Beckett's page

I'd also cut back the 1 extra Channel per level. Maybe +1 at 3rd and +1 at 7th or so. But +10 at 10th Level? What about Epic Levels?

As far as I have heard, it is not yet desided weither Cleric Prestige classes will or will not advance Domain Powers, (based of caster level), because there are nmo Divine Prestige Classes yet, they are not beginning to think of that part until they have to.

I did not notice the Channel advancement, I would definetly cut that back to the normal progression (+1d6 at each odd Level).

Also is the Domain powers it for the 20th level capstone? Seems like everyone else gets an "that is freaking awesome" ability or lifting of a major restriction. Master Hunter, becomeing an outsider, using an ability at will, etc. . .

Well I guess Sorcerers and Wizards don't either, but they get some pretty good awesomeness.

I think the Cleric needs a bit more throughout their levels. I'm not looking for new powers and game breaking stuff, but just little tweeks.

Nature Sense type thing for Diplomacy and Sense Motive?

Perhaps Brew Potion as a bonus feat at like 4t or 7th level?

A small scalling Save bonus vs Outsiders?

Any other thoughts or ideas here?

The main trouble I see with the Domain abilities are the Evil ones are just so much cooler than the good ones. As it stands, I want to play an evil cleric, but I really am not all that interested in the good ones.

Evil: makes a target count as if they where good is way better than the Touch of Good, in my opinion, at least for direct combat application. Don't get me wrong, I can see some nice uses for Touch of Good, but I can also see a player going around and "touching" every laborer in town to get masterwork everything just for the heck of it. Besides, what about this ability (aside from the name), says Good?

Additionally, if you add to all the Alignment Domains that Alignment tag, (counted as good/Evil/etc. . .) it keeps Neutral characters from being the best mechanical choice, because yes, they can still be effected just as hard by any of the alignment spells. It may be worth putting in, either way, that it only treats the target as whatever alignment FOR THE CLERIC'S Spells, or I can see it being extremely abussed by just tanking that target with unholy swords and spells.

Earth: I completely agree. Isn't acid the anti-earth damage anyway? I'd go with maybe a directed shock wave. You stomp the ground and deal the damage to a target (with a touch attack), and they Refl or fall prone. Something like that.

Law: Maybe change it from treat any d20 roll as a Nat 11, to change any Nat 1 as an 11? I'm not really that impressed with the ability at all. Purhaps Touched Target is treated as Chaotic (as Evil Domain), and is treated as Exhausted for 1 - 3 rounds (as if carrying the weight of the world on their backs, or something).

Magic: maybe. It also needs to explain what happens if someone attempts to steal the weapon and a few other factors, (can it make unarmed attacks, be attacked itself, can it exert presure or do anything besides draw and attack with a weapon like pull a lever, steal a potion from the other side of the room, move any squares beyond the caster? Can it pick up the keys to our prison cell just out of reach and bring them to you? I'm not trying to be a smart a**, and I see the Mage Hand Reference, but these things will come up I think. Does the 5lbs limit stand, because many weapons are heavier. If not, can you pick upa larger weapon you are proficient with for the attack?

Protection: Make it something besides a Resistance Bonus. 3.5 was terrible about this. Also, maybe make it a Full round action to Transfere it to someone else, just to tone it down a bit. Maybe.

Repose: Maybe make it a "they fall asleep, hit the ground and wake up", so essentially they just got tripped. Might be worth it to just not allow a Coup de gras with this ability. Now that dragon falling from the sky, . . .

Rune: Can a square hold more than one rune? I'd say not from the same caster, but ok for different casters. Can you have more than one Rune at a time? I think it should also last a bit longer, maybe a minute per 5 or 10 Levels. Additionally, maybe allow it to act like a minor potion, allowing you to give other people temporary Runes of Orisons that last up to an hour or something.

Strength: I am not sure what the correct way to use this power is (reroll), but no matter what it is overpowered. I would say make it exactly like the Protection Domain, but make it Str rather than saves (+1 - +5) until your nect d20 roll with it. Please, not an enhancement bonus though.

Sun: I don't like it. It doesn't heal, so it's not positive energy, (or rather why is it?) It barely deals more than say the Fire Domain, but only against undead, so why not just go with Fire which you can do at a distance. The only exception may be if this ability was intended as a Smite Attack with an actual attack, essentially adding the d8+ to the other damage. I doubt it, and the Touch seems to say no. As a fix, either change it to a Blinding/Dazzling touch, or maybe your attacks deal +1 damage to Undead/5 Levels.

Travel: I'd disallow teleporting anyone else, and probably make it either 5ft / level or a Standard Action. Actually what might be better is 20ft, than +5 ft per 4 levels.

Trickery: Maybe it should only last a number or rounds equal to your Wis.

War: I really don't like this. First, no enhancment bonus or it does not stack with a magical weapon (not a problem with levels 1-3 or so, but it becomes one fast), so what is the point. It doesn't really say war to me either. Law and Destruction, perhaps. Glory, maybe. A fix might just be to have it be a personal Smite attack, add Cha (or Wis) to attck, and level to damage, but I'd probably go 1/Encounter.

Weather: maybe make it d4 of bludgeoning lethal damage?

I was concidering a straight Sorcerer Bloodlines Swap, but I don't know. It may be over powered in some cases. Definetly something that is a must have is that the class must be customizable outside of the normal spells known. So the idea of Bloodlines works perfectly for me, (but I would want to keep the wings). I'd even go further with the Sorcerer and completely divorce the not-Favored Soul from Deities at all. Essentially a Divine Sorcerer with more Celestial or Demonic ancestry.

I agree. No or little spellcasting makes me not even look at a Prestige Class. In 3.5, I literally would invent a Divine ArchCleric before going into Heirophant more than 1 or 2 levels. It is that bad. Something I guess most WotC designers never concidered is that, your right, it hurts the party as a whole more than the player.

Have you concidered dropping skill points down to 2. I think that would go a long way in my book.

By the way, I really like that idea of only healing the dying.

Maybe make it like a 1/hour thing. That is, a person can only have it heal them 1/hour. Than again, I don't really see that much difference between a Cleric healing everyone to max over the day (especially at higher levels) and using the Heal skill to do the same thing with less effort?

I'm not trying to sound like an a**, but just for arguements sake, lets put Favored Class in perspective here. Would it be a good idea to give Gnomish Monks, oh I don't know +8 Str so that more people will play them?

Now who thinks that wouldn't make Halfling Monks a little angry or annoyed?

= Favored Class

So how does one tell if something is OGL?

Concidering how few times you can actually Channel Energy, I might give it more than 1/2. Maybe +1, +1, -, +1, +1, -, etc. . .

I'm pretty sure they are referring to giving it spellcasting abilites at even levels as oppossed to the none it gets now. Useless?

How does one tell if something is OGL?

I agree with Gnome, but I'm guessing probably Cleric then Bard is the least liked or played class. Anyone know for sure or at least have an edjucated guess?

Will they ever be redoing the Favored Soul? If so, do to it what you did to the sorcerer, and stay away from the Complete Divine one, please.

I would say something more like "must max out a Prestige Class" or "take at least 1/2 the levels in a Prestigue Class" to fix his problems.

There is something I would like to see done with Prestige Classes though, and that is that they simply continue a previous Base Attack / Save Progression rather than adding a new one. It does take a bit of work at times, but that helps to keep players from just throughing on a bunch of Prestige Classes just to get these bumps, but at the same time does not screw over, (mostly casters) who do not get that little bump for a lot longer than normal in Base Attack.

That absolute coolest Divine Prestigue calss I have ever seen was the Knight of the Raven, from Exp. to Castle Ravenloft. I would really like to see a rendition of that.

I would like a Warpriest, maybe with better (but not full) spellcasting progression, an actual necromancer/negative energy specialist/shadow priest, and a Heirophant that gets spellcasting.

Why is it not going to work?

What is the least played/liked race and class?

Hands down?

Yet there is no Feat needed for a Fighter to increase HD and Base Attack when they Multiclass. . .

So what about toning it down a bit? Like say if you chose positive energy as your specialization, you do 1d6 + 1d6/2 Clerics Levels, right? Now in this option, the same Cleric would deal 1d6 + 1d6 per 4 Cleric Levels.

Not only that, but Channel Energy eminates from the Cleric, right? That pretty much means that to best use it, they have to wade into a group of baddies, unlike the Sor/Wiz which typically can toss thier spell at a distance. What it really doe is give the Cleric some more options, and that little extra punch when they really need it.

For me, it is two thinks I really dislike.

1.) is that Spellcraft has always been way to overused as a skill. It can already do a lot of things by itself, and really does not need anything else attached to it.

2.) is that it is both because it Int based and because it favores Wizards over every other Caster, when Wizards should in my opinion, be the ones with the worst chance of maintaining such power when push comes to shove (under the assumption that their craft is the most delicate and hazardous to handle).

I also agree that there needs to be Con based skills, and there are (where) plenty of uses for Concentration besides spell casting.

I agree with the HD increase. Low HP was not only a halmark of those classes, but it also unbalances all classes as a whole and well it just irks me. It takes away to much risk for going into combat for those calsses.

I also dislike the idea that rogues can sneak attack nearly anything. I have not had personal experience with it so far outside of a wounds and vitality D&D game,(which is fairly similar), but it hurts othe classes who are somewhat specialized with fighting/protecting those creatures. Specifically in the case of undead. I think Constructs would be fine, (but not objects) for sneak attack. Undead however should not.

A party without a Cleric and/or Paladin should have a little more trouble with a horde of undead, or else why even have different creature types. I can see maybe a sneak attack does +1 damage to undead for each +1d6 it normally has, but anything else just robs other classes of their flair.

Additionally, it makes it harder to use other genres with ease. Horror comes to mind, but others might be just as applicable.

