To encourage people to play clerics i was thinking of allowing the Domain powers that require you touch and ally to work like LoH. That is as a swift action if you touch yourself. Does anyone see this as game breaking? Im not sure of any crazy nasty combos someone could come up with.
Side note: This is not a discussion if clerics NEED it. They are a very powerful class and dont need any bumps, but im trying to give them some more appeal with minimal power increase.
Thoughts?
Why do you want to encourage people to play clerics?
No one ever does in our Group, As of now healing/cleric roll ends up going to a DM-NPC or aquired with leadership feat. But I dont want this to devolve into they are powerful enough. I know that. Just checking to see if someone can find an exploit with this.
I've got to say, I wouldn't mind that even for those sorcerer bloodline or wizard school powers. There always seems to be something better to do with a standard action. Maybe that changes at high levels when the bonus is more extreme?
I'd even go with swift to touch yourself, move to touch an ally.
I understand your feelings on this, but Sorcerers and Wizards are powerful enough (not that a cleric isnt) and I dont have problems with people wanting to play them. I figured letting clerics them touch themselves as a swift actions for bonuses would give them more of a spot light.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If they don't want to play clerics and they're having fun with their characters and the healbot hireling is adequately handling healing for them, what exactly is the problem?
what exactly is the problem?
There is no problem. Just wanted to do something to encourage them to explore the class. Think of it like a discount sell.
Once again, Not trying to argue if its needed, if its over powered, yatta yatta, I just wanted to know if anyone saw anything game breaking or that could cause problems.
Take the Good Domain, With this added in the cleric could use Touch of Good on himself as a swift action and benefit for the round. At 8th level he could empower his weapon as a swift action and not lose the turn buffing. It looks like a funny power.
While most of the powers scale with level, some dont. Look at the luck domain. With a 1 level dip someone could have the ability to roll 2d20 and take the better for a round. Seems like that could somehow be abused. I was looking for other loop holes.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
With how powerful clerics are and how good their magic is I'm not sure how good of an idea it really is. Especially if your going to make them even better at buffing themselves. Goodness.
You should be thankful they haven't discovered how absolutely amazing and overpowered clerics really are and that you don't have a table full of them! ;)
Yeah, I know. Not helpful. Hmmmm, from a player perspective I don't think they'll play a cleric even if you do enact things like that but it really wouldn't be any kind of overpowered. The domain abilities are just little bonus things added not an already powerful class.
My home group has been playing it that way for a couple years now, and it hasn't even come close to being game-breaking. If anything, it's actually made the clerics more playable, especially if you don't want to be the "healbot". It allows those who want to be battle clerics to actually use those cool domain powers that otherwise would eat up your action in a round.
If there is anything wrong with playing a cleric in pathfinder, it's action economy. Everything you want or need to do is a standard action. Spellcasting, healing, attacking, all standard actions or full. You have to spend one of your few, precious feats to make channeling a swift, so allowing you to use your domain powers on yourself as a swift action is just a small fix to the clerics overloaded action budget.
My home group has been playing it that way for a couple years now, and it hasn't even come close to being game-breaking. If anything, it's actually made the clerics more playable, especially if you don't want to be the "healbot". It allows those who want to be battle clerics to actually use those cool domain powers that otherwise would eat up your action in a round.
THanks for the comment, this is what i wanted to hear.
huh, i was going suggest a simple archetype that trades that ability for spontaneous cure/inflict spells, but whatevs :)
A better way to intrigue people to the class is showing it of in a good way. Let them encounter many different clerics, and don't make them all "healbots". Let them be all kinds of characters - buffing archers, offensive casters, melee beasts et cetera. That way they see that clerics can be so much more than "healbots" - because many people don't like to play a "healbot".
A better way to intrigue people to the class is showing it of in a good way. Let them encounter many different clerics, and don't make them all "healbots". Let them be all kinds of characters - buffing archers, offensive casters, melee beasts et cetera. That way they see that clerics can be so much more than "healbots" - because many people don't like to play a "healbot".
This is Great advice, but I have done it. Last PC (other than me) that built a cleric did the whole healbot/utility thing with healing domain. I dont see how thats fun but he isnt a selfish person and had fun with it for a while. Then he sacrificed himself to save someone and was kind of excited to build a new character.
I built an badarse cleric of Gorum using the Holy Warrior option from the pathfinder setting.....I dont know how to even express his Awesomeness. Still I guess I can toss in some more evil bad guy clerics that i put some time into designing so they can really give the PC's a head ache.
For many people though, clerics just don't fit their taste of fantasy. Some people have problem with grasping the polytheism-yet-priest-of-specific-god, some don't like the flavor of divine spellcasting and some have a problem with fantasy religions in general.
I myself have had pretty large issues with how divine magic work and feeling as if it's just a copy of arcane magic and doesn't really make sense from a "faith" perspective. I've run some campaigns without clerics, and currently use a pretty specific explanation of how divine magic works (including unique-once-only-ever prayers being used to power the gods in exchange for magic blessings)
I can empathise with players who just don't "get" clerics. If they're happy playing other classes you might just consider letting that be the case. Clerics are a bit special in that they are based in such a well-established real-life concept but have mechanics that don't really reflect that real-life concept well at all - you really have to take a step back and mentally split rpg clerics from all notions of real-life faith like, ever.
Man, I really enjoy playing Clerics mostly because of the Role-Playing set out before you due to your God/ess. The Domain powers themselves are often really nice and my last Neutral Cleric could also channel negative energy. Powerful and subtle....until you brandish your holy symbol and pray for divine death for your foe.