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New class: Cleric/Paladin alternative

Tharkon

First Post
This is a class I designed to replace the Paladin in my game, which is a low-magic campaign therefor the normal cleric is not available for PC's and the Paladin had to be stripped of his spells.
It is called Cleric because well that's what divine warriors are called in my game while the divine spellcaster is called Priest.
It's mostly based on the Paladin with some alternative features from varying books.
What are your opinions, comments, suggestions, etc?
Deleted text in dark grey, since I couldn't find a strikeout feature.

CLERIC

Abilities: Charisma enhances a cleric's healing, self-protective capabilities, and undead turning ability. Strength and Constitution are important for a cleric because of their role in combat.

Alignment: A cleric's alignment must be within one step of his deity's (that is, it may be one step away on either the lawful-chaotic axis or the good-evil axis, but not both). Exceptions are clerics of St. Cuthbert (a lawful neutral deity), who may choose only between lawful good and lawful neutral for their alignment. A cleric may not be neutral unless his deity's alignment is also neutral. A cleric chooses one alignment component as his primary alignment component. If neutral he may choose any one alignment as if it was part of his alignment for the purpose of his abilities.

Hitdie: d10

Class Skills: Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis) and Sense Motive (Wis).

Skillpoints: 2+Int modifier

Weapon & Armor Proficiency: Clerics are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all types of armor (heavy, medium, and light), and with shields (except tower shields).

Base Attack Bonus: Equal to level

Saving Throws: Good Fort, Bad Reflex, Bad Will

Aura (Ex): A cleric of a chaotic, evil, good, or lawful deity has a particular powerful aura corresponding to his deity's alignment (see the detect evil spell for details).

Divine senses (Sp): At will, a cleric can detect alignments opposite of his. This effect is identical to detect chaos/evil/good/law except that it detects only the three opposite alignments. The cleric does not know the exact alignment of the subjects, just if they are opposite or not.

Smite (Su): Once per day, a cleric may attempt to smite creatures of alignments opposite of his alignment with one normal melee attack. He adds his Charisma bonus (if any) to his attack roll and deals 1 extra point of damage per cleric level. For example, a 13th-level cleric armed with a longsword would deal 1d8+13 points of damage, plus any additional bonuses for high Strength or magical effects that would normally apply. If the cleric accidentally smites a creature of an alignment that is not opposed to his alignment the smite has no effect, but the ability is still used up for that day.
At 5th level, and at every five levels thereafter, the cleric may smite one additional time per day, as indicated on the table above, to a maximum of five times per day at 20th level.

Divine Grace (Su): At 2nd level, a cleric gains a bonus equal to his Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws.

Divine Vigor (Su):
Beginning at 2nd level, a cleric with a Charisma score of 12 or inspire vigour in himself or his allies. Once per day per Cha modifier he may grant bonus hitpoints equal to his level to any creature (including himself) within 30 feet. The hitpoints last for 1 minute.
A cleric of 13th level or higher may suppress any one of the following adverse conditions instead; ability damage (up to half the cleric's level), confused, cowering, dazed, dazzled, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, frightened, nauseated, panicked, poisoned, shaken, sickened or stunned.

Divine Aura (Su): At 3rd level the cleric's faith imbues him with courage or resolve. Lawful clerics become immune to fear while chaotic ones become immune to compulsion effects. Your faith inspires or intimidates those around you. Allies within 10 feet of a good cleric gain a +4 morale bonus on saving throws versus fear or compulsion effects respetively. On the other hand, enemies within 10 feet of an evil cleric suffer a -4 penalty on saving throws versus compulsion or fear, respetively.
This ability functions while the cleric is conscious, but not if he is unconscious or dead.

Divine Health (Ex): At 3rd level, a cleric gains immunity to all disease, including supernatural and magical diseases (such as mummy rot and lycanthropy).

Turn or Rebuke Undead (Su): When a cleric reaches 4th level, he gains the supernatural ability to turn or rebuke undead. He may use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3+ his Charisma modifier. He turns or rebukes undead as a priest of three levels lower would. (See Turn or Rebuke Undead, page 159 of the Player's Handbook.)

Renewed Smite (Su): Beginning at 5th level, if the cleric attempts to smite a target of opposite alignment, if the attack misses, the smite ability is not considered used. Attempting a smite on a target that is not opposite to the cleric's primary alignment component is still considered used on hitting and on missing.

