Goblin Squad Member
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One of threads of discussion from last Saturday's Divine Casters PFO Fan TS chat (there's another chat scheduled today, Sat, 11/9 at 3:00-4:30 Eastern Standard...see the "Fresh Start" thread) was that of "faith". At some point, we will be expected to choose our character's alignment, but that does not mean every character will have a particular deity, will remain at the same alignment as their chosen deity, nor even that many players will give a rip about deities, alignment, and anything close to adhering to a particular faith. But what about those who do care, who will restrict their actions in such a way as to maintain a particular alignment, and thus, remain faithful to a deity that is the epitome of that alignment?
First, let me state this. I am not starting this thread to get into a huge debate about alignment. As much as I'm a role player, they could toss alignment all together and I wouldn't miss it. I role play my characters as I think each should act and leave others to interpret my alignment by those actions as they will. However, if we're going to have it as a measure in this game, the idea of faith seems like something I would like to explore. That is, if we're going to have alignment, let's have it count for something. But please, let's not rehash the same alignment arguments...which will be better, which will stink (I'm avoiding saying that chaotic evil will suck...err...shoot), etc.
As it stands, you will choose your Core Alignment as a your alignment anchor. From there, your actions will either reinforce that alignment or cause you to drift away from it, which will be represented as a your Active Alignment. Over time, if your Active Alignment goes a stray from your core, the Active will slowly move back to Core.
For me, the realm of faith (at least as measured by a game mechanic) should measure how well you keep both Core and Active in the same place. If worship of your deity includes trying to live a life that exemplifies the behaviors inherent with your deity's alignment, then having an active alignment that wanders away from that Core demonstrates behavior not in keeping with your faith. Certainly, divine casters would need to remain faithful or risk losing their divine gifts (spells, spell-like abilities, bonuses, etc.). But what else? Here's some questions I would like help in answering:
1. Besides gaining/loosing the obvious divine abilities, what other perks/losses should faith control for divine caster classes? Do spells work at 100% when Core and Active are the same, at 75% when you're one step away, etc.? I know as per table top rules, you can be a worshiper at one step away from your deity's alignment, but divine casters (I would hope) are held to a higher standard. At least in my opinion, they should be setting the bar for how the mortal followers of the deity should act...not limboing beneath it.
2. What perks are available to the "laity" who remain faithful? There are many examples in fiction of nonclergy who are every bit as faithful as the most devout priest. How can these characters be rewarded for that devout behavior? For instance, if we resurrect with close to no hit points, could faithful characters resurrect with more of their hit points intact as a gift from their deity?
As you can see, I'm not attempting to list every possibility...I want to know what you all think. If you think the whole idea of faith is total bunk, that's fine too.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think there could be something good to be said about how reliable a character is a particular Alignment instead of bebopping all over the place.
Perhaps a ticker of accumulated "faith" while in an Alignment?
1. Ticker only starts when you have been an alignment for eg 2 weeks.
2. Ticker slowly accrues faith in that Alignment over time
3. Moving Alignmen to a near-alignment slowly reduces that Value
4. Moving further than 1-step slowly reduces that Value atst as Ticking "anti-Value" points so that when you change back those have to reach back to zero before the 2-week "purgatory" begins to then start accruing "Faith".
The question is: What does "Faith" permit? I suspect it makes a big difference for "Divine" stuff and for "Religious Factions"?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Faith in this model would measure the character's resistance to active alignment shift. If my active and base alignment match, and my accumulated faith has become great, then activities outside my alignment will be less powerful as an influence on my active alignment.
But when I behave out-of-alignment my chosen base alignment might shift with my active alignment by splitting the change between them.
So faith would be like inertia: the greater it becomes the more powerful the linkage becomes between base and active alignments. With high faith, change brought by out-of-alignment behavior is split between active and base alignments proportionately.
How proportionately? If there is a scale of 0-100 on the faith meter, 100 means both base and active shift equally. If 50, active alignment shifts twice as much as base alignment.
Effects: Efficacy of divine forms of healing, availability of divine power in clerical types (including Paladin), intensity of divine spells (turn undead, smite), and potentially the likelihood of divine intercession in moments of great need, spell recovery time, threading costs, and how quickly the character recovers at a bind point after death.
