Question for the board - Deities and Domains

[Herobizkit]

Another option I might consider is giving him some delicious milk with his cake and having him roll a Cloistered Cleric from the Unearthed Arcana. Then, model him as a scholarly-type who is "researching" the dual-nature of this 'new' Goddess. Instead of going by the book as an either/or, do the Philosophy bit and let him have his axe and scrolls.

He can write Cleric scrolls with Scribe Scroll, and he can _use_ Wizard ones, but he still can't Scribe new Wizard scrolls other than the Wizard spells that may come with his Domains.

Also note that points in Use Magic Device in conjunction with Cloistered Cleric negates the need for the Magic domain and he could go all Destroyer and take both his domains from that side.

Maybe. :3

 

[Ragmon]

Snip

I would say, create a 3 domain list for the Light part, and 3 for the Darkness part.

OR you can handle the deity as if he was a godless cleric forllowing a concept and allow him to choose any domains...or just tell him to be a concept cleric since it looks like he can't find a deity with War and Magic domains.

 

[Greenfield]

The whole multi-DM thing seems to be a tricky aspect here, since it also robs you of the other simple solution here - saying "I just don't think this deity is a good fit for this campaign" - unless the other DMs feel the same way.

One option I'd suggest is simply to say that, as a worshipper of both aspects of Taiia, he is free to choose either of her domain lists - but not both. He must choose both his domains from the same list.

It's tricky in that I don't just get to say yes or no to proposals. Neither does anyone else. It's a vote thing, and my vote doesn't count any more than anyone elses.

Except that I'm a Type A personality, and my voice seems to carry a lot of other people along with it. That's one reason I want to get opinions here. If I can't avoid being "undue influence" personified, at least I'd like to be a fair and well informed voice of undue influence.

I mentioned to the player, by email, that since his character is said to hail from the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa, and the books don't cover any African regional or tribal faiths, he could do a little research into the region and write up something appropriate. We'd probably approve, and applaud the historical research efforts.

He's feeling very put upon right now though, since so many aspects of his character have been brought up for a vote, and it doesn't look like he's going to win even one of them. His problem, I think, is that he doesn't ask for approval of stuff from outside sources, he just puts it in the character without mentioning the source. I don't know if he's trying to slip something by us under the radar, or if he simply isn't thinking about the approved source list when he plans this stuff.

He wanted the War domain because it grants a starting non-human PC three feats at first level: The Everyman feat that everyone gets, the Martial Weapon Proficiency for his deity's favored weapon (and he wanted a god who favored something Clerics couldn't already get), and the Weapon Focus feat with that same weapon. Normally a 1st level non-human character will get one to begin with, and he's the type of player who wants more than "normally".

As one vote among many, I don't get to offer or make bargains for creative solutions. If I offer something that's not in an approved source, I'm out of line just as much as he is.

 

[Greenfield]

I would say, create a 3 domain list for the Light part, and 3 for the Darkness part.

OR you can handle the deity as if he was a godless cleric forllowing a concept and allow him to choose any domains...or just tell him to be a concept cleric since it looks like he can't find a deity with War and Magic domains.

The domain lists are already in the book. The size of those lists isn't the problem. The problem is that he wants to choose from both and the write up on Clerics and followers pretty much says that it doesn't work that way.

And yes, he could be a godless Cleric, except that without a specific deity there is no favored weapon for him to gain his Martial Proficiency and Weapon Focus in, and those feats were the reason he wanted the War domain.

 

[delericho]

And yes, he could be a godless Cleric, except that without a specific deity there is no favored weapon for him to gain his Martial Proficiency and Weapon Focus in, and those feats were the reason he wanted the War domain.

IIRC, there's a set of favoured weapons by alignment (though, oddly, they're listed under the write-up of Spiritual Weapon; I'm not 100% certain that those are generally applicable) - chaos = battleaxe, evil = flail, good = warhammer, law = longsword, neutral = pick any.

But from a balance point of view, it really shouldn't matter - the domains are all (in theory) balanced with one another. Some of them get a good granted power and mediocre spells, some get good spells and a mediocre granted power, but the theory is that a character should be able to select any two and it will all work out.

