D&D d20 Idea for Clerics - Spontaneously Cast Domain Spells Only

Instead of having only Cure/Cause Wounds as the only spontaneous spells, what if a cleric could cast (only) their domain spells spontaneously?

Gain - Two spells they can cast spontaneously (instead of one), one from each domain. And those would be the only spontaneous spells they have. In terms of spells per day, they wouldn't get the +1 domain spell, instead they get one additional spell, which they can convert to a domain spell if they please.

Loss - Cure X Wounds would be a spontaneous spell for far fewer clerics. Counter: Have most deities offer the Healing Domain.

Example from My Setting - A Cleric of Raphael chooses Healing and Sun



Sun Domain

Granted powers: Once per day, you can perform a greater turning against undead in place of a regular turning. The greater turning is like a normal turning except that the undead creatures that would be turned are destroyed instead.

Sun Level 1:
* Endure Elements Exist comfortably in hot or cold environments.
Sun Level 2:
* Heat Metal Make metal so hot it damages those who touch it.
Sun Level 3:
* Searing Light Ray deals 1d8/two levels damage, more against undead.
Sun Level 4:
* Fire Shield Creatures attacking you take fire damage; you're protected from heat or cold.
Sun Level 5:
* Flame Strike Smite foes with divine fire (1d6/level damage).
Sun Level 6:
* Fire Seeds Acorns and berries become grenades and bombs.
Sun Level 7:
* Sunbeam Beam blinds and deals 4d6 damage.
Sun Level 8:
* Sunburst Blinds all within 10 ft., deals 6d6 damage.
Sun Level 9:
* Prismatic Sphere As Prismatic Wall, but surrounds on all sides.

Spontaneously casting Flame Strike, where do i sign up for that?!

Healing Domain

Granted powers: You cast healing spells at +1 caster level.

Healing Level 1:
* Cure Light Wounds Cures 1d8 damage +1/level (max +5).
Healing Level 2:
* Cure Moderate Wounds Cures 2d8 damage +1/level (max +10).
Healing Level 3:
* Cure Serious Wounds Cures 3d8 damage +1/level (max +15).
Healing Level 4:
* Cure Critical Wounds Cures 4d8 damage +1/level (max +20).
Healing Level 5:
* Cure Light Wounds, Mass Cures 1d8 damage +1/level for many creatures.
Healing Level 6:
* Heal Cures 10 points/level of damage, all diseases and mental conditions.
Healing Level 7:
* Regenerate Subject's severed limbs grow back, cures 4d8 damage +1/level (max +35).
Healing Level 8:
* Cure Critical Wounds, Mass Cures 4d8 damage +1/level for many creatures.
Healing Level 9:
* Heal, Mass As Heal, but with several subjects.

With a few adjustments to the availability of healing and damage this could be a very flavorful modification. If a player or DM whines about the lack of healing there are a many ways to fix that.

- Make the encounters a little less damaging, drop the CR by a point, one less hit die on that ogre or one less kobold in the pack.

- Bump up the rewards for combat (gold, xp, treasure etc.)

- Make scrolls, potions and wand of healing more available

- Tell them to suck it up, combat is DANGEROUS, adventuring is DANGEROUS, if it was easy everyone would do it and it would be a job, not Heroism. Grab a bow, learn magic missile. Set a trap or ambush. Use stealth. Maybe even try negotiation.

- Have fewer battles, what is this, Diablo?

- Bards, Paladins and Rangers can heal, suggest having one around.

- Put the Healing Skill to better use: on Successful Heal Check, target gains Character Level in HP. They may attempt this check once per target per day. It would be much like resting twice.

Share your thoughts before i inflict this on my players.

I do this except it replaces spontaneous casting of healing spells.

Personally, I'd go all the way and use the spontaneous divine casters variant. I don't really see why any of a Cleric's spells should be prepared before hand.

GreatLemur said:

Personally, I'd go all the way and use the spontaneous divine casters variant. I don't really see why any of a Cleric's spells should be prepared before hand.

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i agree, but some would mutter that makes them sorcerers with more HP and healing. i'll read up on that variant.


*comes back*

Ooo, that is neat. That is the way we did clerics in the olden days.

Apeiron said:

Ooo, that is neat. That is the way we did clerics in the olden days.

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Specialty priests were seriously one of the coolest things about 2nd Edition.

GreatLemur said:

Personally, I'd go all the way and use the spontaneous divine casters variant. I don't really see why any of a Cleric's spells should be prepared before hand.

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I agree. My solution-- I'm still working on the details-- is to make them Warmage-style spontaneous, with a much smaller spell list. (Including cure wounds.) Domain spells are added to their spell list, like a Warmage's Advanced Learning, and Clerics get to add a couple new Domains at higher class levels.

This is very, very similar to what we've been using IMC ever since 3E started, with one exception. Allowing the player to swap for either domain spell is just too strong, because so many PrCs/Feats add extra domains. Soon, you'll be able to pick three or four spells to swap for, and at that point you're a Sorcerer (but stronger). Point is, the balance of these classes/feats gets thrown off too easily, and even swapping for two options gets a bit iffy. After all, if I take the Fire and Water domains, and then fill every slot with healing spells, that's effectively equivalent to a spontaneous caster with three known spells at every spell level.

