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Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Badger2k Mar 02, 2015 12:16:33	Could a paladin taking the Oath of the Ancients use another player's Warlock Archfey patron as a his "god"? How powerful are they?
#2 Tempest_Stormwind Mar 02, 2015 14:09:35	The Oath of the Ancients - or indeed, any paladin oath - is completely disconnected from and independent of any gods or supernatural beings. Paladins get their powers from the oath, not from a god. (In fact, even clerics, technically, don't need to worship a god - they get their powers from a connection to a divine domain, which is also independent of their god. There's similarly no direct limitation of gods and domains - a cleric with the Life domain could worship any deity, for instance, although it wouldn't be thematically appropriate). That said, nothing stops you from following the same archfey. Maybe the warlock is chosen by the Queen of Air and Darkness, and the paladin enters her service as a green knight and takes up the Oath of the Ancients in the process. With multiclassing, you could even wind up with a single character having both an archfey pact and an oath of the ancients - and there's natural narratives with that, in either order.
(Reply to #2) Coredump00	Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
#4 Illithidbix Mar 02, 2015 18:31:50	As Tempest_Stormwind points out the 5E Paladin is distanced a bit away from deities to allow that to be more the Cleric's shtick. The power is in the Oath, not necessarily what it is sworn to. Or rather, whilst it "may" require a powerful being/concept to be sworn to, the powers granted might well not be by that deity/entity itself. Page 82 of the PHB wrote:
#5 Tempest_Stormwind Mar 02, 2015 22:23:20	I DID make a mistake about the cleric, actually - the domain you choose is associated with your god. But vis-a-vis the paladin and the warlock? Note that the archfey are inscrutable and of approximate the same enigmatic / power levels as archfiends (who are usually portrayed as not divine, but of comparable influence on the realm of mortals - perhaps less powerful, but more ambitious and active) and Great Old Ones (have you read any of Lovecraft's stories?). Plus, you can take a look at the named entities in the lists: Archfey: The Prince of Frost, The Queen of Air and Darkness, Titania, Oberon, Hyrsam. Titania and the Queen of Air and Darkness have been discussed in D&D but never statted to my knowledge; they're usually portrayed as on par with lesser deities (or perhaps greater deities with limited interest in the mortal realm). The closest entity to them that I can think of from D&D itself is actually the Lady of Pain, who is also not a deity and uninterested in mortal affairs, but immensely powerful and active in her own realm. (I don't think the Lady of Pain is fey, and her powers don't match up with the Archfey patron, but it gives you a better-known example of a being of similar power to how most of the archfey are depicted.) Fiend: Demogorgon, Orcus, Fraz'Urb-luu, Baphomet, Asmodeus, Dispater, Mephistopheles, Belial. All of these have been repeatedly discussed and statted in various editions of D&D. Asmodeus is literally a deity in the Dawn War pantheon in 5e, and the others are of lesser power but roughly the same order of magnitude as the deities (just with more interest or direct activism on the mortal realm). Great Old One: Ghaunadar, Tharizdun, Dendar, Zargon, Cthulhu. I shouldn't need to go into detail on most of these, but one that I will focus on is Tharizdun. He's portrayed as a deity of unimaginable power (there is ultimately no force in the multiverse that can stand up to entropy), but imprisoned and unable to work his divine will directly (though he has cultists and, in some settings and editions, is still capable of granting them spells). I expect we'll see more of him when the Elemental Evil book comes out, given his connection with that plotline. In the meantime, lump him in with the others (of which Cthulhu is easily the most well-known - if not a deity, he's certainly deific). So, yeah, most of the patrons that have been mentioned
#6 Mephi1234 Mar 03, 2015 6:13:58	Warlock patrons aren't supposed to be gods, but we have two of the paths (Fiend, Great Old Ones) that specifically mention gods. Evil gods, perhaps, but gods nonetheless. Fey is the only one that doesn't mention gods. And, even then, the existance of the Archfey are kind of... very open ended, since they're really so new to D&D in general. The idea of Mab versus Titania is an old (and tired) one that's in lots of stories. But fey lords in general haven't really solidified their place in D&D yet.
#7 Badger2k Mar 04, 2015 3:47:36	Lots of great feedback here. Thanks everyone!
#8 BlueRaccoon Mar 04, 2015 7:10:08	actually, i think at leat one archfey or two have been described in the dungeon insider of 4th edition. i 'll have to check them...
#9 Mephi1234 Mar 04, 2015 9:16:00	BlueRaccoon wrote:
#10 Tempest_Stormwind Mar 04, 2015 14:42:56	If you're lacking Insider access, the old 3e Fey Feature articles have other information on this, though those were always a bit light on substance by old website standards (and a few copy-edited the queen of the Seelie Court as "Tatiana" instead of "Titania"; this is clearly an editor's issue though). However, they're free, and if you find any mechanics, it's much easier to translate between 3e/3.5 and 5e than it is from 4e to 5e (though the 3e stuff in particular varies wildly in overall quality, especially from that early in the edition's run). There's no overall discussion of how powerful the archfey are, though. The term isn't used, and any discussions of the overall power of known archfey (like Titania) is superficial and hard to gauge), but it fits with the overall discussion of powerful outsiders - not necessarily deific, but in certain domains they may as well be, and it's only their alien nature that keeps this from being a problem. (Again, I draw a parallel to the Lady of Pain here, except in some ways she's more comprehensible than the archfey, and again, I don't think of her as a fey.) Note that in some cases in the 5e PHB, it's implied that an archfey pact can be formed by accident* (second paragraph under Delvers into Secrets, page 105), which rather nicely underscores how the fey don't think in terms that we would. * Full disclosure: I'm not a Planescape fan. I found the Lady of Pain made a lot more sense when I started viewing her as a self-insert character for every killer GM I've ever known. With that in mind, everything she does makes perfect sense, even though it is metagamey to think like that.
#11 Byakugan01 Mar 04, 2015 23:25:09	Our Warlock reveres Cthulu....sometimes when he casts Hunger of Cthulu(Hadar), the bodies of his victims disappear amid the creepy slurpy alien sounds, never to be seen again. I like the fay themes in 5e so far, and hope they do more with them in the future. It's a nice change from always either worshipping goody goodies or demons. But a Paladin of vengeance sworn to avenge the powerful forces unbalancing the natural balance of the world? Sounds like he would fit right in with the Emerald Enclave.
#12 Seuleslintan Mar 06, 2015 23:58:51	Clerics and Paladins follow a deity or god who gets worshipped by mortals a fey god is not a god in this case. its godlike yes, but there are no tempels in the material plane to worhip them and give them divine power same goes for the old ones Warlocks make a pact with alien/godlike/strange enities but this are no "real Gods" so i would not allow a warlock pact with Tempus (God of War) or an ancient Gold Dragon (godlike) But a pact with an alienlike fey, old one, devil is fine
#13 durntaur Mar 07, 2015 23:11:04	Seuleslintan wrote:

