|
As excited as I’ve been with everything else to do with Pathfinder RPG, the change in the way cleric domains are presented is just killing me. I’ve been waiting with each update in the rules for a return to the old domains, but with the release of the Beta and essentially no change in presentation I wanted to write this.
Being a cleric now kind of… well, sucks. To some degree that’s a visceral, subjective reaction, not unlike being jealous of a sibling at Christmas because they got better presents than you did. Clerics lost spells they can use per day from 3.X to Pathfinder (something that I never understood the need for, short of making a neat row of “4”s for 20th level clerics), although that happened to a lot of casting classes. Most classes got an improvement to hit dice- clerics didn’t (and they probably didn’t really need it). Other classes got all kinds of neat new or augmented abilities- new barbarian rage powers, rangers have favored terrain, sorcerers have bloodlines, etc.
What did clerics get?
When domains were changed, clerics got the shaft.
Domains are supposed to show a special connection between the priest and their deity. And it’s not that they don’t as presented in Pathfinder RPG, it’s that they seemed to show that connection a bit better in 3.X. And in the process of changing how that connection manifests, the cleric lost a lot of special abilities.
I’m going to look at the Plant domain to demonstrate my point. It’s a completely random domain, picked only because that’s what I opened my Player’s Handbook to just now.
So my cleric follows Erastil, and belongs to a church that serves a farming community. The cleric takes the Plant domain. Now, in 3.X, that gives my cleric two special qualities right out the gate. Because Erastil is lord over flora, my cleric has the power to share in that dominance of plant life, and can rebuke or command plant creature. More importantly, the cleric has learned about nature through his training, and this is reflected by adding Knowledge (nature) to his skill list. With Pathfinder Plant domain, that same cleric who serves the farming community does not learn about nature, does not show that immediate command over the plant kingdom. What he learns is to harden his fists for combat.
Right away I’m thinking, “Why does his special ability have to be combat oriented?”. This reminds me of the X-Men books, in that every mutation (except for poor Doug Ramsey) gives an offensive or defensive bonus in combat.*
At first level my cleric can cast Entangle one extra time per day. Again, this shows that special tie he has to the plant kingdom through his god. With Pathfinder, I get the same connection, but now I have to wait until second level.
At third level in 3.X he gets Barksin. He has to wait until fourth level for that in Pathfinder.
With 3.X, at fifth level he can cast Plant Growth, and seventh level he can cast Command Plants. He can never do either of these in Pathfinder. This is another time that the old domains worked so well. They allowed clerics to cast spells that were normally outside of their own spell lists, in this case a druid spell. There were other cases where the spell came from the arcane spell list, or were special spells unique to one deity. Those might not be gone now, but they are fewer and further between than they used to be. And that’s sad, because a lot of flavor is lost in that.
At eighth level, with the Pathfinder build, he gets the Bramble Armor special ability; something he wouldn’t get with 3.X. It’s a neat ability. But it takes eight levels for there to be an advantage in the new domain system over the old. It’s also the last time that happens.
Ninth level he gets Wall of Thorns with 3.X. He doesn’t get it in Pathfinder until twelfth.
The Pathfinder cleric never gets to use Repel Wood or Control Plants (they’re druid spells), but the 3.X cleric can at eleventh and fifteenth levels, respectively.
Maybe the worst hit to the cleric of Erastil is saved for last. With a 3.X build he’s able to cast ninth level spells at seventeenth level. At that point he can manifest Erastil’s divine power of plant life to cast Shambler, summoning shambling mounds to aid him. With Pathfinder he has to wait until twentieth level to do the same thing. And that seems rather anticlimactic- hitting the pinnacle of your class, and your reward is that you can conjure up the Parliament of Trees to perform guard duty. If first and eighth levels are so special, why shouldn’t the cleric gain something unique at twentieth? Why just a spell that other classes could cast three levels earlier?
I guess what this all leads to is my asking “Was the old domain system broken?”. If the change was made to just give more for the cleric to look forward to as he gained levels, I’d say that overall the change has failed. Access to spells that the cleric normally couldn’t cast shouldn’t be considered a throw-away ability. From that perspective, the cleric class has very few of those dead levels that Pathfinder set out to eliminate.
Of course, not everyone may see it the same way, so the suggested fix is to integrate the old and the new domain systems. Keep the domains as presented in the SRD (or OGL, or whatever) with the one twist that the cleric can cast each domain spell once per day (and it cannot be used for Automatic Casting), and add new abilities at a small number of set levels- first, eighth, and twentieth seem fine.
