Number of Domains per god

[Honest Tiefling]

Kinda what it says in the title. I am building a custom pantheon, and I am wondering if anyone has opinions on increasing the number of domains a god can grant. Five seems to offer a good selection, until the awful domains rear up their head. Some domains have very good subdomains, others, not so much.

Thoughts?

[Geddy2112]

Five is okay, the problem is that gods with no neutral component inherently get stuck with their two aligned domains, which limits the options you get with a deity.

I think it is better to get more domain diversity-of all the major inner sea deities, only one has the darkness domain(which is awesome) so having more ways to access certain domains is going to be key. I think each domain should have at least two deities who support it, and better yet if these deities differ greatly in alignment. On the other hand, you don't want too much overlap where deities end up being more or less the same, so other than the aligned domains try to make sure that a domain is not something that half the pantheon can give.

Some fixes: you could drop aligned domains altogether and broaden the portfolio of non neutral deities, add all subdomains granted by a deity's domain, or add a sixth. Seven is going to create too much overlap and spread a deity too thin(in a polytheist world, a single deity can and should only do so much) but a sixth opens a lot of options.

The best solution is to make sure that no deity has more than two garbage domains, so that players have at least 3 decent domains to choose from. Likewise, don't build a deity that has 5 amazing domains.

[Honest Tiefling]

I'd argue that even in a polytheist world, some deities did get impressive lists of domains. Freyja for instance, had domain over love, sex, beauty, fertility, gold, magic, war, and death. So yes, she was an underworld goddess of magic and love. I think however, this model doesn't work in a game and having 10 Freyja will quickly cause the players to get confused, so overall, yeah, that's a pretty good concern.

I like your suggestion of increasing subdomains, and I feel like slapping more and more subdomains onto gods is a good answer, as it can shore up some weaknesses in crappier domains and help alleviate the problem of the aligned domains.

By the way, does anyone know of some good third party domains? I think I'm in the market.

[the_david]

Aligned domains are the weird ones. Sean K. Reynolds mentioned that a deity must always have the corresponding domains for its alignment. Like Geddy mentioned, that could be a pain in the butt.
One thing you could do is get rid of alignment domains. This might mean that your deities are "beyond alignment" and generally don't care, much like in Eberron. I don't think it's wise to entirely drop those domains though...

[TheYell]

I'd say experiment. If the pantheon is fun and workable nobody (well almost nobody) is going to argue you didn't assign domains and subdomains by the book. I havent seen formal rules for creating deities, which is odd because Golarion has one ascended and four artifact advanced deities. So there is no real reason you cant offer a whole new pantheon at a pop.

From a game mechanic perspective you might want to craft the domain/subdomain portfolios first and then build the pantheon around them. If you already have the cast of characters down it would still be possible, just more work doing balance.

you asked about third party authors. You're it!

[Malimar]

When I created a new pantheon for my world, I limited it to ten gods (you want to limit your pantheon to as few gods as possible, to maximize the probability of your players caring enough to remember any of them -- one for each alignment is a good minimum and also a good maximum).

This was in 3.5, which has a butt-ton of domains lying around from various splatbooks, so giving each the usual 3-5 would have resulted in a lot of domains going unused. Plus I want to disincentivize clerics of ideals, which I hate, so I wanted to offer a variety of combinations within each god (I also allow worship of multiple deities, up to the whole pantheon at once, picking and choosing any combination of domains offered by those deities, so now really there's no excuse to be a cleric of an ideal).

Long story short, each god in my setting offers something like 24 domains.

Go ahead and give each god as many domains as you want, you have the permission of me, a rando from the Internet.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Honest Tiefling
I am building a custom pantheon….


Originally Posted by TheYell
I havent seen formal rules for creating deities….

I'm working up a custom pantheon as well, and I've been wondering if there were any rules on how to go about it.

If there aren't actual game mechanics--and it sounds like they don't exist--are there any general principles to follow? I've been assigning domains based on my feel for the personality of each deity, but I've been pretty much running blind. Is there a better way to fill out a pantheon?


Originally Posted by Malimar
Plus I want to disincentivize clerics of ideals, which I hate….

Out of curiosity, why?

