At what point would it be alright for me to make a character who is a Cleric of my previous character? Or, well, maybe not a cleric, since that would imply that there is at least one active church ... but a worshipper of my previous character. Would this be allowed at an LFR table? Is there a reward card for your character completing the Epic level and ascending?
Or will my LFR Demigod character never receive the praises and worship promised to him by the PHB?
I will be really surprised if the WotC Brand team asks LFR campaign if any PCs followed the demi-god epic destiny and made it, as we have no way to track and verify that, AND the addition of lots of demi-gods (or more properly exarchs) to the Panethon will go directly against the recent reduction of numbers of gods.
For a home campaign, sure, a DM could do that. Unless WotC buys in during the adventure proposal, we cannot change the FR setting.
Maybe, and I am really speculating here, that if a majority of LFR tables playing EPICx-x, has the outcome...of character elevated to exarch (all characters retiring from the campaign), then maybe a new exarch appears in the 5E version of the FRCG which represents that composite of those characters which got elevated. Just a wild thought.
Keith
You are kidding, right?
No, I'm not kidding. I'm reading the Epic Destinies section in the PHB. Maybe you haven't read that section yet? There are lots of goodies in store for someone who makes it all the way to 30 and completes their Destiny Quest or whatever it might be called. For a Demigod, getting worshippers is a pretty neat thing and since the character is retired from the game, I'm not concerned with the aspects that would come along with being a demigod. I'm just curious whether RPGA will allow me to show my Demigod character sheet and say that my new character worships him.
I won't be able to be a cleric of him (or, more the point, I won't gain any real benefit from being a cleric of him since I won't have a Channel Divinity associated with him.) I won't be able to be a Paladin of him either, for the same reason. But I could be a Rogue who worships him since he started out as a rogue as well. Or a Wizard who worships him as a powerful Warlock/MC Wizard who became a Demigod. Does the RPGA not allow roleplaying anymore?
I will be really surprised if the WotC Brand team asks LFR campaign if any PCs followed the demi-god epic destiny and made it, as we have no way to track and verify that, AND the addition of lots of demi-gods (or more properly exarchs) to the Panethon will go directly against the recent reduction of numbers of gods.
Why would the WotC brand team need to say or ask anything? This is about RPGA.
For a home campaign, sure, a DM could do that. Unless WotC buys in during the adventure proposal, we cannot change the FR setting.
Maybe, and I am really speculating here, that if a majority of LFR tables playing EPICx-x, has the outcome...of character elevated to exarch (all characters retiring from the campaign), then maybe a new exarch appears in the 5E version of the FRCG which represents that composite of those characters which got elevated. Just a wild thought.
Keith
I'm not understanding why WotC would have any say in this? Doesn't the RPGA have final say on rulings of this nature?
Keith
I'm not understanding why WotC would have any say in this? Doesn't the RPGA have final say on rulings of this nature?
No, R&D has the final say, and they'll be hesitant to add PC exarchs to the pantheon.
Not that it won't happen, you'll never know.
Regardless, you can always claim to worship a 'non-existing' (in canon) exarch along with that exarch's superior (one of the lesser or greater gods). Most Dms will let you.
I'll note though that worshiping yoyu r own PC sounds like quite a ego thing. And that's ME saying it...
Gomez
You would get people praying ot you, but that doesn't mean a cleric could receive power from you... just like clerics don't get anything from exarchs currently anyway (they get it from the patron god or greater god).
To be fair, no cleric gets their power directly from a deity (whether greater god, god or exarch), but rather from their ordination. It is clear, however, that an exarch can have clerics sworn directly to him (cf. FRCS, pp. 78 and 81).
The demigod epic destiny says that the PC becomes a god when he retires, qualified to have worshipers. That's pretty unquestionable.
Whether another PC can worship him, though, is an RPGA issue, not a core rules issue. If we're just going by the unaltered core rules, there's nothing stopping him.
Personally, I wouldn't spend much time worrying about it now. That's a long way off, and long before we reach that point, I expect that the tension between the "The goal of LFR is to be hands-off and just provide material for DMs to run a game for their friends in whatever manner they consider fun. It doesn't matter whether everyone is playing the same game or not." and the "The fun of a Living campaign is that you all are playing the same game." viewpoints will be over.
If the first is the paradigm for the campaign then, sure, as long as your DM thinks its fun, you can worship a retired PC; if the latter then, no, if the exarch is not listed in the FRPG, then it effectively does not exist.
In any event, I'd consider it gauche to play a PC who worships your old PC; it's like playing a PC who's a descendant of your Living City PC. No, the real fun is to play a PC who's a worshiper or descendant of a friend's PC. Much more fun to come up with the doctrine of a church dedicated to a friend's former PC than your own.
