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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3371252" data-attributes="member: 4937">Err... shouldn't a god of magic have followers that can actually use it?   Ok, first do you not notice the irony?  You want to elimenate cookie cutter clerics by elimenating the ability of some to access the Magic domain?  Does every cleric in your campaign take the Magic domain, because I don't think its nearly as common a choice as Luck, Travel, and Sun IME.And second, how do you think that it follows that if some spheres are better than others, you are doing anything to elimenate cookie cutter clerics?  Doesn't in fact the reverse follow?It seems to me rather questionable that any mechanical changes will make a player think more about what sort of cleric he wishes to play for RP reasons, and not more about the mechanical reasons for playing a particular sort of cleric.  It seems particularly questionable to assume that when the mechanical changes make some types of mechanical choices clearly much superior to others.My suggestion would be to make each sphere about as narrow as a domain with roughly 1 spell for each level in it.  Then give each diety a broad portfolio of many spheres - at least 8.   Then instead of giving the cleric automatic access to the entire portfolio, let them choose say 3-4 initial spheres (two primary and two secondary, with them gaining domain powers of the first two primaries chosen), and then at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th let them increase thier portfolio access by upgrading one secondary to a primary and adding one secondary.  Add a feat called 'Extended Portfolio Access' that would let you take an additional sphere from those available (though probably this would only be an advantage if you worshiped a particularly broad diety).   In this way, you achieve the design goal (taking away the universal cleric list), but don't discourage too harshly a player from choosing a 'sub-optimal' diety, since probably only the most narrow weakest demi-gods could not reasonably manage to have 8 spheres.One upshot of this is that clerics would potentially qualify for a wider range of spells, but at the cost of having more narrow spell selection - at 20th level 8 known spells of levels 1-4, and 6 known spells of levels 5-9.</blockquote>

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