So I'm reading the article on Dagon in the recent Dragon, and I find myself wondering, "So what's a god?"
Demon lords grant spells and domains, although that's done as a proxy for a real deity. So, what constitutes a "real" deity? When using world-specific examples, please state so.
Are gods simply creatures that much more powerful than a demon lord? That hardly seems likely, since many of the archfiends are often protrayed as rivaling and threatening the gods. Are the gods simply some other "race" of powerful beings that have a "divine spark" to them, not necessarily stronger than an archfiend, but more tied to primordial energies? Are gods something beyond all that, and not so easily described in terms of "creatures?" (Deities and Demigods has NO place in this conversation, by the way)
Also, I've asked about the birth of gods before, and the answer often comes back, "They are born of the faith of their followers." So, which comes first, the deity or the worship? It hardly seems right that these supposedly real gods of the world are birthed simply of the faith of mortals. Surely there is something there that exists before they appear as a divine being? Or is that the point of difference between a deity in D&D and any other uber-epic creature? I know I have the power to create and describe what I want, but I'm curious as to the official stance.
Where does the power of gods come from? Do they draw upon magic and ley energies in the same way as any creature with a list of supernatural or spell like abilities does? Or do they generate their own power?
What is arcane magic? In the Realms, it is a stash of cosmic energy accessed by the Weave, which the goddess Mystra creates and governs so as to provide an interface for other, lesser beings. Is there an underpinning theory such as this in standard D&D, or is it left untouched? This model perhaps answers some of the questions above; perhpas a deity is a being that does not have to access the Weave or Shadow Weave to use magic?
As an aside, I'd like to mention an observation. In the spell failure thread, Sebastian mentioned that it bothered him that a cleric could get time stop as a domain spell and cast it without spell failure, whereas a wizard has to suffer said failure if in armor while casting. He mentioned that it was the same spell, and thus should be cast the same way. Not necessarily. The end result is the same, but there's nothing saying that the pathway to that power is limited to only one route. That seems to be the underlying difference, as far as the caster is concerned, between arcane and divine magic: two different paths to mystical energy, each with certain advantages and disadvantages, although often the possible effects overlap.
But my curiosity remains: how to describe those paths? Or, is this always left as a "mystery" for players to ponder so the DM doesn't have to bother with it? Are gods left loosely defined so that the DM can plug one whereever he wants without too much thought? My innate analytical personality rejects this and feels that the DM should think about these things for his world.
Deities are empowered, sustained, and typically created from the faith and worship of their followers. Mortals who ascend to divinity are typically elevated to such status by other deities, and in the process of this transition they're up on the same level and subject to those same rules of the divine ecology (such as it is).
So, you might say, what about races of mortals who claim to have been created by a deity rather than the other way around, such as elves. Well, there's two possibilities: the worshippers are deluded and believe a lovely bit of revisionist history on behalf of their deity, or their deity -did- create them. If in this latter case the deity had to have arisen from either an earlier already pre-existant deity or even earlier ones, and ultimately somewhere at the starting point of that lineage a deity developed from mortal belief.
It's also possible some beings called deities aren't exactly the same as mortal spawned deities. The true neutral elemental deities might predate mortal spawned gods, being less 'deities' than manifestations of their entire elemental plane itself, or they're 'deities' spawned not by mortal belief but by that of elementals.
As for where the power of the gods is coming from, there are two lines of thought: it's coming entirely from the worship of their faithful, or deities are tapping something beyond themselves (likely without a clue they're doing it). If the second one, some groups refer to it as the 'Source' or the 'Great Unknown', with the current group of deities simply being lesser aspects of some larger, distant, unknowable divine spark.
To some extent we know that the first idea is true, but it might not be the only source of their power, and well, -something- is granting spells those who claim to venerate the 'Great Unknown'. So they're definately getting their power from worship, and maybe elsewhere, but we can't say for certain.
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This is definitely the chicken and the egg discussion. We are chasing our own tails by asking, " what came first, believers or deities? " I am a big fan of the Forgotten Realms, that said, I do believe that the strength of a deity comes from the amount of worshippers they currently possess. I have a theory that all gods and goddesses are beings filling a role that has to be defined in order for mortals to interact with their world.
