RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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So, some of us are designing a "PFS Quick Build" station. The idea is to get new players to walk away with a perfectly legal Core-only PC as quickly as possible, skimping on as few decisions as possible.
(So, for example, we're putting together a sheet of 10 common feats for warriors, 10 common feats for rogues, etc. Also, a sheet of 12 good spell choices for 1st-level wizards /sorcerers.)
So we want to provide a short list of the 8 or so most common deities in Pathfinder Society. Sarenrae, Cayden Cailean, Gorum, ...
Which other deities do you find to be common in your neck of the woods?
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So, some of us are designing a "PFS Quick Build" station. The idea is to get new players to walk away with a perfectly legal Core-only PC as quickly as possible, skimping on as few decisions as possible.
(So, for example, we're putting together a sheet of 10 common feats for warriors, 10 common feats for rogues, etc. Also, a sheet of 12 good spell choices for 1st-level wizards /sorcerers.)
So we want to provide a short list of the 8 or so most common deities in Pathfinder Society. Sarenrae, Cayden Cailean, Gorum, ...
Which other deities do you find to be common in your neck of the woods?
All those above as well as Iomedae, Abadar, Asmodaeus (Diabolism), Pharasma..
Nate Meyers
NYC PFS Player/GM
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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So, some of us are designing a "PFS Quick Build" station. The idea is to get new players to walk away with a perfectly legal Core-only PC as quickly as possible, skimping on as few decisions as possible.
(So, for example, we're putting together a sheet of 10 common feats for warriors, 10 common feats for rogues, etc. Also, a sheet of 12 good spell choices for 1st-level wizards /sorcerers.)
That's a fantastic idea! Kudos to you and whoever else is involved. :)
So we want to provide a short list of the 8 or so most common deities in Pathfinder Society. Sarenrae, Cayden Cailean, Gorum, ...
Which other deities do you find to be common in your neck of the woods?
I've seen lots of Cayden, some Desna, some Gorum/Torag, several Asmodeus, some Calistria, the occasional Pharasma...
I think I might have the only local Iomedaean. :/
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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If your list contains 10 dieties, I would include at least 1 of all of the good or neutral alignments, plus one evil alignment. My suggested list would be:
Chaotic Good:
Desna
Cayden Cailean
Neutral Good:
Shelyn
Sarenrae
Lawful Good:
Iomedae
Erastil
Chaotic Neutral:
Calistria
Neutral:
Pharasma
Lawful Neutral:
Abadar
Lawful Evil:
Asmodeus
If I were to select 5 additional dieties, I would pick:
Gorum
Torag
Besmara (A minor diety, but seafaring types are popular)
Irori
Nethys
Edit: Could I get a copy of the documentation for this when you're finished? It sounds remarkably useful.
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If your list contains 10 dieties, I would include at least 1 of all of the good or neutral alignments, plus one evil alignment. My suggested list would be...
Netopalis' list looks pretty much spot on to me. Only change I'd make is replace Asmodeus with Gorum. I wouldn't recommend a new player pick an evil god. Too much nuance in how you straddle the line without playing an evil character.
I also think this is a really great idea. Space and time permitting, you may want to include some kind of section on common "traps." They don't even have to be presented as bad choices, just something that should be pushed off for later characters once you have better handle on what you're trying to accomplish.
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Is this just for clerics, or are you listing deities that are popular for all classes?
Iomedae is popular for paladins, Irori for monks, Nethys for wizards, Shelyn for bards, but I don't think I've ever seen a cleric of any of them.
Asmodeus is clearly the most popular evil god, though we have a few people who put together a group of Rovagug worshipers locally. I don't know if they've played those PCs more than once or twice each, though.
Interesting that Netopalis mentioned Besmara. She's the one goddess outside the 20 mentioned in the Core Rulebook that I would consider including in this, due to the popularity of pirates. Personally, I have a pirate cleric of Besmara in PFS.
