Cleric that lose his deity?

[Rokugan]

In my campaing the group just switched plane (not willing).

In the new plane the deity pantheon is completely different.
My question is, what happen to the cleric?

[betrayor]

It really depends on your campaign's cosmology......
So your dm should decide if the cleric is able to reach his deity through the planar boundaries.....
There are examples in the lore both for and against.....
Even if the dm decides that the cleric lost his powers,he could easily find another similar deity from the local pantheon.....
For what it is worth,I have always played that the cleric maintains his connection with his deity,unless there is a specific barrier or effect that blocks the connection.

[Rokugan]

Thanks for the reply.

I was thinking about letting him go through a quest to worship a new deity similar to the previous one.

[betrayor]

Yes,that would be  one of the solutions.....
It would be awful to just say to him you lost your powers and you can't anything to regain them......

[Janthkin]

Thanks for the reply.

I was thinking about letting him go through a quest to worship a new deity similar to the previous one.

So you've essentially stripped one of your PCs of all of his class features, through no choice of his own?  Unless yours is a very forgiving set of players, punishing him for participating in your plot event is likely to cause some resentment.  And from an RP-perspective, a cleric just abandoning worship of the god he has served for a significant chunk of his life, in order to restore his abilities makes a mockery of the idea of faith.

Remember that all deities in D&D are extra-planar in nature - his deity may not be known on this plane, which offers some interesting RP challenges ("Burn the heretic!  Down with his false god!"), but it shouldn't affect the underlying rules mechanics.  The deity's power is still flowing from one plane to another.

[Prime32]

Moving to another plane (eg. Material Plane -> Outlands) would have no effect on a cleric, since his deity was always on a different plane anyway.

Moving to another universe with a different set of planes (eg. Forgotten Realms -> Eberron) would be a different issue, but in some cases the gods of multiple settings are aspects of the same being (such as Greyhawk's Tiamat being the same entity as FR's Tiamat and Dragonlance's Takhisis).
In some settings a similar god may decide to sponsor the cleric, out of charity or trickery. In Eberron the cleric's own faith will provide his powers, and he might not even realise that he's disconnected from his deity until he casts a spell like contact other plane.

[Janthkin]

Moving to another plane (eg. Material Plane -> Outlands) would have no effect on a cleric, since his deity was always on a different plane anyway. Moving to another universe with a different set of planes (eg. Forgotten Realms -> Eberron) would be a different issue, but in some cases the gods of multiple settings are aspects of the same being (such as Greyhawk's Tiamat being the same entity as FR's Tiamat and Dragonlance's Takhisis).

Planescape told us that everything is connected (although it was pre-Eberron). 

[betrayor]

Ruleswise  unless it is specifically stated that the barrier stops the divine connection,(like for example the evil weather from BoVD or the divine condults from Dark sun)
the cleric should mantain his powers,if the dm decides that they went to a universe like dark sun where the characters lose their connection with their deity then the cleric would have to find another way to get his spellcasting,but in another case it is shown on lore that characters could move freely between the FR ,Greyhawk and Dragonlance without losing their powers.....
So it really depends on what kind of universe did the characters go....

[awaken_D_M_golem]

If the Cleric is the one choosing to lose his faith,
there are still Cleric Of Philosophies that have
your pre-existing Domains.
Or the specific Deity could belong to a Pantheon,
kinda like Eberron, so just because you're a little
waffle-y about Thor doesn't mean Odin suddenly
thinks you're an idiot worth abandoning.

The other side of it ... you might think you're still
worshiping your Deity, but some iffy malevolent
Power is toying with you ... 

[veekie]

Personally I'd just have a different god take over sponsorship of his divine abilities. It makes a nice plot hook for later, especially if it's a god with an agenda, and doesn't screw the cleric over so badly. Of course, there could very well be a price to pay later, but in the mean time the cleric is a FUNCTIONAL character.

[Dkonen]

More than handful of years ago, I played a cleric in the "Paladin in Hell" module (maybe close to ten years? I think I've got the name right-do correct me if I'm wrong), the GM slid me an amulet of planar adaptation and called it good (since being on seperate planes blocked divine abilities for the priesthood-which I think is an old 2nd ed relic).

I don't remember anything post 3.x that stated a priest lost their abilities while planes hopping, but it's never really something I thought to look up. ... hm... be right back...

EDIT: Looks like 3.x inserted planar qualities (like impeded or empowered magic) to replace it. So... there is really no reason (except plot-which is always good-or thematics) for a PC priest to lose access to his/her god on a seperate material plane.

Fun stuff that can be done:

Go forth and proselytize the heathens! Cleric gets a chance to play the conversion game, with cookies for every x amount/temple founded

Gods often have multiple aspects, one god here could actually be part of a god of another plane, and they don't necessarily have to be (even remotely) similar...("what do you mean my god of puppies and rainbows is the god of storms, destruction and the hunt here?")

Faith-napping...depending on the level and disposition, the potential to have a powerful priest snatched up can be very tempting. Insert gods squabbling over who get the priest, with random gods answering prayers (you don't necessarily have to tell the PC who's picking up on the godly hotline)

It really depends on where you want to go with it.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

  ... iirc it's a 2e module.

[Dkonen]

I knew it was 2e, it's just been a bit... come to think of it, it's probably in the trunk upstairs *slaps forehead* thanks.