After reading the novels about Cyric and his trial, a number of questions came to my mind also. Mystra, in the novel, threatened more than once to keep magic from the followers of certain gods and goddesses and even took magic away from Cyric himself. Does this mean that whatever power controls magic, controls the powers of the other gods and goddesses?
Personally I always thought of the positions that gods and goddesses are like offices. The beings that fill them have a "job" dictated by their portfolios. The positions are always there they just have to be filled by either a transcended mortal or by a power that best represents the same said portfolio. I maybe be totally off but if you dont agree let me know.
Another idea relating to the previous may be that powers come into being by the mere idea of mortals. In that case it goes back to the last comment made about Elves and other creatures that were created by a certain power. In certain religions, a deity or his powers are created by the combined thoughts of a group of people.
Well now that I have totally chased myself in a circle, I am going to retire. My head feels two sizes too big and I dont even know if I am going o be able to run my once a week game without having my head explode. Anywhoo here is my two cents.
I had thought the difference between a demon lord and the gods who reside in the Abyss was going to be answered in FC1. I am not sure it was. Here are my personal thoughts:
Gods possess the divine spark as you mentioned. This comes from worship. They may have existed previously as powerful beings before man but now that point is moot.
Demon lords are born of the Abyss and receive there power from that source. The reason gods do not rule the Abyss through their divine spark is because demons for all their evil share a bond with their fellow demon. It is much like any closed community, they may take joy in killing each other but don't you try to come in and kill one of them. I would say because of their nature this is an instinctive reaction recognizing they are both born of the Abyss.
Some demon lords have sought godhood but in doing so have turned their backs on their demonic heritage in favor of a chosen race. Thus gods within the Abyss must guard themselves in all directions against the demon lords.
I just want to state again this is my personal opinion. I just feel it makes the most sense.
And we could really bog this down by throwing in Overgods . . .
We know that powerful singular entities (liked demon lords) can become gods, as not only have a few been mentioned as being gods in the past, but a few even in 3.5 have been mentioned as being "close to becoming gods."
I beleive that one defining characteristic that many have mentioned is sustanance through faith. This has always existed, to a greater or lesser extent, in D&D, and is especially reinforced in Forgotten Realms, for example. Oddly enough, this doesn't seem quite as important in DragonLance, but we'll get back to that.
Beleif isn't just from devout worshipers and clerics though, but from those that honestly have respect for the deity even if they don't worship that particular god, and also respect for the god's portfolio. This bit you can pick up a little from various game materials, and some of it is common sense (i.e. how powerful would Nerull be if only devout worshipers sustained him). Ed Greenwood has also mentioned this when talking about the gods of the Forgotten Realms. Talos is a greater god, not because he has temples in every city in Faerun, but because everyone caught in a thunderstorm or watching a tornado ravage the countryside has a healthy respect for him, and may even say a little prayer of placation (not adoration) to him.
Divine "office" is another interesting part of all of this. It is true that a certain level of power seems to come from certain offices, and, for example, in the Forgotten Realms, it seems that once an office exists, someone has to hold it, even if it becomes a lesser part of some other god's overall portfolio (Cyric has murder as well as lies, at one time Leira had lies and Bhaal had murder). It almost seems that for the "office" paradigm to hold though, you either have to have an overgod to set up the structure, or you have to have an organized pantheon that will agree to the general rules of the offices (for example, the Greek gods).
As far as birth of the gods go, I think it depends on the god in question. Again, citing Forgotten Realms as a source, Chauntea was born as the embodiment of Toril itself when Ao brought it out of Chaos, Shar was born of the darkness, and Selune of the light. When Shar and Selune intermingled their powers in an attempt to overwhealm one another, Mystryl (the forerunner of the goddess Mystra) was born, essentially as a balancing point to control the wild surges of power in the universe. Not all gods will have such primordial beginings, but I think the most powerful ones do have this kind of symbolic origin.
As far as magic and its theory in the universe goes, we know that in Toril (Forgotten Realms) without a goddess of magic and the Weave, no one can access magic (mortals that is), much to Karse's chagrin. We also know that if the goddess of magic cannot constantly repair the Weave and manage it, magic goes wild (i.e. the Time of Troubles in the Forgotten Realms). Does this theory hold for other D&D worlds? In DragonLance, when the gods of magic (as well as the other gods), left Krynn entirely, no one could access magic at all for a time. Eventually Takhisis showed mortals how to draw upon the ambient power of Chaos to use magic again. You could argue that in both worlds magic exists with or without the gods, but mortal access to it is difficult without some kind of divine manipulation. Perhaps because without this divine manipulation if a mortal did figure out how to use magic, their power would be extreemly wild and unpredictable.
