Clerics, Settlements, Alignment, Training, and Support

[Dream Seeker Baldo]

Can anyone help me with this question.

Say there is a NG settlement that specializes in Cleric and Wizard training and support.

Can a CG or LG cleric get the training and support they need from that settlement, or would they have to have a CG church in the NG settlement for domain support, or just have to find a CG cleric-focused settlement or just be SOoL.

[Darcnes]

Provided the settlement with the facilities allows it or they are a member of that settlement, a LG or CG cleric would be able to train general cleric abilities just fine.

Specific abilities that come from alignment specific temples down the road may not be accommodated at that settlement if they do not match the exact alignment, but we do not have a ton of details on how strict these requirements are going to be yet.

Likely the CG cleric would need to find a town that caters to CG cleric training and hope they offer training to outsiders though.

[Bringslite of Fidelis]

Please note that alignment will not be a mechanical feature of the game for some time.

[<Kabal> Sunnfire]

And any sort of training is just a friendly neighbor away. ;)

[Guurzak]

The way you ask your question completely omits any mention of deities, which will be a crucial part of the equation.

If I'm running a NG settlement, my playerbase consists of NG, LG, CG, and TN characters. When I build my church, I will probably pick a NG deity as my first choice since that deity will be compatible with all my players: a cleric may choose to serve a deity one step away from his own alignment, so picking a NG god means any cleric who can be in my settlement can also serve that god.

As I upgrade, I may choose to add CG or LG or TN deities to my church if there is demand- I can have up to 3 different gods in one fully upgraded temple or cathedral.

So the question is not so much whether your alignment is compatible with the church, as it is whether that church offers the specific deity you want.

If the town is training clerics they probably also have a Seminary, which has all of the generic divine training and no alignment restrictions. The only thing you get from the Temple or Cathedral is the actual class-specific and deity-specific stuff.

[KoTC Edam Neadenil]

Guurzak wrote:

If I'm running a NG settlement, my playerbase consists of NG, LG, CG, and TN characters. When I build my church, I will probably pick a NG deity as my first choice since that deity will be compatible with all my players: a cleric may choose to serve a deity one step away from his own alignment, so picking a NG god means any cleric who can be in my settlement can also serve that god.

There is likely some mechanical advantage in running a TN cleric as:

1) The old 3.5 restriction that only TN deities could have TN clerics never made it into Pathfinder

2) TN clerics have a "stealth" alignment as there is no "Detect Neutral" equivalent of Detect Evil/Good/Law/Chaos

3) TN clerics are not effected by the "no spells of opposite alignment" restriction and can cast anything. The same cleric can cast Dictum and then Word of Chaos, one immediately after the other, for example.

[KotC ChaiGuy]

@ Edam: In the Table Top game the aura feature of the cleric class means that the cleric will detect as X alignment if the deity is X alignment.

[Guurzak]

1) The old 3.5 restriction that only TN deities could have TN clerics never made it into Pathfinder

A lack of a restriction isn't an advantage. This doesn't make playing a TN cleric better than playing a NG cleric in Pathfinder.

2) TN clerics have a "stealth" alignment as there is no "Detect Neutral" equivalent of Detect Evil/Good/Law/Chaos

When I encounter another character I don't care about his alignment, I care about his company, settlement, and faction memberships. If we're mechanically hostile to each other I'll know that immediately without having to cast detect alignment.

3) TN clerics are not effected by the "no spells of opposite alignment" restriction and can cast anything. The same cleric can cast Dictum and then Word of Chaos, one immediately after the other, for example.

I'm not confident that aligned spells will make it into the standard cleric training repertoire. Deity-specific spell portfolios may have some interesting stuff that make playing a Desna cleric very different from playing an Asmodeus cleric, but that won't be a function of alignment per se.

Also keep in mind that maintaining a neutral alignment will require constant attention to active alignment maintenance; organic play will generally cause players to slide towards the corner that matches their playstyle.

[Lam]

As I understand from Tork. If the NG community has a Temple (medium) or Cathedral (large) supporting 1 or 3 gods, that will provide all of the training and support *including domains) of the clerics of those deities. I think they will provide for "cleric" training for any cleric Seminary (small) will support all non domain religious abilities and proficiencies of clerics. Skirmisher or dreadnought are used for some combat training/support. No specific on what is prohibited or not (early D&D did not allow clerics to "spill blood" but that is not part of TT PF; cleric spells are not "disturbed" by encumbrance).

Initially [EE], alignments will not be in play. It may be possible for any cleric to learn any domain as that is not be part of MVP, but that training would be an exploit.

"Cleric gear" is crafted at Iconographer (looks like druid and aristocrat items also).