D&D 5E homebrew Cleric Changes discussion

[Lanliss]

I was making some changes before that pushed some features over to another column which may have been the cause of it looking messed up, it should hopefully be fixed now (in that it looks okay when I check it, but all too often "Technology!" *Shakes Fist).

I think that destroy undead isn't worth that much since as you say, it is only vs. Undead, it seems almost like a ribbon ability. At 14th level, they also gain the upgraded Divine Strike from their domain although I don't think that the cantrip cleric gains an upgrade so it really does depend on the type of cleric, weapon based or caster based, on how little they gain at 14th level.

You could possibly give them a 5th cantrip at level 14, it's a little something extra.

I checked it on the original cleric, 3rd level was a dead level there as well, I think mainly because they gained access to a new spell level. Comparing the two, warlocks only gain their invocations at 2nd level so you might want to consider giving the cleric their divine domain feature at level 2 and their divine gifts starting at level 3 or the reverse. You probably want to give the cleric the domain ability at the same time as channel divinity since it is when they gain their domain's channel divinity feature.

Fair enough, I am just tossing ideas around to remove one or two of those ---- levels. Although, This cleric is already a bit more powerful than the Base Cleric, with the power the Gifts add. I would be fine with pushing them to 3rd, especially since a lot of those Domain based Gifts will act just as well for Domain Defining abilities.

Unless the link above leads to a different location than your new update, it is still messed up. The text under Gift of yggdrasil, and the entire Greater Bane I think, are both off to the side.

 

[cbwjm]

Fair enough, I am just tossing ideas around to remove one or two of those ---- levels. Although, This cleric is already a bit more powerful than the Base Cleric, with the power the Gifts add. I would be fine with pushing them to 3rd, especially since a lot of those Domain based Gifts will act just as well for Domain Defining abilities.

Unless the link above leads to a different location than your new update, it is still messed up. The text under Gift of yggdrasil, and the entire Greater Bane I think, are both off to the side.

I've tested it on a 2 PCs and my phone and it seems fine but after playing around with Chrome's zoom levels, I noticed that it can screw up the text at anything other than 100%. In the case that that isn't the issue, here is a link to a pdf copy on my google drive folder: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zVcgpzPBEEVTBzdVhENlgzZUE.

 

[Lanliss]

I've tested it on a 2 PCs and my phone and it seems fine but after playing around with Chrome's zoom levels, I noticed that it can screw up the text at anything other than 100%. In the case that that isn't the issue, here is a link to a pdf copy on my google drive folder: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0zVcgpzPBEEVTBzdVhENlgzZUE.

It shows up fine as a PDF. It is probably my computer, as the Surface has very specific dimensions. Don't get to worried about it.

 

[Lanliss]

Alright, now to think of some general Cleric Gifts, rather than Domain restricted ones.

Ritual of Restoration
Prerequisite; 3rd level
You can cast Lesser restoration as a ritual with a casting time of 10 minutes.
Note: Not sure about this one. Seems Cleric-y, but not sure about giving free restoration. Should this be restricted to Life Domain?

Command Undead
Prerequisite; 9th level
Instead of Destroy Undead, your Channel divinity can Charm undead to fight for you. The Undead will fight under your command for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom Modifier, after which they are destroyed as normal.

Messenger of the gods
Prerequisite; 5th level
You can cast the Find Steed spell once per long rest without expending a Cleric Spell slot.

That is all I have so far. I think that is about all I can raid from the Paladin, any more might risk replacing them.

 

[cbwjm]

Alright, now to think of some general Cleric Gifts, rather than Domain restricted ones.

Ritual of Restoration
Prerequisite; 3rd level
You can cast Lesser restoration as a ritual with a casting time of 1 hour.
Note: Not sure about this one. Seems Cleric-y, but not sure about giving free restoration. Should this be restricted to Life Domain?

Enforced Will
Prerequisite; 9th level
Instead of Destroy Undead, your Channel divinity can Charm undead to fight for you. The Undead will fight under your command for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom Modifier, after which they are destroyed as normal.

Messenger of the gods
Prerequisite; 5th level
You can cast the Find Steed spell once per long rest without expending a Cleric Spell slot.

That is all I have so far. I think that is about all I can raid from the Paladin, any more might risk replacing them.