Cause/Remove Disease (Sp): At 6th level, a good cleric can produce a remove disease effect, as the spell, once per week. He can use this ability one additional time per week for every three levels after 6th (twice per week at 9th, three times at 12th, and so forth). An evil cleric can produce a contagion effect instead. A neutral cleric may choose to cause or remove disease, this choice can be made only once and also reflects his ability to turn or rebuke undead and to heal or deal damage. Treat the cleric's caster level as one-half his cleric levels.

Divine Vigor (Su): A cleric of 13th level or higher may use his divine touch ability to end any one of the following adverse conditions affecting himself, at the cost of 10 points of healing per condition unless otherwise noted; ability damage (cost 2 points per ability point restored), blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, sickened, stunned, or poisoned. The cleric can remove adverse conditions at the same time that he heals damage, but any points of healing spent to end adverse conditions don't also cure hit point damage.

Divine Strike (Sp): At 6th level, a cleric gains the ability to infuse one of his weapons (not necessarily a sword) with the power of faith once per day as a standard action. The weapon's enhancement bonus increases to +1, and it is treated as either chaotic, evil, good or lawful (which must match the cleric's alignment) for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction. At 9th level the enhancement bonus increases to +2 and any threat upon striking a creature of opposite alignment is confirmed. At 12th level the enhancement bonus increases to +3 and the weapon deals +1d6 of damage against creatures of opposite alignment. At 15th level this becomes +2d6, the enhancement bonus increases to +4 and the cleric benefits from a protection from chaos/evil/good/law (as appropriate) while wielding it. If the spell ends, the weapon creates a new one on the cleric's turn as a free action. The spell is automatically canceled 1 round after the weapon leaves the cleric's hand. At 18th level the weapon emits a magic circle instead while the enhancement bonus becomes +5. The effect otherwise lasts for 1 round per two cleric levels. Treat the cleric's caster level as one-half his cleric levels.3
This ability does not work on artifacts.
Note: A masterwork weapon's bonus to attack does not stack with an enhancement bonus to attack.

Divine Might (Su): At 11th level and higher, the cleric can use a standard action to add a +4 bonus to his Strength, Wisdom, or Charisma score. This ability may be used once per day, and its effect lasts for 1 minute per cleric level.

Ex-clerics: A cleric who grossly violates the code of conduct required by his god (generally by acting in ways opposed to the god's alignment or purposes), loses all class features, except for weapon, armor and shield proficiencies. He cannot thereafter gain levels as a cleric of that god until he atones (see the atonement spell description, page 201 of the Player's Handbook). Like a member of any other class, a cleric may be a multiclass character, but multiclass clerics face a special restriction. A cleric who gains a level in any class other than cleric may never again raise her cleric level, though he retains all his cleric abilities. The path of the cleric requires a constant heart. If a character adopts this class, he must pursue it to the exclusion of all other careers. Once he has turned off the path, he may never return.

Integration: When using this class in combination with other material treat it as the paladin class for all purposes.


Changes I will work on / have to think about:
Divine Aura will be reworked completely based on Cleric Domains. [Omitted]
Divine Touch allows evil clerics to heal themselves, otherwise unchanged. [Done]
Might replace Charging Smite with Trailblazer's Renewed Smite. [Done]
Replacing Divine Strike and Divine Sword with Trailbazer's Divine Weapon (not gonna be 5/day though) [Done]
Divine Might might become usable more times per day but for shorter durations. [Omitted]
 
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Complete Warrior pg 14 has a spell-less paladin variant.

That might be an easy drop into your game.

Basically gets:
Blessed weapon (good aligned)
Divine might (can boost Str, Wis or Chr scores)
Tend to mount.

There is also a spell-less ranger variant too.
 

Divine Might needs to be useable more than once per day.

Should I just increase uses or divide them, say 2 times per day but only 5 rounds per level?

Complete Warrior pg 14 has a spell-less paladin variant.

That might be an easy drop into your game.

Basically gets:
Blessed weapon (good aligned)
Divine might (can boost Str, Wis or Chr scores)
Tend to mount.

There is also a spell-less ranger variant too.

