Level Adjustment for Spontaneous Casting?

[Vuron]

Are we talking regular spell list + domain spell as spontaneous caster? Sounds pretty hinky but it's hard to directly categorize the benefit as it continues to become more powerful as the cleric gains levels. At low levels 1-4 it's likely only worth a +1 LA but as the cleric improves it becomes rather significant.

Also the determination would depend on whether the cleric could use spontaneous metamagic which would be a massive increase in power.

Throw in feats like divine metamagic and you could easily have a very significant increase in power at high levels.

Honestly I'd be very reluctant to do this for one class without basically doing it for all spellcasting classes. Of course if you bump up the spellcasters who arguably have it better than the rogues and warriors then you bring the game very much out of alignment.

In short only do this if you are willing to rewrite all the classes and PrCs to a higher powerlevel.

 

[nittanytbone]

It'd break the game. I just woulldn't allow it.

Seriously, use the mechanics for a bard (check out the Divine Bard variant in UA), the Favored Soul, or even a sorcerer (using the Divine Spell List and adding a Wisdom Prime Req).

 

[two]

You people are nuts

Break the game? +8 adjustment?

You people are crazy.

What's the difference between a spot. casting cleric and a vanilla one?

90% of the time...not much. They are casting the same spells! Most of the time there isn't some "perfect" spell you are going to cast. The cleric that memorizes certain spells usually has a very effective one to cast...

Clerics cherry pick their spells, after all. They generally pick the best/most useful ones. Even if there is another spell slightly better on the occasion, the one they picked is often close to being just as effective.

Oh no. Somebody died. The spot. caster casts...raise undead. Which is also something the vanilla caster has memorized. Oh no. Fighter is really hurt. Spot. Caster casts heal. So does the vanilla caster.

Spon. Casting only really is a "winner" when you are faced with a very obscure situation where a normal Cleric would not have a spell they could cast (either memorized or in a scroll). Like if you had to cast 5 "heals" in a row or something.

How often does this happen?

It seems likely that a spot. casting Cleric would actually cast many of the same spells a normal cleric would... i.e. the normal typical most useful spells.

It's just once in a while that they could really pull something off that is nice.

+8 LA is insane. Even +4 is crazy.

I would simply say: Ok. For this cleric, all cleric PHB spells you can cast spontaneously. But you get NO domains at all and you can't cast any spell from another book or source (just to keep the paperwork down).

Done. I don't see that that is going to be scary at 5th level, 10th, or 20th.

Let the player have fun.

 

[IanB]

I would not allow it at all, even in a game that restricted the cleric to just PHB spells. Break the game is right; the cleric is already right at the top of the power rankings with the standard classes. Something like this would be completely out of control.

 

[irdeggman]

Two,

Have you recently tried counting the number of cleric spells out there? {I gave up, there are just too many}. And a cleric instantly knows all spells of the level he can cast upon leveling up.

All other caster have a limit to the number they can know. While wizards don't have a limit the can't learn them all instantly when leveling up (there is a time requirement for learning and scribing spells).

The reason that clerics aren't too overpowering now is that they have to memorize which spells they want (except for cure spells). This prevents them from becoming the absolute master of every conceivable circumstance.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I've slid this one over to house rules.

 

[Allegro]

Giving a cleric access to all spells makes a cleric much closer to a jack-of-all-trades sort of character. I think the suggestion of using the bard spell progression or 6th level spells at level 20 is about right for a jack-of-all-trades. I would say cleric spells tend to be more useful then bard spells. Most of the bardic abilities can be mimic by a cleric spell. Considering a sorcerer expends 3 feats to get 3 spells with the heritage feats or 6 or 9 levels worth of feats. I think this is more then generous.

A cleric with this capability and 9th level spells would be capable of counter-spelling pretty much everything as long as they had spells slots available.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm sure that this is too high. Having the perfect spell for any occasion is damn useful, but not so useful that it's worth sacrificing four levels for.

I was being kind, because I probably wouldn't simply allow this at all

LA +4 means that this cleric's best spells would be always 2 levels lower than a normal cleric.

Of course it also means less BAB, ST and HP... particularly nasty at low levels.

But the advantage of having an insanely HUGE number of spells known (already too many IMHO when he needs to prepare them) and be able to choose them on the fly can only be properly counterbalanced IMHO by reducing the MAX spell level he has access to, and 1 is not enough.

 

[Stalker0]

Need some clarification

1) So are you saying the cleric gets access to his whole list all the time?

2) If the answer to the first question is no, does he get to change his spells every day, or does he pick a set number and go from there (favored soul style)

 

[Gooba42]

Add a house-ruled feat to your game. At level 6 or so, they can get spontaneous casting of spells up to say... 2nd level? Attach this to BAB or something... Maybe as a divine feat, burn a turning attempt for each spell they cast not on their daily allotment.

Fill in the gaps as necessary...

Generally it won't be the lowbie spells that unbalance your game unless your players are exceptionally clever. It's always possible they find that peculiar use for an orison but with that in mind, this seems like a decent solution.