Normally, a cleric who loses faith loses power associated with that faith.
The Razmiran Priest archetype says that if you take Cleric Dedication, that it must be for Razmir.
But what if my Razmiran Priest loses faith (if indeed he ever truly had it)?
Could I play an ex-Razmiran Priest that continues advancing via Razmiran Priest and Razmir cleric feats? Or would I have to stop taking them, or even lose access to what I had?
Is it possible for me to worship another deity as an ex-Razmiran Priest, or does the limitation imposed upon Cleric Dedication prevent that?
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If your Razmiran Priest loses faith then the GM should give you some form of retraining that you will use to remove everything that is linked to Razmir.
It's not something that should be handled by the rules but through player-GM discussion.
And if he never truly believed in the first place, but was only after power and Prestige? What then?
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That's an interesting question I don't think we have a good answer for. At least some of the powers granted by the Razmiran Priest archetype are probably just magical secrets anyone could use, but others probably draw some power from the cult itself, which you might lose if you're exiled. Deciding which are which is up to you and your GM.
My personal thoughts: You probably lose the cleric archetype powers for breaking your anathema. From a watsonian perspective, these powers are designed to mimic divine power so closely they probably work very similarly*. But the Razmiran Priest archetype doesn't have edicts or anthema. You might be able to keep using your powers from the archetype, although wearing your mask would attract the Razmirans hunting you and they're not going to teach you new things
*From a Doylist/RAW perspective, nothing in the Razmiran Priest Dedication feat overrides the cleric dedication binding you to Razmir's edicts and amathema.
And if he never truly believed in the first place, but was only after power and Prestige? What then?
This isn't a rules question. This is something you need to talk to your GM about.
Doesn't the dedication include mention that some of the priests were only in it for the power?
If so, Im not sure what else a Razmirian needs to believe in beyond that
I think I remember some anathema and edicts from the Wisdom Check video, but I don't think they included exclusive worship.
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The way I see it: Razmiran Priest lets you take Cleric Dedication. Cleric Dedication states:
"Choose a deity as you would if you were a cleric. You become bound by that deity’s anathema and can receive that deity’s divine sanctification. You become trained in Religion and your deity’s associated skill; for each of these skills in which you were already trained, you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. You don’t gain any other abilities from your choice of deity."
And then, in Cleric, under Anathema:
"If you perform enough acts that are anathema to your deity, you lose the magical abilities that come from your connection to your deity. The class features that you lose are determined by the GM, but they likely include your divine font and all cleric spellcasting."
And Razmir has Anathema, which are:
"Anathema: disobey Razmir or one of his priests, question the truth of the Living God"
Which means, if your priest loses faith, which would mean questioning the truth of the Living God, you'd likely lose access to all your cleric spellcasting, retaining everything else, but it's up to the GM in the end.
"Losing faith" seems like a pretty squishy thing.
The anathema seems pretty easy to work around, first by running far away from other Razmirans and never ever contacting Razmir, second, by never ever even discussing Razmir, for any reason!
No guarantees of course, but the possibility that the cult catches up with you is kinda the characters main hook anyway.
Since you yourself are a priest, your commands are as good as anyone else's, no?
This could lead to a wonderful show down between con artists, flimflam flying everywhere,where you command yourself to not listen, or you command them to to stop commanding you or you could just plug your ears and kill them-there's no anathema against that, now is there?
Given the nature of this deity,I would be inclined to become a cleric of another deity, only to claim that that deity is an aspect of Razmir!
Depending on the other deity,they might even appreciate the duplicity!
The Dedication says "You can take the Cleric Dedication feat without needing to meet its prerequisites and before you take two other feats from the Razmiran priest archetype, but you must choose Razmir as your deity."
But what if I DO meet the prerequisites? Can I select a deity other than Razmir then? It seems that, that requirement is only needed to cheat the standard prerequisites and gain the Dedication perks.
It later goes on to say "when gained in this way" implying that you can gain it another (the standard) way.
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I don't feel like believing that a specific god is real (or at least really a god) doesn't play all that significant of a role in whether you can gain powers from them. Certainly it would be strange not to--you're still obeying their doctrine and performing their rites perfectly and communing with their power, which would be rather strange to do for an entity you don't think actually think has divine power.
