Diety-unique Clerics

[Jack Simth]

Domain Spontenaity makes them more like Sorcerers than Wizards, I think.

And as for the whining thing... convince the Wizard to take Craft Wand at 3rd, and collaborate every evening on wands of Cure light (they only take 8 hours to craft). Handles it quite nicely.

However, spontaneous access to three domains would be quite a boost for the Cleric.

 

[Nifft]

Domain Spontenaity makes them more like Sorcerers than Wizards, I think.

True. Except they get the spells without a level's delay. So a Travel Cleric could cast teleport before the Sorcerer.

And as for the whining thing...

Well, there are all sorts of ways to handle player whining, and I'm not saying the Cleric's spontaneous cures are the only solution. Just that it's an expectation you should plan on managing.

My players got along fine for 15 levels without any Clerics.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Good players who don't abuse a bad system are a blessing for creative DMs. IMHO rules should be bent for such players, but not designed with them in mind.

Definitely worthy of a QFT.

 

[Thanael]

http://homepages.ius.edu/rvest/Greyhawk/GHReligion.html

The BASTARD GREYHAWK site has several specialty priests for Greyhawk gods. They convert back the 2E spell spheres and each priests has different ones so they get different spell lists.

 

[Phlebas]

Cleric House rules in my game (think most of these have been mentioned before)

Domain spontaneity - (defintely adds flavour without being too overpowering)

Cloistered cleric as the baseline cleric - PHB cleric is only for the more martial faiths

'forcing' clerics to multiclass into faith specific areas - eg priests of martial gods have to take 1 level of fighter for every 5 cleric levels. ditto for gods of Trickery (rogues), Poetry/Music (bards), Nature (ranger/druid) etc. Crafting / Household gods would probably use levels of expert but i'd be sure to give a PC something extra (eg bonus feats) if they took an NPC class.

spell casting classes (eg gods of magic) don't get as much from this approach (other than massive spell selections..) but thats where a cloistered cleric with the right domains works better.

IMC at the moment,
Cleric 10 Fighter 2 priest of the god of challenges - happy to mix it up in the front line alongside the tank and the swashbuckler and with righteous might and other buff spells takes the lead when required. Cure Criticals on undead are impressive as well

Cloistered Cleric 11, priest of fire, luck and gambling (imagine prometheus elevated to divinity) - out blasts the wizard with fire spells from a distance and makes good use of mobility and battlefield control spells. Screams and runs away like a little girl if anything gets too close

very different approaches to combats, very different flavour, but no serious tweaking with the rules!

(I did talk to the players about restricting the base spell list quite severely, giving an additional domain and then turning them into a completely spontaneous class a la sorcerer but neither liked the idea! Since my next campaign will likely be Pathfinder based i'll hold back on more HR's until i've played through the changes to domain abilities)

 

[Kerrick]

I did up spheres for 3.5 awhile back, because I agree with the other folks here - clerics of different gods should be different. As far as skills, I cut the list down to the basics (Concentration, Craft, Knowledge [arcana, religion], Profession, and Spellcraft), then had each sphere add specific skills. A cleric of Olidammara, therefore, will have some roguish skills, but he won't be nearly as good as a rogue. Also, I gave spheres specific powers, including turning/rebuking undead - not all clerics can turn/rebuke anymore. And yeah, the powers need a bit of work; I stole most of them from the domains.

The main problem I've found using this system is that clerics are seriously gimped on spell selection at higher levels. My DM came up with a feat called Improved Sphere Access, IIRC, that allows you greater access to your minor spheres, but even then the priest of Pelor in our campaign will have only a few spells at 8th/9th level (this is just using the PHB).

 

[GeorgeFields]

Divine Masters by Kenzer & Co is Kalamar specific, but does a great job by having "Advanced Clerics" for each of the gods. It's very similar to the Faiths & Avatar series for the 2e realms. They give them different class skills, hit dice, saves, weapon proficiencies, and everything else dependent upon the god and its portfolios. The only thing lacking, IMO, is individual spell lists; but can live with that and create my own.

As mentioned earlier, Priests of the Celestial Spheres by Lion's Den Press is a great product. I believe it was the first pdf I ever bought.

Also, I'll second Green Ronin's Book of the Righteousness as a great book. I was considering (and still am) using that book for religion in my homebrew.

 

[evillyn666]

This is a great thread. I too have been disappointed with the 3.5 Cleric as grossly generic. I've been toying with a fix for my next campaign for variety's sake but wanted to keep it as simple as possible. Re-writing an entire class for each potential deity is more work than I care to take on. So each cleric has a choice of the following paths:

Martial Cleric
-as per PHB except as follows:
--spell progression as per Druid (i.e. no domain spell slots)
--no spontaneous casting of healing spells
--spontaneous casting of all domain spells
--turn undead to be replaced with an equivalent special power that uniquely reflects the patron diety (ex. god of justice grants banishment of chaotic outsiders)

Cloistered Cleric
-as per PHB and above changes to martial cleric except as follows:
--poor BAB
--poor Fort save
--d6 HD
--simple weapons and light armor proficiencies only
--skills points are 6 per level
--add Decipher Script, Speak Language, and all Knowledge skills
-- +1 spells per day per spell level

 

[Kerrick]

That looks a lot like the one the folks over on the Paizo boards came up with. I really like their ideas, especially changing turn undead to channeling energy - it can be used for other divine abilities besides turning, like forcing a reroll (god of luck) or making a healing burst/lay on hands (god of healing). Their "do-it-yourself" template is kind of cool, too, but not quite what I was looking for. Your idea of just having two clerics works a bit better, but what would you do for clerics of gods that don't fall into either category, like Mask (thieves) or Shar (darkness, evil, loss)?

 

[evillyn666]

For Mask, I'd take a a cloistered cleric and domains such as Trickery would grant me access to rogue-like skills that I can dump those 6 points into. Instead of spontaneous healing, I'd be able to spontaneous Disguise Self and the like from my domain spells. And instead of turn undead, I'd banish lawful outsiders.

I don't know what your typical cleric of Shar should play like to say for sure which route is best. In simple terms, Martial vs Cloistered option is just trading melee prowess for extra skills and spells. Maybe the cloistered cleric should get a choice of say two additional class skills for some extra customization?