Complete Cleric Overhaul Project / AKA 'Unchained Cleric'


Homebrew and House Rules

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Look at my posts earlier for a cleric that upgraded from d6 depending on "divine mission". I think that is the way to go still to make a customizable cleric ranging from d6 caster through to warrior or healer.


Arnakalar wrote:


...I don't follow. For the first part: If you're saying the class has to be restricted because 3/4 bab etc and full cleric casting is 'too powerful', I just don't buy it. Magi, Warpriests, Inquisitors, Alchemists etc get *stacks* of class features to make them effective at what they do. Now, what they do is Gishy - but consider the Summoner (pre-unchained) which is basically a full caster in disguise - but even with medium bab and hp, they're still a wimp without their eidolon.

Difference is the cleric is a 9th level caster with the 2nd best spell list in the game.

A lot of the suggestions with the cleric are towards making them "more caster" due partly to their martial side being made obsolete by warpriest and inquisitor. If you want to keep the core D8/2 good saves/armour.... etc chassis of the cleric and then make changes, you absolutely do have to be careful!

Arnakalar wrote:
As far as existing archetypes, apple carts, and all prior comments on 'what paizo is likely to do' - who cares? Who cares at all? Throw as much of it as you want in the trash - redesign the class, redesign the domains. Of course the archetypes aren't going to work. Who cares? No one likes them anyway - that's why it's called the 'complete cleric overhaul' and not 'an archetype to adjust the cleric' =P

Well this is just where you and I differ thats all.

I am absolutely interested in re-designing the cleric (as my presence in this thread and many others shows!)....certainly as much as anyone on the forums.... but I want to do it in a way that is actually a feasible idea in terms of the existing PF structure, not just a purely hypothetical exercise. Thats not to say I dont support an "un-chaining".... but even the classes that have been "un-chained" are still designed to mostly work within the existing set-up.

Arnakalar wrote:

And paizo isn't going to do anything, but that could not mean less to me - I realize a lot of GMs only allow core content or paizo content, though honestly that baffles me - but I assume those guys aren't hanging out on the homebrew forums.

I disagree.... I have read on several occasions comments from Paizo staff/developers (and not just on these boards but on other sites) that they absolutely do look on the forums for ideas and inspiration...."we'd be mad not to!".... being a quote I once saw!


Silver Surfer wrote:

{. . .}

I am absolutely interested in re-designing the cleric (as my presence in this thread and many others shows!)....certainly as much as anyone on the forums.... but I want to do it in a way that is actually a feasible idea in terms of the existing PF structure, not just a purely hypothetical exercise. Thats not to say I dont support an "un-chaining".... but even the classes that have been "un-chained" are still designed to mostly work within the existing set-up.
{. . .}

Unchained Monk is an obvious sore thumb exception -- NO archetype compatibility except for a couple of archetypes released afterwards that are designed to work with both types of Monk. Unfortunately, no conversions of existing Monk archetypes have been forthcoming, except reportedly some from third-party sources.


UnArcaneElection wrote:


Unchained Monk is an obvious sore thumb exception -- NO archetype compatibility except for a couple of archetypes released afterwards that are designed to work with both types of Monk.

Yup - absolutely spot on.

And this is why any ideas I have are based on their feasibility within the existing structure. I dont have any prob with "cleric un-chaining" at all (quite the contrary!) - I'm just wary of the potential pit falls.

My liking for the cleric is purely based on its enormous RP and archetype potential which is I think is in excess of all other classes. And this is something that I really dont think is anywhere near being optimised currently.

And contrary to what some people think, I do firmly believe that given enough support on the forums and the existing 3PP/homebrew D6 designs that Paizo will end up doing 'something'. I know for a fact that another D6 divine class is due to be released by Goblin very soon...

Paizo is after all a business....and any business that wants to be successful needs to pay close attention to demand (from the forums) and supply (from 3PP and homebrew).....


Fortunately, Cleric has a lot fewer highly important archetypes than Classic Monk, and they are most often built by shoehorning in weird substitutions that you probably don't really want but have to do anyway due to the current Cleric's restricted class feature space, so rebuilding them for a heavily overhauled Cleric class would not only be easier than doing this for the Classic Monk to Unchained Monk transition, but also more rewarding.


Arnakalar wrote:

On the central topic - a really interesting point that was brought up is the question of what ARE the roles clerics fill, or that we can imagine them filling. Hiiamtom suggested "scholastic (monk-like), evangelist (leader), purifier/corrupter (strength cleric), and beacon (channeling)"

Some random thoughts I'd add to that:

The Leader/Evangelist - A largely dedicated support character - blasphemously I think this one could draw a lot from the 4E Cleric, Warlord, and Bard - it should have features or a way to spend their actions investing in their allies doing cool stuff, coordinating, or maybe even handing out something like teamwork feats. Maybe as part of a channel you can spend your action(s) to grant allies bonus actions? This could be a really cool playstyle, and the goal would be to make the 'support cleric' a more active/dynamic participant.

