Time to relook at the faith lines for Clerics and Paladins

[Cowdenicus]

You know I have always compared the faith lines that Clerics and Pallies get against the new enhancements for rogues, and the older ones for rogues, bards and rangers.

After seriously looking at them, I cannot help the feeling that Clerics and Pallies are really not getting the most that they could get for their AP for these Faith lines. Let us take a look at some of the bonuses rangers, rogues and bards get.

Ranger Tempest I:
Benefit: Grants a stacking bonus to dual wield attack speed and a +2 bonus to armor class while dual wielding.

Ranger Deepwood Sniper I:
Benefit: Grants a +1 bonus to Hide, Move Silently, and Spot. Also grants the ability to take an aimed 'sniper shot' with a +4 bonus to hit, +1 critical threat range, and +1 critical threat multiplier.

Ranger/Elven Arcane Archer I:
Benefit: Grants 20 spell points and the ability to conjure +1 returning arcane arrows at will. Also grants the ability to make a ranged attack as a True Strike with a +20 bonus to hit.

Rogue Way of the Thief Acrobat II
Benefit: Grants an additional +2 bonus to Balance, Jump, and Tumble skills, increases your movement rate by 10%, and 2 extra uses per rest of Uncanny Dodge. Also grants a greater increase to attack speed with staves and complete immunity to knockdown effects and slippery surfaces.

Rogue Way of the Assassin II
Benefit: Grants an additional +4 bonus to Sneak Attack Damage, +2 bonus to Bluff, Hide, and Move Silently skills and a +1 bonus to Fortitude saves against poison. Also grants the ability to make devastating melee attacks that can kill a living target instantly on a successful sneak attack if the target fails a Fortitude save, DC 10 + Rogue Level + Int Modifier. Even on a successful save, the target takes increased sneak attack damage. (10 second cool-down, no times per day limit, can only be used when sneak attacking.)

Spellsinger
Your studies into magic have granted you a +2 bonus to your Concentration and Use Magic Device skills, +100 Spell Points, and the ability to expend a use of Bardic Music to grant all nearby allies a +1 morale bonus to spell DC's and a 10% morale discount on spell costs.

Virtuoso
Your studies into song have granted you a +2 bonus to your Diplomacy, Listen, and Perform skills, 3 extra uses of Bardic Music per rest, and your beneficial songs last an additional 10% longer. You also gain the ability to expend a use of Bardic Music to enthrall multiple enemies, fascinating them and inflicting a -2 penalty to attack rolls and Will saves even if the fascination is broken.

Warchanter
Your studies into war have granted you a +2 bonus to your Intimidate skill. Your Inspire Courage song gains an additional +1 to attack rolls, +2 to damage rolls, and +1 to fear saves. If you possess the Barbarian Rage ability, you gain +1 use per rest. You also gain the ability to expend a use of Bardic Music to grant all nearby allies damage reduction 5/-."

Way of the Mechanic I
Benefit: +2 bonus to Disable Device, Open Lock, Repair, Spot, and Search skills. Activate to apply a repair over time effect to a targetted friendly Warforged or Construct. Consumes one use of Rogue Skill Boost for the day.

Way of the Thief-Acrobat I
Benefit: +2 bonus to Balance, Jump, and Tumble skills and 2 extra uses of Uncanny Dodge per day. Activate to gain a +10 bonus to Balance, Jump and Tumble, a 25% Enhancement bonus to movement speed, and a +4 bonus to Dexterity for 20 seconds. Consumes one use of Rogue Haste Boost for the day.

Way of the Assassin I
Benefit: +2 bonus to Bluff, Hide, and Move Silently skills and a +1 bonus to Fortitude saves versus Poison. Activate to gain a +2 bonus to hit when making sneak attacks, a +20 bonus to confirm critical hits, and a 25% chance to apply a mind affecting poison with each sneak attack, for 20 seconds. Consumes one use of Rogue Damage Boost for the day.

While some of these are only seriously powerful, some of them are jaw droppingly powerful. An every 10 second death shot? a 10% melee alacrity boost, poisons, +10's to multiple skills, bonus speed, huge buffs from the bards, not to mention a bonus 100 spell points and a rare bonus to UMD, immunities, bonuses to crit range and multipliers, this is powerful stuff.

Now let us compare these to the faith lines....

