So I've been perusing my copy of the Advanced Players Guide (and the PRD), and after hearing about the spell bestow grace, I went and looked it up; and frankly I'm astonished.
Bestow grace effectively allows you to give any good aligned creature a pseudo-divine grace for the duration of the spell. I'm highly disturbed by this, as it's essentially the Paladin's Divine Grace as a spell.
Now, it has been my understanding that Paizo is theoretically not keen on making spells or magical items that copy class features, because those are the features of that class. So if you want Divine Grace, take Paladin levels. If you want Weapon Specialization, be a Fighter; etc.
Now the problem I'm seeing here is that whomever wrote this spell doesn't seem to have taken a very deep look into the mechanics surrounding it. While only available to the Paladin as a spell, it's entirely legal for wands and other magical items. Without essentially the GM saying "No I won't let you do this", the spell has effectively given classes the ability to gain Divine Grace for a certain amount of time. From a balance perspective, it's also questionable even for the Paladin; because as written, a Paladin with divine grace can be affected by this spell to gain an Insight bonus equal to her Charisma bonus to all saving throws; effectively adding her Charisma to her saves twice.
This concerns me from a design perspective. Yes, I can house-rule bestow grace to be more like bestow power, but I'm concerned as to the slippery slope that this kind of thing leads to. Divine Grace is a very powerful class feature. Arguably one of the best abilities that a Paladin gets. Now it has been sold off to sorcerers, summoners, and bards to gain a quick and relatively cheap way to skyrocket their saving throws; and that's just as a wand. Not counting x/day suits of armor or continuous armor effects (akin to resist energy armors).
I'm wondering, was this an oversight? Did Paizo perhaps not consider that someone would ever make magic items using Paladin spells? Is this something that Paizo plans to continue doing?
After speaking with Sean K. Reynolds on the Paizo boards about class balance, and hearing him speak first hand about how it's not fair that his Cleric cannot cast spells and compete with the warrior classes, I have become progressively concerned as to the directions Paizo may be heading with some of its mechanics; and I wonder if this sort of thing is going to become a trend; or avoided in the future.
It would be nice to get some official feedback on this sort of thing from James, Jason, or both; but I'm interested in what everyone else has to say on the matter; seeing as this is a general gameplay question that can affect everyone playing the game.
Thoughts?
As much as I love my sorcerors and other casters, I am forced to agree.
I am fine with items and what-not mimicking caster class features, however going the other direction is more suspect. Most of us on here are already well aware of the imbalance between casters and noncasters, especially full casters. SKR's comment worries me. The cleric should not be able to go toe to toe in melee. The cleric already gets two good saves, full casting, more slots, better HD, and armor proficiency. What is holding them back from becoming powerhouses is their list. Even then, they can just travel to the astral plane while they prepare spells to auto-quicken everything starting at level 9. If the cleric starts being competitive in melee, then there will simply be no reason to play a fighter. Clerics are already stepping on people's toes. While they can't quite pull the raw numbers of a fighter, they have full casting.
Casters step on noncasters' toes in more ways than that. Knock is off-hand one of the worst offenders of this. I honestly cannot think of a good reason why a wizard should be able to do this other than to make rogues look bad. Let us compare the knock spell to a rogue with max disable device. At level 3, the rogue will have 3(ranks)+3(class)+3(skill focus)+2(feat)+5(stat) for a +16. At level 3, knock will provide +13. The rogue had to spend both of their feats to be better than the party wizard at opening locks. What the hell? Granted the rogue can usually take 20 and will outpace wizard later with stat boosts, items, and the level 10 bump. Honestly a single spell shouldn't be able to compete with an entire class, none-the-less a second level spell. If I sat down and went through the list I would probably find half a dozen other examples.
Now if we look at items, one that stands out is ring of evasion. I can just shell out 25k to save me two levels of rogue or monk, 12.5k if I just make it myself. Granted this doesn't count for the infamous magelord (I did find a way to capstone magelord without polymorph pre-epic), but this is Pathfinder. Having a ring of evasion is just as good as having the class feature. I can swallow things like rings of invis because it simply making a spell last indefinitely. While I'm anxiously waiting for Ultimate Magic to come out so my casters will have all sorts of new toys to play with, I am hoping that there are not any new offenders. Casters can already do things that noncasters cannot such summons pets, movement, and tactical control. The pool of things that noncasters can do that casters cannot is rather small. Ideally there will be aspects of noncasters that casters simply never will touch and there will be aspects of casters that noncasters simply never will touch. This is truly the only hope of balancing classes when the permutations are as large as they are. This uniqueness of roles is what made Starcraft so good and successful. That being said, a minor overlap is not to be discouraged since overly exaggerated Rock-Paper-Scissors is just a deadly to a game (Starcraft 2). I suggest a good read over this article (and some of the other stuff on there): http://www.sirlin.net/articles/rock-paper-scissors-in-strategy-games.html
I'm forced to agree. If it had just been available to paladins as a spell it would have been fine, but since it can be turned into a wand it's not.
