I think an Anti-Cleric is a reasonable class

[Clarence Bugman]

I've recently had a character who is a Cleric of Gorum lose a family member due to some cultists of Norgorber. Now her passion against that cult and Norgorber is greater than to her devotion to Gorum and what I would love to do is to take a level, or several, in anti-Cleric of Norgorber.

Yes, home-brew rules would make this fly easily, but it got me thinking about the mechanic. Instead of having a deity give your character power, you declare war against a certain deity and all of it's nemeses give you divine aid to put a thorn in it's side. I think it is just as reasonable to have a god notice and reach down to imbue power to a lowly mortal worshiping them as it would be for a god to find someone driven by passion against another god and use that person to wage a little proxy war. Even if it is a passionate hate or vengeance, the anti-cleric isn't necessarily an evil person either. Just very, very serious about their grudges.

[The Sideromancer]

One can be a cleric or inquisitor of an ideal. Hence, you could load up on defences against aligned spells/summons and vengeance-themed stuff.

[Dotraj]

It's a cool idea, but I don't think it needs it's own class. The antipaladin-paladin gap is much wider than this alignment-wise, and all they did was invert the abilities. I'd say an archetype would work, but an alternate class would be pushing it. Isn't there a feat (UC or UM) that gives you bonuses against enemies wielding your god's weapon? Convince your GM to let you take that, but with Norgober's weapon instead (dagger right?).

[Serisan]

There are a lot of ways to do this within the existing system. Warpriest, Cleric, and Inquisitor are all good classes for creating this feeling and there are already natural grudges between certain deities. Gorum tends to dislike Norgorber already, for example, because Norgorber doesn't accept direct fights, uses poison, murders, etc. As such, your character's preoccupation with killing Norgorberites is a genuinely reasonable justification for Gorum to grant you spells each day.

There's a difference between the paladin and anti-paladin because there are restrictions placed on the classes that prevent certain play styles. The same issue does not exist for the majority of other divine casters.

[QuidEst]

I think it'd make a great Oracle archetype. Oracles get power from vague/multiple sources, making them good for this sort of thing. The curse can either be the anger of your target or the cost of aid. Without making any homebrew, Intrigue and Spellscar mysteries are good. Intrigue works well for infiltration, taking things down from the inside, while Spellscar has a lot of magic-hate in it, working well in combination with feats and traits that focus on divine casters.

For existing stuff, I think Ranger and Investigator both got archetypes for fighting specific groups. Medium gets a spirit for this, but only against good churches.

[Clarence Bugman]

Dotraj wrote:

It's a cool idea, but I don't think it needs it's own class. The antipaladin-paladin gap is much wider than this alignment-wise, and all they did was invert the abilities. I'd say an archetype would work, but an alternate class would be pushing it. Isn't there a feat (UC or UM) that gives you bonuses against enemies wielding your god's weapon? Convince your GM to let you take that, but with Norgober's weapon instead (dagger right?).

I'll look for that feat, bonus against a dagger would likely prove helpful. Better than something like a whip or trident that a character may, unfortunately, never see.

I could get on board for a archetype, getting a sort of Favored Enemy against a certain follower would be nice.

[The Sideromancer]

Norgrober has short sword as favoured weapon, not dagger.

[Wu Nakitu]

Yeah, there are feats out there that give you bonuses against specific deities; that sounds more fitting to me than trying to make the class with the least class features in the game do something radically different.

[SheepishEidolon]

There is the Divine Defiance feat (+2 on saves vs. divine sources) and those building on it. One of them, Focused Disbelief, specializes on getting SR vs. a chosen deity, the others help generally with battling clerics etc..

I didn't find any other feat focussed on battling followers of a specific deity. There are some feats vs. divine spellcasters, and some vs. casters in general, though.

[Serisan]

SheepishEidolon wrote:

There is the Divine Defiance feat (+2 on saves vs. divine sources) and those building on it. One of them, Focused Disbelief, specializes on getting SR vs. a chosen deity, the others help generally with battling clerics etc..

I didn't find any other feat focussed on battling followers of a specific deity. There are some feats vs. divine spellcasters, and some vs. casters in general, though.

It's worth noting that Divine Defiance would not work for the character that the OP mentioned as it is already a cleric.

[Clarence Bugman]

With all that's been said, a new feat or two might work best really. An archetype would be cool but for a character that develops into this relationship with the enemy deity, taking the archetype is no longer an option. Things I think would be cool to see for it are (and it sounds like in part some of these do exist):
-Bonus to saves and checks against followers of the deity
-Bonus to Attack Rolls against followers of the deity
-Detect if someone answers to the deity

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

It's certainly a novel, even worthy, idea. An Archetype might be worth it. It would be interesting if they could somehow make a Cleric Archetype that lost spellcasting and gained a fair trade of some sort (Blessings/Inquisitions, more with level?).

[Drahliana Moonrunner]

What's the logic behind an Anti-Cleric? What IS an anti-cleric supposed to be mechanically?

The Paladin example does not apply because unlike Clerics, Paladins are required to be ONE SPECIFIC alignment, whereas clerics can be any alignment that their god will accept.

An anti-paladin is simply a paladin who's supposed to be ANOTHER SPECIFIC alignment, with some paladin tools changed to fit.

[The Dandy Lion]

Closest thing I've seen is the Divine Champion warpriest archetype, which chooses one deity to champion and gets favoured enemy against faiths they oppose. Definitely not what you're after, though.

I do like this concept of a specific faith hunter, though.

[Chess Pwn]

there are already archetypes that are focused on attacking a certain religion in the divine classes.

[Pan]

Cant an inquisitor fit this bill? I could see traits providing these;

-Bonus to saves and checks against followers of the deity
-Bonus to Attack Rolls against followers of the deity

and a feat doing this;

-Detect if someone answers to the deity

[Clarence Bugman]

Drahliana Moonrunner wrote:

What's the logic behind an Anti-Cleric? What IS an anti-cleric supposed to be mechanically?

The logic is instead of being the champion of a deity, litterally their voice in the material plane and drawing power from upholding their faith, you'd be the active disparager of a deity, working to erraticate every sign of their existance and drawing power from other forces that oppose the deity. Nothing to do with alignment. Mechanically it is similar to several things that exist though, an amalgamation of the Inquisitor, Cleric, Ranger and some feats.

The purpose for the post though, which in retrospect maybe have been misphrased, was as things happen during a character's life what options do they have to develop in direct opposition of an entity or idea?

[Darigaaz the Igniter]

I'd say either make archetypes for cleric, inquisitor, and warpriest; or make it a prestige class. Either way, give them favored enemy bonuses against worshipers of the hated deity, maybe increased saves and ac too. I'm liking the idea of prestige clas, personally. Call it the Blasphemer or something similarly anti-that-other-religion.