MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
That sounds like a cool epic boon for sorcerers. You can start powering up warlocks or clerics if you are a divine soul.
D&D General What’s The Big Deal About Psionics?
- Thread starter Smackpixi
- Start date
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
An oath has this kind of divine power. Any kind of sacred tradition has this kind of power. Welcoming strangers as guests in ones home is this kind of power. Fighting for liberty is divine power. And so on. The divinist player needs to decide what exactly is sacred for that character. Likely the character is a member of a community who share this sacred value.
Not any. Many but not any.
You can't make an oath to the name John Smith the Blacksmith of Greenport and smite people with it or resurrect someone with it
It says it on DMG page 13. The power of a force stems fromthe belief that mortals invest in it. A philosoply with one believer cannot bestow magic power.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
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Also, the understanding about an oath is wrong when it is assumed to be "to" someone.
An oath is often to oneself: "I swear I will ..."
The oath itself is the divine power source.
In cultures where oaths are sacred, there is often a sense of binding oneself to a fate, which is where the divine magic often comes from. In other cultures an oath is taboo because it is seen as impossible or exceptionally difficult to undo.
But anything sacred is suitable for the divine power source.
Reread Xanathars that clarifies how a cosmic force works.
Also, the understanding about an oath is wrong when it is assumed to be "to" someone.
An oath is often to oneself: "I swear I will ..."
The oath itself is the divine power source.
In cultures where oaths are sacred, there is often a sense of binding oneself to a fate, which is where the divine magic often comes from. In other cultures an oath is taboo because it is seen as impossible or exceptionally difficult to undo.
But anything sacred is suitable for the divine power source.
You are missing the point.
The cosmic force or philosophy still needs a certain amount of power to bestow magic.
D&D doesn't follow the 1st law of Thermodynamics.
D&D however follows the "You must X powerful to grant Y magic." Hercule the Demigod can't make clerics. Hercules the God of Strength can.
You don't have to be a actual being but you have to be powerful. D&D is big on hierachy. It's the big difference between clerics, druids, warlocks, and sorcerers.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
Heh, sorry but, I am playing 5e.
I disbelieve the silly 3e faith mechanics.
Please reread the 5e rules, including Xanathars.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
So you like the rules that can be interpreted to support you desires, and disregard the rules that don't? Fair enough, but 5e is by far the most supportive of, "it doesn't matter what I'm a cleric of" play. For most of the game's history, gods and similar divinities were much more important. That's what's being said here.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
Hm. Now that's something that will definitely change for Spelljammer, I bet. The "Native Gods" rules.
Yaarel
🇮🇱 🇺🇦 He-Mage
In my experience.
I learned D&D via 1e enthusiasts.
1e officially requires DMs and players to create new worlds, new settings, new cosmologies. We use core books only. No gods have ever happened.
The Cleric class has minimal suggestions for flavor and can be anything that anyone wants. LOL, the Cleric illustration has a medieval Christian bishop on it, holding up a cross. All flavors are explicitly optional suggestions. Our settings keep religion cultural, and let each player do religion whatever way they want for their own character. Whatever they find interesting, are personally comfortable with, and makes sense to them.
I play a Druid who is animistic. At first he was a typical "nature hippy" sotospeak. But after campaigning in the underdark, he developed into a full-on earth elementalist with spell-research spells.
We killed Lolth. She was an ancient drow who became a demon and started a personality cult to worship her. A demon with useful idiots.
In 4e, the astral sea has no Wheel. There can be any kinds of domains there, whatever seems useful for a campaign. The Cleric class flavor actually is a problem, but 4e designs its mechanics to officially reflavor easily, and gods have never happened to our 4e divine characters.
In 3e, I play a philosophical Cleric, whose bow shoots arrows of light and serves as his religious symbol (and 3e quasi-4e cantrip).
Now, 5e emphasizes narrative, and bakes it into the mechanics. The polytheism is a nuisance. But with Xanathars, I have the official narrative to play D&D Clerics the way that I am comfortable with, the way I have always played them since the beginning when learning to play D&D 1e.
As DM, gods dont exist in my setting, not in any important sense anyway, and are irrelevant. I generally give the different kinds of religion, the Eberron treatment. If necessary each religious community can create its own domain in the astral plane, creating any gods or anything else they care about to populate that unique astral domain.
I guess, because I learned D&D the 1e way, I learned to create my own worlds. I have never depended on an official setting. I use the core books. The gods have never been a thing in my D&D experience.
I find an obsession with gods to be bizarre and unappealing. And to try peer-pressure them on other players is highly problematic ethically.
The official gods seem unfun, and optional, and optional anyway. Unless one is slavishly serving the Forgotten Realms setting, they dont matter.
The official rules support my enjoyment of the D&D game, without gods interfering with my enjoyment of the D&D game. From the beginning. Since 1e.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
I sorcerer usually doesn't make a pact, but sorcerous powers can come from one.
"The appearance of sorcerous powers is wildly unpredictable. Some draconic bloodlines produce exactly one sorcerer in every generation, but in other lines of descent every individual is a sorcerer. Most of the time, the talents of sorcery appear as apparent flukes. Some sorcerers can't name the origin of their power, while others trace it to strange events in their own lives. The touch of a demon, the blessing of a dryad at a baby's birth, or a taste of the water from a mysterious spring might spark the gift of sorcery. So too might the gift of a deity of magic, exposure to the elemental forces of the Inner Planes or the maddening chaos of Limbo, or a glimpse into the inner workings of reality."
The above paragraph contains a non-exhaustive list of examples. In that paragraphs it says most of the time sorcery talents appear as apparent flukes. Not all the time. Only most of the time. Then it lists three examples of potential pacts. The blessing of the dryad could come after making a pact, so too could the gift of a deity of magic or the touch of that demon. And since it's non-exhaustive, the sorcerous power could come from making a pact with Yan-C-Bin or a noble Djinni.
Some pacts yield sorcerers and others warlocks. Depends on the pact I suppose.