Finally, from the Fiendish Codex we get the idea that the Obrynths are essentially the embodiment of chaos, expressed in a negative (evil) manner. You could argue that the all of the major planar races are the physical manifestation of a given extreem of ethics and morals, while the deities are the manifestations of ethics and morals applied to a given application. Tyr, for example, is the embodiment of the concept of Justice. He is also Lawful good. Over time his worshipers and their perception of him, as well as his own experiences, might cause him to become Lawful neutral, and Justice becomes less about doing what is right and more about cause and effect. On the other hand, an angel that is Lawful good is lawful good. They may be interested in justice for a while, but they may move on to another "job" that can be related to law and good. In other words, god=getting the job done, planar creature=the way the job is done, whatever it is.
Finally, the demon lords, celestial paragons, etc. may represent a crossroads between god and planar creature, in that many do have a specific "portfolio" though it is filtered through the lens of their particular ethical and moral bent. It may be that such beings are very close to being "nudged" into godhood, and thus why their worshipers can get spells from the ambient energy of the plane they are tied to. On the other hand, they are still limited to viewing their "portfolio" through the lens of thieir alignment focus. Orcus will not be the patron of a lawful neutral or lawful evil view of using undead to fight wars and do dangerous work instead of risking lives to make society better, he will always veiw undeath as a means to destroy, enslave, and advance one's self.
Finally, from the Fiendish Codex we get the idea that the Obrynths are essentially the embodiment of chaos, expressed in a negative (evil) manner. You could argue that the all of the major planar races are the physical manifestation of a given extreem of ethics and morals, while the deities are the manifestations of ethics and morals applied to a given application.
Adding to this idea, the earliest, most primal outsiders (and to a marginally lesser extent their descendants) are the physical manifestations of the abstract alignments. They embody the raw alignments as they exist with or without any mortal framing or interpretation. They predate mortals, they predate deities, they're the alignments in their most primal conceptions.
On the other hand, deities can be best viewed as some of those same ideas in a less primal fashion, passed through a filter of mortal conception if you will. An ancient baatorian or baatezu exists as a living extension of raw LE, while Bane or Tiamat or Set etc are beings formed from specific mortal conceptions and interpretations of those alignments. In theory if the worshippers of a deity undergo a massive theological change, viewing their god in a different light, the deity is going to physically change to suit the conception of its faithful [though it could certainly before that point instruct its priests to hold a more orthodox view to prevent such change from happening].
The oldest and most powerful gods emerged from a specific event. Pelor, for example may have come about when light first flooded out of the positive energy plane touching matter and instilling it with the first life. This Pelor would not have ben the same as we know him now. He had no name and no fathomable shape, just raw power imbued with sentience. This new born god goes around and begins to create life, perhaps not even undestanding what he does. Some of the life he creates is sentient and begins to honor and give names to their creator. This is the beginning of worship. After eons the beliefs and prayers and sacrifices hammer the raw god of Pelor into the humaniod shape his followers pray to. Their human conciousness spreads to his own enigmatic mind and fills it with new understanding. Overflowing with the power of life and a new empathy and love for that which he created, Pelor takes his place as the protector of creation, teaching those who will listen the path to mental and physical health and fufillment.
The gods rely on worship. Not only their power but their very minds are linked to those that sacrifice to them. Evil gods may be the incarnation of hatred and malice that permeated an ancient culture or world. If hatred is banished from the minds of the living then that connection (the divine spark) will fade and the god will revert to his primal stage (his mortal stage). And even the most insane of gods fear losing who they are.
Prayer is the cheif portal through which power is given from mortal to god. But prayer does not require a ceremony, nor does it require speacking aloud or using the gods name. Even the most steadfast Paladin may look at an enemy is disgust, hoping ferverently that he will be given an excuse to run him through. In this moment of weakness his mind is cosmically linked to Erythnul by his personal desire to kill another creature. Even evil gods thrive on the power distributed by sentient beings despite having only a small denomination of devoted worshippers.
