Not really getting on board with the hype train here. So you get some more powers and spells, big deal. You are still a cleric and bound to follow your god. The DM still has plenty of ways to make you pay for your power.
The DM can also build against you pretty easily, so i am really not seeing how this is so 'terrifying'.
Go dig through the domains and Deific Obedience boons.
I just did, and the only thing i can say is so what. Explain how this thing in any way prevents the dm from designing an encounter that shuts you down. I cant see how this makes you an instant god.
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On the surface maybe.... BUT... not so fast..
Virtually all the domain abilities scale off the CLERIC level so you as soon as you PRC to this you would stop making progress in your already existing domain abilities. Im guessing you still get the domain spells though as you progress BUT since most domains have an 8th level ability, if you PRC before then you would never get this.... that may or may not be OK. And if you wait till 8th to PRC then you limit/delay the progress you will make in the PRC......
Plus you lose any further channeling as soon as you PRC (not a big deal many would say.....!)
I think I'm reading the rules right.....
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Not really getting on board with the hype train here. So you get some more powers and spells, big deal. You are still a cleric and bound to follow your god. The DM still has plenty of ways to make you pay for your power.
The DM can also build against you pretty easily, so i am really not seeing how this is so 'terrifying'.
If the DM has to design things specifically to 'shut you down', then something is terribly wrong.
If the urge to 'shut you down' ever even HAPPENS, something is terribly wrong.
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D@mn, Paizo really despises multiclassing in all its forms.To be fair is more they "encourage" single classing
Is different to say you get a "-1 to hp when you multiclass" than "you get +1 to hp if you dont". I know is sematics but the focus is positive on that regard
Perhaps mine was an over reaction, but not letting a prestige class get a favored class bonus if you lock yourself into the one race that gets two favored classes just seems to be pushing single-classing a bit much when there are prestige classes that can be reached with investment in only one class.
Exalted of Sarenrae's second ability continue the progression of strength in channeling (stack cleric and exalted levels for power of channel energy)
They lose 1 BAB, 2 Fort, half of their progression in Domain abilities, and only obtain a strong aura (not overwhelming) -- I might have missed something on this.
They must also spend two feats - Deific Obedience and Skill Focus religion.
The downsides could be overcome (barring the domain progression and aura), if necessary, by 2 more feats.
Other Deities lose 5d6 of their channel strength (but have a different power that might be worth it.)
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It really depends on the Deity, and what you're going for.
My current character is a lvl 5 cleric of sarenrae, with one level of exalted and one of evangelist, with exalted as the favoured class. I will be taking the next 9 levels thus.
That is efficient as deific obedience is a pre-requisite for both PCs. And you get the benefits of both the PCs. It costs you one casting level and you lose some of your channeling for a while, though you get it back.
Yes, the combo is very good imho.
Not really getting on board with the hype train here. So you get some more powers and spells, big deal. You are still a cleric and bound to follow your god. The DM still has plenty of ways to make you pay for your power.
The DM can also build against you pretty easily, so i am really not seeing how this is so 'terrifying'.If the DM has to design things specifically to 'shut you down', then something is terribly wrong.
If the urge to 'shut you down' ever even HAPPENS, something is terribly wrong.
I am sorry, I have to call you out on this. When a DM sits down to write an encounter they should take into consideration all the things the players can do. If I sit down and see that you can do xyz thing all i have to do is make or find something that counters it.
You might say I am unfair for doing this. You might say this shows a clear problem, that I need to find something that counters a player. I say to you that every dm can and should design his encounters to his players. If the goal is to create a challenging game, one where the players need to earn their victory then you actually want to counter your players slightly. Not at every turn, just when the story calls for it. You want to remove their first order strategies. This means that if the players go to plan is to cast this spell then do this action, I just design against that. It forces the player to think and I do this for every player not just the wizard, or cleric or rogue or whatever. I am sorry to burst your bubble, that designing your encounters to your players is somehow evidence of a problem.
