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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sejs" data-source="post: 3198959" data-attributes="member: 4910">Sejs goes waaaay off the paladin-related topicIMC the way I handle it is that prepared divine spellcasting is something you learn.  It's a very emotive, conviction-based sort of art, but it's still something that you do by doing.  You're taught by a terrestrial agency, usually a church or some kind of mentor, and even down to the domains you picked (related to the ethos you were 'brought up' in), the magic all happens with you.  God doesn't pop down and tell you "here ya go, buddy, have some spells", even if your particular faith's dogma says otherwise.For similar reasons, your deith does not actually have divine veto powers when it come to off-alignment spells, but most clerics either choose not to as it's against their faith, or exhibit a mental block, such that they're hamstringing themselves.Now on the other hand, spontaneous divine spellcasters - that is, the Favored Soul - is the flip side of that particular coin.  As a FS your magic IS a direct gift from your god.  It's not something you do by doing, it's something you do by being.  Unlike the cleric, a deity does have a veto on what they grant to the FS; they just say 'no you can't have that' if a particular spell is vastly against their nature.  In the end it equates to the same thing: good priests don't cast evil spells, but they take two different roads to get there.It also goes a good way, in my mind at least, to reconcile the Int vs Wis vs Cha divide with regard to spellcasting method and source.Int-based spellcasting is generally something you learn studiously.  Wizards cast spells by memorizing arcane formulae.  Archivists stand astride Int and Wis by working to understand divine magic by means of intellectual disection.  Warmages bridge Int and Cha in similar fashion.Wis-based spellcasting is generally emotive.  You know the prayers and rituals and you believe with all your heart, and that willpower guts the magic into happening in the way you know it should.  Druids and Clerics cast spells by honest-to-god believing in what they preach.  Favored Souls straddle Wis and Cha being equal parts devotion and imbued divine spark.Cha-based spellcasting is generally something you are.  You nurture a particular innate something, opening yourself to the intrinsic magical flow of whatever and shape it as it passes through you, magic being the result.  Sorcerers use themselves as a lens for native, inborn abilities to channel mana, be it from distant herritage (draconic or otherwise), or more mysterious means.  Bards let their songs direct and influence magic in a similar fashion; they don't have to sing the same song every time they cast Cure Light Wounds, but they just gotta sing because that's their schtick.  Warmages, etc I mostly see as a sort of specialized Sorcerer - focusing native abilities, but in a particular fashion such that their knack develops in a particular way.It's not a perfect system, I'll admit, but it's more a broad idea than a hard 'X must equal Y'.</blockquote>

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