Of course, it doesn't quite work out that way, as WotC underestimated the value of some things and overestimated the value of others. But, of particular relevance in this case, the War domain appears to be one of the ones that they've overestimated quite significantly - for a Cleric character, adding a Martial Weapon Proficiency and Weapon Focus really isn't game breaking.

Further, for optimisation purposes you should really try to pick one "good power" and one "good spells" domain, so that you get the best of both worlds. But both the Magic and War domains fall into that "good power" category - in both cases, the spells are pretty mediocre.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about this from a balance point of view - the fact that he's playing a Cleric is far more problematic than his particular choice of domains!

 

[Ragmon]

The domain lists are already in the book. The size of those lists isn't the problem. The problem is that he wants to choose from both and the write up on Clerics and followers pretty much says that it doesn't work that way.

And yes, he could be a godless Cleric, except that without a specific deity there is no favored weapon for him to gain his Martial Proficiency and Weapon Focus in, and those feats were the reason he wanted the War domain.

Possible idea:
-There is a variant cleric in Pathfinder, the Separatist where the cleric chooses 1 domain from the list and another domain that sort of fits into the deities fluff.
-Tho they don't receive Weapon prof (in PF its a default thing they get, not a domain thing).
-Oh and he can be 2 steps away from the deities alignment.

I would like to link the SRD, buts its forbidden on EN-world to do so.

For the not receiving a WP as an godless cleric, why not? You fluff it in as the representation of his cause, or something (Don't allow exotic weapons oin this case).

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

One thing I haven't seen addressed in this thread yet is, does this deity in fact exist in your campaign world?

I know you've established the deities pretty solidly in your past game, and this is a generation later. Is this a new deity that has arisen in the last 20ish years? Is the belief in this only deity actually the case in your world, and all the other gods are gone, or is this faith perspective a lie in your world?

Is your player believing in a deity that actually doesn't exist, because if so, then it's falling under the "philosophy and wouldn't grant a weapon proficiency anyway" category, or does this deity exist and she's in conflict with all the other actual deities in whatever realm the gods live in? If she is spreading a lie about there being no other gods, what alignment is she really?

Unless in the last generation, all the other gods have died off and this one has arisen as the only one, I would vote no to this idea, because it's not actually true in your campaign world, or play it as a non-deity philosophy with whatever affects that has.

 

[Grogg of the North]

If I recall, your games are typically set in a psuedo-historical Greece/Roman Empires. If the deity doesn't exist in those pantheons, I'd just say no.

Now, if he wants just the domains, then he could look at Odin but what's a viking doing that far south? Also, he's about a millennium too early. The only other historical deity I saw that was kinda close thematically to Taiia's domains was Set. Set offers Magic and Wrath but it looks like his clerics don't play well with others.

The multi-classed idea sounds neat but I'd hammer into the player that the classes must be advanced equally or Bad Things might happen. I'd might allow something like mystic theurge to be reskinned to advance both castings but I'm not sure.

Too be honest, as a DM, this doesn't pass my smell test. And it's something I'd want to talk to the player about before I ruled on it.

 

[Celebrim]

It's tricky in that I don't just get to say yes or no to proposals. Neither does anyone else. It's a vote thing, and my vote doesn't count any more than anyone elses.

This is why you have a Captain aboard a starships instead of trying to run them by committee.

He's feeling very put upon right now though...

Isn't it interesting how the persons who most demand others submit to their whims are always the ones that think everyone else is being inconsiderate?

His problem, I think, is that he doesn't ask for approval of stuff from outside sources, he just puts it in the character without mentioning the source. I don't know if he's trying to slip something by us under the radar, or if he simply isn't thinking about the approved source list when he plans this stuff.

No, that isn't it. You said the problem yourself.

he's the type of player who wants more than "normally".

From everything you've said about him the type of player I call an 'ego gamer', in that a large part of the reason he plays RPGs is self-validation. You're probably dealing with a fundamentally insecure personality and RPGs feed the need for affirmation.

