Cleric / paladin Class features after a deity's death

[Danny StarDust]

Hi all,

I've been pondering on this for a while now, but what happens to Paladins, Clerics, Warpriests, Inquisitors and perhaps Oracles who's diety died or was killed? I assume they loose their spellcasting, because the spells were powered by their deity, but what happens to other Class features?

And if the deity dies, could the character switch to a similar deity and regain the uses of the class features?

For instance, a warpriest of Cerncunnos with the Animal and Good Blessing. Cernunnos gets killed, could the warpriest (after mourning ofcourse) pick up on Desna's faith? Could the character still use all the warpriest class features, and just switch the Animal blessing to a blessing of Desna? Or does the character lose the use of the Animal blessing?

What are your thoughts?

Cheers

[Fox Soul]

Well, think of it from the Witch perspective. It pretty much states that they gain their spells from their patron.

Now for the other classes...
I have a hard time finding anything that exactly states that they gain all their powers from their deity, (I've only checked Paladin and Cleric).

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For Cleric it states under the domains that...
"A cleric's deity influences her alignment, what magic she can perform, her values, and how others see her."

This is only an influence. Which in a way only guides their subjects, and does not necessarily state that they gain their functionality from their deities.

Then for Channel energy...
"Regardless of alignment, any cleric can release a wave of energy by channeling the power of her faith through her holy (or unholy) symbol."

When I think of "faith," I think of what drives your Will power to make magic. Which would mean, regardless if their deity is dead or not, they should be able to channel energy through sheer Will power.

Which is why Ex-Clerics lose all their abilities and spells, as they are going against their own morals/ethics. Which can kill your Will to continue doing magic... or living...

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For Paladins, becomes a problem here when you look at Divine Bond...
"Upon reaching 5th level, a paladin forms a divine bond with her god."

From reading this, I get the impression that the Divine Bond is heavily affected by a god's death. To the point of no longer functioning.

So, from my perspective it looks like some classes can keep functioning as normal as their "faith" is not drawing power from their gods, but from within.

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For the idea of picking up a new faith to continue their class functionality, as some classes apparently need more than just sheer force of Will.

For Paladin's and Witches, the idea is simple as all your doing is forming a new bond with a new entity.

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The big problem here is HOW are you going to do this?

For a Witch, to contact their Patron was always done through their familiar, which I am pretty sure will stop functioning or existing when the Patron dies.

Even the spell "Contact Other Plane" becomes impossible, since a witch uses it through their familiar.

Making me believe a Witch will probably go throughout the rest of their lives without a second Patron.

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For Paladins, I can imagine they can just go to another Church, and will have to spend a great deal of time to get the chance to form a new bond with their new god.

With the only things being impacted are god specific feats, and abilities.

Which, you could retrain your feats to match that of the new god.

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Now, i don't own any of the books, and I am not going to go download all the PDFs just to confirm everything from Paizo's or Archives of Nethys is correct. But, I this is my idea of how faith would be handled in Pathfinder from the limited knowledge I have.

[Meirril]

There are 3 thoughts that can be followed here.

The first one is that a cleric can choose to convert to a new deity. The cleric has to have beliefs that follow the deity they choose. Alignment alone shouldn't be enough. Whatever the deity is concerned with the cleric attempting to change faiths should match at least one aspect of the new deity. When the GM approves of this change, the cleric regains his spellcasting ability and should pick 2 of the deity's domains. Or they could be a heretic as long as they match one of the deity's domains and retain one of their former domains.

The second thought is that some clerics don't have deities. Clerics are allowed to uphold and draw power from philosophies and ideals in Pathfinder. Or a cleric could represent a pantheon instead of an individual deity. Allowing a cleric to transition from a single deity worshiper to either a philosophy or a pantheon cleric would be simple with no changes required in the character.

The third thought is an extension of the whole philosophy idea. Why would a cleric lose their powers if the deity died? Treat the former deity as a philosophy. This goes against the normal idea of a deity's death. When Aroden died his priests did lose their powers until they moved under Iomedae, so allowing this third option goes against the spirit of such an act. But technically there is nothing that states that a cleric has to follow a living god to gain powers. If some whack job can worship "perfect forms" and gain divine powers, why not "a dead deity's remembrance"?

[Mysterious Stranger]

A lot of this is going to depend on the campaign. In the Golarion setting the default is that most divine casters have to have a deity, that is not the case in other settings. According to the rules it is possible to be a divine caster who is a worshiper of a concept instead of a deity. Obviously if you don’t worship a deity it cannot die. Even in a setting where divine casters have to worship a deity oracles do not. Their powers come from their mystery not a deity. Often several deities may support the mystery and in many cases the deities are not ones that would normally be cooperative.

If a divine caster is drawing their power from a deity and it dies there is precedence for it causing them to lose their powers. When Aroden died his clerics did lose their powers. Going with the same example most of his former clerics where absorbed into the church of Iomedae and presumably regained their powers. That pretty well establishes that a cleric can switch deities. This is also the way it worked in D&D from the beginning.

[zza ni]

back in 2ed (old school, AD&D ) divine spells of up to 4th level were powered by the caster himself. so casters who got cut off from their god (by accident or from gross conduct) found themselves unable to perform spells of 5th level and higher (back then divine spells maxed at 7th level btw). while still being able to cast 1st to 4th level spells.

[Cevah]

Actually, the 2nd edition cleric could only get 2nd without the diety's servants. This was especially true for plane hopping access. One 2nd level spell was designed to re-establish the link need to gain spells.

/cevah

[PossibleCabbage]

It's canonical that on Golarion Aroden's clerics (etc.) lost all their spells when he died or whatever happened to him, as this is how people learned "something happened to Aroden". A good number of them just switched over to Iomedae when she basically took over his job and thereafter regained magical powers, however.

[deuxhero]

Paladins don't need to worship a deity, even in Golarion.

[PossibleCabbage]

deuxhero wrote:

Paladins don't need to worship a deity, even in Golarion.

Unfortunately, this was not true in the playtest which was the #1 thing I objected most strenuously (and frequently) about during the playtest, so I hope that gets fixed.

[UnArcaneElection]

Pathfinder 1st Edition does have the following possibilities if you can't find a new deity:

• Channeler of the Unknown Cleric
  
• Vindictive Bastard Paladin
  
• Heretic Inquisitor

[Danny StarDust]

UnArcaneElection wrote:

Pathfinder 1st Edition does have the following possibilities if you can't find a new deity:

• Channeler of the Unknown Cleric
  
• Vindictive Bastard Paladin
  
• Heretic Inquisitor

These are awesome! Thanks!