[PHB] Divine Favor and Righteous Might Official Spell Changes

[Mouseferatu]

I don't necessarily agree with the premise that only people interested in power-gaming want to play martial, front-line clerics, and that team-players only play clerics as healers and party buffers. I've never been fond of playing support players, but I hardly consider myself a power-gamer. In fact, I've never had one of my own PCs cast divine might or the like in all the years since 3E first came out. I'm currently designing a character who will make frequent use of the new, erratad version precisely because I think it's more in-line with what's reasonable. He's going to focus on offensive and melee spells, and he will not focus on healing until/unless he has no other choice.

Does that mean I'm not a team player? To me, it just means that the character concept--specifically a holy crusader for his Church--made more sense when played as a very martial character.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I apologize for the inference, Mouseferatu. I can see your point. But again, you seem fine with the changes. So I think it's safe to say that the loss of power inherent in these spell changes is of greatest concern to those who chose the class in the first place for that very power.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I apologize for the inference, Mouseferatu. I can see your point. But again, you seem fine with the changes. So I think it's safe to say that the loss of power inherent in these spell changes is of greatest concern to those who chose the class in the first place for that very power.

Fair enough. And I, in turn, apologize if it sounded like I took what you said personally. I just wanted to jump in before anyone took the dichotomy to heart and it became an entrenched part of the discussion.

 

[rangerjohn]

You're right, I haven't. And to be honest, a lot of people say things around here that I don't agree with. This is one of them. Turning Undead is useful from 1-20. No, you aren't often going to Turn the big bad undead himself, but his army of minions is toast.

And even the "not Turning the big bad" is only a general rule. In my last campaign I used paladin Turning to Turn a lich.

Actually, generally the paladin has a better chance, at high level. Due to his generally higher charisma.

 

[Grognard]

The real problems here are the Persistent Spell feat, Divine Metamagic and Shapechange.

Persistent Spell allows one to ignore the 1 round/level duration which is supposed to be a limiting factor on a spells balance.

One of the easier changes to this is to use the FR version of Persistent Spell, which increases the level of the spell by +6. This simple change means that you need Epic levels and feats to be able to persist spells above 3rd level. We're doing it, and it's amazing how much it tones down the fighting clerics.

Divine Metamagic lets one use Persistent Spell, or any other metamagic feat for that matter, before a character should be able to use it. Allowing characters to exceed the metamagic cap shouldn't happen, IMO. Simply fixing the feat by limiting it in this manner makes it very useful, but not overpowering.

As it stands, you need *5* turn attempts to use Persist Spell once. With the FR version of Persist, this goes to 7. Personally I'd find 5 turns to be a big enough bar to abusing Persist - if you've got a cleric with CHA 14, that's all of your turns for the day on that one spell.

Shapechange is the most broken spell. What other spell lets you get +10-+30 on multiple attributes, +23 natural armor, and supernatural abilities of any creature with as many or fewer HD as you? Wish, buff spells, nothing can come close to this.

I absolutely agree with this. Nothing derails a climactic fight faster than having the wizard turn into a force dragon, let me tell you.

Mark.

 

[rangerjohn]

I apologize for the inference, Mouseferatu. I can see your point. But again, you seem fine with the changes. So I think it's safe to say that the loss of power inherent in these spell changes is of greatest concern to those who chose the class in the first place for that very power.

Yeah, I think that's part of the problem as well. The cleric/Barbarian is a priest of Kord. It just cuts across the grain, that he is more effective if he cast harm/heal. Than if he buffs himself and wades into melee.

If this is the way people feel, maybe we should just go back to the OD&D cleric, who had no spells at 1st level, and spent all his time healing once he hit second.
They are worried about the fighter being outshined, but I don't think the problem was just those spells. They is also the fact that as has been ponted out most of thier spells, including the high level ones, become obselete, and the fighter is generall weak.

 

[Grognard]

Clerics in our campaign do tend to find use mostly as healers. Alot of the cleric spells that provide Deflection and Resistance bonuses are fairly usesless at high level like Shield of Faith, Magic Circle from Evil and even Holy Aura and similar spells at time.

Take a closer look at Magic Circle against Evil before you just write it off. Yes, the bonuses to saves et al are useless compared to the items the character is wearing. However, the ability to ignore mind-affecting spells is FAR from useless at high levels. In fact, it's really sort of imperative that you put one on each fighter in the party - they need all the help they can get against "save or stop" WILL save spells like Dominate Person.

