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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tetrasodium" data-source="post: 8227594" data-attributes="member: 93670"> <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Revelation. The wording on this fluff is dramatically more compatible with settings that don't have FR style hands on gods getting in bar brawls in the street while still making it easy for a gm to say the setting they are running does have hands on gods that directly give you your power.  This is a nice mix.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Creating a Cleric. I absolutely love that this tells the player to think about a bunch of questions that setup baselines for the PC.  Over the years it feels like every cleric PC I've ever seen is basically a clonestamp of the last with few if any cosmetic changes.  As a GM will be nice seeing this play out in player choices.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Starting kits. I like the variety & feel like the range of options is already playing out to highlight the different paths a cleric might take between these & the divine blessing options right out of the gate between the two.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Sacred Call. These are both pretty cool & set a nice split between "I beat things with a heavy object and cast spells" and "I interact with the hearts and minds and wield magic when I must". We've all had that one game where Bonecrusher Bloodripper declares that he wants to go preach to the people while decked in plate with a shield & warhammer to help attract attention or something  & does great by random d20 chance alone & can compare them to  games where father michael following the god of mercy goes out looking humble with a topical thing to preach about only to roll a 2 or something. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Magnetic Missionary:  There are all kinds of ways to use this in play for neat effect given the sure thing ability to draw a reasonably sized crowd that might not be worth the risk otherwise while somewhat reinforcing the choices made earlier  in character creation. I don't agree with [USER=6704190]@WarDriveWorley[/USER] on the lack of drawbacks, this is done in public & very obvious in ways that engage a quantum sort of "we saw them" that could range from the bbeg's guards recognizing you later to having problems thrust upon you by someone in that crowd who may or may not even interact with you at this point.  A bard putting on a show in a tavern has all kinds of excuses they could draw if those come up  while  cleric doing it in town square in broad daylight has less of them if things get sticky.  It can also be used to generate urban camouflage for an ally or hinder pursuit from foes  but those aren't always as easy to provide uniform mechanics for.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ordination: This sort of "draw something on your shield" was a big part of what allowed 3.x CoDzilla to exist so needing to take it as a cost of something else knowing what we saw of different focus items in the bard this makes me really look forward to seeing the eventual equipment changes.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Zeal of the Convert is hard to judge, but I notice it's using (dis)advatange rather than expertise dice & whatever the negative expertise die winds up being.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Spellcasting: I notice it has the more frontloaded spell slot slant we saw in bards rather than the power from magic that grows with more powerful spells we saw in sorcerer/wizard.  I haven't done the math & I'm not sure if the 2ish levels we see it kick in are enough to model it further yet , but I like this way of balancing classes with a wide range of powerful class abilities  towards the abilities rather than spamming high level spells like classes that rely primarily on their spells.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Didn't notice it when it was just wizard, but looking at spellcasting in more detail with the bard/cleric spellslot difference from wiz/sor spellslots I notice cleric & wizard both include the words "casting spells doesn't remove them from your list of prepared spells" while bar/sorcerer playtest & o5e phb does not.  </li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ritual casting:  Cleric ritual casting still has the o5e must be prepped style except or ceremony as opposed to the wizard "in spellbook" & cleric  charisma mod number of ritual spells from any class.  Still hoping that a5e ritual spells feel like more finished concept than o5e. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ceremony: The options in this are dramatically more flavorful, interesting, & useful than the xge ceremony ones.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Devoted vow:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Chastity: Bonus against charm  saves is useful with some monsters but they aren't super common in o5e, from the green dragon we saw this might be even better than it sounds <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Mercy: From the wording it sounds an awful lot like monsters in a5e don't just die when they drop to zero like in o5e which could get interesting  given all the way monsters could wackamole right back at the players <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />... nnnneeeeeaaaat.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Poverty: "Material luxury" can go a lot of ways & we know there are some mental fatigue type things I forget the name of, this could play out to being a whole lot more weighty than it sounds.  [USER=6915329]@Faolyn[/USER] if you've ever tried to use a friend's company connections to get a discount you can probably remember not being there when they relayed your order, that could leave a lot of room for a GM to have a vendor "upsell" different things or "attach" similar/extra stuff if it feels like it's being abused but at least IME it should probably work most of the time (especially if  the forgo material luxury frequently impacts other players during a rest or something)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Secrecy: I've seen a few people try to secretly play a cleric to an evil god or something back in the 3.x days when there were sometimes real benefits so this would help with that kind of thing but it feels a bit lacking compared to other options.  Perhaps it should also include an expertise die for religion checks to remember details & info needed to impersonate a cleric of some other faith?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Severity: eek this sounds like it will be super loner edgelordy.  Maybe mention an exception for your henchmen like the felow players? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Silence:  Neeeat.  Wildshaped druids do this all the time & it's usually interesting all the things they explain trying to patomime.  Plus it will give an extra reason for use of telepathy other than to talk to beth the druid</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sacred presence: I like them all.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Cosmic Idealist: This sounds pretty cool  & I can definitely see some interesting ways of using it both for an absolute morality setting like FR as well as one like eberron that spits in the face of alignment for mortal beings but not immortal ones who usually have better things to do than chat with j-random mortal </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Eyes of the heart: The thing I like about this most is that by needing a contested insight check to trigger it gives a neat way of dragging the cleric off the wallpaper front & center early  with a "yea sorry about bob, you know how those cleric types get around people" type interaction for someone else to paper over if bob's not going to stay front & center</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Spiritual Salve: holy bleep this is incredible but I'm torn between too good & just right so probably just right even if almost guaranteed first knack slot.</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Providence:  These are all pretty neat in different ways but with a second class getting a wizard-like ritual caster ability on top of being a class with the raise dead type ritual spells on their list it makes me really curious where we will see ritual tags in the a5e spells <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Knacks:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Ancestral Guidance: extending this to grave markers memorials etc makes this really powerful in cool & interesting ways but raises a question since it mentions if the creature is not dead.  What if the creature is say an undead mummy inside the tomb you are targeting?  GM's choice?  I love creative stuff like this that encourage players to interact with things to proactively gather info</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Compassionate nurse & faithful historian:  new trappings are cool, especially when they move a skill to your prime ability score</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">gentle healer: Kinda cool little boon for short rests that differs from the bard thing in interesting ways</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">graceful fall: I never really understood why so many players seem to worry about fall damage since it's so unusual but definitely useful for some folks <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">monastic austerity:  It seems like there are more ways to get exhaustion so this will be cool.  The first question a player would ask me is probably does this cover the mental strife or just exhaustion?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">numinous awareness: The implications of that magical wounds blurb make me really excited about the monster book</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Premonition: I like the narrator will let you know footnote since I as a dm won't always have a clue  about the first  but sometimes will want to showboat it.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Preservation: more useful for some campaigns than others but defiantly useful  for some games</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Righteous path:  kinda cool & sets up an interesting conundrum on if now is the right time to use it or not</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Soothing words: we still don't really know much about strife & how to get it but this might be really useful or just one option of many</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">supernatural intuition: As a GM I always hate these know if X type creature is near type features  since I don't always have the extra braincells to remember what everyone can detect or know when they are in range if I do, as one option of many rather than at level  you can detect blah I can always suggest bob pick a different option or something & there are probably tables where these are more useful than mine would usually kee[ oy.</li> </ul></li> </ul></blockquote>

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