Creative Director
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Just out of curosity, could such a being be resurrected/raised?
If so, what might happen if they had found faith, since then?
Having faith or not has no effect whatsoever on whether or not you can be brought back from the dead. And once Pharasma's judged you, you CANNOT be brought back from death. Pharasma's judgement is basically the in-game manifestation of enough time having passed that no one can raise you from the dead AND the in-game manifestation of a PC deciding not to come back from the dead—while the rules say "you" can choose to not come back from the dead, it's actually Pharasma making that decision just as much as it is the dead person. As for why this amount of time can vary from one dead body to the next—time works weird on the Boneyard.
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Creative Director
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Is this true for cases such as Reincarnate, Wish, or Miracle? I guess the part I was more interested in is what whould happen if a person was judged a second time, so to speak? Like I said, mostly it is a curiosity.
Yup; it's true for any effect that a mortal can create that restores the dead to life. As well as any effect a DEITY can create.
Once someone's been judged by Pharasma, there's basically 2 ways to restore that person to life:
1) Get Pharasma to do it for you.
2) Go on a crazy awesome quest where you track down the soul of whoever it is you want to restore to life, snatch them out of their life as a petitioner or whatever, and drag them back to the Material Plane and THEN use crazy magic like miracle or wish or true resurrection to restore them to life. Doing this will likely anger Pharasma, though! This basically exists to let you do adventures similar to those in old myths like how Orpheus went to the underworld to rescue his wife.
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Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!
As James mentioned earlier, it's not like 999 out of 1000 mortals on Golarion have the slightest clue what's up with the afterlife. They hope to go to a better place, but, since entire *nations* are devoted to dudes like Zon-Kuthon and Asmodeus, and entire races seem to willingly follow Lamashtu (or various other demon lords), clearly the notion that the Lower Planes are very unpleasant places to even visit, let alone be stuck in for eternity, isn't common knowledge.
Nobody would worship the daemon horsemen, for instance, if they knew that the big reward was to get eaten. Nobody would worship Groetus, or the Old Cults. But these individuals are worshipped, so the ultimate fate of their followers must remain a mystery to the mortals that join these faiths. (Or, maybe, just maybe, the exact nature of the lower planes is exagerrated by the competing faiths of the upper planes, who lie like crazy to get people to try and enter their exclusive boutique, and not spend their soul-coin in the shops down the road...)
It's all terribly fun for a fantasy world, but it's simply necessary for the followers of the evil gods to think they are going to get candy in the afterlife, or they wouldn't follow these evil gods.
Look at the real world. The ginormous ridiculous vast majority of people follow a 'good' religion, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddism, whatever. The 'Church of Satan' has, like, 200 members, and it's official position is that it's all about enlightened self-interest and taking what you deserve from this world and that the Devil *doesn't even exist,* and is just a metaphor for rejecting authority and forging your own path, free from the imposed morality of others, because, gosh, who'd sign up for their newsletter if they just advertised that you get to get flogged in a land of hellfire for all eternity as your 'big reward' for signing on? If it weren't for angsty rebellion against hypocritical authorities, they probably wouldn't even have that many followers...
The only way a fantasy 'evil god' works, is if their followers believe that 'hell' is a better place than the world they live in, where the strong and faithful are rewarded, not a horrible place of torments where they are going to be eaten by night hags or forged into soulsteel or tortured until they turn into mindless lemures.
For this lie to be maintained, for entire nations to follow Zon-Kuthon or Asmodeus, *nobody* can know the truth. Not even the gods of good or their celestial servants, because they'd surely blab to their followers, either of their own volition, or through an online chat session via commune or divination spell. Two men can keep a secret, it is said, so long as one of them is dead. If anyone knew that the afterlife of a Zon-Kuthon or Asmodeus worshipper wasn't all hookers and blow, they'd have maybe a half-dozen utterly crazy followers, and they'd be competing for them with Norgorber, Lamashtu, Rovagug, Urgathoa, the Old Cults, sixty demon lords, nine archdevils, four-ish daemon horsemen, Groetus, Achaekek, Gyronna, etc, etc, etc.
Or, 'the truth' isn't quite as dire as the advertisements make it out to be...
And, if the lower planes aren't exactly the torture porn pigsty of human misery and suffering that the travel brochures suggest, perhaps the *upper* planes aren't quite as rosy and perfect as their PR firm claims, either.
Maybe the abandoned castle of Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel, isn't the only symptom of something rotten beneath the shiny 24 carat gold-plated surface of Mount Celestia.