*Yeah, yeah, Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men, blah blah. Humor me.
As excited as I’ve been with everything else to do with Pathfinder RPG, the change in the way cleric domains are presented is just killing me. I’ve been waiting with each update in the rules for a return to the old domains, but with the release of the Beta and essentially no change in presentation I wanted to write this.
Being a cleric now kind of… well, sucks.
Clerics are still good because they have been excellent since 3.0 and the change to channel energy for clerics is great, - but I absolutely agree about domain abilities. This is a big dull step backwards. I will be houseruling this to essentially keep the spells as 3.5 (I like that they cast spells)and maybe get one or two of the unique abilities to 'pathfinder upsize' them.
|
|
Clerics are still good because they have been excellent since 3.0 and the change to channel energy for clerics is great, - but I absolutely agree about domain abilities. This is a big dull step backwards. I will be houseruling this to essentially keep the spells as 3.5 (I like that they cast spells)and maybe get one or two of the unique abilities to 'pathfinder upsize' them.
The change to channel energy is fantastic. But it set the bar pretty high for the cleric class, and otherwise the changes have been (I hate to say it) disappointing.
I know your pain.
I don't really get the rationale for the change either, and it isn't the most reverse compatible decision they've made. I never thought Domains were broken— the cleric's infinite spell list and some specific problem spells were the issues.
Very early in the life cycle of D&D 3 my group decided that defaulting to Cure/Cause was useful but sort of lame. We altered the rule so that Clerics could default to either of their domain spells instead, which left clerics with the Healing domain functioning as expected, but all the other Domains became incredibly atmospheric. It was my all-time favorite house rule, and it doesn't carry over to Pathfinder Domains at all.
My advice, however, is to print out the domains from the SRD, and just insert those pages into your Pathfinder Beta. They're still there, and they still work. So use them!
|
Contributor
|
...[a lot of things]...
You know, I'm not particularly hung up on the changes to the cleric, but I'll admit that's probably because I usually don't play them.
However, I think the OP's comments are some of the best thought-out, most eloquently stated arguments against an aspect of PFRPG that I've seen on these boards.
As someone who really doesn't have a strong opinion either way, I find that his points are very well taken. When described side-by-side with the original OGL cleric, the Pathfinder version does seem to lose something.
I love what PFRPG has done for sorcerers and wizards with the addition of bloodlines and school powers, and I absolutely think that clerics can benefit from similar treatment. However, I also think that there should be an attempt to balance the flavor/roleplay aspect of a character with the combat effectiveness of the same.
To me, the best thing about the change, though, is that I no longer have to keep track of both cleric spell lists and domain spell lists...and I don't want to give that up.
Perhaps the best way to handle this is to treat domains more like the schools of magic, but allow players to choose their bonus spells from other spell lists or to choose spells with certain descriptors (regardless of spell list), depending on the domain chosen.
Perhaps the best way to handle this is to treat domains more like the schools of magic, but allow players to choose their bonus spells from other spell lists or to choose spells with certain descriptors (regardless of spell list), depending on the domain chosen.
I like this idea, but only if the designers feel it is absolutely necessary to change cleric domains from 3.X. At first I liked the changes in the Alpha to cleric domains, but I've realized that there was nothing that I thought was broken about cleric domains in the first place. Some domains need some work because of being underpowered or just not that helpful (usually because of domain powers--like getting Survival as skill and nothing else with the weather domain or turning elementals with the four elemental domains), but there was nothing that seemed to need such a drastic overhaul.
I guess the only reason the designers felt that this change from 3.X was needed was to prevent dead levels; still, how it currently stands, having to drop spells from 3.X clerics and add these powers is not a part of conversion that I am going to enjoy, and many of my players already don't like it. For instance, I have already had one player during character creation look over the Glory domain power and spells from the SRD and then the Pathfinder Glory domain...his conclusion was that the domain used to be great, but it is not a domain he would take any more(he actually ended up picking a different deity because of this).
|
Very early in the life cycle of D&D 3 my group decided that defaulting to Cure/Cause was useful but sort of lame. We altered the rule so that Clerics could default to either of their domain spells instead, which left clerics with the Healing domain functioning as expected, but all the other Domains became incredibly atmospheric. It was my all-time favorite house rule, and it doesn't carry over to Pathfinder Domains at all.
