New thread for the derailment on Eminent Domains.
What things seem like they’ll be more work to homebrew, and what are some good shortcuts?
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IF you have the:
A. Time
B. Creativity
C. Patience
D. Audience
E. Energyto do so.
Otherwise, it's a lot of work for very little 'payoff'.
If you lack these resources...why in the world are you doing homebrew?
I'm not trying to be snarky or anything, that's a serious question.
People have finite time and energy. They want to spend that on the most meaningful and rewarding aspects of homebrew. Finding the best three spells for a dozen deities? Not super rewarding for the time and effort.
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Things that will take more work:
1. Ancestries. Races were easy, Ancestries are not. Even modifying them requires creating several Ancestry Feats.
2. Gods are perhaps slightly more so, but I actually think that's being overstated. You pick 4 Domains, some Alignments, a weapon, and 3 spells. This is slightly trickier than 5 Domains and an Alignment, but likely easier than going through Secondary Domains.
You also need to come up with Anathema, but really, you needed to come up with dictates in PF1 too. At least Anathema are codified.
Most other stuff seems about equally difficult, or in some cases actually easier (evidence suggests that something like Automatic Bonus Progression would be a lot easier, for example).
People have finite time and energy. They want to spend that on the most meaningful and rewarding aspects of homebrew. Finding the best three spells for a dozen deities? Not super rewarding for the time and effort.
It appears to be a whole three spells per deity. That's really not all that much work. Certainly less than going through all the subdomains in PF1.
Your suggestion to take a look at equivalent Domains and their spells in PF1 is solid as a way to cut down on the effort even more, but it's not the end of the world even without it.
Contributor
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I also think that, despite the position advanced in the original thread, making it when you need it is perfectly valid. Player wants to play a priest of a harvest god? Make the harvest god.
I don't understand the whole fear of "negotiation", either. Maybe it's just the Tyrant Princess in me, but it seems easy. You discuss what the player has in mind, work it out, and deliver it. It's your world - you have the authority to say "this is what the deity grants", just as you have the authority to decide what the NPCs say and do.
I dunno. Maybe I am legitimately old-fashioned.
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I'd take the lazy "stat it when you need it" approach, and discussing stuff with players is the part that's enjoyable for me. My players aren't the sort to push for more powerful stuff, though.
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I also think that, despite the position advanced in the original thread, making it when you need it is perfectly valid. Player wants to play a priest of a harvest god? Make the harvest god.
I don't understand the whole fear of "negotiation", either. Maybe it's just the Tyrant Princess in me, but it seems easy. You discuss what the player has in mind, work it out, and deliver it. It's your world - you have the authority to say "this is what the deity grants", just as you have the authority to decide what the NPCs say and do.
I dunno. Maybe I am legitimately old-fashioned.
This! THIS!!!!!!!!!
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Prior to the 2nd edition announcement, I had a "Bard Game" planned, where every PC had at least one level of bard and they could play any wacky race they wanted.
I've now kicked that game back to August so I can run it under the playtest rules. The PCs at the moment are likely to include a lemurfolk, a kobold, and a dragon. The deities will all be non-Golarion.
I don't know how flexible the new system is yet, but I'm certainly looking forward to finding out how easily it can be modded. I do think, based on previews, that the ancestry system will allow me to put together a dragon ancestry that's about on par with the rest of the group.
Should be fun. I look forward to opening the playtest rulebook and immediately trying to break things.
let them pick the mechanics of a pre-existing Golarion deitySo the solution to not wanting to play in Golarion is to use Golarion? You know what, fine. I know a lost cause when I see it. Fine, restrict players to using the statblocks of Golarion deities and figure out how to work that into the setting whenever it comes up.
This isn't really any worse then before. PF1e Domains were so badly balanced against each other it was crazy. Desnans were super common because Desna's domains were super strong. In a homebrew, pick your domains willy nilly setting, players just got to pick the strongest 2 domains for their character, and the best favored weapon, and call it a day.
It was technically more flexible, but certainly no better from a story telling perspective. And from a balance perspective 9 levels of extra spell access makes it pretty tough. Really, if your concern is player's taking advantage of your lack of defined deities to power game, the old domain system was already crap.
But what about settings that make use of non-theistic clerics or otherwise do not have conventional pantheons? This doesn't mesh at all with my current campaign setting, where it's explicit that the specific manifestations of a cleric's powers (ie, domains) are unique to the individual.
Then just make the manifestations have whatever form you feel comfortable with? Honestly, this new system should be even more flexible than the old one for this. In the old system, any two clerics who pick the same subdomain have the same manifestations across the board-- 9 identical domain spells and 2 or 3 identical domain powers.
Now, even if you use my original suggestion, all the clerics HAVE to have in common are 3 "god" spells. They can pick different one of 4 different domains to get different powers, only get the advanced power if they choose to spend that class feat, and can add a second domain by picking a new feat. This is at worst a lateral move in terms of flexibility, and IMO in practice will probably lead to lot more diversity.
Alternatively: once we see the final product, decide if you are comfortable with decoupling the god spells from the domains. Assuming the balance is better this time around (and there's a lot of reason to think it will be) you then have (Number of Golarion gods) x (Number of Domains) different manifestations. (Someone correct my math.)
