Cleric changing diety?

[Zarmina]

If a cleric changed dieties, what would happen to their cleric levels? Would they lose all abilities from their cleric levels and just 'start over' with the hit dice from their previous levels, or could they turn them over some how?

[Coidzor]

If a cleric changed dieties, what would happen to their cleric levels? Would they lose all abilities from their cleric levels and just 'start over' with the hit dice from their previous levels, or could they turn them over some how?

Nope, just get new domains to go with the new alignment and patron.

The only abilities clerics have are spell-casting and domain powers. If you did that idea you had, it'd be utterly pointless to change deities.

[Kylarra]

Technically if it was a drastic enough change to violate their previous god's CoC, you become effectively worse than a fighter without bonus feats. I'd probably allow a quest to petition the new god to reinstate them as a cleric of equivalent level though.


Ex-Clerics

A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god loses all spells and class features, except for armor and shield proficiencies and proficiency with simple weapons. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones (see the atonement spell description).

[Zarmina]

Technically if it was a drastic enough change to violate their previous god's CoC, you become effectively worse than a fighter without bonus feats. I'd probably allow a quest to petition the new god to reinstate them as a cleric of equivalent level though.

This sounds reasonable, thanks!

[hamishspence]

The FRCS, and the PHB2, both support the idea that a cleric who changes deities and does a quest, can keep their cleric abilities, including spellcasting.

[Ravens_cry]

They would likely have to change their domains though.

[hamishspence]

Makes sense. Unless (somehow) they picked two domains that both gods share.

[Thurbane]

They would likely have to change their domains though.
This raises an interesting question - what happens to skill points gained in a skill that the Cleric got through a (now gone) domain, such as Trickery? Does he keep the skill points, but no longer treat it as a class skill?

[hamishspence]

Probably simplest to keep the skill points, but treat it as "no longer a class skill".

In Exemplars of Evil, an elven cleric of Corellon with the Chaos domain (and a variant class feature that trades the other domain for more spells) is transformed into a drow by her foe's dying curse (that resulted into her foe taking her appearence in death, and her taking that of her foe).

She decided she had to take her foe's role in order to survive- and bring down her now dead enemy's organization from within. And started doing evil deeds in the process.

She fell- and Lolth started granting her spells as soon as she did so- but she didn't (consciously) even notice she'd fallen- since she still had the same domain. Subconsiously, she knows she's fallen- but consciously, she still believes she's a good person, rationalizing her actions (and maybe the fact that she can't Turn Undead, spontaneously cast Cure spells, or cast Good spells anymore?)

[zaulsiin]

This raises an interesting question - what happens to skill points gained in a skill that the Cleric got through a (now gone) domain, such as Trickery? Does he keep the skill points, but no longer treat it as a class skill?

Looking at it from a flavor/roleplaying standpoint, skill ranks are essentially a manifestation of the character's normal mental and physical development. The way I see it, if you had something as a class skill at one point, and trained yourself in that skill at that time, you're not going to just up and forget how to do it now that you've had a religious crisis. Your mind and body will still know what they knew; there's really nothing supernatural about it. As such, I'd keep the skill ranks as they are, and simply stop treating it as a class skill from that point forward.

...Of course, I suppose that you could argue that the only reason you had access to the knowledge of the skill in the first place was via supernatural means, and your god could therefore somehow remove the knowledge from your head. But that seems kind of silly, don't you think?

[KillianHawkeye]

The atonement spell may be of some use in this regard. It has a function to restore an ex-cleric's spellcasting ability, and another to convert a willing subject to the caster's alignment. If your DM is nice, maybe you can combine the two to convert an ex-cleric to the caster's alignment and deity.

[LibraryOgre]

If a cleric changed dieties, what would happen to their cleric levels? Would they lose all abilities from their cleric levels and just 'start over' with the hit dice from their previous levels, or could they turn them over some how?

A lot depends on your edition... which you failed to specify. Tags save lives, people!

However, in 1e and 2e, you're generally looking at severe experience penalties and loss of levels. I don't recall them off the top of my head, but two or three levels is pretty standard.

In 4e, deity is more or less unimportant to the cleric character... unless you've got feats or powers tying you to a specific deity, there's no change if your Cleric of Tiamat becomes a Cleric of Bahamut.

[Devils_Advocate]

I think that you're still a rogue Cleric of Tiamat, though, just one that serves Bahamat. The difference, as I understand it, is that gods and churches often look unfavorably upon initiates who abandon their vows. And by "look unfavorably upon" I mean "like to kill". Anyway, your relationship to a deity vis-à-vis your divine powers is just that that one deity in particular (or its Clerics or something, I'm not sure on the exact details) stuck said powers in you, since they're pretty much permanent regardless of what you do in 4E, right? Like in Exalted, except that the powers are by default the same no matter what god you get them from.

Or rather, the powers depend on choice of class rather than choice of god. E.g. Paladins of Bahamat work like Paladins of Tiamat but not like Clerics of Bahamut.

Anyway, for 3.5, the PHB II's Divine Conversion rules are given in an online excerpt (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060501a&page=6).