I like the idea that the gods both created, and were created. They may have existed since the dawn of time as very powerful beings but they were not Gods until they were worshiped. The divine spark comes from the belief of senient beings.
Magic is the ever present binding force that holds reality together. Some creatures are powerful enough that their will can be made manifest in specific ways to unhinge reality. Other creatures have learned to open a conduit into this force to extend their will with spells. For Wizards the conduit is breached by using complex understanding of they way it functions to remove realities barrier. Sorcerers contain a powerful mind strong enough to simply bend reality through sheer mental force. Of course when a sorcerer finally learns to bring a desired effect to life that part of his being is forever changed. No longer a thought but in a sense a new muscle to be streatched. Clerics and druids are allowed access to magic through the Divine spark of a god or the power that exists in the balance of all things. Magic through the divine spark is different. It requires a mind capeable of deep coprehension of energies and truths that most beings cannot perceive. And most impotantly it requires a source from which the power is to be pulled. This is why gods can be as different as night and day but their clerics all cast in very similer manners and for the most part have access to the same spells. The spark of divinity follows it's own rules to what it can and cannot be used to do.
And Saern I know that all this is my personal spin and you asked for an official stance, but wouldn't the official stance (if there ever was one) be in the Gods book you outlawed from the discussion?
Good luck anyway dude. And I hope you find a chance to play soon.
Back in the very early 80's or late 70's I read a story in Dragon about the night of a wolf god's birth. Apparently native american types started worshipping him, and because of this worship, he was brought into being. It was a well done little introspective story. Can't recall the name.
Many mythologies have suppressed their original deities, relegating them to "old one" status. In a fantasy universe, most gods are older than the human race. In an academic study of pantheons, people clearly invented them. D&D is a fantasy realm however, and thus it would make sense that the rule is whatever you want it to be. Deities are either spawned by human desire to worship a control, or they predate this desire, or it's a mixed bag in which the gods are from one of two camps, proto pre-mortal or mortal-inspired.
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I think it can all change from game to game, and can even be mutable in the context of a campaign. Why the hell not?
If for the sake of a philosophical discussion you can preface it by saying, "assuming there is a god," or "assuming there is no god," why can't you do that different from campaign to campaign? Why can't the question wait if need be?
Does the character have to have proof of the existence of divinity? Do you? Does anyone? Does the pope?
As to what a god is, that's one of the questions I purposely play free and easy, in case a whimsy hits me later on.
If I have a group who's in to that sort of thing, I might think about coming up with it.
I would love to see someone flesh out a clearer description for what exactly an overdeity is. Then again, maybe it's unexplained so that some mystery yet remains for godhood.
Even if you're epic level with a ton of feats for sidestepping charges and slapping back arrows and what not, the idea that you're going to kill Zeus by forming some kind of medieval Voltron with your adventuring pals seems so senseless.
What are gods? They're what is beyond you. They are the metaphoric warmth behind the wall you're groping along in the dark. When they choose to be seen by us, like Coyote or Loki, they wear the mask of humanity that we might understand them, like Foster meeting her dad's visage across the universe in Contact--how people didn't get that...
There's no turning back now that we've got stats for gods, but IMO it may have been the very move that started me on the yellow brick road as a child because I was killing gods at age twelve hand over fist right out of the Deities and Demigods book. Divine rank is one thing and has its place for comparing god to god, but hit points and a bunch of stealable artifacts? The only thing they really have going for them are those divine feats.
Look up at the clouds. Now figure that there is a god responsible for the clouds... now tell me about her carnate body and where to stab her in order to steal her enchanted panties of mistmaking, forged by the femdwarves of Calliban. It just doesn't jibe with a real world understanding of divinity. But then, it's a fantasy world, it simply doesn't have to.
I wouldn't say there is no going back. We have seen that the upper level "concept" monsters like Demon Lords are said, right in the Fiendish Codex, to more or less be adjustable so that you feel they would be challenging to a high level party. Why wouldn't this apply to gods as well?
My thoughts are that the 2nd edition way of dealing with this is the best though. Demigods can have physical stats because they are new to the whole deity thing, and they haven't ascended to the upper ranks. The rest of them don't have dicernable physical stats, but they have avatars that they might send to physically represent them.