The 'Doomsayer' - "Truly, Banjo giveth with one hand, and taketh away with the other" - Fire and Brimstone, or Loaves and Fishes - this guy is a real old testament type, and he holds your fortune in his hands. Maybe gets a sort of 'prayer' ability that can help allies or hinder foes but either way specializes in buff/debuff dynamics.

The Thaumaturge - The miracle worker is the *serious* spellcaster - while all of the above are full casters and thus that's their ultimate focus, the thaumaturge should take this a step further - perhaps she gets a spell recovery method, divine metamagic, spontaneous spell slots or can learn wizard spells, something like that.

The Crusader - this is your battle cleric - it differs from the warpriest in being a full/primary caster first, with some mid-weight combat abilities and armor, to be contrasted with the warpriests extensive weapon and armor profs/enhancements, swift action buffs and combat focused blessings.

(There also needs to be an awareness of 'secondary roles' - the 'scholar' really belongs here more, as "walking encyclopedia", while an important function, is not a 'Role' in PF. Ultimately I think secondary role is going to be better shaped by deity - community/charm/etc clerics imply Face, knowledge/magic implies encyclopedia, nature/animal implies survival, etc...)

Can anyone think of others? I've broken these up as subclasses or archetypes, but I don't know if that's the best way to do it. The structure of my unchained cleric currently has more like revelations that you would use to customize and shape your role.

So just bouncing ideas off this post, sticking close to revelations is probably the simplest route (since my favourite class is the oracle though I'm fairly biased).

As it is, mysteries give 10 revelations to pick from, if we standardise each deity to giving access to 5 domains and each domain giving 2 powers then all we'd need to do in theory is make sure that domain abilities are roughly equivalent in power to revelations.
Oracles get 6 revelations in the course of their career, plus a curse which is rarely an overall drawback.

The benefits/drawbacks of spontaneous vs prepared casting has been discussed to death but we can probably assume that they're equivalent from a power perspective.

So one possibility would be to have each deity grant 5 domains, and each domain to add to a pool of powers that could be selected from at specific levels, so if domains granted one "curse" option and two "revelation" options then in effect each deity would be the equivalent of an oracle mystery + curse. Clerics as they leveled up would pick one of the 5 possible "curses" their deity granted and six of the ten possible "revelations".

This would also mean that setting-specific deities would still be perfectly doable by picking 5 domains for them to govern.

My thought as writing this was that the "curse" options would be domain-specific deity codes of conduct, functioning a little like a cross between cavalier codes and the oracle's curse. Might be a bit difficult to come up with that many (one for each domain, five for each deity) but it would allow, say, two clerics of Pharasma to still have differences between each other as they pick between which of the 5 areas of their deity's portfolio to specialise in upholding.

One of the obvious downsides to me as I'm writing this is that it doesn't account for powers that are only selectable after a certain level, ie. "you must be at least 11th level to select this" etc. so an alternative could be to have each domain add 3 possible powers to your pool of selectable options, one available at 1st+, one at 6th+, and one at 12th+. So assuming a progression curve similar to oracles, clerics would end up with 2 (of a possible 5) 1st+ powers, 2 (of a possible 5) 6th+ powers and 2 (of a possible 5) 12th+ powers. This would mean that a deity would grant more options than a revelation, but on the other hand you'd end up with the same number of powers so it probably isn't that bad.

This then coupled with some kind of limitation on their current spell list (but expanded via domains granting say 2 spells each per spell level, for a total of 10), whether it be similar to the way wizards learn spells (the easier option, maybe adding 2 from the cleric spell list and one from the domain granted spell list every time they level up for free, but can "scribe" for the others) or a thorough pruning of their spell list (possibly preferable but has the downside of being difficult to expand upon via splatbooks etc).
*Edit* plus probably only simple weapons + light armour, a "revelation" could grant martial+medium prof.

Just some thoughts anyway, as incomprehensible as they may be.

*Edit*
So a cleric's progression would look like (with wizard-style spell selection for the sake of argument)
1st: pick a domain code from those granted by deity (which comes with a "curse" power, basic example could be channel energy)
1st: pick a domain power from the 1st+ lvl options granted by deity
2nd: pick a 1st level domain spell to be able to cast spontaneously ala current clerics cure/inflict light wounds
3rd: pick a domain power from the 1st+ lvl options granted by deity
4th: pick a spontaneous 2nd level spell
6th: pick a spontaneous 3rd level spell
7th: pick a domain power from 1st+ or 6th+ options.
8th: pick a spontaneous 4th level spell
9th: pick a domain power from 1st+ or 6th+ options.
10: pick a spontaneous 5th level spell
12: pick a spontaneous 6th level spell
13: pick a domain power from 1st+, 6th+ or 12th+ options.
14: pick a spontaneous 7th level spell
15: pick a domain power from 1st+, 6th+ or 12th+ options.
etc.
Capstone: don't care, nobody gets that high anyway.


In most cases, you probably want one Code of Conduct per deity, although deities like Norgorber would be obvious exceptions, and some deities might have Specialty Priests having additional Codes of Conduct.