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Badger2k

Mar 02, 2015 12:16:33

Could a paladin taking the Oath of the Ancients use another player's Warlock Archfey patron as a his "god"? How powerful are they?

Tempest_Stormwind

Mar 02, 2015 14:09:35

The Oath of the Ancients - or indeed, any paladin oath - is completely disconnected from and independent of any gods or supernatural beings. Paladins get their powers from the oath, not from a god. (In fact, even clerics, technically, don't need to worship a god - they get their powers from a connection to a divine domain, which is also independent of their god. There's similarly no direct limitation of gods and domains - a cleric with the Life domain could worship any deity, for instance, although it wouldn't be thematically appropriate).

That said, nothing stops you from following the same archfey. Maybe the warlock is chosen by the Queen of Air and Darkness, and the paladin enters her service as a green knight and takes up the Oath of the Ancients in the process. With multiclassing, you could even wind up with a single character having both an archfey pact and an oath of the ancients - and there's natural narratives with that, in either order.

(Reply to #2)

Coredump00

Tempest_Stormwind wrote:

Illithidbix

Mar 02, 2015 18:31:50

As Tempest_Stormwind points out the 5E Paladin is distanced a bit away from deities to allow that to be more the Cleric's shtick.

The power is in the Oath, not necessarily what it is sworn to.

Or rather, whilst it "may" require a powerful being/concept to be sworn to, the powers granted might well not be by that deity/entity itself.

Page 82 of the PHB wrote:

Tempest_Stormwind

Mar 02, 2015 22:23:20

I DID make a mistake about the cleric, actually - the domain you choose is associated with your god. But vis-a-vis the paladin and the warlock?

Note that the archfey are inscrutable and of approximate the same enigmatic / power levels as archfiends (who are usually portrayed as not divine, but of comparable influence on the realm of mortals - perhaps less powerful, but more ambitious and active) and Great Old Ones (have you read any of Lovecraft's stories?). Plus, you can take a look at the named entities in the lists:

Archfey: The Prince of Frost, The Queen of Air and Darkness, Titania, Oberon, Hyrsam. Titania and the Queen of Air and Darkness have been discussed in D&D but never statted to my knowledge; they're usually portrayed as on par with lesser deities (or perhaps greater deities with limited interest in the mortal realm). The closest entity to them that I can think of from D&D itself is actually the Lady of Pain, who is also not a deity and uninterested in mortal affairs, but immensely powerful and active in her own realm. (I don't think the Lady of Pain is fey, and her powers don't match up with the Archfey patron, but it gives you a better-known example of a being of similar power to how most of the archfey are depicted.)

