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The assumption that 'divine' magic has to come from a god, because it has the word 'divine' in it is a distraction, IMO, since the word has multiple uses in the game, just like 'level' (which can refer to character level, class level or spell level) or 'evil' (which can refer to an alignment or a race/creature subtype or a spell descriptor), and they tend to get all mashed up and confused with each other, especially when the rules allow them to be stacked non-intuitively (such as an evil subtype outsider converting to good alignment, and yet retaining the evil subtype, making the summoning of this particular creature both a good and evil act, simultaneously...).
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A Players Guide to Golarion, like the old Forgotten Realms Players Guide, that made clear what differences to the core rules (such as Paladin / Monk multiclassing, in the Realms) applied in the setting, would be handy, I think, since the Organized Play download appears to be the only published source of setting-specific rules like 'clerics must have dieties in Golarion.'
I'm not sure exactly what other stuff would be appropriate to go in such a book, but perhaps some Golarion-specific Archetypes (like Red Mantis Infiltrator or Osirioni Relic-Mage or Qadiri Mameluke-warrior or whatever) or feats (Sawtooth Sabre Rend! Gebbite Deathspeaker!) could work.
EDIT: ... and now Set's post doesn't exist, apparently. NONETHELESS: IT WAS TOTALLY THERE WHEN I QUOTED IT, I SWEAR. And I'm not the kind of guy to swear...
That happens on occasion, but only in threads frequented by a certain poster who dislikes me, so it's probably just Flag abuse (or a total coincidence!). I allowed myself to get worked up the first time it happened, but I just find it amusing, now.
This is the first time I've had a post removed for agreeing with James, 'though. :)
Of course not -- all atheists are inherently CE.
Heh, eye c wat u did thar.*
The assumption that 'divine' magic has to come from a god, because it has the word 'divine' in it is a distraction, IMO, since the word has multiple uses in the game, just like 'level' (which can refer to character level, class level or spell level) or 'evil' (which can refer to an alignment or a race/creature subtype or a spell descriptor), and they tend to get all mashed up and confused with each other, especially when the rules allow them to be stacked non-intuitively (such as an evil subtype outsider converting to good alignment, and yet retaining the evil subtype, making the summoning of this particular creature both a good and evil act, simultaneously...).
I agree with the magic, really, although I think most of those are fine. It's just that "divine" literally means "of divinity", but isn't used that way at all in game. While the other things can be confused due to a fugue affect, "divine" is confusing because it literally means something that it doesn't mean in-game. I would have vastly preferred it (and think they they might could have gotten more leverage with those nominally against D&D) if they'd used the word "sacred" instead, which has a better connotation. Pathfinder, of course, is a legacy system, meaning that it holds the 3.5 ideal as a continuation of the system, and so continues to use most of the terminology.
It's just one of the ways D&D 3.5 (despite being one of my favorite game formats) kind of dropped the ball (such as leaving elves' favored class "wizard" and making gnomes' "bard" when the prime deity of the former was of equal parts magic, music, art, and combat, and the prime deity of the latter was mostly an illusionist, aka a wizard and neither gained any sort of mental bonus... but that's another topic entirely and, given what was already in existence, Pathfinder worked it out well, but again, that's another topic).
A Players Guide to Golarion, like the old Forgotten Realms Players Guide, that made clear what differences to the core rules (such as Paladin / Monk multiclassing, in the Realms) applied in the setting, would be handy, I think, since the Organized Play download appears to be the only published source of setting-specific rules like 'clerics must have dieties in Golarion.'I'm not sure exactly what other stuff would be appropriate to go in such a book, but perhaps some Golarion-specific Archetypes (like Red Mantis Infiltrator or Osirioni Relic-Mage or Qadiri Mameluke-warrior or whatever) or feats (Sawtooth Sabre Rend! Gebbite Deathspeaker!) could work.
I'd go for this. It would be a little strange when looking at the Inner Sea World Guide, but yes, this is a good idea.
EDIT: ... and now Set's post doesn't exist, apparently. NONETHELESS: IT WAS TOTALLY THERE WHEN I QUOTED IT, I SWEAR. And I'm not the kind of guy to swear...
That happens on occasion, but only in threads frequented by a certain poster who dislikes me, so it's probably just Flag abuse (or a total coincidence!). I allowed myself to get worked up the first time it happened, but I just find it amusing, now.