On the other hand, this could just be the reading I've been doing on historical polytheistic religions lately. The focus on "My god is real and I believe in them" seems to be a bit more of a modern concern compared to "I did the ritual correctly/incorrectly and the god was/wasn't pleased and I did/didn't get what I wanted out of it" that seems to dominate the practice of polytheistic religions. It doesn't matter what you believe, it matters what you do, and that you do it correctly.
... Of course, this is D&D/PF religion, not historical polytheism, but I don't think you can't use one to benefit your understanding of the other. In Pathfinder religion, the moral outlook of the deity, and whether or not that lines up with the cleric, certainly matters a lot more than in history, but when it comes down to it, it's most important to obey your deity's tenets (and presumably perform the off-screen rites that get handwaved as a part of being a cleric).
That said, Razmir does specifically have an anathema against questioning his truth. Personally, I'd be focused on the act of questioning--i.e. openly doubting or asking questions--over the questioning, doubting thoughts.
I can see where you can make a reasonable argument that Razmir would punish anyone who thinks he is not a deity if it were up to him (although it's not, since he's not), but to put it another way: You're not questioning the truth of Razmir if you don't doubt it's a lie. This may seem like legalistic word-wrangling around the anathema, but it strikes me as actually very appropriate for this deity specifically. After all, being skilled at 'wielding the truth' with subtlety is a feat in this archetype that grants you bonuses to Deception.
Unless we're to assume that Razmiran priests are exclusively made up of those worshippers who truly believe (whether out of zeal or for personal gain)--which admittedly is very possible--we have to assume that 'questioning the truth' is not incompatible with a certain amount of lip-service.
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An excerpt from the description of the Abandoned zealot monster : "Abandoned zealots are most commonly associated with the church of Razmir, which upholds a mortal wizard as a god—a truth unknown to most worshippers."
I think even most Razmiran Priests do not know this truth and have a strong heartfelt faith in their god.
An excerpt from the description of the Abandoned zealot monster : "Abandoned zealots are most commonly associated with the church of Razmir, which upholds a mortal wizard as a god—a truth unknown to most worshippers."
I think even most Razmiran Priests do not know this truth and have a strong heartfelt faith in their god.
Oh, fair and true, although I feel like "most worshippers" could easily be covered in bulk by the laity, and still have room for folk of the cloth to have a mixed bag of true believers and cynics without disrupting the lore text in the abandoned zealot description. No doubt your average citizen of Razmiran is a believer in the Living God, even if they don't cast divine spells.
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The Dedication says "You can take the Cleric Dedication feat without needing to meet its prerequisites and before you take two other feats from the Razmiran priest archetype, but you must choose Razmir as your deity."
But what if I DO meet the prerequisites? Can I select a deity other than Razmir then? It seems that, that requirement is only needed to cheat the standard prerequisites and gain the Dedication perks.
It later goes on to say "when gained in this way" implying that you can gain it another (the standard) way.
If you do meet the pre-requisites then yes you can take Cleric Dedication for any other Deity you want, following the usual rules. And you could still keep taking feats from Razmiran Priest, since the archetype doesn't require you to take Cleric Dedication for Razmir at any point, nor does it say you lose the benefits if you worship another god.
The thing is though, because Razmiran Priest only has 2nd, 6th, 10th and 20th level feats, the earliest you could take proper Cleric Dedication would be 12th, or 9th with Multitalented.
An interesting quirk here that I'm not sure is intended is that you could, technically, take Razmiran Priest Dedication and then, using either Multitalented or just waiting until level 12th, take Cleric Dedication and choose Razmir as your deity, gaining actual divine power from him. Since gaining devotee powers from him only requires having the Archetype, not the Archetype's particular brand of Cleric Dedication.
Or you could be a Cleric of a proper deity, take the dedication, then change your deity to Razmir. Which is even funnier.
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"If you perform enough acts that are anathema to your deity, you lose the magical abilities that come from your connection to your deity. The class features that you lose are determined by the GM, but they likely include your divine font and all cleric spellcasting."
Razmir is a weird case because Cleric wants to work a certain way, but Razmir fundamentally doesn't work that way. He doesn't give his followers power, unlike the actual gods that other Clerics get their magic from.
So how would the anathema even work here? You lose your own magical power because you think it's coming from Razmir and you lose that by questioning him?