RP should never be used to balance mechanics. It essentially forces the GM to be a dick to one player if the RP restriction is to have any balancing force.

Particularly since cleric is already the class someone is practically forced to play. A druid/shaman and oracle working together can pick up the slack, but oracle is already a terrible class for in character group dynamics. "Why is this guy in the group?" always needs an in character answer and almost all curses trigger normal instincts to keep invalids off of the front lines. An oracle entering at high level can offset that with competence, but in a game starting at 1st level there's almost no way that it's not better from both compassionate and self interested motives to send the cursed oracle to work in the temple and recruit someone who can consistently speak common, can hear, has two working legs, can see more than 30', doesn't appear to be falling apart, and isn't haunted by mischievous at best spirits, etc.


Atarlost wrote:

RP should never be used to balance mechanics. It essentially forces the GM to be a dick to one player if the RP restriction is to have any balancing force.

Particularly since cleric is already the class someone is practically forced to play. A druid/shaman and oracle working together can pick up the slack, but oracle is already a terrible class for in character group dynamics. "Why is this guy in the group?" always needs an in character answer and almost all curses trigger normal instincts to keep invalids off of the front lines. An oracle entering at high level can offset that with competence, but in a game starting at 1st level there's almost no way that it's not better from both compassionate and self interested motives to send the cursed oracle to work in the temple and recruit someone who can consistently speak common, can hear, has two working legs, can see more than 30', doesn't appear to be falling apart, and isn't haunted by mischievous at best spirits, etc.

Maybe this is a table variance, or possibly a cultural difference, but I've very little idea what you're on about here. Do you consider a druid not being able to wear metal armour to be fine but oracle curses like only speaking a certain language in combat or having a slightly slower move speed to be terrible? Or are you also against the metal restriction on druids? I really don't follow. I also don't really agree with the "cleric being a class that someone is practically forced to play" part. I just don't have the same experiences as you. And I've never had a GM forced to be a dick either, it's always a choice they make haha!

UnArcaneElection wrote:

In most cases, you probably want one Code of Conduct per deity, although deities like Norgorber would be obvious exceptions, and some deities might have Specialty Priests having additional Codes of Conduct.

You're probably right but I just liked the idea of allowing a cleric to not just be devoted to Pharasma but to, say, the undead-hating aspect of Pharasma, or to the preservation of knowledge of particular interest to her, or life, or whatever her other two domains are, and for them to have a functional difference they obtain at level 1 in exchange for those devotions that help differentiate their characters. (Eg. life devotion gains channel positive energy, knowledge devotion gets bardic knowledge instead of channel energy)

To emphasise my motive in posting here, I'm more interested in suggesting ideas than in suggesting ideas that are perfectly balanced right out of the gate. I love the more modular-feeling classes of Pathfinder, and if leveling up a cleric let you choose a class feature you got that emphasised the focus of your devotion (one option of which was Channel), and then could choose domain powers from the entire portfolio of your deity, and on top of that could then choose what kind of spell of each level you could cast spontaneously (maybe determined by your choice of particular devotion), I would probably love the class a lot more.

I also like the idea that a knowledge-devoted cleric of Pharasma would have the same channel-alternative class feature as a knowledge-devoted cleric of, say, Norgorber (and would have a reason to get along well together, at least as far as their interests aligned) but would have a different pool of revelation-esque domain powers to draw from.

Liberty's Edge

What is being described here sounds a lot like the occultist, with domains roughly equivalent to implements, implement schools and focus powers. Perhaps there's some inspiration to be drawn from there?


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Whatever you do, please give selective channel for free to clerics. It makes Amar for warpriests and paladins to have to take the feat. It's secondary for them. Clerics should get it free


An additional channel type every four levels and key channeling to WIS. Perhaps change channel to an aura.


Rashagar wrote:
Atarlost wrote:

RP should never be used to balance mechanics. It essentially forces the GM to be a dick to one player if the RP restriction is to have any balancing force.

Particularly since cleric is already the class someone is practically forced to play. A druid/shaman and oracle working together can pick up the slack, but oracle is already a terrible class for in character group dynamics. "Why is this guy in the group?" always needs an in character answer and almost all curses trigger normal instincts to keep invalids off of the front lines. An oracle entering at high level can offset that with competence, but in a game starting at 1st level there's almost no way that it's not better from both compassionate and self interested motives to send the cursed oracle to work in the temple and recruit someone who can consistently speak common, can hear, has two working legs, can see more than 30', doesn't appear to be falling apart, and isn't haunted by mischievous at best spirits, etc.

Maybe this is a table variance, or possibly a cultural difference, but I've very little idea what you're on about here. Do you consider a druid not being able to wear metal armour to be fine but oracle curses like only speaking a certain language in combat or having a slightly slower move speed to be terrible? Or are you also against the metal restriction on druids? I really don't follow. I also don't really agree with the "cleric being a class that someone is practically forced to play" part. I just don't have the same experiences as you. And I've never had a GM forced to be a dick either, it's always a choice they make haha!

