New God code 101 for the clueless?

[Rudiki]

Who does this affect, exactly? Clerics, obviously, but also...lets see..Rangers and Druids? Who else? Paladins? How about Divine Champions?

Does it matter who the person doing the dying worships, if anyone, or is the stat loss amount all up to the person doing the raising?

Does it actually hurt more to die now, or is it now just more tiring/draining (reflected by the stat loss)? I would think the latter; that the actual pain of dying would be dependant on how you die, and constant regardless.

All I can think of for now; thanks!

[Verandis]

Who does this affect?
The god code is made to only affect divine spells, as far as I know. Classes like divine champion, if they don't cast spells from a spell list, won't be affected.

Rangers and Paladins and Druids all cast divine spells and will be affected by the code. Obviously, clerics are also affected.

I can't answer the rest.

[Rudiki]

What's a Divine spell? What makes a spell Divine (other than just a fabulous delivery)?

[Verandis]

Mechanically, it's the classes mentioned that cast divine spells, and the divine spells tend to be different then arcane spells by the fact that they often include healing and restorative spells as well as nature spells, which arcane spellcasting doesn't. (Ignore bards, they break this rule.)

I suppose divine spells are 'channeled' from a source, in the case of Ysgard, that would be from the gods (in some D&D settings you can be a cleric of an ideal or a druid/ranger devoted to nature instead of a god.)

Divine spells can therefore be cast while an individual is wearing armor, as somehow the armor doesn't interefere with the channeling. (Most arcane casters will have a chance for spell failure when they cast.)

[Arkon]

What Verandis said

+ Divine means it comes from the spiritual realm instead of coming from the weave. The weave is the source of all Arcane power within the multi-verse. Divine power comes from a deity of some sort. Many campaigns do allow druids and rangers to actually pull their spells from the spiritual energy of Life around them. Drawing that energy into themselves and releasing it. Hala followed that baseline up until recent IG events that have caused the Aesir to tighten their hold. This may or may not last depending on how things go ICly.

For now though, Clerics, Druids, Rangers, and Paladins are all affected by the god code.

+ It is based on the person doing the raising only (for death code)

+ It's both. Death sucks... no matter how you die, feeling your soul ripped out of your body in any way except a natural death (which means perma-death) is not a pleasant experience!

The stat loss is to represent the pain of dying and being returned to life. You aren't just gonna get up and act like nothing happened. It's going to affect you.

You will be disoriented (lowered wisdom), Unable to think straight (lowered intel), dizzy and unstable (lowered dex), your constitution sucks and you are nauseous (lowered constitution), you look like death warmed over (lowered cha), and your limbs feel like jello (lowered str).

[Rudiki]

Many thanks for the helpful answers.

Since I always thought and played it as if dying hurts just as much on Hala/Ysgard as it does anywhere else; I.E. usually a whole heck of a lot, I'm going to assume my characters don't feel any difference in the actual pain of death while being killed, now? That's what I was wondering.

It seems to me that the difference is in the aftermath, the shock to the system; the effects of having been killed are now much more severe, as described above by Arkon. And not because the Aesir made them worse, but instead because the Aesir are no longer shielding people from them as much as they did before, correct?

[silverdragonams]

Correct, that is the way I explained it.

[Tremayne7]

Ok, I understand the "source", and I did ask about Rangers following a god, but have never really gotten an answer except "no, they don't need to" from Xan. With that being said, I don't feel rangers or druids should be under the penalty because they could simply worship "nature" not a divine being.

If that is now the case, then we need to update the ruling to say they should follow a god of some sort, hence the source of their power. I'm just trying to get clarification, not really start an argument or gripe (except to get clarification ).

Thanks.

[Psye Shaar]

Ok, I understand the "source", and I did ask about Rangers following a god, but have never really gotten an answer except "no, they don't need to" from Xan. With that being said, I don't feel rangers or druids should be under the penalty because they could simply worship "nature" not a divine being.

If that is now the case, then we need to update the ruling to say they should follow a god of some sort, hence the source of their power. I'm just trying to get clarification, not really start an argument or gripe (except to get clarification ).

Thanks.

As has been said before and is now being said again, there are IC reasons for druids and rangers being affected. The knowledge can be gained in game if searched for.

[Sable]

for the uninitiated (read: Nothing to do with the server and only D&D cosmology in general), there is also the case that its an outer plane so "nature" works completely differently to a prime - with arguements to say it doesn't even exist as a druid or ranger would know it.

For example, I would think it fair to say that the force called Nature on a prime plane is Neutral in alignment. On Ysgard, the plane itself (nature for want of a better term) is Chaotic Good. Therefore, theres an arguement to say Druids would be screwed as they can never match the alignment of the plane, with all but NG Druids failing to get within the "1 alignment step" required by divine casters to draw power (which is why Druids must be a flavour of Neutral in alignment).

Rangers can get into the right alignment range, but since they are not required to be some flavour of neutral on a prime plane, the 3rd ed D&D put final nail was put in the coffin of the "rangers are the holy warriors of nature" theme that was in created during 1st and 2nd ed.
The allowance of Lawful/Chaotic Evil rangers also removed the implicit role of "protectors of nature" from the class (RP is another matter entirely of course), and placed the class (mechanic wise) into the role of "Warriors trained to live in the woods that are more civilised than Barbarians".
That said, their spells are an oddity in their setup, as it suggests a divine origin (they're divine casters) without tying them to a set Divine architype - made the more strange since in earlier editions of D&D they were arcane casters in recognition of the fact they're only Good alignment restriction barred them from being tied to nature (neutral). One can only conclude that if they are divine casters of nature, they must at least follow an NG or NE God with a natural element in their portfolio, but iirc this isn't an enforced part of the class, so theoretically not a core part of their makeup (like paladin's having to be LG).

[Xanthalas]

Ok, I understand the "source", and I did ask about Rangers following a god, but have never really gotten an answer except "no, they don't need to" from Xan. With that being said, I don't feel rangers or druids should be under the penalty because they could simply worship "nature" not a divine being.

If that is now the case, then we need to update the ruling to say they should follow a god of some sort, hence the source of their power. I'm just trying to get clarification, not really start an argument or gripe (except to get clarification ).

Thanks.

As I understand it, and at the time of this posting. I understand that Godless Druids/Rangers are allowed to exist.

However.

Deities still are in fact in control of the plane, and nature itself. To that end, for whatever reason (FOIG) the circumstances include affecting Druids/Rangers casting.

Hope that clears up the confusion.