So when someone says this thing is broken or cheese or whatever I just laugh. This cleric does not in anyway prevent the DM from designing an encounter to challenge it. When you sit down to write an encounter next time (If you are the DM) sit with the players character sheet in front of you. Know everything your players can do and find ways to counter them. I promise the players will feel challenged and when they win they will feel better because they earned a victory though careful thought and skill.
@zhayne: Taking a player's character into account and "shutting him down" are not the same thing.
@ Oni: With that aside saying a "GM can do X" does nothing to discredit the power of a class or the problems it can cause.
@ wraithstrike: Yes it does, give me an example of a class ability that cannot be challenged or made useless by the DM designing an encounter against it. Because right now, this cleric does nothing I could not design against. A problem only exists if the DM lets it exist.
A challenging encounter and an encounter tailor-made to disable PCs are two very different things. The former is seen as good encounter design, the latter terrible design unless done very, very carefully.
Who said anything about disabling PC's? I am just talking about challenging them. I would also say add that they are the same thing, i create challenge by knowing what players can do and design around it. I don't need to rely on a module or high CR monster to make a hard fight, I make a hard fight by forcing players to think and adapt.
A challenging encounter and an encounter tailor-made to disable PCs are two very different things. The former is seen as good encounter design, the latter terrible design unless done very, very carefully.Who said anything about disabling PC's? I am just talking about challenging them. I would also say add that they are the same thing, i create challenge by knowing what players can do and design around it. I don't need to rely on a module or high CR monster to make a hard fight, I make a hard fight by forcing players to think and adapt.
The more effort you make to challenge casters the harder it becomes for martials to participate. If this is not the case, then I know for a fact that the GM is soft balling high CR monsters.
The more effort you make to challenge casters the harder it becomes for martials to participate. If this is not the case, then I know for a fact that the GM is soft balling high CR monsters.A challenging encounter and an encounter tailor-made to disable PCs are two very different things. The former is seen as good encounter design, the latter terrible design unless done very, very carefully.Who said anything about disabling PC's? I am just talking about challenging them. I would also say add that they are the same thing, i create challenge by knowing what players can do and design around it. I don't need to rely on a module or high CR monster to make a hard fight, I make a hard fight by forcing players to think and adapt.
Or they could just be making their own monsters. See you are assuming i am using pre made monsters, i do not. I tailor everything to the players such that they feel challenged. So we have monsters with high saves but perhaps low AC. Thus fighters can attack them but wizard spells often fail. If you say the wizard can cast a summoned monsters i say that the team has another wizard to counter it or cast protection from good/evil, or they have people who will interrupt your casting.
Or they could just be making their own monsters. See you are assuming i am using pre made monsters, i do not. I tailor everything to the players such that they feel challenged. So we have monsters with high saves but perhaps low AC. Thus fighters can attack them but wizard spells often fail. If you say the wizard can cast a summoned monsters i say that the team has another wizard to counter it or cast protection from good/evil, or they have people who will interrupt your casting.The more effort you make to challenge casters the harder it becomes for martials to participate. If this is not the case, then I know for a fact that the GM is soft balling high CR monsters.A challenging encounter and an encounter tailor-made to disable PCs are two very different things. The former is seen as good encounter design, the latter terrible design unless done very, very carefully.Who said anything about disabling PC's? I am just talking about challenging them. I would also say add that they are the same thing, i create challenge by knowing what players can do and design around it. I don't need to rely on a module or high CR monster to make a hard fight, I make a hard fight by forcing players to think and adapt.
See there's your problem. You think high system mastery casters use spells that have "saves".
@ anzyr: No I know people have ways to do things that dont rely on rolls. I was giving an example. Let me try to be crystal clear as possible here, because I think you do not get it. In the game as it is now, where everything is imagination and the rules can change, where the dm has complete control over what the players face and the rules, there is nothing the players can do that cannot be countered. The dm can create an encounter that can challenge any player, no matter what. You seem to have this strange idea in you head, that people of 'high system mastery' are immune to the rules of the game, you are wrong.