A druid wears leather. An oracle is a cripple or a deaf mute or has severe cataracts or has some other pitiable weakness. We do not send cripples into battle. The two drawbacks are nothing alike. Cripples and deaf mutes and people with severe cataracts should not be sent into harms way. Occasionally people who are already high level have remained active, but a level 1 party is not going to get the adventuring equivalent of Horatio Nelson. And Nelson wouldn't have been permitted to continue serving in anything but a command or administrative role.

It's not the mechanics that make oracles completely unsuitable for adventuring. It's the RP. The druid, like the bard or rogue, doesn't wear certain armor. The oracle is disabled and just like disabled people aren't welcome in the military unless they already have a proven track record doing something their disability doesn't prevent, disabled people are not welcome in adventuring parties where everyone is making decisions in character.

Only the cleric provides all condition removal spells without a cripplingly low spells known limit or an access delay. The druid and shaman supply some, but at least one is only on the cleric/oracle list. If no one plays a cleric someone has to play an oracle and someone else a druid or shaman. Since people who actually care about roleplaying can't have oracles in low level parties without some extreme railroading forcing everyone to adventure together, someone must play a cleric.

And the GM isn't forced to be a dick over codes of conduct, but if he isn't a dick the code of conduct isn't doing anything to balance the class. A non-dickish GM will ignore everything on the druid code except the armor restriction. And, lo and behold, druids are overpowered. They wouldn't be overpowered if the GM were a dick and made them fall on any stupid excuse, but then the GM would have to be a dick. The same thing happens with paladins, but since they're martials they merely suck less than they otherwise would have.

You're proposing balancing clerics like druids. Any GM who isn't willing to be a dick will find them just as overpowered. Any GM who is willing to be a dick to his players is forced to single out whoever runs the cleric (or druid or paladin) to be a dick to them because they have codes of conduct.


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Atarlost wrote:

A druid wears leather. An oracle is a cripple or a deaf mute or has severe cataracts or has some other pitiable weakness. We do not send cripples into battle. The two drawbacks are nothing alike. Cripples and deaf mutes and people with severe cataracts should not be sent into harms way. Occasionally people who are already high level have remained active, but a level 1 party is not going to get the adventuring equivalent of Horatio Nelson. And Nelson wouldn't have been permitted to continue serving in anything but a command or administrative role.

It's not the mechanics that make oracles completely unsuitable for adventuring. It's the RP. The druid, like the bard or rogue, doesn't wear certain armor. The oracle is disabled and just like disabled people aren't welcome in the military unless they already have a proven track record doing something their disability doesn't prevent, disabled people are not welcome in adventuring parties where everyone is making decisions in character.

Only the cleric provides all condition removal spells without a cripplingly low spells known limit or an access delay. The druid and shaman supply some, but at least one is only on the cleric/oracle list. If no one plays a cleric someone has to play an oracle and someone else a druid or shaman. Since people who actually care about roleplaying can't have oracles in low level parties without some extreme railroading forcing everyone to adventure together, someone must play a cleric.

And the GM isn't forced to be a dick over codes of conduct, but if he isn't a dick the code of conduct isn't doing anything to balance the class. A non-dickish GM will ignore everything on the druid code except the armor restriction. And, lo and behold, druids are overpowered. They wouldn't be overpowered if the GM were a dick and made them fall on any stupid excuse, but then the GM would have to be a dick. The same thing happens with paladins, but since they're martials they merely suck less than they otherwise would have.

You're proposing balancing clerics like druids. Any GM who isn't willing to be a dick will find them just as overpowered. Any GM who is willing to be a dick to his players is forced to single out whoever runs the cleric (or druid or paladin) to be a dick to them because they have codes of conduct.

I just... disagree with everything you just said.

Everything.

That's quite rare for me.


Atarlost wrote:
RP should never be used to balance mechanics. It essentially forces the GM to be a dick to one player if the RP restriction is to have any balancing force.

I agree partly with this, and will add that this ia also a problem for Paladins as a base class (as opposed to making them a prestige class), but . . .

Atarlost wrote:
Particularly since cleric is already the class someone is practically forced to play. A druid/shaman and oracle working together can pick up the slack, but oracle is already a terrible class for in character group dynamics. "Why is this guy in the group?" always needs an in character answer and almost all curses trigger normal instincts to keep invalids off of the front lines. An oracle entering at high level can offset that with competence, but in a game starting at 1st level there's almost no way that it's not better from both compassionate and self interested motives to send the cursed oracle to work in the temple and recruit someone who can consistently speak common, can hear, has two working legs, can see more than 30', doesn't appear to be falling apart, and isn't haunted by mischievous at best spirits, etc.

