The Souljourner said:
Ok, now that I've had some validation that my feat is ok (I, too, think extend is pretty weak).... I've been playing a Radiant Servant and I think it's fine. You have to take Sun Domain (which is not a great domain), you have to take Healing domain (which is absolute ass), and you have to waste all your base (are belong to us) skillpoints on knowledge: religion and heal. You get d6 hitpoints instead of d8.
All that for many small abilities. Many small abilities is almost always less useful than a few big ones. Let's take a look:
Double radius of light spells - cool, flavorful, minimal impact on most games.
Extra Greater Turnings - Handy, but in my experience, turned = destroyed anyway. And given how often turn just flat out fails, I don't think it's a big deal. Once you get past low levels, anything anywhere near your challenge rating is literally flat out impossible to turn.
+2 to Will Saves to all within 10' - Half the benefit of a paladin's aura, but to all saves. Decent. Probably one of the most powerful abilities they get... yet rarely gamebreaking. In general, PCs either have awesome will saves (clerics, druids) or negligible will saves (fighter types and rogues). The major beneficiaries of this are the classes that get good will saves without having wisdom as a primary stat - wizards, sorcerers, and bards.
Metamagic Healing Domain slots - wow... it *almost* makes Healing domain not crappy. Almost. You have to cast the spell from the domain slot (it would be ridiculous otherwise). That means that not only do you have to memorize a spell you could otherwise spontaneously cast, but you have to *not* memorize another spell which you might only be able to cast from a domain slot. Plus, it has no effect on the greatest healing spell a cleric has - Heal.
Bonus Domain - ok... that's sweet. But since you've already had to take Sun and Healing.. it's kinda just making up for that extreme suckiness.
Martial Weapons - While I still think this is an error, let's assume it's not for the time being. That's pretty cool. Not a huge benefit (unless you're using it to get into another prestige class), but cool. Most clerics I know of use sword and board, so the upgrade from mace to longsword isn't exactly gamebreaking... you could step up to a greatsword, and it is really handy for campaigns where you pretty much only get those magic items you find (Flaming Heavy Pick +2? Ok).... So.. good.
There really aren't any ooh-wow abilities for this class. Yes, there's almost no reason why a cleric of Pelor wouldn't just always take this over straight cleric. Unlike some people, I don't automatically think that means it's overpowered. There are many prestige classes that are no-brainers if you're following that path already. However, what this class *doesn't* do is make any other prestige classes useless. You might still want to take one of the many other cool cleric prestige classes. This class doesn't overpower them in any way. It's a very flavorful class without any gamebreaking abilities. Other PrCs do have gamebreaking or at least game altering abilities that you might want instead.
Anyway... that's my opinion, which I know is somewhat biased... but even before I was playing one I didn't think it was overpowered. I actually think it's a great example of what a PrC should be - flavorful, useful, and without kicking the PC in the nuts for taking the class.
-The Souljourner
Oh dear.
I have a nasty character that is a super character, with the whole "I am the power of my god, incarnate" written on his forehead.
Seriously, the radiant servant kicks enough ass to equal and better any other prestige class I've seen. as dwarf, with improved toughness and some nice rolls, I have a level 12 character with 150 health, armour class about 30, hitting enough times with zen archery and an oversized great-bow with some ethereal strike ability, or my oversized mace of corpereal undead slaying (+2d6) adding radiant fire (pelor worshippers get scorching ray to add to spell list, as well as +2 to all damage rolls)
Now with this light dsecriptor. +1 to spell level I think it was, so I'm casting celestial brilliance (exalted deeds) at level 16, for double the range, +2 to damage. Thats 120 foot bright sunlight that harms undead, and a further 120 foot dim light that lasts - oh yes, read it and weep - 16 days.
Lets add the multiplication factor of *5 to the radius... 600 foot of burning sunlight,
Add the +2 to caster level and the + to damage, and you have a walking nuclear missile for undead.
Yeaahhs, I like this feat!
And with the healing domain being pants - the spell healing lorecall only caster level 2, with enough points in heal skill and the feat augment healing (add +2 hp per spell level) removes quite a lot of things, blind, deaf, and some random nasties whenever you cast any healing spell - with cure critical mass, it nukes undead, is automaticall empowered AND maximized at level 10 radiant servant, shelling out (d8*4)*2=64+32(empowered)+16(augment healing) is a grand total of 112 to a maximum of 16 players / enemies if desired, and almost equaling a mass heal, I personally think it's worth it for the killing ability of undead!
Destroying undead - well, with a mantle of undead turning +4 (to class level when turning, price 11-16k, (as the phalactryl in the DM's) dependant on DM), high charisma giving lots of greater turnings, imbuing with stacked +4 to class wqhen turning in weapon from either rod (Libris mortis), or imbued into your own greater Mace, +5 in religeon domain giving +2 synergy to turning check, +2 from glory domain (not forgetting the extra dice of damage), with the empowered turning (150% of final result of damage, with no downsizing of anything else) gives me the power, as a level 15 cleric, to turn and anhialate level 26 undead. Lots of them. Anything left gets 2 turns charged into a positive energy burst - which is just as destructive with I think it was 10d8 damage to EACH and Every Undead in sight within 100 feet.
So In my view, radiant servants of Pelor are pretty tasty, don't forget getting scorching ray as an available spell, and divine casters can learn it from you with a good spellcraft check if read from a scroll. And 6/7 flame strikes for fun. And reminding you 150 health at level 12, and adding d6+6(con)+1(dwarf)+1(improved toughness) per level...
Why did you think that there were better cleric prestige classes again?
The reason for this blog though, was simply because a radiant servant, doubling light radius and +1 to spell level with celestial brilliance is deadly anyway - the extra light feat is simply a bit OTT...
