In my current game, I have a player running a True Neutral Cleric of Gozreh that has prestiged into a Holy Vindicator. He plays the neutral part fine, being a friend to the common man and king equally, trying to maintain a sense of balance in his actions. However, his spirituality or lack of any is my main concern.
As a cleric of nature I would expect him to feel uncomfortable being in the city too long. I feel as a divine class your deity should be a BIG part of your character. I had to look up his god because I couldn't remember him ever mentioning it "in character".
These problems combined with for the past few levels he has started to plan on spending some serious money on building his own "chain" of item shops in several of the towns the party has visited. We just finished a large dungeon crawl and the party has about 6 weeks of downtime and the player has already started crunching numbers on real estate, inventory and whatnot. Gozreh HATES cities! They are an afront to all he holds dear. My cleric is a treehugger who wants to become a developer!?!?!
Now I will admit I'm a pretty loose GM but I need to have a line in the sand somewhere and to me it is scary that the Barbarian has more religion, spending his time and money on building temples to his god.
I realize now I should have reacted sooner but it just kinda got out of hand before I could react. I know I could just spring atonement on him but that seems like such a jerk move. So my plan is to ask all the players for a short week by week list of what they are going to do on the 6 week break. Then based on the info, I will begin to tell the cleric he is having nightmares, then visions, his stigmatas won't stop bleeding, reduce his health, then his channel energy amount/spells....then lead to atonement.
Do you all have any other suggestions? Or examples of how you dealt with something similar?
I would start with:
A) Talk to the player of the cleric - does he know where you are coming from for clerics? When he decided to play a cleric did you let him know that in [u]your[/u] campaign that cleric that act too far out of their god's desire suffer penalties?
B) Find out what he was picturing in mind for his character. Especially if it (it = being which god he worships) hasn't come up in-game... Maybe he'd be happier being a cleric of Abadar.
Try to work with your player first.
I told him when we started that if is was going to play true neutral cleric I would hold him to a higher standard because his powers depend on his actions and alignment.
In reality, I think given the chance, he might drop this character. But I challenged him not to play the "sneaky faceman who thinks he is a front line combat machine" that he seems to gravitate to.
I know I should talk to him but I don't want to ruin the roleplay aspect of these "conditions" befalling him.
My game is not back into rotation for a while so I got time to think on it.
Abadar is LN - True Neutral is perfectly acceptable for his clerics.
You said you would hold him/her to a 'higher' standard of roleplaying. But did you have a conversation with 'your' view of a god-cleric relationship?
I know I have pretty strong views on that relationship in my games, so I have a conversation with every player that is going to play a cleric?
Kinda of the following:
Oh, GodX, what are the tenants of X that your cleric most strongly identifies with. No, C, Sarenrae is not identical in her beliefs as Pelor, please read this section of Gods and Magic and let me know if you want to play a cleric of Sarenrae. Oh, you think Irori might be easier for you? Great - knowledge aspect. Okay, but remember that perfection of the self is very important for that god.
G, just so you know, Calistria in my setting is somewhat of a jealous b+$&&. Are you going to be ok with that aspect of the roleplaying?
J, you took Pharasma as your god, you evil, evil tiefling? What aspects of hers are you going to follow? Midwifery? Ok, but if you want you character to be evil, make sure you balance out your care of the unborn with some much more evil-ness.
Okay, you want to worship Rovagug... Are you sure about that. You want to play nihilist? Great.
All four are real examples
I think the trouble is that the player wanted to play "true neutral cleric" and so picked a "true neutral god" without bothering to look at the rest of what the god was about.
My suggestion is that you let him have a few nighmares about the encroaching cities, and the horrors of shopping (as Gozreh would see them) mixed with beautiful dreams about the expansion of cities and the marvels of shopping (as Abadar would see them) and let him know that Gozreh is displeased but Abadar would be happy to take him as a cleric in what's basically a baseball trade, because there are likely a few clerics of Abadar's faith who are a bit more tree-hugging than Abadar likes.
By the rules, this works anyway--Abadar is true neutral and the cleric would be within one step of his god. Abadar would be happy with shops and property in the cities.
Admittedly the two gods do not get along well, but they are not actively at war either. It's more of a "learn to live with this person you really dislike" situation, meaning that small peace offerings would be part of it, like Gozreh sending Abadar a cleric he was thinking of getting rid of anyway.
That said, having him roleplay his new faith in the god of cities and commerce would be a good thing.
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In my current game, I have a player running a True Neutral Cleric of Gozreh that has prestiged into a Holy Vindicator. He plays the neutral part fine, being a friend to the common man and king equally, trying to maintain a sense of balance in his actions. However, his spirituality or lack of any is my main concern.
