Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Paladin class NEEDS Deity Choice!

Honestly, diety choice should exist for all characters. It should be a basic part of character creation, not something reserved for specific classes. If a character wants to worship nobody, that should be an option, too.

Most characters should be polytheistic and invoke various gods depending on what they're doing or where they're going, and not have one particular deity.

Having a singular deity is the unusual exception.

It's the exception that explains where Divine spellcasting comes from. It's borrowed power granted through devotion. I think Paladins as a spellcaster class should be very clear on this even though otherwise they could be polytheistic. Otherwise the lines between Arcane and Divine magic blur away and the gods' role comes under question, if they are not actually needed for Divine magic. "Faithless" people getting access to the same powers would shake the foundations of many faiths.

I agree, but I am worried it is too late in development for them to (a) implement, and, with much greater difficulty (b) make it matter with reactivity and significance. Can't repurpose every reaction to Cleric of X for every Follower of X. So voice lines, animations, dialogue options, story effects, various reactions, all for the bulk of characters you can interact with to some depth would have to be added. This is something that needed to be considered one to two years ago.

In d&d, it's traditionally accepted that everyone knows all the gods exist, but most people choose a favorite to worship. That doesn't exclude them from making prayers/etc to the other gods, but most characters have a "primary" good that is their bff diety.

In Faerun you need to chose one - even it's a first among equals. You can respect Torm, Tyr, Illmater and Helm but you need to prefer one best of all, otherwise you run the risk of becoming one of the faithless

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Wall_of_the_Faithless

You missed that entire discussion about the changing nature of the wall of the faithless didn't you?

The actual existence of the wall is entirely unknown at this point. It was turned into a mirror during novel events, only to get revoked by SCAG, which then had it's entry for the wall of the faithless get removed in an errata.

As far as we know, it's still a mirror, until another more recent sourcebook comes along saying otherwise.

At this stage you can Elder Scrolls it and say that there's a bunch of equally valid theories for how it happened that can exist in the reality, and anyone interpreting it can do it however they want: normal wall, no wall, or mirror.

Even previously, being "Faithless" was not a simple or accidental thing, KR - it was deliberate and active. Your average farmer who was mostly practical but gave offerings at festival times to different deities related to what they needed and didn't specifically worship anyone was Not in any danger of being marked faithless. To be Faithless, such that you risked the wall, was a much bigger thing than simply not actively worshipping. It was to actively renounce the gods, or to worship them falsely, paying empty lip-service. Anyone else would generally be picked up by whichever deity felt most responsible for them (farmers who worked the land and gave an offering to Chauntaea at planting time would usually be collected by her if they swore to no particular other deity, for example) or, if unclaimed by any specific deity, were judged by Kelemvor directly, who determined their nature and either sent them to whichever domain most aligned with their nature and practice in life, or meted out a suitable other fate, if he deemed such appropriate.

No I hadn't realized that SCAG had errata'd that. Not happy

Niara, you are correct that in many cases Kelemvor assigned them but while waiting for judgement you risked being snatched by devils or talking into signing a contract

Are you sure you aren't talking about the false with renouncing the gods? I thought renouncement made you false - so walling - but a general lack of devotion could get you judged to be wallable.

I always imagined it like this:

Faithless - lip service, lack of devotion, Pathfinder style atheism

False - violation of precepts of deity, denouncing deity, denouncing of all the gods

@piff yes I missed that discussion. My enthusiasm for the game dampened when I realized it wasn't going to be a successor to the BG series. It's going to be fun game. Just like DOS2 was a fun game.

Anyway forgive if this has already been said but this is where I'm getting the Faithless vs the False (and I hope WotC isn't getting ride of the wall)

Ed Greenwood:



Emphasis added

The false says "screw you Waukeen, I don't need you to make money I can do it on my own"
The faithless is a merchant who might just say 'hail Waukeen' but never donates or attends services and who also fails Kelemvor's judgement.

I know this much ado about something that may be moot but even if it's nothing, it's nothing I care about

I do largely conglomerate Faithless and False, since the destination is usually the same, but that's a fair distinction that I probably should not gloss over - and you're right, those who aren't on the fast track with a particular god are more at risk while they're in the queue, as it were.

