D&D gave me a mini-existential crisis the other day. I started thinking about what it must be like to live in a universe where our big metaphysical questions all have definite, objectively true answers, and those answers are almost trivially easy to get. I mean, our struggle with these questions is basically what defines our humanity, and any uneducated shopkeeper in Waterdeep could just tell you the answer. These people are enlightened in a way that we here on earth could never even aspire to, and what does it get them? Not much, it seems.
Only because all of those characters are written from the viewpoint of a person that does not live in a universe where those answers are readily available.
I'm not sure the answers are all that readily available. Like, sure the guy who talks about being nice to folks and how the good bearded dude in the sky loves us can literally make wounds disappear but so can that asshole who said we should sacrifice goats to the Horned One.
There's a universe of difference between believing in a god out of faith, and believing in a god because their existence can not only be proven, but also their intercession is obvious and can be counted on.
At that point the question stops being "what's right" and starts being "what does the particular one who holds sway over me (or my city, or my region, or whatever) want specifically from me"
The answer "because that's what god wants" is not a good answer in the real world, but it is the best possible answer in a world where god regularly grants miracles to a large swathe of their worshippers.
Well.....traditionally D&D gods act through Clerics, not through direct intervention. So I think the similarities to the actual real world Catholic Church in the dark ages and the amount of power and influence they have over a persons life are just about similar.
More cynically, given that D&D gods are not really omnipotent rather than just much much much more powerful than any individual you could replace the word "God" with "Corporation" and you'd end up in a similar situation I think.
D&D gave me a mini-existential crisis the other day. I started thinking about what it must be like to live in a universe where our big metaphysical questions all have definite, objectively true answers, and those answers are almost trivially easy to get. I mean, our struggle with these questions is basically what defines our humanity, and any uneducated shopkeeper in Waterdeep could just tell you the answer. These people are enlightened in a way that we here on earth could never even aspire to, and what does it get them? Not much, it seems.
There is a very substantial part of the US population at least that lives this way already. There really isn't a meaningful difference in actions between someone believing with 100% certainty that they know all those answers and actually knowing all those answers.
D&D gave me a mini-existential crisis the other day. I started thinking about what it must be like to live in a universe where our big metaphysical questions all have definite, objectively true answers, and those answers are almost trivially easy to get. I mean, our struggle with these questions is basically what defines our humanity, and any uneducated shopkeeper in Waterdeep could just tell you the answer. These people are enlightened in a way that we here on earth could never even aspire to, and what does it get them? Not much, it seems.
Only because all of those characters are written from the viewpoint of a person that does not live in a universe where those answers are readily available.
I'm not sure the answers are all that readily available. Like, sure the guy who talks about being nice to folks and how the good bearded dude in the sky loves us can literally make wounds disappear but so can that asshole who said we should sacrifice goats to the Horned One.
There's a universe of difference between believing in a god out of faith, and believing in a god because their existence can not only be proven, but also their intercession is obvious and can be counted on.
At that point the question stops being "what's right" and starts being "what does the particular one who holds sway over me (or my city, or my region, or whatever) want specifically from me"
The answer "because that's what god wants" is not a good answer in the real world, but it is the best possible answer in a world where god regularly grants miracles to a large swathe of their worshippers.
Well.....traditionally D&D gods act through Clerics, not through direct intervention. So I think the similarities to the actual real world Catholic Church in the dark ages and the amount of power and influence they have over a persons life are just about similar.
More cynically, given that D&D gods are not really omnipotent rather than just much much much more powerful than any individual you could replace the word "God" with "Corporation" and you'd end up in a similar situation I think.
In the context of the discussion, we're talking about whether the "big metaphysical questions all have definite, objectively true answers"
Like, is there a god? Yes. There are many.
At that point answers about right and wrong and the nature of our existence are no longer matters of interpretation. Whether there are options or not is irrelevant (right is according to the god you worship now), the point is that the questions are so fundamentally different so as to be incomparable.
D&D gave me a mini-existential crisis the other day. I started thinking about what it must be like to live in a universe where our big metaphysical questions all have definite, objectively true answers, and those answers are almost trivially easy to get. I mean, our struggle with these questions is basically what defines our humanity, and any uneducated shopkeeper in Waterdeep could just tell you the answer. These people are enlightened in a way that we here on earth could never even aspire to, and what does it get them? Not much, it seems.
Only because all of those characters are written from the viewpoint of a person that does not live in a universe where those answers are readily available.
I'm not sure the answers are all that readily available. Like, sure the guy who talks about being nice to folks and how the good bearded dude in the sky loves us can literally make wounds disappear but so can that asshole who said we should sacrifice goats to the Horned One.
There's a universe of difference between believing in a god out of faith, and believing in a god because their existence can not only be proven, but also their intercession is obvious and can be counted on.
At that point the question stops being "what's right" and starts being "what does the particular one who holds sway over me (or my city, or my region, or whatever) want specifically from me"
The answer "because that's what god wants" is not a good answer in the real world, but it is the best possible answer in a world where god regularly grants miracles to a large swathe of their worshippers.
Well.....traditionally D&D gods act through Clerics, not through direct intervention. So I think the similarities to the actual real world Catholic Church in the dark ages and the amount of power and influence they have over a persons life are just about similar.
More cynically, given that D&D gods are not really omnipotent rather than just much much much more powerful than any individual you could replace the word "God" with "Corporation" and you'd end up in a similar situation I think.
In the context of the discussion, we're talking about whether the "big metaphysical questions all have definite, objectively true answers"
Like, is there a god? Yes. There are many.
At that point answers about right and wrong and the nature of our existence are no longer matters of interpretation. Whether there are options or not is irrelevant (right is according to the god you worship now), the point is that the questions are so fundamentally different so as to be incomparable.
There being many pretty well establishes that which one is actually "right" is unclear. If we're talking big picture metaphorical question like "what the answer to life, the universe and everything" the answer list isn't multiple choice. If it is multiple choice you are back to what we have in the real world where you have many options and it is unclear which is actually the "right" answer.
