[Complete Divine] Radiant Servant of Pelor is too powerful.

[Celtavian]

re

The only concern I have with the Radiant Servant of Pelor is the Extra Greater Turning. Greater Turning can make an encounter with vampire bodyguard fighters a cakewalk. You can utterly annihilate undead. I'm just glad they didn't use the same text they did for the Eye of Horus Re where the Extra Greater Turning attempts are in addition to the regular turning attempts. You want to see an overpowered class that someone at WotC didn't have the good sense to edit before it went to the printers, then read the Eye of Horus Re.

Radiant Servant of Pelor is decent, but hardly overpowered. The only problem with the class is the Extra Greater Turning. The Empowered and Maximized healing only works with the single domain spell from the Healing domain they can cast per day.

 

[ForceUser]

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.

This is the only point you made I'm going to bother refuting - for the rest, we're too far afield in our opinions. Suffice it to say that my group has long in-game experience with the Radiant Servant and I stand by my analysis. It's overpowered.

As for the Healing domain, I stand by my assertion there as well, and I will defend it. Sometimes its the most innocuous abilities that are the most powerful over the course of a campaign. The granted power of the Healing doamin, +1 caster level on cure spells, may not seem like much, but it adds up in a major way over the long run, the same as that incredibly useful feat, Weapon Focus. Unlike most feats, Weapon Focus applies every single time you attack with your chosen weapon. The Healing domain power applies each time you cast a cure spell. Every - single - time. If you cast a cure spell five times you've healed 5 extra hit points. If you cast a cure spell 1,000 times over the course of a campaign, you've healed 1,000 extra hit points you wouldn't have healed without this domain. That is powerful. That is why Healing is one of the most powerful domains. I hesitate to speculate, but perhaps you are looking at powers on a per-usage basis, i.e. what does it do for me right now? I am viewing this domain from a campaigner's perspective. Every time your cleric heals, he is that much more effective. It's subtle, but it adds up. Healing is one of the most powerful domains.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The Healing domain power applies each time you cast a cure spell. Every - single - time. If you cast a cure spell five times you've healed 5 extra hit points. If you cast a cure spell 1,000 times over the course of a campaign, you've healed 1,000 extra hit points you wouldn't have healed without this domain.

Not really.

As soon as you hit 5th, Healing domain makes zero difference to your CLWs. At 10th, zero difference to your CMoWs. etc, etc.

I'm much more concerned over the fact that Miasma is back...

Oh, for god's sake...!

Guess we can look forward to a reprinted Fanfare to come, then

-Hyp.

 

[Count Arioch the 28t]

I find that treating Miasma like the psionic power, Crisis of breath is the best way to handle it, except I still allow the "No save" portion".

Have they at least clarified it? The wording on that spell was really bad.

I will have to test the Radiant Servant of Pelor before making a descision. However, a powerful PrC in this book would be cause for celebration, as most are crap.

 

[Li Shenron]

Empowered and Maximized Healing Domain spells: Only works if you actually have the Healing Domain...

I wouldn't be so sure that it works this way, but as long as I don't have the original text, it's hard to say.

It is possible that the power applies to the 9 spells belonging to the Healing domain, but not only when prepared as domain spells. Let's see the exact text...

 

[fba827]

I wouldn't be so sure that it works this way, but as long as I don't have the original text, it's hard to say.

It is possible that the power applies to the 9 spells belonging to the Healing domain, but not only when prepared as domain spells. Let's see the exact text...

Note: I don't have CW, only going by what's in Dragon Magazine... and even then, I don't have the magazine in front of me...

But I am pretty sure the way I (and everyone else in the campaign read the description) it says something like 'everytime you cast a domain spell from the Healing domain... ' thus, only applying to any healing domain spell that has been prepared in the domain spell slot.

but, yeah, exact text would help clarify.

 

[ForceUser]

Not really.

As soon as you hit 5th, Healing domain makes zero difference to your CLWs. At 10th, zero difference to your CMoWs. etc, etc.

I beg to differ. Mass cure critical wounds, for example, maxes out at +40. There will always be cure spells you gain the benefit from this (until ridiculously high epic levels), and the mass spells actually make the domain power even more powerful, because if you heal five people with a mass spell, that's +1 hp each. I continue to stand by my assertion.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

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.

This class makes Extra Turning useful, and everything else the cleric of Pelor would have taken anyway. I can't imagine how a player is going to justify not having the ranks in religion.

As for the gains,

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.

Sunburst is a Sun domain spell which blinds all creatures within 80 feet of the casting point. (Not 10 ft. as the short description says.) It blinds those creatures forever unless they just so happen to have a potion of remove blindness and the time to use it... or even locate it in their pack (they're blind, aftera ll). Now this ability lets you massively increase the area of a battlefield it can affect without taking up a higher-level spell slot.

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).

