaps don't pick a deity whose tenets you aren't willing to have your PC follow.

those players want no masters. Including you - or the GM - telling them to avoid picking a deity who's tenets they aren't willing to follow.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

those players want no masters. Including you - or the GM - telling them to avoid picking a deity who's tenets they aren't willing to follow.

Just to be clear...which players are these?

 

[Minigiant]

Except it doesn't, because in your vision the player wants superpowers without following the narrative of the class that gets them, and it just happens because you want it to.

No, in my version the DM enforces RP restrictions on characters who get superpowers without outside entities.
I allow clerics of Philosophy at my table but you have to be fanatically adherent to it or no spells next long rest.

You drank milk, cleric of Veganism. No slots for you until you repent.
You didn't tell the goblin about beans. No slots for you until you repent.
You passed up buying berries. No slots for you until you repent.
You didn't tell the mayor about your better plantbased burger recipe. No slots for you until you repent.

 

[FrozenNorth]

D&D DMs don't enforce this the same way DMs don't sic minions on disobedient or underproducing warlocks.

Or enforce the years of study to become a 1st level wizard.

 

[Minigiant]

Or enforce the years of study to become a 1st level wizard.

"Oh you picked up a book off the floor and now you are a wizard. Get outta here."

If your world doesn't make sense, that's on ya bruh.

 

[mamba]

Of course they can, but the rules are not telling them to do so.

The qualitative difference between the rules for a class saying the class loses their powers if roleplayed wrong on a subjective measure (violates a code, does an evil action) and classes that have no such rules provision seems pretty clear.

If playing an AD&D or 3e paladin the class rules say for the DM to judge whether the character does any evil act. For a fighter or wizard the class rules do not say for the DM to do so.

There can be good faith differences of opinion on how a cleric or paladin should act, the DM does not have to be out to screw you over for this to be an issue.

Nonsense, it is trivially easy to avoid the problem of worrying about PC and DM differences of opinion on the proper way to play a character under the ex-cleric and ex-paladin rules in 3e, play any of the numerous 3e D&D classes without such restrictions.

if that is your only concern, yes, that can be avoided. In multiple ways even, do not play a Cleric or Paladin, or refluff the restriction away by reskinning eg the Paladin as a Viking warrior, as someone else did upthread. There still is no need to introduce the incoherence of believing in oneself.

 

[Maxperson]

those players want no masters. Including you - or the GM - telling them to avoid picking a deity who's tenets they aren't willing to follow.

And they want to re-roll when they roll doubles three times in a row when they go to jail. And they want the person whose piece lands on them to go home in Sorry. And...

Why play a game if you aren't going to follow the rules? A rule of clerics is follow your god's tenets or the god gets royally irked. And why would that god then keep granting you power?

 

[Maxperson]

The number of people who cannot believe in themselves, but can follow others fanatically, is extremely large, on Earth, today.

Not really. It's actually a very small percentage. We just have a huge number of people on Earth, so it seems large.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not a matter of them "wanting" to mess with you. It is literally baked into the rules.

I don't see where clerics lose their powers in 5e. Paladins can fall if they break their oath, but I thought they removed that from clerics for 5e. I looked again at clerics in the PHB and I don't see it.

 

[Maxperson]

No, in my version the DM enforces RP restrictions on characters who get superpowers without outside entities.
I allow clerics of Philosophy at my table but you have to be fanatically adherent to it or no spells next long rest.

You don't have to be any more fanatical about a philosophy than you do about a religion. The philosophy just needs tenets. Think Buddhism.

You drank milk, cleric of Veganism. No slots for you until you repent.
You didn't tell the goblin about beans. No slots for you until you repent.
You passed up buying berries. No slots for you until you repent.
You didn't tell the mayor about your better plantbased burger recipe. No slots for you until you repent.

Buying the berries would also result in no slots according to your philosophy(hur hur). The Veganism subclasss grants the ability to cast Goodberry and by buying those berries, they deprive others of the bounty.