Would have far preferred the spell if it did kind of "give away half your own DG bonus", since you'd have to have a DG bonus for the spell to work, thus, not as useful for wands.
At level 3, the rogue will have 3(ranks)+3(class)+3(skill focus)+2(feat)+5(stat) for a +16. At level 3, knock will provide +13. The rogue had to spend both of their feats to be better than the party wizard at opening locks.
Quick note: You can replace the +2 feat with masterwork tools, and they gain a +1 bonus from Trapfinding (which also affects locks it seems)
EDIT: To be fair, a rogue can have +13 through 3 ranks + 3 class + 1 trapfinding +1 stat +3 focus + 2 tools. They'd still be far better than a level 3 wizard since the wizard can only do it a few times per day. When you reach the point where the wizard doesn't have to give up most his power to open locks a few times per day, the rogue's modifier will be far higher than the wizards.
Locks - The rogue can take 20, while the knock spell can't. That effectively gives the rogue +10 in comparison to the wizard.
Bestow Grace - The spell reads, "With this spell you can bestow your divine grace. . ." (emphasis mine)
I always took that to mean it would only work when cast by someone who has divine grace.
Locks - The rogue can take 20, while the knock spell can't. That effectively gives the rogue +10 in comparison to the wizard.
Bestow Grace - The spell reads, "With this spell you can bestow your divine grace. . ." (emphasis mine)
I always took that to mean it would only work when cast by someone who has divine grace.
The problem is as written, the spell simply provides a sacred bonus to the creature. The first sentence is flavor, while the second sentence is mechanical. You don't bestow anything of yours on the creature (also, "holy virtue" isn't a mechanic), merely grant a sacred bonus equal to the target's Charisma modifier to all their saves (which means it can also stack with existing Divine Grace).
My biggest concern here is, is this kind of thing going to become more and more common? This pretty much takes one of the Paladin's best class features and makes it available to other classes as a magic item. What other kinds of things like this does Paizo plan to make available?
Shall we soon be seeing spells/items that grant Sneak Attack? Weapon Training? Weapon Specialization? Shall we soon see Clerics and Druids walking around with amulets of favored enemy? Perhaps a 1/day ring of smite evil?
I was under the impression that Paizo was actively going to avoid things like this; and also under the impression that items like monk robes were still around because they were already in the game.
I wish we could get some official feedback on this question; or at least some off record commentary from the designers as to what their goals for keeping the classes balanced without a large inflation of power.
I think your concern is legitimate - but also that Paizo will hide behind their first-amendment rights (namely that the game is up to you, and that you make the rules).
What I'd personally *like* to see is more items that work on relative merits. Similar to monk robes: increase the efficacy of levels you do have.
Along that line: I've not heard or seen any Paizo statements whether the necklace of ki serenity counts for enabling ki-based abilities (like getting abundant step at level 7) or whether it just grants DR-bypassing and +2 ki points.
For the same cost, on the same page, are the robes of arcane heritage, which *do* grant access to abilities earlier, including the sorcerer bloodline capstones at level 16.
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I think your concern is legitimate - but also that Paizo will hide behind their first-amendment rights (namely that the game is up to you, and that you make the rules).
What I'd personally *like* to see is more items that work on relative merits. Similar to monk robes: increase the efficacy of levels you do have.
Along that line: I've not heard or seen any Paizo statements whether the necklace of ki serenity counts for enabling ki-based abilities (like getting abundant step at level 7) or whether it just grants DR-bypassing and +2 ki points.
For the same cost, on the same page, are the robes of arcane heritage, which *do* grant access to abilities earlier, including the sorcerer bloodline capstones at level 16.
This has been answered in the faq: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8fo1/faq#v5748eaic9ni3
This has been answered in the faq: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8fo1/faq#v5748eaic9ni3I think your concern is legitimate - but also that Paizo will hide behind their first-amendment rights (namely that the game is up to you, and that you make the rules).
What I'd personally *like* to see is more items that work on relative merits. Similar to monk robes: increase the efficacy of levels you do have.
Along that line: I've not heard or seen any Paizo statements whether the necklace of ki serenity counts for enabling ki-based abilities (like getting abundant step at level 7) or whether it just grants DR-bypassing and +2 ki points.
For the same cost, on the same page, are the robes of arcane heritage, which *do* grant access to abilities earlier, including the sorcerer bloodline capstones at level 16.