Essentially, if their is an objective answer than all the gods but one are lying about what proper conduct is.
I've always liked the idea of a cyber punk paladin that gains power by being true to their Corp's Brand.
I did this with a 4E campaign set in what was basically the Borderlands universe.
All divine powers were derived from corporate sponsorship. Depending on the corp, they were either structured like a pyramid scheme of converted worshipers (with more under you meaning more power) or via a licensing/franchise model.
We had a Cleric of THOR(tm) who kept leaving kobolds alive so he could convert them at hammerpoint(?) to keep up with his quotas and avoid underage penalties.
There being many pretty well establishes that which one is actually "right" is unclear. If we're talking big picture metaphorical question like "what the answer to life, the universe and everything" the answer list isn't multiple choice. If it is multiple choice you are back to what we have in the real world where you have many options and it is unclear which is actually the "right" answer.
Essentially, if their is an objective answer than all the gods but one are lying about what proper conduct is.
I feel like you're ignoring the big deal, which is that there is a functionally all-powerful being whose directives to you are extremely direct, accurate, and provable.
Just because there's another one who says something different to the people over there does not make that any less earthshatteringly significant.
Every spirituality in our world is defined at its core by faith (or lack thereof), if you can prove god exists then everything changes immediately.
There being many pretty well establishes that which one is actually "right" is unclear. If we're talking big picture metaphorical question like "what the answer to life, the universe and everything" the answer list isn't multiple choice. If it is multiple choice you are back to what we have in the real world where you have many options and it is unclear which is actually the "right" answer.
Essentially, if their is an objective answer than all the gods but one are lying about what proper conduct is.
I feel like you're ignoring the big deal, which is that there is a functionally all-powerful
Nope. There are twenty, or thirty, or several hundred. Which means none of them are all powerful.
...being whose directives to you are extremely direct, accurate, and provable.
Er...how? You could be running a game where 7th level clerics inhabit each and every village with more than two peasants but that is very much not the default. That's what you need to get a yes or not answer that is probably true according to god.
Just because there's another one who says something different to the people over there does not make that any less earth shatteringly significant.
Eh. King Louie XIV told me he ruled by the right of God and that the English guy said the same thing was totally irrelevant.
Every spirituality in our world is defined at its core by faith (or lack thereof), if you can prove god exists then everything changes immediately.
I'll concede this but it leaves the problem is the interchangeable use of the word "god" to mean something that is omniscient/omnipotent/omni-everything as well as one of a few dozen outer planar creatures who are pretty damn powerful but do not know/control/influence literally everything.
Every spirituality in our world is defined at its core by faith (or lack thereof), if you can prove god exists then everything changes immediately.
I'll concede this but it leaves the problem is the interchangeable use of the word "god" to mean something that is omniscient/omnipotent/omni-everything as well as one of a few dozen outer planar creatures who are pretty damn powerful but do not know/control/influence literally everything.
Counterpoint: Any god that routinely performs supernatural miracles is a MUCH BIGGER DEAL than any god we know on real life earth, where that stuff doesn't happen.
If I proved to you that God existed right now, but God still didn't really intercede by way of miracles or divine intervention (which we can probably agree is the case), that would be huge. The biggest possible news.
But, if I showed you an undeniable miracle, like healing someone's mortal wounds (which is only a level 1 cleric ability at most), that would be even bigger.
Even if there's another god who ALSO does miracles, which, considering there are gods in D&D who are enemies of other gods, by definition ensures neither is all powerful, it's still a way bigger deal.
So, lack of omniscience or omnipotence of the gods doesn't really matter. It's still more of a game changer than it would be here on earth, and here on earth it would be a pretty f'ing big game changer.
The Gods were known and active within the world, with many different names and aspects as far-flung cultures interpreted their existences and edicts.
Then they were gone and became myths doubted by the populace within a few generations.
Then they were back, actively jockeying for position and power, working at cross purposes and starting wars between their followers.
Then they were gone again and the mortal races were pretty sure they were staying away for good, which actually wasn't a terrible deal.
Then there was just one, provable god who was clearly active and empowering people, but who nobody could really figure out on anything past a surface level.
Then the whole crew was back and everyone is pretty divided on whether or not they're wanted them at all. Because gods can be pretty cool, but they can also be a huge pain in the ass and get a bunch of people killed with via otherwise irrational warring amongst their followers.
Spirituality isn't the issue at that point. It's the assholes with the power, just like at any point in real world human history.
Every spirituality in our world is defined at its core by faith (or lack thereof), if you can prove god exists then everything changes immediately.
I'll concede this but it leaves the problem is the interchangeable use of the word "god" to mean something that is omniscient/omnipotent/omni-everything as well as one of a few dozen outer planar creatures who are pretty damn powerful but do not know/control/influence literally everything.
Counterpoint: Any god that routinely performs supernatural miracles is a MUCH BIGGER DEAL than any god we know on real life earth, where that stuff doesn't happen.
If I proved to you that God existed right now, but God still didn't really intercede by way of miracles or divine intervention (which we can probably agree is the case), that would be huge. The biggest possible news.
But, if I showed you an undeniable miracle, like healing someone's mortal wounds (which is only a level 1 cleric ability at most), that would be even bigger.
Even if there's another god who ALSO does miracles, which, considering there are gods in D&D who are enemies of other gods, by definition ensures neither is all powerful, it's still a way bigger deal.
So, lack of omniscience or omnipotence of the gods doesn't really matter. It's still more of a game changer than it would be here on earth, and here on earth it would be a pretty f'ing big game changer.
The impact of any given D&D god on the average arid land goat herder is at least an order of magnitude less than US foreign policy in the lifetime of your average Iraqi. As humans we routinely deal with entities vastly more powerful than ourselves with a much greater impact on our lives.
I understand the idea that an actual provable god would be a big deal if it conformed with the typical definition of god. D&D doesn't have that. They have really powerful but heavily limited supernatural creatures. Some of these are called PCs and some of them are called Gods. For your average D&D setting, once you get past the first few levels they are virtually indistinguishable for your average peasant.