This can be a problem, but not necessarily. In a world in which you might find pirates in service with peg legs and eyepatches (hey wait, this really happened on Earth as well!), other characters in the party might not like having to depend upon somebody who has a handicap like that, but see themselves as not having a choice Also, not all of the curses are that crippling, depending upon what else the character does. Even Haunted might not be noticed right away on an Oracle who mainly acts as a spellcaster and is careful to have items expected to be needed already in hand; a Lame Oracle -- well, see the note above about pirates; a Legalistic Oracle also might not be noticed for their Curse right away, and might be appreciated as somebody who really lives up to their promises; a Wasting Oracle might actually still get along okay in a party in which everybody else dumped Charisma; a Blackened or Wrecker (better yet, both) Oracle with Natural Weapons might be seen as rather powerful, although scary; etc.

Of the Oracle Curses that are not 3rd party, the ones that seem too severe to accept except in extreme or unusual circumstances are:

Clouded Vision (may be mitigated if you are always in very cramped quarters)
Cold-Blooded Lizardfolk (if not in a tropical area)
Consumed (unless you really pump Constitution hard)
Deaf (may be mitigated if you are in a group that uses sign language a lot -- I would have mentioned Drow as an example, except that they generally take ANY perceived weakness as an excuse to enslave or kill you)
Hunger (although the monsters among whom Oracles occur with this Curse might not see it that way)
Site-Bound (never mind what the rest of the party thinks -- you simply cannot follow them)


Rashagar wrote:
Atarlost wrote:
A druid wears leather. An oracle is a cripple or a deaf mute or has severe cataracts or has some other pitiable weakness. We do not send cripples into battle. The two drawbacks are nothing alike. Cripples and deaf mutes and people with severe cataracts should not be sent into harms way. Occasionally people who are already high level have remained active, but a level 1 party is not going to get the adventuring equivalent of Horatio Nelson. And Nelson wouldn't have been permitted to continue serving in anything but a command or administrative role[...]

I just... disagree with everything you just said.

Everything.
That's quite rare for me.

I also complete disagree with the vast majority of this, and sort of feel like ranting about it, but instead I'll just say that we aren't talking about soldiers (though we *could* because disabled people have always fought just like anyone else), we are talking about adventurers and heroes - you are literally saying you do not believe disabled people can be heroic or contribute to a party - and the freaking oracle has phenomenal cosmic power!

I *do* however agree that code of conduct/RP is not game balance, but don't think that Oracle Curses and Armor and weapon restrictions are the same thing.

That said, back to Rash's original post - I like a lot of this, however I think you might be cutting a little too close to the Oracle itself. I don't think we're that well served by precisely duplicating the structure of the class in terms of revelations and a curse-like ability. I think that would both dilute what makes the oracle original and cool (which including revelations does regardless, really, which is one of my concerns about it)

Breaking down the 'revelations' per domain is something I have considered, however my worry is that Mysteries have an extremely strong flavor and focus - an Oracle of "The Heavens" is a very flavorful and specific thing.

While Godss are likewise interesting and specific, domains aren't, and I think mashing up revelations will make the cleric feel messy.

I think Shaman hexes might actually be a better point of reference for the 'revelation' ability - they get a core set of hexes that are available to all or most shamans, and then they get two 'half mysteries'+domain (5 revelations each, minor medium and major domain power-equivalents).

I'm thinking, what if each domain gives ~2-4 revelations (they might keep their domain powers, they might not) - clerics pick one or two domains at 1st/low level, and perhaps get an additional domain or two as they advance - perhaps a flexible/pledged domain, perhaps they just make fixed choices.

What if, for your primary domain you get the lesser & greater (and perhaps another high level power) automatically, as well as access to 3 revelations. At 4th(?) & ~12th you get another domain, and you get the 1st level powers of that/those domain(s), access to the domain revelations, and perhaps you can select the greater and supreme domain powers as revelations.

You get the 'domain spells' (to be expanded) of all your deity's domains on your list regardless.


Arnakalar wrote:
I think Shaman hexes might actually be a better point of reference

Heh I'll be honest, I've only ever looked at the shaman from the point of view of making a spirit guide oracle. I don't know why it failed to grab me when it came out, since I love witches, oracles and druids it should have been perfectly aligned with my interests.

Arnakalar wrote:

Breaking down the 'revelations' per domain is something I have considered, however my worry is that Mysteries have an extremely strong flavor and focus - an Oracle of "The Heavens" is a very flavorful and specific thing.

While Gods are likewise interesting and specific, domains aren't, and I think mashing up revelations will make the cleric feel messy.

I can imagine this happening alright.

I'd love to see clerics gaining the option to access features of a god's entire portfolio rather than just two domains.
But I admit that taking domain powers from 5 different domains could make a character feel all over the place, and the water domain's powers needing to simultaneously feel suitably Pharasma...n and Gozreh...ful could be awkward when trying to make them also gel nicely with the other 4 domains of each of those deities to make one functional/flavourful "mystery" per deity.
Maybe all domain spell access is enough to accomplish this.