Evil, by it's nature, is selfish. Evil worshippers of evil gods would be *harder* to maintain and keep faithful, as they are greedy, selfish and entitled. (See that real world parallel, above.) They don't give devotion out of love or charity or the 'goodness of their hearts.' Praying doesn't fill them with a sense of being loved and with a newfound appreciation for the life they've been given. They want something back, and they can be pretty dickish about it. If the evil gods haven't sold them on *amazing* bennies and perqs, they won't stay in business for long, because evil is fickle and demanding and full of itself.
Good faiths can promise one a better life, in a better world. Evil faiths? Not so much. Egyptians didn't pray to fail the test and get devoured by Ammut. Vikings didn't pray to die in their beds old men, and get dumped into Nifleheim.
The afterlife, in D&D, has always been a place that, IMO, is better left unexamined, because it makes not a lick of sense. I prefer the gods to be mostly unknowable, and the planes they reside upon to remain engimatic. Mortals know the will of the gods through the clerics (paladins, oracles, druids, whatever), their interlocuters in the mortal world, but any 'rules' for the afterlife, other than as pertain to the use of the raise dead type spells, is, IMO, a snake's nest best avoided.
@Set:
Thats a good point, but I think your overstating it and making one key error.
A) It can be known how the Lower Planes work, but its complex metaphysics to get there, and just as complex to explain how it all works.
Just see how good of a knowledge of quantum physics there is in the general world. The vast, vast majority of people don't care how it works if it works. Those who do go on to become wizards, and clerics, etc.
B) People always think they are more deserving than others, and that they suffer more, and are more charitable, etc. This is a widley studied psychological phenomenon. Those evil clerics will think that thier cultists are shmucks who will actually suffer in the afterlife, but they get exalted, and become powerful demons and devils themselves. The cultists think that common non-worshippers are sheep who will be devoured while they live it large in the hellscape because they picked the right team, etc.
C) People worship evil gods in the mortal realm for power. Evil gods are a little bit more proactive, and way more willing to give power to mortals, because they know that power corrupts. Human beings have an amazing capacity to make stupid choices that benefit then now, but are a terrible idea in the long run, its built into our sense of time biologically, its quite difficult for humans to make good long term plans.
But the main important point is; everyone thinks they are the exception.
The knowledge of the lower planes as a general rule is probably obscure, getting turned into lemures, or literally eaten by daemons almost certainly isn't known. Just the general Hell* is a bad place where you get tortured. But the evil cultist thinks, its the place where the losers they sacrifice or lead astray suffer, while they get even more power and position after death, because they think they deserve it, because their selfish and evil.
*Most common folk probably don't even ditinguish between the lower planes.
Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.
So who is going to judge her?
Every GM makes the mistake of believing that about an NPC at some point, and then the PCs appear and destroy that theory.Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.
Some players make the reverse mistake...thinking gods are some high level monsters to be killed and are killable at all.
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Creative Director
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Every GM makes the mistake of believing that about an NPC at some point, and then the PCs appear and destroy that theory.Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.
It's easy for PCs to do that in home games. Pretty tough for them to do it to printed books by the publisher.
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Creative Director
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So who is going to judge her?Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.
She is, of course! She'll look up, see that she's the last person in line, and that'll be that.
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Creative Director
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Did you ever consider put in a "Next Sunrise" limit on raise dead for the Golarian setting?Having faith or not has no effect whatsoever on whether or not you can be brought back from the dead. And once Pharasma's judged you, you CANNOT be brought back from death. Pharasma's judgement is basically the in-game manifestation of enough time having passed that no one can raise you from the dead AND the in-game manifestation of a PC deciding not to come back from the dead—while the rules say "you" can choose to not come back from the dead, it's actually Pharasma making that decision just as much as it is the dead person. As for why this amount of time can vary from one dead body to the next—time works weird on the Boneyard.Just out of curosity, could such a being be resurrected/raised?
If so, what might happen if they had found faith, since then?
Nope; never. Raise dead effects need to be able to let players bring back characters regardless of short passages of time. Also, what does "next sunrise" mean in the darklands, or on another planet, or on another plane?
Some players make the reverse mistake...thinking gods are some high level monsters to be killed and are killable at all.Every GM makes the mistake of believing that about an NPC at some point, and then the PCs appear and destroy that theory.Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.
If you don't want the players to kill gods, don't give them AC and hit points. ;)
Although I really want an Immortals expansion. You have a set of stats that Immortals use to interact with each other, and they spend some of their power to build avatars to interact with beings on the material plane.
Uh...Paizo hasn't and won't do that, so you're both quite right.
If you don't want the players to kill gods, don't give them AC and hit points. ;)
Yeah, I hope Mythic Adventures has stats and such for demon lords, and demigods, and even Tar-Baphon, but not for the core 20. I don't want them to have stats. Killing on of them should be a whole huge thing that even the highest of characters must plan an build for for years. Like Tar-Baphons big city trap.
Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.
With Outer Gods somewhere around I wasn't so sure bout it. Some of them are greater than such petty mortal notion like death.
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Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.With Outer Gods somewhere around I wasn't so sure bout it. Some of them are greater than such petty mortal notion like death.
"And with strange aeons, even death itself may die."
Hard to say, for Golarion. Pharasma might be a particularly humanoid-shaped member of that club, actually. I loved the idea, in the Realms, that Jergal was a prehuman diety, whose original race of worshippers had been extinct so long that his human worshippers might not even know that they existed.
If Pharasma were the Golarion equivalent of such a diety, a 'Great Old One' that moved on with the times and now wears a humanoid facade (but remains vast, cool and unsympathetic at her core), that could be kinda neat. That fits well with her Neutral alignment. She isn't lawful, because no 'law' matters to her but her own whim.
Then again, she could be young, formed from the outrage and violation of Urgathoa transcending the bonds of mortality to become the first undead. That would imply a more lawful nature, which fits the descriptions of her and her clergy, but is contrary to her Neutral alignment (which suggests that she should be as capricious / whimsical and rules-defying as she is rules-fanatical and orderly).
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Creative Director
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Pharasma, like Desna and a few others, ARE pre-human deities. Just because they appear as humanoids in Golarion's predominantly humanoid-dominated modern society certainly doesn't mean that these deities were ALWAYS humanoid shaped. Of course... it could also explain why humanoids are shaped the way they are—if the gods themselves were that shape and liked that shape, why NOT pick that shape for your dabbling with free will and mortal life? Assuming, of course, that the deities were the ones who created life in the first place!
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She is, of course! She'll look up, see that she's the last person in line, and that'll be that.So who is going to judge her?Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.
I loved that bit when it was first mentioned in one of her write-ups, partially because...
"When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job is finished. I'll put the chairs on tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.' - Death, The Sandman
Except minus the perkiness and warmth. ;)
Pharasma's hit that austere Lady of Pain sort of vibe that just works for me in a "traditional" death/univeral-central-supporting-column deity.
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Creative Director
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She is, of course! She'll look up, see that she's the last person in line, and that'll be that.So who is going to judge her?Option 3: Kill Pharasma and usurp her domain. As Aroden proved, gods in Golarion can die. Think multiversal, act epic!Pharasma's more or less going to be the LAST one to die, actually. Among mortals, gods, and worlds alike.I loved that bit when it was first mentioned in one of her write-ups, partially because...
"When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job is finished. I'll put the chairs on tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.' - Death, The Sandman
Except minus the perkiness and warmth. ;)
Pharasma's hit that austere Lady of Pain sort of vibe that just works for me in a "traditional" death/univeral-central-supporting-column deity.
I'm sure the fact that Death is my favorite character in Sandman and the fact that Pharasma's from my homebrew world are completely coincidental, by the way... or perhaps not... :-P
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James, that's a coincidence I'm totally happy to hear about! :) That whole vibe just works perfectly for me.
Personally, would love a good(ish) aligned death deity that encouraged undead use, at least in a limited sense.
Originally a goddess of birth, she(like the universe as a whole) was severely wounded by the introduction of undeath into reality. She willingly conceded her duty as steward of bring souls into the material plane to another and faded mostly into the background in the shadows of Elysium(or Nirvana for the Golarion equivalent) as an obscure minor deity. She's been fundamentally wounded by undeath, but she has not been tainted by it. The souls of the stillborn are entrusted to her care, and as such many expecting parents pray to her for her protection or, if need be, solace.
She is also one of the few sources of comfort for good aligned undead. Those that wish to be free of the bonds of undeath find mercy and care from her followers, while those who wish to go on "living" for non-selfish reasons turn to her to have their unnatural hungers kept under control.
She detests the creation of undead for the most part, though there are rare exceptions(such as the willing creation of certain orders of mummy guardians tasked with guarding holy sites). But those who are cursed with undeath are to be offered solace or are put to rest, depending on the nature of the undead. Mindless undead and undead that harm souls, such as devourers, are put down without question.
An order of necromancers, deemed heretical by many churches, serves in her name. Rather than making mindless slaves of the dead, this cult works with the restless dead to help them find peace, making pacts with individual souls to take care of whatever tasks or karmic imbalance is keeping them from finding true rest while being empowered by those same souls, who often serve as the animating force for undead servants who the necromancer serves in turn.
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Personally, would love a good(ish) aligned death deity that encouraged undead use, at least in a limited sense.