As a cleric of nature I would expect him to feel uncomfortable being in the city too long. I feel as a divine class your deity should be a BIG part of your character. I had to look up his god because I couldn't remember him ever mentioning it "in character".
First off...He shouldnt need to feel uncomfortable living in a City - afterall -it has it's own ecosystem. Fungus in the Sewers, Mould growing on ceilings and walls, Termite Colonies in Woodwork, etc.
The Kind of city a Druid would be concerned about is a Necropolis over run with undead devoid of Live and ecosystems.
If a Druid is very keen he might even cause outbreaks of rare moulds and plants and animals in the urban superstructure - infecting the sewers with yellow mould, planting a few stirge colonies in ruined and abandoned buildings as nesting sites...
These problems combined with for the past few levels he has started to plan on spending some serious money on building his own "chain" of item shops in several of the towns the party has visited. We just finished a large dungeon crawl and the party has about 6 weeks of downtime and the player has already started crunching numbers on real estate, inventory and whatnot. Gozreh HATES cities! They are an afront to all he holds dear. My cleric is a treehugger who wants to become a developer!?!?!
Nothing like converting the poluted and poisoned city into a great shrine to Nature...buying up land where the occupant is a problem and allowing these properties to be come havens for the natural...Your Druid might turn some bankrupt city into a haven where druids might feel happy to congregate. Ever hear the Term 'Green-corridors'?
In my current game, I have a player running a True Neutral Cleric of Gozreh that has prestiged into a Holy Vindicator. He plays the neutral part fine, being a friend to the common man and king equally, trying to maintain a sense of balance in his actions. However, his spirituality or lack of any is my main concern.
As a cleric of nature I would expect him to feel uncomfortable being in the city too long. I feel as a divine class your deity should be a BIG part of your character. I had to look up his god because I couldn't remember him ever mentioning it "in character".
These problems combined with for the past few levels he has started to plan on spending some serious money on building his own "chain" of item shops in several of the towns the party has visited. We just finished a large dungeon crawl and the party has about 6 weeks of downtime and the player has already started crunching numbers on real estate, inventory and whatnot. Gozreh HATES cities! They are an afront to all he holds dear. My cleric is a treehugger who wants to become a developer!?!?!
Now I will admit I'm a pretty loose GM but I need to have a line in the sand somewhere and to me it is scary that the Barbarian has more religion, spending his time and money on building temples to his god.
I realize now I should have reacted sooner but it just kinda got out of hand before I could react. I know I could just spring atonement on him but that seems like such a jerk move. So my plan is to ask all the players for a short week by week list of what they are going to do on the 6 week break. Then based on the info, I will begin to tell the cleric he is having nightmares, then visions, his stigmatas won't stop bleeding, reduce his health, then his channel energy amount/spells....then lead to atonement.
Do you all have any other suggestions? Or examples of how you dealt with something similar?
Maybe he is not an RP'er. It took me a while to get by my kill it and move on stage. It may also be a decent idea to have him dedicated to an idea, or maybe even a different deity. I would ask what it is his character values, and try to find a deity that fits that or at least he can have a central idea which I just mentioned. Sorry about the rambling.
In any even trying to force someone to RP never really works well. It is better to sit down with the player to discuss the issue.
Chavamana and Kevin Andrew Murphy have this right on the ball! Good solutions for you there, to encourage RP and stay within the realms of what this fellow is looking to accomplish. Everything I was going to say, they already said so...
A great big double weapon; +1/+1 dire flail for them.
Let him change his deity.
I don't see any Gozreh worshipping here and the logic consequence would be, well, that Gozreh does not continue to lend this man his power. (6 weeks time in between? Then there should be no problem with removing the powers, enough time to regain them, by atoning or changing deity. It's important that the character doesn't become useless but if nothing dramatic happens...)
You might even consider letting him change his class completely, that is trading all cleric levels in for wizard or paladin or whatever levels if cleric doesn't fit.
However, most important stuff, players don't want their characters being pushed around, don't do anything in game before talking to the player
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Also does the player know that he could have played a character that doesn't worship a deity. He could pay homage to most (or all) of them, he could be a philosopher who is seeking an answer to why there are deities, etc. One of the things that I find so odd in players of Clerics is that sometimes they think they have to have a single deity to play the character, even if it doesn't fit the characters type and personality.
Good advice y'all.
I will have a chance to talk to him tomorrow night. I will present my issues and give him some options:
A. Embrace his inner tree hugger and repent.
B. Convert to a deity or lack of that will better suit his vision.
C. Full exchange of XP & GP to create something else.
We will see how it goes. Wish me luck.
:)
Let us know how it goes.
(It's nice to hear that I don't have the only... odd players when it comes to clerics.)