? about cleric domains [Archive] - Wizards Community

? about cleric domains [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
evilsheep
07-26-05, 10:16 AM I have a friend who whenever he makes a cleric says he is worshiping ideals instead of a god. he says this gives him the domain of whatever ideal he worships. (usually time and air) In a quest we are currently doing he helped my friend make a cleric and had him do this too but he also had the cleric worship Pelor so he could go into Radiant Servant of Pelor. In complete divine there is no domain prereq so he picked time and air. (he has no domains that belong to Pelor) So i want to know can he worship ideals so he gets air and time or are those only for alignments? Can he worship both ideals and a god even if the domains have nothing to do with the god? The way he's doing it just seems a bit unfair to me and most of the others we play with.
StormCrow42
07-26-05, 10:31 AM Normally, worshiping a specific deity restricts your domain choices that those that the deity offers. In addition, RSoP requires the Sun domain for entrance (at least that's what most people read "access to the sun domain" to mean), not just being a cleric of Pelor (Radiant Servant can really be used for any god with the Sun domain, there isn't really anything to change).
runestar
07-26-05, 11:18 AM Just curious, what ideal encompasses both time and air? I haven't the faintest idea.
Phrennzy
07-26-05, 11:45 AM If you worship Pelor, you are restricted in what Domains you can choose. I believe it's Strength and Sun, but I amy be way off. I'm sure it's niether Air, nor Time.

As for worshipping an ideal, I would demand to know what the ideal is, and how it involves Air and Time, and then I would tell him to quit being a jackass.
tarkin
07-26-05, 12:05 PM It depends on what world he is playing in.

In Faerun, you HAVE to worship a god. No ideals clerics.

--------------

Also, there are problems with worshipping an ideal. You don't have a church, or any other established support.

Basically, everyone considers you to be a heretic.

-----------

Also, if your DM is smart, he should give you a harder time when casting certain spells. Specifically, Commune for example can't get your God, just an Agent of your Ideals, so they should have less information and be less helpfull.
Seeker95
07-26-05, 12:41 PM My campaign isn't Faerun, but I also don't allow godless clerics. I had a player really really really pretty please ask, because he didn't like any of the deities and didn't want to be beholden to one. I "allowed" it. What the player didn't realize is that his PC really was honoring a deity, willingly or not. All "godless clerics" have a god -- Entropy. Entropy didn't care whether you prayed to it by Name or not. And when you get to be high enough level, you learn the truth. And your domain switches to chaos. Only chaos. Accept Entropy as your deity, or lose all clerical powers.

Makes for a decent plot twister.
TrustTymora
07-26-05, 12:53 PM Pelor has nothing to do with Time and Air. You either believe in Pelor's beliefs or you believe in a cause/ideal. NOT BOTH!

Until you truly believe in Pelor then you are just another one of the masses that pays homage without any real special abilities(like those that a cleric of Pelor gets - spells, domain abilities, etc) granted. Once you truly believe in Pelor then the power to be a cleric of Pelor is given.

Of course characters can and do switch beliefs but there is always a cost not just the percieved benefits gained from the new belief. In other words if the character wants to start out believing in time/air concept and then finds the way of Pelor he should foresake time/air domains and now select from Pelor's domains. If he doesn't then the character truly doesn't believe in Pelor no matter how much the player says he does.

TT
evilsheep
07-26-05, 02:21 PM His connection between air and time is that it takes time for air to blow. I know this is complete bs. can sum1 pls say how ideal domains work I've only ever done gods so I dont know bout ideals.
quaiven
07-26-05, 02:32 PM His connection between air and time is that it takes time for air to blow. I know this is complete bs. can sum1 pls say how ideal domains work I've only ever done gods so I dont know bout ideals.

OMFG run don't walk to your local walmart right now. Buy a hammer and a gun. Then combine the two and shoot the player in the head. That is the worst excuse for an "Ideal" that I have ever heard.
Vatras
07-26-05, 02:56 PM First, all PC clerics should have a god. They put in the thing about ideals because in some campaigns gods are not appropriate, but worshipping abstract things is (like Nature itself or Pure Mathematics). Its up to the DM, if he allows clerics worshipping ideals in his game, and I have never done so myself. Usually worshipping some ideal is the munchkin excuse for picking the most powerful domains.

If the DM allows worshipping ideals, he has to design them like a deity anyway. The worship of Numbers for example could give access to the domains of Law, Geometry, Oracle and Knowledge, but there wouldnt be much chance to get access to Cold, Undeath or the Love domain.
There are other ramifications of this as well, which depend on the campaign world. If a cleric professes worship of an ideal, who would speak for him in the Realms, after he died? He could not be resurrected, because he has no patron, and he couldnt choose one either, because he believes already in something. Whom would he ask for a miracle or whom would he commune with? A principle can hardly be expected to answer him or have servants akin to angels which act on its behalf. And if whatever he worships has a mind, it is a deity already.