This is the first time I've had a post removed for agreeing with James, 'though. :)
Huh. I actually thought these boards were better than that, but I guess it happens everywhere. Good to know, though!
*If you didn't mean to do anything, then never mind, carry on. :)
EDIT: ... and now Set's post doesn't exist, apparently. NONETHELESS: IT WAS TOTALLY THERE WHEN I QUOTED IT, I SWEAR. And I'm not the kind of guy to swear...That happens on occasion, but only in threads frequented by a certain poster who dislikes me, so it's probably just Flag abuse (or a total coincidence!). I allowed myself to get worked up the first time it happened, but I just find it amusing, now.
This is the first time I've had a post removed for agreeing with James, 'though. :)
You can still find the post in your post history on your profile, so my guess is that it is just another site glitch.
I would like to see an Atheist Paladin who is granted powers by a God that it actively denied. They might use it as a tool of conversion, or merely derive pleasure from seeing a mortal try to rationalize their divinely ordained powers as mere force of will.
While Paladins in Golarion do not have to worship a god, they are divinely powered. An Aethist has rejected the divine.That's excellent phrasing and basically sums up what I've been trying to say. Though I would change it to"...Actively rejects the divine." Its the difference between being atheist and simply non-religious.
+1
The paladin is more than a cleric, in my understanding. They have the religious training on top of martial prowess, but are SO dedicated that they pursue enemies of their faith, or will throw their carcasses against the hordes of heretics/blasphemers/cultists/undead to defend said faith. Zealots in a sense. A step between Cleric and Inquisitor.
Athiests are devoid of faith, are they not? Correct me if I misunderstand the term. Faith is basically belief in something you can't prove to be true to others. Except in Pathfinder, a high level Cleric can literally open the gates of Heaven and say "Okay, here it is. Proof."
Atheist paladin sounds like trolling to me, honestly. "I am so supremely confident in myself that I generate my own divine energies." Uhm... doesn't that make you divine, a deity, perhaps?
Dividing by zero, there.
Athiests are devoid of faith, are they not? Correct me if I misunderstand the term.
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[4][5] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[5][6]
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In Western culture, some atheists are frequently assumed to be irreligious,[citation needed] although other atheists are spiritual.[11][12] Moreover, atheism also figures in certain religious and spiritual belief systems, such as Jainism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Neopagan movements[13] such as Wicca.[14] Jainism and some forms of Buddhism do not advocate belief in gods,[15] whereas Hinduism holds atheism to be valid, but difficult to follow spiritually.[16]
Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the world today is no easy task.[17] ...
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See... I thought anyone that fell under "no deity, just faith in something greater" was considered agnostic. But looking up that one, I can see my error.
I don't think that has any bearing, though, on the true point: that without a higher power (sentient or not, omnipotent or not) granting their class features, I don't see them being able to do so just by saying "Look, I can do this, because I say so."
Again, it goes back to the idea that if they can will these manifestations into being on their own without help of a deity, what separates them from deities in the first place?
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A Paladin who believes absolutely in the ideals of paladinhood, in good, in justice, in the american way of life, in the power of the mankind to overcome any task or challenge still can be an atheist.
It could be argued that a Paladin who is *totally* focused on the precepts of good and law above all other concerns would almost have to be an agnostic, as the tenets of most gods, even LG ones, have restrictions and / or requirements that would, at some point, end up limiting their actions (not saving heretics, not showing mercy, etc.) or requiring a non-optimally-good/lawful behavior (some specific gods of valor might require one to choose a 'stand and fight' or a 'last act of defiance' over a 'tactical retreat' or some sort of 'surrender to passively resist').
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Also, comparasions to the real world here are fundamentally flawed, since clerics as d8 HD spellcasting medium BAB character classes actually don't exist as real-world things. Therefore, applying the limitations and requirements of the cleric class to anything from the real world is off topic and irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
Damn! I knew that Nun I dropped with one punch couldn't have had a d8 for HP.
Though now I why I was able to outrun those two monks...
(note: The above is sarcasm, Matthew does not go around randomly punching clergy, or anyone else for that matter.)
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Yeah, he scientist taht invented spectograph was a priest and cheif astronomer of Vatican.
And then there's Gregor Mendel, the Augustinian friar who pretty much served as the father to what we now call genetics.
Copernicus was a Catholic monk, as well, and while the Galileo / geocentric conflict gets all the press, many in the Church supported the possibility of a heliocentric model.