@uwotm8: I do let my players feel powerful, I also let my players have a little challenge sometimes and a lot of challenge sometimes. It depends on the story being told and what the situation calls for. I have had some players for years over several games. These are not new players either, I have had some players who have been playing longer than I have, want to keep coming back to my games.
Yeah, I am very luck to find players who like my DMing style. Before I ever let a player in I sit down and see if our gaming styles match, if they do not seem keen on the idea then they do not join. I hold no ill will towards those that do not join. Different people like different things. It really works out great as everyone who sits down to play will know exactly what to expect.
If I sit down and see that you can do xyz thing all i have to do is make or find something that counters it.You might say I am unfair for doing this. You might say this shows a clear problem, that I need to find something that counters a player. I say to you that every dm can and should design his encounters to his players. If the goal is to create a challenging game, one where the players need to earn their victory then you actually want to counter your players slightly. Not at every turn, just when the story calls for it. You want to remove their first order strategies.
I think you are doing things pretty much the way I think they should be done Oni. But I am going to spell things out, cos I think its important and a lot of GMs get wrong.
If a player can do xyz then some encounters should be such that xyz won't just solve the problem. But the important words here are "not at every turn".
If a GM wants to drive his characters mad with frustration and out of his campaign, then they should create situations where xyz does not do anything all the time. Its worse if counters to xyz are not common in Pathfinder and worse still if a counter to xyz seems to appear out of nowhere every time you try to use it. A GM wishing to do even more poorly should act like this means they are smarter than their players.
Another poor and regrettably not uncommon practice is having NPCs act like they have had an opportunity to examine your character sheet. Few NPCs will have any way of knowing what you can do in any detail, and they should act accordingly.
@ wraithstrike: Yes it does, give me an example of a class ability that cannot be challenged or made useless by the DM designing an encounter against it. Because right now, this cleric does nothing I could not design against. A problem only exists if the DM lets it exist.
You are the GM/GOD(for the PF universe. There is no such thing as something you can not design against. There may be tactics you may not wish to use, but that is different from "incapable of countering".
So once again, the GM being able to fix it is a poor excuse because as the person who controls the universe there is nothing you can not counter.
@ wraithstrike: Yes it does, give me an example of a class ability that cannot be challenged or made useless by the DM designing an encounter against it. Because right now, this cleric does nothing I could not design against. A problem only exists if the DM lets it exist.You are the GM/GOD(for the PF universe. There is no such thing as something you can not design against. There may be tactics you may not wish to use, but that is different from "incapable of countering".
So once again, the GM being able to fix it is a poor excuse because as the person who controls the universe there is nothing you can not counter.
I still do not think you get it. If you say you have an ability that could end an encounter in 1 round as some people like to say the wizard has. I look at that ability or spell or whatever, i look at everything you can do. Then i design the adventure and encounters for the game such that those powers mean nothing sometimes. I also design encounters such that they might not be the best answer and other times i make the best answer. It all depends upon the story and many other narrative aspects. I do this for everything and everyone in the game. I do not get what you are trying to say here. You know I can design against you thus meaning nothing is overpowered. Yet you seem to think that because I can tailor my encounters this some how invalidates my answer. I think you are looking at rpg's and pathfinder wrong. You seem to be looking at this like some kinda of video game. Where, if the game maker needs to 'patch' the game to make a character or thing not as strong it was a sign of a problem. To this you are sorely wrong, pathfinder is an rpg where everything can be made by the DM. Just because I can design against you and prove you are so very wrong, does not mean my argument counts for nothing. Let me give you an example of how I look at 1 common spell that most players bring out in the caster vs martial debate. This way you can see how I think when it comes to encounter design. Just note that this is a very simple example.