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Goblin Squad Member
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One point I didn't make is that I'm not trying to make a new game mechanic. GW certainly has enough systems to fine tune before EE. However, if the Core and Active system is already in place so the span between them could be easily measured, and the possible perks attached already exist in game, then hopefully connecting the two wouldn't be too difficult while adding a new aspect to the game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not really sure what this discussion is all about. Isn't it so that certain skills require the character to be certain alignment to slot those skills ie certain core rulebook class skills.
Further more, when it comes to deities I think factions could come in play here. Each deity is associated with certain alignment, so it is natural in my opinion to tie factions to certain alignment, a faction that worships this and this deity etc. I think these alignment ties don't have to be so strict as the "class" alignment requisites, something along the lines that good people worship good gods and neutral people worship neutral gods etc. If you stray from the faction alignment requisite, you lose all your faction stuff. But still I would go by "you either have it or you don't" kind of mentality.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could see them adding domain abilities/spells. that you could only use while within a half step of your patron good. But how could you measure piety? I would love it if I could go Reaping to increase my standing with the pale lady. but i cant see something that in depth being part of the mvp.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could see them adding domain abilities/spells. that you could only use while within a half step of your patron good. But how could you measure piety? I would love it if I could go Reaping to increase my standing with the pale lady. but i cant see something that in depth being part of the mvp.
Piety - the quality of being religious or reverent.
In our world, we take this to generally mean acting good and living in a godly fashion, but if your patron deity was chaotic evil, then doing actions that were chaotic evil in nature would equate to being pious.
If GW is truly able to create an alignment system that can differentiate character actions as being more good/evil and lawful/chaotic than others, then how much your Active Alignment drifts from your Core Alignment would be the piety measure you seek.
If GW can't create a system that can't equate actions to a particular alignment, then not only wouldn't a faith system work, but neither would an alignment system.
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Goblin Squad Member
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[..piety..] In our world, we take this to generally mean acting good and living in a godly fashionSometimes the most pious are the most evil. ;)
Individually, a person can be good based on their religion. The real problem is when a religion becomes organized. Some of the most evil acts in history were done by organized religions.
Crusades, Nazis in WWII used religion to kill Jews, and in modern days we have the Jihads by muslim extremist.
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Goblin Squad Member
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But the question in this instance isn't whether the viewer outside the religion thinks the behavior is pious or not, it's are the actions/behaviors in keeping with the alignment of the religion and the deity in question.
Hobs will be a follower of Sarenrae. Healing the injured and the weak might be a very pious action according to his faith, but as seen by a chaotic evil cleric, helping the weak survive could be viewed as something far from pious.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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@Avena & Bane
I will make the simple request that we let any discussion of real world religions end there. That is a subject that can too easily devolve into a very heated debate with no real bearing on this game.
I concure. I don't want to be banned for "hate speach" like I've been on SWTOR. :p
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't see measuring up to one's faith as being strictly adhering to one's alignment. If the Deities made alignment their primary concern, they would only allow one for their followers.
I would much rather show my faith by performing acts that represented in the Deity's domaines.
When you perform these acts, you gain recognition in the eyes of the Deity, and advance within the "faction" that is your religion (faith).
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Avena & Bane
I will make the simple request that we let any discussion of real world religions end there. That is a subject that can too easily devolve into a very heated debate with no real bearing on this game.
Sorry, I was thinking of "The Name Of The Rose". But you are right a select conversation is required not an open forum on some topics; is self-evident.
I don't know too much about the religions in Pathfinder, but with actual deities it is a fascinating area. I'd love some sort of planar reality to the game at some stage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. Besides gaining/loosing the obvious divine abilities, what other perks/losses should faith control for divine caster classes? Do spells work at 100% when Core and Active are the same, at 75% when you're one step away, etc.? I know as per table top rules, you can be a worshiper at one step away from your deity's alignment, but divine casters (I would hope) are held to a higher standard. At least in my opinion, they should be setting the bar for how the mortal followers of the deity should act...not limboing beneath it.
If GW is truly able to create an alignment system that can differentiate character actions as being more good/evil and lawful/chaotic than others, then how much your Active Alignment drifts from your Core Alignment would be the piety measure you seek.
