You're over-reacting. The Radiant Servant of Pelor is nifty but it's not so good as to justify this level of panicked flailing with the nerf bat. I'm much more concerned over the fact that
Spikes remains unchanged in CD (it was better than GMW in 3.0 and GMW is a 4th level cleric spell that got nerfed in 3.5) and that
Miasma is back (even at 6th level, having no save death at high caster levels is not a good idea).
You're missing a few things in your analysis too:
1. Prerequisites: 5 ranks of Heal, 8 ranks of Knowledge: religion, the Sun domain, and Extra Turning.
The ranks aren't that big a deal--although they will force most clerics to either skimp on concentration or skimp on spellcraft and Diplomacy. Non-human clerics will be harder pressed to meet them.
The Sun Domain isn't a balancing factor either. The Sun Domain has consistently good spells at nearly all levels and has a useful granted power too. It's one of the better domains in the PH--and, more significantly, one of Pelor's better domains.
However, full use of its abilities requires the Healing Domain--which is generally thought to be a weak domain for good clerics. (One of the most powerful domains in the PHB?!? Are you nuts? It doesn't let a cleric do anything he couldn't do before and its domain power doesn't make much of a difference either--1 point isn't much). It's also significant to note that a cleric of Pelor qualifying for this class and making use of its abilities will have the Sun and Healing domains. Any other combo and he either doesn't qualify or can't make full use of the powers. That's not a lot of flexibility.
Extra Turning, OTOH, is not usually considered a power feat for a cleric. It doesn't hurt, of course, especially if you have some of the divine feats from CW or CD. However, clerics--especially non-human clerics--don't have a lot of feats and it can hurt.
As for the gains,
Martial Weapon Proficiency: It doesn't belong in the class but it's not a big deal. Either the cleric will lose out on some of the other class abilities or he probably won't be too efficient with weapon combat. (Melee clerics of Pelor will often want the Strength Domain but that makes a lot of the healing domain powers useless to them--they also won't be happy with d6 hit points). Archer clerics of Pelor are few and far between and spending a feat on Extra Turning will hurt them. (As will going for at least five levels using a crossbow in order to not duplicate this ability).
Greater Turning 3/day+cha mod: This is definitely a good power. However, it's not incredibly likely to be significant unless you're leading your PCs against the White Kingdom. In Living Greyhawk, my cleric of Pelor has only had use for extra greater turnings a couple times in 60+ mods. (Not that he has them; most other times, however, there was either A. only one undead encounter that day, B. Undead weak enough he dusts them anyway, or C. Undead too strong to make turning practical).
Radiance: The ability has a lot of flavor but it's not too significant in terms of balance. I've only played in one two sessions where a Daylight going 120 feet instead of 60 feet and counting as 4th level rather than 3rd level would have been helpful.
Immunity to Disease: Again, this is mostly flavor text. Especially for a cleric who can cast Remove Disease, Disease is rarely a significant challenge in D&D. In a plague-themed mod it'll be useful. Otherwise it'll be useful approximately as often as the cleric goes into melee with a mummy.
Empowered and Maximized Healing Domain spells: Only works if you actually have the Healing Domain which is weak relative to other domains. This might be nifty for some kind of fighting healer Cleric 4/Fighter 4/Divine Crusader (healing domain) 2/Radiant Servant of Pelor 10 (adding spells to Divine Crusader levels). Otherwise, however, it doesn't seem like that big a deal. (Heck, I think they could have made that the granted power of the Healing Domain without breaking anything).
The Third Domain: Glory or Purification. Nifty. This gives the obvious Radiant Servant builds a little domain flexibility. Note, however, that this has negative synergy with the bonusses to Healing Domain casting. The more you get out of your healing domain bonusses, the less you get out of having an extra domain.
Positive Energy Burst: A very solid ability (and better here than in the Hunter of the Dead class which, since it doesn't progress in Undead Turning, has little other use for turning).
