Clerics and inquisitors get proficiency in their deity's favored weapon.
What if they follow a concept rather than a deity? Do they simply get one free weapon proficiency of their choice (GM permitting)?
Are exotic weapons okay choices or is there some rule against it?
They would get none. If you do not worship a deity, then ya can't have proficiency in your deity's favored weapon, as well you do not have one. Worshiping a god has its perks, a weapon used by that god is one of those.
They would get none. Worshiping a god has its perks, a weapon used by that god is one of those. If you do not worship a deity, then ya can't have proficiency in your deity's favored weapon. Now can ya.
Is there a rule that specifically states that somewhere?
It seems odd (and wrong) to me that a flavor choice would handicap a character's mechanics.
Is there a rule that specifically states that soemwhere?It seems odd (and wrong) to me that a flavor choice would handicap a character's mechanics.
No need for it to do so. It calls out clearly how you gain the weapon. You gain proficiency in your deity's favored weapon.
It does not say you gain a free one for worshiping a concept. You gain one only if you worship a deity. Not need to make something more clear that is spelled out very clearly.
The weapon of your deity is pure flavor and has zero to do with power or giving you something extra or handicapping you. Some clerics do not gain a free one at all as their gods use simple weapon. It is All in your god.
It is pure flavor.
I'm not aware of an explicit rule, but I would say they don't get any extra proficiency. They do get the advantage of a bit more flexibility in their domain choices.
Letting the player choose any weapon would be a major advantage, particularly considering the sub-optimal favored weapons of most of the deities.
EDIT: and seekerofshadowlight raises the excellent point that some deity choices carry no extra proficiency at all.
Still seems wrong to me that some clerics are more powerful than other clerics. There is no good reason why a class should be internally inconsistent in balance. None.
Feel free to rebalanced it, but no class is balanced with all its options. Not a single one. All have options that are better then other choices with in that class.
The free weapon is flavor, nothing more. If ya want the weapon, pay the feat for it, play a cleric of a god that grants it or dip into another class.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Get to cherry pick domains and subdomains for the price of a weapon that in most cases is suboptimal anyway?
Where do I sign up?
as a useful guideline I'n the absence of apparent rules the spiritual weapon spell has rules that likely mirror intent if not actual raw.
Feel free to rebalanced it, but no class is balanced with all its options. Not a single one. All have options that are better then other choices with in that class.
The free weapon is flavor, nothing more. If ya want the weapon, pay the feat for it, play a cleric of a god that grants it or dip into another class.
Since when are weapon proficiencies considered mere flavor? Sorry, I don't buy that.
|
I'd never allow it. It only seems to invite trouble. I've seen a GM allow a player to play a cleric who drew his power from gods he made up on the fly that didn't actually exist. The player picked the two domains he wanted and then decided the elven curve blade was the weapon of choice for his host of imaginary gods, no reason given. None of it made any sense.
This:
as a useful guideline I'n the absence of apparent rules the spiritual weapon spell has rules that likely mirror intent if not actual raw.Pick a favored weapon that corresponds to your alignment:
The weapons associated with each alignment are as follows: chaos (battleaxe), evil(light flail), good (warhammer), law (longsword).
Aside from that, I agree that the versatility of cherry picking domains more than makes up for the loss of a martial (maybe) weapon proficiency.
If a player were allowed to get a free weapon proficiency with ANY weapon (exotic or otherwise), what would motivate a player to worship a deity (besides flavor reasons)?
|
Still seems wrong to me that some clerics are more powerful than other clerics. There is no good reason why a class should be internally inconsistent in balance. None.
There's no internal inconsistency in balance. In return for not choosing a specific deity, you lose proficiency with the deity's favored weapon (since you don't have one).
However, you gain the ability to pick and choose two domains to fit your divine source, and you get to pick your own placement along the alignment scale. The power trade-off is right there, and it seems balanced to me.
Since the Core Rulebook explicitly states "Work with your GM if you prefer this..." when talking about worhipping an abstraction, it is, by RAW, a GM call.
Were I GMing, and a player asked me about worhipping an abstraction/philosophy, I'd come up with a choice of Domains (and a favored weapon) and let them decide how to proceed just as if it were a diety. Player input might be part of the process, depending on how strongly I felt about the process and how much I felt the player was trying to play the system rather than a character.
Get to cherry pick domains and subdomains for the price of a weapon that in most cases is suboptimal anyway?
Where do I sign up?
This.
Also, look at those poor Clerics of Pharasma, who get Dagger as their deity's favored weapon. You know, a simple weapon that's covered in the class weapons.
|
Since when are weapon proficiencies considered mere flavor? Sorry, I don't buy that.