Also, this is super snarky but funny so I'm spoilering it and please know I don't mean it seriously.
But, if I showed you an undeniable miracle, like healing someone's mortal wounds (which is only a level 1 cleric ability at most), that would be even bigger.
Big whoop, I trained as an EMT. I didn't fall down and worship the dude who taught me to use the defibrillator.
Citing an example where the question clearly doesn't work not only ignores the situations where it does work, it makes the conversation totally uninteresting.
There being many pretty well establishes that which one is actually "right" is unclear. If we're talking big picture metaphorical question like "what the answer to life, the universe and everything" the answer list isn't multiple choice. If it is multiple choice you are back to what we have in the real world where you have many options and it is unclear which is actually the "right" answer.
Essentially, if their is an objective answer than all the gods but one are lying about what proper conduct is.
I feel like you're ignoring the big deal, which is that there is a functionally all-powerful being whose directives to you are extremely direct, accurate, and provable.
I think you're underestimating the real power of polytheism, here.
While, yes, you might feel pretty personally invested in, I dunno, Torm's teachings, you still realize that while he is in fact the God of Duty, he is demonstrably not the Goddess of the Ocean, and so when you get in that boat you say a prayer to Torm to help you perform your duty to your captain well and to Umberlee to be nice to you while in her domain.
VizardObserverThe Duke of Ridiculous PoppycockyRegistered Userregular
The Gods aren't necessarily all powerful right? In most settings, doesn't it state that the deities are all chilling on various planes? Like if me, grand wicked bad wizard supreme, plane hopped over to the Shadowfell or one of the positive planes, I'd literally find the god right? And potentially defeat them through some cosmic ridiculousness.
There being many pretty well establishes that which one is actually "right" is unclear. If we're talking big picture metaphorical question like "what the answer to life, the universe and everything" the answer list isn't multiple choice. If it is multiple choice you are back to what we have in the real world where you have many options and it is unclear which is actually the "right" answer.
Essentially, if their is an objective answer than all the gods but one are lying about what proper conduct is.
I feel like you're ignoring the big deal, which is that there is a functionally all-powerful being whose directives to you are extremely direct, accurate, and provable.
I think you're underestimating the real power of polytheism, here.
While, yes, you might feel pretty personally invested in, I dunno, Torm's teachings, you still realize that while he is in fact the God of Duty, he is demonstrably not the Goddess of the Ocean, and so when you get in that boat you say a prayer to Torm to help you perform your duty to your captain well and to Umberlee to be nice to you while in her domain.
My problem is there's an interesting philosophical discussion about a humble shopkeeper who doesn't have any doubts buried under all this inane talk about how powerful gods in a pantheon are.
It's like when you ask about the tree making sound in the forest when nobody's around to hear it and the answers are "what about the animals," "of course there's someone around, even forests have people in them," and "yes, let me tell you about sound waves"
I'm just disappointed we're not having that conversation instead
When I was little, I was reading the Golden Compass series when someone (Catholic church? don't remember exactly) started talking about it being heresy and I was very worried that I was not going to be able to get the next book, as my father was very religious (went to seminary, though ultimately chose a different path). My understanding of the complaint at the time was that in the series, the protagonist kills God. I asked my dad about the complaint and his response was: "That doesn't make any sense, if you can kill it, it isn't God."
The Gods aren't necessarily all powerful right? In most settings, doesn't it state that the deities are all chilling on various planes? Like if me, grand wicked bad wizard supreme, plane hopped over to the Shadowfell or one of the positive planes, I'd literally find the god right? And potentially defeat them through some cosmic ridiculousness.
This is true, though a few points should be raised:
1. Gods aren't all powerful; they have vast ammounts of power but are primarily focused on their particular portfolio (I.E. farming) and things that directly effect that (I.E. sun, wars, demonic incursions). Beyond these issues they tend to be really ambivelent and/or ignorant.
2. Fighting a god is monumentally challenging; they usually have immense base line stats, hp, magic, a plethora of innate abilities and legions of minions (angels, demons, elementals, paladins, zealots ect.). Further, in their home plane these powers are generally pumped through the roof.
The problem is, monotheism and pantheism are very different animals. One ineffable, all-powerful being that may or may not have a hand in everything that happens vs a clown car of competing interests backed up by a fair amount of power.
Faith in a D&D sense is more about service and devotion than whether or not you actually believe.
Ultimately, just like anything else that is known, it'll eventually become old hat and be approached in a very utilitarian fashion. Once the questions are gone, the modern concept of spirituality no longer applies. It'd be like worshiping meteorologists or plumbers.
I wonder how a "deity denier" would be treated on a typical D&D world: would it be like an anti-vaxxer, or someone who doesn't believe in global warming/climate change?
I wonder how a "deity denier" would be treated on a typical D&D world: would it be like an anti-vaxxer, or someone who doesn't believe in global warming/climate change?
Depends on the setting and what constitutes denial.
In darksun you'd probably be considered normal, since any gods that existed there went dormant ages ago.
Depending on the era of dragonlance you might get all manner of strange looks or again: be considered normal (following the cataclysm all faith was lost until around the war of the lance some 300 years later).
On faerun you'd be considered insane since even during the post sundering era where the gods are comparatively distant they are considered as real as gravity or sunlight.
There being many pretty well establishes that which one is actually "right" is unclear. If we're talking big picture metaphorical question like "what the answer to life, the universe and everything" the answer list isn't multiple choice. If it is multiple choice you are back to what we have in the real world where you have many options and it is unclear which is actually the "right" answer.
Essentially, if their is an objective answer than all the gods but one are lying about what proper conduct is.
I feel like you're ignoring the big deal, which is that there is a functionally all-powerful being whose directives to you are extremely direct, accurate, and provable.
I think you're underestimating the real power of polytheism, here.
While, yes, you might feel pretty personally invested in, I dunno, Torm's teachings, you still realize that while he is in fact the God of Duty, he is demonstrably not the Goddess of the Ocean, and so when you get in that boat you say a prayer to Torm to help you perform your duty to your captain well and to Umberlee to be nice to you while in her domain.