Quite a few areas get typecast into the same niche, setting after setting. There's not a ton of good aligned gods of darkness or madness or scalykind, and very few evil aligned gods of community or healing or sun.
Darkness is scary, death is scary, snakes are scary, so they pretty much get relegated to evil.
An evil god of nobility and community, keeping the people huddled together in fear, persecuting anyone who isn't part of their superstitious little collective, and utterly convinced of their superiority by breeding or nature, would be totally fitting for a place like Ustalav, but those domains were mostly exclusive to good dieties in Greyhawk, the Realms, etc. and it's pretty much 'set in' now, like the 'dark = evil' trope.
Other diety/domain correlations tend to get played down, and feel 'strapped on' more than relevant to the diety or their tenets, to me. Read anything on Urgathoa, and she's all about undead and eating stuff and 'serving her own hunger,' who feels unjustly persecuted by mean old Sarenrae and Pharasma, who hate her purely for what she is, like crazy racists. (Obviously, her view on this is slanted in her favor...) She's the ultimate self-interested brat, willing to defy any law, tradition or universal maxim in pursuit to her own selfish, destructive and / or wasteful desires, with a willful disregard of the notion of consequence or moderation or respect for anything beyond her own immediate interests and self-gratification. Less 'Hitler' evil, more 'spoiled child with cosmic power' evil. Her NPC *worshippers,* ubiquitous bad-guys of a bunch of published material, are all about spreading disease (despite having underpants gnome logic of '1. spread disease, 2. ???, 3. profit!'). Her *domains* include Strength and War, which seems to have nothing to do with what her followers are doing, or what she's personally interested in.
Sub Domains seem to be a sideways workaround to that notion, helping to differentiate the 'Death' of Norgorber (god of murder) from the 'Death' of Urgathoa (goddess of undead).
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Set, I have a question for you. This is not to antagonize or start something, I honestly want to know what you think since you seem to prefere Clerics to be a certain way.
Others can feel free to answer as well. :)
Doesn't the Seperatist Cleric archtype pretty much disprove the notion that the deities "grant" spells to their Clerics? As oppossed to it being purely a matter of the Cleric's personal faith and devotion in something greater. I don't mean in PFS, I mean in the general Golarion. The Deities can only "grant" certain powers, but (unless I missed something, which is possible), the Seperatist can pull (potentually) any power from a single Domain, including spells that said deity does not offer. Obviously, the Alignment Domains are the exception. I want to hear your thoughts and reasoning for this.
I am curious if the intent was also to allow for a Cleric to be able to do things that normally clash with their alignment, to an extent, but that's a different thing.
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Personally, would love a good(ish) aligned death deity that encouraged undead use, at least in a limited sense.Quite a few areas get typecast into the same niche, setting after setting. There's not a ton of good aligned gods of darkness or madness or scalykind, and very few evil aligned gods of community or healing or sun.
Darkness is scary, death is scary, snakes are scary, so they pretty much get relegated to evil.
An evil god of nobility and community, keeping the people huddled together in fear, persecuting anyone who isn't part of their superstitious little collective, and utterly convinced of their superiority by breeding or nature, would be totally fitting for a place like Ustalav, but those domains were mostly exclusive to good dieties in Greyhawk, the Realms, etc. and it's pretty much 'set in' now, like the 'dark = evil' trope.
Other diety/domain correlations tend to get played down, and feel 'strapped on' more than relevant to the diety or their tenets, to me. Read anything on Urgathoa, and she's all about undead and eating stuff and 'serving her own hunger,' who feels unjustly persecuted by mean old Sarenrae and Pharasma, who hate her purely for what she is, like crazy racists. (Obviously, her view on this is slanted in her favor...) She's the ultimate self-interested brat, willing to defy any law, tradition or universal maxim in pursuit to her own selfish, destructive and / or wasteful desires, with a willful disregard of the notion of consequence or moderation or respect for anything beyond her own immediate interests and self-gratification. Less 'Hitler' evil, more 'spoiled child with cosmic power' evil. Her NPC *worshippers,* ubiquitous bad-guys of a bunch of published material, are all about spreading disease (despite having underpants gnome logic of '1. spread disease, 2. ???, 3. profit!'). Her *domains* include Strength and War, which seems to have nothing to do with what her followers are doing, or what she's personally interested in.
Sub...
I agree, but I am also very disappointed that this trend has continued past 3.0, especially as it is predominatly a Cleric-only issue in so many ways. I much, much prefer to allow for moral issues to play out, which the core book's absolutes on certain issues, (ie Undead, but others as well) basically make this impossible for some classes, and thus some entire parties. I also like the concept that, (not unlike in Golarion with slavery not being inherently good or evil, chaotic or lawful), for different cultures and belief's to play a much bigger part in what is good or evil, etc. . . But that's just me.