Since James Jacobs said so Saturday around 2:00 AM. :)
We don't design deities and favored weapons to be balanced in a number crunchy way. Favored weapons are 100% flavor for deities, and that DOES mean that for some of them, their clerics get a better "free feat."
He followed it up with this little tidbit...
Not everything in Pathfinder is balanced so that both sides of the equation equal zero. There are other games that attempt that, but that's not part of Pathfinder's design philosophy.
THe Diety/Weapon correlations seem pretty reasonable to me.
More war-like / aggresive / murderous Dieties have more ´effective´ weapons.
Dieties who don´t expect their Clerics to be front-line meleeists don´t have ´mix-max´ weapons.
Of course, exceptions may exist when appropriate (e.g. Shelyn).
Fine by me. If being battle and combat is so important to you that you want an uber-weapon, worship a war-like God.
I do think the concept could be taken further, such as granting class skills as well, etc...
Fairly new to pathfinder here.
I'm looking to start a brawler and will be focusing on a fusion of unarmed striking and grappling. I'm not very familiar with the rules regarding deities and favored weapons. Just the rules for the cleric which I looked into prior to deciding on the brawler. I'm looking at possibly selecting Irori as my brawlers deity because of the unarmed strike favored weapon. I'm just not sure if the brawler would benefit from this.
My question is; do all classes benefit from their deity's favored weapon bonuses or is this specific to clerics and inquisitors only?
Technically, everyone is proficient (as in, doesn't take a -4 to use) in unarmed; you take IUS so that you don't provoke when you strike.
Let the nearly decade long necro continue.
Unarmed strikes are considered to be a simple weapon. Meaning that any class that isn't proficient with simple weapons is not proficient with unarmed strikes. So those classes would suffer a -4 to hit in addition to their attack only doing non-lethal damage and provoking an AoO. Wizard is an example of a class like this.
Edit: from Derklord's post, it's been pointed out that from the weapon's section is it called out that all characters are automatically considered to be proficient with unarmed strikes.
This means that clerics didn't seem to get anything if their deity's favored weapon was an unarmed strike. This FAQ however clarified that clerics (and later by extension inquisitors and warpriests) get the improved unarmed strike feat if they worship a deity who's favored weapon is unarmed strike.
Characters do not automatically gain proficiency with their deity's favored weapon any more than they do any other weapon.
Weapon and Armor Proficiencies: A warpriest is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as the favored weapon of his deity, and with all armor (heavy, light, and medium) and shields (except tower shields).
That being said, some classes do gain additional benefits from worshiping a specific deity. Monks for example can use their quivering palm ability to incapacitate enemies if they worship Irori.
Though generally, unless you are a divine spell caster or you've taken a feat like Deific Obedience or Divine Fighting Technique, the deity that your character worships has little to no effect on your character.
Unarmed strikes are considered to be a simple weapon. Meaning that any class that isn't proficient with simple weapons is not proficient with unarmed strikes.
Completely wrong. "All characters are proficient with unarmed strikes" CRB pg. 141
Unarmed strikes are considered to be a simple weapon. Meaning that any class that isn't proficient with simple weapons is not proficient with unarmed strikes.Completely wrong. "All characters are proficient with unarmed strikes" CRB pg. 141
It'd be nice if you had indicated what section this quote was from as well as quoting the full sentence. But yes, from the weapons section.
Most character classes are proficient with all simple weapons. Combat-oriented classes such as barbarians, cavaliers, and fighters are proficient with all simple and all martial weapons. Characters of other classes are proficient with an assortment of simple weapons and possibly some martial or even exotic weapons. All characters are proficient with unarmed strikes and any natural weapons they gain from their race. A character who uses a weapon with which he is not proficient takes a –4 penalty on attack rolls with that weapon.
My statement isn't completely wrong. Unarmed strikes are considered to be a simple weapon. However, there is an additional rule in the weapons section that states that everyone has proficiency with it. Without that rule my statement would be completely accurate.
Your response (though informationally correct), was abrupt, obtuse and without context. In addition to immediately putting me on the defensive, without a physical copy of the book or a through understanding of how the rules are laid out, I would have no way to confirm or deny your statement. While simultaneously making me suspicious of the information you've presented.
My question is; do all classes benefit from their deity's favored weapon bonuses or is this specific to clerics and inquisitors only?
First, welcome to Pathfinder and these boards. Second, you should always check post dates (to the right above a post) before replying. It's forum etiquette to not reply to threads that lay dormant. In this case, you're replying to a nine-year-old thread, and one that doesn't really have much to do with your question. In general, it's better to open a new thread, unless the previous discussion is directly helpful for your post. It's not that big a deal in this case, but watch out for that in the future. By default, the forum search lists results by relevance, not post date.