My problem is there's an interesting philosophical discussion about a humble shopkeeper who doesn't have any doubts buried under all this inane talk about how powerful gods in a pantheon are.
It's like when you ask about the tree making sound in the forest when nobody's around to hear it and the answers are "what about the animals," "of course there's someone around, even forests have people in them," and "yes, let me tell you about sound waves"
I'm just disappointed we're not having that conversation instead
My issue is that, to continue your analogy, that D&D and gods is like somebody placing a microphone in the forest and saying it will lead to fantastic new discoveries about unattended falling trees and the sounds they make.
This is a pet peeve of mine but D&D doesn't really deal with actual issues of Faith, Belief, and Theology in any way that's actually relatable. Typically it is entirely transactional. Which, if understood, is fine. Those are uncomfortable topics for lots of people so reducing it to basically religious cosplay doesn't bother me. People who think it somehow actually informs you on the attitudes and beliefs of religious people is the part that's crazy to me.
This is a pet peeve of mine but D&D doesn't really deal with actual issues of Faith, Belief, and Theology in any way that's actually relatable. Typically it is entirely transactional. Which, if understood, is fine. Those are uncomfortable topics for lots of people so reducing it to basically religious cosplay doesn't bother me. People who think it somehow actually informs you on the attitudes and beliefs of religious people is the part that's crazy to me.
Not really. For some reason they don't explicitly spell this out any more, but the theoretical limiter on Clerics is that they must act in the interests of their god or their magic doesn't function. (Druids have to act in the interests of balance, or their god, depending on setting.)
I think it always comes down to how well the DM is keeping expectations in place and how well the holy caster characters are being played.
I wonder how a "deity denier" would be treated on a typical D&D world: would it be like an anti-vaxxer, or someone who doesn't believe in global warming/climate change?
I played in a Planescape game once with a girl whose character was, she claimed, an atheist. None of us were really sure how to address it, so we just kind of ignored it every she brought it up...which was often.
Holy crap Fantasy Grounds is a piece of shit
Not only does it require minute knowledge of the rules to discover something did or didn't fuck up, the way to execute shit is "do it this unintuitive way or fuck off".
If they'd at least have a LoS system for maps I'd forgiven that, but nooo the gm has to manually erase the "fog of war".
Back in the Time if Troubles days, IIRC, in the Forgotten Realms the Faithful would wait in Limbo being picked away at by Demons and Devils until the angels/heralds of their prospective gods came to collect them and took them to their respective paradises. The Faithless ended up being used as bricks in the Wall of the Faithless around the death gods city as punishment for not believing in the gods, or not believing enough (the False).
Back in the Time if Troubles days, IIRC, in the Forgotten Realms the Faithful would wait in Limbo being picked away at by Demons and Devils until the angels/heralds of their prospective gods came to collect them and took them to their respective paradises.
The Faithless ended up being used as bricks in the Wall of the Faithless around the death gods city as punishment for not believing in the gods, or not believing enough (the False).
I recall this being something of a divisive issue for Greenwood. I can't remember if it's because he's an evangelical Christian or if it's because he's an atheist, though.
Back in the Time if Troubles days, IIRC, in the Forgotten Realms the Faithful would wait in Limbo being picked away at by Demons and Devils until the angels/heralds of their prospective gods came to collect them and took them to their respective paradises.
The Faithless ended up being used as bricks in the Wall of the Faithless around the death gods city as punishment for not believing in the gods, or not believing enough (the False).
I recall this being something of a divisive issue for Greenwood. I can't remember if it's because he's an evangelical Christian or if it's because he's an atheist, though.
Huh. I had never heard that before.
I just thought it a pretty interesting insight into the pettiness of the gods in the Realms. Their power was derived by the strength of their followers. The larger the level of belief the more powerful the deity was. Good/Evil or anything in between has a place. But if a soul didn't believe? It was shoved into a wall to feel torment until the end of time. That's petty.
Back in the Time if Troubles days, IIRC, in the Forgotten Realms the Faithful would wait in Limbo being picked away at by Demons and Devils until the angels/heralds of their prospective gods came to collect them and took them to their respective paradises.
The Faithless ended up being used as bricks in the Wall of the Faithless around the death gods city as punishment for not believing in the gods, or not believing enough (the False).
I recall this being something of a divisive issue for Greenwood. I can't remember if it's because he's an evangelical Christian or if it's because he's an atheist, though.
Huh. I had never heard that before.
I just thought it a pretty interesting insight into the pettiness of the gods in the Realms. Their power was derived by the strength of their followers. The larger the level of belief the more powerful the deity was. Good/Evil or anything in between has a place. But if a soul didn't believe? It was shoved into a wall to feel torment until the end of time. That's petty.
You guys all seem to be forgetting Ao, the one true god!
Who people didn't even know about until he turfed all the gods operating in or around abier toril during the time of troubles, and has as far as I know ignored the affairs of mortals in all but the most remote instances.
Also: dude straight up doesn't need worshippers and is ambivelent to any prayers directed his way.
You guys all seem to be forgetting Ao, the one true god!
Who people didn't even know about until he turfed all the gods operating in or around abier toril during the time of troubles, and has as far as I know ignored the affairs of mortals in all but the most remote instances.
Also: dude straight up doesn't need worshippers and is ambivelent to any prayers directed his way.
He doesn't follow anybody's rules. Not even his own.
There are plenty of metaphysical questions apart from gods and their respective wills. I was thinking along such lines as the nature of good and evil, the existence and attributes of the soul, what even has a soul, things like that. Engaging with such questions is such a big part of the human experience; could Faerunians, for instance, even be considered human in the same way we are?
Why would a farmer use most of his time praying and adhering to the rituals of poseidon, when he knows that god is real and has dominion over the seas, and his displeasure will mean storms and sinking boats?
Humans have a long history of polytheism, and for all those people - those gods are real. the manifestations are real. the priests read the signs and the will of the gods as real and act accordingly.
