Clerical Domains


Races & Classes

Liberty's Edge

Am I right in thinking that the Cleric gets both of these powers to use every day? I'm just confused because in 3.5 you got two domains, but had to pick one spell...this seems more fun in that you get to do more stuff with your character.

Thanks,

Scott


AFAIK you get both but can only use one at a time.


revshafer wrote:

Am I right in thinking that the Cleric gets both of these powers to use every day? I'm just confused because in 3.5 you got two domains, but had to pick one spell...this seems more fun in that you get to do more stuff with your character.

Thanks,

Scott

I believe you get both domain powers for the day. It doesn't say you have to choose, and considering you don't get as many powers as you do spells in the current domain system, I don't see why not.


do we have an offical answer to this?

Paizo Employee Director of Game Design

You do not choose anymore. You get both. This is why we cut the number of powers for domains in relation to the powers for arcane schools. In the end, it is relatively close to a wash when you take domain powers into consideration.

There is a bit of a power increase here, but most of it is in reusable powers that allow the cleric to participate as a cleric longer, rather than being forced to join in as a poor fighter during the early levels.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Liberty's Edge

Wow! I love this change! Thanks,


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

We converted a cleric of Desna and I feel very uncomfortable about the resulting mechanics. One of my real difficulties with 3.5 is the memory burden of tracking things like bonuses and durations. My cleric now has two distinctly different powers (Liberation and Luck) which are at-will, but can only benefit any given target once per day.

(1) I now have to keep a daily list of every PC and allied NPC, to make sure I don't double-use a power.

(2) The two powers have different ranges (one is 30', one is touch) and durations (one is 1 round, one is 3 rounds) as well as different effects. This isn't much trouble in itself, but it's just another incremental complexity increase.

(3) Combined with the new turning rules, these powers make my decision to have a Charisma 12 cleric look worse and worse. One of the two powers (Inspiring Word) is in the annoying category of "The character should probably do this, but the bonus is so small the player doesn't really want to bother." For a Charisma 18 cleric, on the other hand, it would be a very big deal.

I understand the desire to give casters more to do at low level, but I really did not want more small bonuses to track, and point #1 is particularly worrisome to me. I think I am going to ask to convert the cleric back to 3.5.

Disclaimer: this is a one-player, multiple-PC game, so memory burden is more significant to us than to players in more conventional games.

Mary


This thread looked like it was touching on a topic close to my question to I am adding it here.

Am I correct in interpreting the rules of the cleric domain 1st level power, for example Fire Domain's Fire Bolt, as having an unlimited number of uses per day?


Caelinae wrote:

This thread looked like it was touching on a topic close to my question to I am adding it here.

Am I correct in interpreting the rules of the cleric domain 1st level power, for example Fire Domain's Fire Bolt, as having an unlimited number of uses per day?

That's how I read it as well. Not sure I like that domain power. One, it makes fire a better combat choice than other domains, and with two domains, means that gods interested in fire will likely inspire a lot of adventurers.

The other reason I'm not sure I like the unlimited aspect of this is that it reverses one of the "checks" on the cleric, i.e. that at low level he doesn't have much effective combat magic (as check on the fact that he is an effective combatant and can wear armor).

Thanks for bringing that one up.

Liberty's Edge

Mary Yamato wrote:

(1) I now have to keep a daily list of every PC and allied NPC, to make sure I don't double-use a power.

(2) The two powers have different ranges (one is 30', one is touch) and durations (one is 1 round, one is 3 rounds) as well as different effects. This isn't much trouble in itself, but it's just another incremental complexity increase.

Disclaimer: this is a one-player, multiple-PC game, so memory burden is more significant to us than to players in more conventional games.

I'm guessing that your point about the memory burden is significant - while it really is a serious problem for you, I would guess it would be less so for other people. At the same time, however, I have to admit I'm not sure that the "at-will" nature of these powers is really achieving much - it's still limited per day, it's just that the limit is "how many buddies do I have" rather than an arbitrary fixed number. I'm not sure this is an improvement.

Mary Yamato wrote:
(3) Combined with the new turning rules, these powers make my decision to have a Charisma 12 cleric look worse and worse. One of the two powers (Inspiring Word) is in the annoying category of "The character should probably do this, but the bonus is so small the player doesn't really want to bother." For a Charisma 18 cleric, on the other hand, it would be a very big deal.

I did want to comment on this part, though: I, too, noticed that Pathfinder clerics are now two-stat casters - from an optimization standpoint, you need a very good reason not to have a Charisma almost as high as your Wisdom, thanks to the turning rules alone (and Extra Turning is almost a must-have as well, at least at lower levels). I'm slightly torn on this; I appreciate that MAD makes the class weaker, and clerics could use the slight nerfing, but it feels almost like fulfilling the role of "healbot" straitjackets you into a specific kind of build.

Having a non-divine-magic source of healing (say, through the Heal skill?) would allieviate some of this pressure, however.


Further question concerning the DC formula.

In the SRD the formula for Supernatural Abilities is:

10 + ½ the creature’s HD + the creature’s ability modifier (usually Charisma).

Yet in the Alpha 1 release the formula is:

10 + the spell's level + the caster's charisma modifier.

My question is why isn't the cleric's or druid's level calculated in the DCs instead of the spell's level?

My thoughts on this are that a supernatural ability from a 10th level cleric should be harder to resist than that from a 1st level cleric.

Liberty's Edge

Caelinae wrote:

Further question concerning the DC formula.

In the SRD the formula for Supernatural Abilities is:

10 + ½ the creature’s HD + the creature’s ability modifier (usually Charisma).

Yet in the Alpha 1 release the formula is:

10 + the spell's level + the caster's charisma modifier.

My question is why isn't the cleric's or druid's level calculated in the DCs instead of the spell's level?

My thoughts on this are that a supernatural ability from a 10th level cleric should be harder to resist than that from a 1st level cleric.

You're comparing apples and oranges here. Every supernatural ability granted by the domains is either no-save (the vast majority) or based on a spell, and so uses the spell's level for the save (I think I found three). The (Su) abilities are only the 1st and 8th level ones, however - the rest are spell-like abilities, and the SRD notes that "10 + the spell's level + the caster's charisma modifier" is, in fact, the standard calculation for (Sp) abilities.

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