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4 years ago ::
Dec 16, 2008 - 12:30PM
#231
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Date Joined:
May 20, 2007
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actually i think raven queen and pelor is the hardest clerics to roleplay "correctly" the clerics of the raven queen have a burden that no other god or goddess has, nonwithstanding a crusade against demons and undead. i see player character clerics and paladins as walking a fine line between interpetation of the whims of a goddess. the responcibility to do what no other adventurer really has to do. while other gods in a round about way/ kinda say to do some good into the world. the dark ladys followers must take the hardest path. i think its been mentioned many times of the utility she has as far as adventureing goes. you can do what she wants you to do without much tweaking. pelor is more of a catch all in terms of purpose but theirs nothing wrong with that. =] moradin wants you to strive to make your mark in the world, subject to making a great quality item ( outhouses) as a smith... or a ruler of a dynasty. melora has no real reason to adventurers to do much of anything, especially if you follow her last tenant of do not condemn savagery. "those gnolls just raided the village to find food, "let them be" type of thing. she might have an issue with erathis, but its really not common cause to adventure, maybe tie themselves to a tree or somthing.  (seriously i love melora, i do!) avandra ( another personal favorite) again has almot no cause to adventure.  bahamut is one of those gods who keeps his followers on the move, one of those gods that simply works, like the raven queen you can't do what he wants you to do without hitting the ground running and swinging steel valentines of death.:D erathis is sim cities patron not particularlly adventureous, you can follow her tenants by building mud huts for the rest of your life  mud huts and outhouses for the win. ioun suprizes you with that last tenant of being nosey with venca followers. a great adventuring god for the fact she comes so left wing on you. she gives you a shopping list of wonderful things to do to vecnas followers. oppose schemes, unmask secrets, and blind them. woot! kord is kord. and you cant be kords man ( or woman) without testing metal. corellon is an excellent example of proactive preaching, you can't do any of his tentants without being out and about. why do elves and eladrin have great gods.  (sehanine is okay but corellon steals the "purpose to adventure" show)
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4 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2008 - 11:00AM
#232
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Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2004
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I think you guys are making my point. The Raven Queen's tenents essentially say "go kill stuff, especially big proud stuff that may be worth a lot of XP, and fight demon cultists."
This is not at all restrictive for PCs. They were gonna do all that stuff anyway. It's the religion that stays out of a PC's way.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2008 - 12:51PM
#233
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2002
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melora has no real reason to adventurers to do much of anything, especially if you follow her last tenant of do not condemn savagery. "those gnolls just raided the village to find food, "let them be" type of thing. she might have an issue with erathis, but its really not common cause to adventure, maybe tie themselves to a tree or somthing. (seriously i love melora, i do!)
Or the adventurers can raze villages and defend a place of wilderness against all civilized intruders. And don't forget that they hate aberrations, so you would have crusades agains mind flayers, etc.
avandra ( another personal favorite) again has almot no cause to adventure.
Not? Considering that most adventurers are in fact nothing more than grave robbers and mercenaries many of them would identify rather well with her. Luck favours the bold, and what is more bold than to go into dungeons day after day? And especially thieves will like the fight for your freedom part.
erathis is sim cities patron not particularlly adventureous, you can follow her tenants by building mud huts for the rest of your life mud huts and outhouses for the win.
Not adventerous? Who do you think clears the mines of kobolds and drives away the orcs who occupy fertile grounds? Most monsters are a threat to civilization so Erathis followers have a reason to hunt them. Also adventurers also like the "Seek new things" tenet (usually found in dungeons and the "work with others" tenet, which they do by default.
Also, you are justified to do other heroic things like trying to convert and civilize a tribe of orcs, etc. But that doesn't involve fighting, so its not 4E PC material...
But, yeah. The Raven Queens tenets are easy to follow for adventurers, especially as unlike the tenets of other deities, she doesn't want anything special from her followers. Mindlessly killing stuff is enough to be a faithful RQ cleric.
Add to that the RQ is a goth chick, is "cool" as she has a title as name and is the better powergame option its no wonder that many people take her as patron god, even though that, in game, you don't get much of a benefit of worshipping her, as she won't let you live longer if you do. For most people, adventurers and normal persons, the other deities are far more practical to worship.