Cleric is kind of a thankless job. I keep hearing how powerful the cleric is, but we have three now in our party and they spend most of their time trying to keep people alive at high level. High level monsters do so much damage they whittle my 200 plus hit point fighter down to nothing every other round.

This can work both ways. We've found that if there are more targets around for the monsters to beat on it reduces the damage in two ways. First, the extra targets mean that fewer PCs get singled out for massive damage. Second, with more bodies in melee you reduce the mobility of the monsters and cut down on flanking and isolation tactics.

I don't know if we play differently from other people, but it seems like once we reached around 12th level the cleric spends more and more spell slots on healing, Death ward and Resist Energy. They rarely get a chance to unleash any divine magic offensively. Cleric is a boring job that takes a certain type of player mentality to play well.

Maybe it's our group that's different, but we've been running the same core characters since 3.0 came out and the clerics get to do lots of stuff besides healing. They throw offensive spells (Fire Storm is a favorite at our current level), fight in melee AND heal. While the offensive spells have gotten bigger, their basic role hasn't changed from the point where clerics GET offensive magic (Flame Strike is the first real one).
The thing that really makes this possible is having enough ranks in Concentration to be able to cast defensively. Once you get over that hurdle you can stand in front of the bad guy and fight, heal the fighter standing next to you without having to move, throw out a Hold Person, Bane or Bestow Curse and not take the AoO, and so on.

Mark.

 

[Thanee]

One of the easier changes to this is to use the FR version of Persistent Spell, which increases the level of the spell by +6. This simple change means that you need Epic levels and feats to be able to persist spells above 3rd level. We're doing it, and it's amazing how much it tones down the fighting clerics.

Or Divine Metamagic, to have persistent Divine Power at 7th level (needs 7 turn attempts, tho).

The better deal is to use Quicken in most cases now.

Bye
Thanee

 

[bleedingedge]

Nothing derails a climactic fight faster than having the wizard turn into a force dragon, let me tell you.

Hey! I resemble that remark. But you only stay one until the breath weapon is used, then you have to rotate down the dragon chart.

 

[Celtavian]

I can see this. Once the party have the funds to pick up +4 Rings of Protection and such, a lot of the deflection bonus spells are going to be unnecessary. Still, there are so many cleric spells, including spells from the Complete Divine that I find it hard to believe there's nothing left to cast besides healing and Death Ward.

There is more stuff to cast, but not that will be particularly useful. We usually operate as an efficient team. Melees dishing damage, clerics healing melees, and magi handling extras and minor enemies or applying pressure to enhance the melees.

Average round by round combat for us:

Round 1: Engage main enemy. Haste party. Cleric may apply Death Ward, resist energy or Freedom of Movement depending on enemy. Move in behind melees to remain in healing range.

Round 2 and beyond: Melees swing weapons and absorb damage. Clerics heal. Magi cast whatever is needed. Wall of Force to prevent enemies from mustering their might, Hold Monster to immobilize the main monster or another. Preparation to counterspell other caster. Greater Dispel enemy buffs.

We are a fairly tactical and efficient fighting unit. We try to use people to their strengths. We are this way because we have to be. Our DM usually throws everything and the kitchen sink at us. In a recent encounter, we were attacked by three Balors and a powerful NPC at once at 17th level. Even with efficient fighting tactics and some fudging by the DM we lost two PC's and two cohorts and still only managed to kill two of the Balors. Our DM is always pushing us to the limits and in this case beyond.

A part of this is playstyle. The cleric could heal you after one round of whoopin' from the monster, or he could spend his round, as Nyarlathotep's cleric does, casting a Quickened Divine Favor and Righteous Might, and fight the monster more effectively than your piddling fighter ever will. Or at least he could. Now, we'll have to see. Divine Favor, Divine Power, and Righteous Might are still potent spells, but this nerf may be enough to prevent the fighter from being made into a delaying tactic until the real melee combatant is finished buffing.

Another good reason for the change. If clerics were vastly overshadowing fighters in melee, that is not too cool. All fighters do is fight. If they don't do it the best, then what is the use of playing one.

Strange. You need to be 9+ level to see this problem show up in the first place.

Clerics still spend alot of time healing, but definitely not as much as post 12th level. High level monsters and encounters can really dish the damage to individuals and groups.