| prismaticsoul |
Although Kobold Quarterly is technically 3rd party, I have questions about how their Godai druid might interact with other classes, or with certain Pathfinder druid archetypes.
Godai druid appears in KQ #15 starting on page 10, and it seems to be to be a really great baseline class:
You cast divine spells drawn from the Air, Earth, Fire, and Water cleric domains. You can cast any spell you know without preparing it ahead of time. To learn or cast a spell, you must have a Wisdom score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The DC for a saving throw against your spell is 10 + the spell level + your Wisdom modifier. Like other spell-casters, you can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day (see Table 2: Godai Druid). In addition, you receive bonus spells per day for a high Wisdom score. Your selection of spells is extremely limited. You know all the spells on the Air, Earth, Fire, and Water cleric domain spell lists that you are high enough level to cast. Additionally, whenever you gain access to a new spell level, you learn the summon nature’s ally spell of that spell level. Although you prefer to summon elementals and creatures of energy subtypes, your selection is not limited; for example, at 3rd level, you know and can cast burning hands, obscuring mist, magic stone, and summon nature’s ally I. Upon reaching 4th level (and thus gaining access to 2nd level spells), you can also cast fog cloud, produce flame, soften earth and stone, summon nature’s ally II, and wind wall. Unlike a traditional druid, you need not prepare your spells in advance. You can cast any spell you know at any time, assuming you have spells remaining for the day for that spell level.
By drawing spells from a specific divine force, you unlock new powers few other druids command. You gain access to the following four cleric domains: Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. You derive your entire spell list from these four domains (as well as summon nature’s ally spells). When determining the powers granted by
these domains, your effective cleric level is equal to your druid level.
This ability functions like that for the standard
druid except you can choose one of the following cleric domains: Animal,
Plant, or Weather. You add the spells gained from your chosen domain to
your spells known and can cast them just like any other spell you know.
Godai druids get no Orisons (ie 0 level spells). Their spell progression casting wise I think is similar to Sorcerer aside from cantrips (ie 3+wis mod 1st level slots at level 1 progressing to 6+wis mod slots for all 9 spell levels @ 20th.) Godai appear to lose nothing else, with the only other notable thing being a delayed Wild shape development (they don't start wild shaping until 5th level and cap at at will by 20th level).
As far as questions: what happens if a Godai gains domains from another class (perhaps a 1 level dip in 3.5e Cloistered Cleric, any other base class, or any of the multitude of prestige classes that add domains)? Would these count for his/her spells known, and thus be spontaneous as well? Since this class HAS domains, does it get a domain slot per spell level? Are these prepared slots, or spontaneous as well...as written, I'd assume yes to domain slots (since Domains says it works per Cleric domains) but the casting style eludes me, and aside from fluff text from the beginning of the article, everything written on the class is here.
Finally, would giving up SNA spells be worth it for Urban or Storm archetypes? The only real appeal of these was spontaneous domain casting, and it seems to me that Godai has it built in.
Thank you very much in advance for helping me understand this class better and how it might interact meaningfully with classes outside of itself!