That's fundamentally an internal problem to the character: if you realize that Razmir is a fake then you will also realize that it was you actually doing all that magic all along. It's not like pissing off Abadar who will absolutely deny his power to you until you atone. Razmir never gave you anything that can be taken away.
And we circle back to: Ask your GM.
Whatever weird mechanical idea we have around this dedication leads to crazy backstories that should be much better embodied by another build.
The Dedication says "You can take the Cleric Dedication feat without needing to meet its prerequisites and before you take two other feats from the Razmiran priest archetype, but you must choose Razmir as your deity."
But what if I DO meet the prerequisites? Can I select a deity other than Razmir then? It seems that, that requirement is only needed to cheat the standard prerequisites and gain the Dedication perks.
It later goes on to say "when gained in this way" implying that you can gain it another (the standard) way.
If you do meet the pre-requisites then yes you can take Cleric Dedication for any other Deity you want, following the usual rules. And you could still keep taking feats from Razmiran Priest, since the archetype doesn't require you to take Cleric Dedication for Razmir at any point, nor does it say you lose the benefits if you worship another god.
The thing is though, because Razmiran Priest only has 2nd, 6th, 10th and 20th level feats, the earliest you could take proper Cleric Dedication would be 12th, or 9th with Multitalented.
An interesting quirk here that I'm not sure is intended is that you could, technically, take Razmiran Priest Dedication and then, using either Multitalented or just waiting until level 12th, take Cleric Dedication and choose Razmir as your deity, gaining actual divine power from him. Since gaining devotee powers from him only requires having the Archetype, not the Archetype's particular brand of Cleric Dedication.
Or you could be a Cleric of a proper deity, take the dedication, then change your deity to Razmir. Which is even funnier.
Actually, you could take Cleric Dedication at 4 with Razmiran Priest. The dedication feat itself allows this in the first sentence of paragraph two.
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Actually, you could take Cleric Dedication at 4 with Razmiran Priest. The dedication feat itself allows this in the first sentence of paragraph two.
Indeed. Razmiran Priest Dedication says you can ignore the prerequisites of Cleric Dedication as well as the two archetype feat limitation (but only with the Cleric multiclass archetype).
It also turns all Cleric spells and abilities from Divine to Occult, let's you cast using Charisma rather than Wisdom, and grants you a magical mask that can grant 24 hour temporary hit points to someone equal to twice your level every minute!
That's Toughness x2 for the whole party (and their pets) for nearly every encounter. (And it stacks with Toughness too!)
Razmir! Razmir!! Razmir!!!
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"If you perform enough acts that are anathema to your deity, you lose the magical abilities that come from your connection to your deity. The class features that you lose are determined by the GM, but they likely include your divine font and all cleric spellcasting."Razmir is a weird case because Cleric wants to work a certain way, but Razmir fundamentally doesn't work that way. He doesn't give his followers power, unlike the actual gods that other Clerics get their magic from.
So how would the anathema even work here? You lose your own magical power because you think it's coming from Razmir and you lose that by questioning him?
That's fundamentally an internal problem to the character: if you realize that Razmir is a fake then you will also realize that it was you actually doing all that magic all along. It's not like pissing off Abadar who will absolutely deny his power to you until you atone. Razmir never gave you anything that can be taken away.
Well, RAW, Razmir has anathema. Breaking them means you lose the abilities. How is an interesting question.
My pet theory is that, since it is Occult, it uses the magic of symbols and stories. Maybe you get an item that grants you the magic by linking to some symbol important to Razmir and when you break the anathema by stopping to give weight to the stories, you lose the occult connection and thus the power.
An item like a magical mask maybe.
Yes, I also saw the mask and it's rather broken. I feel it should be once per day or once per day per character. But as is, it's just completely out of line.
Yes, I also saw the mask and it's rather broken. I feel it should be once per day or once per day per character. But as is, it's just completely out of line.
Gotta' be careful not to take it too far in the other direction too though.
If all the Razmiran Priest's abilities are strictly inferior to that of a cleric, the question quickly becomes, why not just play a cleric?
(And just to be clear, I don't think they should be equivalent to clerics, but certainly different and somewhere in the vicinity.)
