Goblin Squad Member
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In the theme of not polluting other treads, this is a new tread. Are clerics/paladins/defenders of faith for a particular god, properly a faction? Characters will be parts of CC and settlements, but have a loyalty to the deity. I do not see an other mechanism for this? THis may be corrupting the faction concept.
Other characters may also worship, but clerics owe a higher fealty to the deity than any humble association.
This was also related to discussion on Druids and lesser fashion to rangers and "loyalty" to nature.
Druids are not an initial class, but clerics are. I would argue that this is a subject for a blog.
Lam
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could see this working for some deities, but not for others. For example, Desna is a goddess who is worshipped largely by the common people, she's mostly a passive force/personality, and she isn't a militaristic deity, so she would not be an ideal one to make into a faction. On the other hand, Iomedae is all about actively attacking the forces of evil, so she makes a good candidate. For the other side, Zon-Kuthon, Norgorber, and Urgathoa all seem like solid candidates for an evil faction's deity. The key is that the deity should have a lot of militaristic followers and strong reasons to oppose other groups, because as I understand it the primary use for factions will be facilitating sanctioned PvP.
There might be some NPC factions that are based around a religion or something, but overall, each individual religion/god isn't reall it's own faction.y
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeah, sorry about my terrible choice of words there. What I meant to say is "deity whose church is made into a faction", not that the deity itself is a faction. As a side note, I'd say people can worship these factional deities without being a part of the faction; the faction is there so you can "champion your deity's cause".
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Goblin Squad Member
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The church (organizational structure) and the religion are not the same thing. Being a cleric should never require joining a faction, but I still think the different churches should be designed as factions. In fact I can't think of any better way of doing it.
If I want to play a devoted religious character, I should have the choice of working within the organization (like a priest, cloistered monk or ordered knight) or independently (like a friar).
I should also have a way for my smith to devote himself to Torag, rogue to Adabar and barbarian to Gorum - all without taking cleric skills. Factions seem to be an obvious way.
The inconsistency is that if have the church of Gorum as my sworn enemies, a Gorumite cleric outside the faction is not considered an enemy. However this seems to agree very much with the current pvp design: religious wars (like other faction wars) should be optional.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The inconsistency is that if have the church of Gorum as my sworn enemies, a Gorumite cleric outside the faction is not considered an enemy. However this seems to agree very much with the current pvp design: religious wars (like other faction wars) should be optional.
I'm curious to how the old Champion flag might morph, in the new faction PvP environment. Under the old rules, the good aligned Champion could attack unflagged evil characters with only a reputation hit and possibly criminal/chaos hits - but no evil hit.
What if under the new faction PvP rules a similar Champion mechanic exists? The anti-Gorum Champion might be able to attack unflagged Gorumite clerics, in faction or not, and suffer reputation hits, but not the evil hit. Or perhaps the consequences are reduced or changed in some other way. Perhaps the player gets to choose to gain faction standing at the cost of full rep and alignment hits.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could see this working for some deities, but not for others. For example, Desna is a goddess who is worshipped largely by the common people, she's mostly a passive force/personality, and she isn't a militaristic deity, so she would not be an ideal one to make into a faction. On the other hand, Iomedae is all about actively attacking the forces of evil, so she makes a good candidate. For the other side, Zon-Kuthon, Norgorber, and Urgathoa all seem like solid candidates for an evil faction's deity. The key is that the deity should have a lot of militaristic followers and strong reasons to oppose other groups, because as I understand it the primary use for factions will be facilitating sanctioned PvP.
That's why I say, less deity status be damned give us Ragathiel! :D
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Goblin Squad Member
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Out of character - It just gives players an option for willy nilly pvp in case their company and settlement isn't engaged in something. It does come in different paths where you might do nothing but soldier, or be sent to explore, gain knowledge, build, or help people while open to that pvp. Being the only sanctioned option controlled entirely by the player it's a necessary outlet.
In character - Church factions are a special subsection of the overall followership, people that have gone the extra mile. Somewhat like how Templars were considered extra fanatical and dangerous over and above regular knights by Salah al'Din in the Crusades and they were killed on sight where standard knights might be released. The reason you go kill that Iomedae rogue but not the Iomedae cleric is that the rogue has chosen to be extra involved in something opposed to what you're extra involved in while the cleric hasn't taken those additional steps to mess up your stuff, making the rogue the bigger enemy.
Churches in the D&D sense have always felt intuitively right as factions to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Some churches are more organized than others as has been mentioned above. However, just because the church itself isn't militaristic or highly organized doesn't mean that it can't have a faction. For example, the church of Cayden Cailean wouldn't likely be a faction, but the Starstone Brewers, which is a subgroup of the church's worshipers, could be the faction.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't know. They said not all factions will have equal PvP focus. The Church of Cayden Cailean sounds like a good choice for a PvE / Dungeoneering faction under the Adventurer mindset.
As a PvP focused faction, the Curch of Cayden Cailean would be very interested in driving away the pro-slavery Hellknights in the region.