Example: You are a wizard with color spray, the go to spell for people at low levels. That spell has 15 cone burst range, they get a will save vs mind affecting, they get spell resistance, and it takes 1 standard action to cast. I have 4 things, right there to build against. I am going to assume nothing has changed and this spell exists as is.
1. the range is only 15ft, meaning you need to get really close or hope the bad guys are close together. So what if I make an encounter where the baddies are far away, say 90 feet apart. They have weak saves and the spell would work great on them, but you would only get 1 person with the spell. Say there are 5 baddies, you really want to waste all your spell slots on these guys when there are perhaps 5 or 6 more encounters after this one? So right here, the spell is an answer but not the best answer, the player could really hurt the monsters but it would not be his best option.
2.They get a will save vs mind affecting. If I wanted to be really mean I could make all the bad guys immune to mind affecting, like undead or constructs. But I do not want to, maybe the encounter has both undead and living humans. If I mix them up, then color spray would only work against the living people and not the undead. Perhaps I make an encounter where everyone is a living human and I bunch them up for you. In this fight the wizard would be great, assuming all the humans failed there will saves. So knowing your DC I just have to write the will saves of these humans such that it is common to fail (I need to roll a 15 or higher) average to fail (I need to roll 10 a or higher) or not likely (I need to roll a 5 or higher). Suppose I want the wizard to feel powerful in this fight, I make the humans weak and make their saves such that they need 15s or higher. I put the fight in a small room, and I give the bad guys poor initiative, the players get the drop on them and they have no spell resistance. In this case, because I designed it that way, the wizard would be great. But you see, all the ways I could just use the will save to challenge the wizard.
3.Spell resistance of how I love spell resistance. This is just like a saving throw, I just need to make the number high enough such that it fits what I want. Suppose I have a humanoid who has a really high spell resistance, well then more than likely shut down that spell. If I want to be really safe, I give them a high save and high spell resistance. If I make a fight with fast moving, hard hitting high spell resistance high save undead monsters. The wizard is going to be feeling the pain. The monsters will run up and hurt hit there low ac so hard the wizard will have no option but to run away. If the wizard tried to color spray the monsters then it would fail. So I made a hard fight for the wizard, if I do this only once or twice in the adventure while still including fights like I made above, The player does not feel weak. They get to be strong and they get to feel weak and other times they get to feel average.
4.Final one here, you have to spend 1 standard action to cast this spell. Suppose I put a copy wizard on the bad guys team. A wizard who has almost the exact same spell load out, I mean if you pick the 'best spells' why would the bad guys not pick the exact same 'best spells'? Suppose I pick only a few of your best spells, and I give the wizard high initiative. There entire job is to counter you, just sit there, holding back and holding actions till you make your move where upon, if they can, they counter you. I could also throw in some high damage ranged attackers who will force very hard concentration checks on you. If I throw in 1 or 2 of these, you really cant cast a spell, but your fighter friend could run up and cut them to pieces. Thus freeing you to cast your spells, which by that point could still be nice but they could also be not as effective because its several rounds into combat and most monsters are weak or dead.
I hope my little example above shows you how you can design against something. How I let my players feel weak, strong or average and not just weak all the time. If I strung this together with a story I would place these fights where the plot needed them to be. So there you go, just because I can design against you does not make you god and it does not invalidate my answer. It works, and every DM should be doing this.
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My point is this. An ability/feat/spell/etc can be too good based on several factors. As an example if you have a level 1 spell that can do 1000000 points of damage to 10000 creatures that ignores line of effect, and does not damage allies at level 1 I would say that is broken because no level 1 spell should be that good.
Now as the GM you can create a feat that makes everyone immune to the spell, or kill the PC that uses it, and so on. That however does not make the spell ok.
Maybe you can even have a caster using dispel magic to counter the spell if it has a duration, but that still does not make it ok.
So yeah, "the GM can fix it" has no bearing on he power of ____.
The "GM can fix it" just means the GM has the power to avoid less than ideal situations taking place in his games.