In 2nd edition it was stated in FR that you could not kill a god unless you had the help of another god (exceptions being the Time of Troubles when they were expressly exiled from their domains and given mortal form). Also, using the past as a guide, when Raistlin, in DragonLance, nearly defeated the Dark Queen to become a god, it was not represented as a matter of Raistlin beating on her until she was at negative hit points, but rather, that he was going to trick her into a position where she was vulnerable and use some kind of magic on her that she couldn't resist because of that particular circumstance.
It will vary from campaign to campaign, but if you keep the old 2nd edition mindset about these things, that gods don't have physical forms and that only gods or mortals aided by gods can harm another god, then you have another diferentiation between gods and arch fiends, namely that arch fiends do have a physical form, albeit a powerful one, thus meaning if they are close to any form of divinity it would be demi-gods.
I wouldn't say there is no going back. We have seen that the upper level "concept" monsters like Demon Lords are said, right in the Fiendish Codex, to more or less be adjustable so that you feel they would be challenging to a high level party. Why wouldn't this apply to gods as well?
My thoughts are that the 2nd edition way of dealing with this is the best though. Demigods can have physical stats because they are new to the whole deity thing, and they haven't ascended to the upper ranks. The rest of them don't have dicernable physical stats, but they have avatars that they might send to physically represent them.
In 2nd edition it was stated in FR that you could not kill a god unless you had the help of another god (exceptions being the Time of Troubles when they were expressly exiled from their domains and given mortal form). Also, using the past as a guide, when Raistlin, in DragonLance, nearly defeated the Dark Queen to become a god, it was not represented as a matter of Raistlin beating on her until she was at negative hit points, but rather, that he was going to trick her into a position where she was vulnerable and use some kind of magic on her that she couldn't resist because of that particular circumstance.
It will vary from campaign to campaign, but if you keep the old 2nd edition mindset about these things, that gods don't have physical forms and that only gods or mortals aided by gods can harm another god, then you have another diferentiation between gods and arch fiends, namely that arch fiends do have a physical form, albeit a powerful one, thus meaning if they are close to any form of divinity it would be demi-gods.
I meant that there was no going back to gods being considered as untouchable and primally mysterious once their Dex and Con scores were listed for all to see. That's alright, why stop someone from doing anything in the D&D universe? If someone wants to fight a god, let them. It's just that the way I see them being written up these days it's as if gods and archfiends/demonlords are all covering up that they are a part of some extraplanar boy's club and that they're protecting the secret of their own fragility by inventing myths of their invulnerability and intrinsic right to rule the mortal realm.
I agree with you completely about the more believable possiblity of bludgeoning demigods. I was going to posit something along those lines.
I also like what you said about the god-assisting-in-killing-another-god rule in FR. That feels about right to me, but more for snake gods and spider gods and thorn gods... I just don't see myself filching Jar Griepner and commanding Mjolnir to thunk Thor silly. Not even at 60th level.
"I'd like to take the Improved Deific Armageddon feat, please."
"You don't have the prereq, Annihalation Bladewind Apocolypse."
"Then I take that and hit Gilgamesh with it."
"Okay. (rolls) He's dead. Want his stuff?"
"Yes please."
"Want me to order more pizza?"
"Yes please."
"Okay... who's left?" DM riffles through Deities and Demigods. "Loviatar's got nice ones. Wanna kill her too?"
"After pizza."
Just for fun, I tried a scale experiment. I assumed that the comments made about avatars when the concept was first introduced was true (i.e. in Greyhawk Adventures, it was stated that an avatar is roughly about 1/3 as powerful as the god that they were spawned from). I then looked at the 2nd edition Faiths and Avatars for Forgotten Realms, and assumed that the avatars were indeed 1/3 as powerful as the god they came from. The example that I can remember off hand was that if this is the case, Mystra, goddess of Magic, should be a Wizard 120/cleric 120. At that level, the epic level abilities she would get would almost make her "salient divine abilities" pointless.
Which brings up the issue that the gods in 3.0 really look sad considering that they were built without epic rules in mind. I don't blame any of the writers of those products, as Epic rules were suppose to be kept separate more or less by design of the powers that be at WOTC. I can understand this to a point, but at the same time, it does seem to highlight how silly it can be to actually stat out gods.