For Ritual of Restoration, I think you could just give it the ritual tag without increasing the ritual casting time. Another option is to use the cleric's other resource, channel divinity, to cast lesser restoration instead. As is, with changing the spell slots available to that of the warlock, the cleric will have less ready access to spell slots of 2nd level or higher to cast the spell so I think turning it into a ritual or channel divinity would be fine for your cleric. I think this should remain a generic cleric ability.

I like the idea behind Enforced Will. I do think that it would sound better to calling it Command Undead instead but that's just a thematic change.

I will add these to the homebrewery writeup.

 

[Lanliss]

For Ritual of Restoration, I think you could just give it the ritual tag without increasing the ritual casting time. Another option is to use the cleric's other resource, channel divinity, to cast lesser restoration instead. As is, with changing the spell slots available to that of the warlock, the cleric will have less ready access to spell slots of 2nd level or higher to cast the spell so I think turning it into a ritual or channel divinity would be fine for your cleric. I think this should remain a generic cleric ability.

I like the idea behind Enforced Will. I do think that it would sound better to calling it Command Undead instead but that's just a thematic change.

I will add these to the homebrewery writeup.

Command undead sounds good, go ahead and make the change.

A normal ritual tag should work fine for Restoration, I was just thinking that there might be some unknown (to me) reason that Restoration wasn't a ritual, so the hour casting time might balance that off.

 

[cbwjm]

Command undead sounds good, go ahead and make the change.

A normal ritual tag should work fine for Restoration, I was just thinking that there might be some unknown (to me) reason that Restoration wasn't a ritual, so the hour casting time might balance that off.

I'm actually a little surprised it doesn't have the ritual tag already considering how many classes already have it. The only reason I can think of is that perhaps in most cases the effects it counteracts will have worn off before the ritual completes.

I'll update the name to command undead later today.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Alright, now to think of some general Cleric Gifts, rather than Domain restricted ones.

Ritual of Restoration
Prerequisite; 3rd level
You can cast Lesser restoration as a ritual with a casting time of 10 minutes.
Note: Not sure about this one. Seems Cleric-y, but not sure about giving free restoration. Should this be restricted to Life Domain?

Command Undead
Prerequisite; 9th level
Instead of Destroy Undead, your Channel divinity can Charm undead to fight for you. The Undead will fight under your command for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom Modifier, after which they are destroyed as normal.

Messenger of the gods
Prerequisite; 5th level
You can cast the Find Steed spell once per long rest without expending a Cleric Spell slot.

That is all I have so far. I think that is about all I can raid from the Paladin, any more might risk replacing them.

I wouldn't allow conversion of any healing magics as rituals. While I don't think it would break the game in terms of the PCs, it's a huge change for a world.

Consider this -
Any 3rd level cleric could then cure any disease or neutralize any poison in 10 minutes. One cleric can ensure that a small village never suffer from another illness ever again. The King, of course, will never have to worry about being poisoned, and will reign for 70 years or more.

I actually greatly reduced the effectiveness of lesser restoration because of these types of issues. But to be able to cast it every 10 minutes? That's 48 times in an 8-hour work day.

Giving it once per long rest without using a spell slot, like you do with find steed sounds much more reasonable.

Also, how are you planning on handling the fact that clerics no longer have access to 6th level spells or higher? While it's rare in my campaign for PCs to reach that capability, NPCs occasionally have.

Since you're changing things here's some food for thought, too. I've never really liked the way turning undead works. Mine is not separated from Channel Divinity, you can use it as much as you'd like. In addition, even a layperson can attempt it (although that's not noted here):

Divine Might: Turn the Unholy
In the movies, holding back hordes of undead or powerful fiends is a test of will and channeling the might of your Deity.

This ability does not use the Channel Divinity ability, and can be used at any time. It works against fiends and undead.

Starting at 2nd level, as an Action, you can attempt to channel the divine power of your deity to protect against undead and fiends. You present your holy symbol and create a ward against undead and fiends. You create a 15-foot radius sphere of protection around you. The creatures must make a Wisdom saving throw, with a DC equal to your spell save DC. If the creature fails its saving throw by more than 5, it runs away and cannot take reactions, otherwise, the creature is forced out of the sphere, although it may continue to claw at the barrier and attempt to break through to attack you. The barrier deals 1d6 radiance damage to any undead that starts or ends their turn touching it.

