Divine Feats for anybody?

[CapnZapp]

(I haven't learnt the splatbooks by heart, so feel free to direct me elsewhere if this has come up before)

Lets's say one character performs a particularly pious act. Or, simply, that the party lacks a Paladin or a Cleric.

Whatever, I would be interested in your thoughts on how to best allow a character to take the Divinity Feat of his or her Patron?

(Now I'm talking about those Pelor's Radiance, Armor of Bahamut etc feats you normally need Channel Divinity to use)

Obviously there is the cost of taking the feat.

But what would be an appropriate usage limitation. These characters don't have Challenge Divinity, and more to the point, there aren't an opportunity cost of not being to use something else when you use your Divinity Feat.

What about either of these:
1) You must cross off one Encounter power when you use your Divinity Feat's power. That is, the Divinity Feat Power doesn't come with its own Encounter box on the character sheet - you need to fuel it with one of your normal Encounter powers instead.
2) You must cross off one use of a daily magic item when you use your Divinity Feat's power. You can use this power once an encounter, but you must sacrifice one magic item daily use each time.
3) Like 1, but using up Utility powers instead.

In the first case, my concern is that the feat won't be useful at low levels, if your normal encounter powers all look more attractive. At high levels, the cost becomes lower as you could always use a power that's trailing in level. What do you say?

In the second case, a level 1 character could effectively use his or her Divinity Feat once per milestone only (a "half encounter" power). But perhaps this is okay?

The third option I don't know about. Isn't this going to feel awfully expensive?

Any great ideas otherwise?

 

[dangerous jack]

A few other house rule options to consider:

1) PC uses an Action Point, but instead of getting an extra action can use this power. This will limit it to 1 / 2 encounters.

2) PC must use a healing surge to channel divinity in this way. But this will vary in true cost from class to class, depending on how many healing surges the PC has.

3) Force them to multi-class to cleric or paladin, but give them the channel divinity class feature for it instead of whatever they normally get (I don't have the books in front of me).

 

[CapnZapp]

Thanks. Of these three, I think #3 is best. (An AP feels too expensive, and a HS would be cheap for some, extremely expensive for others *cough* tank *cough*)

In general, starting out with requiring the multiclass feat seems like a good start. That requirement could mean that the per-use cost can be kept relatively low...

 

[fba827]

I was going to post what dangerousjack already hit upon -- have them take a multiclass feat like this....

Pious Follower
(multiclass cleric)
Prerequisite: Wis 13, must worship a specific patron deity.
Benefit: You gain training in the Religion skill.
Once per day, you can use the specific Channel Divinity feat of your patron. In addition, you can use a holy symbol as an implement when using a cleric power of a cleric paragon power.
When you select this feat, you must choose the specific Channel Divinity feat of your patron. This choice can not be changed.


It follows the basic pattern of normal multiclass feats: you take an encounter power and make it daily (or an at-will and make it encounter), it gives you access to a trained skill, and it costs a feat.

True, a regular cleric would have to take a feat to get a patron-varient channel divinity, but they also have diversity in their channel divinity uses, something a person who takes this feat does not.

That's how I would do it anyway.

 

[CapnZapp]

Okay, so you're basically suggesting you take two feats, and that the encounter power with-an-opportunity-cost is made into a daily?

Not that there's anything wrong with what you're saying. Not sure a player would buy it, that's all. Isn't that awfully expensive - two feats just to get Daily access?

If you got a daily use out of just taking the feat, that might be more palatable.

Perhaps that's the elegant solution - altogether avoiding having to come up with an opportunity cost to replace the "if you use your Divinity feat, you're not using any other Channel Divinity power that encounter" one...

This could still require you to multiclass, though, but having the regular Cleric or Paladin MC-feats as a prerequisite. This way, there's no cost of two feats - for the purposes of this balancing act, we can assume those multiclass feats are priced properly.

Thanks!

PS. I should probably stat up this latest suggestion, for ease of comment:

Houserule "general access to Divinity feats"
A character without the Channel Divinity class feature may take the Divinity Feat associated with his patron deity. The feat works slightly differently for such a character:
1) The feat has a prerequisite of either the Initiate of the Faith or the Soldier of the Faith feat (in other words, either the Cleric or the Paladin multiclass feat). Another prerequisite is that you do not have Channel Divinity as an ability, feature or power.
2) The power associated with the Divinity feat becomes a Daily power to you. It does not require or use Channel Divinity.


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Unless, of course, you tell me that in the long run, its best to grant such characters Channel Divinity in some form (if follow-up feats to the divine feats require this ability, for instance)

 

[fba827]

na, i didn't mean to say (or imply) it would cost two feats. It's the one feat which gives you: a daily use for a specific channel divinity power, training in the religion skill, and you're counted as a cleric for the purposes of multiclassing and can take future power swap feats yada yada yada.

(basically, it's the current multiclass cleric feat but instead of doing healing word once per day, you use a chosen channel divinity power once per day).