Of course, this is why I really want a FR deities book that focuses on various orders, heresies, and cults in the Realms and not the stats of the gods themselves.
Sovereign Press carried on the 2nd edition concept of the gods not having stats when they did Holy Order of Stars. Only the aspects of gods have stats in DragonLance, the gods themselves being a bit beyond such quantification.
FWIW, the most comprehensive book covering the nature of D&D deities, worship, petitioners, deific domains, relations between gods, etc was the 2e 'On Hallowed Ground'.
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I'll trust there was some form of infinite wisdom at work when my previous post got eaten, because if there isn't, I'm gonna be pissed.
Anyway, I really like what has been said here so far. I like all of these ideas and see how they are not mutually exclusive and can be woven together to make a diverse portrait of the divine with varying origins for all the characters. I really like the Greyhawk deities, but I was thinking that they may not really fit with the theme of Saern. However, the ideas on this thread have given me some inspiration as to how I can redescribe them to fit with the world's theme better.
I've also been mulling over possible in-character views regarding arcane magic from a practicioner's standing.
At low levels, one simply learns basic and contemporary procedures; hand motions, words, and materials that can be combined in several ways to produce various effects. The magician has no real concept of the underlying principals or forces, simply knowing that saying "bippity boppity boop" and waving his hand makes a light show.
At mid levels, the practicioner begins to delve into more ancient, fundamental, and powerful magical practices, studying the philosophies and invocations of the high elves and other magical cultures.
Beyond this, the mage advances to understanding some of the intrinsic forces behind these theories and thus how they relate to each other and can be mixed and manipulated for even more dramatic, unique, and powerful effects.
Finally, one advances to the stage of the archmage, where one understands, in varying degrees, the actual nature of the energies and forces behind these arcane procedures. No longer does one simply wave a hand and expect a result, but now one understands why waving the hand and saying the words does what it does. You are now able to create new words and gestures and harness the full power of magic, taking it from its primordial state and shaping it all the way to the structured nature of a stable spell, all done according to your own wishes and designs.
Also, a possible view of components could be as follows.
All materials have chemical and physical properties, and thus also have magical properties. These can be used to enhance, damper, bring forth, or nulify certain effects when spellcasting.
Following this thought, one can then look at runes. Just as architects use odd shapes and designs for their various physical attributes, so to do certain shapes have magical potencies that can be utilized by spellcasters. Somatic components follow this rule to a lesser degree, since one essentially traces the rune in the air or makes one's hand assume the shape of a rune to benefit from its magical properties (though this is much weaker than actually making a permanent rune in stone or metal or whathaveyou).
Finally, one can then see how certain sounds would have magical properties to them. The actual words mean nothing, and aren't words so much as they are a series of audiological runes, "shapes" of sound that also bring with them magical properties. When these various components are all mixed together, the result are various magical forces being combined in the conduit of the mage's body to release a specific effect of spellcasting.
Just some rambling views.
I've also been mulling over possible in-character views regarding arcane magic from a practicioner's standing.At low levels, one simply learns basic and contemporary procedures; hand motions, words, and materials that can be combined in several ways to produce various effects. The magician has no real concept of the underlying principals or forces, simply knowing that saying "bippity boppity boop" and waving his hand makes a light show.
At mid levels, the practicioner begins to delve into more ancient, fundamental, and powerful magical practices, studying the philosophies and invocations of the high elves and other magical cultures.
Beyond this, the mage advances to understanding some of the intrinsic forces behind these theories and thus how they relate to each other and can be mixed and manipulated for even more dramatic, unique, and powerful effects.
Finally, one advances to the stage of the archmage, where one understands, in varying degrees, the actual nature of the energies and forces behind these arcane procedures. No longer does one simply wave a hand and expect a result, but now one understands why waving the hand and saying the words does what it does. You are now able to create new words and gestures and harness the full power of magic, taking it from its primordial state and shaping it all the way to the structured nature of a stable spell, all done according to your own wishes...
Quite well thought out. You edify me, sir. Do that again and I'll sue.
