4E Gods - Where's the crunch?

[Vocenoctum]

I think even a basic start would have been to assign gods to the Battle Cleric and Devoted Cleric archtypes, though obviously not every cleric of Kord must be a battle cleric or whatnot.

Second step I would have liked would be adding "spheres" to the deities, much like weapon groups, and giving certain powers different benefits, based on having the "sphere" for your deity. (Much like weapon groups.

 

[Vocenoctum]

I think the main "cause" of the "problem" is due to the decision to give each class equality. Each class gets 2 archtypes, each class gets similar number of powers. At some point they probably even worried that they were putting too many cleric feats in the feat chapter.

If they'd picked 5 main "player gods" and given each of them an "archtype", then the flavor would have come through better IMO.

 

[pawsplay]

I don't, because clerics as the most powerful characters (with druids) is something that the total majority of all D&D-players disliked.

That's a completely separate issue from clerics being distinctive from each other.

 

[fba827]

Actually, I'm thinking it might be pretty easy to make 4e powers thematic to clerics -- take a look at that they did with Star, Fey, and Infernal Pact Warlocks, for example. Those three subsets of powers look very different from one another - and from what I saw in play recently, they feel very different too. It would be a good bit of work, of course, but cleric powers differentiated by "sphere" in similar way that pact warlocks were differentiated would be very cool, balanced, and flavorful.

Only problem is -- the work for that many powers, but if Gygax and crew could do it for spells, so can we.

You know, that's a great idea.. I like it. Though it does come with the problem you mentioned, a lot of work for a lot of powers, and, well, I'm a lazy S.O.B.

I realize this is veering in to house-rules, rather than official crunch as the OP asked for, but maybe something simpler than what what Henry said could work -- for each deity assign a certain keyword-dependent bonus ...


pelor: powers with the radiant keyword gain a +1 bonus to damage (or it can be a power named bonus)
kord: powers with the weapon keyword gain a +1 bonus to damage
correlleon: when using a ranged power, you can shift 1 square as a free action before using the power
erathis: when using a power with the weapon keyword, and you have at least one ally next to you, you gain a +1 AC until the start of your next turn.
raven queen: when using a power with the healing keyword, you deal damage to one adjacent enemy equal to your charisma modifier

that would make it a turn-based crunch. being turn-based means it affects the game more often, but does make a considerable change (much like the difference between warlock styles) making each faith very different in style and tactics.

You could make it less game affecting by making it encounter based.

pelor: once per encounter, when using a power with the radiant keyword, gain a +2 to hit and +4 to damage.
correlleon: once per encounter, when using a ranged power, you can shift up to your movement speed as a free action before using the power ...

etc etc.

----
But, I will say, I like Henry's idea better, though it may be a lot more work...

 

[davethegame]

Mike Mearls said in his talk at Origins that they're working on more stuff to give more flavor to different Clerics.

My personal experience with Clerics in 3e was that Clerics often felt the same, based on the optimal way to play them for battle. Though some of the domains might change, most of the options for Clerics were the same from Cleric to Cleric. We dubbed the specific build the "Cleric of Selfish Healing", and it by far saw the most use of all the games I played in.

In 4e, I've been considering letting Clerics swap one of their Channel Divinities for the one of their deity.

 

[Remathilis]

At first, I found I was also disappointed by the lack of crunch on gods, but then I realized something; I never picked gods based on the deity, but the mechanical aspects of it. I found myself choosing gods because of X domain or Y prestige class (or in 2e: X sphere and Y specialty priest). So I often overlooked cool deities (like Ehlonna in 3e) simply because I didn't like their domains or favored weapon.

Now, with the single distinction a feat-granted power (and wait until Divine Power comes out for that one!) I choose my deity based more on RP concerns, not which deity has the best selection of kewl powerz...

 

[WizarDru]

Actually, I'm thinking it might be pretty easy to make 4e powers thematic to clerics --
...snip....
It would be a good bit of work, of course,

'Pretty easy' and 'good bit of work' are, to me, mutually exclusive.

4e clerics are fairly generic in the mechanical sense...but I'm not sure that I agree that a specialized weapon, a daily domain spell and a skill or save bonus necessarily equals 'mechanical diversity'. In my games, many of these bonuses didn't really apply most of the time. My players clerics have always diversified themselves through RP far more than through a simple rules bonus.

