After participating in some discussion recently on divine and non-divine classes, I've decided to bring us all into this thought experiment,
As anyone who has read my posts here, I have always been a proponent of thinking bout one of our favorite games differently.
So here it is.
D&D has divine gods. And with these divine gods come the idea of divine classes: the cleric, the paladin, and others throughout D&D's lifetime.
And these divine gods, whether good or evil, lawful or chaotic, civilized or barbaric, greater or lesser, alive or half dead, all use the same divine classes.
The cleric and paladin heal the wounded, harm the undead, raise the dying, strengthen their allies etc. They all kinda fall into a theme.
But what if there were another type of god. A "Not-Divine" godly power.
How would the Not-Cleric and Not-Paladin of a Not-Divine-God Look?
The idea that there are other sets of gods or godlike beings in a world is not alien concept in real world religion. There could be other groups like the Aesir and Vanir and Giants or different generations of the same set like the Titans and Olympians. Even D&D does it. The flagbearer setting, FR, has different pantheons appear and disappear all over. But they all are divine deities who make clerics the same ways even if they had different themes.
Later editions played with this a bit. 4e created the Dawn War and had primordials that the gods beat up and took theirlunch money material plane from. 4e has the warlock that can have an Great Old One patron which can be a god from another reality or an imprisoned elder god from a previous history who gives you strange psychic and madness magic.
So what if you are a DM and decide to include living, not-asleep, not-imprisoned Primordials, Elder Gods, or Jotunn in your world.
What would be their agents? It wouldn't be clerics, right?
Would the "not-cleric" of an active Great Old One be a psion?
Would a "not-cleric" of a Primordial or Elder Jotunn cast cure wounds or just burn their foes with raw blasts of ancient fire and ice?
Would healing be a main aspect of those classes? Or would control or damage dealing be at the forefront?
What are your thoughts.
As anyone who has read my posts here, I have always been a proponent of thinking bout one of our favorite games differently.
So here it is.
D&D has divine gods. And with these divine gods come the idea of divine classes: the cleric, the paladin, and others throughout D&D's lifetime.
And these divine gods, whether good or evil, lawful or chaotic, civilized or barbaric, greater or lesser, alive or half dead, all use the same divine classes.
The cleric and paladin heal the wounded, harm the undead, raise the dying, strengthen their allies etc. They all kinda fall into a theme.
But what if there were another type of god. A "Not-Divine" godly power.
How would the Not-Cleric and Not-Paladin of a Not-Divine-God Look?
The idea that there are other sets of gods or godlike beings in a world is not alien concept in real world religion. There could be other groups like the Aesir and Vanir and Giants or different generations of the same set like the Titans and Olympians. Even D&D does it. The flagbearer setting, FR, has different pantheons appear and disappear all over. But they all are divine deities who make clerics the same ways even if they had different themes.
Later editions played with this a bit. 4e created the Dawn War and had primordials that the gods beat up and took their
So what if you are a DM and decide to include living, not-asleep, not-imprisoned Primordials, Elder Gods, or Jotunn in your world.
What would be their agents? It wouldn't be clerics, right?
Would the "not-cleric" of an active Great Old One be a psion?
Would a "not-cleric" of a Primordial or Elder Jotunn cast cure wounds or just burn their foes with raw blasts of ancient fire and ice?
Would healing be a main aspect of those classes? Or would control or damage dealing be at the forefront?
What are your thoughts.