New class: Cleric/Paladin alternative

[Arkhandus]

The class is too strong compared to paladins, fighters, and others of their ilk........if you're removing full casters from the game, you don't need to replace them with stuff that makes the mundane classes look like mooks.

Unless you're bumping up the non-caster classes substantially, I'd suggest you try balancing your class against other core-rules non-caster classes for parity.

 

[Vespucci]

It's basically the warrior-priest in service of his faith, but a little less on the priest part (no spellcasting).

A priest isn't defined by his spells. His spells - or other class features - are defined by his faith.

Since just stripping the Cleric of spellcasting makes him underpowered I looked at the closest related class, which was the Paladin and there were already sources for stripping it from its spells and allowing alternative alignments. I always considered Paladins to be servants of a specific god as well though.

I'm not telling you that Paladins have to be driven by alignment in your game. All I'm saying is that this is their design history, the origin of their particular power set.

The original evil cleric doesn't have spontaneous cure spells either though. It's based on the Paladin of Tyranny/Slaughter in UA. They wield negative energy, and negative energy hurts the living.

If this is a genre debate: those who find dark energies as sweet as mother's milk should be able to use them for sustenance. Don't get hung up on grand unified theories. Class design needs a strong concept and an eye for balance.

I should also stress that it isn't necessary for an evil faith to wield negative energy. It might be the sort of thing that only evil faiths do - but is it appropriate to all of them? A Lawful Evil faith might regard undeath as a violation of the natural order, and be no less resolute in combating it than a god of paladins. At the same time, the clerics of this faith exhibit the same healing touch as good clerics, allowing them to win the hearts of the common people. I can also see a very eccentric Good deity charging his Clerics to tend to the undead and work to redeem them. Wielding negative, rather than positive, energy would be more appropriate for such a faith.

Deity specific I could try, I haven't yet come up with a pantheon though. How can it be too general and too specific?

It's too general in that deity choice doesn't matter much. It's too specific in that alignment choice matters a lot. I strongly recommend a basic template that doesn't rely on alignment to color its class features.

Designing faiths is a lot of work. I recommend getting your players to do the heavy lifting. Just draw up a short list of god names. Tell them what magic and divine magic is like. If someone wants to play a god-bothering character, ask them what kind of deity their character would worship. Then say something like, "That sounds a lot like what I had in mind for Yavdlom!" You can usually get away with a very thin initial concept, only designing what one temple (if that) is like, and give the player license to explain the tenets of the faith. It this starts getting too goofy or weird, you can always have higher authorities brand the character a heretic. This general approach has twin merits: firstly, it saves you time, and secondly, players tend to love refs for giving them "creative license".

I have yet to con a player into taking "creative license" with my housework. But I'm working on it...

I'll see if I can get my hands on Trailblazer, it's a book I presume.

It's from Bad Axe games.

What I find interesting is that I considered myself to be the least changed from original material are those that receive the most criticism.

I think it indicates something about actual play. 3e couldn't wipe out the traditions of D&D and replace them with a new vision, so hobbyists don't always accept the word of WotC as gospel. Indeed, those who were prepared to just trudge behind the latest official rules of the game have gone to 4e or Pathfinder. (I know, a lot of other people went for other reasons, that's not a flame of each and every 4e/Pathfinder player! )

 

[Tharkon]

Divine Touch should allow evil Clerics to heal their own wounds. Evil gods aren't dumb.

The original evil cleric doesn't have spontaneous cure spells either though. It's based on the Paladin of Tyranny/Slaughter in UA. They wield negative energy, and negative energy hurts the living.

I read the version in Trailblazer now and also realized that it would be hard to match Divine Vigor in with Evil Clerics if I didn't allow them to heal themselves. The Trailblazer version does not allow a saving throw against Lay on Hands (called Divine Touch in my version), the version in Unearthed Arcana does, not sure what to go with.

Thinking about replacing Charging Smite with Trailblazer's Renewed Smite. This removes the doubling of damage but the ability works even when not charging.

I might rework the Divine Aura completely based on Cleric Domains. I originally wanted to allow this Cleric to choose domains as well but then realized that the Chaos, Evil, Good and Law domains only affected spellcasters in their current form. Maybe this Cleric should choose 2 domains, one alignment domain at first level which basically just grants Aura of Chaos/Evil/Good/Law and the ability to smite the opposite.
The second domain is chosen at 3rd level (or possibly also 1st but remains ineffective for 2 levels) and grants Divine Aura relating to that domain (will start working on some domains soon, suggestions are welcome).
Trailblazer's Divine Weapon looks nice, but it is stronger than Divine Sword (usable more times per day, more powerful and available earlier as weaker version) as I implemented it currently. Reading trough Trailblazers I feel all of the classes are slightly stronger than their PHB variants. The Paladin there has most of the abilities (not Divine Might, Divine Strike and Divine Vigor but those that remain are stronger) presented here in addition to spellcasting.
My intend it to make this Cleric class a good replacement for both the PHB's Cleric and Paladin, but without any real spellcasting.
Roleplaying-wise the spelllike-abilities should not even look or feel like spells but more like intuition, faith and divine guidance on which the Cleric is concentrating (the standard action). Divine senses is probably not gonna make aura's visible but the Cleric will know and sense their location with such precision that it is as if he could see them.

I would recommend that the smite and detect abilities function on infidels, regardless of alignment...

Forgot to comment on this last post. I think it's hard to define boundaries on what are infidels. Just changing Smite Evil to Smite Good, Chaos or Law was easiest without changing balance or game mechanics much. Smiting infidels is of course what the class should ideally be able to do. But I can't figure out how to implement it.

It's too general in that deity choice doesn't matter much. It's too specific in that alignment choice matters a lot. I strongly recommend a basic template that doesn't rely on alignment to color its class features.

Alignment is a lot more free than in the PHB's Paladin though. Choice of deity influences available alignments. Once I implemented new domain powers deity choice should become more important.

Current changes I will work on / have to think about:
Divine Aura will be reworked completely based on Cleric Domains.
Divine Touch allows evil clerics to heal themselves, otherwise unchanged.
Replacing Charging Smite with Trailblazer's Renewed Smite.
Replacing Divine Strike and Divine Sword with Trailbazer's Divine Weapon (not gonna be 5/day though)
Divine Might might become usable more times per day but for shorter durations.