If a cleric has a deity, he MUST pick from her domains (see PHB), and cant just pick whatever he likes. Most gods offer 4-6 domains to choose from and thats it. The domains of Pelor are listed in the PHB, and a cleric of Pelor must choose from those and none others.

If someone wants a certain PrC later on, he has to bite the bullet and do what he has to in order to fulfill the requirements. And if someone wants two specific domains he should find a deity in the book which has them, or face it and take one who offers one of them and pick another domain as his second.
Phrennzy
07-26-05, 03:05 PM Deity, Domains, and Domain Spells: If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities.

So he doesn't need a god, per se.

"It takes Time for Air to blow." Is the worst. I want to hear what his "spiritual inclinations" are and how they relate to Air and Time. Without a good justification, his beliefs are weak, and thus, he is no cleric.

Which spells on those two domain lists is he using all the time - that's what this sounds like, as though there are Uber Spells on the domains.

As an aside, I could not find the Time domain in the SRD - I assume it's from another sourcebook?

As DM you are free to disallow it. I would let the ideal worship go, as long as he can come up with a reason for worshipping an ideal of time and air vs an established god.

I would not allow the Time and Air domains AND the Radiant Servant of Pelor.
tarkin
07-26-05, 03:29 PM Oh yes, I forgot to agree with that.

If he believes in Ideals, he clearly CAN NOT have anything to do with Pelor, and certainly can not be a Radiant Servant.
sir_argenon
07-26-05, 03:36 PM it clearly states in the PHB that a cleric can worship an ideal, instead of a god... and in that case, he selects 2 domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities.

i understand rule zero, but it's not right to give this player the shaft, just because you dont like his explanation of something that is completely legal.

but with all that said, he souldnt be able to get into RSOP because you must have access to the SUN domain, and pelor must be your chosen deity..

pelor's domains are: good, strength, healing, and sun.
evilsheep
07-26-05, 03:50 PM [QUOTE=Phrennzy]So he doesn't need a god, per se.

"It takes Time for Air to blow." Is the worst. I want to hear what his "spiritual inclinations" are and how they relate to Air and Time. Without a good justification, his beliefs are weak, and thus, he is no cleric.

Which spells on those two domain lists is he using all the time - that's what this sounds like, as though there are Uber Spells on the domains.

Basically he picked those domains because there good. time's granted power is free improved init and it gets spells like haste and time stop. air he likes because of the spells like chain lightning. I know they get some more good spells but I dont remember anything else. He says you can pick any 2 domains because u can make a connection between anything. (ex. orc and elf domains-im an elf and i dont like orcs)
(FYI-time domain is in Forgotten Realms)
Puca
07-26-05, 04:04 PM While his selection of domains and the justification for it are pretty questionable, and while I personally think it makes little sense for a campaign in which there are gods to have clerics that ignore them and focus on an ideal, it clearly says that this can be done in the PHB.

And, as crazy as air and time are, it hardly seems worse than death and magic (Wee Jas.)
Seeker95
07-26-05, 10:34 PM Basically he picked those domains because there good. [...] He says you can pick any 2 domains because u can make a connection between anything.If this player is allowed to get away with this crap, he probably has an idiot for a DM.
runestar
07-26-05, 11:16 PM The time domain appears in PGTF. It grants improved initiative as a bonus feat, and has quite a number of killer domain spells. The spells are 1st: true strike/2nd: gentle repose/3rd: haste/4th: freedo of movement/5: permanency/6th: contingency/7: moment of prescience/8th: foresight/9th: timestop. Truely a killer domain, though I don't see anything inherently broken about the air domain.

Personally, even if my dm gave me carte blanche to choose any 2 domains as I see fit, I would at least take the effort to work some some decent philosopy that intergrates the two into one solid concept, not come up with some half-****** theory like "air needs time to flow*, without taking the effort to flesh out this concept some more. It would sound plausible as some formula or concept behind some obscure martial arts move though.
NeueRegel
07-27-05, 01:22 AM At least this loser could have come up with a catchphrase that made more sense, like Robert Jordan's "Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time" or something. Sheesh.

