Mithral Armor?

[*Mick64]

The above is only true in the Forgotten Realms. In the wider Multiverse, you don't need to follow a deity to be a Cleric. There are non-deity Entities that can have Clerics, (Example : Archdevils), there are clerics who gain power from a Cause rather then a deity (Example : Cleric of Justice) and even things like Ur-Priests, who steal the energy of the gods, or get power from the lingering divine magic of dead gods.

[*Neethanial]

Urpriests are my favorite. They'd make such wonderful Athar if played correctly. I'm also a fan of Cloistered Clerics (the priests with better skills and bardic knack).

[*Neethanial]

You give the arrow to the NPC bosses with 47 strength and a BAB of 50.

Don't forget to have that same arrow shut down all made up, ridiculous DC'd abilities in people's bios. Those fantastically deific abilities can be excruciatingly difficult for npcs to bypass in combat. lol

[*Mander]

The above is only true in the Forgotten Realms. In the wider Multiverse, you don't need to follow a deity to be a Cleric. There are non-deity Entities that can have Clerics, (Example : Archdevils), there are clerics who gain power from a Cause rather then a deity (Example : Cleric of Justice) and even things like Ur-Priests, who steal the energy of the gods, or get power from the lingering divine magic of dead gods.

Athar priests as well generally all get their powers from the Great Unknown, which is viewed as a kind of deist force rather than a sentient being.

[*Taihou]

The above is only true in the Forgotten Realms. In the wider Multiverse, you don't need to follow a deity to be a Cleric. There are non-deity Entities that can have Clerics, (Example : Archdevils), there are clerics who gain power from a Cause rather then a deity (Example : Cleric of Justice) and even things like Ur-Priests, who steal the energy of the gods, or get power from the lingering divine magic of dead gods.

I had seen a a plenty of sources, stating, that even Celestial Hebdomad is nay able to grant divine spellcasting by itself, but only to petition some good-aligned god to grant it to their cleric.

I suppose, with spirits it works pretty much the same way.

In any case would like to see some official source, that states, that it is possible to be "cleric of the cause", because it sounds nonsense to me.

P. S. Great Unknown is just a god the same way, other gods are. those are just Athar, who believe, otherwise.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Deities & Demigods 3.5 edition, page 9.

Forces and Philosophies

Not all cleric powers come from deities. In some campaigns, philosophers hold enough conviction in their ideas about the universe that they gain magical power from that conviction. In others, impersonal forces of nature or magic that grant power to mortals who are attuned to them may replace the gods. In the D&D rules, druids and rangers can gain their spell ability from the force of nature itself, rather than from a specific nature deity, and some clerics also devote themselves to ideals rather than to a deity. Paladins may serve a philosophy of justice and chivalry rather than a specific deity.

By their nature, forces and philosophies are not worshiped - they are not beings that can hear and respond to prayers or accept sacrifices. Devotion to a philosophy or a force is not necessarily exclusive of service to a deity. A person can be devoted to the philosophy of good and, as a result, offer worship to various good deities, or revere the force of nature and also pay service to the gods of nature, who might be seen as personal manifestation of the impersonal force. Few philosophies in a fantasy world deny the existence of deities, although a common philosophical belief states that the deities are more like mortals than they would have mortals believe. According to such philosophies, the gods are not truly immortal (just very long-lived), and humans may be quite able to attain divinity themselves. In fact, ascending to godhood is the ultimate goal of some philosophies.

There's two more paragraphs of more or less the same stuff, too lazy to write them down. :P

[*Ceremorph]

You can also assume we're using the alternate rule that grants divine rank to the more powerful of planar rulers (it's mentioned in the BOED and detailed in the BOVD), which does progress demon lords, archdevils, celestial paragons, etc. to demigod status and would allow them to grant spells direcltly. The BOED states:

...Even with a divine rank, the celestial paragons remain the humblest of demigods, still pointing mortals toward the worship of the real deities of the campaign rather than accepting cults in their own honor...

So in the case of the Hebdomad or the Court of Stars, it's likely any cleric listing them as their deity and receiving spells from them would not be of the "oh yeah, I worship X" sort but rater more the "I am the living embodiment of Raziel's wrath, his Mortal Fist, the righteous torch illuminating the shadows of evil which threaten all creation! None shall stand in the way of my righteous crusade!" sort, who would also probably take levels in the celestial envoy class so as to be an even better zealot.
:)

Oh, and in other interesting details... Raziel's mount is a unicorn, so we DO have canon reference of a unicorn being ridden by a male! Sure, a unique outsider male demigod who could reliably kill the Tarrasque in single combat, but still!

[*Itikar]

Weren't angels genderless, though?

I recall because during an art exhibit in high school, I saw a painting and I asked the teacher, who was also a priest by the way, "Why is the archangel Gabriel portraied as female?". The answer was more or less "My dear, angels are genderless".

[*Ceremorph]

Pretty sure the Hebdomad is not affiliated with the Catholic Church.

[*Clangeddin]

I think the main problems with Mithral armor is not the (potential) +2AC, that would be hardly noticeable in the grand scheme of things.
The real problems are:

1) Mithral reduces armor rank by 1. Full plates become medium armor. Hello Warlocks with mithral fullplate blasting at everything in sight. That's just an example, but you can see that this could be problematic. Medium armor also becomes Light armor and can be used for certain feats that are supposed to trigger only on Light armor as well.
2) Mithral reduces arcane spell failure, and in some cases to 0%, like with Large Shields, combine with the above for maximized effect for Warlocks and Bards.

So, in my opinion, for Mithral to be considered to be re-introduced, the following would have to happen first:
1) Mithral no longer reduces armor rank. (ie. Full Mithral Plate stays a heavy armor, ecc..)
2) The arcane spell failure reduction cannot drop any piece to 0%. Minimum 5%. Well, perhaps with the exception of light shield, since that one is already 5% normal, but certainly not large shields.

If the above is done, then maybe Mithral armor wouldn't cause trouble.

...

I wasn't offtopic, right? :blink: