Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Will Cleric domains depend on the selected deity?

I'm asking because the only game that came close to being detailed about clerics was NWN2, and you could pick 2 domains on first level, regardless of the deity you chose to worship, also, there were tons and tons of domains available. My question is whether I will be able to play a tempest domain cleric of Ilmater? It's really illogical, but I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed since it's a single player game. How many domains will deities have? Will some deities have more domains then others?

Also on the same note: Will cleric and paladin deity-specific dialogue differ, or will paladins and clerics have basically the same dialogue options if they worship the same deity? Or will paladin-specific dialogue be tied to their Oaths instead? I don't have a problem with this either way, just curious.

On your first question : like you, I very much hope that Larian doesn't enforce restrictions.

I would be fine, if not happy, if they indicated the standard domains of each deity. Or perhaps flagged a combination that doesn't really makes sense, lore-wise. For the players who don't know the lore but who nevertheless care about making something sensible. But the associations domain-deity shouldn't be forced. There will always be someone who knows all the lore and can come up with a character concept and backstory justifying an odd combination.

From what I saw in the DnD 5E rulebooks, each cleric chooses only one domain. And there are just a few of them (7 to be precise, in the Players' Handbook). Each deity has a couple of domains associated to them.


On your second question : I hope that they move the deity to a specific tag, which is independent of the class.

So instead of the current tag "Cleric of Ilmater", such a character would just have the tags "Cleric" and "Deity : Ilmater". A paladin would have "Paladin" and "Deity : Ilmater". From there, the same dialogue options should be proposed. That doesn't prevent Paladins from also having options specific to their oath, but so far as I don't think I have seen any dialogue option based on a sub-class/archetype.


On both your questions : no one here knows for sure. It's very possible that Larian doesn't know either.

I am mostly surprised they have a lot of small, weird gods and not famous and powerful gods like Talos, Amaunator and Lathander. O_o

I still kinda feel that .... I mean, I am fine with allowing any domain for any deity, but in some cases it would just be weird. Tempest for Ilmater? Ehh... Light for Shar? o_ô

Now that you mention it I just realized that Lanthander is not on the lsit of available deities which is quite a surprise, because he is a very big deal.
On the other hand I was enver too much of a fun of the guy so whatever.
That being said I agree that a Light domain cleric of Shar would be weird, on the other hand, tempest domain for Ilmater is appropriate because if you make him angry he is knows to go nuts and just fuck shit up like nobody else can. It is said, that Ilmater has fire like no other, so there's that.

I allways thought that clerics are suppose to please choosen deity with their actions ...
So i presume if anyone wish to play lawfull good benelovent life domain cleric of Baal, or Lolth ... he should have tough times. :-/

I hope they introduce domain locks. Not limiting one god to one domain, but "allowed unless it really doesn't make sense". Like, you know, Light or Life Cleric of Shar... quite ridiculous.

However, for that to be viable, there would need to be more domains (and more deities would hurt either). If you were to restrict the domains now, you'd only have one choice for Shar clerics, for example. And some gods wouldn't have domains that are better fits than just "Light, Life -> good, Trickery -> evil" (more or less).

I'm strongly against hard locks, limiting players' freedom to make a weird combination of deity, domain, sex and race.

At the same time, some players might want to make sure they create something sensible despite not being DnD lore experts. That's why I think there should be a flag raised if you are about to venture forth with something weird. But you should be able to say "ok, I stick with it anyway".

An idea might be something like what is done in the character appearance selection. For many choices (eye colour, skin colour, etc), you are given a short lists of options that should go well with your choice of race. But you can tick/untick a box and have access to the full list of options.

For deities and domains, your previous choices might give you a list of usual suspects, but then you could click to access the full set.

Most likely, we should choose deity first. The game would then provide the list of 2-4 domains this deity is reasonably or usually associated with.

I hope domain selection is limited by deity selection.
Alignment is gone, so your deity is the only thing that could restrict you.

- NWN2 had no restrictions at all, deity selection did nothing and players could select domains as they like it. So you could have an evil cleric of the god of death with the life domain (you are still the heal bot for the party) and the water domain (because you want to have evasion)

- Pathfinder kingmaker limits domains, deities and alignment, but the selection is so large that players will rarely have a problem to find gods and domains that fir their character.
I like this more. A cleric from the god of darkness with the light domain makes no sense. DnD 5E has tons of gods and domains, so every player should be able to find something that fits.