Cardinal Robert Bellarmine himself considered that Galileo's model made "excellent good sense" on the ground of mathematical simplicity; that is, as a hypothesis (see above). And he said:
"If there were a real proof that the Sun is in the center of the universe, that the Earth is in the third sphere, and that the Sun does not go round the Earth but the Earth round the Sun, then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary, and we should rather have to say that we did not understand them than declare an opinion false which has been proved to be true. But I do not think there is any such proof since none has been shown to me."
So, basically, the Cardinal was all, 'Okay, if we're wrong, we should go figure out how we misread the Bible.'
The notion that reason and faith are antithetical is, IMO, nonsense.
I was just reading a quote from the Dalai Lama, who was talking with a scientist about quantum theory, and how the randomness principle conflicted with his more 'cause -> effect' view of things, and he said, basically, "If we find out this is true, we'll have to revise our teachings."
Much like Cardinal Bellarmine, the Dalai Lama sounds like a pretty level-headed guy.
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I wasn't making a comparrison. I was giving examples to show that there is room for religions that don't have deities, or their worship is not part of the religions focus, but do have a history of various miracles. It's also very much on topic, as it shows that there are things not being accounted for and that there is room for improvment.Well... while all clerics are religious, not all religious folks are clerics. There's plenty of room for non-deity religions in Golarion—we've included many of them in the world specifically because non-deity religions are interesting, in fact. Druids and oracles are more or less the primary spellcasting agents of said religions.
To me that's the beauty of the domains system. Clerics can be made that worship an idea instead of a deity. And by that reasoning so could a Paladin (even though their "domain" wouldn't offer them any benefit since the class doesn't receive a domain).
However, that's a game mechanic application and not a setting application. In specific settings Clerics and/or Paladins could be required to serve a specific deity because that's how the magic works in that setting. If I understand correctly Paizo's Golorian requires only clerics to have one. Yours might require neither. So the answer to the question is that the answer isn't known because you haven't made it up yet.
You might be very surprized just how many scientists are religious. Or rather have faith or spirituality, because of their scientific understanding.
That's why I don't believe that the two are polar, in or out of game, in any way.
I agree, but it seems the normal golarion take is they know Gods are real, they know of the Divine, but reject it. They tend to reject any outside force or "divine " power having a say.
I agree, but it seems the normal golarion take is they know Gods are real, they know of the Divine, but reject it. They tend to reject any outside force or "divine " power having a say.What do you mean? Atheists in Golarion, the average person, or the basic assumption for the setting?
Based upon the one athiest nation and the write up of the few Athiest NPC's. The term seems to be used for people who have openly rejected the divine. They know its there, know it is "real" but simply reject the notion it has anything to do with them or the decisions they make. It seems they reject being slaves to anything of the divine.
An Athiest in Golarion is not someone with no faith, its someone who has rejected faith of anything outside himself or what he or man can build without the "help" of the divine.
They simply have forsaken the divine in all forms.
One of the modules Paizo put out has a possible ending where a god of Atheism results. Try offering that to the player.
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As for whether I'd let that occur as a DM, yes, I would if the player gave a reasonable description of where the power comes from. An Andoren believer in the power of Freedom? Sure. A believer in the Rule of Law with powers coming from the nation state? Okay. Captain Planet who believes in Golarion, not its gods? Sure.
People need to lighten up a bit. Nerd rage over canon is so Forgotten Realms.
That pretty much leaves out he possibility of paladinhood. Paladins are inspired by things, concepts, values that they perceive beyond themselves, beyond the petty concerns of mortality.
The Atheist Ex-Paladin, that I can see.
That was my thoughts upthread as well. You want to be a paladin, you can't reject the divine.
People need to lighten up a bit. Nerd rage over canon is so Forgotten Realms.
People like settings, because they like the setting canon. We can play homebrews easy enough but much like FR, its the canon of Golarion they drew us to it in the first place.
If you do not want to use the base facts of the world why even play it?
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I don't even understand why someone would treat this as a serious possibility.
Would we give someone who wanted to play an inquisitor who wanted to burn all arcane spellcasters at the stake because of their 'satanic witchcraft' the same serious discussion?
