DrTeeth's page

I absolutely love the idea of the class presented here (Making divine casters have more to do with their specific domains has long been a goal of mine), but I'm a little bit worried about balance. Some of the abilities look a little too good (like the Healing domain one that let's you heal a creature back to full by expending a channel).

Has anyone played a Divine Channeler in their Pathfinder campaign (or been at a game where one was played)? How did you find the balance/power level compared to a vanilla Pathfinder Cleric and compared to the other members of your party?

You took away the animal companion. Right off that concerns me. Druidic animal companions are a critical balance factor and they provide tactical options that make Thinkers get excited. Removing that class feature makes me wonder why you didn't base this on a Cleric instead.

By making the "Wildshape" feature have a penalty to class level you've introduced a wrinkle that may be often overlooked. Why did you do this? Are those 2 levels meaningful?

I, too, am not sure these two criticisms are quite fair.

Ryan, are you aware that getting a domain instead of an animal companion is a core option in Pathfinder? Your phrasing makes it sound like you think this is taking away a class feature altogether, when it is merely limiting the Druid's choice as to what form her Nature Bond will take.

Are you also aware that making the Wildshape ability have a penalty to class is one of the most frequent ways Paizo has used to balance new Druid archetypes? You sound as though you are confused as to why he did this, but it has strong precedent, as it was done in over half of Paizo's existing Druid archetypes.

When do you have time to take 10 ?

But taking 10 (unlike taking 20) doesn't assume repeated tries, and does not take any additional time over rolling.

My guess was that you would be able to take 10 unless there were specific distractions/dangers (horrible weather, monsters hot on your trail, etc), unless you count the idea of not finding enough food to be a danger itself. Which is what I'm wondering about.

Two quick questions on using survival to get by in the wilderness (find food + water, etc.):

1) Are there really no modifiers to the DC for different terrain types? Is it just as easy to find food and water in the desert as in a temperate forest by RAW? Or am I missing something?
1a) If that's true, has anyone come up with some alternate/optional rules for changing up the DCs based on terrain type?

2) Can you take 10 on the survival check to find food and water?

Thanks everyone!

I'm looking to houserule my campaign to increase the influence a cleric's domain has over their capabilities. I've always found it silly that a cleric of a non-evil deity, even if that deity was the god of war or storms or whatever, got a bunch of healing spells they could cast spontaneously and the ability to hurt undead. I want to give my clerics more of a flavor of their individual gods and less generic healing. Pathfinder's domains are great, but I want to take it a little further. I'm very familiar with 3.5, but haven't played any Pathfinder yet so I'm looking for some advice on making some changes without altering the power level of the Cleric too drastically.

One thing I was thinking of doing is changing the spontaneous casting feature so that a cleric could spontaneously cast their Domain spells instead of Cure spells. Thoughts? Too powerful? Huge nerf? Unforeseen consequences?

Another thing I'd like to consider is swapping out the Cleric's Channel Energy class feature for something a bit more specific to their particular god/domain. Any ideas on what? How powerful is the Channel Energy feature considered, generally?