And I'd love to see clerics able to swap out channel energy (and choice of spells to cast spontaneously) if they want for a different class feature that emphasises a different primary/secondary role. I thought having the primary/focused/whatever domain strengthen the choice of role could be a nice way to do it rather than via archetypes so that the versatility is built into the base class, and I used curses as an example because I thought it'd be good if they scaled in power with the levels of cleric, the way channel energy does, but introduced the possibility of small mechanical limitations over the current base class to help define that role even further. (since limitations are what define roles)
But I can also see how it could make clerics lose some of what makes them stand out from other classes. They have so little of that as it is.

Arnakalar wrote:

I'm thinking, what if each domain gives ~2-4 revelations (they might keep their domain powers, they might not) - clerics pick one or two domains at 1st/low level, and perhaps get an additional domain or two as they advance - perhaps a flexible/pledged domain, perhaps they just make fixed choices.

What if, for your primary domain you get the lesser & greater (and perhaps another high level power) automatically, as well as access to 3 revelations. At 4th(?) & ~12th you get another domain, and you get the 1st level powers of that/those domain(s), access to the domain revelations, and perhaps you can select the greater and supreme domain powers as revelations.

It sounds like this would accomplish most of what I'd want from an unchained cleric while resulting in a slightly neater end character than what I laid out.

Out of curiosity, do you consider all clerics having channel energy to be something that defines clerics and should continue to define unchained clerics? I mean, right now it defines clerics in that it's nearly the only class feature they have. But since this mental exercise is adding more class features to enable more variation between clerics, I'm curious if you see channel as something that should continue to define the unchained variant or not.

Shisumo wrote:
What is being described here sounds a lot like the occultist, with domains roughly equivalent to implements, implement schools and focus powers. Perhaps there's some inspiration to be drawn from there?

I tried reading the occultist after you mentioned this (haven't looked at any of the new classes outside kineticist) but I had to put it on the list of things to come back to when my brain was less tired hehe. It did look interesting.


Arnakalar wrote:


Breaking down the 'revelations' per domain is something I have considered, however my worry is that Mysteries have an extremely strong flavor and focus - an Oracle of "The Heavens" is a very flavorful and specific thing.

While Godss are likewise interesting and specific, domains aren't, and I think mashing up revelations will make the cleric feel messy.

I think Shaman hexes might actually be a better point of reference for the 'revelation' ability - they get a core set of hexes that are available to all or most shamans, and then they get two 'half mysteries'+domain (5 revelations each, minor medium and major domain power-equivalents).

I'm thinking, what if each domain gives ~2-4 revelations (they might keep their domain powers, they might not) - clerics pick one or two domains at 1st/low level, and perhaps get an additional domain or two as they advance - perhaps a flexible/pledged domain, perhaps they just make fixed choices.

What if, for your primary domain you get the lesser & greater (and perhaps another high level power) automatically, as well as access to 3 revelations. At 4th(?) & ~12th you get another domain, and you get the 1st level powers of that/those domain(s), access to the domain revelations, and perhaps you can select the greater and supreme domain powers as revelations.

You get the 'domain spells' (to be expanded) of all your deity's domains on your list regardless.

So basically everything I suggested about a week ago. It isn't complete, but it should give you a starting framework.


By the way, in case anyone didn't notice, Paizo already has a precedent for Clerics completely trading out Channel Energy -- the Forgemaster Cleric (Dwarven archetype) does this.


2ndGenerationCleric wrote:
Whatever you do, please give selective channel for free to clerics. It makes Amar for warpriests and paladins to have to take the feat. It's secondary for them. Clerics should get it free
Rashagar wrote:
Out of curiosity, do you consider all clerics having channel energy to be something that defines clerics and should continue to define unchained clerics? I mean, right now it defines clerics in that it's nearly the only class feature they have. But since this mental exercise is adding more class features to enable more variation between clerics, I'm curious if you see channel as something that should continue to define the unchained variant or not.

Channel energy needs work. W/r/t selective, etc - Clerics shouldn't need bonus feats to fix a mediocre ability. While Channel Energy is (at least to me), cool, one of the major problems with it is that on top of poor scaling/etc, it's not even *interesting*. Channel is almost never a cool or interesting tactical choice without disproportionate investment.

I love the idea of channel energy because it really strikes the cord of the cleric as a conduit for the raw, divine power of their god. Channel invokes for me from LoTR when Gandalf throws off the mantle of 'Gandalf the weird old dude' for that of an Istari, when Galadriel faces the ring, or when Frodo commands Gollum with the Ring - "and before [Gollum] stood [Frodo,] stern, untouchable now by pity, a figure robed in white, but at its breast it held a wheel of fire. Out of the fire there spoke a commanding voice. "Begone, and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom."

It is the point in myth when a mortal figure suddenly takes on a divine aspect.

What I would want to do is totally tear down and restructure the ability from the ground up - things I do like about channel are the AoE aspect, because abilities that interact with space/allies/enemies are more tactical, more party oriented, etc. While I wouldn't immediately write off uses of Channel to give yourself effects, I think the core of the ability should be a standard action AoE; Channel should be effective, it should be God/Domain specific; there should be support and offensive versions, but all gods should offer both as a rule.