If a priest of Ares says that the only way to save Thebes from the Spartans is to sacrifice all the first-born maiden daughters, and the Spartans still come - They'll know they failed the will of the god somehow or someone else did, or another god stood in their way and thwarted Ares.
People are still looking to live good lives, and pursue their goals - amongst the gods. If one god says you can't eat fish, and another god says you can eat fish but not apples. You know with 100% certainty which god the fisherman will follow and he won't eat apples. and if a storm comes and drowns the fisherman - well that's the god that told him not to eat fish.
my point being Polytheism isn't something new or weird. and priest still talk about the will of the gods, and what is right and what is wrong, and sentient being will still fight against their own desires with the desires of many different gods.
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MrVyngaardLive From New EtoileStraight Outta SosariaRegistered Userregular
I wonder how a "deity denier" would be treated on a typical D&D world: would it be like an anti-vaxxer, or someone who doesn't believe in global warming/climate change?
I played in a Planescape game once with a girl whose character was, she claimed, an atheist. None of us were really sure how to address it, so we just kind of ignored it every she brought it up...which was often.
That campaign didn't last long
But was she actually one of the Athar? The Faithless often get the sneer from clueless berks of the Prime, yanno...
"now I've got this mental image of caucuses as cafeteria tables in prison, and new congressmen having to beat someone up on inauguration day." - Raiden333
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
Is there a way to get past cover with magical ranged attacks? Our warlock is having a bad time at the moment due to dungeon design making it impossible for her to get a clear shot past the doorways and meatshields. I thought Sharpshooter worked, but upon reading it it specifies weapon attack rolls.
Is there a way to get past cover with magical ranged attacks? Our warlock is having a bad time at the moment due to dungeon design making it impossible for her to get a clear shot past the doorways and meatshields. I thought Sharpshooter worked, but upon reading it it specifies weapon attack rolls.
PHB, p. 170, Spell Sniper.
tip.. tip.. TALLY.. HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
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Kane Red RobeMaster of MagicArcanusRegistered Userregular
Is there a way to get past cover with magical ranged attacks? Our warlock is having a bad time at the moment due to dungeon design making it impossible for her to get a clear shot past the doorways and meatshields. I thought Sharpshooter worked, but upon reading it it specifies weapon attack rolls.
PHB, p. 170, Spell Sniper.
Awesome thanks! I swear I read through the feats, but I must have totally skimmed past that one.
We ended up being down 3 players today, but the session went well. One of my players did a brief write-up:
We stitch together a pirate flag, and sail towards the cove. The cove resolves itself on the horizon and we continue to sail. A boat approaches and we hoist our poorly made forgery of a flag. We stand ready to receive the delegation from Marauder's Cove.
Pirates, rough men and women from youth to middle age (there are old pirates, and bold pirates, but no old bold pirates) man the schooner. A half dozen pirates board, and their leader, scimitar and flintlock at hip, ask what we're there for. We convince him we have business with The Marauder, and he leads us into the cove.
The cove is lined with wrecked and broken ships, bound together with chain and rope and spells to make a boardwalk and village that bobs with the tide. The Marauder receives the party in his state room, guarded by heavily armored sentinels.
"Arrrrrr you tired of this pirate voice? Because I am." We explain the southern alliance and the bounty on imperial ships and goods. He likes the idea, but the Toltos roams the great pass, and any venture will fail unless it is dealt with. If we can destroy the Toltos, he'll make his pirates into privateers.
The Toltos has roamed the waters for more than a century. A warship, grand, lost in a storm and blown too close to the Citadel. The crew killed and animated by foul unlife by the Avar Corvallex, turned into a ghost ship that roamed the pass, preying on ships.
The Marauder commissions us to rid the pass of the Toltos. He does not leave his stateroom, and cannot do so himself. His Scavenger is given a magic item that can combat the evil consuming mists that surround the Toltos. The party sails immediately.
HRS Burritt's Pride and two Marauder schooners sail into the pass, seeking the Toltos. It was not hard to find. It approaches, as do zombie giant octopii and zombie sharks. Massio fires the fore ballista at the Toltos, a long ranging shot that misses, and strikes a huge dorsal fin. Blood stains the waters, and some of the beasts below the waves go mad.
Zombie giant octopus clamber aboard! Bastion, true to his name, has carved and cast a magic circle in the center of the deck. The Scavenger concentrates on the Clear Air Idol (name of item?) and sure enough the air clears around all three ships. A hag appears and strikes at us as well!
The Toltos approaches, and as it sideswipes us, Somon slams shoulder first into the brand new Corvus installed by the Marauder's boat-wrights, the iron spike piercing the side of the tall warship, which begins to drag us along.
We clamber aboard.
Massio goes to work with his hammer, and Somon with his strength, crushing and throwing the poor wretched zombies to clear a path. Bastion climbs aboard, and makes his way to the center. Brandishing the symbol of Vaira, a white light emanates from him, and the zombies char and crumble to ass, the sigh of a hundred escaping spirits fading with the light. Captain Cornelius stares down one of the two passages open to us. It pulses and breathes. We decide against that one.
Somon rigs up a flail from some debris when confronted with the second passage of bloodless husks, zombies or wraithlike creatures which he lays into, until their faces begin to resemble those of friends, family, and the terrified visages of those who he's hurt in his madness.
He flees from the passage, Bastion and Massio shaking him out of his terror. They ascend to the quarterdeck. Massio and Somon go to work with hammer and crowbar, prying up sea rotten planks to get to the captain's quarters.
One heavy blow too many and the section of deck Massio is on collapses, and he finds himself in the captain's quarters. The party clambers down into the empty cabin. Mold has made most things a ruin. The paint has peeled, the paper has disintegrated, but the middle pages are legible. The captain speaks of the weather and journey...towards the Black City. He wasn't lost in a storm or blown off course, he went to the black city of his own will. The fool.
And we the fools aboard this ship of damned souls. If we struggle and fight and throw holy fire and lightning, perhaps our souls will not end up among them. We open the cabin doors and descend into the lower deck. Cabins, storage, galley, and cannon upon cannon, rotting and rusting in turn. We clear the rooms, and resign ourselves to the inevitable descent into the hold. Somon lights his lamp, crowbar in his other hand. Bastions' symbol of Vaira glows as the darkness deepens, and the smell of rotten ocean life and evil overwhelms the party.
