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Death Domain Death Touch
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<blockquote data-quote="Azul" data-source="post: 902882" data-attributes="member: 11779"><p>I recently used a cleric with the death domain against my players for the first time (well, technically it had a huecuva template on it <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> ) and lo and behold, it popped off the party's cleric (who had suffered prior injuries from the huecuva's skeleton minions) using its death touch domain power. Several of my players flipped when I rolled the "damage dice" (beating the cleric's measly 4 remaining hit points) and announced that the cleric dropped lifelessly to the ground. A few of the more agitated players went on and on about how the power was overpowered because it lacked a save and whatnot and how it was disproportiately powerful compared to other domain powers. I was rather taken aback by the reaction of the players since it's one of the PHB domains and no one had mentioned that power as unfair before.</p><p></p><p>Now, I'd never really given death touch that much thought since frankly, I'd always considered it kind of wussy. 1d6 per level is pretty unlikely to take out a creature that is of similar hit dice to you unless you've already weakened it considerably... it's once/day and it's an all or nothing attack. Destruction's smite ability seems far more reliable and War's free feats seem more practical to me.</p><p></p><p>Also, death has a pretty crumby array of domain spells IMHO (most are already on the cleric lists and many aren't all that useful unless you are really into making undead). It always seemed to me that the weaker domain spell lists often have a good ability to compensate for the spells, or vice versa.</p><p></p><p>My question to you fine folks is "Is the death domain balanced, weak or overpowered?" and more specifically, "Is the death touch ability balanced, weak or overpowered? Does it need a save to make it fair or to present the impression of fairness to players (who often prefer to die by failing a save than just having the DM announce 'you're dead'?"</p><p></p><p>Is there a real issue here or am I just dealing with a case of player sour grapes?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Azul, post: 902882, member: 11779"] I recently used a cleric with the death domain against my players for the first time (well, technically it had a huecuva template on it ;) ) and lo and behold, it popped off the party's cleric (who had suffered prior injuries from the huecuva's skeleton minions) using its death touch domain power. Several of my players flipped when I rolled the "damage dice" (beating the cleric's measly 4 remaining hit points) and announced that the cleric dropped lifelessly to the ground. A few of the more agitated players went on and on about how the power was overpowered because it lacked a save and whatnot and how it was disproportiately powerful compared to other domain powers. I was rather taken aback by the reaction of the players since it's one of the PHB domains and no one had mentioned that power as unfair before. Now, I'd never really given death touch that much thought since frankly, I'd always considered it kind of wussy. 1d6 per level is pretty unlikely to take out a creature that is of similar hit dice to you unless you've already weakened it considerably... it's once/day and it's an all or nothing attack. Destruction's smite ability seems far more reliable and War's free feats seem more practical to me. Also, death has a pretty crumby array of domain spells IMHO (most are already on the cleric lists and many aren't all that useful unless you are really into making undead). It always seemed to me that the weaker domain spell lists often have a good ability to compensate for the spells, or vice versa. My question to you fine folks is "Is the death domain balanced, weak or overpowered?" and more specifically, "Is the death touch ability balanced, weak or overpowered? Does it need a save to make it fair or to present the impression of fairness to players (who often prefer to die by failing a save than just having the DM announce 'you're dead'?" Is there a real issue here or am I just dealing with a case of player sour grapes? [/QUOTE]
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