And of course RQ clerics act against the will of their patron when they heal someone, but most people don't really care about that.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2008 - 1:20PM
#234
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Whatever happened to the bright shiny paladins in perfectly polished armor who could do no wrong?
Nothing at all, but people like options, and often like to explore new options. Given the fact they now have the option to make a different kind of paladin, it's normal they opt for it.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2008 - 1:25PM
#235
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Date Joined:
Feb 11, 2007
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This is not at all restrictive for PCs. They were gonna do all that stuff anyway. It's the religion that stays out of a PC's way.
So... the players are utilizing their free will to make a choice that creates a style of play that better suits their preferences?
The scoundrels! 
Why does it need to be restrictive? Some players don't want a religion getting in the way. Some players would rather hand-wave religion rather than having to OOCly give a damn about it. Sure, the character could be an atheist, but in a world with magic and deities, it probably wouldn't be feasible. Even if the character is a member of the clergy, the player might not want the faith to be anything more than a background element (it's possible to create a story about a priest that isn't about being a priest, after all).
Do you watch cop shows on TV and get ticked off that the Catholic detective who just shot a crook can just step into a church and confess to the priest for it to be hunky-dory? Do you make irate phone calls to the producers and call them 'chicken-****s' for taking the cop-out of not having the gun-toting cop be a nonviolent Buddhist? Or do you accept that they have chosen one out of several equally valid character options because it works better for the story that they want to tell?
Maybe you should accept the same of other/your players. They have focuses and priorities for their characters which likely differ from yours. They probably don't place as much emphasis on the rules-element of the religion, or they just don't want that external element interfering with what they feel is really important, the story of adventure. Feeling this way does not make them inferior roleplayers, nor does taking issue with it make you in any way superior. It just makes you both different.
(I employ zie/zie/zir as a gender-neutral counterpart to he/him/his. Just a heads-up.)
Essentials definitely isn't for me as a player, and I feel that its design and implementation bear serious flaws which fill me with concern for the future of D&D, but I've come to the conclusion that it isn't going to destroy the game that I want to play. Indeed, I think that I could probably run a game for players using Essentials characters without it being much of a problem at all. Time will tell, I suppose.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 17, 2008 - 11:47PM
#236
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Date Joined:
May 20, 2007
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first and formost. mr celsius is my hero.  there wasn't anything i could have said that he didn't respond better to. the restrictions style to play stems all the way back from second edition and most players use that sort of thing as a hold over. its a crutch. really. its the strangest thing, the more restrictive and frustrating a character the bigger the role play muscle is. and derren is a favorite because we can debate.  i purposly made over the top characterizations to open the playing field a bit more and compare others to the raven queen, rather then 8 pages of ripping on her. derren made valid points. most of which i agree with. i just wanted to make it very clear that i do agree with you derren but wanted to play the part of devils advocate. going to be hard tho lol. the challenge was to show a connection to roleplayers and the dieties within. melora: i'll give you the win on her because of the quest against the unatural. the same might go with avandra. i especially like your comment on how grave robbers and mercenaries might well have cause to worship her besides plucky halflings... for avandra =] avandra: i think her alignment is "good", but with the new system on keeping moral and ethical alignment vague, i could totally see grave robbers and mercs priasing her. the challenge is more of what deity gets characters on the ground running rather then kinda relate to "luck favoring them if they are bold enough to do _____" you can almost insert any verb in there. luck favors the bold brewing of halfling beer" or " luck favors the bold baking of goblindroppings" too ambiguous erathis: im inclinded to agree she is certainly not as martial as she can be. perhaps im too used to imagining buldozers trampling trees rather then brave homesteaders and scouts to cut the land to see fit. creating civilization where its so rare in the new world of dnd fits your explanation tho, with the whole "points of light" theme dnd has going. so you again win this one. i don't think mindlessly killing stuff fits with the raven queens tenants at all. she only states that death is a natural part of things as they are and not to pity those who are cut down. i think mindlessly killing people/beasts/things might actually pick up her ire, as you become lacking in hubris. and you might have killed somthing fated to be somthing better then a fleshy pocket for your shortsword. perhaps another reason why her sorrowsworn to large places of death and battlefields. and even if other adventurers don't particularrly worship her im sure everyone gives her some form of lip service. they have a nice example in martail powers . i think near the fighter section. i still think most gods are given the same kinda of attention. i gave an example of that earlier.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2008 - 7:02AM
#237
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Date Joined:
Apr 12, 2004
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So... the players are utilizing their free will to make a choice that creates a style of play that better suits their preferences?