Other than that, I'd say the popular gods for clerics from the core group, by alignment, are:
LG: Maybe Torag or Erastil, but neither are really common
LN: Abadar
NG: Sarenrae - probably the most popular of all gods and goddesses for cleric PCs, partially because of players starting out with Kyra and then copying her, and partially for pyros wanting the fire domain
N: Pharasma
CG: Cayden and Desna are both very popular
CN: Gorum and Calistria
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Venture-Agent, Indiana—Valparaiso
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My analysis:
There are 20 main gods for the Inner Sea region.
9 for each Alignment with an extra LG and True Neutral.
I'm going to start with the Evil Gods
Asmodeus is very important to one specific faction and as LE is marginally more acceptable than the others so I would include him.
I think you can safely leave the rest out though of the rest of them Norgorber is probably the most acceptable at least in Absalom.
For the rest I think you'll want to include at least 1 of each alignment.
LG:
The crusading righteous god is iconinc so Iomedae is in.
New players like Dwarves from my experience so I would keep Torag as the Dwarf God.
Erastil isn't very popular over all, leave him out.
NG:
Sarenrae is the default good god of healing she needs to be in.
Shelyn isn't nearly as popular so I'd leave her out.
CG:
Both Cayden Cailean and Desna are very popular, I'd keep them both.
LN:
Abadar is the god of cities and wealth, he's much more popular in my experience than Irori.
NN:
Pharasma is the goddes of death and birth, she edges out Nethys and Gozreh.
CN:
I actually see both Calistria and Gorum worshipped a lot in my PFS experience so i'd leave them both in.
So in short I'd keep a list of 10:
Abadar, Asmodeus, Cayden Cailean, Callistria, Desna, Gorum, Iomedae, Pharasma, Sarenrae, and Torag
Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Northwestern Indiana
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My analysis:
There are 20 main gods for the Inner Sea region.
9 for each Alignment with an extra LG and True Neutral.
I'm going to start with the Evil Gods
Asmodeus is very important to one specific faction and as LE is marginally more acceptable than the others so I would include him.
I think you can safely leave the rest out though of the rest of them Norgorber is probably the most acceptable at least in Absalom.
For the rest I think you'll want to include at least 1 of each alignment.
LG:
The crusading righteous god is iconinc so Iomedae is in.
New players like Dwarves from my experience so I would keep Torag as the Dwarf God.
Erastil isn't very popular over all, leave him out.
NG:
Sarenrae is the default good god of healing she needs to be in.Shelyn isn't nearly as popular so I'd leave her out.
CG:
Both Cayden Cailean and Desna are very popular, I'd keep them both.
LN:
Abadar is the god of cities and wealth, he's much more popular in my experience than Irori.
NN:
Pharasma is the goddes of death and birth, she edges out Nethys and Gozreh.
CN:
I actually see both Calistria and Gorum worshipped a lot in my PFS experience so i'd leave them both in.
So in short I'd keep a list of 10:
Abadar, Asmodeus, Cayden Cailean, Callistria, Desna, Gorum, Iomedae, Pharasma, Sarenrae, and Torag
Pretty much my list as well, although I think Nethys and Gozreh are fairly easy to understand (God of Magic and the God/Goddess of Nature).
The key idea is to make it easy for players. Chris, I would suggest having the associated religion trait with each deity in a PFS Quick Build Station. This may help to solve too problems at once -- pick a deity and hopefully pick a trait that fits with a character theme.
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Popular deities in the Finnish scene?
Well, a quick look into the local clerics, inquisitors and other divine classes archived in our campaign wiki gives the following results: Abadar, Desna and particularly Sarenrae have the lead, but Asmodeus, Calistria and Pharasma are not far behind.
As for divinities inspiring laymen, Gorum, Cayden Cailean, Torag, Nethys and various demon lords seem to be popular. There's also a local Ragathiel cult, growing fast.
Now, I want to end this post with a message dedicated to the one true lord: Ia, oh Wrathful One! As above, so below the waves!
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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All the traits from the Advanced Players Guide are in the downloadable traits document, which is a free download and legal for PFS. So it's not technically Core assumption, but it may as well be.
Fromper, could you double-check that, please?
I just downloaded the traits document to be sure, and it only had the basic traits (combat, social, etc.) It didn't have campaign traits, race traits, regional traits, religion traits, or any other sort.
Again, these need to be 100% core assumption (for players).