Now first off you can get a +1 to hit with a single weapon, of which there are 5 choices, and for clerics you can use a turn attempt to grant proficiency with that one single weapon. OK now above and beyond that crumb, clerics and pallies can at the cost of 4 AP get one of the following:

Silver Flame Exorcism
You are a devoted follower of the Silver Flame, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to attempt to exorcise an extraplanar creature, which is entirely consumed in holy fire on a failed Will save or savagely burned by the light of the Silver Flame partially resisted by a Fortitude save. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Unyielding Sovereignty
You are a devoted follower of the Sovereign Host, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to fully heal hit point damage done to yourself or a targetted ally, remove ability damage, and the conditions blinded, confused, dazed, dazzled, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, and poisoned. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Undying Call
You are a devoted follower of the Undying Court, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to lead a dead ally's spirit back to this world, acting as a True Resurrection on high elven spirits or a Raise Dead for others. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Bladesworn Transformation
You are a devoted follower of the Lord of Blades, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to become a juggernaut of destruction for 60 seconds. (You have a +4 profane bonus to Strength, a +4 natural armor bonus to AC, a +4 profane bonus on damage rolls, and proficiency in all simple and martial weapons. Your base attack bonus equals your character level. You have lost your spellcasting ability. You have immunity to critical hits and sneak attacks, but cannot be healed by healing spells.) Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Vulkoor's Avatar
You are a devoted follower of Vulkoor the Hunter, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to ask Vulkoor to send one of his servants to destroy your enemies. (Summons a Drow Scorpion to crush your enemies.) Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Now while the Bladesworn transformation is somewhat appealing, the cooldown means you are only ok in spurts. The rest when compared to the other enhancements for rogues bards and rangers are just lacking. Almost all of them are lacking due to the recast timer being 10 minutes. I mean a rogue can do a death shot every 10 seconds, but a cleric has to wait 10 minutes to use their heal ability from Unyielding Soverignity. Come on Turbine. We can do better than this.

There is no way that anybody with a straight face can compare tempest with Vulkoors avatar and be like, ooo those are close, or way of the assassin 2 with Bladesworn Transformation and find them comparable.

It is high time for the faith lines to be reevaluated, and have their power increased and timers shortened.

[MrCow]

Well, in terms of power, I will agree that the faith lines have a few things that put them under the other class specialties. However, its not completely fair to do an AP-for-usefulness analysis when compared to the bardic and ranger specialties as most of them have feat requirements (and some of them are quite feat intensive). The fact that they require feats allows the overall power in the enhancements be higher.

If you are going to compare the faith enhancements with class specialty enhancements then you may be best to keep the comparison to the rogue specialties and bard Virtuoso. Even then, the lack of any requirements (other than race for some of them) almost doesn't make it fair to compare the faith enhancements with any of the specialties. The bonus of a faith enhancement is that it is not bound to any of the other enhancements (a good example being the Rogue Way of the Assassin II).

[Cowdenicus]

Well, in terms of power, I will agree that the faith lines have a few things that put them under the other class specialties. However, its not completely fair to do an AP-for-usefulness analysis when compared to the bardic and ranger specialties as most of them have feat requirements (and some of them are quite feat intensive). The fact that they require feats allows the overall power in the enhancements be higher.

If you are going to compare the faith enhancements with class specialty enhancements then you may be best to keep the comparison to the rogue specialties and bard Virtuoso.

I do not agree. Clerics are much more feat intense than rogues or bards or rangers, heck especially rangers. Rangers get what 14 free feats in this game? The bonus of a faith enhancement is just that bone us. But Seriously, cost for AP is a valid comparison.

That would be like saying well dont count critical rage for barbarians when talking about dps, because it requires rage, and no other class gets rage.

[ThrasherGT]

Paladins? Yes, they need some serious "love", but I tend to disagree with You as far as clerics are concerned. Clerics are one of the most powerful classes in the game, and the faith lines are there to add some "flavor" and individuality to cleric builds. When You consider that clerics can fight, heal, cast offensive and defensive spells, restore SP to other casters, etc., what else do We really need? Would I like to see clerics get a little more SP? Yes, but I can live with it the way it is now.......

[Cowdenicus]

Paladins? Yes, they need some serious "love", but I tend to disagree with You as far as clerics are concerned. Clerics are one of the most powerful classes in the game, and the faith lines are there to add some "flavor" and individuality to cleric builds. When You consider that clerics can fight, heal, cast offensive and defensive spells, restore SP to other casters, etc., what else do We really need? Would I like to see clerics get a little more SP? Yes, but I can live with it the way it is now.......

No Clerics are one of the most requested classes in the game.

Paladins can also fight (better than clerics I might add), Heal (LOH and spells), cast, and turn undead. (DV is not an ability useful to clerics, it is useful to others in a clerics group, if I am out soloing, the AP spent on DV's or whatever are completely wasted as I cannot target myself with them).

Using your logic Pallies can melee better than clerics and clerics can cast better than pallies. Seems like they would be even. So in fact with your logic, Paladins are one of the most powerful classes in the game.

Since we know that Pallies are not one of the most powerful classes in the game....... it would seem your entire premise does not add up.