It's a game where gods (not to mention devils) are demonstrably real and one's real life views about god, gods, and/or devil(s) are simply moot.... it's a fantasy world. Leave prosetylzing at the pulpit, whether for or against the existence of divine in the real world.. and away from the gaming table :)
As for whether I'd let that occur as a DM, yes, I would if the player gave a reasonable description of where the power comes from. An Andoren believer in the power of Freedom? Sure. A believer in the Rule of Law with powers coming from the nation state? Okay. Captain Planet who believes in Golarion, not its gods? Sure.
People need to lighten up a bit. Nerd rage over canon is so Forgotten Realms.
I don't think anyone is saying you can't rewrite rules or canon for your own game, but it is exactly that, a rewrite. It might work for some groups, others it won't, that's the wonderful nature of RPG's, to each their own.
That said, if you are starting with certain assumptions (Golarion as written by Paizo, and the Paladin class from the core book), you can't arrive at certain conclusions without that rewrite.
Paladins also can't cast the spell Wish, but if you as the GM and your players agree, you can still add it to the spell list. But just because you did that for your game, doesn't mean it's actually in the rulebook when other people ask.
If horses were Wishes, every paladin would have one.
You might be very surprized just how many scientists are religious. Or rather have faith or spirituality, because of their scientific understanding.
That's why I don't believe that the two are polar, in or out of game, in any way.
I think you should listen to this interview of Professor Noam Chomsky.
Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0M1H5CBUcY.
And I will also recomend two books from Bertrand Russel:
Religion and Science.(1935)
A History of western Philosophy.(1945)
I hope you like.
At your table, however, all's well that ends well.There are days I wish I believed that...
I'm not sure what this means, but I am interpreting it as a distinct possibility that your players don't respect your authority as a GM. A LOT of work goes into GMing; many players don't realize it until they try to sit down and do it themselves. If your players are disrespecting your rulings, tell them to either 1) deal with it or 2) find a new group to play with. As a GM, you hold ALL of the cards. You don't have to worry about finding new players; they will come. It's finding a GM that's tough.
I'm not sure what this means, but I am interpreting it as a distinct possibility that your players don't respect your authority as a GM. A LOT of work goes into GMing; many players don't realize it until they try to sit down and do it themselves. If your players are disrespecting your rulings, tell them to either 1) deal with it or 2) find a new group to play with. As a GM, you hold ALL of the cards. You don't have to worry about finding new players; they will come. It's finding a GM that's tough.At your table, however, all's well that ends well.There are days I wish I believed that...
GM authority is not a blanket thing between all groups. In more than one of my groups we've removed the GM and started a new game. GM's don't own games, the whole group does.
In fact, I've found groups seem to function much better when authority is spread around the group and people are given a measure of ownership of the game. When you have open and honest discussions about the setting, mood and themes, better games result. It also removes a lot of the burden from the GM, making the game easier to run. I do not find your advice helpful at all.
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I think you should listen to this interview of Professor Noam Chomsky.Noam Chomsky On Religion and Political Ideals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0M1H5CBUcY.
And I will also recomend two books from Bertrand Russel:
Religion and Science.(1935)
A History of western Philosophy.(1945)
I hope you like.
I'll try to check it out. Deployed, so it will probably take some time, but thanks.
While interesting, I'm not sure I'm seeing the relevance? Why was this directed towards me? I'm still watching the different videos, which seem to say overall "I don't believe in anything, but others might, and that's fine, except if it affects anyone".
It was directed to you because i think the ideas of this two great thinkers should be shared with those who like this debate. I am sorry if it offend you, it was not my intention.
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While interesting, I'm not sure I'm seeing the relevance? Why was this directed towards me? I'm still watching the different videos, which seem to say overall "I don't believe in anything, but others might, and that's fine, except if it affects anyone".It was directed to you because i think the ideas of this two great thinkers should be shared with those who like this debate. I am sorry if it offend you, it was not my intention.
No it wasn't offensive, I'm just curious? Unless you mean sort of the other side of what I believed when I first read it, that atheists can have "faith" as well. Is that what you meant?
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Where do the various Gods of Golarion themselves draw their power from ?
The existence of Negative and Positive energies (and that of the Starstone) imply that there are cosmic sources of power beyond the Gods.
I can easily imagine a Paladin being in tune with one of these, even without his conscious knowledge, and getting his powers this way without having to bend the knee to one of the Gods who also draw power from these sources.
Where do the various Gods of Golarion themselves draw their power from ?
The existence of Negative and Positive energies (and that of the Starstone) imply that there are cosmic sources of power beyond the Gods.