Some channel powers will affect only allies/enemies, or only a certain number of targets, while others will be indiscriminate.

Talents/Revelations will exist that give you alternate uses of your channel ability, or alter it's function - for example making it a swift-action, single target power instead of an AoE.

There will be either talents/revelations, a subclass feature, or archetypes that let to totally swap out or alter your channel (as UnArcane mentioned) to support alternate builds/roles than you normally would - e.g. the 'subclass' roles I and others brought up above.

Channel will have no intrinsic relationship whatsoever to positive or negative energy - this makes no sense. They may or may not draw on the Variant Channel abilities (the interesting ones probably will, the stupid ones probably won't. Variant channeling was an improvement overall but ultimate a mess, and a fix tacked onto a broken ability).

Re:Dependent attribute: I like Cha. There is a clear move in Paizo's design philosophy of trying to make primary casters less SAD - every full caster that has been written since the APG that has any sort of pool power, or secondary feature, bases that feature off something other than their casting stat.

On that note though, what if instead of being Cha dependant, gods have a 'favored attribute' (or called whatever) - similar to Psychic Disciplines, that determines the secondary attribute for these effects. You could have Kn deities with Int as secondary... possibly physical stats, but the problem I see with both of these options is that it incentivises min-maxing for int or brawn or whatever. Thinking about it it probably wouldn't work - rather, different builds will likely invest in class features to a different degree just like any other class. A more 'war-like' cleric isn't going to need as high a wis or cha, and might not invest heavily in those - but also, for you 'All Caster All Day!' folks, requiring Cha dis-incentivizes martial, as a casty cleric can afford an ok cha, but if you *also* need str, dex, and con you're stretched much thinner.

Current prototype
Channel Divinity [to steal the 5e name]: A cleric possess a link to divine power they may use to unleash the powers of their god. At 1st level, the cleric chooses one of the channel abilities granted by their deity. Channeling is a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity. If a channel effect requires a save, the DC is equal to ½ the cleric’s level + their charisma modifier. A cleric can channel divinity a number of times per day equal to ½ their cleric level (minimum 1) + their charisma modifier.

Examples Here


Probably the anti-optimal time of the diurnal cycle to engage in thread necromancy, but I keep forgetting this during more optimal times:

One thing to consider for a d6 HD, 1/2 BAB divine caster would be Arcanist-style spellcasting and Exploits (although it would probably be best to use a different name for this).

Also, in case anybody didn't notice, Ultimate Intrigue has introduce the Cardinal(*) archetype of Cleric, which has 1/2 BAB (not sure about d6 HD) and no Medium Armor, which in exchange gets a bunch of skill ranks per level, and also has some other trades.

(*)Weird choice of name for something that you can be at character level 1, even given its intended political intrigue purpose, since over here on Earth that refers to the highest rank in the Catholic Church short of Pope . . . Uh, maybe they named it after the bird . . . ?


Tired old record that I am...

Yet another dismal attempt at a cleric archetype with the Cardinal.

And yes the name is pretty weird too.....

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Maybe it will help when you read the description of the archetype. It's a cleric that becomes the political face of his church, so he gets extra skill points to facilitate his social role. If you're looking for a pure caster cleric, that's not the goal of this archetype.


If we are going to borrow traits from other classes, maybe the unchained summoner would be a good place to look. Assign each god an outsider type. The cleric of that god gets the familiar level outsider of that type, and instead of evolution points, the outsider molts into a more powerful outsider of the type (following a standard progression per god) as the cleric levels up, and the outsider gives the cleric his/her spells.


Why not just a familiar?


Mechagamera wrote:
If we are going to borrow traits from other classes, maybe the unchained summoner would be a good place to look. Assign each god an outsider type. The cleric of that god gets the familiar level outsider of that type, and instead of evolution points, the outsider molts into a more powerful outsider of the type (following a standard progression per god) as the cleric levels up, and the outsider gives the cleric his/her spells.

Actually not a bad idea . . . Giving the Outsider Familiar at 1st level would probably be too much, but some sort of automatic upgrade like a reskinned version of what Chosen One Paladin gets might be in order. Although automatically upgrading further might be clumsy, since Familiars serve a different niche than Eidolons (although archetypes allow for a bit of overlap).


I am not opposed to a familiar. To justify the unchaining, I think it needs to do something sufficiently different then the original class, so a familiar in itself would only be a start. Maybe instead of channeling energy, the cleric could channel the outsider type while the familiar was in close proximity. So if you were high enough level, you could channel a planetar's spell like ability of earthquake (1/day) through your cassisian familiar, as an SLA.......that will still give a lot of healing for the good types, and it would be justification for making some more outsiders to fill any holes in the levels, so it would be a win for GM's too.


this topic has been going on since first edition... yes ADnD.

As a class Cleric isn't that bad. You don't see too many rants about nerfing clerics like you do about power creep with wizards. *sigh* So I'd leave cleric alone and name your class(es) something else. Unchained Cleric is fine, but what are you unchaining?

