Friggen Laser Beams

[cdrcjsn]

"I, Mombo, cleric of Dim the God of Darkness, will destroy you... With my friggen laser beams shotting out my Arse."

If it bothers you that priests of the God of Darkness will be throwing around beams of happy sunshine if they're clerics...then don't make them clerics.

We have been told that lots of out of combat stuff are now Rituals (like Raise Dead, Commune, etc).

We have also been told that Ritual Caster is a feat that anyone can take.

So the priest of the God of Darkness can very well be a Necromancer, Illusionist or Bob the Baker (who makes evil pies) and fulfill the role of evil cultist leader.

 

[Wormwood]

If people are supposed to come up with appropriate special effects then why not play HERO system where base powers are all the same and only differentiated by character choice of special effect.

Each power has a description. If the player or GM doesn't *like* that description, they may change it.

That's not HERO . . . not by a long shot.

 

[Alkiera]

The source of 'radiant' energy is not the sun, but the Astral Sea. All divine power comes from there.

Perhaps Dim can grant you the ability to channel his power into an encounter effect that changes all your radiant powers into necrotic ones; the lich lord we saw had that ability.

 

[Andor]

If it bothers you that priests of the God of Darkness will be throwing around beams of happy sunshine if they're clerics...then don't make them clerics.

We have been told that lots of out of combat stuff are now Rituals (like Raise Dead, Commune, etc).

We have also been told that Ritual Caster is a feat that anyone can take.

So the priest of the God of Darkness can very well be a Necromancer, Illusionist or Bob the Baker (who makes evil pies) and fulfill the role of evil cultist leader.

... You're suggesting that trying to use the cleric class as a good match to portray a cleric may be a failure of imagination on the part of a player, rather than the people who designed the cleric class.... Certainly a novel approach.

That having been said, there does seem to be a reimagining of the nature of the powers that gods give. When divine power is granted to human(oid)s, it takes the form of radiant energy. This is simply a factet of how primes interact with the greater beings of the astral sea. Although there may well be feats or class features that alter this. How difficult is it really to say "For clerics of Wee Jas replace the keyword radiant with necrotic for all powers."

 

[Voadam]

Searing light and zaps have never felt like they went with cleric themes to me.

Wizards and warlocks? Ranged zaps seem like a good archetype fit for them.

Clerics should be healing, buffing for melee, divining, and doing some miracles IMO.

What is the explicit 4e role of clerics? Do ranged zaps fit that?

 

[Voadam]

Searing Light

A 3rd edition cleric spell (previous editions too?)

In any case firing beams of holy light seems clericy to me.

Searing light always bugged me and I banned it from my games.

Holy light seems appropriate for a cleric power.

Holy light that damages are laser zaps and contrary to the class themes IMO.

 

[Vempyre]

I think naming the divine power's energy type "radiant" was a misnomer, considering most ppl think of radiant as "good". From what we have seen radiant in 4E means astral/divine, and can also be from evil gods. Thus, the misnomer.

 

[jelmore]

does the "make a saving throw" apply to their next throw? how long does it last?

From the PrRC and the Miniatures Rulebook 2.0, saving throws occur at the end of a character's turn; if you are successful, the effect ends.

This ability allows an ally to make a saving throw outside of their turn, which means that ally may get to act or not take damage on his or her turn, depending on the effect.

(I haven't seen anything about if you roll a single saving throw against all "save ends" effects, or if you roll separately for each effect; I suspect this will be cleared up in the PHB.)

 

[I'm A Banana]

In 4e, everyone has lazer beams.

I don't really see any reason why the cleric would be excluded from this lazer beam grab-bag.

Perhaps she should be a bit more smite-y, more with the wallop in the melee, but I think 4e is taking some steps back from the "tank cleric," so that (a) might not work out well, and (b) might tread on the Warlord's toes a bit too much.

It's a facet of 4e's "Everyone Is A Wizard" approach.

 

[LFK]

From the PrRC and the Miniatures Rulebook 2.0, saving throws occur at the end of a character's turn; if you are successful, the effect ends.

This ability allows an ally to make a saving throw outside of their turn, which means that ally may get to act or not take damage on his or her turn, depending on the effect.

(I haven't seen anything about if you roll a single saving throw against all "save ends" effects, or if you roll separately for each effect; I suspect this will be cleared up in the PHB.)

Save vs. each ongoing effect separately, else why would they tell us that a 20 cleans them all off?

We may be surprised by the PHB having a "resolution stack" for ongoing effects, but it's my current assumption that if you're granted an immediate saving throw you get to pick what you're saving against if you're under the effect of multiple ongoing effects.