Down we descend, on sagging steps of salt-rotten wood, stepping on seashells that crack and crunch underfoot.
The doors to the central hold, held closed by a tendril of flesh, pulsing with the heartbeat of this foul abomination.
Cornelius calls the icy breath of the north wind, and ice rimes the tendril that blocks the door. It cracks under the levering strength of Somon's crowbar, and the party pushes into the room.
The doors push against ankle deep water, alive with crawling crustaceans and floating masses of bacterial blooms. The stench is overpowering. Coral covers the floor, walls, and ceiling. There, at the end of the hold, a humanoid figure. Wrapped and entrapped and overgrown with coral and tendril and kelpy vine, the captain and mind of this evil...thing, this scourge of the ocean.
The Scavenger attacks, sword thrusting towards the captain. Tentacles and tendrils reach from holes in the corals of the walls and ceiling, attacking the party. Somon throws his lantern, the metal reservoir splitting open on the hard coral and the glass shattering, the oil igniting. Fear fills the party. It's hard to approach. They fight the very walls, and a blast of evil light emanates from the captain, cutting through the Scavenger's arm.
Cornelius retaliates, a blast of lightning finally destroying the THING that guided the ship.
The ship, already dead, began to die and rot in earnest. The coral and flesh that had held sections of other scavenged ships to its hold began to collapse, falling into the sea. The whole ship, a corpse on the waves, began to sing.
The party clambered up softening stairs, the sound of rushing water chasing them up and out into the clear air. The miasma of death that surrounded the ship had settled into the waves with the death of the captain. We clamber down onto the Burritt's Pride and wrench free, rejoining the Marauder schooners, and sailing back to the cove.
The Marauder greets us with thanks, and with ill news.
The Empire has blockaded Arridem. We must rush home. The Marauder sends his fastest ship to his new ally, the king of Faren. He promises a dozen ships to accompany us to Arridem, as the Empire is no friend of his.
TL;DR: The party hunts down and kills an undead warship, securing their rebellion's alliance with the pirate king known as The Marauder. But just as they secure themselves a navy, dire news arrives: the city of Arridem is being blocked by Imperial ships.
I ended up not doing the party-splitting thing, largely because of time constraints. But it worked out better that way. It's funny how much quicker a four-person party plays than a seven-person one.
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Well.....traditionally D&D gods act through Clerics, not through direct intervention. So I think the similarities to the actual real world Catholic Church in the dark ages and the amount of power and influence they have over a persons life are just about similar.
More cynically, given that D&D gods are not really omnipotent rather than just much much much more powerful than any individual you could replace the word "God" with "Corporation" and you'd end up in a similar situation I think.
There is a very substantial part of the US population at least that lives this way already. There really isn't a meaningful difference in actions between someone believing with 100% certainty that they know all those answers and actually knowing all those answers.
In the context of the discussion, we're talking about whether the "big metaphysical questions all have definite, objectively true answers"
Like, is there a god? Yes. There are many.
At that point answers about right and wrong and the nature of our existence are no longer matters of interpretation. Whether there are options or not is irrelevant (right is according to the god you worship now), the point is that the questions are so fundamentally different so as to be incomparable.
There being many pretty well establishes that which one is actually "right" is unclear. If we're talking big picture metaphorical question like "what the answer to life, the universe and everything" the answer list isn't multiple choice. If it is multiple choice you are back to what we have in the real world where you have many options and it is unclear which is actually the "right" answer.
Essentially, if their is an objective answer than all the gods but one are lying about what proper conduct is.
I did this with a 4E campaign set in what was basically the Borderlands universe.
All divine powers were derived from corporate sponsorship. Depending on the corp, they were either structured like a pyramid scheme of converted worshipers (with more under you meaning more power) or via a licensing/franchise model.
We had a Cleric of THOR(tm) who kept leaving kobolds alive so he could convert them at hammerpoint(?) to keep up with his quotas and avoid underage penalties.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I feel like you're ignoring the big deal, which is that there is a functionally all-powerful being whose directives to you are extremely direct, accurate, and provable.
Just because there's another one who says something different to the people over there does not make that any less earthshatteringly significant.
Every spirituality in our world is defined at its core by faith (or lack thereof), if you can prove god exists then everything changes immediately.
Nope. There are twenty, or thirty, or several hundred. Which means none of them are all powerful.
Er...how? You could be running a game where 7th level clerics inhabit each and every village with more than two peasants but that is very much not the default. That's what you need to get a yes or not answer that is probably true according to god.
Eh. King Louie XIV told me he ruled by the right of God and that the English guy said the same thing was totally irrelevant.
I'll concede this but it leaves the problem is the interchangeable use of the word "god" to mean something that is omniscient/omnipotent/omni-everything as well as one of a few dozen outer planar creatures who are pretty damn powerful but do not know/control/influence literally everything.
Counterpoint: Any god that routinely performs supernatural miracles is a MUCH BIGGER DEAL than any god we know on real life earth, where that stuff doesn't happen.
If I proved to you that God existed right now, but God still didn't really intercede by way of miracles or divine intervention (which we can probably agree is the case), that would be huge. The biggest possible news.
But, if I showed you an undeniable miracle, like healing someone's mortal wounds (which is only a level 1 cleric ability at most), that would be even bigger.
Even if there's another god who ALSO does miracles, which, considering there are gods in D&D who are enemies of other gods, by definition ensures neither is all powerful, it's still a way bigger deal.
So, lack of omniscience or omnipotence of the gods doesn't really matter. It's still more of a game changer than it would be here on earth, and here on earth it would be a pretty f'ing big game changer.
The Gods were known and active within the world, with many different names and aspects as far-flung cultures interpreted their existences and edicts.
Then they were gone and became myths doubted by the populace within a few generations.
Then they were back, actively jockeying for position and power, working at cross purposes and starting wars between their followers.