I think yall are too much in the box as it were. There are such a range of powers to model and basically you are mixing around some existing mechanics. So if that's unchaining, then fine... gestalt away... I have no problem with that, you just need a list level by level of what is gained.

Honestly, run some 1st and second edition. Try forgotten realms, arcanis, dark sun, ravenloft. Run call of cthulhu, stormbringer, runequest, champions, rolemaster, gurps...


I have pitched theism rules from RQ6 ITT already. It's a big thread you are late to.


The problem isn't the Cleric's power level, which is in the high end of the spectrum but not the absolute top. The problem is that the Cleric tends to be boring.


UnArcaneElection wrote:

The problem isn't the Cleric's power level, which is in the high end of the spectrum but not the absolute top. The problem is that the Cleric tends to be boring.

The problem is that a lot of people seem to want to make the cleric more interesting by removing the options that make it a somewhat dull PC class instead of boring even by NPC standards.

There's this delusion some people seem to have that casting is powerful or interesting. It's not. Spell lists, not the number of levels, is what makes a caster and the cleric list is boring and weak. They spend most of a 9 level list on being a portable version of the NPC who waves his hands and lets your PCs go back out instead of retiring after the first arrow to the knee and being a fighter with bad action economy. What they have beyond that is mostly either as weak as something about 2/3 its level would be on an arcane list or summon monster.

Healing is a hack to allow the party to keep adventuring. It's not a credit to the cleric, it's a tax on the party that says someone needs to play a cleric.

Dropping the cleric to warpriest level gives them a 6 level list not much better than the bloodrager's 4 level list and delayed access to the spells that let the party keep adventuring.

And there's already a 1/2 BAB pure casting cleric. It's called the witch. Witches get their power from an outsider patron, just like clerics. Patrons do everything people complain domains don't. All they lack is a mapping of patrons to deities and an alignment aura.


I think the options in this thread has been limiting and focusing the cleric's casting to make it a more interesting full caster - like every other full caster.


If you cut back the spellcasting, you add a bunch of class features (compare Magus to Wizard or even Warpriest to Cleric). If you want to add class features without cutting back on the spellcasting (at least in general power progression -- this is not to exclude adjustment of the spell list), then you need to rework something else -- hence the call for a d6 HD, 1/2 BAB divine caster with less martial stuff on it. Witch is a possible alternate chassis for this, but the particulars seem geared (mostly) towards being something other than a divine caster, including in the choice of spell list (whose semi-arcane nature is designed to blend with the Hexing that a Witch does -- and if you change THAT, you need to do enough other adjustments that you might as well use a chassis designed for d6 HD, 1/2 BAB divine casting from the ground up). Still, keep it in the back of your mind -- a Divine Witch archetype would not necessarily be a bad thing, and could have some significant niche uses (in Rahadoum, for example -- sneak past the First Law).


I'm relatively new to PF but I do think the cleric needs a rework:

Problem
1) Cleric is still held back by the original D&D concept of being able to fight and cast - understandable at the time but far less so now
2) Martial role for cleric now better suited to Warpriest, Inquisitor and battle Oracle... this makes part of the class design now redundant.
3) Reluctance when designing archetypes for designers to sacrifice martial aspects and even more significantly channeling - this restricts opportunities for interesting designs
4) Mistaken perception that reworking cleric = making cleric more powerful

Personally I think there are loads of ways you could go about it... its not that hard!


UnArcaneElection wrote:

If you cut back the spellcasting, you add a bunch of class features (compare Magus to Wizard or even Warpriest to Cleric). If you want to add class features without cutting back on the spellcasting (at least in general power progression -- this is not to exclude adjustment of the spell list), then you need to rework something else -- hence the call for a d6 HD, 1/2 BAB divine caster with less martial stuff on it.

There's plenty of slack if you stop overvaluing the cleric spell list. The bulk of the cleric list isn't there for the benefit of the cleric, it's for the benefit of GMs who can't be satisfied with using the sorts of threats that the rest of the party is potentially competent to handle. It's a hack because Gygax made undead too nasty and fun destroying and nobody has ever been willing to take a serious look at why such mechanics should continue to exist. It's like having a class ability that says you have to be the one who pays for pizza.

Liberty's Edge

Just wanted to jump in here ... folks looking for a cleric/divine type of class with low BAB and HD, full 9th level cleric casting, simple weapons, no armor, better channeling, and other interesting divine abilities ... the 'robed holy man' so to speak ...

I'd like to present the just released New Paths 9: The Priest from Kobold Press!

Features things like:

  • Access to more domains and the ability to cast more than one domain spell
  • Full divine (cleric/oracle) spell casting using a unique casting mechanic
  • More domains and can cast either 1 or 2 bonus domain spells per
  • Divine Gift class ability which allows the priest to perform various divine acts at a moments notice
  • Improved Channeling
  • Sacred Bond
  • New feats (including Powerful Channel)
  • A new archetype: Chosen of Nature
  • ... and more

For those looking for this type of class, please check it out.

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