Bump!
I too am interested in someone else's interpretation of this conflicting language in the Cleric domains and Wizard specialization. If I was a level 5 Wizard and say, the rest of my levels were X prestige class that increased my caster level and granted arcane spellcasting progression what abilities from my specialty would I gain?
It seems relatively clear that you don't get the bonus spells if you're no longer in the Wizard class. The table for the abilities says Caster Level and the table for the Wizard class says school power but lists outdated levels for when those powers as gained. Which one is right?
The same problem exists with Cleric domain powers.
Also in line with Tadpole's post - does anyone else feel like the new Cleric domains, while interesting, break domain backward compatibility pretty heavily? Unless you're willing to convert every other domain to have new special abilities there's going to be a lot of clerics with quirky, mismatched domains. Just imagine the Sovereign Speaker now!
In 3.5 if you are granted another domain during game play, you get all of it's abilities. This case is no different, as far as I can tell.
3.5 domains used Caster level as well: It just gave you bonus spells, even if you classed out of cleric.
I had a nice long post that was eaten.
In short: If Pathfinder makes it's own content so desirable that it trounces other source material they will have failed at making a complete upgrade to the system.
It's better that they be equal with the power of some prc classes and leave it at that. You don't take a PrC because you want to stop advancing in your domain, you take one to get different class abilities that you normally would get from the base class.
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The cleric’s (or druid’s) level is used when determining the caster level of these effects.Ok, it's a bit ambiguous but ignoring the "caster level" bit from the tables you could come to the conclusion that domain powers(and arcane schools too) are dependant on the respective class level and not caster level.
This should be remembered until the appropriate design&feedback forum opens.
I don't think it's ambiguous. The caster level of the domain abilities (which needs to be determined for things like duration and saving throw) are equal to the cleric's class level, not his divine caster level.
If the cleric takes levels in a PrC that advances only his divine caster level then his domain abilities do not advance (unless the PrC specifically says that they do).
The way I understand the rules would be that taking a prestige class that increased your caster level would increase the effectiveness (times/day, level-dependent stats like duration, damage, etc.) but you would not gain anymore of the abilities.
With wizards it would be a little more tedious because most of the specialist's "bonus abilities" at first level are class-dependent, so for example a Conjurer would not increase his AC bonus for the levels he took in a prestige class.
Clerical domains (and the addition of them) would also be interesting. For example, if you took two levels of the Soveriegn Speaker prestige class (Eberron), you gain two additional Domains. Consider a Cleric 8/Speaker 2 for this. I read it as the character would gain any of the abilities from the additional Domains that are 8th level and below and since his caster level would be 9 that would be 4 first level abilities, 4 2nd level abilities usable 4 times per day each, 4 4th level abilities usable 1/day each, and 4 8th level abilities. However, his Channel Energy ability would be stuck at 4d6 with a DC of 14+CHR.
So the cleric, by taking a Prestige class is giving up a more powerful Channel Energy ability and higher level Domain abilities. If the Prestige class grants the Turn Undead ability, then I would assume it would stack with the Cleric Channel Energy ability for determining the level.
Now, what I would like to see is that any Domain's granted by the prestige class would count both the Cleric levels and the prestige class levels for determining the abilities gained. I'm not sure if it should work the other way. If a PRC grants the Healing Domain, should it also advance the War and Travel domsins the character took as a Cleric, for example? Of course, this could very well be too much of a bonus for trading Channel Energy effectiveness though....
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Also in line with Tadpole's post - does anyone else feel like the new Cleric domains, while interesting, break domain backward compatibility pretty heavily? Unless you're willing to convert every other domain to have new special abilities there's going to be a lot of clerics with quirky, mismatched domains. Just imagine the Sovereign Speaker now!
i like them
just leveled to 2nd level and loved the domain benefits for Glory and Sun Domain, they actually giveme the chance to prepare things a bit differently :)and yes i think you should not continue earnign class abilities weither Domain or school if you move into a prestigue class or another spellcasting class
You take a PrC theorectically to advance some abilities at the cost of others. The plain fact is that under 3.5 the PrC's were made too well, so well in fact that the 20th level base class player became more rare then hen's teeth.