Fiend: Demogorgon, Orcus, Fraz'Urb-luu, Baphomet, Asmodeus, Dispater, Mephistopheles, Belial. All of these have been repeatedly discussed and statted in various editions of D&D. Asmodeus is literally a deity in the Dawn War pantheon in 5e, and the others are of lesser power but roughly the same order of magnitude as the deities (just with more interest or direct activism on the mortal realm).

Great Old One: Ghaunadar, Tharizdun, Dendar, Zargon, Cthulhu. I shouldn't need to go into detail on most of these, but one that I will focus on is Tharizdun. He's portrayed as a deity of unimaginable power (there is ultimately no force in the multiverse that can stand up to entropy), but imprisoned and unable to work his divine will directly (though he has cultists and, in some settings and editions, is still capable of granting them spells). I expect we'll see more of him when the Elemental Evil book comes out, given his connection with that plotline. In the meantime, lump him in with the others (of which Cthulhu is easily the most well-known - if not a deity, he's certainly deific).

So, yeah, most of the patrons that have been mentioned

Mephi1234

Mar 03, 2015 6:13:58

Warlock patrons aren't supposed to be gods, but we have two of the paths (Fiend, Great Old Ones) that specifically mention gods. Evil gods, perhaps, but gods nonetheless. Fey is the only one that doesn't mention gods. And, even then, the existance of the Archfey are kind of... very open ended, since they're really so new to D&D in general. The idea of Mab versus Titania is an old (and tired) one that's in lots of stories. But fey lords in general haven't really solidified their place in D&D yet.

Badger2k

Mar 04, 2015 3:47:36

Lots of great feedback here. Thanks everyone!

BlueRaccoon

Mar 04, 2015 7:10:08

actually, i think at leat one archfey or two have been described in the dungeon insider of 4th edition. i 'll have to check them...

Mephi1234

Mar 04, 2015 9:16:00

BlueRaccoon wrote:

#10

Tempest_Stormwind

Mar 04, 2015 14:42:56

If you're lacking Insider access, the old 3e Fey Feature articles have other information on this, though those were always a bit light on substance by old website standards (and a few copy-edited the queen of the Seelie Court as "Tatiana" instead of "Titania"; this is clearly an editor's issue though). However, they're free, and if you find any mechanics, it's much easier to translate between 3e/3.5 and 5e than it is from 4e to 5e (though the 3e stuff in particular varies wildly in overall quality, especially from that early in the edition's run).

There's no overall discussion of how powerful the archfey are, though. The term isn't used, and any discussions of the overall power of known archfey (like Titania) is superficial and hard to gauge), but it fits with the overall discussion of powerful outsiders - not necessarily deific, but in certain domains they may as well be, and it's only their alien nature that keeps this from being a problem. (Again, I draw a parallel to the Lady of Pain here, except in some ways she's more comprehensible than the archfey*, and again, I don't think of her as a fey.) Note that in some cases in the 5e PHB, it's implied that an archfey pact can be formed by accident (second paragraph under Delvers into Secrets, page 105), which rather nicely underscores how the fey don't think in terms that we would.

Full disclosure: I'm not a Planescape fan. I found the Lady of Pain made a lot more sense when I started viewing her as a self-insert character for every killer GM I've ever known. With that in mind, everything she does makes perfect sense, even though it is metagamey to think like that.

#11

Byakugan01

Mar 04, 2015 23:25:09

Our Warlock reveres Cthulu....sometimes when he casts Hunger of Cthulu(Hadar), the bodies of his victims disappear amid the creepy slurpy alien sounds, never to be seen again.

I like the fay themes in 5e so far, and hope they do more with them in the future. It's a nice change from always either worshipping goody goodies or demons.

But a Paladin of vengeance sworn to avenge the powerful forces unbalancing the natural balance of the world? Sounds like he would fit right in with the Emerald Enclave.

#12

Seuleslintan

Mar 06, 2015 23:58:51

Clerics and Paladins follow a deity or god who gets worshipped by mortals

a fey god is not a god in this case. its godlike yes, but there are no tempels in the material plane to worhip them and give them divine power

same goes for the old ones

Warlocks make a pact with alien/godlike/strange enities but this are no "real Gods"

so i would not allow a warlock pact with Tempus (God of War) or an ancient Gold Dragon (godlike)

But a pact with an alienlike fey, old one, devil is fine

#13

durntaur

Mar 07, 2015 23:11:04

Seuleslintan wrote: