changing deities ?


Rules Questions


what happens to a cleric that decides to change too a different deity ?
also how can i change alignment from neutral to neutral good ?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Changing deities is like changing jobs - it's a good idea to make sure you find your next one before you quit your current one. Also, your former employer might not be very fond of you anymore - that's not a problem when we're talking about a corporation in the modern world, but some deities just might be vain and jealous. And vengeful.

As for changing alignments, you'll probably get a different answer from everybody who posts here. Here's mine:

Your behavior determines your alignment, not the other way around. If you behave one way, your alignment might be Neutral, and if you behave a different way, you're alignment might be Neutral Good. So behave however you want, your alignment will adjust itself to that behavior.

Note: it's not the other way around. Alignment is not some stat or feature of your character that puts you in a strait jacket and forces you to behave according to those two (or one) little letters you wrote there. Never. At most, those little letters suggest how your character might behave in different situations but if you don't like acting that way, then the problem is not that your behavior is wrong, it's actually that those little letters are the wrong letters and should be changed to different letters that more accurately reflect your behavior.


main reason im thinking about alignment change is for prestige class which ones im interested in either require any good or NG.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder LO Special Edition, PF Special Edition Subscriber

It greatly depends on the deity change, if you change from one LG god to another good god, like from imodea to Serenrea (i spellt those wrong i think) then the gods wont really throw up a big fuss about it, but if you went from a evil god to a good go the evil go might want to make an example of you


its also a game where 3.5 is involved too so we are using those gods as well and there are some pretty decent 3.5 prestige options for divine casters.


The redemption entry of the Atonement spell fits your needs. It also gives some roleplaying fuel. You seek out a Priest of ______, and seek to walk a new path.

Having no material component means cost would just be the NPC spellcasting services cost, which shouldnt be that costly. Perhaps the GM could waive the cost in exchange for clerical services rendered in the future to your new church.

Atonement is the in game justification for just using an eraser.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
DM_Blake wrote:


Note: it's not the other way around. Alignment is not some stat or feature of your character that puts you in a strait jacket and forces you to behave according to those two (or one) little letters you wrote there. Never. At most, those little letters suggest how your character might behave in different situations but if you don't like acting that way, then the problem is not that your behavior is wrong, it's actually that those little letters are the wrong letters and should be changed to different letters that more accurately reflect your behavior.

I completely agree but unfortunately, as the OPs follow up shows, Paizo has tied rules to those letters as if they were a stat. So if I put an L-anything down on my paper I can't take the Arcane Trickster prestige class. If I put down something other than anything-E I can't ever be an Assassin prestige class. I don't even like Paladin's being required to be LG. Truth be told I dislike the whole concept of alignment altogether.


You shouldn't need magical atonement for this.

You're neutral but want to be good, so do good things. Behave like a good person. Don't be a selfish and self-important as you used to be. If you start roleplaying as if you're a good person, you will BE a good person.

And for changing deities, that's a roleplay opportunity. This isn't a video game. You should just seek out an authority figure in your new religion and let him know that you've become disillusioned with your own faith and you've become convinced that his faith, his deity, is much more to your liking and you'd like instruction and ordainment in his religion.

There are no rules for this, but it's not a video game. There is no preset quest with quest-giver #317 to make you collect a bell, a book, and a candle and pray in the magic circle and spin around on your head 19 times, etc. You and your GM figure out how much time you want to invest in this. Will that authority figure make you go on a quest to prove your worthiness? Will he make you work in town doing good deeds for orphanages to prove that you've truly changed from your previous selfish/neutral ways? Will you have to be an acolyte and spend 7 years sweeping the chapel floor before your new god will start granting spells and class abilities to you? Or will the new guy just clap his hands and twitch his nose and poof! You're now a cleric of a new good.

It's all up to you.


ok thanks for the input and my cleric also just hit 8th lvl so im just 1 more level away from atonement spell myself if i do end up needing it .


OldSkoolRPG wrote:
Truth be told I dislike the whole concept of alignment altogether.

Personally, I dislike baked in flavor for any class.

And thats what I consider alignment restrictions to be, baked in flavor.

Just because the original designer had something in mind for a class doesn't mean that is the way is has to be. One that springs to mind back in D&D 3.5 was the Warlock. It had to be either Evil or Chaotic because the fluff text said it got it's powers from demons and devils.

What were those powers? Mostly just being able to shoot energy beams out of your hands.

Mechanically there was very little to it that supported the alignment requirements, they were only there because the designer had a way too specific concept in his head when he wrote it.

But hey, I'm on the side of the fence that classes should be presented with at least 2-3 very different examples of possible flavor just to drive home the fact that just because the stereotypical rogue is a sneaky clepto doesn't mean every rogue is.


As far as rules go, there isn't a whole lot. However clerics select a deity and domains at first level, so it would require at least retraining a class feature. It would be possible to argue that you would have to retrain all of your cleric levels into something else, and then back to cleric of the new deity.

On the alignment, I don't agree that it is purely descriptive in how you have behaved in the past, it is also what you aspire and try to be. These two things are of course related, and feed off each other, but especially for a cleric you have to not just have been a more or less good person, but you have to aspire to the ideals of good. In the game, if your character is seeking to fully understand and embrace a new ethos, the atonement spell is the appropriate method. Obviously alignment can change without that, but it is not a certain or predictable thing, it could take months or years of trying to be a good person before you are fully 'aligned' with good.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / changing deities ? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.