Personally I'M in favor of allowing most domains to most deities aside from obviously contradictory ones.
Myrkul shouldn't have life, Shar shouldn't have light, Helm shouldn't have trickery etc.

I think they should.

Ultimately it will be inevitable that different Clerics will have spells that overlap.
But I wish the so called goodnatured and more benevolent Deitys will not allow their Clerics some dark Spell like "Necrotic hands".
This feels immersion breaking.

They could do what they do for skin color and hair color. They show you what is lore-friendly and if you want, click a button and show all domains!

They should at least put some restrictions in place, while keeping the majority of domains open.

Myrkul, Bhaal shouldn't be allowed for Life domain clerics
Tyr, Torm and Helm shouldn't be allowed for Trickery domain
Shar and Lolth shouldn't be allowed for Light domain
Ilmater and Lathander (should he become available) shouldn't be allowed for Death domain (if it gets added)

Diety restrictions for cleric domains and eventually Paladin oaths should be opt-in. A system like they did for cosmetic appearances (default has some lore-implied restrictions, but you can circumvent those) would be a reasonable compromise.

I would like it to be locked eventually. To me it doesn't make sense to have a life domain cleric using toll the dead. But the devs can make cosmetic equivalents to some spells -- ebon flame, necrotic bolt and the like.

I believe there is also other problem ...
Even as corect cleric for corect domain, you have no need to act like such ... you can be cleric of Tyr (or Silvanus, if that will be possible) and still help goblins mindlessly massacre whole groove. Without any punishment. :-/

I would like to see at last something like "Your deity aprooves" buff with effect like: Advantage for cleric spell casts for next 10 minutes / rounds or, simmilary "Your deity disaprooves" buff with effect like: Disadvantage for cleric spell casts for next 10 minutes / rounds.

Part of me strongly wants them to be locked to certain domains per god, or at least locked out of "opposed" domains.

But then there is the nagging part of me that feels that unlike 3.5 that had lots of domains, 5e only have a short list of them. And it's very likely that if Larian has to start choosing subclasses to leave out it will be the cleric (and wizard) specializations that go first, so we might end up with even fewer. So if there's just a handful of them to choose from... It just feels less right to restrict them.

The best solution is probably to make the option to de-lock domain restrictions as we do with appearance options currently, as somebody suggested above.

Apparently this forum forces people to necro.
Rather ridiculous I must say. A top discussed a long time ago being brought up again in a new thread is far better than people necroing old threads.
But the system will not allow me to make a post about Cleric domains, no matter how much I reword the title, insisting "post already exists" and telling me to search for it.
Yes, robot, a similar post does exist, but it's too old for it to make sense for me to add to it instead of making a new thread...
Nonetheless I would bring this topic to attention again, with my opinion I had felt strongly enough to make a thread about.

Clerics shouldn't be able to mix any god and subclass they want. Subclasses (Domains) should be god-dependent.

Unless I was hallucinating during character creation, while playing a Cleric you can be whatever domain you want with whatever god you want. Granted they haven't exactly added all the domains they're presumably going to, being early access and all, so maybe this is just temporary anyway.
Nonetheless this feels very wrong to me. A cleric worshiping A god of war shouldn't be getting life domain powers, for an arbitrary example.
It's like how changing what sort of entity you make a pact with changes a warlocks spells, the power received should match the source of it.

I don't really think a "battlefield medic"-type cleric of Tempus who focuses on healing to return soldiers to the fray and thereby prolong/intensify wars is actually that bad of a concept, particularly since the Life domain's heavy armor proficiency already implies some emphasis on martial training, but I agree with your overall point that some combos don't make sense.

Agreed ...
But since you are totally able as Cleric of Tyr go on murder spree and kill everyone you met ... with zero consequences ... i presume its just the same approach. :-/

Letting a player pick the Light domain for a Cleric of Shar? Death for a Cleric of Lathander? Arcana for Tempus? I think there needs to be a limit to this kind of "creativity" or the gods won't mean much.

It's entirely possible to pick a deity based on the domain powers you want. Why would you also need to be able to make contradictory combinations?

For the sake of multiplayer and keeping the game world intact, I hope the domains / subclasses will be appropriately restricted. Also more intuitive for new players so they don't have to be puzzled by why they can choose the Light subclass for a God of Darkness and then go googling if there is any penalty for that.