The scoundrels!
Not scoundrels, BORING
And if that cop's also a priest, yeah i do think it's chicken **** to shoot someone.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2008 - 3:18PM
#238
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Date Joined:
Feb 12, 2004
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Why is she popular? So far the reasons seem to include:
A) The goth/emo/dark hero bit is popular these days. The popularity of such overlaps heavily with the popularity of D&D. It may not be your thing. It may not be my thing. It's trite, but no more or less so then any other cliche. Regardless, whether you like it or not, it is popular, and a PC friendly diety that fits that image is of course going to be popular.
B) Her gameplay mechanic is good. Clerics and Paladins of optimizing players unlock some good options by following her. She's not the only power-friendly diety, but she is one of the better ones.
C) The Raven Queen is unaligned. On top of this she's also a very distant and mysterious diety. She's not going to get in your PC's way.. You can play your character in a way that you best feel matches your character's personality, and the choice of diety won't get in your way.
D) The Raven Queen, unlike many other dieties, has active and direct background enemies for your character to oppose. Orcus is a built in adventure hook to get your PC into an adventure and make it more exciting.
E) She is modeled after a very cool real world mythological figure that many find quite cool.
F) Unlike previous D&D dieties who might have matched some of the above (ie, Wee Jas), the Raven Queen's attributes and themes are generally coherent, so there's nothing to sour the fun of playing a character dedicated to her.
Necromancy: Friendship is MagicSpoiler:
Show
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4 years ago ::
Dec 18, 2008 - 10:12PM
#239
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Why is she popular? So far the reasons seem to include:
A) The goth/emo/dark hero bit is popular these days. The popularity of such overlaps heavily with the popularity of D&D. It may not be your thing. It may not be my thing. It's trite, but no more or less so then any other cliche. Regardless, whether you like it or not, it is popular, and a PC friendly diety that fits that image is of course going to be popular.
quiet your logic!
B) Her gameplay mechanic is good. Clerics and Paladins of optimizing players unlock some good options by following her. She's not the only power-friendly diety, but she is one of the better ones.
which, imo, is kinda lame. I wish they had balanced the feats better.
C) The Raven Queen is unaligned. On top of this she's also a very distant and mysterious diety. She's not going to get in your PC's way.. You can play your character in a way that you best feel matches your character's personality, and the choice of diety won't get in your way.
she gets in the was as much or more than any other deity. after all, healing someone or resurecting them is against her tennents, but players ignore that. no other deity is that restrictive.
D) The Raven Queen, unlike many other dieties, has active and direct background enemies for your character to oppose. Orcus is a built in adventure hook to get your PC into an adventure and make it more exciting.
and Corellon apparently is enemies with the RQ. Oh, and Lolth. Erathis has the minotaur demon, since Erathis was goddess of minotaurs. Pelor also has Orcus as an enemy as well as Asmodeous.
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4 years ago ::
Dec 19, 2008 - 5:46AM
#240
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Date Joined:
May 20, 2007
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alright. one final time. i challenge anyone on this thread to look through the players hand book or any 4th edition realted article on the RQ and find the sentance, utterance or otherwise inferred idea that "the raven queen does not want her clerics to heal anyone at all, under any circumstances. " this includes the players hand book. dragon articles, dungeon articles. everything at your disposal. to prove to me that players shouldn't play a cleric of the raven queen as practical as any other cleric of any other deity. you won't find it. :embarrass on page 296 of the players handbook we see a dragonborn cleric casting a scroll from the players handbook. he seems to be casting a ritual on the fighter that resembles regdar. its sure to be raise dead. i checked all the rituals to see if it was "radiant hole through the chest" i didn't find that spell either. its a long shot that hes actually just just dressing in her symbols for fashion. he may be dressed in clothing with her symbols because he heard from everyone else its trendy but we can't be sure. on the other hand, if he really was casting a "radiant chest hole" through regdars to make sure he hes dead and doesn't get up during an attack from drow would be perfectly in tune with some peoples ideas on how the followers of the raven queen should be played LOL
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