D&D 5E Cleric Domains in PHB

[doctorhook]

I understand the reasoning for you wanting to make this change, but it might also be a bit of a balance issue. There's probably fewer creatures with resistance or immunity to Radiant damage than fire, so it might be a bit of a power boost. Though I wonder about the Tempest Domain... lot of powers in it with Thunder (sonic) damage? Or is it more Lightning? (I don't have the PHB yet). Thunder (or Sonic) has always been a better choice in previous editions for the same reason.

The fire->radiant balance problem had crossed my mind. Fortunately I haven't committed anything to paper/bytes just yet.

But more on topic, I'd definitely like to see some more domains available to help differentiate both a variety of gods and the clerics that serve them. In addition to those mentioned that are somewhat alignment based, I'd also like to see the domains for the elements (Air, Earth, Fire and Water) brought back, as well as Travel and Magic.

Not sure what shape splat books are going to take this edition, but things like this (basically, more sub-classes) seems to be pretty low hanging fruit as far as effort to create and customers willing to buy.

I fully agree with all of this.

 

[kerouac]

The fire->radiant balance problem had crossed my mind. Fortunately I haven't committed anything to paper/bytes just yet.

I fully agree with all of this.

Yeah, I think this is turning into just some extra home-brew work. I don't know if I'll just run "Death is the opposite of life, so..." or actually go through and craft a new domain list. The latter is certainly a better option for flexibility, but if my PCs are only interested in serving certain Gods it might just be unnecessary.

 

[Li Shenron]

I really wanted to dig into the cleric section and get a look at the different domains... and I was disappointed! Seven domains seems far too light for a broad pantheon;

Indeed, way too few... the 3e PHB had 22 domains. The table of deities in the PHB clearly shows that 8 domains are not enough for a good differentiation.

Looking at the list of 3e core domains, I don't think it was a big deal to lose the 4 alignment domains, and to merge Animal and Plant into the Nature domain.

Still others would have been so useful, for instance the elemental domains... While "god of element X" isn't a particularly compelling figure IMHO, the elemental domains would have been very versatile: Fire domain could have covered both deities of destruction and forge (Ephestus/Volcano for instance), Water domain could have covered all deities of the sea like Neptune/Poseidon (Tempest contains more thunder & lightning stuff and is very destruction-oriented), Earth domain would be appropriate for Moradin and other deities related to either mountains, caves, the underground, etc.

And then there are gods of Justice, Luck, non-evil Death, Magic and Travel which aren't well represented with the current 8.

do you think that the DMG might introduce more?

Only the Death domain, and that's strongly evil-oriented, unsuitable for good or neutral deities of the dead such as Kelemvor or Osiris.

Do you have any suggestions for modifying existing Domains for a wider range of options?

The easy part is picking domain spells.

More difficult is to pick channel divinity abilities. You could re-use the existing ones, but you'll be shoehorning them (at least, you can try to keep their mechanic but change their targets).

The most difficult part is to come up with unique abilities for levels 6, 8 and 17.

Overall, scarceness of cleric domains and rogue subclasses are probably the biggest let-down of the PHB, to the point that I'm already wondering if it's worth waiting for the summer 2015 PHB update. There's a small chance they'll make it 350 pages, like they decided to do with the MM.

 

[kerouac]

Indeed, way too few... the 3e PHB had 22 domains. The table of deities in the PHB clearly shows that 8 domains are not enough for a good differentiation.

Looking at the list of 3e core domains, I don't think it was a big deal to lose the 4 alignment domains, and to merge Animal and Plant into the Nature domain.

Still others would have been so useful, for instance the elemental domains... While "god of element X" isn't a particularly compelling figure IMHO, the elemental domains would have been very versatile: Fire domain could have covered both deities of destruction and forge (Ephestus/Volcano for instance), Water domain could have covered all deities of the sea like Neptune/Poseidon (Tempest contains more thunder & lightning stuff and is very destruction-oriented), Earth domain would be appropriate for Moradin and other deities related to either mountains, caves, the underground, etc.

And then there are gods of Justice, Luck, non-evil Death, Magic and Travel which aren't well represented with the current 8.



Only the Death domain, and that's strongly evil-oriented, unsuitable for good or neutral deities of the dead such as Kelemvor or Osiris.



The easy part is picking domain spells.

