On Deific Obedience

2 years ago
Admin
6 minutes

Deific Obedience and it’s boons open up for some very flavorful — and mechanical — benefits just for being devoted to a single deity. One of its limitations for converting over our Forgotten Realms setting is that it required a lot of expanded writeup of a given deity to become such a devoted servant. Forgotten Realms deities have been expanded to cover deific obedience mechanics, but some basics of obediences had to be altered. So what follows is a writeup of the obedience mechanic as it applies to our setting, completely superceding the writings on Paizo materials.

Obedience Feats: In vanilla PF1, these are actually 5 feats that do essentially the same thing — open up your character to receive these boons and obligate them to perform according to the patron’s dogma. There are facets of Forgotten Realms lore that don’t apply to Pathfinder lore centered mechanics, so some options were omitted; the rest have alterations as listed. Note that the feats are reclassified as Divine feats, therefore counting as such for the purpose of other Divine feats that unlock benefits based on the number you’ve taken.

  • Deific Obedience (Divine)
    Your devotion to a deity of Toril is so great that daily devotion and sacrifice grants you special power.
    Prerequisites: Knowledge (Religion) 3 ranks, must have a single patron deity of at least demipower status.
  • Fiendish Obedience (Divine)
    You’ve pledged your soul to one of the archpowers of the lower planes, granting you special power in return for daily devotion and sacrifice.
    Prerequisites: Knowledge (Planes) 3 ranks, must be devoted to a single fiendish power of the lower planes.
  • Fey Obedience (Divine)
    Your devotion to one of the elder fey powers grants you special power through daily devotion and sacrifice.
    Prerequisites: Knowledge (Nature) 3 ranks, must be devoted to a single fey power of the Seelie, Unseelie or Wyld courts.

Blessings and Boons: Those with the obedience feat, who are faithful to their patron’s tenets, and perform the daily obedience as prescribed in the deity’s writeup, gain the listed daily benefit for the completion of this daily act of devotion. At certain levels, the patron also grants boons — divine abilities that aid the faithful character anf further their cause. These abilities are only granted and able to be used on days that the character’s obedience has been kept.

  1. The first boon is gained at 10th level, a trio of spell-like abilities, which key off of the character’s Hit Dice and Charisma.
  2. The second boon is gained at 14th level, which can be Extraordinary, Spell-like or Supernatural as specified in the writeup. Unless otherwise specified, these are also keyed to the character’s Hit Dice, and Charisma. Quasi-powers and lower ranked demipowers will typically have only spell-like abilities for this, and the final boon.
  3. The third boon is gained at 18th level, and specifics of the second boon also apply to the third.

Trading Class Features for Obedience: Divine casters may trade off one of their class features to gain the obedience feat of their patron as a bonus feat — even if you don’t meet the prerequisites of the feat except for the singular devotion to a patron, as well as to accelerate your acquisition of successive boons as indicated by the class. If you took the obedience feat at a lower level to gain the daily obedience bonuses, you can retrain the feat freely when you trade off the feature listed below, to replace the obedience feat taken at the lower level with another feat. You cannot stack these level reductions with those granted from prestige classes that grant boons at earlier levels.

  • Antipaladin: Trade Aura of Despair; gain bonus feat at 8th, and boons at 8th, 12th, and 16th.
  • Cleric: Trade greater power of one domain; gain bonus feat at 8th, and boons at 8th, 12th, and 16th.
  • Cleric (Alternate): Trade both powers of one domain (still gain the domain spells); gain bonus feat at 1st level, and boons at 4th, 11th and 14th.
  • Inquisitor: Trade Second Judgment (only gain second judgment at 16th); gain bonus feat at 8th, and boons at 8th, 12th, and 16th.
  • Oracle: Trade 7th-level Revelation; gain bonus feat at 7th, and boons at 7th, 12th, and 16th.
  • Paladin: Trade Aura of Resolve; gain bonus feat at 8th, and boons at 8th, 12th, and 16th.
  • Ranger: (only divine caster rangers) Trade 2nd Favored Enemy (gain only 2nd favored enemy at 16th); gain bonus feat at 8th, and boons at 8th, 12th and 16th.
  • Warpriest: A warpriest can take an obedience feat as one of his bonus feats, and gain his boons at 8th, 12th, and 16th.
  • Warpriest (Alternate): Gain only one blessing; gain bonus feat at 1st level, and boons at 4th, 11th and 14th.
  • Witch: Trade off 8th level hex, delay major hex until 12th; gain bonus feat at 8th level, and boons at 8th, 12th and 16th.

Prestige Classes for Obedience: These prestige classes can also enable and and advance the level gain of boons for Deific Obedience:

Note that our adaptations of the Forgotten Reams divine prestige classes, above, consolidated with, and are generally superior choices to, the Pathfinder core Exalted, Evangelist and Sentinel. But if you wish to use the Paizo prestige classes, use the below modifications.

Evangelist

  • Deific Obedience, Fiendish Obedience, or Fey Obedience
  • Base Attack Bonus +5 or 5 ranks Knowledge (religion) or 3rd-level divine spells.
  • Must worship a singular divine being as a patron.

Exalted

  • Deific Obedience, Fiendish Obedience, or Fey Obedience
  • Skill Focus (Knowledge [religion]) for deific, or Skill Focus (Knowledge [nature]) for fey, or Skill Focus (Knowledge [planes]) for fiendish.
  • Diplomacy 5 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 5 ranks.
  • Must worship a singular divine being as a patron.
  • Must be wthin one step of the patron’s alignment.
  • Spell progression can advance either a divine or arcane base class as the player chooses.

Sentinel

  • Deific Obedience, Fiendish Obedience, or Fey Obedience
  • Weapon Focus in patron’s chosen weapon.
  • Base Attack Bonus +5 or Knowledge (religion) 5 ranks.
  • Must worship a singular divine being as a patron.
  • Must be wthin one step of the patron’s alignment.