Spheres for divine spells (a bit long)

[Kerrick]

Ok, first do you not notice the irony? You want to elimenate cookie cutter clerics by elimenating the ability of some to access the Magic domain? Does every cleric in your campaign take the Magic domain, because I don't think its nearly as common a choice as Luck, Travel, and Sun IME.

That was an example, not the entire reason.

And second, how do you think that it follows that if some spheres are better than others, you are doing anything to elimenate cookie cutter clerics? Doesn't in fact the reverse follow?

My reference to "cookie cutter clerics" is this: currently, all clerics can use all clerical spells (barring alignment-based spells). Cleric A will be pretty much the same as cleric B, even if they follow the same god, because there's a standard loadout of spells that every cleric carries - cure wounds, bless, prayer, maybe a couple summon monsters or planar ally spells, the animal buffs for sure.

Then we have all the new books. I've heard many, many gripes about players immediately getting access to all the spells in a new book simply because they're divine spells, as opposed to wizards and sorcerers, who have to find/learn them normally. A sphere-based system, where they get limited access to spells, mitigates this problem (as would providing limited access to the new spells).

It seems to me rather questionable that any mechanical changes will make a player think more about what sort of cleric he wishes to play for RP reasons, and not more about the mechanical reasons for playing a particular sort of cleric.

Maybe I'm an idealist, or maybe I've just moved beyond the "how can I munchkinize my PC" phase. For me, it's all about how interesting I can make my PC.

My suggestion would be to make each sphere about as narrow as a domain with roughly 1 spell for each level in it. Then give each diety a broad portfolio of many spheres - at least 8.

Someone else is already doing that on these very boards. Unfortunately, I can't find it, or I'd give you a link.