More difficult is to pick channel divinity abilities. You could re-use the existing ones, but you'll be shoehorning them (at least, you can try to keep their mechanic but change their targets).

The most difficult part is to come up with unique abilities for levels 6, 8 and 17.

Overall, scarceness of cleric domains and rogue subclasses are probably the biggest let-down of the PHB, to the point that I'm already wondering if it's worth waiting for the summer 2015 PHB update. There's a small chance they'll make it 350 pages, like they decided to do with the MM.

I haven't spent much time with the Rogue subclasses yet... I'll move on to that tonite. One of my players only likes to play stealing, super-selfish characters. edited to remove inappropriate references - Plane Sailing, enworld admin

 

[Shroomy]

I said on twitter the other day that from 3e, I'd like to see Luck, Magic, and Travel. I can take or leave the Animal, Plant, and alignment domains.

 

[doctorhook]

I said on twitter the other day that from 3e, I'd like to see Luck, Magic, and Travel. I can take or leave the Animal, Plant, and alignment domains.

If there's one set of domains that I think absolutely ought not to make a return, it's alignment domains. These are immensely boring and reveal nothing about the actual beliefs or portfolios of the deity they represent. The only reason these got a pass in 3E/3.5E is that every cleric got two domains, so alignment domains could hypothetically be used to distinguish "good nature cleric" from "evil nature cleric".

 

[fba827]

While there are other domains I'd like to have seen in initial release, I can respect the fact that more cleric space would take away space from other content in the book.
So hopefully at a reasonable time in the future we can see more domains

 

[steeldragons]

I have no problem with the broad domains...and would be fine with things like "Elemental" Domain encases all four elements. If you've got a god of the sea, they get access to the water spells. Volcano god gets Fire and, maybe, Earth. You can have a "God of [just] Fire" if you want. A "Lord of Eagles", "Goddess of Night", or the "Twin Gods of Heaven and Earth" can all have access to the Air spells...perhaps an Avatar [tLA] type of deity master of 4 elements, etc... But a single "Elemental" domain can handle that all.

Same goes for Alignments. Are you a good deity or a bad deity? /glinda. The former uses the Good/anti-evil spells. Evil? Use the Evil/anti-good spells. Done. I don't need separate domains for "Law, Chaos, Good, Evil, Neutrality."

Honestly I would have done the same with Nature & Tempest, were I the design-decision maker. Animal, Plant and Weather could all go under a single "Nature" Domain with various deities gaining access to some, all or various subsets therein.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

While there are other domains I'd like to have seen in initial release, I can respect the fact that more cleric space would take away space from other content in the book.

So hopefully at a reasonable time in the future we can see more domains

Indeed - both Clerics and Wizards get a pretty large amount of subclass-type space via Domains/Specialities (Domains are bigger, I think), and did not need more space spent on them. I do think the "Death is in the DMG" thing is complete rubbish, though, esp. as having now seen the Deity list, there are plenty of N and even a G god who has it, and several of the gods listed as E who have it were absolute NOT E in the mythology (only in Hollywood are they). I'm pretty confident it was "Well, not really space for all these Domains, how can we cut one?" first and the "OOOOOH EEEEEEVIL!" excuse, which is very 1989-ish came later (esp. as Wizards kept Necromancer!).

I also think this whole Domain thing will be a real annoyance going forward, because they've assigned some severely inappropriate domains solely because:

A) A God can't not have a Domain unless he doesn't have Clerics at all.

and

B) They made the Domains pretty narrow (not seeing them being "broad" the way some people seem to be suggesting) and not really that good a fit for D&D's gods generally.

and this is going to lead to a situation where they either have to do take-backsies and say "Actually now we have X, Y and Z Domains, Bobby Godpants no longer has Trickery as a Domain", or just leave gods with really inappropriate domains even though the right ones have come out.

They really might have been better off just, y'know, having a sort of "generic/placeholder" domain or something.

 

[Remathilis]

Only the Death domain, and that's strongly evil-oriented, unsuitable for good or neutral deities of the dead such as Kelemvor or Osiris.

Actually...

Kelemvor has the Death domain, though Osiris does not. Further the PHB/Updated Basic says...

A number of other deities, mostly evil ones, suggest the Death domain, which is detailed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Most clerics who choose this domain are evil NPCs, but if you want to worship a god of death, consult your Dungeon Master.

I kinda wish we could just SEE it already, but alas...