Cleric (Templar) is Up

[Saeviomagy]

This is super stealth errata.
My copy of the OFFLINE Character Builder has no Divine keyword on Healing Word.

I don't know why the change was made, but it probably wasn't because of the Sentinel.

Are you sure it's not just a bug? Was there a specific "hey, we removed the divine keyword from healing word so that X happened"? Because otherwise I'm inclined to believe that it's a software bug - that the character builder is using the wrong healing word, or someone just changed it because it didn't make sense that it was a divine power being used by a primal class or vice versa, and they're not in a position to understand the implications - compounded by someone copy-pasting from the character builder.

 

[Obryn]

All I've heard from people is how well the Pre-E classes and the E classes work at the table together. Why are they even doing this if they work so great together?

You seem to believe these nerfs are because of Essentials. While I agree that some stuff like Melee Training was likely hit in the Essentials crossfire, I don't see anything here - except for the bizarre Healing Word thing - that is at all related to Essentials. And I'm hoping the Healing Word/Pacifist Cleric thing is patched up soon.

And yeah, E-classes and PHB classes still work great together. You know, you could try it yourself.

-O

 

[Quickleaf]

I'd say that a templar would generally fight when the enemy invades the templar's home, whereas a paladin will go looking for the enemy to stop them before they get anywhere. I see paladins as much more warrior-like, wanting to quell a threat before it grows, whereas a templar, even one from a battle order, would prefer peace to war. Of course, I'd think that both clerics and paladins could come from the same order when the individual people interpret their teachings differently from one another.

And of course, a templar is a leader while a paladin is a defender (or a striker if you are a blackguard).

So the leaders defend the temple, and the defenders lead the charge against the enemy?

 

[BobTheNob]

Impressive. I reckon wizard hit on everything (remaining) about the cleric that upset the apple-cart.

If anyone thinks the Nerf to turn undead was too much : We once had a priest who was tuned as undead slayer. He was SO good at it that it became practically pointless to put undead encounters in the game. I had to over-engineer encounters so undead could be included, it was just plum ridiculous what his character did (and yes, he was radiant servant too).

The same debate raged when they first nerfed Solar wrath. I believe that was a good change (and Im glad they brought the rest of radiant servant in line...its about as good as the other paragon options now) and I think the change to turn undead now makes it worthy in its place as an encounter power.

 

[Aegeri]

It isn't the fact the nerfs are justified, believe me they are and the bollocks I put up with when the Cleric in my epic game made turn undead into a close burst 8 minor action attack was very annoying (that targeted elementals and immortals, the only other 2 decent high level antagonists with actual stats in epic tier). It's the fact they nerfed a swathe of stuff and gave absolutely nothing back to the Cleric in the process - while breaking many paragon paths, feats and features that normally interacted with healing word (which is now confirmed to not have the divine keyword).

It's also that they didn't even bother updating some of the useless healing utilities, which are currently standard actions (so nobody ever uses them). I will say again I fully agree with nerfing consecrated ground, firestorm and astral storm. What I disagree with is not making those LEADER powers instead of just making them blatantly awful.

There is an important difference there.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Do you have a link/source on that keyword removal for Healing Word?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Eh, people always hate it when changes take away some of their toys. It does seem like a number of things have been pretty seriously nerfed though. I do wonder where the big necessity was. Radiant Servant and Warpriest stuff is OK. Just don't really see the big need for most of the rest of it. Some seems overnerfed.

 

[Aegeri]

Do you have a link/source on that keyword removal for Healing Word?

Just look at the article, they reprinted Healing Word and it now doesn't have the divine keyword. There is no more RAIing you way around it. If a power, feature or similar needed the divine keyword for healing, it no longer works with healing word. It completely sucks, but that is the way it works and they have reprinted it sans divine keyword so that is as good as it gets official errata wise.

Eh, people always hate it when changes take away some of their toys.

This is a bit of an understatement.

Especially because even when I had a cleric abusing ALL of this stuff just about, he was nowhere near a Warlord in encounter breaking. If you've never seen an epic level warlord you just have no concept of how much they can destroy encounters trivially. Warlords already have a massive impact simply by ensuring that PCs will go first more regularly in encounters - let alone their ridiculous PPs (Battle Captain) and some powers. I mean they changed Warpriest and Radiant Servant, yet didn't change Divine Oracle (which is actually more broken). Thinking back, they changed virtually nothing significant about the Warlord and didn't take any time to nerf Battle Captain - which deserved it WAY more than Warpriest/Radiant Servant did.

There is just no thought or logic behind this, as clerics were about the middle of the pack in terms of leaders anyway.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I am amused that they changed the name of the Warpriest paragon path because it was confusing to also have a subclass called the Warpriest.

Were it me, I might have not named the subclass something that was already used for a popular paragon path.

Then I also probably would also named of Heroes of the Adjective-starting-with-F Word-Meaning-Place books something else, so what do I know?

 

[Raith5]

Understatement yes! When there are really dramatic errata's like some of the changes that have come out in recent times it produces bad blood between players of these specific builds and WOTC.

But it also produces uncomfortable discussions between DMs and players who have often setup their PCs around specific powers on whether to errata or not errata. I reckon that WOTC need to remember that this is a social game and avoid dramatic erratas.