Revised cleric (take two)

[Kerrick]

Suggestion-
Make one class called cleric. Give it some base assumptions. good will save and low ref and fort, low BAB and d6 HD - basically begin at the lowest point in everything. Then, you make a selection of three choices: mystic (caster cleric), avenger (war cleric), or devoted (middle of the road cleric) depending on the choice you make it gives you the number of domains (1 2 or 3), weapon selection choices and gives you an increase in BAB, saves and HD.

I came up with an idea last night, and I think this one will be the best one: One cleric. The "friar", if I ever make it, would be an NPC class. The battle cleric is already in the game - it's a paladin. I kept trying to think up abilities for it, but I came up with stuff the paladin's already got. The "devoted" is really what I'm envisioning the cleric to be. He gets middle BAB, d6 HD, good Will save, and can choose from a pool of divine abilities every 3-4 levels, just like the rogue (except I'm thinking that they won't be divided into tiers; they'll just have prereqs).

Some sample abilities:

Blast Infidel: As listed above; knowledge religion 16 ranks

Divine Providence: 3 times per day, the cleric can add half his class level as a luck bonus to all rolls for one round, or he can automatically succeed at a single roll whose DC is no more than his class level +20 (or, for an attack roll, the AC is class level +20).

Divine Intervention: Once per week, the cleric can call upon his god to save him from a situation that would otherwise result in his death (this is similar to the miracle spell). He can also save another of the god's followers, or a non-follower who is directly serving the god's interests. [I haven't sketched this out completely yet.] Knowledge religion 15 ranks

Faith Healing: Once per day, the cleric can cure a single being of all afflictions or any ability loss/energy drain, by touch. This requires a full-round action to perform. Knowledge religion 10 ranks.

Smite the unbelievers: As listed above; BAB +5, Knowledge religion 5 ranks

Another way to develop this would be to make greater and lesser domains. The greater domain grants you potential increases in base stats: for instance war domain might increase you to mid BAB and higher HD. Either pick some of the domains out of the group and make them greater domains or invent an entire new list of greater domains or a mix of both. These greater domains would capture the main basal motive of the worshipers of a deity. Perhaps of a list of 5 or less greater domains would be all that was needed. Characters would only ever get 1 greater domain and then they could select lesser domains based on their choice of deity and greater domain. I think I like this idea the best. It features a level of customization that appeals to me.

The only problem with that is that not all domains apply to all gods, which would make it very difficult to pick any to become greater domains.

More as an aside, make the unique spells on the paladin spell list into a righteousness domain and give paladins access to it in addition to the cleric spell list. I really dislike the ranger and paladin having their own spell lists... If you make clerics spontaneous casters, the druid, ranger and paladin should follow suit.

I rather like paladins and rangers having their own lists - it reflects the fact that they aren't the same as clerics and druids (which they're not; they're divine knights). It'd be a little hard to make the unique paladin spells into an entire domain anyway, since they only go to 4th level.

 

[Kerrick]

I think I'm pretty close to a "final" version of this thing. Not because I'm satisfied with what I've got, but because I'm simply tired of messing with it. I changed all the domains to grant 1+Cha bonus/day powers (interested parties can download the spells file to take a look; yeah, I know I need to add command/rebuke to the Death and/or Evil domains), dropped turn undead as a generic power (it's part of the Sun domain), and added a list of divine abilities you can choose from. I think I'll keep clerics as prepared casters, and make druids spontaneous. I like the idea of clerics praying to their gods for their spells for some reason.

See attached file for the cleric.