the spontaneous divine caster

[Aust Diamondew]

In my games all clerics and druids spontaneously cast the way it is described in the Uneathed Arcana. Its worked fine from what I've seen. But my players rarely play as clerics or as druids so we haven't had much of an oppurtunity to test it out.

 

[Liquidsabre]

A spontaneous known-spell list using divine caster is fundamentally flawed, since it's the variety of protection and condition-countering spells that lend the heal/cure power to the cleric spells. So inescapably, a sorcerer-like known spell cleric will not be an entirely successful class unless it goes with a specific niche set of spells for a one-trick repetoire (melee divine caster, uber-buffer, uber-healer, etc.).

I was able to solve this problem somewhat with the introduction of a spell retrieval system based on the Spirit Shaman class we see in Complete Divine. What the spell retrieval mechanic allows is for a spontaneous divine caster to reshuffle their known spells they cast from, on a daily basis. For balance my own variant favored soul casts as many times/day as a sorcerer but with slightly fewer "virtual" known spells than the sorcerer has as their "permanent" known spells. While this method isn't as versatile a spellcasting system as the core cleric and their ability to fill-in open slots for utility spells, it allows a spontaneous cleric to maintain some spell selection versatility (something the sorcerer can get away with because arcane spells are generally more powerful than divine) but in limited (daily) way. This provides a much needed middle ground that a spontaneous divine caster needs to remain a viable caster across levels.

Shoot, gotta go. I'll try and catch up with this thread later guys.

-Brett

 

[Silveras]

1. Because I think the Cleric is a little too good as it is, I like this variant.
2. Because the flavor fits my view of divine casters a little bit better, I like this variant.
3. Because my world is not "all dungeons, all the time", I like this variant.
4. Because I want clerics serving different deities, or even the same deity from different branches of the same religion, to have some differences, I like this variant.
5. Because I want Undead to be scary again, I like this variant (I also like the variant where turning does damage instead of chasing them away).
6. Because ForceUser has some valid points about other factors, using this variant requires other adjustments, too. Specifically, making Scrolls and/or Potions of various spells more commonly available is almost necessary.

I handle #6 by having all those NPC clerics spend their time making potions and scrolls of those "rarely used but worth the caster's weight in gold when needed" spells, which ARE available for barter or sale in the cities & towns of my homebrew.

 

[Jdvn1]

don't have miniatures handbook [can't swallow spending 30 bucks for about 70 pages of rpg material] and i'm pretty sure favored souls can't turn undead [though i may be wrong on that].

Yeah, someone already mentioned they're in the Complete Divine, but you may not want to spend the money on that either. If you had it, though, you could try dropping their fighting special abilities (they get, like, Weapon Specialization and such) in exchange for turn ability.

 

[darkbard]

I should clarify--when I say "healing," I'm not talking about simply healing hit point damage. Sure, a spontaneous divine caster will be fine at that. I'm talking about ability score damage, negative effects such as fear, blindness/deafness, curses, negative energy drain, missing limbs, insanity, fatigue/exhaustion, disease, poison, and raising people from the dead. Unless a spontaneous divine caster devotes his entire spell list to dealing with these negative effects (unlikely), the party using the UA variant darkbard wants to use is going to be losing a significant amount of their healing resources. This has a huge impact because it severely limits the party's ability to deal with such conditions. Many classes can heal hit point damage--that's not the issue. The issue is the loss of the ability to deal with the whole spectrum of negative effects that clerics (and to a lesser extent, druids) are needed to deal with. This is what places the favored soul firmly in the camp of "secondary healer."

i should have qualified my statements by noting that the campaign is to take place within the eberron setting (where low-level magic [i.e. scrolls, potions, minor wondrous items] are more commonplace that the standard d&d setting. what's more, i envision a campaign largely limited to sharn & its subterranean ruins, so the opportunity to retreat & rest is usually an option. on the flip side, higher level magic (like raise dead, etc.) is far rarer, and this lends a level of lethality [and verisimilitude] that i like.

yet despite these qualifications, i maintain my assertion that much of the versatility you cite would take place after the fact (the "morning after" effect). regardless of whether or not the setting is eberron, urban or whatever, my experience has been [and i'm willing to concede others may have a vastly different experience ... and if so, please let me know!] that much of this morning after restoration has taken place within relative safety and when external resources can come into play.

what's more, spells to relieve fear, exhaustion, etc. are simply moot unless prepared ahead of time.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

I'm running a campaign using the spontaneous divine caster right now, and it's going very well. The cleric player has picked Lesser Restoration and wants Restoration as one of her higher level spells as well. My biggest problem with the cleric is that every expansion to the cleric makes available all the spells to the cleric. This is my way of limiting it and I think it's very successful.

 

[Liquidsabre]

My biggest problem with the cleric is that every expansion to the cleric makes available all the spells to the cleric. This is my way of limiting it and I think it's very successful.

Shucks that's easy then, no need to go straight favored soul for that. All ya do for the cleric is limit the PC to the number of spells in their core PHB list. So if they want to make use of a cleric spell in some other book, they have to first lose one of the spells on their core spell lsit. This keeps the number of spells the cleric has access to constant.