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View Full Version : What Cleric Domains/Alignment are best for my current charcther concept?



Dirk Redwood
2008-05-10, 05:17 PM
I was thinking of buliding a cleric based off of Ayn Rand or Andrew Ryan from the game Bioshock. I have already created my own homebrew deity Atlas who is based loosely on Objectvist values, for my charcther to worship. Of the basic Cleric domains the only ones that seem to reflect Objectvist values is Knowledge. What other domains beyond the core ones would be suitable for the spirit of my concept?

Alignement is also something I am not sure on for my charcther concept. DnD morality seems to be pretty clear the Good=Alturism, Evil=Egoism. So since Objectvists are outspoken egoist does that make my charcther Evil aligned? Also the Lawful/Chaotic issue confuses me because my charcther would have a very set moral code, but it would be a personal one not from soceity.

PS. I am not an Objectvist, I just play one in DnD

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-10, 05:34 PM
Well, I'm sure that you could use a combination of shocking grasp and stunning fist to give your enemies a FISTFULL OF LOIGHTNING, so you could ZAP EM AND WHACK EM, THE ONE-TWO PAUNCH.

Anyhow, would the competition domain, from CDiv, help? It's got the same slightly anti-cooperation, anti 'mooching' style. Zarus, from RoD, might be worth a look, too.

Dirk Redwood
2008-05-10, 05:46 PM
Well, I'm sure that you could use a combination of shocking grasp and stunning fist to give your enemies a FISTFULL OF LOIGHTNING, so you could ZAP EM AND WHACK EM, THE ONE-TWO PAUNCH.

Anyhow, would the competition domain, from CDiv, help? It's got the same slightly anti-cooperation, anti 'mooching' style. Zarus, from RoD, might be worth a look, too.

Zarus seems a little to "collectvist" because of his racial suppority aspect. But I can borrow some of the arrogence aspects. Competition looks fitting. Now I just have to figure out of if Trade or Commerce is better.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-05-10, 06:01 PM
Hmm ... I suppose. I was going by the Bioshock-esque interpretation of Rand (screw everyone else, I'm self-improving!) (which I think has more than a grain of truth in it, but that wouldn't really be discussable here), which Zarus shares.

Trade vs. Commerce ... have you considered the Liberation domain? That could fit.

Dirk Redwood
2008-05-10, 06:12 PM
Hmm ... I suppose. I was going by the Bioshock-esque interpretation of Rand (screw everyone else, I'm self-improving!) (which I think has more than a grain of truth in it, but that wouldn't really be discussable here), which Zarus shares.

Trade vs. Commerce ... have you considered the Liberation domain? That could fit.

I found a big honking pdf. file with all the domains in them. I think I will go with Commerce and Competion. Libertarion looks intresting but I defintly want the captialist side of my charcther to shine forth.

TheLogman
2008-05-10, 09:44 PM
As for your alignment, I think you'd be more of a true Neutral, from what I understand from Atlas Shrugged. Of course, you'd have traits that don't it perfectly, including egotism, snarkiness, and other unpleasantries, but you wouldn't be EVIL, just Neutral, look out for number 1 is still Neutral, its what animals do after all.

As for your domains, the obsession with "Making everything fair" that I picked up from Atlas shrugged suggests the Community Domain (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/domains.htm#communityDomain).

The problem is that the system that Ayn Rand perpetuated was not one of gods or magic. This lends itself particularly in the terms of your Ayn Rand god, who in its very nature was in fact atheist.

Although it would require a little work, Kellus made up this great alignment system with two more sides, Square and Funky. Ayn Rand fits perfectly into the square, so check out the Square Domain (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55828) (Down the Page a tick)

PollyOliver
2008-05-10, 09:56 PM
The domains look good. For alignment, I'd go either true neutral or neutral evil depending on just how far your character is willing to go in the pursuit of personal gain and/or what his personal moral compass says is right. Neutral on the law/chaos axis because, as you said, he'll have a specific moral code, but it's fairly far removed from the code of a mainstream society--and because he's bound to value personal success and personal gain above all else, which to me can be a somewhat chaotic mindset.

Neutral or evil on the good/evil axis because, and I guess this is a personal thing, but I don't think you can get any higher than neutral while valuing your own welfare above anything else. Whether you sink to evil or not depends on just how far you're willing to go. Refusing help others because it inconveniences you is one thing, but actually consistently going out of your way to screw people over to get ahead, or being willing to commit atrocities in the pursuit of what you think is the right way to live is another entirely. Just my $.02, though.