Most of the time, it is spellcasters and a few classes that are based on Class Level rather than Character Level for specific advancement. So What if a primary spellcaster began multiclassing recieve additional spell levels (caster level and new spells) at 1/3 the normal rate. Maybe even 1/2, but that seems a bit high to me. I saw this option somewhere a long while ago, but it only applied to Caster Level, so failed.

Dont the ability bonuses and penulties for each race, um already encourage favored class stereotypes. . .

I want to play a churchy religous crusader, I usually just find the Cleric class itself to not actually be what it is suppossed to be. I am seriously considering abandonning Cleric for Pathfinder Paladin, maybe.

Fort makes a lot more sense. Not only Con based like it needs to be, but with Wizards and Sorcerrers not getting a good Fort, makes it about where it needs to be.

If you try to base it around the class that is using it, you are going to run into all kinds of issues with multiclassing. Basically what we have here is it was never broken to begin with, so there was no need for a fix, and now it is just being complicated more. Don't get me wrong, it is a good idea, just makes the game that much more complicated without a good reason.

What I am saying is reinsert Concentration and add all the effects of Autohypnosis to it. Leave Spellcraft as it was in 3.5, it was already way to over used anyway.

Make Concentration a skill and throw in autohipnosis (psionic) with it. Spellcraft is good on it's own.

What if you gave the Monk a mechanic similar to the sniping mechanic in many games. Basically, for every round the spend focusing and meditating and channeling their chi, etc. . ., they get a +1 to attack rolls. They can do so a max of three rounds for a +3 to all attacks, (unlike snipping this lasts the entire fight).

So whilethe Cleric and Fighter draw their weapons and move to position, the Monk can do their inner calm for a +1 and step up too.

Best way to fix the rogue is to make backstab a full attack action. does not trip over, (meaning spirited charge trample) the fighter, keeps the rogue a super hitter, just not as much, (the way it should be), and keeps "those players" from screwing the rest of the party because they can't murder everyone in that one hit as easily.

So what about a penulty to all Cha and Int based skills except for Cha. based Intimidate and Int. based crafting skills (and the like I don't want to look at every skill and possible useage so I am going to keep it simple).

+2 Con and +2 Wis, -2 to skills listed above. Maybe even -3 or -4?

In a 3.75 game I wrote up, I combined Concentration and Autohypnosis into one skill. Seems a perfectly good fix here. There are a lot of uses for spellcraft for any and all casters, so why add another.

What I meant was that all Clerics get it, (if not, no one would ever play a Good or Evil Cleric, and the rules say you don't have to regardless of deity). But negative energy is not evil. Positive energy is not good. I can see deities having a problem with controlling undead if they are against undead, or destroying tools that their followers could be using (if evil). But than again, many deities may not care about undead at all, good or evil. I fully advise restricting the Channel to either being benificial to or a hinderance to undead, its everything else that Channel Energy does, like the minor Inflict/Cure Mass.

Ok, I guess what I was looking into, and I already know the answer for my groups, is how "broken" is it really for all Clerics to do this? I understand that there are no rules for this.

It was pretty simple-minded in 3.0 and .5 actually. Good clerics could spontaniously do 1/2 of their job, but got left in the dirt for harm touching anything with a heartbeat, regardless of the fact you might be a preist of the deity of "smiting everything with a heartbeat with inflict spells".

Evil Clerics just got to normal healing for the minions they may or may not have, because there has never been a such thing as an Evil non-necromancer cleric.

That was always my problem with 3.0+, why could a Cleric never do both, as that would make a better class all around. You are not a healer, you are a master of the energies that arcane casters typically can't touch. I really don't have a problem with the full round action for one, but I think thy should share the same pool, meaning that the player has to make the choice of either healing the party or damaging the enemy, because not only does this choice mean that you can't do so often this fight, but you might not be able to do the other if you really need it later that day.

As a side note, I also think that some Clerics, or rather some deities should strongly disapprove of Channeling one way or the other, or at least some uses of it. Not sure about the pathfinder deities, but I could see Pelor B*$ch Slapping a priest or Paladin for controling an army of zombies, even though they potentially could.

What would it take to chanel both negative and positive energy?

The head exploding is freaking awesome.

In regards to the favored class +1 hp/s.p., I really hope they do not go with this option, it just irks me the same way it irks me that Rogues get d8 Hp.

It really hurts Clerics also, of which is a Favored Class of Dwarves. Because their Domains and Energy channeling are Cha based. I really like the penulties to the charisma skills, but I hate the Cha penulty. Not only does it do some major damage to a lot of class abilities, but there are other uses for Cha besides being diplomatic.

I would be happy with the penulty to Int, which actually makes sense both mechanically and fluffally. If they do not get that many skill points, they are not likely to burn them on skills like diplomacy, (but can if that is the direction the player wants to go without being mechanically impossible). Maybe the dwarves are not very diplomatic, but they have to have some diplomats or they would have either conquered the world long ago or been enslaved/extinct.

Additionally, with a Int penulty, that would show how they 1.) do not make good Wizards (but still can), and 2.) help to explain why they generally distrust arcane magic, (because they can't grasp its principles and whatnot).