[esoitl]

be real here Cow

you are trying to compare Class Specialties to Enhancement Lines and even go so far as to comparing Melee to Casting
the only thing that has to be rethought is the validity of this post

these ARE NOT the same things as class specialties as is the Tempest, Assassin, Warchanter and the others
these are FAITH LINES

they have racial requirements that need to be met, just like the Dragon Marks do and therefore are abilities based upon a specific race, not upon a Specialized Cleric or Paladin
what's next, comporing a DM'ed build to a Tempest build??

[Falco_Easts]

Paladins? Yes, they need some serious "love", but I tend to disagree with You as far as clerics are concerned. Clerics are one of the most powerful classes in the game, and the faith lines are there to add some "flavor" and individuality to cleric builds. When You consider that clerics can fight, heal, cast offensive and defensive spells, restore SP to other casters, etc., what else do We really need? Would I like to see clerics get a little more SP? Yes, but I can live with it the way it is now.......

I agree that clerics can be powerful but I think the enhancements could be improved. Not so much for the power as the flavour. Personally, I think every Cleric/Pali should have to choose one faith enhancement before they can level to 2 and then get other enhancements to improve on that. If they are there for flavour then they really need improvemnt. If you are playing with a faith based class you should have no doubts to where there faith lies. As it is, you would not know which of these enhancements the cleric had in most cases.

i.e
Bladesworn Transformation
Enhancement to cut the cooldown, enhancement to increase the STR bonus etc... Until at level 20 your faith enhancement allows you to turn into a whirling montster DPS machine that is pure beaty to watch with a Greatsword.

Vulkoor's Avatar
Enhancements to cut the summons cooldown, enhancements to increase the CR of the Avator. At level 20 your summoned Drow Scorp should be one of Vulkoor's right hand men and be a real show of your gods trust in you.

[esoitl]

I agree that clerics can be powerful but I think the enhancements could be improved. Not so much for the power as the flavour. Personally, I think every Cleric/Pali should have to choose one faith enhancement before they can level to 2 and then get other enhancements to improve on that. If they are there for flavour then they really need improvemnt. If you are playing with a faith based class you should have no doubts to where there faith lies. As it is, you would not know which of these enhancements the cleric had in most cases.

i.e
Bladesworn Transformation
Enhancement to cut the cooldown, enhancement to increase the STR bonus etc... Until at level 20 your faith enhancement allows you to turn into a whirling montster DPS machine that is pure beaty to watch with a Greatsword.

Vulkoor's Avatar
Enhancements to cut the summons cooldown, enhancements to increase the CR of the Avator. At level 20 your summoned Drow Scorp should be one of Vulkoor's right hand men and be a real show of your gods trust in you.

then you're basically creating a DDO modified domain system
the problem here is that these lines a race restricted and at times you can get only one or two of them... i have two clerics and no line i'd actually wish to take

forced AP spending is not what the majority of Clerics(or any class) would like to see unless it's something nice and shiny
now, if you were to actually find a balanced way to introduce domains to the class this would be nice - must be taken on creation and can't be changed

to keep Clerics from overwhelming maybe put an AP unlock on the domain spells or something....
some more or less get into RP and such though which would slightly alter the flavour

[Zuldar]

to keep Clerics from overwhelming maybe put an AP unlock on the domain spells or something....some more or less get into RP and such though which would slightly alter the flavour

I disagree with this for the simple reason that's domains are a class feature. After all fighters don't have to spend ap to get their bonus feats.

[Cowdenicus]

be real here Cow

you are trying to compare Class Specialties to Enhancement Lines and even go so far as to comparing Melee to Casting
the only thing that has to be rethought is the validity of this post

these ARE NOT the same things as class specialties as is the Tempest, Assassin, Warchanter and the others
these are FAITH LINES

they have racial requirements that need to be met, just like the Dragon Marks do and therefore are abilities based upon a specific race, not upon a Specialized Cleric or Paladin
what's next, comporing a DM'ed build to a Tempest build??

So you advocate the addition of class specialties as well as the faith lines for Clerics and Paladins?

What is not the same? All of the Class specialties, require AP to be spent, and minimum levels in a class save Arcane Archer which is open to all elves. The Faith lines do too.

In fact, I would say they are identical.

[Cowdenicus]

I disagree with this for the simple reason that's domains are a class feature. After all fighters don't have to spend ap to get their bonus feats.

Exactly.

[FluffyCalico]

I see one major problem with adding cleric domains. Since they did not exist at character generation people did not choose their alignment based on them. Would all clerics get a 1 time alignment redo? Or would you condem 90% of clerics to reroll?

