Viktyr Gehrig
First Post
A lot of people say that divine magic-- as a system of calling for aid from deities or spirits-- does not make sense with spell preparation. People do not ask for specific miracles a day in advance and then apply them as needed.
The problem with spontaneous Clerics-- and Druids, to a lesser degree-- is that they have a number of spells that they'd never use often enough to choose as Spells Known, but are invaluable when needed. Nifft often refers to these as "spells disguised as class abilities". Some people try to fix this by giving Clerics Warmage-style spontaneous access to their entire spell list.
I am not the only person on these boards who thinks that that's, well... brokentastic. Clerics get a lot of very powerful spells that are only balanced by the fact that you don't know which ones will be useful every day.
Thinking about it, I think I found a compromise solution that both allows for the "spontaneous miracle" flavor, as well as allowing Clerics to access the essential spells. I think it can also be used to give Clerics considerably more variety.
Reduce the Cleric spell list to a very short list of "essential" Cleric spells: bless, bless water, atonement, and all those others which are just default for any kind of "priestly" role. They'd also get the basic "status" curatives, like negate poison, break enchantment and remove disease.
Each Cleric would also get a subset of spells based on their alignment-- things like magic circle against X. Or, this could be a function of the Alignment Domains.
Then, all the other Cleric spells are derived from the Cleric's Domains. Basically, every time a Cleric picks up a Domain, they get the granted power plus they can add those spells to their Spell List. You could either give Clerics the "Advanced Learning" class feature that Warmages have, or allow Clerics to gain more Domains as they level up.
I'm looking at doing this in my game, with Clerics gaining 1 Domain plus their Alignment domain at 1st level (including a Neutral alignment domain), then additional Domains at 6th, 11th, and 16th level Cleric. This doesn't include levels in Prestige Classes, though I may allow for more Divine PrCs to include new Domains.
Opinions?
The problem with spontaneous Clerics-- and Druids, to a lesser degree-- is that they have a number of spells that they'd never use often enough to choose as Spells Known, but are invaluable when needed. Nifft often refers to these as "spells disguised as class abilities". Some people try to fix this by giving Clerics Warmage-style spontaneous access to their entire spell list.
I am not the only person on these boards who thinks that that's, well... brokentastic. Clerics get a lot of very powerful spells that are only balanced by the fact that you don't know which ones will be useful every day.
Thinking about it, I think I found a compromise solution that both allows for the "spontaneous miracle" flavor, as well as allowing Clerics to access the essential spells. I think it can also be used to give Clerics considerably more variety.
Reduce the Cleric spell list to a very short list of "essential" Cleric spells: bless, bless water, atonement, and all those others which are just default for any kind of "priestly" role. They'd also get the basic "status" curatives, like negate poison, break enchantment and remove disease.
Each Cleric would also get a subset of spells based on their alignment-- things like magic circle against X. Or, this could be a function of the Alignment Domains.
Then, all the other Cleric spells are derived from the Cleric's Domains. Basically, every time a Cleric picks up a Domain, they get the granted power plus they can add those spells to their Spell List. You could either give Clerics the "Advanced Learning" class feature that Warmages have, or allow Clerics to gain more Domains as they level up.
I'm looking at doing this in my game, with Clerics gaining 1 Domain plus their Alignment domain at 1st level (including a Neutral alignment domain), then additional Domains at 6th, 11th, and 16th level Cleric. This doesn't include levels in Prestige Classes, though I may allow for more Divine PrCs to include new Domains.
Opinions?
And this makes me think: why not simply make them EXPLICITLY class features?
