Spontanous Casting Cleric

[Cheerful Coffin]

or the player could just cheat. and not write down the spells he prayed for that day.

lol! Well we've all done that atleast once.

 

[Voadam]

I'm starting a new campaign with my normal group. One of my players wants to play a cleric with no memorization. "Like a sorceror" he says.

Does any one have any sources for such a class? How do they play? Are they balanced? Any reason not to allow such?

Thanks in advance,

FormidableDice

I'm playing one from the UA variant in a pbp game. no problems so far and feels balanced.

I prefer the limited spells known for casters over the access to everything standard divine casters from a world view standpoint, casters should learn specific spells and then use any of the ones they know.

 

[Tilla the Hun (work)]

I'm shocked. No one has mentioned the complete divine spirit shaman??

Once you get past the 'spirit' concept, the class itself is actually quite distinctive and allows a 'spontaneous' casting feel, while still allowing the versatility of a general cleric!

But others are:

Mystic (dragonlance)
Favored Soul (CD)
Shugenja (CW)
and of course the UA variants.

 

[infax]

I'm GMing in a game-world where all divine casters follow the variant spontaneous divine caster variant rules from Unearthed Arcana.

The only divine caster is the Druid. It has gone well so far (only 5 game sessions) but the player complains from time to time that there aren't interesting enough spell choices at certain levels for spontaneous casters. Also, he is trying to milk all he can from Summon Nature Ally spells since at some character levels that is all that he knows for a given spell level.

The convenience of that variant rule may depend on the type of game you want to run and on the role of the divine caster in your group. A group that relies on a single, spontaneous casting cleric to be the healer and be always ready to solve any hp and adverse effects issues may force the spontaneous divine caster into a spell selection he doesn't appreciate. It is the argument of many players that the reason the divine clerics have access to the whole spell list is to make the position of healer a little more palatable.

 

[Taneel BrightBlade]

CD has 3

 

[Remathilis]

I reccoment the mystic from Dragonlance (there is a preview of it
http://www.gametrademagazine.com/PDFs/GTM_41_PDFs/DragonlanceSampler_1.pdf)Favored Souls are too wonky/specialized, mystics are generic enough to allow for customization.

Otherwise, check out Unearthed Arcana

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm playing one from the UA variant in a pbp game. no problems so far and feels balanced.

If it is a pbp game on this board, which one? I'd like to take a look at your spell selection if you don't mind, I am also playing a spontaneous cleric in another game

 

[S'mon]

1) Spells per day: take the PHB Cleric/Druid table (without domain spells slots) and add 1 more spell/day for each spell level.

2) Spells known: use the Sorcerer PHB table as a basis, but clerics choose their spells from the cleric list, and druids from the druid list obviously.
In addition, clerics learn the domain spells (2 domains as usual, 9 spells each) automatically, while druids learn all the Summon Nature's Ally spells (9 at all).

Everything else remains exactly the same.

I use existing spells/day table (w WIS bonus) and use the same table for number of spells known (no bonuses), plus the free Cure or Inflict spells, then treat Domain spells separately - you know 1 per level & can cast it 1/day. Seems to work great, and well-balanced. Clerics need to know a reasonable number of spells or all they get is the healing-type spells, Raise Dead & such.

 

[Big Jake]

This is a great thread!

I'm starting to plan out my next campaign, and I've been thinking about limiting the players to spontaneous casters. One of the underlying concepts is that they are living the life of the under-privledged... no access to formal spell casting training in any of the core classes.

 

[Li Shenron]

I use existing spells/day table (w WIS bonus) and use the same table for number of spells known (no bonuses), plus the free Cure or Inflict spells, then treat Domain spells separately - you know 1 per level & can cast it 1/day. Seems to work great, and well-balanced. Clerics need to know a reasonable number of spells or all they get is the healing-type spells, Raise Dead & such.

Well, your way seems to be balanced as well, in my opinion.

IIUC, instead of automatically knowing the 18 (2x9) domain spells, they know either all the Cure or all the Inflict, which means more or less like 1 domain but with more restricted choice. This is balanced back with the separate domain spells.

Note however that with UA variant a cleric doesn't actually know any healing spell unless she chooses the Healing domain or specifically selects those spells with the table, but this last means that she'll cast a healing spell (except Cure Minor and Light) one level later than a PHB cleric.