What happens when/if a cleric displeases or abandons their deity? I'm looking for RAW, RAI, and any other knowledge, thoughts, or opinions. Do they loose all the cleric levels? Nothing happens? My "feeling" is that something bad should happen, and my gut response is they loose their cleric levels, or at least cleric powers, either forever or until they make amends with their deity or a different one.
There is no mechanics that includes losing levels so that one is out.
I'd say it depends on the setting and the DM. At my table cleric who abandons their faith loses access to spells and channel divinity features until they atone or find a new patron.
Displeasing the deity on the other hand is a milder offense. I'd probably make them aware that the deity is not happy (like in Critical Role, where the party cleric found a crack on her holy symbol after she acted very contrary to her goddess). A visit to the temple and showcase of remorse would fix that. Two other offenses of similar caliber and fwoosh, powers gone.
In my campaign the gods have no interest in giving access to power to individuals who don't further their goals or are even actively acting against them.
Other DM's might be more liberal in the sense that they won't even demand a choice of god in which case well, you don't have anyone to anger.
Maybe you can try to use a similar mechanic to that of the oathbreaker paladin. When a paladin breaks their oath, they either adopt the oathbreaker subclass (there is none for clerics but you can modify/homebrew one) or must choose a different class instead of the paladin. They retain all their levels but change classes. So a level 6 paladin breaking their oath must pick another level 6 class. Perhaps you can force them to pick one between some specific classes that make sense. I mean, you upset your deity so now you are somehow a rogue is weird, but a fighter/barbarian make sense. You could also pick druid/warlock and say your cleric chose to have his powers granted by another source or paladin, kinda. A wizard is a little problematic, but a sorcerer can make sense, under the claim that some of the magic stuck in the character (divine soul or smth). These are my ideas anyway.
I they displease their gods it would make sense if the gods would let's say reduce you to half caster and when you pray to the god and please for forgivnes it displeased twice mayby 1/3 caster or even lose all clerical powers until you go on a short quest for redemption (but best if it would be short and possible to make in normal game let's say you displeased your god and you need to free those slaves from the cages ) or just praying to fix it doing good stuf like roleplaying your healing and giving gold to children if you are good alighment
For abandoning, clerics don't technically even have to believe in their god to begin with, rather their god has to believe in them.
Displeasing their god is far more likely to cause issues. I wouldn't generally suggest having PCs lose levels, as there are a lot of things they get from leveling up that are more about their experience and party balance than about what they get from their power source.
If anything, I would probably reduce or eliminate the power they get from their domain, both spells and class features. But I would only do this for a pattern of behavior, not for a single incident unless it were particularly egregious.
Under some of the questions that appear in the Creating a Cleric section in the class entry right before it starts to get into the mechanics of making one. It makes mention of things like "Did your god force/urge/etc you into their service with no regard to your wishes?" Meaning that you may not be a cleric by choice. Or you may not even be on the best of terms with your god entirely. But your driven by that god for some reason. Then after that it talks about how Are you seen as a Champion or a Trouble maker of your religion? What is your goal or perhaps your gods goal for you? And things like that.
So short of doing things to shift your alignment you may not entirely have a choice in your service to them or necessarily be all that pleasing to them and if you did shift your alignment around it might just mean that you get picked up by another god. Which might require changes to your character in some way but it's gonna be up to you and the DM. Or that they might send omens, bouts of misfortune or mysterious circumstances or even other followers to push you back on track for the plan that they have for you. So there is no set in stone option but the DM can approach it from a lot of directions based upon this.
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What happens when/if a cleric displeases or abandons their deity? I'm looking for RAW, RAI, and any other knowledge, thoughts, or opinions. Do they loose all the cleric levels? Nothing happens? My "feeling" is that something bad should happen, and my gut response is they loose their cleric levels, or at least cleric powers, either forever or until they make amends with their deity or a different one.
Thanks!
There is no mechanics that includes losing levels so that one is out.
I'd say it depends on the setting and the DM. At my table cleric who abandons their faith loses access to spells and channel divinity features until they atone or find a new patron.
Displeasing the deity on the other hand is a milder offense. I'd probably make them aware that the deity is not happy (like in Critical Role, where the party cleric found a crack on her holy symbol after she acted very contrary to her goddess). A visit to the temple and showcase of remorse would fix that. Two other offenses of similar caliber and fwoosh, powers gone.
In my campaign the gods have no interest in giving access to power to individuals who don't further their goals or are even actively acting against them.
Other DM's might be more liberal in the sense that they won't even demand a choice of god in which case well, you don't have anyone to anger.
Maybe you can try to use a similar mechanic to that of the oathbreaker paladin. When a paladin breaks their oath, they either adopt the oathbreaker subclass (there is none for clerics but you can modify/homebrew one) or must choose a different class instead of the paladin. They retain all their levels but change classes. So a level 6 paladin breaking their oath must pick another level 6 class. Perhaps you can force them to pick one between some specific classes that make sense. I mean, you upset your deity so now you are somehow a rogue is weird, but a fighter/barbarian make sense. You could also pick druid/warlock and say your cleric chose to have his powers granted by another source or paladin, kinda. A wizard is a little problematic, but a sorcerer can make sense, under the claim that some of the magic stuck in the character (divine soul or smth). These are my ideas anyway.
Varielky
I they displease their gods it would make sense if the gods would let's say reduce you to half caster and when you pray to the god and please for forgivnes it displeased twice mayby 1/3 caster or even lose all clerical powers until you go on a short quest for redemption (but best if it would be short and possible to make in normal game let's say you displeased your god and you need to free those slaves from the cages ) or just praying to fix it doing good stuf like roleplaying your healing and giving gold to children if you are good alighment
For abandoning, clerics don't technically even have to believe in their god to begin with, rather their god has to believe in them.
Displeasing their god is far more likely to cause issues. I wouldn't generally suggest having PCs lose levels, as there are a lot of things they get from leveling up that are more about their experience and party balance than about what they get from their power source.
If anything, I would probably reduce or eliminate the power they get from their domain, both spells and class features. But I would only do this for a pattern of behavior, not for a single incident unless it were particularly egregious.
Under some of the questions that appear in the Creating a Cleric section in the class entry right before it starts to get into the mechanics of making one. It makes mention of things like "Did your god force/urge/etc you into their service with no regard to your wishes?" Meaning that you may not be a cleric by choice. Or you may not even be on the best of terms with your god entirely. But your driven by that god for some reason. Then after that it talks about how Are you seen as a Champion or a Trouble maker of your religion? What is your goal or perhaps your gods goal for you? And things like that.
So short of doing things to shift your alignment you may not entirely have a choice in your service to them or necessarily be all that pleasing to them and if you did shift your alignment around it might just mean that you get picked up by another god. Which might require changes to your character in some way but it's gonna be up to you and the DM. Or that they might send omens, bouts of misfortune or mysterious circumstances or even other followers to push you back on track for the plan that they have for you. So there is no set in stone option but the DM can approach it from a lot of directions based upon this.