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Personally, would love a good(ish) aligned death deity that encouraged undead use, at least in a limited sense.Won't happen in Golarion or Pathifnder, since undead and good don't go together.
And yet, there are good arcane necromancers. Even ones that create/control Undead. I personally feel that it should be much more the intent and use of the Evil, than the fact that some thigs are categorized as an Alignment.
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Set, I have a question for you. This is not to antagonize or start something, I honestly want to know what you think since you seem to prefere Clerics to be a certain way.
Others can feel free to answer as well. :)
Doesn't the Seperatist Cleric archtype pretty much disprove the notion that the deities "grant" spells to their Clerics?
Is this something from Ultimate Magic? If so, I don't have it yet.
I'm sure you remember, in earlier editions, gods only directed 'granted' the highest level spells, with 1st and 2nd level spells coming from faith itself (and requiring no diety), and 3rd and 4th level spells coming from intermediaries, like Solars or something, with 5th requiring demigods, 6th, lesser gods and 7th, greater gods. This changed quite a bit, and 3rd edition did away with it completely and just said that any cleric could worship any god or philosophy, and could learns spells all the way to 9th level, regardless of the focus of devotion.
I don't recall it being explicitly stated that gods grant spells in Golarion. A cleric has to worship one (with the half-dozen counter examples being picked off by a frustrated tyrannosaur as they are pointed out to him), but the god is never said to be in any way directly and personally involved in handing out the spells when the cleric prays.
It's been kind of off-panel suggested for *decades* that gods can pick and choose which spells to grant and why, but it's never actually been a game rule, since it would probably be unpalatable to tell a player that the GM is going to get to decide what spells they get every day, or if they aren't going to get their full 'load-out' because they forgot to say a prayer to St. Smithins yestereve.
While the Paladin's often had a 'fall from grace' notion worked into the class, I've rarely seen any real discussion of dieties micromanaging clerical spell access, or even spell use. (For instance, there's no rule saying that a good cleric can't summon up a lantern archon and send it on a killing rampage, other than the *suggestion* that the cleric might not be a cleric much longer.) On the one hand, that's probably for the best, since some decisions should be left in the GMs hands. On the other hand, it's left the cleric in a squiffy betwixt and between status for, pretty much, the life of the game.
The cleric is a class (and role) that is often considered 'unfun,' and, in organized play, I've seen specific rules where a table is formed and there is no cleric present, that a player who chooses to 'take one for the team' and play a pregen cleric so that the adventure can be run gets full credit as if playing his regular character. I imagine any exploration of how a clerics god might naysay a players choice of spells or even strip him of some spells, could make a class that's already considered so dire that they need special rules to reward people for playing one, even *less* common.
That doesn't apply to me, since it's my favorite class (ditto my gaming group, who have fielded parties that are 50% wildly different clerics), but I've seen it at conventions and it surprises me.
As opposed to it being purely a matter of the Cleric's personal faith and devotion in something greater. I don't mean in PFS, I mean in the general Golarion. The Deities can only "grant" certain powers, but (unless I missed something, which is possible), the Seperatist can pull (potentually) any power from a single Domain, including spells that said deity does not offer. Obviously, the Alignment Domains are the exception. I want to hear your thoughts and reasoning for this.
It's an interesting sounding concept, and Golarion already has (had?) precedent for this, with the Gods & Magic writeup of Dwarven pantheist clerics being primarily clerics of Torag, but being able to pray at the beginning of the day to use a single Domain from any of the half-dozen or so Dwarven gods. (The writing is unclear if this domain replaces one or both of their previous normal domain choices. I'd say both, just because I'm stingy that way.)
I've no idea if that particular option is as dead and bloated as the 'Paladin of Asmodeus,' but it's at least a precedent.
In any event, Ultimate Magic is a Pathfinder book, not a Golarion book, so I'm not sure if this Separatist is even going to be setting-legal. It might be ruled to be like the cleric of a philosophy option in the core Pathfinder book, rules-legal, but Sir-Not-Occuring-In-This-Setting. James will be the arbiter of that, and pass it on to Hyrum and / or Mark as appropriate.
I wonder sometimes if the gods are like the Dragon-Kings of Athas, squatting atop a great fountain of divine power, and able to allow their clerics to tap that fountain of power, but only able to make gross restrictions (no evil spells, only these five extra domains, etc.) and not able to micromanage every clerics every spell every day. They set the filter and then turn on the spigot, so to speak.
