10 Clerical Spheres/Domains

[steeldragons]

Regarding priests only getting access to part of a domain, isn't that basically the same as splitting that domain up into its constituent parts as separate domains? I mean, if you have Nature (Animals), Nature (Plants), Nature (Plants, Weather), etc. isn't that the same as having Animal, Plant, and Weather domains?

Mechanically, yes, I suppose it is.

But for presentation and immediate flavor, I think having the overall category is much cleaner and easier to swallow (not to mention page count) than listing separately: Air, Animals, Battle, Chaos, Civilization: Urban, Civilization: Rural, Currency/Trade, Death, Despair, Destruction, Dream, Good, Earth, Evil, Fire, Healing, Knowledge, Law, Magic, Moon, Plants, Prophecy, Protection, Secrets, Shadows, Stars, Sun, Trickery, Undead, Water, Weather...etc. etc. etc...blek!

Not to mention the need to then come up with enough spells to fill all of them, individually. If you have 2 or 4 spells dealing with animals, 2-4 spells dealing with plants and 2 or 4 spells dealing with weather...you have nice 10-ish list of a domain can call "Nature" without the bloat/stretch to come up with spells just for Animal or Plant or Weather...and if, say, there is no 5th level spell for plants, that's fine cuz there's a couple for animals and weather. Then, if you don't want or have access to those, for 5th level spells, the cleric picks from some other sphere they have access to.

Make sense?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Creation
Destruction
Life
Death
Light
Dark
Knowledge
Mystery
Pleasure
Pain

Clearly, I like opposites. I would not be in any hurry to do nature of elemental domains on the assumption that if this game is D&D-like, there will be druids to cover those sorts of things. I also don't like alignment baked in through domains, and anyway these have a lot of alignment implications (light suggests good, dark suggests evil, creation is good and lawful, destruction is evil and chaotic, mystery is kind of chaotic and evil, knowledge is lawful and good-ish).

Would you insist on more than 10? What would they be?

Given more, I'd probably cover the druid-ish stuff with four elemental domains and maybe animal and plant.

Is this all too much/unnecessarily complicating for new players/beginning play and should just be a well-rounded singular clerical spell list?

I'd take completely the opposite position and say that clear thematic spell lists are easier for beginners. As well as being more appropriate for clerics in general.

 

[Meatboy]

Good question... but 10 feels limiting. Anyway here goes.

1.Healing (all your basic cures go here)
2. Death (inflict spells/necromancy)
3. Protection (wards, and other defensive things)
4. War (lots of buffs and more offensive types)
5. Nature (plant/animal stuff)
6. Sun (fire/light)
7. Storm (weather/air/water)
8. Magic (self explanitory)
9. Knowledge
10.Hmmmmm maybe destruction

I think that list fills all the basic needs for constructing most pantheons. Creation and Trickery might be added or substitued depending on what kind of pantheon you are trying to make.
I am all for clerics being more than just healing for the party. I like the idea of clerics being more of a fighter/mage hybrid. Get to wear the armor AND cast spells, yes please.

 

[Bagpuss]

As much as I loved specialty priests, I think the idea of spell spheres is fundamentally flawed for the reasons laid out by the 3e designers - you get clerics that can't fulfill the basic role of the class.

Then move what is considered the basic role of the class out of the spheres and even spells area all together.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

What do you mean? Not working how?

First, I tried organizing the spell list by roughly what the spell does, but ended up with a bunch of spheres with only a couple spells, and a wildly different levels, and a couple spheres with tons of spells.

Second, I tried to create a universal spell list and to pull out spells I didn't think every cleric needed, and organized them. But then two things happened. First, some spell levels became exceptionally thin, with only one or two cleric spells. Second, when grouping the pulled out spells, I ended up with really just a few spheres, some were high level, some low, and some a mix.

But, mostly what I discovered is that there really aren't that many spells per level beyond first and second level. It's very manageable after that point. Which is why I suggest that we'll get all the flavor and managment benefits we need from simply merging some superfluous spells, and possibly raising the level of others to reduce the front loading the spell list.

I would also consider removing some spells entirely, and then having Deities grant a few additional spells as appropriate.