I agree with you, but pathfinder clerics are as they are written at the moment hardly compatible with any prestige class from any source. The problem is that the designers did not separate the class powers from Spell casting abilities (Caster Level).
If I create a cleric or a wizard according to the beta rule book I get the class abilities (domain powers and school powers) even if I switch to a prestige class that gives caster levels. This can not be an intended mechanic as I pointed out above.
This is something that needs some attention when we talk about Classes multi classes and prestige classes in Pathfinder.
this is not true
Domain powers and Schools are not tied to spellcasting, are Class Features... you only earn them when you earn either a level in wizard or in cleric... please don't getr confused and check the books again
if you get a prestigue class, you won't earn the domain or school powers
i am sure, i just leveled yesterday and checked how it worked (not that i am taking any rpestigue class now or in a lot of time)
Clerical domains (and the addition of them) would also be interesting. For example, if you took two levels of the Soveriegn Speaker prestige class (Eberron), you gain two additional Domains. Consider a Cleric 8/Speaker 2 for this. I read it as the character would gain any of the abilities from the additional Domains that are 8th level and below and since his caster level would be 9 that would be 4 first level abilities, 4 2nd level abilities usable 4 times per day each, 4 4th level abilities usable 1/day each, and 4 8th level abilities. However, his Channel Energy ability would be stuck at 4d6 with a DC of 14+CHR.
So the cleric, by taking a Prestige class is giving up a more powerful Channel Energy ability and higher level Domain abilities. If the Prestige class grants the Turn Undead ability, then I would assume it would stack with the Cleric Channel Energy ability for determining the level.
Now, what I would like to see is that any Domain's granted by the prestige class would count both the Cleric levels and the prestige class levels for determining the abilities gained. I'm not sure if it should work the other way. If a PRC grants the Healing Domain, should it also advance the War and Travel domsins the character took as a Cleric, for example? Of course, this could very well be too much of a bonus for trading Channel Energy effectiveness though....
ifa prestigue class gives a domain i believe it will betaken in consideration the Prestigue Class level, so they will earn ONLY the 1st elvel power of said domain, not up to the class level
also they will earn no more domains powers from their base domains until they leveled in cleric... the cost of versatility is that you are not as powerful as if you specialiced...
and prestigue classes are very niche thing so i suppose its normal that it grows slowly
YES the prestigue classes that give bonuses to turn udnead would stack in Positive/negative channelingin the same way it would otherwise do in the original turn undead
Well, we will probably have to houserule something in our campaign until there is an official answer. I'm completely with the idea that PRCs wouldn't advance the domain abilities. However, I feel that if the prestige class grants an extra domain, then the abilities of that domain should be based on the Cleric levels and the PRC levels. Just makes more sense to me, and hopefully to my DM :)
I know Paizo can't take everything non-OGL into account and in all reality we will have to come up with some houserules of our own. It just seems that the Clerics are going to be the biggest issue for backwards compatibility when it comes to Prestige classes due to their Domains....
This has been a big issue with my group.
I rule that (using Cleric as an example):
Level dependent effects are based on your full caster level. [not what the book says, but I'm a softy this way - a 16th level Cleric with 6th level abilities is too weak to be competitive.]
The abilities are gained based on your actual Cleric levels.
If the new PrC grants a domain, then you use the levels in the PrC plus your levels in Cleric to determine abilities gained. The power is based on your full caster level.
This means that a Cleric who dipped into two different PrCs that each give spellcasting and domains would have X level abilities for his base domains, X+Y level abilities for another domain, and X+Z level abilites for his next domain. All powers would operate at full caster level. X=Cleric levels, Y=first PrC level, Z=second PrC level.