I'd probably prefer to stick to standard clerics with two domains, so as to consistently roleplay along a theme. Changing focus on a daily basis (if that's how the Separatist works) sounds like too much brainwork trying to anticipate what I'm gonna need *tommorrow.* I've always hated that. :)
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Essentually, the Seperatist Cleric (which specifically requires a patron deity) is a "heretic" of that faith. They gain one of their Deity's Domains, and get to pick another (at a penulty) that is not from their Deity, (except for Alignmen Domains that they both don't share). They do not switch anything once chosen, (and now I wonder what happens to a Seperatist that switches deities. . .)?
I guess my point was less about the deity micromanaging and more that it seems the deity itself is irrelevent.
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I guess my point was less about the deity micromanaging and more that it seems the deity itself is irrelevent.
Huh, that's interesting. In a monotheistic society, one god is pretty much the god of everything, and it would certainly seem plausible for, say, a 'heretic' of Sarenrae to choose the Sun domain *and* the Darkness domain, preaching that Sarenrae is the shining sun, who brings illumination to the worthy and denies it to the unrighteous.
But yeah, it does leave it questionable as to why, if the gods can grant their clerics any Domain they want, they have set lists of Domains at all.
Well UM is not a golarion book, but a pathfinder book. Seems to me they just gave an archetype for folks who wanted that kind of thing. More then a few have asked for such things.
I am not sure I would allow it in golarion or a few other worlds, but then there are worlds it be right at home in "Eberron"
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+10 to the desire for good aligned deities of darknes, serpents, and such.
On the heretic angle, I need to look over it again but it seems like it's something best handled on a case-by-case basis. In some examples, that extra domain might come from a servant or allied power of the god in question, and the cleric isn't really going astray so much as staying on the path...walking sideways...maybe. Sarenrae cleric with a Darkness domain is getting it from her "guardian of the night sky" themed daughter or somesuch. Or the extra domain could be coming from an often hidden aspect of the deity in question.
Of course if some cleric of Sarenrae is taking the Evil domain, and I'm not sure if that isn't allowed by this new mechanic or not, then some opposed entity has clearly gotten their hooks into the priest in question. But then why has Sarenrae not noticed/stopped granting her domains?
Does the mechanic in question account for that? I don't have my UM near me at the moment...
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Creative Director
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Set, I have a question for you. This is not to antagonize or start something, I honestly want to know what you think since you seem to prefere Clerics to be a certain way.
Others can feel free to answer as well. :)
Doesn't the Seperatist Cleric archtype pretty much disprove the notion that the deities "grant" spells to their Clerics? As oppossed to it being purely a matter of the Cleric's personal faith and devotion in something greater. I don't mean in PFS, I mean in the general Golarion. The Deities can only "grant" certain powers, but (unless I missed something, which is possible), the Seperatist can pull (potentually) any power from a single Domain, including spells that said deity does not offer. Obviously, the Alignment Domains are the exception. I want to hear your thoughts and reasoning for this.
I am curious if the intent was also to allow for a Cleric to be able to do things that normally clash with their alignment, to an extent, but that's a different thing.
Check the second line of the Separatist:
"Though most members of her faith would call her a separatist or heretic, she continues to receive spells from her deity."
A separatist cleric DOES still gain spells from her god. Doesn't disprove the notion that deities "grant" spells at all. In fact, it specifically says that deities DO grant the separatist her spells.
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Check the second line of the Separatist:
"Though most members of her faith would call her a separatist or heretic, she continues to receive spells from her deity."
A separatist cleric DOES still gain spells from her god. Doesn't disprove the notion that deities "grant" spells at all. In fact, it specifically says that deities DO grant the separatist her spells.
That really doesn't answer it though. Like I said, this is not to antagonize anyone. But, at least to me, it seems to imply more that they deities don't grant the spells at all rather than that they actually have all the spells to grant and choose certain ones. Well, in a manner of speaking.
Or rather that the Seperatist does not lose their ability to cast spells, whereas others might in the same case. Being that all Seperatist's must have a patron deity, (redundent for a philosophy Cleric anyway), the new spells and powers are coming from somewhere that other Ceric's can not recieve. Still not sure if I am explaining it the way I mean. . .
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Of course if some cleric of Sarenrae is taking the Evil domain, and I'm not sure if that isn't allowed by this new mechanic or not, then some opposed entity has clearly gotten their hooks into the priest in question. But then why has Sarenrae not noticed/stopped granting her domains?
Does the mechanic in question account for that? I don't have my UM near me at the moment...
Yes. a Seperatist Cleric is only restricted from Alignment Domains that neither they or their deity don't match. So Clerics of Sarenrae can only get the Good Domain. I am less clear on Evil spells, but I imagine they are still restricted by the normal Cleric rules as far as that goes. And the normal one step rules, too, for that matter.
