The Cleric and the Priest: A different take on divine casters

This came about because I believe the cleric is overpowered. It's essentially a Wis statted Wizard, with just as much casting ability, full armor, d10 hd, bab 3/4, better saves, more skill points, and all those domain powers. The domain powers alone almost make up what the bonus feats the wizard has are worth.

Cleric Casting:

Clerics pray for their spells as needed, no memorization. The gimme can be orisons and spells 3 or 4 levels below their maximum available level can be memorized. Everything else is a direct entreaty to their deity or its proxies.

In game the effect of this can be a Religion roll (DC 10 + spell level or spell level x2) and a full round action. This gives more opportunity for disruption and general phuquetyness since they're giving up a whole round.

This cleric mechanic is by Derro. it's the only option for the standard cleric (Full armor and what not).

Priest:

As Wizard, but Cleric Spell List. Casting via Wisdom.
Light Armor Proficiency. No Shields.
Automatic Proficiency with the favored weapon of the priest's chosen diety.

4 Skill pts per level.

d6 HD

Domains Via Deity like a cleric. Can't use spells from opposed domains.

+1 spell per spell level per day, from the Deity's Domain Spells.

Domain Powers are granted as well via diety.

Domains:
Air
- Earth
Animal
Chaos
- Law
- Chaos
Death
- Healing
- Good
Destruction
- Law
- Craft
Earth
- Air
Evil
- Good
Fire
- Water
Good
- Evil
- Diabloic
- Demonic
- Corruption
Healing
- Death
- Repose
Knowledge
Law
- Chaos
- Destruction
Luck
- Law
- Planning
Magic
Plant
Protection
Strength
Sun
- Moon
- Darkness
Travel
Trickery
- Law
War
- Healing
Water
- Fire

FR Domains
Balance
- Chaos
Cavern
Charm
Cold
- Fire
Craft
- Destruction
Darkness
- Sun
Drow
- Elf
Dwarf
- Orc
Elf
- Drow
- Orc
Family
Fate
- Chaos
Gnome
Halfling
Hatred
- Healing
Illusion
Mentalism
Metal
Moon
- Sun
Nobility
Ocean
- Fire
Orc
- Dwarf
- Elf
Planning
- Chaos
- Luck
Portal
Renewal
- Destruction
Repose
- Healing
Retribution
Rune
Scalykind
Slime
Spell
Spider
Storm
Suffering
- Good
Time
Trade
- Tyranny
Tyranny
- Trade
Undeath
- Healing
Watery Death
- Fire
- Healing

BoVD Domains
Bestial
Corruption
- Good
Demonic
- Good
Diabolic
- Good
Greed
Pain

If you guys see any connections I missed, with the opposing domains and such. Obviously if a particular deity has 2 opposing domains as its domains then you can have both.

Derro said:

Since the versatility of the cleric seems to be your biggest issue how about a reversal of general and domain spells?

Instead of being able to memorize an extra domain spell on top of the cleric list make the additional spell be the cleric list and the standard issue be the domain spells. In the long run this means all of the god's domains would have to be available but that can be scaled over levels.

This gives the cleric the same spell selection but not the same versatility. Maybe this will shorten the gap between arcane and divine in your game.

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Sylrae said:

Now that might be the best Idea yet. Make the clerics much more specialized. And when you cay all of the god's domains be available, you don't mean all the domains in total, you just mean all the domains of their god, correct?

*Grabs PHB* So if I worship Corellon Larethian, then I get spells from the Chaos, Good, Protection, and War domains, yes? and then I'd get one 'general' spell per level. I'd probably feel it necessary to make sure all the general spells are in some domain or another, but that wouldn't be too hard.

Then you drop the ability to autoheal, and replace it with a domain spell they can autocast, either by deity or by domain. maybe since they would be losing general usefulness, they could have a couple spells they could drop slots to cast.

I'm thinking maybe undead turning should go specialized as well, and make all the clerics get something different. In some cases it would be a domain's granted power, and maybe you would just get 3 domain powers. instead of increased caster levels, good and evil domains would give turn/rebuke undead.

I think that would make all my issues with them go away, because they would lose the huge versatility even though they would still have the same number of spells. They'd be forced to specialize.

then after playtesting it I could see whether the 'pray as you go' or 'progress as a bard' changes would still be necessary. they'd be better in their specialized areas, but they wouldn't be good at everything, they would have to pick.

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The above quotes are extra ideas for the clerics. They just might be the awesome I was looking for. I'll have to playtest them and get back to you guys.

This is kind of what I did with my variant sphere system. If I'm reading this right, though, the ONLY spells you get are from your domains? Or were you thinking of going the spheres route too, and splitting off spells into different domains?

As far as praying for spells, why not use the 2E version: L0-3 are automatic (these are the only spells you can get if you're cut off from your god, like on another plane); 4-6 are gained through an intermediary (solar, demon, whatever), and 7-9 are gained directly from the deity himself.

I think you could leave them with medium armor and shields - no need to make them completely reliant on their spells like wizards, especially if you're cutting down their versatility.