Should I be happy or threatened? Right now I'm just confused. =/
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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As an aside, I'd like to mention an observation. In the spell failure thread, Sebastian mentioned that it bothered him that a cleric could get time stop as a domain spell and cast it without spell failure, whereas a wizard has to suffer said failure if in armor while casting. He mentioned that it was the same spell, and thus should be cast the same way. Not necessarily. The end result is the same, but there's nothing saying that the pathway to that power is limited to only one route. That seems to be the underlying difference, as far as the caster is concerned, between arcane and divine magic: two different paths to mystical energy, each with certain advantages and disadvantages, although often the possible effects overlap.
My point was not that they are cast exactly the same way. My point is that, according to the logic of the game, you've got two mechanically different sets of somatic components. Arcane somatic components are so how more complex than divine somatic components such that armor interferes with the former and not the later. However, no other area of the rules enforces the idea that there is a mechanical difference in these somatic components (e.g., both casters have equal difficulty casting while grappled).
Similarly, while I don't think that all two weapon fighters use the exact same technique, there is clearly a mechanical difference between the technique used by the fighter and the technique used by the ranger. My question is whether these mechanical differences are a creature of the game or of the reality the mechanics are meant to simulate. I would submit that they are the former, and thus difficult to reconcile with the later.
All of this is really a tangent, but I heard my name and had to respond.
Fair enough, and I would be inclined to agree with your analysis of the situation. Much of the "balance" issues of the game are just that and fail, under close scrutiny, to hold up to rational explanations without some painfully stretched explanations.
Should I be happy or threatened? Right now I'm just confused. =/
All three suits me fine. ;)
Overall it was just a silly compliment to the way you ushered me into a rather intimate way of thinking about spells and their making. Got me thinking and today wasn't scheduled fer thinkin' and such.
Forgive me for using a real world analogy, but this is how I always pictured somantic components for divine spells. Essentially, during various parts of the Mass, a Catholic priest will make the sign of the cross. Its needed in order to observe the proper form of the ritual, but the "length" of the cross doesn't have to be, say, three times the "width" of the cross in order for the ritual to be valid. I've even seen preists that nearly make the cross wider than they do long. The point is that its a gesture to observe proper form.
A wizard, using someone else's example, drawing a precise rune in the air would have to draw it in exactly the right proportions, which isn't always easy to do when you can't actually see what you are drawing. This even plays a bit back into the armor check failure issue mentioned in another thread. Its not just that armor restricts your movements (though it might), but if you aren't inclined to wear armor and you get iritable, you may not be as careful. If you are wearing a helmet and you trace a large rune, perhaps your peripheral vision is blocked so you don't notice that you didn't properly draw the arm of the rune you were tracing, etc.
Its my take on it anyway.
Well, this is interesting. Just yesterday, about two hours after I posted my view on magic, I got the Complete Mage. It's actually pretty good; more along the lines of what the Complete Arcane should have been in my opinion. At any rate, the book states up front that no one really understands what makes spells work or why they function. That kind of sits askance from the view that I posted above, but just thought I'd point out what the "official" stance is. According to this, everyone from the 1st level wizard to the great Elminster is actually just bumbling around repeating things they've heard elsewhere with no real understanding of why what they're doing does what it does. Of course, that's not the stance that I'm going to be using! :)
That's a pretty good analogy, too, KnightErrant.
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According to this, everyone from the 1st level wizard to the great Elminster is actually just bumbling around repeating things they've heard elsewhere with no real understanding of why what they're doing does what it does. Of course, that's not the stance that I'm going to be using! :)
That's kinda how science worked and to some extent still works in the real world.
As an anecdote, there was a show on one of those Discover channels about a Roman Physician who worked on gladiators. He'd pour wine on their wounds. Why? It worked.Then, some thousand odd years later, someone invents a microscope and...what do you know....germs!
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That's kinda how science worked and to some extent still works in the real world.
As an anecdote, there was a show on one of those Discover channels about a Roman Physician who worked on gladiators. He'd pour wine on their wounds. Why? It worked.
Then, some thousand odd years later, someone invents a microscope and...what do you know....germs!
Makes you wonder about the first time he did it. Do you suppose he was all sloppy and drunk and sloshed his wine over an open wound?
I think most of us would cringe if our surgeon staggered in with an open container of alcohol.
I think most of us would cringe if our surgeon staggered in with an open container of alcohol.