I'll explain how I build the class.
I already went with the variant in Complete Warrior as irdeggman suggested, except that I also used Player Handbook 2's variant to replace Special Mount with Charging Smite, because summoning spells aren't available in my campaign. This led to a problem with Tend to Mount which I replaced by Divine Vigour. Although D&D using American spelling I guess I should rename it to Divine Vigor. Divine Vigor was the part where I had most doubts since this is were I went away from official alternatives the most.
Blessed Weapon I simply renamed to Divine Strike because of the association of the word Blessed with the Good alignment, and I didn't want to restrict Clerics to being Good, so I also looked into Unearthed Arcana's Paladin of Freedom, Tyranny and Slaughter (CG, LE and CE respectively) which resulted in the different Divine Aura's and the evil variants of Divine Touch and Cause Disease.
Then I removed Handle Animal and Ride from the class skill due to the lack of mount and replaced them with Bluff and Intimidate (based on the Paladin of Freedom and Paladin of Tyranny) and Climb and Jump (based on the Fighter). This results in 2 more class skills but Bluff and Intimidate are basically just alternatives for Diplomacy for Evil and Chaotic Clerics.
Finally I readjusted the alignment abilities a bit. Instead of always smiting Evil (or Good in the case of the Paladin of Tyranny/Slaughter), I wanted clerics to be able to devote to Law or Chaos, like for example a Cleric of St. Cuthbert would probably have Smite Chaos. So I changed the alignment restrictions to match that of the original Cleric instead of the Paladin and then have the character make a once-in-a-build choice of being Chaos-,Evil-, Good- or Law-aligned.
 




I've often wondered how one should handle true neutral clerics. Just a choice between positive vs. negative energy based powers always felt like a consolation prize. The treatment of neutrality in 3.x is what I most dislike in the system.
 

I think you need to decide what this class is doing. :) Originally, the Cleric was a crusader, a warrior-priest in service of his faith. The Paladin was a servant of good and law, who normally had a good relationship with gods of the same alignment. Despite that distinction being blurred in most 3.x, the concepts still exert a powerful influence over class abilities. So, when I look at your Cleric, it seems to me that you haven't changed the concept from the standard assumption (warrior-priest) - but you've used the Paladin's alignment powers shtick.

I would recommend that the smite and detect abilities function on infidels, regardless of alignment. Because Lawful and Good gods often play well together, allied faiths might not count as infidels - but a lot of Evil gods war with one another and their clerics should be smiting each other early and often. Double the smite damage when hitting priests (loosely defined) of rival faiths, double it for the particular enemies of the faith (e.g. Elven deities will probably double smite orcs) and halve it for smiting the godless (unless the god really hates bugs or snakes).

Divine Touch should allow evil Clerics to heal their own wounds. Evil gods aren't dumb. ;)

Divine Aura should either be a generic benefit for the faithful, or a deity specific modifier. Same criticism for Divine Sword - it's too general and too specific - and I also recommend looking at the Paladin in Trailblazer for some ideas on how to make this ability scale to level.
 

Yes, an aura of neutrality.

I cast Detect Neutral, oh no, the aura is so overwhelmingly neutral it stunned me.

I think you need to decide what this class is doing. :) Originally, the Cleric was a crusader, a warrior-priest in service of his faith. The Paladin was a servant of good and law, who normally had a good relationship with gods of the same alignment.
It's basically the warrior-priest in service of his faith, but a little less on the priest part (no spellcasting). Since just stripping the Cleric of spellcasting makes him underpowered I looked at the closest related class, which was the Paladin and there were already sources for stripping it from its spells and allowing alternative alignments. I always considered Paladins to be servants of a specific god as well though.

I would recommend that the smite and detect abilities function on infidels, regardless of alignment...

See next post.

Divine Touch should allow evil Clerics to heal their own wounds. Evil gods aren't dumb. ;)
The original evil cleric doesn't have spontaneous cure spells either though. It's based on the Paladin of Tyranny/Slaughter in UA. They wield negative energy, and negative energy hurts the living.

Divine Aura should either be a generic benefit for the faithful, or a deity specific modifier. Same criticism for Divine Sword - it's too general and too specific - and I also recommend looking at the Paladin in Trailblazer for some ideas on how to make this ability scale to level.
Deity specific I could try, I haven't yet come up with a pantheon though.
How can it be too general and too specific?
I'll see if I can get my hands on Trailblazer, it's a book I presume.


What I find interesting is that I considered myself to be the least changed from original material are those that receive the most criticism.
 
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