It's similar to your idea, with the main differences being:
1. existing domains would stay. in a few instances domains may be combined though.
2. the changes would only effect clerical, deity based divine casters. Druids wouldnt be effected by this change of mechanics.
3. There would be some additional changes to the cleric.
A) The cleric casts spells without selecting them in advance, as described above. They pick them in the heat of the moment but they may not actually get the spell. and if they fail, the spell slot is stuill used up for the day. They would lose heavy armor and shields as default proficiencies.
B) The cleric has a more limited number of spells per day, and loses heavy armor and shields.(as they gain a spell level is starts at 0 instead of 1, and then goes to 1 for 2 levels before increasing.) If this idea is too complicated I could go fractional like many other class features, but this seems less complicated than fractions. The end result, a cleric only gets 2+1 level 9 spells at 20, and just progresses a bit slower.
C)The cleric gets a d6 HD, and loses heavy armor and shields.

I'm not sure if you were asking in spells could be in multiple domains. I don't see any reason why not if the spell fits. I could make a more spell focused cleric, a sorcerer-like cleric, and a paladin replacement cleric as well from these mods. but oen of the above 3 changes would make the 'standard' cleric.

Kerrick said:

I think you could leave them with medium armor and shields

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Light Armor goes up to +4 for a chain shirt. Medium Armor goes up to +5 for a Breastplate. It's really a case of a whopping potential +1 AC if you allow Medium over Light. (I'd even argue that there isn't enough gap and that Lt Armor should end at +3, but that's a different kettle of fish.)

I think the 'problem' with Clerics is that they were originally envisioned as heavily armored mace-wielding 'fighting-priests' with a smaller selection of spells, less levels of spells (7 instead of 9) and weaker spells overall (flame strike at 5th compared to fireball at 3rd). In my experience in 1st edition, people often hated to play the Cleric because it was a sucky wannabe Fighter strapped to a sucky wannabe Magic-User. 2nd edition, with Specialty Priests and Spheres, radically changed things, and we had many priest-heavy parties, with some 'fighting priests' and some 'thiefly priests' and some 'priests of the god of magic' filling roles that used to be filled by non-Priests. (I think the most insane one I saw was an elven Cleric (of the god of thieves)/Fighter/Wizard who was basically a one-man party!)

By the time 3rd edition rolled around, the 1st edition notion, of heavily-armored fighting-priest, was retained, and yet the spell levels were raised to 9, some more effective spells were added, and the Cleric turned into a caster only slightly less effective than a Wizard, with better saves, better BAB, twice the hit points, better weapons and any armor/shield they want. Adding in Domain powers and all sorts of feats that allowed their Turn/Rebuke powers to do anything up to shooting cones of fire out of their holy symbols, and the Cleric turned into a juggernaut.

Unlike in 2nd Edition, the 3E Cleric didn't give up all sorts of things for their Specialty powers (many 2E Specialty priests giving up HD, BAB, armor proficiencies, various Spheres of spells, undead turning, etc. to 'pay for' their expanded abilities).

At some point, it seems that Clerics need to be broken down into a pure caster *or* a fighting-priest (and, IMO, the fighting-priest should be just called a Paladin and be done with it, the game doesn't really need two plate-mail wearing divine casters). If going the pure caster route, there's no reason why *any* armor would be necessary, and HD could be reduced to d6 or d4.

The existence of Domains and Turn/Rebuke, as well as the ability to pray for any of the spells on their enormous spell-lists, IMO, make them comparable in power to Wizards even without their armor or favorable BAB or HD or saves, even considering that their spells lack some of the damage potential of the Sorcerer/Wizard spells.

Light Armor goes up to +4 for a chain shirt. Medium Armor goes up to +5 for a Breastplate. It's really a case of a whopping potential +1 AC if you allow Medium over Light. (I'd even argue that there isn't enough gap and that Lt Armor should end at +3, but that's a different kettle of fish.)

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I'd say just get rid of chain shirt, but you're right - it's a topic for another thread.

I think the 'problem' with Clerics is that they were originally envisioned as heavily armored mace-wielding 'fighting-priests' with a smaller selection of spells, less levels of spells (7 instead of 9) and weaker spells overall (flame strike at 5th compared to fireball at 3rd).

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A lot of things in 3E suffered from lazy design, clerics chief among them. While I don't like 4E, I do appreciate the fact that the designers weren't afraid to look at something and say, "Man, this sucks. Let's change it."

Anyway... It does need a good beatdown with the nerf bat, though - reduce its armor, but keep the BAB/weapons (it only gets simple anyway). The major part of its power comes from being able to choose ANY spell, and having domains on top. Cutting down their spell selection (or at least diversifying it) would go a long way to getting away from the cookie-cutter syndrome (another problem with clerics). Maybe borrow a few spells from the druid list for nature clerics, or the paladin list for war clerics.

Not all clerics should (or would) be able to turn/rebuke undead. Give them unique powers dependent on their gods' portfolio(s), akin to the domain powers, and then drop the domain powers. I was thinking of divvying them up into four broad groups - combat, support, healer, and utility. Each group would have its own weapon/armor profs, abilities, and spell list. Domains would then fall into each group, and you'd get additional skills (over and above the base list) based on the domains you get. Your god determines your role and the domains.