Alright, so, there's this feat I absolutely love. It's called Godless Healing, from the Inner Sea World Guide.
"Godless Healing
You have mastered a specialized and complex technique to ignore pain by focusing your belief on the self rather than relying on faith.
Prerequisites: Cannot have a patron deity.
Benefit: Once per day when you have half your total hit points or fewer, you may heal yourself of an amount of damage equal to 1d8 plus your total Hit Dice as a move action. This is a supernatural ability.
Special: You can take this feat more than once. Each time you do, you may heal yourself one additional time per day."
So, while using this feat during the course of an adventure, having taken it three times, my magus makes the comment in character (my group does like to RP) to the fighter when the imps we were fighting destroyed the bridge that the rest of our party had yet to cross. "By Norgorber's luck!" followed by a choice expletive not suitable for internet consumption. In universe, a fairly standard exclamation of bad luck and trickery. It's an expression, like and atheist saying "God @#%( it!" in real life, right?
Combat immediately stops as I tell the DM I'm going to use my godless healing to fix that nasty fire I took the face last round. I am then told that I can no longer use Godless Healing, and must write down Norgorber as my patron deity, as well as erase Godless Healing from my sheet (that I could not replace)....
WTF!? would not even begin to cover my reaction. To this end, I proceeded to explain rather calmly the above analogy I gave... To which he commented that any "lip service" to any deity means that you acknowledge them as a patron deity of some sort. Again, I press my point. Still no dice.
Earlier in a previous campaign (run by him no less), we had a brief discussion on Godless Healing, and determined that one did not necessarily mean that you were atheistic, but that you believed in your own power. After all, if Nethys and Irori can do it, why can't I? That would be the general idea of what we had in mind for it...
So, back to the game at hand, I pointed out that my character found certain aspects of deities admirable, indeed, even agreeable. However, he did not worship, ask for help from, or acknowledge the superiority of any of those deities. (For a brief list, Caiden Caylien and Desna for booze, freedom, and adventure, and Calistria's revenge)... To which he simply replied that one of them would still be considered a patron deity for the mere act of liking any aspect of them... To which I shot him the very simple and logical argument "Just because I agree with and admire certain aspects of buddhism, does that mean I am a buddhist? Does saying 'God @#%( It!' mean I'm a christian?" "No". Now, this guy is so logical he can almost be lawful stupid about games... He prefers his combat logical, and comparable to what is accomplishable in the real world, with only very minor aspects of cinematic FANTASY involved (So no charging on a mount towards a flying dragon, and making heroic cinematic leaps off a propped up fallen tree for the horse, and off the horse for the character, to try and get at it or its rider).
So after a bit more back and forth, he effectively told me that I could never use Godless Healing again now that the character had 'acknowledged divinity'... And that I wasted 3.. Count them. 3, of my feats. With no in-story or in-game explanation what so ever. I can understand the fact he's the DM and he can rule this however he wants, but GH is, mechanically, almost a waste of a feat that was proven even more so while I was using it. The character went down faster than us old-school D&Ders would from strokes/heart attacks if you told them TSR (or Wizards as the case may be now) had exhumed Gary Gygax and violated his corpse by using it in an "I support 4th Ed" ad.
So the question involved in all this back story... Is the mere act of using a deity's name in a curse, or stating agreement of an ASPECT of a deity's portfolio, qualify as making that deity a patron deity? Does it disqualify you from taking Godless Healing? For that matter, is an occasional utterance of something like "By Sarenrae's light..." at a beautiful dawn count?
I suspect such things are poorly done in the rule books, and usually left up to DM calls. But is there a limit? Or is Godless Healing nothing more than a trap like the Paladin Button, for a series of wasted feats or shoehorning a character into playing an atheist once any semblance of RP comes along?
Indeed. What happens if for RP purposes and character development, a character were to, say have Desna as a Patron Deity and desire to be a Spherewalker... Yet still admire, agree, or believe in some tenets and beliefs of, oohh... Iomedae? Which one is the primary (Patron) deity? Are they both?
Sorry if this has been asked before but I have very poor search-fu... And the extraordinarily long rant. This subject has kind of pissed me the hell off... Three freaking irreplaceable feats (he does this kind of idiocy to me and my girlfriend at least several times every other game).
Edit: I ask so I don't RP-screw myself out of a feat or two for other games, since I've been considering finding a Pathfinder Society group around here.
So the question involved in all this back story... Is the mere act of using a deity's name in a curse, or stating agreement of an ASPECT of a deity's portfolio, qualify as making that deity a patron deity?
