Champion 1 / Cleric 1
Your faith in your deity is represented in an extremely unusual way that some might call heretical. When you select this feat, you should detail the fundamental tenets of your splinter faith, though it shouldn’t affect the deity’s edicts or anathema. Choose four domains. These domains must be chosen from among your deity’s domains, your deity’s alternate domains, and up to one domain that isn’t on either list and isn’t anathematic to your deity. Any domain spell you cast from a domain that isn’t on either of your deity’s lists is always heightened to 1 level lower than usual for a focus spell. For the purpose of abilities that depend on your deity’s domains, the four domains you chose are your deity’s domains, and any of your deity’s domains you didn’t choose are now among your deity’s alternate domains.
Special Unless you take this feat at 1st level, changing the way you relate to your deity requires retraining, as described in the Changing Faith section below. If you take this feat and previously benefited from any effect that requires a domain your splinter faith doesn’t include, such as a domain spell from Domain Initiate, you lose that effect.
So, am I right in understanding that only humans can be part of a Splinter Faith from first level, due to Natural Ambition?
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Only human *clerics* can, looks like. Any Champion can take it, since they get a class feat at first level.
That said, I could envision a Cleric Doctrine called "Heterodox Cleric" or something that mostly looked like a Cloistered Cleric but got this instead of Domain Initiate at first level. So, talk to your GM if it interests you, I guess.
Gods and Magic definitely included future proofing language which suggests that more doctrines are forth coming, hopefully in the APG if not earlier. The only problem with having a doctrine that uses splinterfaith as its level 1 granted feat is that the feat doesn't really do much if you are not trying to use domains. It is a little towards the unfun side of things to have a 1st level power that is completely meaningless until 4th level (the earliest a non human would be capable of picking 2 domain powers and utilizing the feature. Unless we get some boosted backgrounds in a future AP that would grant class feats, I think it would be difficult to design a doctrine that granted both a domain power and another class feat...Unless maybe it was a doctrine that was heavily focused on domain powers and sacrificed later casting proficiencies for a little more upfront, but that seems like a bad idea since so many domain powers rely on spell casting proficiency.
Champions just got real interesting though because dual-god championing is not something I remember ever hearing about in pathfinder lore before.
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Not a fan of the precedent this sets for nonhuman spellcasters.
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If you want to go outside your deity's domains you can use Syncretism, which is also a level 1 cleric feat but can be chosen later. Add a second deity you worship, if you're a cloistered cleric get a domain from their list. You're hit with the edicts and anathema, but whatever.
If you want to go outside your deity's domains you can use Syncretism, which is also a level 1 cleric feat but can be chosen later. Add a second deity you worship, if you're a cloistered cleric get a domain from their list. You're hit with the edicts and anathema, but whatever.
I'm curious what this means for patron deity: would you have two when you're officially worshiping and gaining spells from 2 gods?
Not a fan of the precedent this sets for nonhuman spellcasters.
Look at it the other way. Humans are just more likely to start up strange splinter cults than other ancestries, who much prefer traditional approaches to their faiths. :) :) :)
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Not a fan of the precedent this sets for nonhuman spellcasters.
This is basically the same problem as "human rogues can be aldori duelists at level 2, elf rogues have to wait until 7th level". The extra feats you can get from being human make "being nonhuman" excessively punitive for certain mechanics.
Not a fan of the precedent this sets for nonhuman spellcasters.This is basically the same problem as "human rogues can be aldori duelists at level 2, elf rogues have to wait until 7th level". The extra feats you can get from being human make "being nonhuman" excessively punitive for certain mechanics.
Is it really a problem though?
It's essentially the Human advantage of being versatile/flexible coming through via them being able to access more builds with less work than other Ancestries.
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Well its not a problem for humans.
But the difference between being able to adopt your archetype at level 2 and level 7 seems pretty severe. At least for this specific feat, you can choose it at level 2, it is just incredibly punitive to do so in game. I'm not sure how something like that would be handled in PFS.
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Well its not a problem for humans.
But the difference between being able to adopt your archetype at level 2 and level 7 seems pretty severe. At least for this specific feat, you can choose it at level 2, it is just incredibly punitive to do so in game. I'm not sure how something like that would be handled in PFS.
Well, Splinter Faith is restricted in PFS, so that point is moot.
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This is basically the same problem as "human rogues can be aldori duelists at level 2, elf rogues have to wait until 7th level". The extra feats you can get from being human make "being nonhuman" excessively punitive for certain mechanics.
TBH, the premise of this sentiment seems based on ignoring that Aldori are Humans. Would anybody complain about it being "easier" for Elves to manage an Ekujae prestige class? Would anybody complain about it being easier for Dwarves to manage an Ouat prestige class? (actually directly comparable to Aldori, being social class within Dwarven ethnicity Pahmet) No. Aldori are social class within particular Human nationality, and even if they don't formally discriminate and non-Human Aldori swordlords can and do exist, it's supposed to be Human centric thing within the setting. I mean, it's also harder for Humans not from the region to become an Aldori swordlord, that's just part of the schtick. That the "difficulty" only occurs with certain classes makes it more of a non-issue IMHO.
the premise of this sentiment seems based on ignoring that Aldori are Humans.
This is an overly simplistic response that ignores the broader point in favor of just taking the low hanging fruit of harping over the specific example. Yes, Aldori are human. But this applies to any and every option with similar mechanics and to things like splinter faith here and any other feat written in a similar way.
So we end up in this circular logic where it's easier for humans because it's human centric and it's human centric because it's easier for humans but all that's actually happened is that it's kind of tedious for anyone who isn't playing a specific type of human to qualify for a bunch of feats.
Cool I guess?
Is the game actually better for making it annoying for elves or goblins to join splinter faitihs?
That the "difficulty" only occurs with certain classes makes it more of a non-issue IMHO.
It also kind of undermines your point of it being an ancestral thing though.
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I think the better argument is just that while joining at the lowest possible level is nice, having to wait a bit isn't actually that nasty a penalty.
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But the thing is, if your concept for your character has "splinter faith" as a very important thing for who this person is, and you're playing a cleric then the only way you can start with a character that's in line with your concept is "be human."
My biggest issue with it is that it ties the mechanical benefit to a belief change. But only the human cleric is even possibly walking around with focus powers from 2 different domains at level 1 anyway, so why specify that your character can’t be a part of the splinter faith from the beginning, but not benefit from the changed domains unless they later take the feat? That is what feels unnecessarily punitive.