I don't disagree with you, and in fact I thought I was alone in disliking the concept of a divine servant who doesn't really serve the divine. Is that how you see it, or do you have other reasons?

[Jack_Simth]

I'm working up a custom pantheon as well, and I've been wondering if there were any rules on how to go about it.

If there aren't actual game mechanics--and it sounds like they don't exist--are there any general principles to follow? I've been assigning domains based on my feel for the personality of each deity, but I've been pretty much running blind. Is there a better way to fill out a pantheon?
With no specified game mechanics, principles for design will either be generic "here's how you build a game" stuff, or derived from existing dieties.

I might go with something like....

1) Get a theme for the deity.
2) Decide on the 'power' of the deity (minor, medium, major).
3) Decide on an alignment for the diety.
4) Give the deity domains for it's alignment.
5) Add three domains for a minor diety, four domains for a medium deity, and five domains for a major diety, according to the theme.
6) True Neutral deities (those without an alignment domain) get a bonus domain in place of alignment domains, according to the theme.
7) Look through the subdomains of all the domains you added. Include all that at least somewhat match the theme of the deity.

[Malimar]

Out of curiosity, why?

I don't disagree with you, and in fact I thought I was alone in disliking the concept of a divine servant who doesn't really serve the divine. Is that how you see it, or do you have other reasons?

It's partially that, and partially that a cleric's player has a choice between engaging with the setting by having their character follow one of the setting's gods or deliberately not engaging with the setting by doing their own thing. The choice to play a cleric of an ideal is the choice to actively not participate in the world as fully as you could. Also, a cleric of a god comes pre-equipped with a tie to one of the setting's major organizations: a cleric of Pelor comes standard with the backing of the Church of Pelor, whereas a cleric of an ideal has the backing of nobody.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Not to derail the thread too much, but I'm having a related problem in a setting I'm working on. The difference, though, is that this setting has no gods, and even if it does, there wouldn't be much of a church anywhere.

To address the main topic, choose carefully, I guess. Making deities with a mostly neutral alignment might curtail it.

[LudicSavant]

Kinda what it says in the title. I am building a custom pantheon, and I am wondering if anyone has opinions on increasing the number of domains a god can grant. Five seems to offer a good selection, until the awful domains rear up their head. Some domains have very good subdomains, others, not so much.

Thoughts?

My general thoughts on "how many domains should a given god have access to" is "all that could be considered thematically appropriate." There are many reasons why... here are a few:

- Assigning number of domains by deity power strikes me as a bit off. The mechanical power of a deity is established by whether or not they have the right domains for your specific build, not by how many they have. The flavor power of a deity... well, that's more covered by Portfolio than Domains (there's a reason those two things are separate). A deity with "death and undeath" in her portfolio might just be mechanically written up as having the Death domain... or she might be written up as having the Death, Undeath, Repose, Necromancer, and Deathbound domains so that players have more options.

- Every restriction on domain selection is essentially penalizing a Cleric of a single established god compared to a cleric of a philosophy or pantheon (such as the Sovereign Host in Eberron). Likewise, a lack of domain restrictions isn't necessarily a buff; Clerics can already pick whatever domains they want by choosing to follow a philosophy or multiple gods or whatever, and even if a god has 100 domains you still only get 2.

- More choices means more ways to play, which means a player can better tailor their character to their personal preferences... or differentiate one Cleric of Pelor character from the next.

- A good system allows a player to invent things the designer did not anticipate. A strictly limited domain set limits the freedom of the player to come up with cool ideas for a Cleric of (insert religion here) that you may not have anticipated yourself. Moreover, if a player has a fun idea for a way to mechanically realize a Cleric of (insert religion here), being told that you can't do that (even though the domains fit thematically) can feel arbitrary and frustrating for that player.

- Not all domains are created equal... and sticking a god with 4/5 lackluster domain choices is a good way to either A) prevent players from choosing that deity or B) make players that choose the deity anyways for flavor reasons feel like they're being penalized for valuing flavor. There should be positive reinforcement for choosing things for flavor reasons, not the other way around.

- A diverse domain selection makes it easier to create a variety of religious orders for the same deity that feel mechanically distinct.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Malimar
It's partially that, and partially that a cleric's player has a choice between engaging with the setting by having their character follow one of the setting's gods or deliberately not engaging with the setting by doing their own thing. The choice to play a cleric of an ideal is the choice to actively not participate in the world as fully as you could.