[Falco_Easts]

then you're basically creating a DDO modified domain system

Yep.

the problem here is that these lines a race restricted and at times you can get only one or two of them... i have two clerics and no line i'd actually wish to take

Not up on the Ebarron setting but from what I read, some fo the faiths are race restricted. Lord fo the Blades is a WF faith for example. I may be wrong. To cover all aspects, leave race restricted fath there but you may "buy into it" from another race using AP's but it will cost you.

forced AP spending is not what the majority of Clerics(or any class) would like to see unless it's something nice and shiny now, if you were to actually find a balanced way to introduce domains to the class this would be nice - must be taken on creation and can't be changed

Yep, let the first tier be free and the basic bonuses of each faith for free but open up other opportunities by AP use.

to keep Clerics from overwhelming maybe put an AP unlock on the domain spells or something....
some more or less get into RP and such though which would slightly alter the flavour

As above

[Cowdenicus]

I see one major problem with adding cleric domains. Since they did not exist at character generation people did not choose their alignment based on them. Would all clerics get a 1 time alignment redo? Or would you condem 90% of clerics to reroll?

Hmmmm how they will get the monks to level, I joke, but hmmmm.

This though is not about domains, this is about faith lines and their complete lack of power as compared to other class specialties.

10 sec kill shot timer does not equate to a 10 minute summon or heal.

[esoitl]

I disagree with this for the simple reason that's domains are a class feature. After all fighters don't have to spend ap to get their bonus feats.

i admit it's fairly foolish but you have to admit if domains are introduced it will be quite unbalancing, unless of course they add them in as clickies in effect..... it has been mentioned though that there exists alignment restrictions which would cause major headaches to those existing clerics

So you advocate the addition of class specialties as well as the faith lines for Clerics and Paladins?

What is not the same? All of the Class specialties, require AP to be spent, and minimum levels in a class save Arcane Archer which is open to all elves. The Faith lines do too.

In fact, I would say they are identical.

look at the titles of the enhancements, most are labelled as a class specialty whereas the cleric and paladin lines are titled tenet of faith
this would make it a religious based ABILITY granted to clerics and paladins due to their highly religious nature and involvement

by no means does this equal a class specialty
sure the abilties aren't great but stop comparing apples to oranges if you want to make a point

[Cowdenicus]

look at the titles of the enhancements, most are labelled as a class specialty whereas the cleric and paladin lines are titled tenet of faith
this would make it a religious based ABILITY granted to clerics and paladins due to their highly religious nature and involvement

by no means does this equal a class specialty
sure the abilties aren't great but stop comparing apples to oranges if you want to make a point

Until they add in Cleric and Paladin Class Specialties, or give even a hint that they will, it has to be assumed that these are it and as such, are greatly underpowered comparatively.

You have no idea what the Developers are planning metagame wise for clerics or paladins.

A religious based ability based off of: (wait for it) CLASS.

Also the cleric and pally faith lines came out first...... think about it maybe that is why the naming difference.

[Ildaron]

I have been thinking the same thing as well. For good or ill I like pointy eared freaks, so my Drow Cleric took the Vuklour Line, and my Elf Paladin (rerolled my elf Cleric to make it a Pallie) took the Undying Court. I always knew the enhancement was not all that powerful (weakened even further when Drow stopped being considered elves so they would not recieve a True Raise from the enhancment, but a normal raise dead) but Undying Court is made even weaker seeing that soon all Paladins and not just those who are elves will be able to spend AP to raise the dead. It is my hope that the devs will look into this and modify/update the Undying Court enhancment. The only thing my elf Pallie will have going for her pretty soon is the fact she can displace herself dor damage mitigation.

[esoitl]

Until they add in Cleric and Paladin Class Specialties, or give even a hint that they will, it has to be assumed that these are it and as such, are greatly underpowered comparatively.

You have no idea what the Developers are planning metagame wise for clerics or paladins.

A religious based ability based off of: (wait for it) CLASS.

Also the cleric and pally faith lines came out first...... think about it maybe that is why the naming difference.

you have no idea either - whats to say they aren't hashing out ideas for class specialties??
there are plenty they could introduce Paladin wise although it is difficult to think of how the Cleric might be handled(maybe a battle specialty, a turning, and a healing??)

how is it that you can't grasp the idea that class specs and these faith lines are different entities??
also, since the Cleric line and the Paladin line are the same how can you even call them class specs??

again - apples to oranges

[Snoggy]

Here's a curveball for you ...

How do the cleric faith enhancements stack up against the Figher class' prestige enhancements?

[Vormaerin]

The only thing my elf Pallie will have going for her pretty soon is the fact she can displace herself dor damage mitigation.

Elves aren't required to take Undying Court (though that is the best RP option for Aerenal elves). So you can also chose Silver Flame (meh) or Sovereign Host (quite good).