I'm not sure that measuring piety between the character's active and core alignment is right.
I think there's actually two measurements. The first is between the character's core alignment and the diety's alignment. I'd call this piety. This measurement shows how close the character follows the standards of the god on a daily, default basis. If your core alignment is too far from the religion's targeted alignment you can't receive training in the god's mysteries. And different mysteries may tolerate a larger separation between your core alignment and the god's.
The second measurement is between the character's active alignment and the diety's alignment. I'd call this favor. If the distance between your current alignment and the diety's is too great, you will fall out of favor. If you're out of favor, you can't use divine feats. Lesser divine feats (cure light wounds) might be more forgiving than greater feats.
My sketch of the system is pretty close to the normal training/slotting of skills based on the difference between your settlement's alignment and your core and active. But instead of using the settlement's alignment, it should be based on the god's alignment for divine skills and feats.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bludd,
Can you provide some examples of domains and how it would translate into a trackable metric for measuring faith?
Aye...
Besmara: The Pirate Queen
Alignment: Chaotic neutral
Portfolio: Piracy, Strife, Sea Monsters
Worshipers: Pirates
Cleric Alignments: CG N CN CEDomains: Chaos, Trickery, War, Water, Weather
Sub Domains: Deception, Oceans, Protean, Tactics, Thievery, Storms[1]
Favored Weapon: Rapier
Deities as a Faction (Mechanic):
Provided your alignment is within the range permissible by the Deity, the following actions will also grant you "Favor" within the faction (Religion).
Any act that is considered Chaotic in nature; the result of trickery; one that promotes or participate in war; manipulates water or the weather.
Any act that uses Deception (disguise skill for example); Traversing the Ocean(s); Tactics (Ambush or Boarding Actions, Ship - to - Ship combat); Thievery of any sort; Weathering or Creating / Manipulating a Storm.
Killing Opposing Faction Members with "Favored Weapon" will grant additional faction bonuses.
Of course there will have to be a graduated system of gaining Favor with one's Deity. Very easy acts would reward with very small amounts of Favor. While very difficult acts would grant greater rewards. Likewise, acts that are performed from the main Domain of the Deity, will out weight those that are from the Sub-Domain.
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Goblin Squad Member
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As far as the subdomains in the tabletop game go, those are just a part of the main domain (for example, Thievery and Deception are both subdomains of Trickery), so I would expect the actions of such to be encompassed in the main domain and thus give the same or greater rewards.
It would be a very cool to base a mechanic on the god's domains. +1 to that idea.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I can easily see certain target actions being associated with an alignment (the mechanics could be gamed, but as long as the actual tools that measure success or failure are not released it would be lees of an issue). I do like the idea of having your character doing things regularly that support your chosen alignment, and more specifically, your deity and their alignment. There might be a bigger bang for the buck in classes that have particular alignment restrictions, but several classes have them so it could be balanced with work. Paladins, cleric, barbarians, rangers, monks...all should be encouraged to play their part through the games toolsets.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I am convinced that the consequences of Alignment and Reputation hits for Unsanctioned PvP will be the Signature element of PFO that makes it stand out from the pack of existing MMOs - and likely causes a sea change in the ones that follow.
In measuring faith, there are certain faiths that would not consider these game mechanics on an RP level.
Would a Priest of Rovagug care about "Sanctioned vs. Unsanctioned" PVP?
Would a Rogue (Bandit) of Basmara care about not instigating strife between two entities to increase the possibilities of war and looting opportunities?
If the Deities and their Alignment ranges are nothing more than a means to control player actions, then what a waste of resources it will be. Faith on the other hand, is more important than alignment, it shows a devotion to the ideals (domains) of the Deity.
GW should focus on giving us a good reason to follow a certain Deity faithfully, and not simply just a game mechanic advantage.
Alignment as a consequence is epic fail in my opinion. It is counter intuitive for a Role Playing game, especially when it is tied to a mechanic (other than Clerics or Paladins).
Instead, as I suggested above, we and hopefully GW will focus on the domains of a Deity in determining how faithful one is to his or her Deity.
