Hello all,

I could use some advice. One of my players is a cleric is going down a path where he seems to be straying from the teaching of his current god (Kord) and heading towards another (Asmodeous). And I'm not sure if I should bring it up as DM to player or let it play out. My style of DM is let the players actions have consequences.

Here is a bit of the back story. The group was hired to do clear a small lab, they started but then one player began to destroy the automatons once the creatures were defeated. They person that hired them told them to stop and not just destroy things, just clear it of danger. That annoyed the party so they literally walked through the rooms, doing nothing, triggering nothing, fighting nothing. Once they were done they came back out and said they had walked through with no other problems and left.

When they met up with the person that hired them a few days later he was pissed. Some of his people had been killed because the party didn't do their jobs in his mind and he blamed them for it, calling them a few names. The party blamed him since he "micro-managed".

The cleric of Kord has taken this as being called a coward by the employer and feels he has been challenged and called to war. He is now setting out to destroy the employer or at least cost his business as much as possible by deceit and trickery. This seems to be leading up to damaging others and property that is not directly owned/works for the employer.

His reasoning for doing this is "Bravery above all. There is no glory in cowardice." Which is also the reason that I would strip him of his cleric powers as he would be attacking from the shadows, against those that are not part of the perceived battle. If he continues down this path my plan is to have Asmodeous start to reach out to him since this would be much more his style.

But my question is this. Do I bring this up to the player and see what he wants to do or do I just let this play out?

I am a strong believer is consequences for the characters actions, but this could fundamentally change the character.

Appreciate your thoughts and input.

Thank you.

My advice? Pump the brakes, DM. 

Clerics aren't paladins; they don't take oaths and straying from tenets doesn't have the same consequences unless you've homebrewed that. What this cleric is doing is a little murderhobo-y, sure, but saying it's grounds for permanently losing connection to Kord and severing his magic feels extreme and like it's punishment for roleplaying his character a certain way. 

Some questions I have: 

1. How long has this been happening? If it's a couple sessions, that is way too soon to make such dramatic consequences feel organic. Think of it in terms of alignment shifts: they happen gradually over long periods of time, not after single incidents.

2. Is the player aware that straying from his deity's teachings could result in excommunication? Has it been mentioned in-game? That knowledge could have huge influence on character choices, and being cut off from Kord without this knowledge is a bit unfair to the player.

3. Are the other players going to face equally as dramatic consequences? It seems they are of one mind, here, and it would be concerning if only the cleric's comeuppance involved game mechanics penalties while everyone else's did not.

If I were you, I would not touch class consequences at all, especially now, and I would foreshadow that there can be serious repercussions in straying from Kord's teachings too far. Instead, I'd have word of the cleric's actions get back to his home temple and have him called in for a discussion with the high priest. Have the employer spread bad reviews about the adventuring party so that it makes it hard for them to get paid work. Have the city guard take exception to any property damage they cause and haul them off to jail. Have the employer hire a bruiser to rough the party up a bit. There are plenty of ways to invoke reasonable consequences for this incident that affect the entire party. 

Finally...yes, the cleric's choices could potentially turn him into a fundamentally different character. That's called character development, and it's a good thing. It means the player is invested in RP. Not all character development has to be for the better - and not all character development has to change things irrevocably. Maybe this is a rough patch in the cleric's life and he'll see the error of his ways down the road. That'd make for a neat story arc. I advise you not to take that chance away from the player. 

I ran into a situation where my player Life Cleric did some not-so-nice things to a Bandit the party was interogating-- he cut a finger off.  That said, I decided that I'll take his Clerical abilities away until the character could redeem itself. 

Yeah, that did not go as well as I'd hoped. 

The player was totally cool with the penalty and said it makes sense because his character was a little out of character and got caught up in the moment, but as you could imagine, the cleric was completely outmatched to the characters and in encounters.  The cleric in essence became a 3rd level Fighter but without any of the Fighter abilities.  The cleric went down a lot and that became discouraging to the player even though the storyline made sense. 

So I rushed getting the cleric his abilities back even though storywise it was not time. (Four sessions up to 12 hours of gameplay were agreed upon).  What I did allow was the cleric to change his domain during his 'downtime without abilities' so it lined up where the player wanted its character to go and to match the previous actions that got it into this mess in the first place. 

