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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Knight Otu" data-source="post: 2665815" data-attributes="member: 192">I concede that a cleric who follows a philosophy instead of a god can be just as good as a healer as a cleric of Pelor. But just using the core, there is no way a cleric of Hextor can get the Healing domain, which immediately makes him not the best healer.The design philosophy you're referring to seems to be the one that says "Don't give mechanical advantages for roleplaying drawbacks" - which essentially boils down to - "since the characters are always in trouble anyway, giving them the drawback to be always in trouble is meaningless."Mechanical adjustments for RP effects - well, those are more or less in play. The choice of deity determines which domains are available. The choice of alignment can impact on domains, spells, prestige classes, normal classes, the effects of various abilities on the character, etc.The odd thing is, some of your comments made me think that this is what you want. No difference between the alignments, no difference between gods, I was almost tempted to think you want choices to be consequence-free. I was sure it wasn't the case, though, and now I can see it isn't, and I apologize for even thinking that.I'd just like to formulate my current opinion on the matter, as I think some of it might have been lost in translation.Allegiances can be tough. Pelor/Nerull, Good/Evil, Thor/Loki, Day/Night, DMs use them in sometimes subtly different ways. But we do get some information on what they are meant to be in the PHB (or whatever setting book is being used). We can find out easily that battling the undead/raising the undead, helping others/hurting others, thunder and lightning/trickery and deceit, the reveiling light/the conceiling dark are part of what defines that allegiance.Mechanics on the other way, are relatively straightforward. Heal spells/inflict spells, improved aid another/improved damage, electricity damage/illusions, bonus to Sense Motive/bonus to Hide, every DM uses them in roughly the same way. Every character (or at least those with proper training) can make use of those. But we can also see some connection to those allegiances.It isn't much of a stretch, then, in my opinion, to say "Those allegiances are obviously different. Why not give the option for characters to obtain powers related to those allegiances, so that the characters can be more integrated, and give more flavor to the world." No matter how flawed Magic of Incarnum is or is not, I personally do not consider the basic idea of "Allegiance Matters" to be flawed.</blockquote>

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