[WIP] New Cleric Domain: Community

[RealAlHazred]

Alternatively, you could have Spirits of the Community--you summon a cloud of guardian spirits using your bonus action. The first time an attack would affect more than one party member, the spirits take the damage for the entire party for that attack. You can't use this ability again until completing a long or short rest. By 17th level, the party should be running into things that have AoE's, and you get 1 get out of jail free card against them.

Ooh, how about:

Channel Divinity: Spirits of the Community
Starting at 17th level, you can use your action to summon a host of community spirits that last for 10 minutes or until you use your action to dismiss them. The spirits surround you to a 30-foot radius. You are aware of all creatures in that area, and creatures within that area receive no benefit from being hidden from you.

Alternatively, when any creature or creatures within that area take damage from a weapon or a magical effect, you can end the effect early to cancel the damage to all affected creatures.

It seemed slightly more potent than a regular level 17 effect, so it seemed appropriate to make it a channel divinity power and use up some resources.

 

[Redthistle]

You might try adding psychic damage to divine strike--it feels like the community is opposed to someone, and I think that would be a first for clerics.

For the 17th level ability you might have something like group mind that lets your party communicate telepathically among themselves and know where the other members are as long as you are all on the same plane.

This is good. So, the level 8 feature:

-Community Domain: Divine Strike (psychic) (as Liane the Wayfarer wrote it in #9). Would that be adding a damage die? If so, making it a d6 (raised to 2d6 at 14th level) makes some sense to me insofar as we wouldn't step on the War domain's d8.

Or instead, have it impose something along the lines of imposing disadvantage on the target's attack rolls and/or saving throws until the start of the cleric's next turn, or maybe force the target to make a Charisma saving throw vs. the cleric's spellcasting DC to avoid becoming Frightened until the end of the cleric's next turn. If you can get your foe(s) to run away, your allies can get at least a breather in the battle.

Level 17:

-Community Domain: (either of MechaTarrasque's proposed ideas)

-or-

-Community Domain. Channel Divinity: Enhanced Resilience. As a bonus action you can use your Channel Divinity to grant advantage on saving throws to all allied characters and creatures within 60 feet of the cleric. This will last until the end of the encounter.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

I like that.

 

[RealAlHazred]

The only thing that makes me hesitate on the "divine strike (psychic)" is that if, and it's a big "if," there is ever something like a Mind or Dream domain, this would be far more appropriate for that. I'm tempted to go with Potent Spellcasting for my home game, as that's in line with everyone else and doesn't add more complexity.

I like Enhanced Reslience. It's defensive, which to my mind is more about what the Community domain represents.

 

[Redthistle]

... if, and it's a big "if," there is ever something like a Mind or Dream domain ...

Oh.

Now I'm wanting someone to develop a Mind or Dream domain.

Will this ever end? <sigh>

 

[RealAlHazred]

-Community Domain. Channel Divinity: Enhanced Resilience. As a bonus action you can use your Channel Divinity to grant advantage on saving throws to all allied characters and creatures within 60 feet of the cleric. This will last until the end of the encounter.

How about this?

Channel Divinity: Bolster Community
Starting at 17th level, you can use a reaction to activate an aura that bolsters the members of your community against outside threats.

Whenever any creature within 60 feet of you fails a saving throw, you can use your reaction to grant all crea-tures of your choice within 60 feet of you advantage to their saving throws. This effect lasts until the end of your next turn.

What I'm really, really liking about this is, the cleric gets to save a bunch of people at once. By making it a reaction, you can wait until someone critical has failed their save; by making it 60 foot radius, you're helping the whole group; and by tying it to Channel Divinity, you're limiting it to three times per day (at 17th level when the ability hits). Most 17th level abilities are "always on" -- they either add to your other stuff, or they're abilities you can use all the time, at the cost of an action. This is too powerful to be "always on."

 

[RealAlHazred]

I've worked up a PDF.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1gbLqXS723cVkEyUjBiUkZpN0E/view?usp=sharing

 

[Redthistle]

Very well done, Wayfarer! I salute you!