Our solution: at the start of each day, when you're memorizing your spells, you select ONE domain spell (from any of your domains) at each spell level, and that's the one you swap spells of that level for. If you somehow gain extra domains, that simply gives you more options when deciding, but once you finish meditating you'll still be limited to a single swap spell at every level.

For instance, one high-level Cleric of Air and Travel in our campaign might have set up like this on a typical day:
1: Obscuring Mist (Air)- Longstrider's just too specialized.
2: Wind Wall (Air)- Locate Object isn't bad, but you won't use it most days.
3: Fly (Travel)- Gaseous Form's good, but seriously, how can you not take Fly?
4: Dimension Door (Travel)- Air Walk isn't that impressive when you can fly.
5: Control Winds (Air)- Teleport's probably better, but I'd rather have Greater Teleport at 7. Before you reach level 13 you'd put Teleport here.
6: Chain Lightning (Air)- You'll use this FAR more often than Find the Path
7: Greater Teleport (Travel)- Control Weather, with a 10-minute cast time, won't be cast repeatedly.
8: Whirlwind (Air)- Phase Door's the other choice.
9: Elemental Swarm (Air)- Astral Projection won't be used most days.

We later added a rule that if you spend an hour during the day meditating, you can re-select any of your domain spells, for when you find you REALLY need a certain spell. But, we also disallowed metamagic on the spontaneous spells altogether; if it's a level 8 slot, you swap for the level 8 domain spell you chose. (We then added a Feat that allowed you to memorize the domain spells in your normal slots, even if they weren't on your class list, and you could metamagic the memorized versions.)

Anyway, the bottom line was, a Cleric of a Fire god actually used FIRE. This was by far our most popular change, and we never went back to the old way.

But yes, healing was a bit short. So, we made a few other changes:

> Druids have no problem casting spells contradictory to their alignments. This is important since we made Harm evil and Heal good (to stop Harm from being abused by armored clerics so much), and then added Harm to the Druid spell list. (With the Druids already having the Neutral alignment restriction, the true neutral Druids were more capable than the others. We wanted to encourage more variety.)

> Clerics could cast spells from their domains even if those spells opposed their alignment. For instance, an Evil god gave the "Good" domain to his followers so that they could use protection from evil and such against OTHER Evil religions.

> Paladins dropped their remove disease and disease immunity. In exchange, they selected one domain of their deity. They gained the domain power (to replace the disease immunity) and could swap their small number of spells for the spells of that domain. Healing domain was pretty popular, but we also added a Purification domain that gave back the disease immunity and had remove disease, neutralize poison, etc. as its spell list. (Likewise, we added a Contamination domain for Blackguards.)

> Most gods gained one or two more domains, and Healing was a pretty popular one to add.

our campaign uses similar rules

the cleric chooses his active domain for the day and gets the domain power can spontaneously swap out his spells for that domain.

The idea being that a cleric can promote the domains of his god ratehr than healing

kirstar said:

the cleric chooses his active domain for the day and gets the domain power can spontaneously swap out his spells for that domain.

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Well, that's definitely weaker than ours; in ours he still gets both domain powers (as in the core rules), and he can mix and match the two domains' spells to determine his swap spell list for the day. Of course, ours was still a bit on the strong side, so weaker might be just what's needed, but I wouldn't go that far.

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On a more general note, people have played D&D so long that certain concepts become ingrained. Clerics, regardless of deity, become walking, talking Band-Aid generators to some groups; everything else is secondary. That's what we were trying to avoid by making this change; a Cleric who doesn't have the Healing Domain is still slightly better at healing than a Druid (and far better than almost anyone else), but not by enough to force Clerics to be pure healers while Druids get the fun stuff. In the end, we were going to have to add an NPC Cleric to the campaign, because no one really wanted to play one, just like how in AD&D parties had to occasionally add a Thief, unless someone was a multiclass one.

When we first decided to make this change, we all sat down and figured out how the rest of the group could pick up the slack, healingwise, if a player went Cleric but didn't load up healing spells. In the end, the solution was provided by WotC: in its Mind's Eye series, they added a bunch of psionic healing powers, so that certain Psions could help keep people healed. So, between the Bards, Druids, Psions, and even the Rangers and Paladins using wands, we had enough healing that people could play Clerics as if they were pseudo-Wizards with a few healing spells thrown in. In fact, as a result of adding the Psions and shifting the Clerics to being more domain-oriented, we had no real need for the Wizard class, and ended up removing it entirely.

Bottom line: it's a good change, overall, but only if your group can handle its consequences mentally.

In my campaign -

Clerics spontaneously cast their domain spells, and don't spontaneously cast healing / inflict. The domain slot can be used for a healing or inflict spell, doesn't matter what your alignment is.

In every game I've run, regardless of rules or whatever - the majority of healing isn't done by the cleric itself. It's that cleric using wands, scrolls, and handing out potions. They almost never actually heal, unless it's in battle, or the end of the day. I removed the ability to spontaneously heal so that my players can't rely on the "cleric is a battery" crutch - they have to play more tactically and sound, and the cleric gets to do more than just "move, heal; move, heal" every round.