The Divine suggestions

Tassadarh

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Original poster
May 17, 2024
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Or also:
I played a cleric for a while and I have opinions.

Jokes aside, I do have some suggestions for the cleric class mainly that I think would fix some issues and bring some more interesting gameplay options.

First things first, Turn Undead.

We all know why it was disabled for bounties exploits (hell, I was the one first one to make the report I think!), but it's time for it to come back as it's a feature/resource central to the cleric class, which now stands a bit weaker than it should.

First, let's give the turn undead a hard limit on how many creatures it can effect.
Make it 2 + CHA MOD (or change it to a balanced number, I think being able to target 4/5 creatures at best isn't that extreme if someone invest on the stat) and no greater than current cleric level
So it won't affect an entire "horde" but just a bunch of them, making the effect not so exaggerated in numbers.

The fear effect stays as is, it's working well enough and with the mob limit it won't be a big issue.

But for the improved effect I'd suggest, instead of directly destroying them (good clerics) or dominating them (evil clerics), give a hampered effect:

Good clerics
Undead gets the fear effect but also a wave of divine energy distrupt them, giving them a nice divine damage (2d8 + cleric level? + CHA MOD?), possibly adding the rule that they can't bring them lower than their 10% hp or maybe that if THAT hit kills them, you get no bounty as the body basically became ash scattered to the wind... but at least it's not overly punitive as it is right now!

Evil Clerics
Mass control of undead is a bit heavy but I assume it could be really interesting for a villain PC. I'd argue that undead that are controlled this way, won't give bounty (something something negative energy sapped and they would turn to dust after they are defeated) but if it's still considered a bit too heavy, maybe impose a sharp debuff to the usual undead DR while they are under control (again, negative energy bla bla).

I think removing the extra punitive aspect of no bounties to the feature will make it used again (one could argue that a good cleric should always destroy undead with no reward in mind, but this is obviously a narrative dissonance, as bounties for monsters is a clear mechanic for PVE and the turn undead feature is still part of the kit, not strictly a flavour).
Or least, keep the bounty wipe for extreme circumstances.


Another feature I would like the review is some powers granted by Cleric Domains.
I think a quick tweak would make the whole thing much more interesting.

Currently, the Death domain give you a single attack every rest that inflict negative energy damage.
That's interesting but if we are to look which deities offer the death domain, I think the ability is not that fitting and would be best to change it.

I argue the Death domain should instead be granted what is currently the feature of the Sun domain, so more "influence" over the dead.
It works very well for Kelemvor and Jergal and Velsharoon. Whether they decide to destroy them (which is incredibly fitting for a Kelemvorite) or control them, having more Hit dice affected might be the best chioce.
Yurtrus is a tiny left out imho, the negative energy damage would work well for him, but also the better "turn undead" wouldn't be wasted.

This obviously follows the narrative aspect of the members of the Church of Kelemvor to be undead hunters, because as of now, they don't have any feature that suggest so compared to other regular clerics and given how present they are in the setting (Last Repose) I think it's a good thing to grant them, given the lack of the Doomguide PRC.


This brings us to the Sun domain. Instead of having the same "better turn undead" feature, I think it should simply be changed into a "damage when turning" kind of thing, something minor like 1d4+CHA on top of the fear/double HD disrupt, to basically fit with their current aspect of being "good" at dealing with undead.
But IF we prefer to give them a one time power like other domains, I suggest giving them a "special" turn undead charge (once per rest) where they simply "remove" the heafty DR the undead usually have, for a short amount of time (2+CHA rounds?) with the same limitation of numbers Turn undead have to avoid giving them something insane.
OR another option would be blinding the opponents, if we prefer to remove the undead aspect from them so that only death clerics have the new "domain" over the portfolio.

Another domain I think might be interesting to review is the Magic domain.
Removing the shimmer power and replacing it with the power to "turn" the wisps. I'd argue not to add the turn undead (but it would be interesting), but to give it as a 1 every rest power.

As an appendix to domain, I would also like to propose that those once per rest abilities to be changed into instant casts, as they do last for very little and would see more use of that



And I think that is all!