My first thought was that it is emulating the cleric's ability to heal, so maybe give it a number of daily uses equal to a cleric's font? But I think I like your idea better.
Actually, you could take Cleric Dedication at 4 with Razmiran Priest. The dedication feat itself allows this in the first sentence of paragraph two.The Dedication says "You can take the Cleric Dedication feat without needing to meet its prerequisites and before you take two other feats from the Razmiran priest archetype, but you must choose Razmir as your deity."
But what if I DO meet the prerequisites? Can I select a deity other than Razmir then? It seems that, that requirement is only needed to cheat the standard prerequisites and gain the Dedication perks.
It later goes on to say "when gained in this way" implying that you can gain it another (the standard) way.
If you do meet the pre-requisites then yes you can take Cleric Dedication for any other Deity you want, following the usual rules. And you could still keep taking feats from Razmiran Priest, since the archetype doesn't require you to take Cleric Dedication for Razmir at any point, nor does it say you lose the benefits if you worship another god.
The thing is though, because Razmiran Priest only has 2nd, 6th, 10th and 20th level feats, the earliest you could take proper Cleric Dedication would be 12th, or 9th with Multitalented.
An interesting quirk here that I'm not sure is intended is that you could, technically, take Razmiran Priest Dedication and then, using either Multitalented or just waiting until level 12th, take Cleric Dedication and choose Razmir as your deity, gaining actual divine power from him. Since gaining devotee powers from him only requires having the Archetype, not the Archetype's particular brand of Cleric Dedication.
Or you could be a Cleric of a proper deity, take the dedication, then change your deity to Razmir. Which is even funnier.
You can, but it's not "proper" Cleric Dedication. It has several caveats (you don't need to meet prerequisites, it uses Charisma and not Wisdom, the spells are Occult, you can only choose Razmir, etc.)
RavingDork and my post are talking about taking the dedication without those caveats, IE you meet the Wisdom pre-requisite and you take it after taking 2 feats in Razmiran Priest. And the shenanigans that ensue.
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"If you perform enough acts that are anathema to your deity, you lose the magical abilities that come from your connection to your deity. The class features that you lose are determined by the GM, but they likely include your divine font and all cleric spellcasting."Razmir is a weird case because Cleric wants to work a certain way, but Razmir fundamentally doesn't work that way. He doesn't give his followers power, unlike the actual gods that other Clerics get their magic from.
So how would the anathema even work here? You lose your own magical power because you think it's coming from Razmir and you lose that by questioning him?
That's fundamentally an internal problem to the character: if you realize that Razmir is a fake then you will also realize that it was you actually doing all that magic all along. It's not like pissing off Abadar who will absolutely deny his power to you until you atone. Razmir never gave you anything that can be taken away.
So the real Razmir was inside you all along.
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So the real Razmir was inside you all along.
LOL.
I feel like the God you worship with your "real" Cleric dedication will have something to say to you for being a charlatan that follows Razmir, dons his mask, and, at least publically, call him a God.
It does depend on who you really worship though, but at least in my tables most of the actual Gods will simply not abide by that.
Sivanah, at least, might find it quite humorous to have one of her clerics posing as a Razmiran priest, raising all kinds of havoc.
I can also see a former Razmiran Priest keeping a marred or altered version of their magical mask (it is a powerful magical item after all, divorced from any divine influences) while following a new deity. Since Razmir doesn't grant them their power, other deities shouldn't have issues with people using it (unlike exalting a false god).
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[SNIPPED by Elfteiroh because of tunneling]I feel like the God you worship with your "real" Cleric dedication will have something to say to you for being a charlatan that follows Razmir, dons his mask, and, at least publically, call him a God.
It does depend on who you really worship though, but at least in my tables most of the actual Gods will simply not abide by that.
Funnily, Sivanah is said to hold Razmir and his priests in warm reguards... and would fit PERFECTLY into the theme of a Razmiran Priest taking her as a real deitie's cleric dedication, and using her powers to pretend you are a real cleric of Razmir. xD
The archetype goes a long ways towards helping a Sivanah cleric to keep their secrets as well. Since the archetype has you making your own magical mask, whose to say you don't make a new one as a veil when you leave Razmir for Sivanah?
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Because I'm sure there are a few weird ones.
Yep, you could have the Star Eater as your god as it has no concept of worship.