Bring back Divine Metamagic

[Chengar Qordath]

Fergie wrote:

Clerics get nine levels of spells, extra domain spells often off arcane lists, and AMAZING things like touch of luck, dimension step, aura of destruction, etc. Oh yeah, and 3/4 BAB, medium armor, access to almost any weapon through race/deity, etc. What is bland boring or underpowered again?

It wouldn't hurt my feelings if domains had a bit more in the way of fleshing out. Just enough to put them on par with, say, sorcerer bloodlines. IIRC the devs wanted to do something like that as well, but ran into pagespace issues. I do think it would be fun if domains were a bit more character-defining.

Not that I would call the current cleric underpowered. I'd probably compensate for the stronger domains by narrowing their spell list a bit so that your domain would have a much stronger thematic influence. You can still make a cleric who's a self-buffing combat juggernaut, but he'd need something like the Strength or War domains, while something like a Fire domain cleric becomes a solid blaster.

[Bob Bob Bob]

So... now you're asking for channeling feats? Have you seen the Hangover Cleric? I think most of the variant channels are pretty interesting (though there are several clear "best" picks). Here's the list. And googling also found there's apparently a whole category of feats for channeling here.

Edit: Though beware sanitizing on the diety stuff for the channel feats, most of them are probably tied to a specific diety that d20pfsrd can't use. It's a handy list to use to go check the books, prd, or nethys though.

[Pixie, the Leng Queen]

Rite Publishing does have Secrets of Divine Channeling which does have a varient cleric with modified spell castong and lots of cool and crazy channeling abilities.

[Silver Surfer]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Then why call it Divine MetaMagic? It seems to mislead from your purpose.

Fair enough.... I used the name because people would know what I was referring to in terms of 3.5.... but in PF world being able to do something similar with channels. I thought my first post was clearer...

[Silver Surfer]

As a rough example:

1 DC point (divine channel) options

+1D6 to next damaging spell
Prot evil for rounds (wis mod)
+2 to a single ability or skill check

..... etc

2 DC point options

+3 AC for rounds (wis mod)
+3 to attack rolls for rounds (cha mod)
Self heal caster level + cha mod
Additional use of 1st lvl domain power

It could scale upto say 5 DC

Who knows it could be maybe be used to patch that most gaping of wounds..... drum roll.... THE LACK OF A CLERIC CAPSTONE!!!

;))

[Bob Bob Bob]

Silver Surfer wrote:

As a rough example:

1 DC point (divine channel) options

+1D6 to next damaging spell (weapons only)

Variant Channeling wrote:

Battle/Wrath: Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on weapon damage and critical hit confirmation rolls until the end of your next turn.

Prot evil for rounds (wis mod) (are you kidding me? Still, sort of)

Variant Channeling wrote:

Beauty/Love/Lust: Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on saving throws against charm effects and abilities based on fascination or physical attractiveness (such as a nymph’s blinding beauty and stunning glance abilities) for 1 minute.

Contracts/Oaths: Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on saves against compulsion effects until the end of your next turn.

+2 to a single ability or skill check (too many to list)

Variant Channeling wrote:

Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on Acrobatics and Fly checks, saving throws against wind effects, and effects with the air descriptor until the end of your next turn.

Art/Music: Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on Perform checks and on saving throws against illusions, sonic effects, and language-dependent effects for 1 minute.
Justice/Law: Heal—Lawful creatures gain a channel bonus on Perception and Sense Motive checks, attack rolls, and saving throws until the end of your next turn.

..... etc

2 DC point options

+3 AC for rounds (wis mod) (quite a few, here's the one with the least conditions)

Variant Channeling wrote:

Protection: Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus to Armor Class until the end of your next turn.

+3 to attack rolls for rounds (cha mod) (again, quite a selection, here's the most general)

Variant Channeling wrote:

Justice/Law: Heal—Lawful creatures gain a channel bonus on Perception and Sense Motive checks, attack rolls, and saving throws until the end of your next turn.

Strength: Heal—Creatures gain a channel bonus on all Strength-based attacks, combat maneuver checks that rely on Strength, Strength-based skills, and Strength checks until the end of your next turn.

Self heal caster level + cha mod (not sure the point of this, what with channel already being a heal)

Additional use of 1st lvl domain power (finally, one that doesn't exist as a variant channel. That being said, not sure how this would work. Lots of things are durations, not uses, some have no duration or uses at all)

Commentary in bold.

[born_of_fire]

Bob, I suspect Silver Surfer's dissatisfaction with variant channeling is that a cleric is limited by their domain(s). So, while variant channeling does offer quite a lot to choose from when you don't take domain restrictions into account, what any single cleric can do with variant channeling is much more limited than you are implying. Not every cleric worships a deity with the handy domains and there are plenty of unattractive variants. It'd be nice to be able to play a hangover cleric without having to choose a deity mainly based on how well the domains work for variant channeling.

[Bob Bob Bob]

Silver Surfer hasn't said anything about variant channeling. That's a valid complaint about it though. I'm sure there's more. But currently it's one of the few ways to "make channeling do something" in the rules. And, as I pointed out, covers most of their suggestions for things for channeling to do. And if they want channeling to do all of that, at once, we have pretty clear examples from Paizo that suggest they don't think that would be balanced.

Any further discussion of their suggestions probably belong in homebrew/houserules, since that's what it would be at that point.

[Silver Surfer]

Variant channeling doesnt really do it IMO.... they would have been better if they hadnt done the "50% damage/50% variant" thing and just gone the full way, but I understand the rationale.

In addition, once you choose you are tied in and it doesnt scale well. Also a lot of the options are extremely lightweight.

With my suggestion it gives all clerics some flexibility and provides proper scaling say from 1DC point to 5DC points. You could also tie it in with domains to give a 12th level power or equivalent.

[Imbicatus]

Silver Surfer wrote:

In addition, once you choose you are tied in and it doesnt scale well. Also a lot of the options are extremely lightweight.

And a few of them are game-breaking. Ale and Rulership single-handedly destroy an encounter.

[Silver Surfer]

Imbicatus wrote:

And a few of them are game-breaking. Ale and Rulership single-handedly destroy an encounter.

a) Thats not a good thing.... buffing not blitzing!!

b) They are in the distinct minority... majority of variant channeling is fairly lame

c) Being a negative channeler is a massive feat and ability score tax for most clerics

My idea centres around being able to provide sorely needed class options to a class which probably has fewer than any other in PF.

Converting channeling into DC points would be simple, balanced (aided via feat entry requirements) and fun!!

[LazarX]

Entryhazard wrote:

IIRC there's a feat that allows Half-Elves to consider all the classes as favored

That feat only includes classes which are NOT PrC's. It's for Half-Elves who are true multi-classing dilletantes.

[Chris Lambertz]

Moved this one to the Suggestions/House Rules/Homebrew forum and removed some posts. It's fine to offer a suggestion for the game, but do not be condescending to others in the conversation.