We have an "Ideal" church in our world; In fact, it's the biggest single religion around. It's main domain (and non-negotiable) is Knowledge (all). And then, every cleric has a second domain, his "specialty" or "expertise". These clerics can even be at odds, from community to community, and from differing alignments, but usually shading towards Lawful Neutral (to take an average of the whole, at least). The secondary domain can be "inclusive" of a deity as well, but this is actually usually a reverse-situation; A cleric of the order might actually be a member of a regional church of Thor, filling in during his time, researching a secondary domain such as air/weather/storm, or a regional church of Set or Anubis, filling in and serving at a temple while having the secondary domain of death or such. That priest might then move on to Greece, and serve Hades for a while. And so on. The knowledge priest(ess) may or may not be openly a "Knowledge" cleric, part of the greater Order, in these cases, in regard to the "masses" or in regard to the other secular clerics themselves! There are also knowledge priests that have the secondary domain of "magic", and are members of wizards guilds, again sometimes openly and sometimes clandestinely.

So: There's an "ideal" type of organized religion for you, that even can include dieties. But, don't expect to be that deity's favorite either; He or She knows your allegiences are to your "higher power", "Knowledge".

NeueRegel. YMMV
Salla
07-27-05, 01:47 AM Well, were I to try that combo (not saying I would), I'd say something like ...

"Time flows. Air flows. Most people only see time flowing like a river, in one direction, sweeping the travellers ever downstream on an invariant course. But I believe that time is not represented by a river, but by the churning air, twisting and rushing in whatever directions its whims take it. It is not invariant, but the zephyrs of fate ..." etcetcetc. You know, pile it on thick and poetically. :)

For my homebrew, even the clerics with dieties are actually domain/ideal clerics; there are no gods. Divine power comes from belief, and some people need a little crutch, so they anthropomorphize their beliefs into 'gods'. But, since it can't be proven, nobody's aware of it, though there are different lines of thought about it.
Ouranos Harpy
07-27-05, 01:59 AM *clap**clap*

Well done Salla,

I was thinking along the same lines (that is if to justify his munchkin choice). personally though I'd go with Storm or Weather instead of Air (along with Time). Playing off the chaotic nature of the two. *shrugs*
Salla
07-27-05, 02:05 AM Thank you, Harpy.

But to cover something else, no, he cannot qualify for Radiant Servant of Pelor even if you scratch out the 'of Pelor' part, because he doesn't have the Sun domain.