So in conclusion, storywise the reasoning made sense but in actual gameplay, the character was so hindered he became a liability to the party.   

Depending on the level of the cleric, they could just be prevented from accessing their highest level spell slots as a sign of displeasure.

Also, it is possible that the cleric has a dream/vision concerning his actions not fitting with their deity's wishes.

Thanks for your input everyone. Greatly appreciate it.

You can just flavor normal failures as being because the god is displeased. 

Divine intervention is a mechanic where they directly ask the god for help. It rarely works and when it doesn't you can just say " its because you did this". You could so something similar when one of their spells fails normally. 

There is a also a lot between doing nothing and taking all their powers away

• You could have a, an ability, spell or  spells related to the misdeed fail 
• you could auto fail a divine intervention ( which probably would have failed any way)
• You can do a minor curse. Like their hair falling out or being haunted in a dream
• you could make a spell work in a weak way once or twice like automatically doing minimum damage. 

 Do I bring this up to the player and see what he wants to do or do I just let this play out?

Absolutely. The player thinks they are still honoring Kord's tenets, whether they're purposely pushing the boundaries or not, they are announcing their intentions with their god in mind.. Pulling out the rug from under them and saying "actually you now serve Asmodeus because I interpret your past actions to be more in line with his values" is kind of a "gotcha" moment that will absolutely feel unfair to the player.

When the cleric does something that seems very un-Kordlike, call it out. Make them defend their actions and point out stuff like deceit and trickery. Do it through an NPC if you aren't comfortable being his conscience. If he pushes on regardless of your warnings, he will remember that moment later when the other foot drops.

Consequences are important, but they should feel earned and consistent with the players' understanding of how the game world works or it just feels domineering and unfair. "The DM didn't like the way I was playing, so they punished me."

If you’re game, I’d have the cleric visited (in dreams or visions or what have you) by messengers from both gods. Kord’s angel saying they are not pleased, and Asmodeus’ demon saying they are pleased. Then tell the player out of character that if they want to keep going down that road, there may be consequences, but there’s still time to turn back. Give them the choice, but make it clear that they are making a choice. 
And if they do switch, there may be some in-party discussions about if they want to keep adventuring with a devil worshipper.

There is nothing about Kord's background as being honest and straight forward.  Kord does go more for all out fights and courage.  Once the Cleric starts going off the ranch and doing things counter to his God's belief system, then you'd want to give him a vision, perhaps a holyphant showing him an image of his cowardly behavior and showing him a path of courage beating the owner for instance in one on one combat or publicly calling him out.  You also would be choosing his next Diety, Really you want to choose his Diety and Alignment?  Give him at least some divine notice, then as it continues remove a minor subclass feature.  As he continues ask him to find a God of Trickery for instance or something else that would better fit his beliefs if he wants to go that way.  

Of course the party failed to safe the area, it also depends on how you set up the scenario as well, you as a DM could have set up a no win scenario, so the players noped out.  Did you give the players a way to disable the automatons or did you expect them to just read your mind to find the solution?  To me it reads like you might have set up a scenario that irked the players off and now you got behaviors you weren't expecting.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I was planning on using dreams or visions as well since I have done that in the past with him. And I would defintely ramp up to it vs just instantly having his cleric powers gone without warning. But you have given me a great deal to think about as well. New ways to do the foreshadowing.

Here is a bit more background.

This was not a no-win situation. it was a number of small battles that would have been tough but they could have handled it. The first and only battle they handled in about 3 rounds with only 1 person getting hurt. One of the characters started dismantling the automaton and the employer made them stop or be dragged out. This pissed them off so they didn't do their job. When they found out a few days later they some of the employers other employees got killed they blamed him for it since he micro-managed them (their words). He did not follow them through the structure, they could have done anything they wanted beyond his sight, but their feelings were hurt. He called them a few names, blamed them for the deaths, was rude to them and then sent them home (through a portal).

They hate him now and think he is pretty much evil even though he was just upset that some of his folks died because they didn't do their job. The rest of the party wants nothing to do with him though and wants to put it behind them. Other than the cleric.