Maybe it would help if you translate any given deity's total set of abilities into a "sphere of influence" that any given cleric can tap into. The domains would now be more analogous to PF1e subdomains, giving you slightly different abilities within the same sphere.
Story telling wise, it shouldn't be that hard to come up with some blanket rule. And mechanically it provides a lot less balance concerns than the old system did. This really should be a win for you.
Responding to some posts in the derailed thread:
Heck. Just ban clerics. Simplest possible option. Clerics of a philosophy were barely clerics anyway.
You're still approaching this from the viewpoint of Golarion, where divine powers comes from deities. In worlds where it's the other way around, where divine power comes from the faith of the worshippers, the idea that someone can be a cleric without even having a deity makes perfect sense. From that perspective, religion and philosophy are essentially two sides of the same coin.
Though, if you do do that, don't complain if the cleric ends up over-tuned in some regard.
My thoughts exactly. I'm perfectly fine with free domain pick, and I could go either way on favored weapons, but free pick of spells feels too much for my liking. Hence my concern.
Also, I don't much care for the fact that domains aren't well balanced against each other. Wizard schools aren't well balanced against each other, Sorcerer bloodlines are notorious for running hot and cold, animal companions are highly inconsistent in quality. So it's not a particular concern to me if Clerics can just pick the best domains.
If you're going to create a world, creating the religious framework for those classes is part of that crafting.
I'm kinda offended by people suggesting I'm lazy just because I'm running a setting where conventional deities aren't a thing. I didn't want to make this about my current homebrew, but fine, here's the elevator pitch:
Deities are unknowable entities beyond mortal purview; they cannot be located, contacted, or detected by mortal magic. They are known only from ancient texts of forgotten ages, prophets who claim to speak for them, and interpretations of portents and omens. Their very existence is a matter of faith. The powers of a cleric are a manifestation of their personal faith, and do not specifically require a deity. A single monotheistic religion dominates the present-day world, and the vast majority of people worship this one religion and persecute any others. Many cults and other local spiritual beliefs do not venerate any specific entity as a deity, but can still wield divine magic. Domains are only restricted if there is an alignment conflict.
Suggesting I add a traditional pantheon to this world completely misses the direction I'm going with it. Mechanically speaking, I don't have or want an equivalent to the role deities fill in a pantheistic setting. It would literally detract from the setting to include them. And again, this worked just fine in PF1 with no modifications.
Deity quick spell suggestion: switch to domain spells. Most of the domains map to an old domain or subdomain. Most old domain spells map to new spells. Their first domain lets them pick three spells from the old domain.
Thank you for a constructive suggestion.
While that still leaves a lot of gaps (PF2 domains without a PF1 equivalent, or PF1 domains that offer domain spells that are already on the cleric spell list, or whose domain spells don't exist in PF2 anymore) it's definitely a starting point. I'll see how workable it is once we have the full rules.
If you lack these resources...why in the world are you doing homebrew?
Because I have limited resources, and this diverts my time and energy away from the areas I want to focus on.
Moreover, as a practical matter I restrict my homebrew rules to a single page. If there are mechanical rules changes my players need to be aware of, it should be a single page cheat sheet. This forces me to keep things succinct and easily understandable.
So, a question/suggestion: Why don't you just strip PF2 deities of their "personality" or "deific persona" or whatever you want to call it and translate them to something akin to Super-Domains in your setting? For example: just take the rules block of Shelyn (to use previewed content) and say "no, this is not Shelyn, this is the Uber-domain of Art. It's no longer about a supernatural being with a will on its own that likes art, but about the bigger concept of Loving Art". It's not perfect and might need some tweaks to fit, but it would give you a good starting point that you could assume is mechanically balanced. Most of the work would be thinking of names that would represent the concept better in your setting, rather than mechanical stuff.
I mean, you would still be "using Golarion", but technically so would you if you were to use pre-defined Domains anyways.
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Deities are unknowable entities beyond mortal purview; they cannot be located, contacted, or detected by mortal magic. They are known only from ancient texts of forgotten ages, prophets who claim to speak for them, and interpretations of portents and omens. Their very existence is a matter of faith. The powers of a cleric are a manifestation of their personal faith, and do not specifically require a deity. A single monotheistic religion dominates the present-day world, and the vast majority of people worship this one religion and persecute any others. Many cults and other local spiritual beliefs do not venerate any specific entity as a deity, but can still wield divine magic. Domains are only restricted if there is an alignment conflict.
Neat!
For this setting I'd come up with three spells and a Favored Weapon for the monotheistic faith, then leave the rest undefined. If a PC wanted to play a Cleric, I'd have them present a pitch for what spells and weapon they wanted and use my editorial oversight to make sure it isn't broken.
You can also do the same for NPCs pretty easily, really. Indeed, that lets you do some cool stuff since you can base a whole cult's aesthetic on certain spell and weapon choices.
Because I have limited resources, and this diverts my time and energy away from the areas I want to focus on.
Fair enough, this just doesn't seem an insurmountable (or even especially difficult) thing to work out for the world presented or most others I can think of.
Moreover, as a practical matter I restrict my homebrew rules to a single page. If there are mechanical rules changes my players need to be aware of, it should be a single page cheat sheet. This forces me to keep things succinct and easily understandable.
What I just listed above should definitely fit on such a sheet.