I hadn't thought of it from quite that angle, but I agree with your point.


Originally Posted by Malimar
Also, a cleric of a god comes pre-equipped with a tie to one of the setting's major organizations: a cleric of Pelor comes standard with the backing of the Church of Pelor, whereas a cleric of an ideal has the backing of nobody.

Also a very good point. Aren't there feats and mechanics to improve one's standing in organizations? Maybe in Cityscape? I don't know how often people use those, but seems to me that a cleric of an ideal is ruling out a lot of possibilities.


Originally Posted by Jack_Simth
With no specified game mechanics, principles for design will either be generic "here's how you build a game" stuff, or derived from existing [deities]….

That looks like a good set of guidelines, thanks.

So here's a related question: how to treat a deity whose worship has fallen out of favor? I'm thinking of the pantheon of an ancient empire which was destroyed long before, and organized worship of those deities has been virtually nonexistent for millennia.

I'm aware of Servant of the Fallen from Lost Empires of Faerûn, but that doesn't quite fit with my concept, since these deities aren't really dead per se--they're more like lost spirits, able to observe the world but with hardly any power or influence. How would you represent a long-faded deity?

[Gildedragon]

About 6 domains per deity is enough
If not using domains you could give 9 deities 4 non-alignment domains each and be set

There's about 120 non alignment domains and subdomains

12 gods with 10 domains a pop is perhaps a bit much; but if you were to have 20 gods (a manageable number) they only have 6 domains. But that's a bit much domainwise and we still have the alignment domains to assign.

let's take out the superdomains and assign subdomains (and subdomain-less domains), henceforth "domains" alone
That makes it about 98 "domains". 97
Bump that down to 96 (espionage is subdomain of 2 domains as is psychopomp)

And bump up the god number to 24
That makes it 4 "domains" per god
Make it 6 "domains" to allow some doubling up.
Now give each god the Superdomain(s) for their chosen domains (both death and repose for psychopomp, and knowledge and trickery for espionage)
This ought bring down the number of domains they have by some noticeable amount. Probably to 4 or 3 if the "domains" were given thematically.

Now it is time to give them alignment subdomains. There are only 24 so one could just assign one per deity but then one would end up with 9 evil gods to 5 good ones, and 8 lawful to 6 chaotic. Plus one lawful God would get 2 law domains (because of Legislation)

Best to give them alignments first. Pick the gods' alignments by what you see in their domain/subdomain lists. And how it clicks thematically with you.

There are some subdomains that have an alignment component (rune's legislation, for example is a Law subdomain too; the Runegod that gets that ought have Law as a domain too) note that the Aeon subdomain needs to be neutral.

Some alignment subdomains are dual alignment (devil, for example) and ought only be given to deities that have both alignments

Give more alignment subdomains to deities that ended up with fewer total superdomains. But don't be afraid to give each deity 2 alignment subdomains.

You can gun for ending 8 Good, Neutral and Evil gods
Or 3 of each non TN alignment
Or 4 for each of NG, NE, LN, and CN and 2 for the corner alignments and 1 TN (The one with the Aeon domain)

[Gildedragon]

So here's a related question: how to treat a deity whose worship has fallen out of favor? I'm thinking of the pantheon of an ancient empire which was destroyed long before, and organized worship of those deities has been virtually nonexistent for millennia.

I'm aware of Servant of the Fallen from Lost Empires of Faerûn, but that doesn't quite fit with my concept, since these deities aren't really dead per se--they're more like lost spirits, able to observe the world but with hardly any power or influence. How would you represent a long-faded deity?

Depends
As you present them: probably as vestiges/pact-magic entities, or 1 domain clerics, or the power behind some Oracles/Shaman types.

[nedz]

I allow players to take any domain which they can justify for their chosen deity. This allows them more creativity - and saves you a job.

[LudicSavant]

I allow players to take any domain which they can justify for their chosen deity. This allows them more creativity - and saves you a job.

This. (Listed some of the reasons why I support this option in above post)

[Milo v3]

I based the number of domains for gods off the mythic ability Divine Source, so gods in my setting got 4 domains + 4 subdomains.