(Not sure why he'd want to, since without the Healing domain, the Maximized and Empowered healing abilities are useless ...)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
evilsheep 07-26-05, 10:16 AM	I have a friend who whenever he makes a cleric says he is worshiping ideals instead of a god. he says this gives him the domain of whatever ideal he worships. (usually time and air) In a quest we are currently doing he helped my friend make a cleric and had him do this too but he also had the cleric worship Pelor so he could go into Radiant Servant of Pelor. In complete divine there is no domain prereq so he picked time and air. (he has no domains that belong to Pelor) So i want to know can he worship ideals so he gets air and time or are those only for alignments? Can he worship both ideals and a god even if the domains have nothing to do with the god? The way he's doing it just seems a bit unfair to me and most of the others we play with.
StormCrow42 07-26-05, 10:31 AM	Normally, worshiping a specific deity restricts your domain choices that those that the deity offers. In addition, RSoP requires the Sun domain for entrance (at least that's what most people read "access to the sun domain" to mean), not just being a cleric of Pelor (Radiant Servant can really be used for any god with the Sun domain, there isn't really anything to change).
runestar 07-26-05, 11:18 AM	Just curious, what ideal encompasses both time and air? I haven't the faintest idea.
Phrennzy 07-26-05, 11:45 AM	If you worship Pelor, you are restricted in what Domains you can choose. I believe it's Strength and Sun, but I amy be way off. I'm sure it's niether Air, nor Time. As for worshipping an ideal, I would demand to know what the ideal is, and how it involves Air and Time, and then I would tell him to quit being a jackass.
tarkin 07-26-05, 12:05 PM	It depends on what world he is playing in. In Faerun, you HAVE to worship a god. No ideals clerics. -------------- Also, there are problems with worshipping an ideal. You don't have a church, or any other established support. Basically, everyone considers you to be a heretic. ----------- Also, if your DM is smart, he should give you a harder time when casting certain spells. Specifically, Commune for example can't get your God, just an Agent of your Ideals, so they should have less information and be less helpfull.
Seeker95 07-26-05, 12:41 PM	My campaign isn't Faerun, but I also don't allow godless clerics. I had a player really really really pretty please ask, because he didn't like any of the deities and didn't want to be beholden to one. I "allowed" it. What the player didn't realize is that his PC really was honoring a deity, willingly or not. All "godless clerics" have a god -- Entropy. Entropy didn't care whether you prayed to it by Name or not. And when you get to be high enough level, you learn the truth. And your domain switches to chaos. Only chaos. Accept Entropy as your deity, or lose all clerical powers. Makes for a decent plot twister.
TrustTymora 07-26-05, 12:53 PM	Pelor has nothing to do with Time and Air. You either believe in Pelor's beliefs or you believe in a cause/ideal. NOT BOTH! Until you truly believe in Pelor then you are just another one of the masses that pays homage without any real special abilities(like those that a cleric of Pelor gets - spells, domain abilities, etc) granted. Once you truly believe in Pelor then the power to be a cleric of Pelor is given. Of course characters can and do switch beliefs but there is always a cost not just the percieved benefits gained from the new belief. In other words if the character wants to start out believing in time/air concept and then finds the way of Pelor he should foresake time/air domains and now select from Pelor's domains. If he doesn't then the character truly doesn't believe in Pelor no matter how much the player says he does. TT
evilsheep 07-26-05, 02:21 PM	His connection between air and time is that it takes time for air to blow. I know this is complete bs. can sum1 pls say how ideal domains work I've only ever done gods so I dont know bout ideals.
quaiven 07-26-05, 02:32 PM	His connection between air and time is that it takes time for air to blow. I know this is complete bs. can sum1 pls say how ideal domains work I've only ever done gods so I dont know bout ideals. OMFG run don't walk to your local walmart right now. Buy a hammer and a gun. Then combine the two and shoot the player in the head. That is the worst excuse for an "Ideal" that I have ever heard.
Vatras 07-26-05, 02:56 PM	First, all PC clerics should have a god. They put in the thing about ideals because in some campaigns gods are not appropriate, but worshipping abstract things is (like Nature itself or Pure Mathematics). Its up to the DM, if he allows clerics worshipping ideals in his game, and I have never done so myself. Usually worshipping some ideal is the munchkin excuse for picking the most powerful domains. If the DM allows worshipping ideals, he has to design them like a deity anyway. The worship of Numbers for example could give access to the domains of Law, Geometry, Oracle and Knowledge, but there wouldnt be much chance to get access to Cold, Undeath or the Love domain. There are other ramifications of this as well, which depend on the campaign world. If a cleric professes worship of an ideal, who would speak for him in the Realms, after he died? He could not be resurrected, because he has no patron, and he couldnt choose one either, because he believes already in something. Whom would he ask for a miracle or whom would he commune with? A principle can hardly be expected to answer him or have servants akin to angels which act on its behalf. And if whatever he worships has a mind, it is a deity already. If a cleric has a deity, he MUST pick from her domains (see PHB), and cant just pick whatever he likes. Most gods offer 4-6 domains to choose from and thats it. The domains of Pelor are listed in the PHB, and a cleric of Pelor must choose from those and none others. If someone wants a certain PrC later on, he has to bite the bullet and do what he has to in order to fulfill the requirements. And if someone wants two specific domains he should find a deity in the book which has them, or face it and take one who offers one of them and pick another domain as his second.
