How to balance the divine casters?

[Allanon]

Currently I'm loosing sleep over the questions how to balance a cleric that is soon to be played in my game. I'm playing a scarred lands campaign, and a player want's to make a Madrielite Cleric.

My problem is this, I currently own the Player's Handbook, Manual of the Planes, Defenders of the Faith, Book of Vile Darkness, Relics & Rituals, Relics & Rituals 2, The Divine and the Defeated and the Book of Hallowed Might. All contain Cleric spells. Combine those with the ones present in Dragon Issues and the sheer magnitude of spells available to a cleric are staggering.

I need to somewhat balance this to classes like wizards and sorcerers who just get a lot less of all this goodness, having only a limited spell list or needing to spend lot's of GP to get this much of them

I already posted this question in the House Rules forum where I already recieved some usefull advice. I now hope that some of the people here have some additional advice.

:edit: I zuk at zpelink

 

[Larry Fitz]

Allanon,

You do know that Clerics actually have very limited access to their Domain spells, right? They can only cast one Domain spell each day of each spell level. That is of the domains they have, only the "+1" spell listed om their spell progression actually comes from their domains. The rest must come from the "open Cleric spells" So while it may seem that they can totally outshine their arcane counterparts they really can't. If you still feel that the number of "Cleric" spells as opposed to "Domain" spells is out of whack, don't allow all of them.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Switch 'em out on a one-for-one basis.

Require 'scribing costs' for the new ones that represent special rituals.

Introduce new ones as scrolls or wands only, or through different gods.

Or just ignore the problem, since it hasn't seem to hurt my game any.

 

[Zhure]

I make clerics pay research cost to learn a spell outside the PHB and then only with prior approval.

I also have a set list of deities for Clerics and try to never allow two "uber" domains for the same deity ("uber" domains are the ones I feel are too strong, like Magic, Travel, War, and Strength). By themselves, these domains aren't great shakes, but when a character has two strong domains with really good domain abilities or access to a lot of arcane signature spells (like stoneskin or fireball, for instance), that character can become overly powerful compared to the other classes.

Just my two coppers.
Greg

 

[2WS-Steve]

I make clerics pay research cost to learn a spell outside the PHB and then only with prior approval.
...

Just my two coppers.
Greg

This strikes me as a good solution. Call it a tithe or required donation to get into thier deity's good graces or perhaps allow access for completing certain quests. In effect you could make these minor versions of prestige spells and treat them like treasure for good roleplaying and heroic adventuring.

 

[Oni]

Well for starters I'd limit free access to the core rule books and the SL stuff since setting stuff makes sense in this case. There will be a lot of new stuff that simply won't be usuable thanks to alignment and such. If you look the spells from SL it's pretty clear what spells come from where. The flavor text does a good job of clearing up what clergy use what spells, and how widely known the spells are. So if a spell isn't commonly used by clerics of Madriel it probably isn't something the cleric is going to just know. And of course anything outside of those resources would definately have to be researched.

 

[Zhure]

This strikes me as a good solution. Call it a tithe or required donation to get into thier deity's good graces or perhaps allow access for completing certain quests. In effect you could make these minor versions of prestige spells and treat them like treasure for good roleplaying and heroic adventuring.

Thanks.

I call it "paying to do research" which includes tithing, new prayer beads, giving donations to a library to gain access to fragile religious documents, incense, frankincense, myrrh, purchasing sacrifices appropriate to the deity and similar things.

 

[Zarthon]

I limit the spells in my campaign by the books I allow my players to use, what this lets me do is use spells my players dont have against them. If my players want to get any extra spells they have to research them.

 

[drnuncheon]

I look on the PHB spells as "core spells" - spells that any cleric can cast - and allow choice of those spells without restriction.

If you want a spell from outside the PHB, you need to convince me that it makes sense for your deity to grant you that spell - it's got to fall under your deity's 'sphere of influence' in some way.

I find that this not only helps divine power creep, it also helps differentiate clerics of different gods.

J

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I think that swapping out spells on a one to one basis (assuming they are the same level) works well.

Example - my fire cleric swapped out Water Walking for a spell that allowed him to give a nonmagical weapon the flaming burst ability. Simple.