My advice, however, is to print out the domains from the SRD, and just insert those pages into your Pathfinder Beta. They're still there, and they still work. So use them!
I agree. I'd do the same. Clerics are powerful to offset their passive role -healer/buffer/defender- in the group. That should be preserved.
By the way. Your houserule rocks. Seriously. I need to implement this!
To be fair I do think that the 3.5 domains are not well balanced. Travel, Luck, Magic, etc are all great (Travel overpowered IMO). The alignments , healing and some others (which generally get ignored because they suck) suck.
So for this reason tinkering was/is a good idea. I just dont like this tinker. It went beyond fix what was broken (some domains) and ended up lame. It's like they had a good idea for sorcerers and wizards so tacked on a simliar theme for clerics.
|
|
So for this reason tinkering was/is a good idea. I just dont like this tinker. It went beyond fix what was broken (some domains) and ended up lame. It's like they had a good idea for sorcerers and wizards so tacked on a simliar theme for clerics.
I'm not trying to slight Jason in the least- I promise I have nothing but respect for him undertaking this herculean task- but the revised domains seemed rushed, with change made for the sake of change. . The good news is, if enough people agree there needs to be a change to the way they're presented in the Beta, we have ten months to fix them.
To be fair I do think that the 3.5 domains are not well balanced. Travel, Luck, Magic, etc are all great (Travel overpowered IMO). The alignments , healing and some others (which generally get ignored because they suck) suck.
So for this reason tinkering was/is a good idea. I just dont like this tinker. It went beyond fix what was broken (some domains) and ended up lame. It's like they had a good idea for sorcerers and wizards so tacked on a simliar theme for clerics.
This is exactly how I feel...I guess I was just trying to be less direct in my post, but heck...many of the 3.X domains just suck and no player ever takes them! They needed to fix the ones that suck or are too powerful, not totally destroy the system. Still, I think they made a lot of these changes in the name of dead levels, not just the suckiness of some of the domains. But yes, what they ended up with is...well...um...sucky...
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
|
In my very subjective view, the cleric changes were a good thing, actually. The 3.5 Cleric is often viewed as the strongest base class (alongside with the druid), so toning them down a little is ok.
The revamped domains work well IMHO simply they lead to a stronger differentiation between different clerics. 3.5 kind of had a few "winners" and a lot of "losers" in that regard, and all the winners looked alike ;)
|
|
In my very subjective view, the cleric changes were a good thing, actually. The 3.5 Cleric is often viewed as the strongest base class (alongside with the druid), so toning them down a little is ok.
The revamped domains work well IMHO simply they lead to a stronger differentiation between different clerics. 3.5 kind of had a few "winners" and a lot of "losers" in that regard, and all the winners looked alike ;)
I agree. I do not know how many o you played living greyhawk,but if I saw one more cleric who had either Sun or Glory and Healing Domains or another travel/Luck cleric, I was going to pull out my hair. I like that the way they did it made it so that there was an equally likely chance that I will see A Good Domain Cleric who also had the Fire Domain.
For backwards compatability, I agree certain characters no longer work,but to my mind that's ok. The druid and cleric needed a bit of a downgrade and this seems to be a sufficient way to implement it.
Well, the biggest problem I have with the 'new' cleric is that he actually ain't fullfilling what Paizo wants to do. Paizo's aim with PRPG is to improve the base classes in such a way that one does stick to it instead of picking a PrC. But I still do not see why I should not pick a PrC after, at latest, 8th level.
The cleric went through some changes:
- Loss of one spell from the levels 1 to 5
- Turn Undead was changed to channel energy
- Domains do not give nine spells and a special power instead they give you two supernatural and five spell-like abilities
The best thing, of course, is the new channel energy which is really neat and sometimes the two supernatural domain abilities but aside from that I do not see why I should not be picking a PrC especially as there are PrCs that stack with the cleric class for Turn Undead (The Eye of Horus-Re, PGtF p. 54 - 56). If the 8th level supernatural ability is nice I will take the PrC right after that.
Another thing that annoys me is that some domains have spell-like abilities that are not on the cleric spell list and some domains don't. I cannot really be happy about getting a Summon Monster IX at 20th level as a domain power when I could get Elemental Swarm, Imprisonment, Shapechange, Wail of the Banshee, etc. Especially if you compare the domain powers to the school powers of the wizard.