WotC should have learned, a long time ago, not to give spellcasting PrCs full spellcasting.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

WRT the healing domain: I think your analysis is using the wrong rubric Forceuser. It doesn't matter if the healing domain results in an extra million points of curing over the course of the campaign. What matters is the difference it makes to the PCs. This could, in my estimation, happen several ways:

1. The after battle cure advantage: The cleric has to spend fewer spells to heal the PCs to full. If the cleric can heal the barbarian and the paladin instead of just the barbarian because of ability X, then the ability helps. If, even with the ability, he is only able to cure the barbarian, the party most likely will not press on and the ability didn't net a significant advantage.

2. The hole up and rest advantage: As much as I despise it, there are times--especially at low levels, when the party is all in single digit hit points and needs to find a defensible location, bar the door, and rest for a day or three to heal up. If the healing domain cuts the 2 days of rest required down to 1, then it makes a difference in time sensitive situations (not that it matters much in that case--one day instead of two is not usually relevant). If the healing domain cuts the 1 full day (rest, cast heals, rest, cast heals again) down to one night (rest, cast heals, keep going), then it's made a real difference. (One night of rest is often possible--more than that and the enemy probably got away and its too late to catch up).

3. The combat-heal advantage: The fighter has taken 43 hit points of damage this round. The cleric moves up and casts a cure spell. Because of the cure, the fighter can keep fighting. If the healing domain made the difference between the fighter being able to keep fighting, and the fighter retreating or the fighter being confident enough to fight to win and the fighter fighting defensively, the healing domain was helpful. If it didn't make a difference to the fighter's actions and didn't keep the fighter from dying (brought to -9 instead of -10 because of that extra healing domain hit point), then it wasn't helpful.

Really, the only of these situations where the healing domain is often helpful is situation 2 where the ability to use the domain slot for healing makes a big difference. Even then, it only makes a big difference around levels 1-4. After that, you've got enough spells anyway and using the domain spots isn't likely to let you keep spells that would be helpful when you press on.

Only at first level is 1 point of healing per spell going to make much of a difference in the after battle cure situation. Even then, any situation where the fighter is down 5 points and the non-healing domain cures 4 points, usually just means that a cure minor wounds is cast.

And, again, it's only at first and second level that one extra point of healing is likely to make the difference between the fighter staying and fleeing. At no levels are characters being healed in combat and then dropped to exactly -10 (not -11 because then the healing domain wouldn't help) a common enough occurence to make the healing domain advantageous.

So, in most situations, the healing domain doesn't make much of a difference.

This class makes Extra Turning useful, and everything else the cleric of Pelor would have taken anyway. I can't imagine how a player is going to justify not having the ranks in religion.

"My job is to cleanse the land of evil not figure out how whether more archons or eladrin can dance on the head of a pin. That's the contemplative theologians' jobs."

"If I want to help cure your wounds or disease, I'll ask Pelor to do it. What's the point of divine healing if I'm going to stitch and leech like some sawbones?"

At least that's how a number of clerics I've seen would justify it.

Sunburst is a Sun domain spell which blinds all creatures within 80 feet of the casting point. (Not 10 ft. as the short description says.) It blinds those creatures forever unless they just so happen to have a potion of remove blindness and the time to use it... or even locate it in their pack (they're blind, aftera ll). Now this ability lets you massively increase the area of a battlefield it can affect without taking up a higher-level spell slot.

Hmm. Sunburst and Sunray would be powerful applications. However, the text of the ability says "the radius of illumination is doubled" not that the area of effect is doubled. As a DM, I don't think I'd interpret that to apply to the offensive light spells. I suppose it would work for that undead damaging light from BoED but that's about it.

WotC should have learned, a long time ago, not to give spellcasting PrCs full spellcasting.

I disagree. Limited spellcasting takes classes from OK to worthless in record time. I'd love to see some villainous acolytes of the skin for instance but the abilities they gain just aren't worth 5 levels of spellcasting (not even being able to limited wish when otherwise, you'd be wishing). Once a spellcaster loses more than two levels of spellcasting ability (and two lost levels is really marginal--one is all that spellcasters can really afford to lose), they either have to find a role in the party other than primary spellcaster (the spellsword, for instance, fills a fighter's role, and the Arcane Trickster a rogue's), or be dramatically underpowered. The Practiced Spellcaster feat in CD may help to make up for this but I don't think it will help that much.

 

[Epametheus]

WotC should have learned, a long time ago, not to give spellcasting PrCs full spellcasting.

The rub in that is that if taking a PrC means giving up 9th level spells, then the PrC probably isn't worth bothering with.

Actually, I can't think of any partial progression PrCs that I'd take with a straight-spellcaster PC; giving up 5 levels of spell progression for some limited-use gimmick is a pretty steep price.

Which is why most of the PrCs have full caster progression; they're trying to write PrCs that people would actually want to take.