Basically, the PrC text will need to be tweaked a bit in light of the PF rules changes. Non-core material will always need to adapt to core material, IMO, and that's always going to be the way of things. If Radiant Servant of Pelor should add levels in the Healing and/or Sun domains, then just change the wording in the PrC to make it so in your game.
-Scotto
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I think having the Domain and School Powers based off of the core Cleric/Wizard level is just fine. If you stay in the base class, you're focusing on those abilities. If you take a prestige class, then you're losing focus in your School or Domain at the exchange of something else that's special.
Makes sense to me.
I don't think this is as unclear as you make it out to be. If you read the PrCs most of them have some language about this. For example Mystic Theurge:
Spells per Day
When a new mystic theurge level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in any one arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class and any one divine spellcasting class he belonged to previously. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that he adds the level of mystic theurge to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class and divine spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly. If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class or more than one divine spellcasting class before he became a mystic theurge, he must decide to which class he adds each level of mystic theurge for the purpose of determining spells per day.
So new spells per day per the chart appropriate to the class nothing else. Wizard bonus spells, bonus abilities don't advance nor do new ones get acquired.
Caster Level in the tables is a red herring there to distract us.
I don't think this is as unclear as you make it out to be. If you read the PrCs most of them have some language about this. For example Mystic Theurge:
Spells per Day
When a new mystic theurge level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in any one arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class and any one divine spellcasting class he belonged to previously. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that he adds the level of mystic theurge to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class and divine spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly. If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class or more than one divine spellcasting class before he became a mystic theurge, he must decide to which class he adds each level of mystic theurge for the purpose of determining spells per day.
So new spells per day per the chart appropriate to the class nothing else. Wizard bonus spells, bonus abilities don't advance nor do new ones get acquired.
Caster Level in the tables is a red herring there to distract us.
I suppose we might have been playing wrong all along, but we always read the increase in spells/day that many spellcasting PRCs granted as including the specialist bonus spells, as well as the domain spells. Especially the ones that specifically state "including spells known". We also ruled that these PRCs also gave the 2 spells per level for wizards to add to their spellbooks. If sorcerers get more spells known, why wouldn't wizards???
The Mystic Theurge is a bad example in my opinion. Take the Loremaster for example. It specifically includes a statement that the PRC grants spells known (as most spellcasting advancement PRCs do). Per the rules, no sorcerer would want to play a Mystic Theurge because they would be limited to their 3rd level konwn spells for the rest of their career.
The problem is backwards compatibility with the PRCs that grant extra domains. According to Complete Divine, if a PRC granted an extra domain, then the cleric gained that Domain's power, as well as being able to choose the domain's spells when preparing their extra Domain slot.
Now we don't have extra domain spell slots. So, does that mean the new domain in the PRC would start as if the character were 1st level? Seems kinda lame to me. Do we treat them as Character level for determining the Domain powers? Seems like that could be a little too much.
Take Contemplative from Complete Divine. The class grants two bonus domains. So a Cleric 10/Contemplative 6 would have two domains from his 10 levels of Cleric and 2 from his 6 levels of Contemplative. I would see his first 2 domains granting him up to the 8th level ability, but what about the 2 from the PRC?
1)Should they only be 6th level, giving him 4 1st level abilities, 5 2nd level abilities for the first 2 domains and 3 for the second two, 4 4th level abilities, and 2 8th level abilities?
2)Should they be treated as 16th level, giving him 4 1st level abilities, 5 2nd level abilities for the first two domains and 8 for the second two, 4 4th level abilitiles, 4 8th level abilities, 2 12th level abilities, and 2 16th level abilities?
3)Should they only count from 11th level and up since that was the first level that the character took the prestige class? That would be 2 1st level abilities from the first two domains, 5 2nd level abilities for the first two domains, 2 4th level abilities, 2 8th level abilities, 2 12th level abilities (from the PRC domains), and 2 16th level abilities (from the PRC domains).
To me, this isn't an easy answer and becomes one of the hardest "backwards compatibility" issues with the whold Pathfinder RPG.