Devils_Advocate
2008-05-10, 10:43 PM
Alignement is also something I am not sure on for my charcther concept. DnD morality seems to be pretty clear the Good=Alturism, Evil=Egoism. So since Objectvists are outspoken egoist does that make my charcther Evil aligned?
No. Evil in D&D is not selfishness, although that seems to be a popular misconception. The rules aren't exactly clear and consistent about whether Evil means willingness to harm others, desire to harm others, or actually harming others, but it's definitely not about serving oneself. One can be self-serving and malevolent, but one can also be self-serving and helpful to others (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlightened_self-interest).

Good is pretty strongly pegged as altruistic, though I don't see how helping others without making personal sacrifices makes one any less virtuous. So long as you can help them just as much either way, avoiding unnecessary personal sacrifices seems like a good thing. So maybe Good is supposed to be about being willing to make sacrifices for others when and if that is necessary to help them.

My question is how to deal with someone who helps others because it makes him happy. Do other things he gives up to do that not count as personal sacrifices, because he's still pursuing his own happiness? It doesn't seem right to me that one should be considered less Good for enjoying helping other people.


Also the Lawful/Chaotic issue confuses me because my charcther would have a very set moral code, but it would be a personal one not from soceity.
Here's the thing: Pretty much any personality can be described as a code. "Be wild and unpredictable and do all sorts of weird crazy stuff!!!" is a credo of sorts. And having a personality for your character should be considered good roleplaying, not the character having a particular alignment. That said, there is still a difference between following a code and not. If you live by a code, it's something you believe in and devote yourself to, whereas if you don't, it's... just how you happen to prefer to behave. So, if that's the difference between Law and Chaos, there really is no inherent conflict between individuals of the two alignments. You can have two people who behave exactly the same way, but are on opposite ends of the ethical axis because one regards their behavior as appropriate and the other just regards their behavior as desirable. Weird, if you ask me.

I would prefer to treat Law and Chaos as measuring one's relationship to authority, tradition, and society. In that case, Law is conformity and Chaos is individualism. That gets tricky, however, because of counterculture. There's a difference between joining a rebellion and leaving the pack; it's the difference between dressing all in black and wearing a clown suit to school. The key, I think, is that a while a Chaotic individual may imitate others, he will not consistently imitate the behaviors of a single group. Or maybe it's just a matter of not doing anything simply because it's expected of you?

Note that this means that a Chaotic character didn't decide to worship a deity and then do everything that that deity says to do. Chaos doesn't blindly follow authority. Rather, he chose a god because he approves of what that god supports. A Chaotic cleric really shouldn't have a master/servant relationship with his god, but more of a partnership. Obviously, that doesn't mean that your god serves you any more than you serve him. Don't expect any special favors. You can probably expect a lot less orders and a lot less support from anything resembling an organized church than a Lawful cleric is likely to receive.

Law vs. Chaos is also supposed to be honesty vs. dishonesty, despite the fact that that's as orthogonal to conformity vs. individualism as both are to benevolence vs. malevolence. I strongly recommend discarding this part. It's overly specific in what's otherwise a system of broad categories of attitudes and/or behaviors. It's understood that people of any alignment can kill, depending on the circumstances; that makes it really weird to treat lying as always Chaotic. Not to mention that if Lawful characters are consistently honest, then I'm pretty sure that almost no humans are Lawful.

Dirk Redwood
2008-05-10, 10:54 PM
The problem is that the system that Ayn Rand perpetuated was not one of gods or magic. This lends itself particularly in the terms of your Ayn Rand god, who in its very nature was in fact atheist.


Very true. But most DnD worlds are a place were supernatural forces are an every day event. So it would be really unrealstic for just about any charcther to be athestic. My choice of Cleric for a class was very delibrate. I am refering the critics of her system who call her organization a cult or a relgion.

This charcther will be a fun challange to rp as because I don't want to be too over the top and satrical.

Devils_Advocate
2008-05-10, 11:09 PM
Ooh, I almost forgot to recommend reading up on the Fated, a Planescape faction. They seem to be pretty big on the whole self-interest thing.

Curmudgeon
2008-05-11, 04:52 PM
I'd recommend Pride as another domain, and suggest you go for the Cloistered Cleric (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#clericVariantCloistere dCleric) variant which gets Knowledge as a third domain. Knowledge, Competition, and Pride seem like a good fit.

Alignment should be strictly neutral. Enlightened self-interest is supposed to leverage personal selfishness for the greater good, after all. Only unenlightened selfishness would count as evil.