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WIZARD SPELLS
Wizards need to be restricted to Spells that do not use Material Components or Focus objects. The problem here is that READ MAGIC requires a Focus object (lens or prism). REASONING: the MATERIAL COMPONENT of a Wizard spell is in the ink on the page (ex-firebeetle antennae for researching a LIGHT spell).
This reduces the Spell list of Wizards and makes their Spellbooks the sole Material Component in spellcasting.
SORCERER SPELLS
Sorcerers need to be restricted to Spells with Material Components or Focus objects. REASONING: For a Sorcerer, all MATERIAL COMPONENTS are Focus objects for the spell (whether it is expended with use or reusable).
CLERIC SPELLS
Clerics use Valuable Gemsotnes as a Material component in some of their spells. This needs to be changed to objects of a Clerical nature: BLESS WATER should require a Silver HOLYWATER FONT (as should some of the divination spells that involve looking into water), A Reliquary (a container for the bones of a Saint) should be sought out when the Need for a Reliquary is required. THE DESTRUCTION SPELL should require a Portable Altar (like the Ark of the Covennant) so the junior priests carry the Altar into battle, and the senior high priest casts DESTRUCTION. And the 9th level spell that brings you back from the dead fully should require you take the Corpse to a Dedicated Shrine at a fixed Location (The cleric must Climb the ten thousand stairs to the Temple of Trisha Helfer with the corpse on his back and pray for the restoration of the dead before the statue of the Goddess).
SPELL LEVEL.....................REQUIRED RELIGIOUS RELIC
1st level cleric spells: Basic Holy symbol
2nd level cleric spells: +High value Holy Symbol
3rd level cleric spells: + lesser Relic holysymbol (belonged to a Paladin/cleric L10-19)
4th level cleric spells: +Holy/unholy water font
5th level cleric spells: +Greater Relic Holy symbol (Belonged to a Cleric or Paladin L20)
6th level cleric spells: +Minor Reliquary (Paladin/Cleric Corpse L10-19)
7th level cleric spells: +Portable Altar/icon
8th level cleric spells: +Major Reliquary (Paladin/cleric corpse L20)
9th level Cleric spells: +Major holy statue being halled into the field by fifty clerics
ANY LEVEL CLERIC SPELL: Fixed site Temple Shrine
This means that if the Cleric is Summoning a Fiend or a Celestial, they may do so in any Temple. but if they want to do so in the field they must have Relics of increasing significance to their cult/religion.
WIZARD SPELLS
Wizards need to be restricted to Spells that do not use Material Components or Focus objects.
Absolutely not! Wizards are the bookish guys who do spells by using weird formulae, intricate hand gestures, and weird arcane ingredients They don't turn everything into ink. No, wizards are out there, handling the guano to fry their foes.
Sorcerers need to be restricted to Spells with Material Components or Focus objects. REASONING: For a Sorcerer, all MATERIAL COMPONENTS are Focus objects for the spell (whether it is expended with use or reusable).
Most definetly not! Those guys learn their magic spontaneously and intuitively. Often, their powers will manifest at some time (often during puberty) with a random outburst. That doesn't work with specific items that must be carried and handled.
BLESS WATER should require a Silver HOLYWATER FONT
Unless those are portable, it makes the poor vampire hunter's life a lot harder. And we don't want that.
THE DESTRUCTION SPELL should require a Portable Altar (like the Ark of the Covennant)
Who needs spells when you already have the Ark???
Plus, I'm against anything that turns the cleric into an NPC class, which this stuff would do. You can't just lug around a 30-pound altar you'll have to set up to cast your spell. Not in the middle of a fight. That might be nice for ritual spells, but those should not be the norm for player characters.
so the junior priests carry the Altar into battle, and the senior high priest casts DESTRUCTION.
So clerics are required to take leadership now?
Plus, that's not how it worls: The junior priests carry the altar, and then a relatively low-level (that is not even a nuisance to their high priest) area spell takes them out.
And the 9th level spell that brings you back from the dead fully should require you take the Corpse to a Dedicated Shrine at a fixed Location (The cleric must Climb the ten thousand stairs to the Temple of Trisha Helfer with the corpse on his back and pray for the restoration of the dead before the statue of the Goddess).
No, it shouldn't. We're talking about the most powerful stuff a character of the highest levels can do. That stuff is not supposed to be limited like that.
I'm all for the holy site where you can restore the dead to life even without the high-level priest (so you can turn the pilgrimage into an adventure), but high-level charcters should have their power come from within, not from without.
3rd level cleric spells: + lesser Relic holysymbol (belonged to a Paladin/cleric L10-19)
4th level cleric spells: +Holy/unholy water font
5th level cleric spells: +Greater Relic Holy symbol (Belonged to a Cleric or Paladin L20)
Unless your campaign world has a ridiculous power level (I think these are even beyond the Forgotten Realms!), this reduces clerics to low-level spellcasters!
There just aren't dozens or even hundreds of high-level clerics around who can give away their holy symbols to the dozens of even hundreds of lover-level clerics so they can use their class abilities. And 20th-level? Those are very rare. Very. Rare.
This might be nice for some campaigns, but it is completely inappropriate for standard D&D/PF. Make it a house rule, and make sure it fits the world, and make sure the players know you've crippled the spellcasting classes like this.
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A number of Powerful Cleric Spells require the Divine Focus (RELIQUARY). A Reliquary amounts to a Large Box with the Corpse of a Saint in it (A Coffin).
The current Cleric is a bare chested 500lb Muscled Monster named "The Undertaker" with a Broad rimmed black Hat and a Coffin (containing the remains of a Fellow Cleric named Hulk Hogan) balanced on his shoulder.
He marches out of the fog, drops the coffin on the ground, Points at the BBEG, and informs him "Its time for the Smack Down".
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A number of Powerful Cleric Spells require the Divine Focus (RELIQUARY). A Reliquary amounts to a Large Box with the Corpse of a Saint in it (A Coffin).
The current Cleric is a bare chested 500lb Muscled Monster named "The Undertaker" with a Broad rimmed black Hat and a Coffin (containing the remains of a Fellow Cleric named Hulk Hogan) balanced on his shoulder.
He marches out of the fog, drops the coffin on the ground, Points at the BBEG, and informs him "Its time for the Smack Down".
Now why didn't you enter this guy in RPG Superstar?
He could chase down those pesky PCs who've been raised once too often.
"You've cheated the system. And I'm a'takin' you in...to your final reward...."
These are nice for house rules, but they are fairly arbitrary. None of these changes "need" to be made, nor do they address the laundry list of real problems that exist. They are flavorful though, and if you were my GM and wanted these changes I'd be fine with that.
WIZARD SPELLS
Wizards need to be restricted to Spells that do not use Material Components or Focus objects. The problem here is that READ MAGIC requires a Focus object (lens or prism). REASONING: the MATERIAL COMPONENT of a Wizard spell is in the ink on the page (ex-firebeetle antennae for researching a LIGHT spell).
This reduces the Spell list of Wizards and makes their Spellbooks the sole Material Component in spellcasting.SORCERER SPELLS
Sorcerers need to be restricted to Spells with Material Components or Focus objects. REASONING: For a Sorcerer, all MATERIAL COMPONENTS are Focus objects for the spell (whether it is expended with use or reusable).CLERIC SPELLS
Clerics use Valuable Gemsotnes as a Material component in some of their spells. This needs to be changed to objects of a Clerical nature: BLESS WATER should require a Silver HOLYWATER FONT (as should some of the divination spells that involve looking into water), A Reliquary (a container for the bones of a Saint) should be sought out when the Need for a Reliquary is required. THE DESTRUCTION SPELL should require a Portable Altar (like the Ark of the Covennant) so the junior priests carry the Altar into battle, and the senior high priest casts DESTRUCTION. And the 9th level spell that brings you back from the dead fully should require you take the Corpse to a Dedicated Shrine at a fixed Location (The cleric must Climb the ten thousand stairs to the Temple of Trisha Helfer with the corpse on his back and pray for the restoration of the dead before the statue of the Goddess).SPELL LEVEL.....................REQUIRED RELIGIOUS RELIC
1st level cleric spells: Basic Holy symbol
2nd level cleric spells: +High value Holy Symbol
3rd level cleric spells: + lesser Relic holysymbol (belonged to a Paladin/cleric L10-19)
4th level cleric spells: +Holy/unholy water font
5th level cleric spells: +Greater Relic Holy symbol (Belonged to a Cleric or Paladin L20)
6th level cleric spells: +Minor Reliquary (Paladin/Cleric Corpse L10-19)
7th level cleric...
