How close should a cleric's alignment be to the deity he/she worships?
In other words, is it possible to have a human Tempest cleric who isn't evil?
Unlike previous editions, there's no particular alignment requirement in 5e based on which god(s) your character venerates. I'd recommend coming up with a good role-playing reason for not having the "expected" alignment, though.
Perhaps your cleric is a heretic; the deity continues providing spells trying to "bring you around" to his way of thinking. Or perhaps there's something in the deity's portfolio your character really cares about, but goes about it differently than the established clergy.
You may also want to check out some similar thoughts on this earlier forum thread. http://community.wizards.com/forum/dd-adventurers-league/threads/4152381
I hope this helps.
Obviously some Clerics in the party might be asking for trouble. ie a Cleric of Tiamat or Talos (his priests are generally nutjobs). A Clerics personal alignment SHOULD reflect their deities.. but there is no rule to enforce that.
As others have mentioned, alignment is not specifically called out as needed to match your dieties in 5E.
Looking back at 3.5E you coudl be "one-Step" away from your dieties alignment. I would use this as a guide and to help in finding a role palying reason.
Anexample would be a cleric of Umberlee, who is goddess of the sea in Forgotten realms. She is listed as CE. it would be pretty easy to role play a CN cleric Sailor or a NE cleric pirate.
Elfcrusher wrote:
A forward-thinking player will pick a deity whose alignment matches up (mostly) with how his character is going to behave anyways.
A player who picks a deity in order to get some desirable mechanical feature, is cramping his own style ahead of time. (I did this to create a 4e Invoker of Tharizdun. I had to drive him gradually insane to be true to his deity.) Discuss this, before play begins, with the player.
Everything noted above is also valid.
My own house rule is "no Evil PCs". I'm prepping to tell a story about heroes, not about villians. YMMV.
The Issue being BRJN that both Zhentarim and Lords Alliance factions allow LE characters, which will lead to LE characters possibly worshipping evil gods. And thus we have Evil Clerics in thr game. Im guessing your house rule dosnt apply to AL.
On the one hand, there isn't any specific rule in the Player's Handbook regarding cleric alignment vs. deity's alignment -- unlike in previous editions, where clerics had to be fairly close in alignment to their deities. Similarly, while the ALPG seems to suggest that clerics (and those who have the Acolyte background) will serve non-evil deities (since it states that you can choose a deity's suggested domain or the Life domain, the latter being unavailable to servants of evil deities), it doesn't state that as a requirement.
On the other hand, the Player's Handbook strongly suggests, in that clerics are granted specific powers by the deities they serve, that a deity chooses its cleric as much as the cleric chooses her deity -- and there's likely a story in that. Why Bane would grant powers to a Lawful Good servant would make for a particularly intriguing backstory, for instance.
Lastly, the gods are well-known to the residents of the Forgotten Realms, so an unlikely pairing of cleric and deity would be seen as very odd. NPCs would easily and naturally pre-judge anyone wearing the holy symbol of a deity as being closely aligned with that deity's beliefs and goals. Our Lawful Good cleric of Bane, for instance, would get some very interesting reactions from all quarters in Phlan. Even very powerful agents of good would likely remain suspicious of such a character -- Bane selected her for a reason, after all, even if they have no idea what that reason might be.
Just about the only concrete guidance available in the PH or ALPG is that, regardless of your or your deity's alignment, you aren't allowed to use your character to 'screw over' other PCs. This is probably easier to justify if you have a good character serving an evil deity or a Lawful Evil character serving a good deity than if you're a LE cleric of Bane. Food for thought.
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Pauper
Tyranthraxus wrote:
Id just point out we are posting in the AL sub forum, which means anything we discuss here should be usuable in AL.
Pauper: Id like to point to a sorta a new topic here. Not so much Player knowledge on the choices of alignments vs Gods etc but
DM Knowledge.
Yeah the guy running the game might not know much about the realms. He might have read a couple of novels and been asked by his local store to gm encounters. Player 1 on the table of 6 might be like just behind Greenwood or Perkins on the knowledge scale. He knows what the bell of the deep is, who the Dueregar worship etc.
Yet he isnt running the game, and so his views on how people would treat Drow Clerics of Eldath matters little. What matters is how much the DM knows because hes the one programming how his characters might react. And if the Drow Cleric of Eldath gets bounced from new expeditions dm to new expeditions dm , then he wont get that consistency of interaction with the setting.
GM 1: Your Drow isnt allowed in the shop.. they have a sign up saying 'No Drow or Dueregar'
GM 2: Sure your character is allowed in. The shopkeeper nods to your character and says 'We serve your kind in here all the time'
Also keep in mind that Encounters and Expeditions and AL in general is really in the building phase. They are trying to recruit every tom and jerry to become a gm. Its more than likely the FR knowledge isnt there., so that means the eccentricities of the setting are not there.
I think it's got great potential as an exercise for a homebrew game. For Adventurer's League, I would try and keep within one alignment-box of your chosen deity.
Tyranthraxus wrote:
Is death domain cleric and Oath Breaker Paladin legal in AL play?
Nozareem wrote:
You could go Deep Sashelas for Tempest clerics if you're an Elf.
I forgot to ask what mod gives the cert to be able to play a deaths domain cleric? And does the cert just has you Current cleric change domains or does it give you the ability to create a character that can have deaths domain?
Nozareem wrote:
I believe it was awarded at another smaller con recently. Basically it seems to be tied more or less to the local cons that the volunteer campaign admins can attend. Winter Fantasy could be the next one of these.
That cert was given out at Dragon*Con in Atlanta, GA this year.
My Fighter is a human. She wanted to multiclass Cleric and take the Tempest domain since it fits with her "past" in LFR. I had decided on Deep Sashelas as her deity. From my play history in LFR, it would have made perfect sense, since I used to have a Minotaur Avenger of Corellon. 
However, I decided to instead have her multiclass into Paladin and she is moving towards the Oath of Vengence.
I recommend anyone that plays a Cleric to find and read information and history on the deity they want to worship or the church of their deity.
I agree that people should when playing clerics should read up on the god that there cleric represent.
Nazareem: Not gonna happen most of the time. While we gamers can be quite well.. overtly particular about our setting knowledge, we also have a LOT of gamers who wont be. They wont be thinking about next session after this session , they will just turn up next session with the Cleric of Auril someone made for them and play.
I just had a player create a Cleric of Auril for my local Expeditions. He is player the Cleric as a bit of a Charlatan. This is his latest 'con' and Im not sure his faith is entirely devout. He is also good aligned.
Its not up to me to point out any innacuracies or roleplaying hints to that player. My Job as a GM is to provide a fun game, with consistency of setting and npcs.
I understand some players just through crap together and play...that makes for weird role play when the player dosn't know jack about the deity that especially the cleric worships. In some ways I personally find those situations absurd. I have in character develope ment have worked with rockie players and have explained to them who each god is and what they represent.
Keep in mind that the Channel Divinity ability is described as "the ability to channel divine energy directly from your deity".
This suggests that, if the cleric isn't doing what the deity would prefer or is simply paying lip-service to the ideals of her deity, the deity might not allow the cleric to tap that energy.
Similarly, "[t]he power of your spells comes from your devotion to your deity." If a cleric has no devotion, then the cleric might well have no spells, either.
The idea that a cleric might suffer some level of power loss as a sign of her deity's displeasure is a long-standing tradition in D&D. This will particularly affect clerics who serve Neutral Evil or Chaotic Evil deities, since the AL rules forbid them from actually following those alignments.
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Pauper
Pauper wrote: