I can't agree more with Steve on this. That is something that could be being overlooked, god knows when people GM for the first few times they will need some guidance on measuring out how to deal with situations like this.
If you think that's the case, have a sit down and go over it with them, it'll save them from getting into bad habits based on their misconceptions. If you dont bring it up, other people he plays with might not be so calm and accepting of it. And nobody likes bringing the wrong kind of drama to the table.
There's actually two reasons I've seen it done. One was the aforementioned "the rules tell me I can", the other (still based on that same rule) is "I haven't done it yet, I should try to work it in". Both lead to tortured logic, convoluted plots, and railroads galore to ensure the depowering happens. Both are, well, terrible reasons to trigger something that's supposed to be the nuclear option for things like sacrificing babies to Shelyn or making peace treaties in honor of Gorum.
To be fair, I have seen a third and slighlty less malicious reason. Sometimes the GM "Has this really cool plot idea" that involves depowering the divine caster, then triggering a crisis of the faith that is usually followed by some sort of big epic redemption quest to let the divine character regain their powers.
The problem, of course, is that the GMs in those situations don't ever think about whether the player would enjoy going through that plotline. Being depowered in TTRPG is almost never fun, and fall/redemption stories only work if that's something the player is interested in carrying out. It's rather hard to pull off an Epic Redemption Quest when the player doesn't feel their character has actually done anything evil.
As an aside, I have ruled in the past that if you anger a deity other than your own enough that it causes issues for your deity, you can lose your class features.
That's pretty cool actually, if your deity is allied with (or significantly weaker than) a deity that you piss off, your deity takes you to one side for a "team-talk", then if you reeeeeally screw up, your deity decides you're a liability to their faith/existence and they cut you off.
If a character has a class ability that could ruin your plot idea you:
a) Rethink your plot idea; or
b) Inform the player this could happen.
Well, the GM has already lied about that part of the encounter being part of the AP - it makes the jerk conclusion easier to jump to.
Maybe - or maybe he was referring to a suggestion that the imprisoned cleric should be the same faith as a PC cleric. Or maybe there was a reference in an earlier book to "what to do if this villain escapes" and was talking about the "will seek vengeance on the PCs at a later date" bit. I agree with you if he begins making up "I don't want to do this but the book says I have to" stories, but I'm not entirely sure we're in a position to know that's what's going on.
I think there's a whole host of reasons to err on the side of "you made a mistake" rather than "you're a jerk".
As I said though - it depends on if Smilodan has sat down with the DM and explained how it's playing (rather than how the DM thought it would play). To me the DM's response to that is where any jerkishness comes in - not in just making a bad call.
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Hanlon's Razor could definitely apply here...
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I think people are jumping to the "he's a jerk" conclusion too readily.This is pretty much the M.O. of nearly the entire collection of these boards. GM does something questionable == "GM is a prick. GM is trying to destroy you. You should leave the group. You should kick him/her out. You should ..."
... pretty much do anything except talk to the GM and understand their point of view.
This isn't entirely unfair in general, but in this case the behavior provoking it is pretty egregious.
I mean, making you lose a level, without any way to recover it, because you refused to do something stupid your God shouldn't demand that you do anyway, and then lying and trying to blame it on the pre-written adventure when it's not in there?
Unless the OP is actively lying (which is a pretty big and unwarranted assumption), that sounds pretty clearly into 'this guy is being a giant dick' territory.
I mean...can anyone think of a reasonable explanation for that series of behaviors? Because I sure can't.
@Deadmanwalking
Yeah, totally agree he was wrong to do it. But he might be totally new to GMing or that situation and thought that was acceptable. He doesnt have to be a jerk to do that, and when called up on it he couldve just tried to cover his ass. People generally tend to be prideful like that, doesnt make them jerks.
If he did know what he was doing, then i'll submit that he's a total douchehat, assclown, and mother of a goat.
This isn't entirely unfair in general, but in this case the behavior provoking it is pretty egregious.
I mean, making you lose a level, without any way to recover it, because you refused to do something stupid your God shouldn't demand that you do anyway, and then lying and trying to blame it on the pre-written adventure when it's not in there?
Unless the OP is actively lying (which is a pretty big and unwarranted assumption), that sounds pretty clearly into 'this guy is being a giant dick' territory.
I mean...can anyone think of a reasonable explanation for that series of behaviors? Because I sure can't.
The losing a level with no way to get it back for a dodgy reason is an easy mistake for a new DM to make when playing a new system, in my opinion.
In terms of lying to cover it up: I wonder whether the "it's part of the module" comment has been misinterpreted. If he's genuinely unaware that Smilodan is upset by the whole experience, he may not have been referring to the loss of powers but rather to the imprisonment of a cleric worshipping the same deity. (IE Smilodan says "That's dumb" (meaning loss of powers) and the DM says "Well it's in the book" (meaning the imprisoned cleric who just happens to worship the same deity).
The GM was implying it was a plot point of the AP. He said the captured cleric would match the faith of any cleric in the party.
I should stress, the DM may well be being a jerk - I don't rule it out, I just think it's worth an out-of-session conversation with the DM (which the OP didn't mention) before leaping to that conclusion.
Story Time!
Talking about daft (and jerkish) GMs, one of my first pathfinder GMs had a tenuous grasp on the rules at best, and it didnt help that he kept adding variants to "spice things up".
His favorite combination of rules was rolling attacks against stationary / sleeping targets, having critical failure options and making his own enemies for us to fight.
The results? our halfling bard (passing all his stealth checks) sneaking into an orc barracks, and attempting to coup de grace a sleeping orc. That's when the fun began. After apparently "missing" the sleeping orc's throat 7 times in a row (please, just picture that image, a tiny little bard stabbing the orc's pillow repeatedly with a dagger and not waking him up.) then ultimately on the 8th try, he rolls a critical fail (GM doesnt believe in confirmation rolls), stabs himself, losing a fair chunk of his hitpoints (twice his dagger could normally deal - the gm took the term CRITICAL fail literally), prompting an overscaled "house rule" fortitude save to stop himself from screaming out in pain. Yeah, he fails that, bards arent known for their fortitude saves. Suddenly the barracks turns into a orc-green "prison shower scene", half naked orcs and naked half orcs surrounding a nearly dead, sheepish little halfling bard.
"Whats a surprise round?" he said when the bard's player asked if he had time to dash out the door while the orcs were waking up.
"You're the one that cut yourself, if anyone gets that itd be the orcs" (thankfully we managed to convince him that wouldnt happen, and the bard's high dex meant high initiative and he used his first turn to run to safety.)
But every single combat from then on was a surprise round to the bad guys. No perception checks unless we specifically stated every 5 seconds that we were checking for them.
And then there was the time our heroic paladin had to roll hit to knock down a door, critical failed and slammed his head against it knocking him unconscious for 10 mins while the rest of the party had combat.
And FUDGE his custom maps of 5ft wide corridors everywhere, and combats on stairwells.
Now this may sound like it was all a good laugh, but he absolutely refused to believe that very commonly known pathfinder rules existed, the guy was so damn stubborn he saw no flaw to his logic of having to roll to hit a door then missing because the door has high AC. And believe me, it got tedious.
The most annoying thing? the guy owned a stack of pathfinder books as high as my knee, and back then there were less released than there are now.
Now whenever the rolls arent going in my favor, i think back to that poor squishy little bard, surrounded by steroid abused bloodthirsty orcs and realise... it could be worse.
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As an aside, I have ruled in the past that if you anger a deity other than your own enough that it causes issues for your deity, you can lose your class features. But I have a lot of dynamics between subets of my gods, which include cooperative efforts and infighting. But these are mostly the more important active gods who are also PC gods. For which my players (old ones, and current ones) actually end up making the decision. And sometimes they end up deciding to kidnap and torture PCs, as has occurred more recently after a theft by a level 10 of about 3 million gp from a god, while acting as a subset of another god's domain (undeath, he was a vampire and the god he stole from was the god of nightshades). But that's just an aside.
Wow deity office politics, I think in classical mythology this is handled by just cursing the poor fellow, I think Hera cursed like 50% of Zeus's kids.
It seems to me there are two main possibilities here: 1) The GM is inexperienced or doesn't have a firm grasp of the rules regarding ex-clerics, or 2) The GM is one of those "gotcha" types and enjoys taking down the PCs.
In any case, it's worth talking it over with him to see if you can come to an agreement on how this should be run. Your cleric definitely shouldn't fall, hopefully he's reasonable and you can get your character back.
If he's a gotcha type, you're screwed. I once had a GM whose BBEG took a hostage and not only demanded we stop fighting, but he demanded we BEHEAD OUR PALADIN in exchange for the hostage. We said screw you and kept fighting, attempting to save the hostage, but the BBEG killed the hostage and teleported away. Immediately, our paladin and cleric both "fell" and lost all their abilities. Out of frustration we asked the GM what more we could've done, and he said we should've decapitated the paladin lol. That was the last game we played with that GM.
Hopefully your GM isn't one of those.
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Have you spoken to him about it?
I think people are jumping to the "he's a jerk" conclusion too readily. My first thought would be that he improvised it thinking it would be a cool twist and just made a mistake. I can't count the number of times I've done something similar over the years (not specifically taking away powers, but just run with something I came up with on the fly only to realise down the track that the player didn't enjoy the "twist" at all).
I think it's only jerkish if he insists on keeping it after you point out what a harsh penalty it is, how unreasonable the logic is and most importantly how you're not having fun being one level lower than everyone else.
If you want your DM to improvise, adjust APs and run a game which isn't just a series of ever-more-difficult encounters then I think you're going to run into some poor decisions from time to time. That in itself isn't malicious.
Well, the player had to negotiate a "mere" lvl 1 reduction, so I assume he talked to the GM about it.
Face it, the GM is a dick.
Cursing is somewhat tame. You gotta pull a Heracles on them and make them kill all their kids and live to regret it. Then do 12 nigh-impossible tasks just to atone. Or not be able to return home for 20 years. Or some flavor of eternal punishment... the ancient Greeks were pretty good at dreaming up nasty stuff.
"You're too pretty, -zap- now enjoy your snake hair and the fact anyone that ever looks at you will instantly die."
My DM has been DMing since the 1980s, so he has plenty of experience DMing.
My DM is the one who introduced us to 5th Edition.
He also GMed Pathfinder for us before. He killed off my inquisitor (owlbear ate him after dropping him to below 0 hp instead of attacking other PCs), then when I made a paladin, we fought mostly non-evil monsters so I couldn't use Smite Evil. I just thought that was a weird coincidence at the time. That campaign ended with a nigh-TPK that my paladin DID survive, however.
In our current game, religion has not been that big of an issue. None of the other characters have a patron deity except for the rogue. None of the NPCs have ever mentioned a religious affiliation except for the temple in Sandpoint. It's just never come up. None of the villains have be clerics or anything either, as far as I could tell.
So blaming the cleric or goddess role play stuff came out of nowhere.
Being a cleric was primarily a mechanical aspect of my PC (armored party buffer and healer), just like being a rogue is a mechanical aspect of our rogue (mobile skill monkey and striker) and ranger (spell-boosted super-archer). The rogue has almost never stolen from anybody and the ranger has never been an advocate of conserving natural resources.
Ideally, we'll only have one more session with this campaign (when we find and fight Karzaug), then we can let the matter drop. I don't think talking is going to help. I gave him all my objections already and his "concession" was having me lose a level. I think his original plan was for me to be a crappy fighter for the rest of the campaign, which is stupid, because everyone else would die without in-combat healing.
(I know a lot folks think in-combat healing is a waste of resources, but in most fights, without it, we would have 1 or 2 deaths. About 75% o our fights have at least one PC (not always the wizard!) drop to 0 and start making Death Saves. Most of our fights are CR +1 or +2, which is particularly challenging given how 5th Edition defines CR. Also in 5th Edition, there are 1st level and 3rd level "swift action" spells that provide minor ranged healing to 1 or multiple PCs, so my cleric can do more than just be a heal-bot and/or bless-bot.)
My DM has been DMing since the 1980s, so he has plenty of experience DMing.
My DM is the one who introduced us to 5th Edition.
If one ever needed to prove that doing something for a long time does not, by necessity, make you an expert - I'd argue the claim lies right here.
Spending decades to then do something that seems to be universally called (taking the sample of this community (perhaps biased)) a dick move with all that experience lets me wonder how many times this kind of thing has happened before.He also GMed Pathfinder for us before. He killed off my inquisitor (owlbear ate him after dropping him to below 0 hp instead of attacking other PCs), then when I made a paladin, we fought mostly non-evil monsters so I couldn't use Smite Evil. I just thought that was a weird coincidence at the time. That campaign ended with a nigh-TPK that my paladin DID survive, however.
Ahh. A few times it's happened before. I'm somewhat sorry to say this, given your GM is presumably a friend, but their attitude sounds truly awful. Are you sure they don't have it out for you?
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The losing a level with no way to get it back for a dodgy reason is an easy mistake for a new DM to make when playing a new system, in my opinion.
Sure...but as has been noted since this post, he's not new. I'd already gotten that impression from previous posts, too.
In terms of lying to cover it up: I wonder whether the "it's part of the module" comment has been misinterpreted. If he's genuinely unaware that Smilodan is upset by the whole experience, he may not have been referring to the loss of powers but rather to the imprisonment of a cleric worshipping the same deity. (IE Smilodan says "That's dumb" (meaning loss of powers) and the DM says "Well it's in the book" (meaning the imprisoned cleric who just happens to worship the same deity).
The issue with that is that the part with there being a captured Cleric apparently isn't in the AP either, as several people have noted. So...still lying to cover it up.
I should stress, the DM may well be being a jerk - I don't rule it out, I just think it's worth an out-of-session conversation with the DM (which the OP didn't mention) before leaping to that conclusion.
Uh...he specifically already noted that he had to 'talk him into' letting him have the level loss instead of the loss of all powers. So...there's been at least some of this.
We'll probably finish the AP in the next session (but the DM has said that twice before...) so it's probably not worth it.
I'll give him one last chance, and be prepared to quit the campaign if there is further bias on his part.
And I'm running the next campaign after a different player runs our World Serpent Inn campaign for a session or three.
If you look at the Cleric entry in the Player's Handbook, there actually isn't any language in there for a Deity removing a Cleric's powers (no such language for Paladins either).
So, yeah, such a thing shouldn't be possible in a 5e game unless the DM is specifically out to get you.
when GMs take a heavy handed approach they DO have it in for you, this isn't in question. The real question is, did you deserve this? It seems WAY out of proportion to what you did. So I suspect the GM was being extra harsh over something you may have said or done we didn't hear about. Or it could simply be that he doesn't like you.
The losing a level with no way to get it back for a dodgy reason is an easy mistake for a new DM to make when playing a new system, in my opinion.Sure...but as has been noted since this post, he's not new. I'd already gotten that impression from previous posts, too.
I guess it depends on your viewpoint. I consider all 5E DMs to be new. My point was that he may well have leapt to something which happened in previous editions without thinking through that 'loss of level' isn't really a thing in 5E.
I appreciate he's not an inexperienced DM.
I should stress, the DM may well be being a jerk - I don't rule it out, I just think it's worth an out-of-session conversation with the DM (which the OP didn't mention) before leaping to that conclusion.Uh...he specifically already noted that he had to 'talk him into' letting him have the level loss instead of the loss of all powers. So...there's been at least some of this.
I didn't see (until Smilodan's most recent post) the OP say that. I saw "concession" which I guess you've inferred an out-of-session conversation (?)
Regardless - if that's happened and the DM is insisting on imposing a penalty the player has declared to be "unfun" then I don't have any issue with labelling him jerkish (or poor, or whatever your terminology is).
If that out-of-session chat hasn't happened, then I think it should.
In our current game, religion has not been that big of an issue. None of the other characters have a patron deity except for the rogue. None of the NPCs have ever mentioned a religious affiliation except for the temple in Sandpoint. It's just never come up. None of the villains have be clerics or anything either, as far as I could tell.
So blaming the cleric or goddess role play stuff came out of nowhere.
Yeah - I could maybe see things like this having a place in a campaign where everyone was 'faith based' in some way. Or at least where the gods/religions were a significant part of the plot.
I can picture someone thinking it would be a good idea. But such crippling penalties are best left to players to impose on themselves, in my view.
I don't think I did anything to deserve this?
I play a support cleric. I heal and buff. I don't one-shot BBEG or use my magic to disrupt anything. I don't even use divinations to bust mysteries or learn secrets that would ruin things. Occasionally I would use a trump card ability, like an augmented guided bolt or Channel Divinity to Turn Undead.
I'm not even a know-it-all rules lawyer for 5th Edition, like I can be for PF (at least CRB & APG PF).
I thought we had decent rapport, but apparently not.
There has been no "out of session" conversation.
And there probably won't be.
I don't see him changing his mind.
I think people are jumping to the "he's a jerk" conclusion too readily.This is pretty much the M.O. of nearly the entire collection of these boards. GM does something questionable == "GM is a prick. GM is trying to destroy you. You should leave the group. You should kick him/her out. You should ..."
... pretty much do anything except talk to the GM and understand their point of view.
This isn't entirely unfair in general, but in this case the behavior provoking it is pretty egregious.
I mean, making you lose a level, without any way to recover it, because you refused to do something stupid your God shouldn't demand that you do anyway, and then lying and trying to blame it on the pre-written adventure when it's not in there?
Unless the OP is actively lying (which is a pretty big and unwarranted assumption), that sounds pretty clearly into 'this guy is being a giant dick' territory.
I mean...can anyone think of a reasonable explanation for that series of behaviors? Because I sure can't.
Was the post you quoted removed afterwards? I can't find it.
Regardless, it also kinda comes down to how much time you're willing to waste on someone who makes these kinds of "mistakes". Life's too short and there are thousands of other games to join, dropping a game because of a weird, arbitrarily punitive rules call (and/or especially a s*&*ty houserule, which I was forced to abandon a perfectly good game for recently because the GM sprung it on us after character creation) is generally going to make your life better in the long run.
Because if they do it on purpose once, they're probably going to do it repeatedly.
There has been no "out of session" conversation.
And there probably won't be.
I don't see him changing his mind.
I probably wouldn't bother at such a late stage in the campaign with a soon-to-be-ex-DM (especially given the obvious bad taste it left in your mouth).
I'd nonetheless encourage you to see this as a poor DM decision, not a decision by a jerk. I think there are lots of benefits and very little downside in giving people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to motivations.
If he continues with behaviour which makes you think he's out to get you in some sense (like starts sabotaging your upcoming campaign or something) then I'd definitely confront him about it and I'd recommend doing so away from the table and from the other members of the group.
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This is mostly a ranting thread. I don't seriously expect him to change his behavior. I just want to be able to power through the last session so we can finish the campaign.
I don't want to confront the DM because he might choose the nuclear option and quit when we're in sight of the finish line, and that would be horrible for all the other players.
I don't think I did anything to deserve this?
I play a support cleric. I heal and buff. I don't one-shot BBEG or use my magic to disrupt anything. I don't even use divinations to bust mysteries or learn secrets that would ruin things. Occasionally I would use a trump card ability, like an augmented guided bolt or Channel Divinity to Turn Undead.
I'm not even a know-it-all rules lawyer for 5th Edition, like I can be for PF (at least CRB & APG PF).
I thought we had decent rapport, but apparently not.
He might be targeting you because he heard you complaining about his GMing to other people or online. It isn't fair, but it probably seems fair in his mind. I mean why not push the bad stuff he has planned in the direction of the guy he already knows he can't do anything to unimpress any more and spare the ones he may still win.
I've never complained about his GMing or DMing before this.
That's why it seemed to come out of nowhere.
I don't think I did anything to deserve this?
I play a support cleric. I heal and buff. I don't one-shot BBEG or use my magic to disrupt anything. I don't even use divinations to bust mysteries or learn secrets that would ruin things. Occasionally I would use a trump card ability, like an augmented guided bolt or Channel Divinity to Turn Undead.
I'm not even a know-it-all rules lawyer for 5th Edition, like I can be for PF (at least CRB & APG PF).
I thought we had decent rapport, but apparently not.
If you were a know-it-all 5e Rules Lawyer, you'd know that there's no clause in the Cleric class that says their powers can get yanked away by their deity.
Seriously. It doesn't say that anywhere.
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I guess it depends on your viewpoint. I consider all 5E DMs to be new. My point was that he may well have leapt to something which happened in previous editions without thinking through that 'loss of level' isn't really a thing in 5E.
I appreciate he's not an inexperienced DM.
Pathfinder doesn't have any way to lose a level either. Negative levels aren't actually the same thing at all.
I didn't see (until Smilodan's most recent post) the OP say that. I saw "concession" which I guess you've inferred an out-of-session conversation (?)
In context? Yeah, that's pretty much how I read that. Or at least in-session, but OOC and extensive, discussion.
Regardless - if that's happened and the DM is insisting on imposing a penalty the player has declared to be "unfun" then I don't have any issue with labelling him jerkish (or poor, or whatever your terminology is).
If that out-of-session chat hasn't happened, then I think it should.
I definitely agree that the chat needs to happen if it hasn't.
Was the post you quoted removed afterwards? I can't find it.
It appears to have been. Huh. Weird.
Pathfinder doesn't have any way to lose a level either. Negative levels aren't actually the same thing at all.I guess it depends on your viewpoint. I consider all 5E DMs to be new. My point was that he may well have leapt to something which happened in previous editions without thinking through that 'loss of level' isn't really a thing in 5E.
I appreciate he's not an inexperienced DM.
I meant AD&D - the OP referred to him as a grognard.
Irrespective, I'm just hypothesising - without being able to ask him, who knows? I just really struggle to believe there are such blatantly malicious DMs around (there are far more subtle and unchallengable ways to mess with a PC). I have no trouble believing there are DMs around who mistakenly think this kind of thing is a good idea.
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I've taken away a divine character's powers once. Funny enough, it also happened to be in RotRL.
She was a Neutral-Evil cleric of Urgathoa. She'd been having some run-ins with the rest of the party (particularly the Sarenrae-favouring Oracle) due to her undead-related-stuff, and when the whole deal at the end of Misgivings all came to light (she did not like the fungus-on-the-wall guy), she decided undeath really wasn't her thing, and started looking for somewhere else to turn.
Ended up spending some time at the temple of Pharasma in Magnimar. Pretty sure Urgathoa wouldn't continue providing divine power after that, so we went through a week or so (while the party was following up with investigative leads in town) where the cleric didn't have any powers, and had to attend prayers and such at the Pharasma temple. She got back just her channeling for the first actual fight or two the party had after that, then fully gained Pharasma's confidence and power when the party came up against a certain Lamia Matriarch.
That kind of stuff seems like the sort of roleplay the cleric cause is meant for; not being an a*$+&** GM and taking away powers on a whim just to spite the player.
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I don't think I did anything to deserve this?
This is your classic DM sets up hostage situation, expects moral dilemma, players don't bite scenario.
My guess is that the DM was expecting some heart-wrenching RP over this scenario, and I'm going to furthermore guess that the players didn't RP much at all, decided out of character quickly how to respond and then proceeded.
This struck the DM as poor roleplaying, and the first solution that came to his mind was divine judgment.
Any chance that could be how your DM is perceiving the situation?
Maybe, but then he doubled down on the malice.
Well the main reason is that divine casters get their power from a deity, so they have to keep them happy, mechanically this means they get nice things like casting in armour, better base attack bonus etc. compared to arcane casters who generally don't get armour, are useless with weapons and have less health, in return their power is their own.
Well the main reason is that divine casters get their power from a deity, so they have to keep them happy, mechanically this means they get nice things like casting in armour, better base attack bonus etc. compared to arcane casters who generally don't get armour, are useless with weapons and have less health, in return their power is their own.
Sure, but you kind of need armor as a divine caster. The cleric spell list is built on the assumption that you have armor so you can get in close and heal or attack. It's not as powerful as the arcane list. I honestly don't think the devs consider the deity thing as a balance metric, it's more to keep the theme.
This may have been different in previous editions, but I'm not as well versed in that area.
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Well the main reason is that divine casters get their power from a deity, so they have to keep them happy, mechanically this means they get nice things like casting in armour, better base attack bonus etc. compared to arcane casters who generally don't get armour, are useless with weapons and have less health, in return their power is their own.
Well, no, this isn't a reason because it is entirely made up. One class has a clause for losing their class abilities for stupid nonsense reasons, and it isn't the cleric. (And 5e isn't even as hardcore in that regard for the paladin)
The difference in armor, BAB and etc come from the perceived power and role difference between the cleric and wizard spell lists.
And given the fact that some of those differences don't even exist in the edition under discussion (5th, and BAB, saves, etc) it is even less relevant than it would normally be.
Removing a player's ability to participate in the game (which is what stripping class abilities amounts to), is pretty much entirely beyond the pale behavior. It was the cause of a lot of fights and acrimony back in editions where it was theoretically viable to be a Gygaxian jerk DM, but it is really out of place past 1st/2nd edition, and a few backwards pieces of third (failing saves against negative levels, ability drain)
Removing a player's ability to participate in the game (which is what stripping class abilities amounts to), is pretty much entirely beyond the pale behavior. It was the cause of a lot of fights and acrimony back in editions where it was theoretically viable to be a Gygaxian jerk DM, but it is really out of place past 1st/2nd edition, and a few backwards pieces of third (failing saves against negative levels, ability drain)
It all comes down to personal preference. Some players think PCs losing class abilities for egregious alignment violations is dirty pool.
Some people think an enemy targeting a PC's equipment is dirty pool.
Some people even think PC deaths of any kind are dirty pool.
There's not one answer for all.
Well the main reason is that divine casters get their power from a deity, so they have to keep them happy, mechanically this means they get nice things like casting in armour, better base attack bonus etc. compared to arcane casters who generally don't get armour, are useless with weapons and have less health, in return their power is their own.
Actually, all you need to do to cast arcane spells in Armor is know how to wear armor. A wizard can cast all the spells they want in Full Plate if they can get the proficiency.
It's why mountain dwarf wizards are awesome, since they begin play knowing how to wear medium armor no matter their class.
And I'm going to reiterate that Clerics and Paladins don't lose their class features, no matter what, in default 5e. There are no rules about falling in the Player's Handbook whatsoever.
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Yeah, I think it was Grognard being a Grognard.
There was a reason I fled 2nd Edition as fast as I could.
