D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook reveal: "New Cleric"

[UngeheuerLich]

That could easily be a statement that fireball needs to be toned down. WotC's reasoning for not doing so always struck me as ridiculous and a marketing gimmick.

Fireball in older editions was more powerful than flame strike.
In ad&d it was 5th level and did 6d8 damage, when a fireball was a 3rd level spell and did 9d6 damage at that point.

So not a marketing gimmick but historically correct.

 

[SkidAce]

People tell tales of the one time in a hundred it mattered. They don't tell of all the times the cleric wasted a whole round doing nothing on a 1 in 10 chance "something good" will happen.

Of course.

The rarity is what makes it memorable.

 

[mellored]

Of course.

The rarity is what makes it memorable.

Unless you can't remember it happening, because it never did.

 

[SkidAce]

Unless you can't remember it happening, because it never did.

Then your tales of victory may be different.

No worries.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The problem is you are gambling on a very low chance of awesome when you could be doing something useful. Say you needed gas, forgot your wallet, and I gave you $10. You could buy $10 in gas to get you home to get your wallet, or you could buy $10 in lottery tickets and hope you win the big prize which can afford all the gas you'll need for a while. One of those is a far better use of that $10.00.

Now if you have nothing to lose (you are out of spells, running isn't an option and death is imminent.) Maybe that gamble is worth it. Likewise if wasting an action isn't a loss (such as out of combat) the price is negligible. But the grand value is pulling victory out of the jaws of defeat and with such a high cost with such a low chance of success, you're probably better off casting a cantrip than using DI. Your chance to hit is more likely better and you can influence the d20 roll with a lot of effects.

Then make it a bonus or free action, as has been mentioned.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fireball in older editions was more powerful than flame strike.
In ad&d it was 5th level and did 6d8 damage, when a fireball was a 3rd level spell and did 9d6 damage at that point.

So not a marketing gimmick but historically correct.

No, it has been historically out of proportion with same-level spells. They are aware of this, and intentionally decided not to fix it because it's "iconic". That is a marketing gimmick.

 

[Chaosmancer]

It got burried the first time around, so i wanted to give it another chance ... since I am really currious what others think about the cantrip attacks.

Eh, doesn't bother me.

Druid spell list focuses on concentration control spells.
Cleric spell list focuses on concentration buff spells.

Sorcerer spell list has often focused on blasting spells.

Wizards focus on having all the spells and a few that they made up last week.

Druids and Clerics (in theory) rely more on their cantrips for attacks and damage than the wizard or sorcerer.

 

[mellored]

Then your tales of victory may be different.

No worries.

Not sure why you think the cleric spending 4 turns accomplishing nothing ended in victory.

If your going to have it, make it trigger on something like 'when 2 or more allies fails their third death save within 1 minute of eachother".

 

[Chaosmancer]

Two years go our cleric of Anubis used Divine Intervention during a battle with an arcanaloth (fiend) that was impersonating the cat goddess Bast.

When the cleric made the roll successfully, I aske them what they were asking for.

The cleric replied "The foul creature is almost dead, I don't want it to get away. I would like Anubis to trap it here in this temple." I said okay.

They killed the creature, and it just laughed at them as it said "my soul will return from the Hells and you will all pay!" Then it looked shocked as it appeared to turn ghostly then disentegrate.

Cause Anubis isn't a dummy, and his cleric asked for it to be trapped. So Anubis trapped it soul and all, and since the soul couldn't escape to reform...I said it was permanently killed.

----
While I can and am empowered to do the same with the new ability, it most likely will tend to be used as written, in which case we may not have had quite the memorable scene as we did.

Which was a cool scene, no doubt about it.

But... you are perhaps the third person in this entire thread to have posted ANY successful uses of Divine Intervention. The chance of success was so low... most tables and most clerics never saw it used. Personally, knowing that I had a 90% chance of failure, unless the fight was essentially already won and the only other thing I could do on my turn was take the dodge action, I wouldn't have even used Divine Intervention.

I do appreciate that the WOW factor of when it worked was high, but a feature designed to be useless 90% of the time is a bad feature for the game. I CONSTANTLY rewrote the cleric's level 10 abilities, because it just felt bad to use and fail until you happened to get extremely lucky.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No, it has been historically out of proportion with same-level spells. They are aware of this, and intentionally decided not to fix it because it's "iconic". That is a marketing gimmick.

Damage spells of wizards should be higher than cleric's because clerics have more martial abilities.