Jarpie brought this up in IRC and I thought it was a pretty good idea.

Basically you get skills bonus's for the deity you follow, for example.

Clerics of Mask would get a skill bonus to bluff due to their devotion to Mask (for obvious reasons)

Clerics of Utgar/Tempus/Bane would get a skill bonus to Intimidate, although they could also have discipline, which is why I would suggest having an option to choose ether bonus on character creation.

Clerics of Waukeen would get a bonus to appraise.

And so on and so on, this would allow players to add more flavor to their clerics and so we don't have to answer why a cleric (of Mask for example) would be the worst liar in FR.

Bonus's would be added to all Deities, but to ensure a character doesn't suddenly become the master of a certain skill. I'd suggest the skill increase being alike to spell resistance on Deep Gnomes and Drow, so that they gained +1 to their favored skill per level.

And I'm done.

Personnally i'd see it the other way around. If you follow Mask, put skills in bluff, etc... More, you can cast spells to enhance such and such skill (eagle's for charisma, etc..) But i'm biased in my opinion, cos' i think clerics are powerful enough as is.

Do you have any idea how many deities we have?

Plus, I think we're happy with clerics as they are.

Against on the basis this will lead to people picking deities for the bonuses, not the fun of it.

BUILD BEFORE ROLEPLAY.

Right on TNVW.

Also why you have starter feats.

Waukeenar cleric could take silver palm.

A Garagosian/Tempussian could take the blooded feat, etc...

Oghma, Courteous Magocracy.

Tymora, Luck of Heroes (Also applies for brandobaris)

List goes on and on...

Clerics are powerful enough as is. -_-

You know, I have heard people say there is a reason for taking the Thug feat besides the skill addition, but I have yet to figure out exactly what this bonus is.

The 4Lyfe tattooes.

Thomas_Not_very_wise Against on the basis this will lead to people picking deities for the bonuses, not the fun of it.

This doesn't really make sense. All of the skills that were listed are useless in combat and probably wouldn't be even considered by the majority of the players who consistently put 'build before roleplay.' If anything, it would theoretically help facilitate social RP and make the use of rolls more sophisticated and even across the board.

It would take way too much effort with few real benefits, however. There are more important things to script.

Scale, I was thinking ahead, if they implement this, what next?

If you want these skills then cross-class, clerics have a lot of benefits already - Be they combat-oriented or otherwise.

My point was that your concern of a 'build before roleplay' mentality in players who don't value RP skills like bluff and intimidate is silly. Beyond that, this wouldn't set any wild and crazy precedent or force us onto any kind of slippery slope, TNVW. At its extreme, all it would probably lead to is a decision to make social skills available to every class, which wouldn't be as earth shattering as it seems but isn't really necessary. Or giving wizards and fighters access to bonuses based on pre-selected generic templates. This isn't necessary either, and likely won't be pursued even if this idea is picked up.

Y-T Clerics are powerful enough as is. -_-

Normally I'd agree, however on this server, with the consumables available, fighter > cleric generally, since a fighter just has to carry around consumables and never worry about summoning magic eaters AND has a better bab meaning they can get ~huge~ ab by comparison, not to mention not having to invest in wisdom or charisma.

But let's not get into that debate right now.

As for clerics, I wish turning was more useful on a lot of older quests, it seems even with 18 cha you can barely ever turn anything in any 4-8 quest pre level 6-7+