I'm not disagreeing that 3e clerics were, out of the gate, more diversified by rules. I'm arguing that they weren't always equal from deity to deity and that at the end of the day, I'm not sure they were all that different. Unless you were playing with someone like a cleric of Wee Jas who couldn't do spontaneous healing (which made him a pretty sucky ally in battle) or a selfish war-priest who was more interested in self-buffing than helping his comrades, chances are that most clerics ended up in the same routine during combat, whether they venerated Pelor, Corellion, Sehanine, Clangeddin or Garl Glittergold.

That said, I would LIKE more options for clerics and I expect that WotC will be rolling many out soon. For my homebrew, I'm going to probably give more options for the Channel Divinity ability and will certainly keep KM's ideas in mind. The act of changing one skill for the cleric based on the deity is pretty snazzy (AND easy).

 

[Intense_Interest]

I think that the only way to differentiate clerics in a by-God manner is to start sub-heading Cleric powers in the same manner of Warlock Pacts and giving mechanical bonuses if your god has the keyword under their portfolio. There already is mechanical differentiation between different Cleric types in the Wisdom/Laser-Cleric vs. Strength/Battle-Cleric, so you could make a quick-and-dirty absolute that All True Followers of God X are type A, etc.

However it should be noted that the Gods form a farily tight pantheon (pitted against Elementals, gods fitting into Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall and Birth/Life/Death cycles, etc.) so that under the Implied setting, it makes sense that the gods would share a template for their Mortal Realm Magistrates.

Meanwhile, House-rules are most defenitely your friend. I've already allowed a player to swap Chainmail and Hide Proficiency for his more Raven Queen Cleric for a +1d6 damage per tier vs. an Undead a turn (figuring 4 less AC is worth the extra damage against a specific monster that turn) and access to a "secret" World-shaping rituals: once-yearly cast ritual that ensures no Undead rise from a graveyard and extending his Gentle Repose into perpetuity.

 

[zoroaster100]

I think 4E has the right idea, that you can't try to cram different classes into one in order to differentiate clerics of different deities. I do think 4E should have had the Channel Divinity feats as the standard for clerics, with Turn Undead acquired as a feat instead. I think the way to create "specialty priests" with special abilities based on their deity is to create entirely different divine classes for each deity, each fully filling out a role (leader OR defender OR controller OR striker). The problem of having clerics that are effective leaders AND also fill in another class's role should not be replicated.

 

[Henry]

'Pretty easy' and 'good bit of work' are, to me, mutually exclusive.

Hey, I don't consider stacking 1,000 empty boxes to be "difficult", but it is a lot of work.

4e clerics are fairly generic in the mechanical sense...but I'm not sure that I agree that a specialized weapon, a daily domain spell and a skill or save bonus necessarily equals 'mechanical diversity'. In my games, many of these bonuses didn't really apply most of the time. My players clerics have always diversified themselves through RP far more than through a simple rules bonus.

I'm not disagreeing that 3e clerics were, out of the gate, more diversified by rules. I'm arguing that they weren't always equal from deity to deity and that at the end of the day, I'm not sure they were all that different. Unless you were playing with someone like a cleric of Wee Jas who couldn't do spontaneous healing (which made him a pretty sucky ally in battle) or a selfish war-priest who was more interested in self-buffing than helping his comrades, chances are that most clerics ended up in the same routine during combat, whether they venerated Pelor, Corellion, Sehanine, Clangeddin or Garl Glittergold.

That said, I would LIKE more options for clerics and I expect that WotC will be rolling many out soon. For my homebrew, I'm going to probably give more options for the Channel Divinity ability and will certainly keep KM's ideas in mind. The act of changing one skill for the cleric based on the deity is pretty snazzy (AND easy).

Me, I'm honestly not seeing all this "diversity" among clerics in 3E -- in fact, one of the complaints frequently against 3E by people who played 2nd edition a lot was that even with domains, A cleric of Sune and a Cleric of Bane played almost the same, leaving differentiation to nothing but roleplay. In the end, in 3E it's up to Prestige Classes and Feats to make clerics "feel" different mechanically. In 4e, since powers are the main currency instead of feats and prestige classes, then it's up to the powers and how they're written to make that mechanical difference. Just like a Fey Pact Warlock will play different to an Infernal Warlock (one player in our group we've already taken to calling him "The S&M Warlock" for his love of Hellish Rebuke ) then it's up to making enough difference through how they do something, rather than what they do, since what they do is pretty hard-coded into their "Leader" role.