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All the traits from the Advanced Players Guide are in the downloadable traits document, which is a free download and legal for PFS. So it's not technically Core assumption, but it may as well be.Fromper, could you double-check that, please?
I just downloaded the traits document to be sure, and it only had the basic traits (combat, social, etc.) It didn't have campaign traits, race traits, regional traits, religion traits, or any other sort.
Again, these need to be 100% core assumption (for players).
I was going from memory, and I thought that document included all the traits from APG. Guess I was wrong.
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My analysis:
There are 20 main gods for the Inner Sea region.
9 for each Alignment with an extra LG and True Neutral.
I'm going to start with the Evil Gods
Asmodeus is very important to one specific faction and as LE is marginally more acceptable than the others so I would include him.
I think you can safely leave the rest out though of the rest of them Norgorber is probably the most acceptable at least in Absalom.
For the rest I think you'll want to include at least 1 of each alignment.
LG:
The crusading righteous god is iconinc so Iomedae is in.
New players like Dwarves from my experience so I would keep Torag as the Dwarf God.
Erastil isn't very popular over all, leave him out.
NG:
Sarenrae is the default good god of healing she needs to be in.Shelyn isn't nearly as popular so I'd leave her out.
CG:
Both Cayden Cailean and Desna are very popular, I'd keep them both.
LN:
Abadar is the god of cities and wealth, he's much more popular in my experience than Irori.
NN:
Pharasma is the goddes of death and birth, she edges out Nethys and Gozreh.
CN:
I actually see both Calistria and Gorum worshipped a lot in my PFS experience so i'd leave them both in.
So in short I'd keep a list of 10:
Abadar, Asmodeus, Cayden Cailean, Callistria, Desna, Gorum, Iomedae, Pharasma, Sarenrae, and Torag
People actually go for Abadar?
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Torag's the one I never see for clerics. I've seen him for dwarven fighters and such, and even a paladin, but never for a cleric.
I've got an Aasimar cleric of Torag. Adopted by Dwarves, max ranks in Knowledge (engineering), trained in Profession (miner), etc. Then again, he is the only one I've seen.
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Sareanrae, Pharasma, Cayden are the ones I have seen multiples of. I have a Gozreh cleric myself, but that is because I wanted the plant domain.
In fact, I see people choose domains before deities, in particular the domain power. I think domains might be an easier concept to grasp for starting players.
Glory Domain (touch of glory)*
Knowledge Domain (lore keeper)* only saw this once, but everyone at the table decided to make this cleric
Healing Domain (rebuke death)*
Luck Domain (bit of luck)
Protection Domain (resistant touch)
Strength Domain (strength surge)
Sun Domain (sun's blessing)*
Travel Domain (agile feet) far and away the most seen
War Domain (battle rage)*
*seen only once
I see non-core domains more often. I am sure the core domains are there, but people really like to show off other domains. :)
Awesome idea Chris, please share when complete!
I don't know if they are the most popular, i haven't played a lot of PFS nor with a diverse crowd, but you could use the Deity list from the Pathfinder Chronicles- Gazetteer (<-Don't know how to do a linky thing here). It has 21 Deities that run the entire alignment spectrum. All which i believe were mentioned here at one point or another.
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Sarenrae first and foremost. Next would be either Pharasma or Iomedae. Aroden (non-clerics) would be next. I've seen a handful of others that people have mentioned as popular, but I think those 4 are much, much more common. I've seen maybe one Cayden, one Gorum, a few Eristal, and Desna, and not really much else.
I agree with Curaigh, it's much more common that players will pick a deity based on their Domains/Favored Weapon/Traits, and ignore the deity as much as they can get away with, which is probably good. It might be a better idea to instead go with Domains.
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My characters have worshiped (or primarily venerate, since there is a loosely established, though not interconnected and therefore coherent, pantheon):
Iomedae (2), Nethys (2*), Gozreh, Irori, Daikitsu, Shelyn (2)
I have seen a fair number of worshipers of Iomedae, but most of the casters I have seen choose Asmodeus, Cayden, Pharasma, or Sarenrae.
* A forced rebuild brought one character into accordance with the explicit rules that only approved deities may be worshiped (even by non-divine spellcasting characters).