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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kobold Stew" data-source="post: 6361688" data-attributes="member: 23484">I too argued against Guidance in play test feedback, but I currently find myself playing a cleric in a php game. And yes, I cast or offer to cast Guidance (though the other players do not always choose to take advantage of it).I'll admit I still don't like the spell, but it seems to be a specific part of the experience of being a cleric that as been designed, and it is necessary to look at the larger context of cantrips and not the single spell:1. Since the play test, the number of cantrips available to a cleric has increased significantly. Also since the play test, the selection of cantrips has not increased to the same degree, so that by high levels many clerics will have most cantrips. It follows that Guidance is going to be in the arsenal of most clerics sooner or later. It requires a conscious effort to avoid this. There just aren't enough Cleric cantrips for this not to be the case.2. In-combat alternatives have not been part of the catnip selection: there is one attack spell (sacred flame) but nothing which requires a roll to-hit. Given the incredibly wide range of wizard attack cantrips, this too is a conscious choice: the laser-cleric is being aggressively suppressed (not eliminated, with feats or High Elves, but suppressed). 3. Both of these serve to sculpt a specific play experience for clerics: they can offer a small bonus to most skill checks out-of-combat; in combat their default spells are reactive (and, IMO less fun, though it does effectively bypass high-AC opponents), and not a "proper" attack. This sort of effectiveness is similar to the "turn undead feature" (again shared by all clerics, despite some play test options where it was not inevitable): clerics are very helpful in some circumstances, but consciously limited in others. From this it follows, I believe, that if DMs have a problem with guidance, the fix is simple: ban the spell, but let players have free choice of another class's cantrips for one spell instead. Just removing the spell without increasing the available cantrips is even more constraining on the cleric, however.So much for mechanics; what about role-play? I have no problems with constraints on RP emerging from Guidance, and (possibly) something like that is expected. I'd love it if to receive the benefit of Guidance the recipient had to acknowledge the source ("thanks be to Pelor") or something -- that would help both add to the depth of the world (making the characters recognize that they are receiving divine aid) and (I expect) also constrain the spell's use, because (I expect) some players simply would not want to acknowledge the in-world gods in this way. (I once tried to play a cleric this way with healing spells; it was not very popular, and other players would rather not be healed than acknowledge the help of the god in question.) That's the best I can do, though, with a spell I don't particularly like.</blockquote>

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