This can be functional or dysfunctional depending on how the player deals with his need for affirmation. Everyone who plays RPGs, even if the primary goal of play isn't affirmation, enjoys receiving affirmation and the illusion of success. The one part of the 'Community' D&D episode that really played out true to life for me is that both the hero and the protagonist were the same sorts of persons gaming for the same sorts of reasons - the need for self-validation. In fact, the recognition that the game could be affirming to the protagonist was the whole motivation behind the session (pity gaming?). But the two different players ultimately took two completely different approaches to how they received their affirmation.

The fact that the player in question is also a power gamer isn't the problem. Power gaming can be socially functional or dysfunctional depending on how it is done. The problem is you have an ego gamer, who is a power gamer, who has poor system mastery and so is always looking for some sort of short cut to success. Players with really high levels of system mastery not only don't need all the short cuts he's been taking, but are capable of creating characters that look innocuous on paper but become insanely powerful in practice (CoDzilla's for example). That of course is also potentially dysfunctional, but a decent power gamer knows to dial down the impact on play until you reach that point were you are facing defeat/TPK, and everyone at the table doesn't want that outcome. Then you get to be the hero, and the DM is happy about it because the consequences of failure aren't something he wants eitherl.

The problem is that many ego gamers just simply can't dial it back, and have to win big all the time and not only have to win big have to remain the focus of play at all times. They don't just have to 'beat the DM', they are actively always trying to 'beat the other players' to.

Then you have a problem.

If this is the same player that has showed up in 5-6 prior threads with the same problems, I don't think there is much you can do about it. In his mind he's being creative and interesting and every good idea he has is getting unfairly squashed. I don't think he's a good fit for the table, given that the table seems to be hard core setting geeks or you wouldn't be running quasi-historical campaigns in the first place. It's possible you guys are competing against a prior table that was run very permissive and gonzo, and as such he's like, "Why can't you guys see how much fun this could be?"

Let me say that its been clear from the beginning that the player in question has ZERO interest at all in RP. Every single one of the problems he's created have been the result of trying to find flavor to justify the mechanics he wants for his character. Not once has he actually been committed to a concept and looking for mechanics that fit it.

 

[Greenfield]

He's a rough fit for the group, and has been for a while.

We've run several round robin campaigns. Our previous one was the first where we ever tried a pseudo-historical setting. It lasted a while (four years) I admit, but before that all of our settings were purely mythical, and pretty much designed by committee: Each player invented their own homeland.

No, Taiia doesn't exist in our setting, as such, but we gave a general approval to a range of books. Deities and Demigods was on the list, so even if it's a bad fit, it's already licensed into the game. Wikipedia lists a number of African religions, and several of them list creator/destroyer deities, so he's not out of line in that respect.

His level of system mastery may or may not be an issue. He's aware of things that I'm not, but frequently he seems to get them wrong. Always in his favor. It may be that he's intentionally misunderstanding things and counting on us not knowing the fringe stuff well enough to catch him, or it may be that he only tries to exploit the things he sees as giving more of an advantage. I mean, he won't intentionally play something that isn't a good return on investment, will he?

His characters seem to be well crafted to take advantage of various class synergies, yet he's often caught by surprise when a DM uses a relatively common spell or creature to foil him. His PC in the last game was designed to never take damage from any savable spell (Evasion and Mettle, both, which give him zero damage on any spell he can save against, be it Reflex, Fortitude or Will). He was also designed to maximize his Hide ability (Bonus in the low 30s, Hide in Plain Sight and something called a Ring of Darkhidden which lets him hide in shadows even if the searcher has Darkvision). He went near ballistic when his PC got hit with Glitterdust. He argued that, since he wasn't Invisible, per se, See Invisible and even True Sight wouldn't reveal his loaction, and that Glitterdustsimply revealed Invisible targets, not hidden ones. Then we read him the line from the spell description that says targets get a -40 on their Hide checks. Instant fireworks, as if he had never read the 2nd level spell.

In our recent exchanges about sources he challenged my character's Spiked Chain, demanding that I reveal the source book I'd gotten it from, since he couldn't find it. It's straight from the PHB, of course.

Oddly, that's the book he seems least familiar with.