I think you're high.
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Says something funny as a rock falls out of the sky and lands on his PC...
Its more realistic to cart the corpse up the thousand stairs to the Temple of Trisha Helfer to Raise dead than coughing up a 25,000gp Diamond to Raise Dead.
The Middle weight cleric spells require presence of a reliquary (a religious artefact relevent to the religion of the Cleric) so why not advance that to the rest of the spells?
so why not advance that to the rest of the spells?
The question isn't "why not" but "why?"
Clerics are immobile enough.
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Clerics are immobile enough.
Only Chaotic Clerics are loners...the Lawful Clerics gather and travel in Packs: Thats why the Powerful PC Cleric need Minor NPC Clerics to guard the Reliqary of Gaius Baltar, Carry the Ark of the Cylon Eye into battle, and Polish the Steps to the Temple of Trisha Helfer so your cleric doesnt slip when he carries the corpse of his/her companion up those ten thousand steps for a Raise Dead.
Hefting out a 25,000gp Diamond doesnt cut it.
The Requirement of a Reliqaury for certain spells suggest the Yays in the Development team considered it but the Nays decided it would slow the Cleric down to have to carry the dead hero five hundred miles to the temple of Trisha for a Raise Dead. Frankly they got lazy.
It would have been better to cut the Spells than sissy out with a lazy version.
Only Chaotic Clerics are loners...the Lawful Clerics gather and travel in Packs: Thats why the Powerful PC Cleric need Minor NPC Clerics to guard the Reliqary of Gaius Baltar
So powerful clerics cannot be the Lone Guardian Against the Darkness, because they need a hundred people to fetch their stuff - not to mention a thousand divine seekers to scour the worlds for the extremely rare stuff they need to power their spells.
Hefting out a 25,000gp Diamond doesnt cut it.
It's a 25000gp Diamond. I cannot imagine it couldn't cut.
The fact is that D&D is created mainly for a party of about 4 adventurers who go on adventuring - not for a host of 4 armies. Anything that wants to call itself D&D or its successor needs to support that style of play.
The business with wizards and sorcerers is counter-intuitive. A wizard should be using spell components. A sorcerer should not.
As for the business with the clerics, I do like the idea of a bit more ritual, but requiring ark-carrying acolytes is a bit much.
Maybe something more along these lines:
Spell Level.....................Required Religious Relic
1st level cleric spells: Wooden Holy Symbol
2nd level cleric spells: Silver Holy Symbol
3rd level cleric spells: 4th Class Relic (touched a 2nd Class Relic)
4th level cleric spells: Silver Holy Symbol with Semi-Precious Stones
5th level cleric spells: 3rd Class Relic (touched a 1st Class Relic)
6th level cleric spells: Gold Holy Symbol
7th level cleric spells: 2nd Class Relic (item used by a saint)
8th level cleric spells: Gold Holy Symbol with Precious Gems
9th level cleric spells: 1st Class Relic (body part of a saint)
I do like the idea of shrines and pilgrimages for my own game, so will probably use something like this.
The fact is that D&D is created mainly for a party of about 4 adventurers who go on adventuring - not for a host of 4 armies. Anything that wants to call itself D&D or its successor needs to support that style of play.
Works for me! There are lots of wargames for hosts of armies.
D&D remains my favorite. 4 or so adventurers can do a lot of damage!
I'm getting an Idea for SimCleric. You basically have to manage a cleric's retinue to make sure he has all his relics and artifacts and holy sites available when he needs them. It's just like SimCity, but more complex.
The game will have 20 levels.