Neutral Cleric... Evil spells? +No deity?

[Solace of Tides]

I have been doing some serious Googling after a discussion with a friend, and I have not been able to find a consistent answer to a couple of my Cleric related questions.

The first one would be can a Neutral Cleric cast Evil spells? If so, would you have to be specifically Lawful, True or Chaotic?

The second question is regarding how having a Cleric with no deity works - the PHB doesn't go into much detail, and the wording might suggest that you cannot be Neutral without a deity? And then on the other side of the no deity thing, do you receive your divine power from your beliefs/cause?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

[137beth]

I have been doing some serious Googling after a discussion with a friend, and I have not been able to find a consistent answer to a couple of my Cleric related questions.

The first one would be can a Neutral Cleric cast Evil spells?
Yes, they can. They cannot, however, have the Evil domain.



If so, would you have to be specifically Lawful, True or Chaotic?
No, Law/Chaos is suppose to be independent of Good/Evil in D&D...the main exception being the one-step-within-your-deity's-alignment rule.


and the wording might suggest that you cannot be Neutral without a deity?
I don't see anything to suggest that in the text. There's nothing stopping you from being Neutral without a deity.

And then on the other side of the no deity thing, do you receive your divine power from your beliefs/cause?
Yep...sort of. Where divine magic "comes from" is usually left up to individual campaign settings, so the PHB is intentionally vague. Common explanations are either that you gain power from faith/cause, as you suggested, or that you channel power from the positive or negative energy planes (positive if you Turn Undead, negative if you Rebuke/Command Undead).

[Solace of Tides]

Yes, they can. They cannot, however, have the Evil domain.



No, Law/Chaos is suppose to be independent of Good/Evil in D&D...the main exception being the one-step-within-your-deity's-alignment rule.


I don't see anything to suggest that in the text. There's nothing stopping you from being Neutral without a deity.

Yep...sort of. Where divine magic "comes from" is usually left up to individual campaign settings, so the PHB is intentionally vague. Common explanations are either that you gain power from faith/cause, as you suggested, or that you channel power from the positive or negative energy planes (positive if you Turn Undead, negative if you Rebuke/Command Undead).

Awesome, thank you very much. Looks like I'll be casting triadspell on clutch of orcus all day :)

[Spore]

The second question is regarding how having a Cleric with no deity works - the PHB doesn't go into much detail, and the wording might suggest that you cannot be Neutral without a deity? And then on the other side of the no deity thing, do you receive your divine power from your beliefs/cause?

This really depends on your campaign setting. I would play it like the following:

a) If any divine power in your world is governed by sentient gods you should still be able to ask several gods individually for spells. Pray to the gods of battle for divine favor, pray to the god of protection for a shield of faith. Ask the death god for animate dead and the abyssal lords for an unholy blight.

Examples: Greyhawk, FR

b) If your divine power in the world comes from abstract divine "pools" of power that only need devotion but do not require you to share their alignment, then you could just take your power from the general faith of mankind. Like an Evil Cleric of the LG Silver Flame.

Examples: Eberron, Conan Setting (?)

Read campaign books or ask the creator of your homebrew setting. Personally I would love to see explanations to spells with alignment descriptors.

[Stux]

No, Law/Chaos is suppose to be independent of Good/Evil in D&D...the main exception being the one-step-within-your-deity's-alignment rule.

Actually, from the SRD:


A cleric may not be neutral unless his deity’s alignment is also neutral.

That is neutral as in true neutral. So if you worship a neutral evil god you cannot be true neutral, but you still need to be within one step of your deity's alignment, so the only options are the evil alignments. If you worship a lawful evil or chaotic evil god though then you can be lawful neutral or chaotic neutral respectively.