Each round, as an action, the creature may make an additional saving throw to end the effect. Once a creature makes its saving throw, it cannot be affected by that cleric's turning or destruction ability for 24 hours.

The destroy undead ability builds on this.

The point is that it gives you a moment or two to regroup before it will inevitably fail.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Double post...

 

[Lanliss]

I wouldn't allow conversion of any healing magics as rituals. While I don't think it would break the game in terms of the PCs, it's a huge change for a world.

Consider this -
Any 3rd level cleric could then cure any disease or neutralize any poison in 10 minutes. One cleric can ensure that a small village never suffer from another illness ever again. The King, of course, will never have to worry about being poisoned, and will reign for 70 years or more.

I actually greatly reduced the effectiveness of lesser restoration because of these types of issues. But to be able to cast it every 10 minutes? That's 48 times in an 8-hour work day.

Giving it once per long rest without using a spell slot, like you do with find steed sounds much more reasonable.

Also, how are you planning on handling the fact that clerics no longer have access to 6th level spells or higher? While it's rare in my campaign for PCs to reach that capability, NPCs occasionally have.

Since you're changing things here's some food for thought, too. I've never really liked the way turning undead works. Mine is not separated from Channel Divinity, you can use it as much as you'd like. In addition, even a layperson can attempt it (although that's not noted here):

Divine Might: Turn the Unholy
In the movies, holding back hordes of undead or powerful fiends is a test of will and channeling the might of your Deity.

This ability does not use the Channel Divinity ability, and can be used at any time. It works against fiends and undead.

Starting at 2nd level, as an Action, you can attempt to channel the divine power of your deity to protect against undead and fiends. You present your holy symbol and create a ward against undead and fiends. You create a 15-foot radius sphere of protection around you. The creatures must make a Wisdom saving throw, with a DC equal to your spell save DC. If the creature fails its saving throw by more than 5, it runs away and cannot take reactions, otherwise, the creature is forced out of the sphere, although it may continue to claw at the barrier and attempt to break through to attack you. The barrier deals 1d6 radiance damage to any undead that starts or ends their turn touching it.

Each round, as an action, the creature may make an additional saving throw to end the effect. Once a creature makes its saving throw, it cannot be affected by that cleric's turning or destruction ability for 24 hours.

The destroy undead ability builds on this.

The point is that it gives you a moment or two to regroup before it will inevitably fail.

My world has a separate force, Chaos, that tends to lace itself into all sorts of things. A village might have a Chaos Blight on their wheat for example, making it immune to a simple restoration by way of being ever changing. It would probably just evolve during the Restoration. The same sort of thing can happen with diseases can poisons, though poisoners have learned to look for the signs of particular poisons as they appear in various creatures. One week a Toad Skin poison might be the most deadly, next week it is soup with powdered Dove feathers. weird stuff, but these changes stop a simple Restoration from being an answer to all the worlds problems. At best, the village will be immune to the common cold, or one of the other 6 diseases that hasn't been warped yet. Chaos-laced-diseases and poisons have a DC to restore, so the most an at-will restoration will allow is multiple attempts at the DC, which slowly goes up as it adapts to each failure.

That said, I wouldn't have an issue with changing it, since these are all Draft-phase anyway.

As far as spells, they still have the Mystic Arcanum that gives them access to those spell levels, they just don't have them on demand for upcasting spells like Cure wounds. That is part of the gap that some of the invocations cover, like the Life aura that gives a small amount of healing. I don't expect it will hurt the game too much, but that is just a hunch. I don't have any proof to back it up.

On turning Undead, I can't quite figure out a change I like for that. I can understand it existing, as something like a spell, but am seriously considering just removing it entirely. I like the Command Undead Invocation I came up with, as that makes it feels interesting, but the base ability is so flat and boring. I will also probably add various tiers of invocations for things like fiends and monstrosities. For example, Turn Beasts could be grabbed without a prerequisite, while Turn Fiends is something like a 9th level requirement. This would at least spread the ability a bit more, so it doesn't only take effect in 1% of the character's career. It would also allow for a kind of Holy Hunter character, setting their "Turn" to their chosen enemy.