Set, I have a question for you. This is not to antagonize or start something, I honestly want to know what you think since you seem to prefere Clerics to be a certain way.
Others can feel free to answer as well. :)
Doesn't the Seperatist Cleric archtype pretty much disprove the notion that the deities "grant" spells to their Clerics? As oppossed to it being purely a matter of the Cleric's personal faith and devotion in something greater. I don't mean in PFS, I mean in the general Golarion. The Deities can only "grant" certain powers, but (unless I missed something, which is possible), the Seperatist can pull (potentually) any power from a single Domain, including spells that said deity does not offer. Obviously, the Alignment Domains are the exception. I want to hear your thoughts and reasoning for this.
I am curious if the intent was also to allow for a Cleric to be able to do things that normally clash with their alignment, to an extent, but that's a different thing.
Check the second line of the Separatist:
"Though most members of her faith would call her a separatist or heretic, she continues to receive spells from her deity."
A separatist cleric DOES still gain spells from her god. Doesn't disprove the notion that deities "grant" spells at all. In fact, it specifically says that deities DO grant the separatist her spells.
Which doesn't answer the question of how the deity is able to provide the Separatist with domains and spells outside the deity's purview. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome archetype, and I love it. But it does suggest that at least some level of personal belief is at play in cleric power, above and beyond the specific deity.
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Which doesn't answer the question of how the deity is able to provide the Separatist with domains and spells outside the deity's purview. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome archetype, and I love it. But it does suggest that at least some level of personal belief is at play in cleric power, above and beyond the specific deity.
It's possible that the gods have a 'gentleman's agreement' to only hand out five domains normally, so as not to step on each other's toes overly much (pretty much screwing any god with too many alignment extremes, since they lose 20% to 40% of their versatility on the same old alignment domains).
The Separatist could be a bit of a divine 'power grab,' as they allow specific clerics to explore other domains, and sort of sneak their tentacles over into other gods lunchboxes.
They might quibble among themselves,
Lamashtu - 'You're encroaching on my Domains, drunkard!'
Cayden - 'Oh, it's like, two clerics, total, that are exploring the link between strong drink and Madness, Lammy, don't get your undies in a wad...'
Lamashtu - 'I'm not wearing undies.'
Cayden - 'Yeah. About that. Please do.'
Which doesn't answer the question of how the deity is able to provide the Separatist with domains and spells outside the deity's purview. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome archetype, and I love it. But it does suggest that at least some level of personal belief is at play in cleric power, above and beyond the specific deity.
Perhaps what domain a deity grants has nothing to do with what the deity can grant. Perhaps it is limited by what their human followers believe and the church indoctrinates. A separist breaks with that church indoctrintion.
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Creative Director
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Check the second line of the Separatist:
"Though most members of her faith would call her a separatist or heretic, she continues to receive spells from her deity."
A separatist cleric DOES still gain spells from her god. Doesn't disprove the notion that deities "grant" spells at all. In fact, it specifically says that deities DO grant the separatist her spells.
That really doesn't answer it though. Like I said, this is not to antagonize anyone. But, at least to me, it seems to imply more that they deities don't grant the spells at all rather than that they actually have all the spells to grant and choose certain ones. Well, in a manner of speaking.
Or rather that the Seperatist does not lose their ability to cast spells, whereas others might in the same case. Being that all Seperatist's must have a patron deity, (redundent for a philosophy Cleric anyway), the new spells and powers are coming from somewhere that other Ceric's can not recieve. Still not sure if I am explaining it the way I mean. . .
Clerics get spells from deities. Just like wizards get spells out of their spellbook. Changing that more or less means that you change the fundamental assumptions of the class. You CAN, and the class still works fine... but the flavor is what you lose. (Philosophy clerics are likewise doable by the raw rules... but they don't exist in Golarion.)
Deities do grant spells. The mystery of why they keep granting spells and allow domain changes for some of their followers and not for others is part of the mystery of what faith is all about. This archetype exists SOLELY so we can have rules to support cleric heretics, which is a really compelling and interesting storyline element that we sometimes wish to explore in our books, and we suspect that it's one that a lot of GMs and players want to explore as well. In setting up the separatist this way, we allow those types of stories to happen—without the archetype, it's a lot more difficult unless you're comfortable just handwaving away rules and being more dependent on house rules.