No. Your DM is stubborn and foolish.
This subject has kind of pissed me the hell off... Three freaking irreplaceable feats (he does this kind of idiocy to me and my girlfriend at least several times every other game).
Abandon ship.
Ah, so acknowledging that divine beings exist equals taking on a patron deity. Interesting notion.
Using a deity's name equals taking that patron deity, according to that GM. Hmm... I should warn my Desnan cleric to never again join in the cheers when a toast to Cayden is given in the local tavern. Wouldn't want to fall from grace.
Your GM is a dick, short and simple.
Detect, trust me. I've been wanting to. But the gaming is one of the few stress reliefs me and my GF have these days and we can't seem to find another group in the Sacramento area. I get along with him about half the time while there, rather agreeable dude when NOT making illogical pointless rulings that make me want to rage worse than AM BARBARIAN (when justified).
Midnight, I agree. Does it all the time. Usually he's cool and can actually come up with some fantastic home brewed campaigns. Brilliant effing writer... He just has those moments where the few times he does do something, it's usually something completely jack-assish....
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I feel your pain.
My point:
'acknowledged divinity' DOES NOT MEAN "Prerequisites: Cannot have a patron deity."
THERE! The rules say so. You DID "acknowledged divinity"! But you DID NOT take Norgorber as a "patron deity".
May it CLEAR, make it good and have your GF back you up. PEER Pressure your DM to FOLLOW the RULES! They are RULES for a reason!
Sacramento area you say..? Hmmm, not to toot the horn of my own area, but the solano/yolo society (the one I play at, Grand Lodge in Vacaville, a mere 45 minutes away) is the third largest in the country. Our gm's are logical non-dick types, so feel free to come to us with your godless healing and blatant god-related curses; We'd love it.
OT: In such a situation where the gm is being out of line, pull him aside before/after a game and have a FRIENDLY non-heated discussion. If he still refuses to acknowledge logic, then find someone else to play with. Sticking with a gm like this is generally a bad idea and you'll only come across more problems.
That sucks.
Simply put, I think your DM probably confuses himself with minutia (you did say he was a good writer; professional hazard). Instead of jumping the gun and making wack rulings, he should take a step back and realize that the game is... just that: a game.
The point is to have fun. He may have lost touch with that.
As a GM that decision makes me cringe. The point is to tell a story and needlessly antagonizing your players for roleplaying is detestable.
You shouldnt have lost the feat for merely saying a phrase. It's almost as bad as the DM just saying "ok, you lose your feats never to return and you have to take a level of cleric next time you level up!" xD
I would have thanked the GM and walked out right then. And there are better games, I for one play in the "greater Sacramento area" ;)
Have fun!
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Sounds to me that something else is going on here beneath the surface. Maybe the DM was proving a point with you. Maybe you were trying to prove a point to him.
As others have said, your GM is out of line here. Acknowledging the Gods and worshiping them are not the same thing, not by a long shot. But it sounds like this is not a one time issue. Talk with him or find a new game is all I can tell you.
Talk with the DM and force him resend his ruling. He obviously has no concept of patron deity. If he refuses get other players in on it. A GM's job is not to play god, it's to facilitate good gameplay.
Link him to this thread, he can explain his point and we can explain why he's wrong.
Talk with the DM and force him resend his ruling. He obviously has no concept of patron deity. If he refuses get other players in on it. A GM's job is not to play god, it's to facilitate good gameplay.
Link him to this thread, he can explain his point and we can explain why he's wrong.
Well, the GM can always resort ro rule Zero: The GM is always right.
Which, of course, would result in myself resorting to rule Minus One: The player is under no obligation to put up with any particular DM.
I have to agree that the DM is being unreasonable.
I'm willing to bet that most DMs have made decisions, even snap decisions, that don't sit well with a player or the players. I know that's been the case a handful of times in our group. We've always come to an understanding or compromise after the session. And, I'd NEVER make someone simply lose three feats. That's a harsh and unreasonable penalty to make on a whim because of a roleplay moment.
Sounds to me that something else is going on here beneath the surface. Maybe the DM was proving a point with you. Maybe you were trying to prove a point to him.
I have to agree here. I imagine this has been a point between you and your DM before and perhaps not the only one. Sakes alive, man: you've brought it to the internet to rant, and I imagine, prove how "wrong" he is.
There are deeper issues here than what we're hearing or seeing. If it got to this point, then something has been going on between the two of you and has been for some time.