I think beyond that, there's the fuzziness of what is counted and not - the farmer who makes small observances because he wants a good harvest Is doing what is necessary - and it would be very few farmers who would go through those motions without meaning them, since they are doing them and earnestly hoping for a good season, and if they didn't they wouldn't be making the observance. The lip-service that the quote mentions is legitimate service, and counts appropriately, as opposed to empty lip-service, which is spoken without meaning or intent, such as a charlatan pretending to be a priest might.

Sadly, our sources are less than concrete on many aspects of this topic - even the wiki lacks proper sources for many of the things it says (there's a sad number of paragraphs that state things related to gods and worship, on the wiki, that sit there with the 'citation needed' tag, unsupported).

Agreed. I like the distinction you made earlier between unclear and fuzzy - but I think WotC has been abusing fuzzy a bit too much and it's making things unclear. (did that make sense to anyone else? it makes perfect sense here, inside my head)

When 5e was first announced it seemed like all the gods were coming back along with the rest of stuff people liked about 3.5 Faerun. But it's been a while, many gods are awol, lots things need to be clarified and SCAG isn't a great sourcebook.

Errata is too late for some of us; TT campaigns have already dealt with the wall. Retconning is a no-no in TT games.

This is the problem with story errata, and errata in general. I believe in 'death of the author', once it's published and bought, done. It's over. Save it for the next publication.

Unless something's causing trouble at the table, errata hasn't any business. And besides, players almost never look it up.

None of the official campaigns in 5e have dealt with the wall as far as I know, and people's individual campaigns don't really get in the way of what is and isn't official. Your world space is always how your GM makes it, and if they want the wall, then they have it, regardless of what the official material says about it. Most of the erratas are mechanical tweaks, not lore changes, and I imagine they did the errata documents to avoid having to do re-prints every few years, which was a thing in previous editions.

In my version of the Forgotten Realms Myrkul is dead and never came back after dying and having his lingering soul devoured on the plane of Limbo by the very avatar of the wall he unleashed into the world. The wall was subsequently altered over time by Kelemvor, who never liked the wall anyway, and (correctly) considered it a tool of fear created by a malicious god who wanted mortals to suffer. This has no effect on the official material at all, and it's up to me to thread my own changes into any future campaigns I run.

Myrkul being utterly devoured and destroyed by the avatar of his own destructive creation is the best outcome and I take that read in my (post MotB) spaces as well. It makes the most sense and is the most satisfying ^.^

I had several quotes from 5E Sword Coast Adventurers guide which shows that MOST paladins are sworn to a god. Its on page 2, 3 or 4 of this Thread I think. Didnt bother to look for more sources, there were plenty in the first book in my d&d library that I checked.

Yup, SCAG and PHB both say that.

It's nice freedom for TT characters, but CRPGs need class/race dialogue lines that represent defined archetypes which resonate with majority of players.

If say a class dialogue line makes those players reject it, it's strayed too far from archetype. And as you said it, most paladins have a deity.

This said, paladin dialogues are tagged [Paladin of Ancients/Devotion/Oathbreaker] which seem to reference oath and class directly, and deities indirectly. I find this acceptable because [Cleric of X] should have the strongest deity dialogue lines. It also gives reason for paladin/cleric multiclass.

Allright, lets do another circle ...

What exactly do you imagine as "sworn to a God"?
How exactly should this game show that you are "sworn to a God"?

While keeping in mind that there should be clear distinction between Cleric and Paladin, bcs they are not the same.

Paladins have the option of pledging themselves to a God, A Cause, Pancakes, a 1972 Mitsubishi Colt, Rainy days, or The British Lawn Mower Racing association. As long as it doesn't conflict with their Oaths they can act as free agents.

Generally speaking a Paladin gains nothing by specifically pledging themselves to a God, unless they had worked out some sort of deal with that deity.

Personally I would go for the 1972 Mitsubishi Colt - that thing can really move.


Edit: It occurs also that Anders - who is a Paladin - claims to be a follower of Tyr - which we know is a lie. Anders left Tyr's service for Zariel at some point. I would propose that Anders pledged himself to Tyr in exchange for that Sword of Justice. It would also explain why he is so willing to part with it, as it is a reminder of his own failure.