Implementation of divine powers

[eleran]

Tone down the snark, please. It's not appreciated.

Why can't we ask that professional game designers design something better if we see a problem with it? I am not a professional game designer, I don't work for WotC. I don't pretend to know better than they do. All I can do is say that I think this could be better, or I think it would be better if it were slightly different.

Your argument is a logical fallacy. Just because I don't know what the solution is, doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

I apologize for the snark, but my tolerance for the human race has pretty much dropped to the nil set this week.

What I meant to say was, why should they change it just because you and a few others find it lame? What is lame to you may not be lame to all of us, therefore, since it is really a matter of power flavor, it should kinda be up to the individual groups of DMs and players to either go with the lameness the designers put with the power or coem up with their own lameness.

Can I make a longer run on sentence...not right this minute.

Again, sorry for the snark. Working for a living sucks and should be outlawed.

 

[Zinegata]

Just a minor quibble - it's probably a pet peeve but I'm interested in seeing if other people have noticed it.

Why does it seem as though Divine Power characters don't exactly follow the "At Will, Per Encounter, Per Day" model used by all the other classes?

There just seem to be an awful lot of exceptions in the case of Divine classes. You can use Lay on Hands at Will, but it's actually 3/Day. You can use a certain Per Encounter ability, but if you do you can't use another one (not really different from the Sorcerer spellcasting style).

I just find it a little strange given how neatly they've made it for all the other classes.

 

[eleran]

My point was that the paladin is a "defender". Why should he therefore have to attack to grant the effect? Wouldn't a minor action to do the same thing make just as much sense, since the effect is not dependent on the success of the attack?

My guess is it may have originally been like this, but since the paladin is going to be in the heat of the battle scrapping it out maybe they wanted to consolidate some powers so the paladin wouldnt have to use extra actions to help buff. But I really don't know, just a feeling I get from some of the design philosophy they talked about in the R&C book.

 

[eleran]

Just a minor quibble - it's probably a pet peeve but I'm interested in seeing if other people have noticed it.

Why does it seem as though Divine Power characters don't exactly follow the "At Will, Per Encounter, Per Day" model used by all the other classes?

There just seem to be an awful lot of exceptions in the case of Divine classes. You can use Lay on Hands at Will, but it's actually 3/Day. You can use a certain Per Encounter ability, but if you do you can't use another one (not really different from the Sorcerer spellcasting style).

I just find it a little strange given how neatly they've made it for all the other classes.

I find that strange as well.

With Lay on Hands I am wondering if maybe in early playtests it was truly at will and limited to the number of healing surges the Paladin has, but that turned out to be a little overpowered. I could see a battle where the Pally goes all alpha (Black Dragon anyone?) and just stands behind the fighter laying on hands.

The Cleric and the choose between encounter powers almost smacks of a carryover of spontaneous healing doesnt it?

 

[Fifth Element]

Just a minor quibble - it's probably a pet peeve but I'm interested in seeing if other people have noticed it.

Why does it seem as though Divine Power characters don't exactly follow the "At Will, Per Encounter, Per Day" model used by all the other classes?

There just seem to be an awful lot of exceptions in the case of Divine classes. You can use Lay on Hands at Will, but it's actually 3/Day. You can use a certain Per Encounter ability, but if you do you can't use another one (not really different from the Sorcerer spellcasting style).

I just find it a little strange given how neatly they've made it for all the other classes.

I made this point in the OP. It does seem strange that it only pops up in the divine classes. It may be a coincidence.

 

[Cadfan]

Huh. I kind of liked Priest's Shield. I read it and thought, "hey, neat, as long as the priest's in the melee, everyone's got a bit of divine blessing."

My only real complaint was that Lance of Faith seems SO much better than Priest's Shield. It does more damage if your Wisdom is higher than your Strength, it attacks Reflex so it hits more often, and it happens at range. That's fine for me when I'm making a spell focused cleric (my preference) but I'd want a melee focused cleric to be viable as well. Presumably it will be- one power isn't enough to judge by. Maybe using ranged spells in melee range provokes opportunity attacks? We probably know the answer to that, but my knowledge isn't quite as encyclopedic now that more info is out.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Second is the disconnect between action and result present in a couple of powers.

I agree entirely. Based on the limited preview, this is one of the biggest things that bother about 4th Ed.

 

[Fifth Element]

What I meant to say was, why should they change it just because you and a few others find it lame? What is lame to you may not be lame to all of us, therefore, since it is really a matter of power flavor, it should kinda be up to the individual groups of DMs and players to either go with the lameness the designers put with the power or coem up with their own lameness.

Actually, I wrote that I hope they provide some nice text in the PHB to help me work this stuff in-game. That aside, I was just expressing my preferences. Obviously it's just opinion, and I tried to use language in the OP to ensure readers know it's just about my preferences. Not sure how your pointing out it's just my preferences helps.

Again, sorry for the snark. Working for a living sucks and should be outlawed.

On this point, we agree.

 

[Fifth Element]

Huh. I kind of liked Priest's Shield. I read it and thought, "hey, neat, as long as the priest's in the melee, everyone's got a bit of divine blessing."

I like Priest's Shield as well. That works thematically for me since the cleric is right there with the ally in battle, so the ally can benefit from his divine afterglow, so to speak.

My problem was with the paladin power, which gives an AC bonus to an ally up to 25 feet away. Harder for me to conceptualize.

 

[Cadfan]

I made this point in the OP. It does seem strange that it only pops up in the divine classes. It may be a coincidence.

I think the idea is that "Channel Divinity" is a single per encounter ability that has multiple ways in which it can be used. Its entered in twice on the character sheet, but you could just as easily write it like this:

Channel Divinity (per encounter)
Divine Mettle, OR,
Divine Strength.

And presumably feats like the cleric's Amaunator feat can add other options to your Channel Divinity power.