(ALSO: While "heretic" would have been a MUCH better choice for this archetype... we already stole that word from ourselves for an Inquisitor archetype. Personally, I have no problems reusing archetype names between classes, but I can understand why the designers decided NOT to go down that road so as to avoid confusion... it's just a bit unfortunate that that means we'll essentially run out of archetype names long before we run out of ways to have classes use the concepts. I would have loved to see a swashbuckler bard, for example... or a swashbuckler ranger, fighter, or cleric for that matter... but since that word's been used for the rogue archetype already, we never will. Best we'll see is similarly named archetypes, I guess.)
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Clerics get spells from deities. Just like wizards get spells out of their spellbook. Changing that more or less means that you change the fundamental assumptions of the class. You CAN, and the class still works fine... but the flavor is what you lose. (Philosophy clerics are likewise doable by the raw rules... but they don't exist in Golarion.)
I'm not sure I agree with that. In the earliest itirations of the class, they recieved their spells from "the gods", but it was never (that I remember) in any way in the same sense as we mean it. It was more in the way of saying "from all that is good and holy", or "from the heavens". In later iterations, as was mentioned above, it wasn't even until much later (in levels) that the deity(s) "granted" spells at all, and predominatly this was the minority of their spell list. Aside from specific settings, (DragonLance and later FR come to mind), was one of the first times that I know of that Clerics had specific deities and required a link to them.
But also as far as changing the assumption, I do not think that most people assume that Clerics are typically linked to a Patron, or that that Patron Deity issues them their spells. So it might change the assumption for some, but in my experience, it wouldn't be a majority.
Deities do grant spells. The mystery of why they keep granting spells and allow domain changes for some of their followers and not for others is part of the mystery of what faith is all about. This archetype exists SOLELY so we can have rules to support cleric heretics, which is a really compelling and interesting storyline element that we sometimes wish to explore in our books, and we suspect that it's one that a lot of GMs and players want to explore as well. In setting up the separatist this way, we allow those types of stories to happen—without the archetype, it's a lot more difficult unless you're...
So this actually means that all/most deities in Golarion do in fact have access to and can grant any spell/Domain, but chose not to for whatever reasons?
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea as away to bring in splinter cults, ways to expand or break from the norm for a specific clergy, and the many options this allows the Cleric.
I can see that possibly being true for some spells, but the possibility that this might allow for alignment spells that the deity cant "grant" doesnt seem to work as well with that theary.
Well Saparist cleric can't cast spell that is opposite of their or their deity's alignment. So even if they took a domain with a evil spell( assuming a good aligned cleric) they still can't actualy cast that spell. I think alignments is the only restriction that gods do have.
Alignment domains contrary to their deities alignment (or the cleric's own) are the specific exceptions to the Separatist's ability to get oddball domains.
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Creative Director
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I'm not sure I agree with that. In the earliest itirations of the class, they recieved their spells from "the gods", but it was never (that I remember) in any way in the same sense as we mean it. It was more in the way of saying "from all that is good and holy", or "from the heavens". In later iterations, as was mentioned above, it wasn't even until much later (in levels) that the deity(s) "granted" spells at all, and predominatly this was the minority of their spell list. Aside from specific settings, (DragonLance and later FR come to mind), was one of the first times that I know of that Clerics had specific deities and required a link to them.
But also as far as changing the assumption, I do not think that most people assume that Clerics are typically linked to a Patron, or that that Patron Deity issues them their spells. So it might change the assumption for some, but in my experience, it wouldn't be a majority.
In earlier iterations, they could only use blunt weapons. In earlier iterations, rogues backstabbed. In earlier iterations, clerics never EVER got 8th and 9th level spells. The rules change. As does the flavor.
In Pathfinder, clerics are supposed to be the class that gains their powers as a result of their devotion and faith in a specific deity. We have several other options of divine casters that get their powers in different ways (oracle, paladin, ranger, inquisitor, druid)—if your'e interested in playing a character that DOESN'T depend on a specific deity to gain spells, those options are better choices.
So this actually means that all/most deities in Golarion do in fact have access to and can grant any spell/Domain, but chose not to for whatever reasons?
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea as away to bring in splinter cults, ways to expand or break from the norm for a specific clergy, and the many options this allows the Cleric.
A GM who has a PC who plays a separatist should work with that PC to figure out WHY the PC chose that domain, of course, and that should open up some interesting roleplaying and storyline options. And it's absolutely within a deity's power to grant ANY domain to their clerics—they don't because they only grant access to the ones that they WANT their clerics to have access to. In game speak, that's how we help manipulate flavor differences between clerics of the different gods. In the case of a cleric separatist, his choice of second domain indicates some weird sort of special mission or goal his god has sent him on, and again, that's where backstory and PC/GM collaboration comes in. That is, if you want to explore the implications of the archetype beyond its raw rules.