Today, yes. If it were an emergency situation and no other suitable cleansing agent could be found, not really. Alcohol has a lot of astringent properties, and some varieties of alcohol, particularly wine and distilled spirits, its alcohol content is too high for bacteria and germs to grow in.
Alcohol was actually cleaner than water for many millennia. Romans did have the benefit of those aquaducts, though, which a lot of people did not have later.
Romans used their helmets as pots, routinely cooking up a stew of wine and salt pork.
BLARF! Um, sorry, I... BLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAARFF! Wow, look at that. My new projective flurp landed atop my old. I'm like a regurgitory bacci ball pro.
This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I have always been drawn to Clerics, Paladins, Druids and other divine practitioners as a player, and my campaigns tend to center around the very questions posed in this thread.
From a point of view that merges my perception of D&D canon and real world mythology, I see the gods as having manifested in stages, ala the titanomachy in Greek mythology.
Keep in mind all of this is my opinion and perception of the existence and affairs of gods as they relate to D&D.
In the beginning (catchy phrase, no?) there was the void. Contrary to our current perception of void as emptiness and space, I understand it more as a soup of energies and influences.Then the planes were created, as soup solidified into chunks of elemental and ideological essence.
The first beings to manifest from these first planes were raw, primal, elemental forces expressive of their points of origin and valent ideologies and probably would be closer to Neutral on our current alignment scale. As pointed out previously, the perception of worshipers colors the "alignment" of gods, and in a circular method, the alignment of subsequent worshipers.
Then the gods created humans (and humanoids in worlds where, say elves, predate humans for instance) for their own inscrutable reasons, and their worship began to change the divine forces that created them.
As humans struggled to survive, gods became more specialized. At first it was OK to just worship nature, but when the drought came and Mamma Nature wasn't listening, perhaps someone had the bright idea to "pray for rain", thereby neccessitating the need for a deity specializing in weather, say. A grievous oversimplification, I know..
At this stage in deity manifestation, it would seem that deities either cleaved off a part of themselves (Athena springing full force from the head of her father or the Shar/Selune [FR] split) and their essence, or birthed them in a way analogous to mortal reproduction (ie: boy god + girl god= baby god)
Some of these new gods (with more polar alignments, as mortals polarized themselves of course) were not happy with their predecessors and/or siblings and either slew them (ala Zeus and Chronos) or absorbed them and their portfolios, or banished them (a little like Tharizdun in GH) to those planes that spawned them, to devolve into demon lords, titans or other deific or near deific powers...Something represented in Christianity by the 1/3 of the host of angels that fell with Lucifer.
As the mortal worshipers of gods adjusted to their ever more complex world and began studying the nature of divinity, codifying and formalizing worship, mortals began to appreciate that they themselves were capable of incredible, almost deific power. A good example of this in canon, is how the Shadovar in Forgotten Realms had attained "level 10" magic before Mystra shut their racket down (at least for a few millenia)and cut off permanently the access to that level of the weave. this, in some ways is exemplified by the birth, death and ressurection of Christ in the christian mythos. A creature both mortal and divine, who spans the worlds and serves as a paragon of the mortal potential.
When mortals grew strong enough to challenge the gods, as the children and siblings of the first primitive gods did, they were often chastized and rebuked, but even as some of the new, more complex deities had won out over their roughcast predecessors, so too did some of the mortals ascend, as a select few did in FR during the time of troubles.
I view the current, and most advanced state of deific manifestation as a process to involve both basic "god-essence" as a feul or catalyst combined with faith or worship as a vehicle, a tremendous will to achieve deity status, and some sort of symbolic event or personal achievement.
Each part of that formula corresponds to a previous stage of the evolution of manifestation nicely, and combined they allow for a dynamic pantheon, where current worship is as important as the very quests undertaken by religious PC's on behalf of their deities and certain beings' desire to attain the status of immortal.
That is how it functions in my current campaign, and I like it well enough, but I think it diverges from the simple elegance of canon slightly. One of the plotlines in fact revolves around the Blood Trinity, a trio of evil gods who are newcomers themselves, and their attempt to elevate their children to godhood by killing and supplanting current deities. The PC's have caught wind of this, and the actions of their party will, in the end determine if they succeed or not.
There's my verbose and probably totally uneccessary two cents.
-Z