You create a new character.
Carl
LG easily had over 10,000 players (I seem to remember reading an estimate of 15,000 or 18,000 active players, and that was probably around 2003 or so). It's probably a safe bet that LFR will have (if it doesn't already have) a similarly-sized player base.
Now, let's assume that one in 10 "active" players picks the Demigod epic destiny for *one* of their PCs. When those PCs reach 30th level, you'd be looking at 1000 new demigods / exarchs. If, in fact, all of those were officially recognized by WotC / RPGA as exarchs in the Realms, you'll have just increased the size of the FR pantheon by more than an order of magnitude. Even for a fantasy game, that's pretty unbelievable.
And, even if my estimates are off by a factor of 1 or 2, you're still looking at adding hundreds of exarchs. Not going to happen.
Although my hope and expectation is that, as they did with LG, they set a level cap for standard play - if they do not I can imagine one way of handling this.
First: No NPC, anywhere, will worship or even be aware of a PC exarch. You just aren't worthy of their attention and haven't been around long enough.
However, upon reaching that level and retiring you gain the ability to set up, essentially, a metaorganization that other PCs may join with the specific details of the metaorg determined by the administrators for your particular region.
Note, however, that the exarch PC should not have the ability to use this organization for the benefit of their own players. The demigod character is retired (NPC, no longer played by the character) and all benefits, etc. are determined by the regional administrators.
Carl
It is clear, however, that an exarch can have clerics sworn directly to him (cf. FRCS, pp. 78 and 81).
Well, it says some attract worshippers of their own... it never specifically mentions clerics, so i wouldn't say it's that clear. It also clarifies that it's a rarity and they're more often a conduit to the attention of a greater god that they serve.
The demigod epic destiny says that the PC becomes a god when he retires, qualified to have worshipers. That's pretty unquestionable.
Actually, you become a demigod, which is what Exarchs are. God is a step above. Most exarchs receive prayers from folks because of some task they are undertaking that is in the Exarch's portfolio. Like in the Marthammor Duin example on those same pages.
IOW, it's all unlikely. Even more so since it's LFR. :P
There is a level cap in LFR. 30.
And how do you know there won't be a soft cap as there was in LG in that official modules won't be produced for the highest levels? Have they stated somewhere that they will be producing adventures for all levels up to 30? Or are you making an assumption here?
Carl
And how do you know there won't be a soft cap as there was in LG in that official modules won't be produced for the highest levels? Have they stated somewhere that they will be producing adventures for all levels up to 30? Or are you making an assumption here?
Carl
Yes, there have been statements by various LFR admin types that the level cap for LFR is going to be 30. It was a while back, late August or September, I think, shortly after LFR started, but it was a definite statement to that effect.
When those PCs reach 30th level, you'd be looking at 1000 new demigods / exarchs. [...] Even for a fantasy game, that's pretty unbelievable.
Yes, almost as unbelievable as a fantasy world which has 1000 30th level characters striding across it. You thought it was difficult conceptualizing why Elminster didn't just solve all the world's problems? Try making sense of a world with hundreds of Elminsters. The particular epic destiny is irrelevant--a Faerun with thousands of epic-level characters would be so different from core as to be unrecognizable.
Read through the other epic destinies. Demigod is actually amongst the easiest to explain away, since the PC just goes off to other planes to serve a deity. If you're concerned about how the implications of character choice mesh with trying to have an internally consistent world, I would expect your head to explode somewhere around the Mythic Sovereign epic destiny (Dragon 367), considering that it ends with you ascending to the throne of your designated homeland. Compared to that, the Demigod epic destiny is a piker.
However, upon reaching that level and retiring you gain the ability to set up, essentially, a metaorganization that other PCs may join with the specific details of the metaorg determined by the administrators for your particular region.
You might want to look over the statements about Adventuring Companies (rules coming RSN, really, so they say).
There are no more metaorgs. If you want to start up an organization called the Church of Fred, you can, and it's as official as any other.
Well, it says some attract worshippers of their own... it never specifically mentions clerics, so i wouldn't say it's that clear.
In Faerun, at least, it's pretty clear that exarchs can have priests, and that most do.
FRPG p. 78 tells us that priests of Marthammor Duin (an exarch) are the most commonly encountered dwarf clergy on the surface. FRPG p. 81 lists twenty exarchs whose priests have special titles (it doesn't say whether or not the other exarchs don't have priests or just don't give them special titles).
In any event, as I said, I don't think this is really worth discussing. Long before we reach that point, the paradigm of the campaign will be clear, either as a "You and your DM can do whatever you want; what happens at your table has no impact on what happens at anyone else's; all that matters is that you have fun" campaign (in which case, you can be a cleric of Batman for all that anyone cares) or a "We're all playing the same campaign, by the same rules and the fun is having the same shared experience" campaign (in which case, if it's not written in the FRPG, it doesn't exist).