Then they were gone again and the mortal races were pretty sure they were staying away for good, which actually wasn't a terrible deal.
Then there was just one, provable god who was clearly active and empowering people, but who nobody could really figure out on anything past a surface level.
Then the whole crew was back and everyone is pretty divided on whether or not they're wanted them at all. Because gods can be pretty cool, but they can also be a huge pain in the ass and get a bunch of people killed with via otherwise irrational warring amongst their followers.
Spirituality isn't the issue at that point. It's the assholes with the power, just like at any point in real world human history.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The impact of any given D&D god on the average arid land goat herder is at least an order of magnitude less than US foreign policy in the lifetime of your average Iraqi. As humans we routinely deal with entities vastly more powerful than ourselves with a much greater impact on our lives.
I understand the idea that an actual provable god would be a big deal if it conformed with the typical definition of god. D&D doesn't have that. They have really powerful but heavily limited supernatural creatures. Some of these are called PCs and some of them are called Gods. For your average D&D setting, once you get past the first few levels they are virtually indistinguishable for your average peasant.
Also, this is super snarky but funny so I'm spoilering it and please know I don't mean it seriously.
Big whoop, I trained as an EMT. I didn't fall down and worship the dude who taught me to use the defibrillator.
I think you're underestimating the real power of polytheism, here.
While, yes, you might feel pretty personally invested in, I dunno, Torm's teachings, you still realize that while he is in fact the God of Duty, he is demonstrably not the Goddess of the Ocean, and so when you get in that boat you say a prayer to Torm to help you perform your duty to your captain well and to Umberlee to be nice to you while in her domain.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
My problem is there's an interesting philosophical discussion about a humble shopkeeper who doesn't have any doubts buried under all this inane talk about how powerful gods in a pantheon are.
It's like when you ask about the tree making sound in the forest when nobody's around to hear it and the answers are "what about the animals," "of course there's someone around, even forests have people in them," and "yes, let me tell you about sound waves"
I'm just disappointed we're not having that conversation instead
This is true, though a few points should be raised:
1. Gods aren't all powerful; they have vast ammounts of power but are primarily focused on their particular portfolio (I.E. farming) and things that directly effect that (I.E. sun, wars, demonic incursions). Beyond these issues they tend to be really ambivelent and/or ignorant.
2. Fighting a god is monumentally challenging; they usually have immense base line stats, hp, magic, a plethora of innate abilities and legions of minions (angels, demons, elementals, paladins, zealots ect.). Further, in their home plane these powers are generally pumped through the roof.
Faith in a D&D sense is more about service and devotion than whether or not you actually believe.
Ultimately, just like anything else that is known, it'll eventually become old hat and be approached in a very utilitarian fashion. Once the questions are gone, the modern concept of spirituality no longer applies. It'd be like worshiping meteorologists or plumbers.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Depends on the setting and what constitutes denial.
In darksun you'd probably be considered normal, since any gods that existed there went dormant ages ago.
Depending on the era of dragonlance you might get all manner of strange looks or again: be considered normal (following the cataclysm all faith was lost until around the war of the lance some 300 years later).
On faerun you'd be considered insane since even during the post sundering era where the gods are comparatively distant they are considered as real as gravity or sunlight.
My issue is that, to continue your analogy, that D&D and gods is like somebody placing a microphone in the forest and saying it will lead to fantastic new discoveries about unattended falling trees and the sounds they make.
This is a pet peeve of mine but D&D doesn't really deal with actual issues of Faith, Belief, and Theology in any way that's actually relatable. Typically it is entirely transactional. Which, if understood, is fine. Those are uncomfortable topics for lots of people so reducing it to basically religious cosplay doesn't bother me. People who think it somehow actually informs you on the attitudes and beliefs of religious people is the part that's crazy to me.
I think it always comes down to how well the DM is keeping expectations in place and how well the holy caster characters are being played.
I played in a Planescape game once with a girl whose character was, she claimed, an atheist. None of us were really sure how to address it, so we just kind of ignored it every she brought it up...which was often.
That campaign didn't last long
Not only does it require minute knowledge of the rules to discover something did or didn't fuck up, the way to execute shit is "do it this unintuitive way or fuck off".
If they'd at least have a LoS system for maps I'd forgiven that, but nooo the gm has to manually erase the "fog of war".
Oh well, hopefully you can "get used" to it...
Huh. I had never heard that before.
I just thought it a pretty interesting insight into the pettiness of the gods in the Realms. Their power was derived by the strength of their followers. The larger the level of belief the more powerful the deity was. Good/Evil or anything in between has a place. But if a soul didn't believe? It was shoved into a wall to feel torment until the end of time. That's petty.
Toril is a place bad enough to deserve Volo.
Steam - NotoriusBEN | Uplay - notoriusben | Xbox,Windows Live - ThatBEN
Who people didn't even know about until he turfed all the gods operating in or around abier toril during the time of troubles, and has as far as I know ignored the affairs of mortals in all but the most remote instances.
Also: dude straight up doesn't need worshippers and is ambivelent to any prayers directed his way.
He doesn't follow anybody's rules. Not even his own.
Humans have a long history of polytheism, and for all those people - those gods are real. the manifestations are real. the priests read the signs and the will of the gods as real and act accordingly.
If a priest of Ares says that the only way to save Thebes from the Spartans is to sacrifice all the first-born maiden daughters, and the Spartans still come - They'll know they failed the will of the god somehow or someone else did, or another god stood in their way and thwarted Ares.
People are still looking to live good lives, and pursue their goals - amongst the gods. If one god says you can't eat fish, and another god says you can eat fish but not apples. You know with 100% certainty which god the fisherman will follow and he won't eat apples. and if a storm comes and drowns the fisherman - well that's the god that told him not to eat fish.
my point being Polytheism isn't something new or weird. and priest still talk about the will of the gods, and what is right and what is wrong, and sentient being will still fight against their own desires with the desires of many different gods.
But was she actually one of the Athar? The Faithless often get the sneer from clueless berks of the Prime, yanno...