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Goblin Squad Member
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GW should focus on giving us a good reason to follow a certain Deity faithfully, and not simply just a game mechanic advantage.
It sounds like you think Reputation and Alignment are primarily about Role Play aspects. They're not. They're efforts to make the game playable to folks who don't want to be sheep in a murder simulator.
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Goblin Squad Member
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GW should focus on giving us a good reason to follow a certain Deity faithfully, and not simply just a game mechanic advantage.It sounds like you think Reputation and Alignment are primarily about Role Play aspects. They're not. They're efforts to make the game playable to folks who don't want to be sheep in a murder simulator.
I was in the process of writing a long and thought out response to this and then I caught myself.... It would be a waste of time.
My new catch all response to those that just don't understand the nature of Open World PvP MMOs will be simple:
Let the reign of the Min-Maxers and Zergs begin!
If alignment is an important social / RP element for PFO, then it can not be diminished to being a consequence tool, but it must be uplifted to be a part of our Characters's being.
Make it a tool and the Min-Maxers will strip it of all social meaning.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This thread is about expressions of faith and what that might look like in PFO as a social , cultural construct. Does anyone else have an idea of how that might be developed / crowd forged, to add meaning to choosing one's Deity or for following a particular faith?
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Goblin Squad Member
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This thread is about expressions of faith and what that might look like in PFO as a social , cultural construct. Does anyone else have an idea of how that might be developed / crowd forged, to add meaning to choosing one's Deity or for following a particular faith?
"I find your lack of faith disturbing."
Good point I'll give this some thought. I need to understand the setting first.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To just recap:
A formal religious order would evolve naturally from the actions of the players - we would not need to do anything to make such a thing happen if enough players wanted it.
And:
Q. What does the Twice-Marked of Pharasma add-on do?
Twice-Marked of Pharasma is an add-on we made available during our second Kickstarter campaign. It's an in-game benefit that makes your character... special. Here's how: In order to create new respawn points in the game, at least one player with the Twice-Marked add-on must participate, making characters with this special trait immediately in-demand for Settlements. In addition, there will be additional quests and locations available only to the Twice-Marked (and those in their parties). Some of this special content is likely to include the earliest quests that begin to reveal new lore about the Crusader Road region.
Q. Will a character's religion have any mechanical effect in the game? What are the advantages and disadvantages of choosing a patron deity?
While the exact specifics are still in flux as we implement our rules for clerics (and, to a lesser extent, druids and paladins), choice of patron deity will have a major effect on access to divine powers. Specifically, each deity's holy symbol has its own access to different orisons, domain abilities, and spells. Two clerics of similar alignment but different deities may have very different casting styles. Additionally, for all player characters, the different churches serve as alliances—being friendly with the church of Iomedae is different from aligning with the church of Asmodeus, much in the same way that joining the Red Mantis Assassins is different from membership in the League of the Wood.
- So religion is obviously of consequence to Clerics and somewhat to Paladins and Druids.
- Religious Traits
- Religious orientated quests
I'd like to see Religion eventually open up some sort of Planar reality where religion itself can wage holy wars and the like for boons/benefits in the material plane possibly. Access the dimensional portal that needs powering (que: fuel requirements) in the holy temple.
I like the idea of different religions attempting to get a foothold in settlements and co-existing perhaps uneasily.
Back to Ryan's comment, some things could be emergent from players so investigating that space would be good and then considering any dev/design perks around that?
Back to Bluddwolf's question specifically on "expressions of faith and what that might look like in PFO as a social , cultural construct"...
Potentially faith = number of members who also perhaps spend time "praying at the temple to power it. Is one option for one religion. Another might need more "meaty" fuel such as sacrifices. Idk if perhaps good faith in a settlement allows perks for that settlement eg divine guards added upgrade (I'm thinking Arabian Nights 'Djinn' type of jobies?) or something else more befitting a particular religion's character and culture?
A few scatter-gun ideas for now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps we can create our own faith, fabricate a "Pegan Deity" that we worship and construct a religious belief system around it?
It would be interesting to see if an idea could become a movement; a movement becomes a cult; a cult becoems a religion; the mass of believers generates the Deity; and the Deity inspires the faith?