-- Brian Gibbons.
Yes, almost as unbelievable as a fantasy world which has 1000 30th level characters striding across it. You thought it was difficult conceptualizing why Elminster didn't just solve all the world's problems? Try making sense of a world with hundreds of Elminsters. The particular epic destiny is irrelevant--a Faerun with thousands of epic-level characters would be so different from core as to be unrecognizable.
Read through the other epic destinies. Demigod is actually amongst the easiest to explain away, since the PC just goes off to other planes to serve a deity. If you're concerned about how the implications of character choice mesh with trying to have an internally consistent world, I would expect your head to explode somewhere around the Mythic Sovereign epic destiny (Dragon 367), considering that it ends with you ascending to the throne of your designated homeland. Compared to that, the Demigod epic destiny is a piker.
It's one of the things you have to make assumptions about in a shared campaign. One of the theories I've seen is that each PC lives in their own version of that "shared reality"...since many PCs experience the same events in a different fashion (save the same people, defeat the same villains in the same fight, witness the same town being destroyed, etc.). Or, even more confusing, some PCs may have "experienced" a mission as a success, while others experienced it as a failure.
In each PC's version of that reality, the events as they saw them, and whom they experienced them with, are what's true...for that PC.
You're right, it stretches believability to assume that there's thousands of high-level PCs running around -- just as it wasn't realistic to assume that the city of Ravens Bluff (Living City) was home to 10,000 adventurers, or that the planet Cularin (Living Force) was home to 3,000 heroes (not to mention 1000 or more Jedi!) And, because of that, generally speaking, the published "realities" of these campaigns don't acknowledge every single PC simultaneously existing in the campaign world.
But, if campaign administration (or WotC) were to decide to acknowledge and make "canon" every single PC who accomplished a milestone (such as reaching the demigod epic destiny), these assumptions fall apart.
As an example, it shouldn't be hard for any paragon tier character to become the leader of a moderately-sized town. But what town wants an adventurer who is gone 80% of the time as their leader? Or an adventurer who say pisses off Thay to the point of them wanting revenge on whatever that adventurer holds dear?
The exarchs that are well-known and worshipped are the ones that aren't the big troublemakers - who wants to worship the exarch who Orcus has sworn revenge on? The one that Orcus simply doesn't like is a different story. And in the case of the adventuring exarchs, it isn't just a single entity likely to have problems with them, it is probably on the order of 100 or so.
Who wants to establish a church to someone like that? "Yeah, my church is drawing straws to see who is the head priest. Five of them died this week, one of them twice."
For example: In the Gates of the Moon Resides Lukmin Steehand Gnome Swordmage extraordinaire and the coolest short guy you will ever meet.
Well maybe not exactly like that..... but something similar.
I would expect your head to explode somewhere around the Mythic Sovereign epic destiny (Dragon 367), considering that it ends with you ascending to the throne of your designated homeland.
That's what the Border Kingdoms are for...
Whether demigod or sovereign, a single PC epic destiny is unlikely to affect the Realms much more than what that PC succeeds in in an adventure (and only, likely, if most otehr parties succeed as well).
Remember that, in character, that aren't 1000+ epic PCs.. there are only 6 at a time.
Suspension of disbelief and all that.
Gomez
That's what the Border Kingdoms are for...
Whether demigod or sovereign, a single PC epic destiny is unlikely to affect the Realms much more than what that PC succeeds in in an adventure (and only, likely, if most otehr parties succeed as well).
Remember that, in character, that aren't 1000+ epic PCs.. there are only 6 at a time.
Suspension of disbelief and all that.
Gomez
Kind of defeats the purpose of the whole "Living" worlds idea, doesn't it? I mean, if there are only 6 epic heroes from my character's point of view and I go off to DragonCon or someotherCon and play him there, he *could* group up with any number of *other* epic heroes. His worldview would shatter, from your point of view...
It's not such a small world, after all...
Kind of defeats the purpose of the whole "Living" worlds idea, doesn't it?
That depends on what you call 'living'. If you equate it to every choice your PC makes to have an impact on the world, then you may be disappointed. If you equate it to a world evolving around your PC based on the decisions of many PCs, then not.
Trust me, I have run into the wall of force of too high expectations when it comes to character decisions and their impact on the world. It happened to me in LG (several times, too - I was pretty ambitious :P )
Of course I don't know what the epic adventures will be like, so what impact you may leave on the worlds is still shrouded in darkness... Literally, if MY epic plot ideas ever see the light...
Gomez