In regards to your question, as LordKailas already touched upon, in general, unless you have a rule option (class feature, feat, trait, etc.) that says it interacts with deities, you don't profit from having a deity. There are quite a lot of such rule options, so it's not unusual for something like a Brawler to have a mechanical effect tied to the deity, though.
Apart from that, some dieties grant specific things to some characters worshipping them, but that's mainly bonus spells for divine spellcasters, and/or extra choices for summoning spells. For most characters, their deity's favored weapon is utterly irrelevant. Wieling the deity's favored weapon is neither machanical nor flavorwise required in order to be a faithful for that diety.
───────────────────────────────
It'd be nice if you had indicated what section this quote was from as well as quoting the full sentence.
Why? Neither the section nor the full paragraph or even the full sentence is relevant, as the part that I quoted does not require context. It's simply a general rule, it doesn't matter where in the book it is. I did gave the source so that people can see that my quote is from the CRB, not some possibly less relevant rule source (a splat book, or worse a certain website that's known to be unreliable).
It wasn't my goal to be overly dismissive of your post, especially since the rest of it is on the money. I mainly just wanted to post a reply ASAP to prevent any discussion that might confuse our new community member.
without a physical copy of the book or a through understanding of how the rules are laid out, I would have no way to confirm or deny your statement.
Understanding of how the rules are laid out is unnecessary to understand my quote, PDFs work just as fine, and you could have copy-pasted the quote I gave into the AoN rule search. You would have recieved a single search result, this. Ctrl+F for the quote shows the whole sentence and the rest of the paragraph. So yeah, you did have a way to confirm my statement, that you apparently mistrust for some reason that I don't understand.
First, welcome to Pathfinder and these boards. Second, you should always check post dates (to the right above a post) before replying. It's forum etiquette to not reply to threads that lay dormant. In this case, you're replying to a nine-year-old thread, and one that doesn't really have much to do with your question.
Thanks for the answers and the heads up. I didn't realize posts were time stamped. I'll be more mindful in the future.
I would prefer not to derail this thread any more than it already has been so I will answer your questions. My answers are not a statement of what your intent was. Only how it came across to me.
Why? Neither the section nor the full paragraph or even the full sentence is relevant, as the part that I quoted does not require context. It's simply a general rule, it doesn't matter where in the book it is. I did gave the source so that people can see that my quote is from the CRB, not some possibly less relevant rule source (a splat book, or worse a certain website that's known to be unreliable).
It is true that seeing that it was quoted from the CRB had some meaning to me, the low number tells me it's not from a spell or a monster entry, it was otherwise unhelpful to me for purposes of confirming the statement. I rarely have luck using nethy's search to search for anything beyond a single term. I don't have easy access to my physical copy of the book and I do not have a PDF of the CRB. I knew that such a statement probably didn't come from a feat unless it was the Improved Unarmed strike feat its self. So, I looked there first. Then I figured it might have come from the weapon's section since it doesn't appear to be a class specific statement. If that hadn't yielded anything I would of next checked the simple weapon proficiency feat. If that didn't turn up anything then the only other reasonable place to look would of been the combat section or the glossary. If those had failed to yield anything then I would have to make sure you were actually quoting and not just paraphrasing. So I would of done a general search for your statement on google to see if I could figure out where it came from. For all I knew it does say that in the original CRB but that statement was then altered or changed due to some later errata.
This is was was looming in my mind when I saw your quote and reference. Having a full quote would at the very least would help me quickly narrow down where the statement came from. It would also help confirm that you're not just cherry picking part of a sentence that supports your view point (clearly you weren't but I had no way of knowing that without seeing the full quote).
So, it was mildy annoying and simply added to the agitation of being told I was "completely wrong" about something. I'm ok being wrong about things, but it doesn't help that blanket statements also bother me (I might be wrong but "completely" wrong? really?). I like to know when I am wrong about things. But before I accept anything as fact I need to check against the original source first. Then at least if I encounter someone later on who is wrong about it the same way I was, I can correct them with a supported statement.
I still think the quote contained everything necessary, as the wording makes it a general statement and not something specific to anything, but I understand your position now. I thank you for taking the time to calmly explain your viewpoint and apologize for writing something much harsher than I intended.
Thanks for the answers and the heads up. I didn't realize posts were time stamped. I'll be more mindful in the future.
While we're at it, you might want to familiarize yourself with the board's formatting code, especially for quotes (and links). Under the new post window below a thread, there's a line that says "How to format your text" and a button that says "Show". Klick the button to open a dropdown menu showing the usuable code. Klicking reply on a post also automatically quotes the post you're replying to (you can still remove parts from the quote, and should indeed do so if you're only replying to one part of the post). If you klick reply on a post containing any code (e.g. a link), you can also see the code the other poster used.