PHB, p. 170, Spell Sniper.
Awesome thanks! I swear I read through the feats, but I must have totally skimmed past that one.
Pirates, rough men and women from youth to middle age (there are old pirates, and bold pirates, but no old bold pirates) man the schooner. A half dozen pirates board, and their leader, scimitar and flintlock at hip, ask what we're there for. We convince him we have business with The Marauder, and he leads us into the cove.
The cove is lined with wrecked and broken ships, bound together with chain and rope and spells to make a boardwalk and village that bobs with the tide. The Marauder receives the party in his state room, guarded by heavily armored sentinels.
"Arrrrrr you tired of this pirate voice? Because I am." We explain the southern alliance and the bounty on imperial ships and goods. He likes the idea, but the Toltos roams the great pass, and any venture will fail unless it is dealt with. If we can destroy the Toltos, he'll make his pirates into privateers.
The Toltos has roamed the waters for more than a century. A warship, grand, lost in a storm and blown too close to the Citadel. The crew killed and animated by foul unlife by the Avar Corvallex, turned into a ghost ship that roamed the pass, preying on ships.
The Marauder commissions us to rid the pass of the Toltos. He does not leave his stateroom, and cannot do so himself. His Scavenger is given a magic item that can combat the evil consuming mists that surround the Toltos. The party sails immediately.
HRS Burritt's Pride and two Marauder schooners sail into the pass, seeking the Toltos. It was not hard to find. It approaches, as do zombie giant octopii and zombie sharks. Massio fires the fore ballista at the Toltos, a long ranging shot that misses, and strikes a huge dorsal fin. Blood stains the waters, and some of the beasts below the waves go mad.
Zombie giant octopus clamber aboard! Bastion, true to his name, has carved and cast a magic circle in the center of the deck. The Scavenger concentrates on the Clear Air Idol (name of item?) and sure enough the air clears around all three ships. A hag appears and strikes at us as well!
The Toltos approaches, and as it sideswipes us, Somon slams shoulder first into the brand new Corvus installed by the Marauder's boat-wrights, the iron spike piercing the side of the tall warship, which begins to drag us along.
We clamber aboard.
Massio goes to work with his hammer, and Somon with his strength, crushing and throwing the poor wretched zombies to clear a path. Bastion climbs aboard, and makes his way to the center. Brandishing the symbol of Vaira, a white light emanates from him, and the zombies char and crumble to ass, the sigh of a hundred escaping spirits fading with the light. Captain Cornelius stares down one of the two passages open to us. It pulses and breathes. We decide against that one.
Somon rigs up a flail from some debris when confronted with the second passage of bloodless husks, zombies or wraithlike creatures which he lays into, until their faces begin to resemble those of friends, family, and the terrified visages of those who he's hurt in his madness.
He flees from the passage, Bastion and Massio shaking him out of his terror. They ascend to the quarterdeck. Massio and Somon go to work with hammer and crowbar, prying up sea rotten planks to get to the captain's quarters.
One heavy blow too many and the section of deck Massio is on collapses, and he finds himself in the captain's quarters. The party clambers down into the empty cabin. Mold has made most things a ruin. The paint has peeled, the paper has disintegrated, but the middle pages are legible. The captain speaks of the weather and journey...towards the Black City. He wasn't lost in a storm or blown off course, he went to the black city of his own will. The fool.
And we the fools aboard this ship of damned souls. If we struggle and fight and throw holy fire and lightning, perhaps our souls will not end up among them. We open the cabin doors and descend into the lower deck. Cabins, storage, galley, and cannon upon cannon, rotting and rusting in turn. We clear the rooms, and resign ourselves to the inevitable descent into the hold. Somon lights his lamp, crowbar in his other hand. Bastions' symbol of Vaira glows as the darkness deepens, and the smell of rotten ocean life and evil overwhelms the party.
Down we descend, on sagging steps of salt-rotten wood, stepping on seashells that crack and crunch underfoot.
The doors to the central hold, held closed by a tendril of flesh, pulsing with the heartbeat of this foul abomination.
Cornelius calls the icy breath of the north wind, and ice rimes the tendril that blocks the door. It cracks under the levering strength of Somon's crowbar, and the party pushes into the room.
The doors push against ankle deep water, alive with crawling crustaceans and floating masses of bacterial blooms. The stench is overpowering. Coral covers the floor, walls, and ceiling. There, at the end of the hold, a humanoid figure. Wrapped and entrapped and overgrown with coral and tendril and kelpy vine, the captain and mind of this evil...thing, this scourge of the ocean.
The Scavenger attacks, sword thrusting towards the captain. Tentacles and tendrils reach from holes in the corals of the walls and ceiling, attacking the party. Somon throws his lantern, the metal reservoir splitting open on the hard coral and the glass shattering, the oil igniting. Fear fills the party. It's hard to approach. They fight the very walls, and a blast of evil light emanates from the captain, cutting through the Scavenger's arm.
Cornelius retaliates, a blast of lightning finally destroying the THING that guided the ship.
The ship, already dead, began to die and rot in earnest. The coral and flesh that had held sections of other scavenged ships to its hold began to collapse, falling into the sea. The whole ship, a corpse on the waves, began to sing.
The party clambered up softening stairs, the sound of rushing water chasing them up and out into the clear air. The miasma of death that surrounded the ship had settled into the waves with the death of the captain. We clamber down onto the Burritt's Pride and wrench free, rejoining the Marauder schooners, and sailing back to the cove.
The Marauder greets us with thanks, and with ill news.
The Empire has blockaded Arridem. We must rush home. The Marauder sends his fastest ship to his new ally, the king of Faren. He promises a dozen ships to accompany us to Arridem, as the Empire is no friend of his.
TL;DR: The party hunts down and kills an undead warship, securing their rebellion's alliance with the pirate king known as The Marauder. But just as they secure themselves a navy, dire news arrives: the city of Arridem is being blocked by Imperial ships.
I ended up not doing the party-splitting thing, largely because of time constraints. But it worked out better that way. It's funny how much quicker a four-person party plays than a seven-person one.