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The other thing with one PC being inordinately powerful is encounters tend to be about them. So, sure the GM can manufacture things that will get around it. They still tend to dominate things.
This is one of the reasons I am fond of saying the most important word in the GMs vocabulary is "no".
There is also the flip side. Designing an encounter where that quiet player who never seems to get to do much suddenly has just the thing that is desperately needed.
I wish you formated your text a bit better Sloth as that is a massive wall.
Anyway, i have to agree with Wraith as that anything a GM fixes on is basically a houserule and you cant really add that into context onto the abilities presented, nor can you account for every single situation.
Taking the fireball forexample, is this spell useless just because there is fire resistant or even fire immune creatures in the world? Or this spell is useless because the GM dont like the wizard so he gives his next encounter all a prebuffed resist energy to fire. Obviously this is a scenario that make the fireball less valuable than before, but does it make it any less powerful in the sense of the game? Ofcourse not.
And honestly as a GM you should make your encounters based somewhat on the current location, would you suddenly send ice immune giants on a party in the middle of the desert just because the Ice themed Oracle just happen to be a little better set-up than the rest of the part?
So having the context in mind you dont always have the option to outright "shut down" a player, i think its more reasonable to set up encounters in such a way that wear down the party and prevent them from resting for a few encounters instead of getting upset and "GM fix" stuff.
Sensible thoughts Dracoknight.
Where you will encounter things that shut a PC down, or several PCs, is where the opponents have some way of knowing what makes the players dangerous and come prepared.
That makes the PCs life very difficult and is perfectly logical. Sensible players will avoid these situations as much as they can.
wow people are really stuck on those words 'shut down' huh? That is very funny.
@dracoknight: I made a very simple example in that giant block of text to highlight a point I said it was a simple example in my post. I will recap it for you as you seemed to have missed it. You should make some encounters that a hard, some are easy and some that are average. I did not say all the things that you should have in encounters, and adventures. Yes many encounters that drain on the players resources is one of those aspects, but there are many of them that you can use for many reasons.
@wraithstrike: It actually does, because the DM makes the game and makes the challenges. that power only exists in the game, a game made and controlled by the DM. Without a DM you are just talking about numbers on a website or in a book, nothing real. you cant remove the one DM's main aspects just because it helps your argument.
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Go dig through the domains and Deific Obedience boons.
Eh, the really good ones are good enough that the high-level SLAs are just gravy. Irori's +4 to all knowledge skills, for example.
@Oni_Sloth: well the whole "shut down" thing is very serious term in any pen&paper game as it basically forces a player to stop playing for a encounter/session, and a non-playing player is somewhat of a "no-no" for a DM.
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Prestige classes CANNOT be favored classes.My current character is a lvl 5 cleric of sarenrae, with one level of exalted and one of evangelist, with exalted as the favoured class. I will be taking the next 9 levels thus.
That is efficient as deific obedience is a pre-requisite for both PCs. And you get the benefits of both the PCs. It costs you one casting level and you lose some of your channeling for a while, though you get it back.
Yes, the combo is very good imho.
Given the context I think they mean Aligned Class, the second level ability of an Evangelist.
@dracoknight: I am aware, its just in all my posts you focus on those words and not the many other. I made lengthy posts talking about and clarifying my stance yet you still focus on those words. That is why i find it so funny, because you can be the most eloquent person ever but if you say 2 words someone does not like then it does not matter what you were trying to say.
The question is..... if a cleric goes Exalted at 5th level (able to cast 3rd level spells) do they lose all future access to any domain spells they already had above 3rd level? Or are they still able to cast them at the time they would have been able to cast them as a straight cleric since they are an original class feature?
I'm thinking that if they do lose access to them then that combined with channeling being lost means that....
Exalted = pretty dire Cleric prestige class
After all... the expanded portfolio ability only kicks in after 5 levels of exalted AND has abilities and spells that are linked to the exalted level NOT the character level.
IMO potentially a real hero to zero situation!!