I can easily imagine a Paladin being in tune with one of these, even without his conscious knowledge, and getting his powers this way without having to bend the knee to one of the Gods who also draw power from these sources.
That's the thing, though. If they draw directly on this divine source, they are, effectively, gods themselves.
Compare it to us in modern day. We rely on electricity. We use it often in order to: turn on the light, turn on the computer, have the internet work, cook our food, etc. BUT. If I attempted to channel electricity directly, not through the proper channels but through my own self in order to activate the various things that I have the ability to activate (i.e. light bulbs, stoves, and computers and related devices), then it'll kill me because I'm not built to be able to directly harness said forces. Further, said forces don't simply come from a wall, they come from some sort of power plant or another, to which we pay our dues, or else we get cut off.
It's the same problem: if you don't pay the dues, why would the company give you electricity? Sure, you could bypass the company and go directly to the "source"... like, say, the waterfalls, or rivers, or dams, or windmills, or coal plants, or nuclear plants. Good luck wringing power from them! If you do manage to do so, then you become your own power company. Sure, the sources exist there, independent of the gods/power company/whatever, but they're not really accessible without the right "equipment".
One the other hand... without the proper channels for said power, it wouldn't work right anyway (the "electricity through me" example, above). So not only do the gods/power plant have to process the raw stuffs of creation in order to produce usable power (their own power sources), that power has to be channeled in "proper" (I use the term loosely) pathways (i.e. worship/power-lines), otherwise it won't do anything at all (and the god/power company sits unknown and unloved... and soon lacking incoming resources, it will dwindle away), and it must be channeled into "proper" (again, loosely used) formats, otherwise it does nothing, or worse, kills the source drawing on the god/power company (ssssssshocking!), which, again, dries up their source of "revenue" (whether worship or money).
Huh, what started off as an off-the-cuff explanation worked pretty well, in the end. Nifty.
Anyway, I'm not saying "that's the way it is", but I am saying that "divine" forces, as in "from a deity" probably need something "divine" powering them, and it must be for a good reason. An athiest - someone who has actively rejected the divine - no matter how good their intentions, will have serious problems when dealing with the divine forces.
ALL THAT SAID, the only class in Golarion that actually needs to choose a patron deity is Cleric (and it must be a specific patron deity). Paladins could, theoretically, as things currently stand, get away without worshiping one, and probably even atheism, despite the fact that they are, indeed, directly imbued with power by the "gods of law and good" focused through their own "faith". It just flies in the face of logic and any sort of reasonable presumption that those gods of law and good would be all hunky-dory with a servant they empowered going around saying "yeah, you don't need the gods, they're all stupid anyway". Druids and rangers filter their stuff through the "divine" aspect of nature (so no gods involved in Golarion) while oracles are just "blessed/cursed" somehow (I've not seen it clearly explained) with such power, and Inquisitors... you know, I don't know anything about inquisitors and their relation to the divine or church. Huh. I have to god look that up now.
Hmm...it's a bit of a stretch but perhaps an individual could consider the gods in Golarion to just be really powerful outsiders and reject the notion that they should be objects of worship. But yeah, I have a hard time someone being a true atheist in this setting.
That would be Rahadoum. "Let no man be beholden to a god." That's their first law, they don't deny the existence or power of the gods, but rather they refuse to pay the cost of worshiping them. The meaning of the word is slightly different, but atheism is so close to being right that it might as well be used here. Also, Rahadoum is not agnostic, they actively persecute religious practices within their borders, they don't turn a blind eye, they are actively opposed.
Hmm...it's a bit of a stretch but perhaps an individual could consider the gods in Golarion to just be really powerful outsiders and reject the notion that they should be objects of worship. But yeah, I have a hard time someone being a true atheist in this setting.That would be Rahadoum. "Let no man be beholden to a god." That's their first law, they don't deny the existence or power of the gods, but rather they refuse to pay the cost of worshiping them. The meaning of the word is slightly different, but atheism is so close to being right that it might as well be used here. Also, Rahadoum is not agnostic, they actively persecute religious practices within their borders, they don't turn a blind eye, they are actively opposed.
Correct. Rahadoumis aren't anti-gods so much as they're anti-worship and anti-religion. They see offering your soul to a god as a sort of Faustian bargain regardless of who's doing the buying, and thus to them clerics are essentially indentured servants.