|
| 3 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Staff response: no reply required. |
I recently had my V-C inform me that my paladin had to worship a single deity and not be pantheist/patronless in PFS. Normally I'd just do whatever he says because he's a pretty awesome guy, but I'd prefer to not rework the background and personality concept of an existing character unless necessary.
The character was created shortly before the latest update to the Guide to Organized Play, which reworded the religion section. I'm not sure if that has any bearing, but I didn't spot anything in the FAQ so figured I'd solicit opinions here.
EDIT: For clarity, the character's currently a warrior of the holy light who pays lip service to a few gods but follows his own (and base paladin) tenets in service of Osirion.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
Well, you do have to be current-Guide legal.
On the other hand, between the "core" deities and all the others in the Inner Sea World Guide and wherever else, surely you can find someone your paladin could venerate.
Also remember that (unless I missed it) Paladins do not have the "within one step" alignment restriction that clerics have. Which would mean you could pick a neutral deity, for example.
|
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
|
| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. |
According to...?
According to Page 7 under Step 10 : Finishing Touches
** spoiler omitted **
See, now, this is why I wish the content of the Guide were available online (like the PRD). I do most of my messageboard posting from work, where downloading the PDF would be a no-no. *sigh*
|
|
Paladins don't need a deity.The above-quoted Guide seems to disagree with you.
No it doesn't. It says clerics and Order of the Star cavaliers.
However, if they choose one, for Golarion, they're supposed to choose a deity that's within one step alignment-wise.According to...?
James Jacobs, in several posts about paladins and alignments...especially around those paladins of Asmodeus threads. Here Here Here
It's been said a number of different times, but these are just the first few I've found.
There was also a quote from the ISWG in one of these from another poster...here
EDIT:and ninja'd by a more direct post =p
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
Hellknights of the Order of the Godclaw receive their divine powers (clerical, inquisitorial, or paladinic) from an amalgam of five lawful deities. Clerics of the good-aligned Empyreal Lords or the Neutral Evil Four Horsemen likewise gain their powers from more than one divine individual.
| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Answered in the FAQ. |
Hmm... On one level, you can read that bit from the PFS Guide: Finishing Touches, Religion
If you read that closely, you realize it doesn´t actually proscribe that characters with divine powers must worship a deity, the wording only points out that characters without divine powers may be atheists/not have a god, while characters WITH divine powers are still technically under the general rule: that they MAY worhsip a deity, but there is no proscription to do so. that reading means the above text is just very superfluous... I agree that it´s reasonable to think that whoever wrote that passage DID intend for divine powered characters to NEED to worship a deity, even if that wasn´t strictly stated.
if you accept that latter reading (re: intent), that´s actually against what paizo has written on this topic re: how Golarion works. I believe James Jacobs was originally staunchly against the idea of atheist Paladins (not sure about his position on Rangers), but that was effectively over-ruled and atheist Paladins and Rangers were said to be A-OK officially in Golarion.
if this is a change to that ruling, and all Paladins and Rangers (with divine spells) must worship a deity in PFS, i hope that can be explicitly clarified. Oracles would also seem to require worshipping a Deity (if you accept the not-RAW intent of the PFS Guide), which seems to hugely clash with the concept of Oracles.
afaik, if you use an archetype that gets rid of divine spells, then none of the remaining class abilities are actually explicitly ´divine´, and thus you would be OK in any case.
Hellknights of the Order of the Godclaw receive their divine powers (clerical, inquisitorial, or paladinic) from an amalgam of five lawful deities. Clerics of the good-aligned Empyreal Lords or the Neutral Evil Four Horsemen likewise gain their powers from more than one divine individual.
But a cleric in PFS play is still required to pick a specific deity as his or her patron deity even in those cases.
|
General rules are over-ruled by specific rules. In this case, the general rule is that clerics of the Godclaw do not worship a specific deity, but a group of them that represent the tenets of their organization. However, the PFS campaign specific rule states that clerics must select a deity and must be within one step of the deities alignment. Any of the deities listed in the Godclaw description are appropriate so there shouldn't be much of a problem.
Enevhar, then it seems that you're suggesting that the Order of the Godclaw is not a legal Hellknight order at your table. (Clerics in the order worship the Godclaw, rather than any one of the five deities.)
I cannot find the quote right now from Josh or Hyrum or Mark, but I know one of them posted that in PFS play a cleric of the Godclaw still had to pick one specific deity from among the five as a patron deity because all clerics in PFS had to follow a single, specific deity.
|
|
Hmm... On one level, you can read that bit from the PFS Guide: Finishing Touches, Religion
If you read that closely, you realize it doesn´t actually proscribe that characters with divine powers must worship a deity, the wording only points out that characters without divine powers may be atheists/not have a god, while characters WITH divine powers are still technically under the general rule: that they MAY worhsip a deity, but there is no proscription to do so. that reading means the above text is just very superfluous... I agree that it´s reasonable to think that whoever wrote that passage DID intend for divine powered characters to NEED to worship a deity, even if that wasn´t strictly stated.if you accept that latter reading (re: intent), that´s actually against what paizo has written on this topic re: how Golarion works. I believe James Jacobs was originally staunchly against the idea of atheist Paladins (not sure about his position on Rangers), but that was effectively over-ruled and atheist Paladins and Rangers were said to be A-OK officially in Golarion.
if this is a change to that ruling, and all Paladins and Rangers (with divine spells) must worship a deity in PFS, i hope that can be explicitly clarified. Oracles would also seem to require worshipping a Deity (if you accept the not-RAW intent of the PFS Guide), which seems to hugely clash with the concept of Oracles.
afaik, if you use an archetype that gets rid of divine spells, then none of the remaining class abilities are actually explicitly ´divine´, and thus you would be OK in any case.
The WotHL archetype drops the divine spells, so I was thinking the same thing as you about its class abilities. If the change in PFS Guide semantics was an intentional add of paladins to the "single deity" list, I hope any FAQ also explains where that reasoning and push comes from (since it seems to go against prior posted opinion from James Jacobs).
Thanks to everyone for all the commentary so far. This and Sniggevert's links to James Jacob's posts about paladins were particularly useful. My only concern is that he was talking about paladins in Pathfinder in general and PFS guidelines can get very particular.