Oh, no! The cleric... got nerfed? On of the Big Three classes from 3.5? A tiny bit weaker?
You poor *dear*. It's OK, you can cry. Just let it all out.
Stuff.
You LN from WoTC boards?
Stuff.You LN from WoTC boards?
Now, now, this isn't about me.
Now, now, this isn't about me.
One man's business is always another man's business, for we are all brothers and affect each other even without intent.
:)
Oh, no! The cleric... got nerfed? On of the Big Three classes from 3.5? A tiny bit weaker?
You poor *dear*. It's OK, you can cry. Just let it all out.
What do you consider the Big Three?
I always have considered clerics to be the most powerful class in 3.5 (rivalled only by the barbarian) but given the clerics role as a party support character I think this is adequate compensation if a player is playing co-operatively. Even with this power most groups I play with pick other classes before the cleric.
Pathfinder has given every other base class a power boost- but has reduced the power of clerics. I just think the new domain stuff is a bit dull.
Cleric, Druid and... probably Psion.
What do you consider the Big Three?
In core, Clerics, Druids, and Wizards.
I always have considered clerics to be the most powerful class in 3.5 (rivalled only by the barbarian) but given the clerics role as a party support character I think this is adequate compensation if a player is playing co-operatively. Even with this power most groups I play with pick other classes before the cleric.
Of those three, the Cleric is the weakest until very high levels, but it's still enormously powerful.
Pathfinder has given every other base class a power boost- but has reduced the power of clerics. I just think the new domain stuff is a bit dull.
I find that Pathfinder's approach to this is... well, it's like they know that dark, terrible things happen in the depths of the CharOp boards, but have little idea as to what those things actually are. OTOH, I last fully read through the Alpha; I'm reading the beta now.
I always thought that the 'big-three' in core were the Cleric, Druid, and Wizard.
I could be wrong, though.
Nah! It is Cleric, Druid, and DM!!! ~grins~
Cleric, Druid and... probably Psion.
The psion is a pale imitation of the Wizard. Still rather strong, but lacking the vast majority of the things (namely, the spells) that make wizards so powerful.
If non-core is included, the Artificer and Archivist are on the level of the core three.
What do you consider the Big Three?In core, Clerics, Druids, and Wizards.
I find that Pathfinder's approach to this is... well, it's like they know that dark, terrible things happen in the depths of the CharOp boards, but have little idea as to what those things actually are. OTOH, I last fully read through the Alpha; I'm reading the beta now.
I suspect you may be right about Pathfinders lack of interest in the CharOp boards (I too am ignorant. are they the places one goes to show ones clever/broken character power builds?)
I am surprised barbarians dont make the list.
I suspect you may be right about Pathfinders lack of interest in the CharOp boards (I too am ignorant. are they the places one goes to show ones clever/broken character power builds?)
I am surprised barbarians dont make the list.
The CharOp places are, fundamentally, the place one goes to show off optimized characters. However (at least until recently), they're full of people with a wealth of rules knowledge, and a fundamental understanding and a lot of experience with D&D. Dismissing them as "broken power-build makers" is a bad idea, because it disregards the years of rules discussion, power discussion.
The boards were not all about theoretical, as-powerful-as-possible builds (those got split off into their own "theoretical optimization" boards anyway). They provide ways to optimize, playably (that is, not "thousands of points of damage" or anything), various character concepts. They know what's strong, what's weak, what's broken, and where the rules break down. Reading them would have been worth the while of anyone with an interest in rules design.
Barbarians don't make the list because while they're an okay melee class, all they are is a melee class. Fundamentally, they make attack rolls vs. AC and do damage capped by their strength, their weapon, and Power Attack.
In comparison, a wizard does, more or less, anything he wants.
In comparison, a wizard does, more or less, anything he wants.
I hate 3.5 wizards. Good thing they rock, now. ;)
Unrelatedly, I just saw that Pathfinder has inexplicably IMPROVED Druids from their 3.5 status. They get Huge Wild Shape at 8th.
Seriously? I... just... SERIOUSLY, guys?! Druids. You made Druids better. Why would you do this? What could POSSIBLY inspire this action? There are not enough facepalms in the world. This is the worst game design decision since FATAL.
Well our DM Wellard just made a ruling that:
1) My druid can get the bonus spells for taking a domain if she sacrifices her Wildshape ability.