This has been answered in the faq: http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8fo1/faq#v5748eaic9ni3I think your concern is legitimate - but also that Paizo will hide behind their first-amendment rights (namely that the game is up to you, and that you make the rules).
What I'd personally *like* to see is more items that work on relative merits. Similar to monk robes: increase the efficacy of levels you do have.
Along that line: I've not heard or seen any Paizo statements whether the necklace of ki serenity counts for enabling ki-based abilities (like getting abundant step at level 7) or whether it just grants DR-bypassing and +2 ki points.
For the same cost, on the same page, are the robes of arcane heritage, which *do* grant access to abilities earlier, including the sorcerer bloodline capstones at level 16.
You, sir, are a godsend. Even though I'm not entirely happy with the verdict.
In the case of Bestow Grace, it would be really easy for the Dev's to fix the issue with a simple errata. It's clearly intended to be used by a paladin, as seen by the fluff sentence, so they could just state that "well, to bestow grace you actually have to have grace yourself, much like the case of how you can't use Summon Eidolon unless you have an eidolon". We'll just have to hope they do something like that.
There are hints in place that Ultimate Magic will open up more ki-based abilities. Maybe that means the power of the item will scale up with having an effective +4 monk level may be relevant. (Right now the only uses appear to be a +4 more HP on wholeness of body, a slightly further range on abundant step, and a couple of rounds longer empty body.)
But it still doesn't compare to getting your capstone ability at level 16.
I completely endorse the OP.
I love the APG, but here and there I find stuff that seems not well thought.
For the specific spell, I think that could be simply added "you must have the divine grace class feature to cast this spell".
BUT is nevertheless awkward, and very powerful anyway in a completely reasonable Paladin Sorcerer Oracle Bard party.
EDIT: please note that the OP could be valid (for different reasons) for ring of evasion too. Wich is, in fact, a badly conceived item.
I think your concern is legitimate - but also that Paizo will hide behind their first-amendment rights (namely that the game is up to you, and that you make the rules).
This is fair.. up to a certain level.
If I must houserule everything, what's the point of buying the book in first place?
(please not I do not want to be negative - I'm waiting with impatience Ultimate Magic and Ultimate combat -but I share the concerns of the OP).
I completely disagree with the entire argument, sorry if I offend you, but I don't understand your logic.
I am not too familiar with rules before 3.0, but as long as I have been playing you have always been allowed to make a magic item that can do ANYTHING. Whether it is a class ability, racial ability, give you a spell-like ability, or make up a completely new ability. I don't know about items that give bonuses to sneak attack, but there is, the Warlock's Scepter, a published item that grants a bonus to Eldritch Blast
So, no I do not see any problem with this spell. Especially since you have to be a level 8 Paladin to cast this spell. And a Wizard/Sorc at 8th level have Polymorph, which can give all kinds of bonuses.
Part of the concern is that Pathfinder is supposed to have been a cure for the late 3.5 game that was plagued by items like like the warlock's scepter, and an attempt to narrow the gap between magical and martial classes. Giving wizards and clerics this ability to boost up their saving throws, while they have spells like poly-morph to give them numerous physical immunities re-widens the magical vs. martial gap.
I share the OP's concern that these issues may not have even been realized when the spell was introduced. To me that is more disheartening then the idea that they made a balance decision I don't agree with.
I think bestow grace is a non issue. when it comes to crafting dm has say over everything. the spell cannot exist on items unless the dm allows it. it's a reallly easy thing to say no to.
secondly for it o exist on a scroll a paladin would need to take scribe scroll. I'm sure it has been done, but I have never seen it.
so really how is anyone besides a paladin to get it?
In favor of the spell as written, I'll point out that for it to work on you, you need to have a good alignment -- something that, mechanically, is almost never better and often is worse than being neutral.
I think the game's more interesting if there are incentives to try to play characters that are more heroic and/or constrained by morality vs. more selfish or pragmatic.
Lets also keep in mind though that we're talking about something that costs 6,000gp for 50 charges that each lasts 4 minutes
(takes a 7th level paladin to cast, they cast at level-3, the spell lasts 1 minute per caster level..)
Sure, Charisma based casters can just snag a wand but.. thats danged expensive.
-S
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The first sentence is flavor, while the second sentence is mechanical.
I have noticed this appearing repeatedly.
"This part of the spell description is flavour, this other part is mechanics."What system you use to decide what is flavour and what is mechanics?
As far as I know there is not an option to discard half of a spell or rule description as "flavour" simply because it bother you.
Sure, there are parts that have a more colloquial text but that don't make them less part of the spell description.
People really want a spell description where instead of a few line of text we read:
Bestow Grace
requirement: the caster must possess the Divine grace feature
effect: give a target good creature a insight bonus to Saving Throws equal to the target creature charisma bonus