Full Spellcasting: That's what makes the class worth taking. Consider some of the other classes in the book that don't have full spellcasting--Shining Blade of Heironeous, for instance. As a cleric, I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole (and I'm not sure I'd take it as a Paladin either--despite its obviously being aimed at paladins. The Holy Sword spell is better than the sword abilities of the Shining Blade and the paladin gets Lay on Hands, smite, turning, and mount progression too).
On the whole, Radiant Servant may get a few too many abilities (martial weapons, for instance), but I don't consider it a no-brainer to aim my 9th level Living Greyhawk cleric of Pelor towards the class. (Even though he could easily meet the skill prereqs). It would be a lot more attractive a choice if he had the healing domain but I'm not sure I'd trade the strength domain for the Healing Domain, even with the knowledge of the healing domain abilities of the Radiant Servant. Reduce the Spellcasting to 9/10 and (depending upon where the hit happens) I wouldn't be thinking about it for my cleric anymore. Reduce it to 7/10 and I wouldn't as much as consider it for ANY cleric. If you feel the need to nerf it (and there are many other things in the CD that could use changes far more dramatically), I would start by eliminating the martial weapon proficiency (doesn't fit in the class), and positive energy burst (the class has plenty to do with their turning already and we don't need to step on the already weak Hunter of the Dead any more than necessary). I'd probably change the Greater Turning to +1/2 class levels as well and leave it at that. (Well, I might prohibit them from casting Inflict x Wounds spells or Harm as well). Then it would be what a prestige class is supposed to be: more focussed than the normal cleric of Pelor (in this case, focussed on healing people and fighting undead) but less flexible and less powerful outside of that specialty. (Truth to be told, it's not really far from that at the moment).
ForceUser said:
I cracked open my new CD Friday night, and lo & behold the RSoP looks like it was cut-&-pasted from Dragon magazine. This class is overpowered. Here's why:
What a cleric loses transitioning to this class
D8 hit die. It becomes a d6.
What a cleric gains transitioning to this class
- Martial weapon proficiency.
- Greater Turning 3 + Cha modifier per day.
- Radiance - light spells double in illumination radius.
- Turn undead continues to progress.
- He becomes immune to all diseases.
- He can first empower, then later maximize, then later do both at once for no extra cost with Healing domain spells.
- The Radiant Servant and all allies within 10 feet gain +2 morale bonus on all Will saves.
- He gets a third domain.
- For the cost of 2 turn attempts, he can deal up to 10d6 positive energy damage to all undead within 100 feet.
- He gains full cleric spellcasting progression on top of everything else.
What crack pipe was Noonan smoking when he cut-&-pasted this class? How is this not overpowered? Why would a cleric of Pelor not take this class? He gives up nothing but an average of 1 hit point per level - a paltry sum.
The Radiant Servant as listed in
Complete Divine is overpowered & broken. I played one in 3.0 up to 14th character level, and he is the bees knees of clerics. He was so overpowered, in fact, that my DM and I put our heads together and made the following changes:
- Removed martial weapon proficiency. It makes no sense thematically.
- Restricted Extra Greater Turning to a single extra greater turning per day.
- Lowered the spellcasting progression to 9/10 instead of 10/10. And I'd advocate lowering it even further - perhaps even as low as 7/10.
- Removed the bonus domain. This was just over the top.
From the Monte Cook school of prestige class construction: a good prestige class is not more powerful than a core class, simply different & unique. He may be more focused in a single area of expertise, but if so he should pay for that focus by being weaker in other areas. The Radiant Servant does not follow this format. You can't say that forcing the class to take the Sun & Healing domains constitutes a sacrifice because these are two of the most powerful domains in the game. And the reduction in hit die to d6 is not weakening at all - he's a cleric. He heals really well - even better as a Radiant Servant.
What were these guys thinking?
-- again, just my two cents on the topic for whatever they are worth.)