2) Clerics can take domain spells again if they sacrifice their armour proficiency above light armour.
We think that balances reasonably well!
Personally, I would have removed Wildshape and replaced it with spells if I were Paizo.
I never could fathom why the 3.x cleric is seen as overpowered, to be honest. Good armor, ok HD, medium BAB - they make an ok backup fighter, but cannot compare to "true" fighters (not that they should). A rogue with decent Dex can be a nearly equal combatant.
There are several spells that are quite powerful, yes, but I don´t see them as overpowering, as most of the spell power is used for supporting the other PCs by buffing or healing. For my personal game, I even gave them more skill points, as 2+bonus per level does not fit to my game. Turning undead had very limited use up to 3.5, so no big deal there either.
So, toning down the domains never struck me as necessary.
Stefan
I can't follow you here. Imho wild shape was nerfed quite a bit. Can you back that up with numbers?
Yeah, never mind. I just saw that it works as the Beast Shape spells.
On the one hand, this kind of fixes one of the problems with Wild Shape (enhancement bonuses not stat replacement). On the other, this still makes the druid hardcore in melee for no cost, gives him Pounce and etc. This also lets druids become flying spellcasting threats earlier, and might boost their Dex (and therefore Initiative) in the bargain. As much is gained as lost--Druids are better off summoning and casting than meleeing most of the time, really. So, yeah, not really helping.
Yeah, never mind. I just saw that it works as the Beast Shape spells.On the one hand, this kind of fixes one of the problems with Wild Shape (enhancement bonuses not stat replacement). On the other, this still makes the druid hardcore in melee for no cost, gives him Pounce and etc. This also lets druids become flying spellcasting threats earlier, and might boost their Dex (and therefore Initiative) in the bargain. As much is gained as lost--Druids are better off summoning and casting than meleeing most of the time, really. So, yeah, not really helping.
Huh? Druids aren't nearly as good at melee as before, and you're saying that "as much is gained as lost" because they can get Natural Spell at level 5 instead of level 6? That seems like a bit of an exaggeration.
Don't get me wrong -- druids are still strong. But one of the biggest complaints I saw repeated about 3.5 clerics/druids was that they can melee just as good as fighters.
I never could fathom why the 3.x cleric is seen as overpowered, to be honest. Good armor, ok HD, medium BAB - they make an ok backup fighter, but cannot compare to "true" fighters (not that they should). A rogue with decent Dex can be a nearly equal combatant.
At level 7, the cleric gets Divine Power, which gives him full BAB and a bigger enhancement bonus to strength than the Fighter's got from an item.
At level 9, he casts Divine Power and Quickened Divine Favor, getting +3 to hit/damage on top of Divine Power.He can also pick up various things like the +3 damage gauntlets or Holy Warrior feat from the Complete Champion.
If the cleric should happen to get a round or so *before* combat starts, he can pop off a Righteous Might to get even scarier.
By level 15, he's throwing up Quickened Divine Power + Righteous Might, with a Quickened Divine Favor the next turn.
At level 17, he gets Miracle, uses it to emulate Giant Size from the Wu Jen list or Bite of the Werebear from the Druid list, and GAME OVER, MAN, GAME OVER.
Keep in mind that the cleric does this with some of his spells. On top of that, he doesn't have the crippling weaknesses of the Fighter (because he can cast Air Walk and Freedom of Movement, has a Will save matched/exceeded only by Druids and no worse a Fort save, outside of core has Knight's Move for a swift-action teleport spell, can use Greater Magic Weapon and Magic Vestment, etc).
On top of that, he still has the rest of his spells! He's still a full caster! The Divine Power-Divine Favor-smash in melee is just a sideline, something he does when he's not throwing spells around!
But you want to be really scared? Make him a cleric-archer. War domain for a deity with the composite longbow or the Elf domain for an elf give you either bow proficiency or Point Blank Shot (take a Fighter level or something if you REALLY must).
A level 12 cleric-archer is casting Divine Power+Quickened Divine Favor for +3 to hit and +6 to damage over a normal full-BAB archer. He then gets another +6 damage from the Holy Warrior feat. He uses Greater Magic Weapon, so instead of a +3 bow he has a +1 Holybow. He's got Point Blank, Precise, and Rapid Shot...
...and to make matters worse, he can take Zen Archery, getting WIS to AB, meaning he can crank it and nothing else and be a top-notch spellcaster, too.
