[UA] Divine spontaneous casters in practice

[Li Shenron]

I really like these variant classes from Unearthed Arcana for a few reasons:

1) they differentiate a lot between clerics of different deities, and between different druids

2) the vancian spell system seems more in line with the scholarly approach of wizards rather than the divine spellcasting

3) for players not familar with spellcasting or with these classes, it is much easier and faster to play a spontaneous caster

But has anyone tried them in practice? Yesterday I wrote down a few example clerics of different deities (for a back PC IOC) and then compared them with a sorcerer... the result was that they seemed quite strong: about 1 more spells known per level, more spells per day, no highest-level spells delay, better BAB, ST and HP, and cast in armor.
Of course, the sorcerer spell list still has the most powerful damaging spells, the trickiest and most versatile ones, but with a good selection of domains and spells a spontaneous cleric can get close...

Any experiences so far?

 

[Thanee]

Nope, but I recently build a Favored Soul character (12th) level, which seems fairly powerful, too, but I think it's roughly in line with a Cleric's abilities of that level, maybe slightly higher.

Granting spontaneous casting of that caliber without taking something away, seems too much, tho (the FS loses domains and Turn Undead, thus access to Divine Feats, too, and has some huge multiple stat dependency (basically four primary stats (Str/Con for fighing, Wis/Cha for spellcasting)), at least - altho it gains better Reflex save and some feats, Energy Resistance and such).

I'm not sure how the UA makes these changes, but if they keep the better spell level advancement, have even more spells per day than a Sorcerer and so on, without giving something away, it doesn't feel right.

Spell known should be a bit more than those of the Sorcerer, since Clerics also normally know all spells, but I don't think they should have more in terms of spells per day (kinda like the FS does it, same spells per day, better (but not faster in terms of spell levels) advancement of spell known).

Bye
Thanee

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I've got an 8th UA spontaneous cleric as a cohort at the moment. Partly down to reason 3). I was playing a cleric and got really hacked off with trawling the Phb before large fights. I died, decided to play a fighter. Took a cleric cohort to cover the 'hole' in the party.

Seems fine so far. More spells known than a sorceror, but less per day... might be a minor problem if you gain extra domains from somwhere. Overall I'd say balances well with the regular cleric. In the same ballpark as the trade off between wizard and sorceror.

Definitely with you on it feeling more 'divine' rather than 'scholarly'.

Personally, I'd give the sorceror a wizards bonus feats, but that's just me... and rather off topic.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm not sure how the UA makes these changes, but if they keep the better spell level advancement, have even more spells per day than a Sorcerer and so on, without giving something away, it doesn't feel right.

UA:

Spell known - as Sorcerer plus the domain spells (cleric) or all Summon Nature's Ally spells (druid)

Spells per day - as core Cleric (without the domain spells) or Druid + 1 per spell level (0th-9th)

Everything else unchanged.