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?
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I've got just the thing for you. ;)
The Secrets of Divine Channeling.
The alternate cleric class included in the book might be something you want to consider as it does more or less just what you want. And the rest of the book ties the energy channeling into the clerics domains to shape the cleric into something more domain specific.
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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?
The significant change will be that healing may be less readily available, and you may wish to factor that into encounter design, or come up with some other options (like improved access to non-magical healing options, like an effective Heal skill, or alchemical salves, or some class-specific options, like a few transmutation or necromancy-based healing spells for arcanists, a fast healing rage power, or lower level access to monkly wholeness of body, or an enhanced use of the Heal skill for rogues, etc.).
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?
Again, this will seriously affect the availability of healing, at least for clerics that didn't take the Healing Domain, and don't likely retain the standard 'channel healing' option.
The above suggestions would apply as well, either adjusting encounters, or providing more healing options to other classes.
One thing that I would probably do, in this situation, is limit each Cleric to a single Domain, so that they'd only gain spontaneous access to a single list of spells, and a single 'channel energy' option.
Some are obvious, channel energy for a Fire domain Cleric of Sarenrae or Asmodeus would just blast everything in the area with fire damage (and hopefully take Selective Channeling, to be able to spare some allies from his detonations!).
Others, such as Earth, Air, and Water, could either inflict elemental damage of the associated sorts (acid, electricity, cold), or something more appropriate, like create tremors, a whirlwind or a riptide of water that pushes everyone back like an AoE hydraulic push spell (from the APG). You could even use the 1st level Domain 'attack power' as a guideline for what the channel energy would do, so that a channel energy from a Weather Domain cleric of Gozreh or Rovagug might inflict battering wind and rain nonlethal damage to everyone in the area, plus give them a -2 penalty to attack rolls for the next round, similar to the single target 1st level power.
But channel energy effects for glory, nobility, charm, etc. may require a bit more work. I could see 'Channeled Glory' causing allies in the area to gain rage-like benefits, while 'Channeled Nobility' might work more like bardic inspiration, and 'Channeled Charm' dazes foes in the area or something, and 'Channeled Darkness' temporarily blinds them. In some cases, instead of dice of effect, the bonus would give pluses (a 5th level Cleric of Nobility would give 1 round of +3 'inspiration,' for example), or rounds of duration (a 5th level Cleric of Darkness would inflict 3 rounds of blindness).
It's a bit of work, but not terribly difficult, since each Domain already has a few sample powers available in the Core book, and two to four other options in the APG under the subdomains, many of which could be adapted to Channel Energy options.
Alternately,
You may wish to take a look at 2nd editions concept of Spheres, if you've got ready access to 2nd edition books. It sounds like the sort of thing that might float your boat.
Without actually going to the degree that Spheres went, you could cut the Cleric spell list down to some 'universal' spells, like the cures, protection from X, bestow / remove curse, hallow, desecrate, holy word, etc. and take more specialized spells like magic stone and silence and place them on larger domain lists, with two or three spells per level on each Domain list (with a few repeats, so that there might be two or three lists that grant access to sound burst, for instance, which could logically appear on the list of a cleric specialized in Air, Destruction or Weather).
Every Cleric would gain access to the Universal Domain (which would have a fair number of spells, since any priest should be able to heal, smite, bless, curse, ward off evil, etc.), and *all* of the Domains of his diety, for spell list purposes, but only be able to spontaneously cast the spells of his one preferred Domain (and only gains the Domain powers of that preferred Domain).
So, for example, a Cleric of Asmodeus would gain the Universal cleric spells, and be able to cast spells from the Fire, Trickery, Law, Evil and Magic lists, but only gain the Domain powers and spontaneous spells from the one Domain he chooses to specialize in (say, Trickery).
Actually "channel nobility" could *possibly* heal - like suposed healing ability of Frank monarchs.
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Alternately, You may wish to take a look at 2nd editions concept of Spheres, if you've got ready access to 2nd edition books. It sounds like the sort of thing that might float your boat.
Without actually going to the degree that Spheres went, you could cut the Cleric spell list down to some 'universal' spells, like the cures, protection from X, bestow / remove curse, hallow, desecrate, holy word, etc. and take more specialized spells like magic stone and silence and place them on larger domain lists, with two or three spells per level on each Domain list (with a few repeats, so that there might be two or three lists that grant access to sound burst, for instance, which could logically appear on the list of a cleric specialized in Air, Destruction or Weather).
Every Cleric would gain access to the Universal Domain (which would have a fair number of spells, since any priest should be able to heal, smite, bless, curse, ward off evil, etc.), and *all* of the Domains of his diety, for spell list purposes, but only be able to spontaneously cast the spells of his one preferred Domain (and only gains the Domain powers of that preferred Domain).
I very much miss the concept/use of Clerical Spheres from 2nd ed.
To me it made Clerics/Priests more individualized and unique servitors of their respective deities; Domains for all their strengths and versatility still seemed a little 'cookie cutter' when compared to how Spheres were grouped.
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If I might suggest - I think the Exalted Domains series from Super Genius Games might give you what you are looking for:
The Genius Guide to Exalted Domains of Light and Lore
One thing I like to due is look at all of the Domains spell list form one god. In list form take out all spells that are on cleric spell list
and use that as base list to pick spell form.
Thanks everyone!