And he's not just powerful--he stomps on the role of the existing melee classes.
The Druid does this, too, and he's even better at it.
There are several spells that are quite powerful, yes, but I don´t see them as overpowering, as most of the spell power is used for supporting the other PCs by buffing or healing.
All the good cleric combat buffs (Divine Power, Divine Favor, Righteous Might) are Personal only. They buff themselves far better than they buff others.
So, toning down the domains never struck me as necessary.
Stefan
Toning down the domains doesn't deal with the actual problems, is my issue.
At level 7, the cleric gets Divine Power, which gives him full BAB and a bigger enhancement bonus to strength than the Fighter's got from an item.
At level 9, he casts Divine Power and Quickened Divine Favor, getting +3 to hit/damage on top of Divine Power.
Note that these Divine Power has been changed. It now provides a luck bonus to attacks (a la Divine Favor) and gives an extra attack (as per Haste) rather than increasing BAB.
Huh? Druids aren't nearly as good at melee as before, and you're saying that "as much is gained as lost" because they can get Natural Spell at level 5 instead of level 6? That seems like a bit of an exaggeration.
Don't get me wrong -- druids are still strong. But one of the biggest complaints I saw repeated about 3.5 clerics/druids was that they can melee just as good as fighters.
They can still melee very well--just not *effortlessly*. On top of that, while melee usurps the Fighter's role very directly and was good for proving a point, a druid who, say, casts Summon Nature's Ally IV or V from a flying Wild Shape and then hits it and his animal companion with Animal Growth, or who lets his buffed animal companion melee and casts spells like Plant Growth, Wall of Thorns, Baleful Polymorph, etc, will be more effective than the one who wades in himself.
They can still melee very well--just not *effortlessly*. On top of that, while melee usurps the Fighter's role very directly and was good for proving a point, a druid who, say, casts Summon Nature's Ally IV or V from a flying Wild Shape and then hits it and his animal companion with Animal Growth, or who lets his buffed animal companion melee and casts spells like Plant Growth, Wall of Thorns, Baleful Polymorph, etc, will be more effective than the one who wades in himself.
Right, but you could say the same thing about a flying wizard or sorcerer.
About the melee -- I honestly suggest you try playtesting it. I did, and I found that it's much less effective now unless you have a really strong druid.
Note that these Divine Power has been changed.
I was responding to "I don't get why the 3.x cleric was considered overpowered."
It now provides a luck bonus to attacks (a la Divine Favor) and gives an extra attack (as per Haste) rather than increasing BAB.
That'd be great, except now you get most of the goodies of both in one spell, since you're getting +6 to hit and damage at CL 18, and that extra attack before Speed weapons and such really come into play. That makes Divine Power a little less hardcore at lower levels, which is good, but for a cleric-archer this is even better than it was.
Right, but you could say the same thing about a flying wizard or sorcerer.About the melee -- I honestly suggest you try playtesting it. I did, and I found that it's much less effective now unless you have a really strong druid.
Summon Monster produces weaker melee brutes than Summon Nature's Ally. On top of that, the arcanist doesn't have an animal companion, prebuffed with Greater Magic Fang, Barkskin, and etc, to hit with the Animal Growth along with the summon.
Yes, you'd need to invest in Strength now to make a melee Druid. This is reminiscent of the PHB II Shapeshift Druid variant (which does *not* keep the animal companion), only this still grants more benefits. I have seen the Shapeshift Druid in play, and while it's not as good as the original Druid, it's still a melee threat. You do have to invest in STR when before you didn't, though.
some stuff about cleric spells being used to make powerful melee combatants
I didn't mean to dis the CharOp boards- I just had an impression (based on comments, but no visits) they were about how to min/max.
BTW would you consider the design you have presented to be 'optimization' or 'broken power build'?
I agree the cleric has got a massive upside. I have had problems with powerful melee based clerics builds (including archers) - but I have found that in most cases (not if the character has followed the melee design path)the spell power up lasts one combat so if you have a bunch of encounters it allows the cleric to step up once but mainatin its usual less dominant role at other times.
Fundamentally I dont see how making domain abilities (not really the stuff that you quoted as 'Danger Will Robinson' stuff)lamer is an appropriate balance element. If there is a problem with divine power combos then fix that (I havent playtested pathfinders fix of it but I quite like it - I have usually found most overpower problems come down to stacking issues- get rid of these and the spell does only what it should)