Phrennzy 07-26-05, 03:05 PM	Deity, Domains, and Domain Spells: If a cleric is not devoted to a particular deity, he still selects two domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. So he doesn't need a god, per se. "It takes Time for Air to blow." Is the worst. I want to hear what his "spiritual inclinations" are and how they relate to Air and Time. Without a good justification, his beliefs are weak, and thus, he is no cleric. Which spells on those two domain lists is he using all the time - that's what this sounds like, as though there are Uber Spells on the domains. As an aside, I could not find the Time domain in the SRD - I assume it's from another sourcebook? As DM you are free to disallow it. I would let the ideal worship go, as long as he can come up with a reason for worshipping an ideal of time and air vs an established god. I would not allow the Time and Air domains AND the Radiant Servant of Pelor.
tarkin 07-26-05, 03:29 PM	Oh yes, I forgot to agree with that. If he believes in Ideals, he clearly CAN NOT have anything to do with Pelor, and certainly can not be a Radiant Servant.
sir_argenon 07-26-05, 03:36 PM	it clearly states in the PHB that a cleric can worship an ideal, instead of a god... and in that case, he selects 2 domains to represent his spiritual inclinations and abilities. i understand rule zero, but it's not right to give this player the shaft, just because you dont like his explanation of something that is completely legal. but with all that said, he souldnt be able to get into RSOP because you must have access to the SUN domain, and pelor must be your chosen deity.. pelor's domains are: good, strength, healing, and sun.
evilsheep 07-26-05, 03:50 PM	[QUOTE=Phrennzy]So he doesn't need a god, per se. "It takes Time for Air to blow." Is the worst. I want to hear what his "spiritual inclinations" are and how they relate to Air and Time. Without a good justification, his beliefs are weak, and thus, he is no cleric. Which spells on those two domain lists is he using all the time - that's what this sounds like, as though there are Uber Spells on the domains. Basically he picked those domains because there good. time's granted power is free improved init and it gets spells like haste and time stop. air he likes because of the spells like chain lightning. I know they get some more good spells but I dont remember anything else. He says you can pick any 2 domains because u can make a connection between anything. (ex. orc and elf domains-im an elf and i dont like orcs) (FYI-time domain is in Forgotten Realms)
Puca 07-26-05, 04:04 PM	While his selection of domains and the justification for it are pretty questionable, and while I personally think it makes little sense for a campaign in which there are gods to have clerics that ignore them and focus on an ideal, it clearly says that this can be done in the PHB. And, as crazy as air and time are, it hardly seems worse than death and magic (Wee Jas.)
Seeker95 07-26-05, 10:34 PM	Basically he picked those domains because there good. [...] He says you can pick any 2 domains because u can make a connection between anything.If this player is allowed to get away with this crap, he probably has an idiot for a DM.
runestar 07-26-05, 11:16 PM	The time domain appears in PGTF. It grants improved initiative as a bonus feat, and has quite a number of killer domain spells. The spells are 1st: true strike/2nd: gentle repose/3rd: haste/4th: freedo of movement/5: permanency/6th: contingency/7: moment of prescience/8th: foresight/9th: timestop. Truely a killer domain, though I don't see anything inherently broken about the air domain. Personally, even if my dm gave me carte blanche to choose any 2 domains as I see fit, I would at least take the effort to work some some decent philosopy that intergrates the two into one solid concept, not come up with some half-****** theory like "air needs time to flow*, without taking the effort to flesh out this concept some more. It would sound plausible as some formula or concept behind some obscure martial arts move though.
NeueRegel 07-27-05, 01:22 AM	At least this loser could have come up with a catchphrase that made more sense, like Robert Jordan's "Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time" or something. Sheesh. We have an "Ideal" church in our world; In fact, it's the biggest single religion around. It's main domain (and non-negotiable) is Knowledge (all). And then, every cleric has a second domain, his "specialty" or "expertise". These clerics can even be at odds, from community to community, and from differing alignments, but usually shading towards Lawful Neutral (to take an average of the whole, at least). The secondary domain can be "inclusive" of a deity as well, but this is actually usually a reverse-situation; A cleric of the order might actually be a member of a regional church of Thor, filling in during his time, researching a secondary domain such as air/weather/storm, or a regional church of Set or Anubis, filling in and serving at a temple while having the secondary domain of death or such. That priest might then move on to Greece, and serve Hades for a while. And so on. The knowledge priest(ess) may or may not be openly a "Knowledge" cleric, part of the greater Order, in these cases, in regard to the "masses" or in regard to the other secular clerics themselves! There are also knowledge priests that have the secondary domain of "magic", and are members of wizards guilds, again sometimes openly and sometimes clandestinely. So: There's an "ideal" type of organized religion for you, that even can include dieties. But, don't expect to be that deity's favorite either; He or She knows your allegiences are to your "higher power", "Knowledge". NeueRegel. YMMV
Salla 07-27-05, 01:47 AM	Well, were I to try that combo (not saying I would), I'd say something like ... "Time flows. Air flows. Most people only see time flowing like a river, in one direction, sweeping the travellers ever downstream on an invariant course. But I believe that time is not represented by a river, but by the churning air, twisting and rushing in whatever directions its whims take it. It is not invariant, but the zephyrs of fate ..." etcetcetc. You know, pile it on thick and poetically. :) For my homebrew, even the clerics with dieties are actually domain/ideal clerics; there are no gods. Divine power comes from belief, and some people need a little crutch, so they anthropomorphize their beliefs into 'gods'. But, since it can't be proven, nobody's aware of it, though there are different lines of thought about it.
Ouranos Harpy 07-27-05, 01:59 AM	clapclap Well done Salla, I was thinking along the same lines (that is if to justify his munchkin choice). personally though I'd go with Storm or Weather instead of Air (along with Time). Playing off the chaotic nature of the two. shrugs
Salla 07-27-05, 02:05 AM	Thank you, Harpy. But to cover something else, no, he cannot qualify for Radiant Servant of Pelor even if you scratch out the 'of Pelor' part, because he doesn't have the Sun domain. (Not sure why he'd want to, since without the Healing domain, the Maximized and Empowered healing abilities are useless ...)