Divine Punishment Availability?

[Thurbus]

So, a couple levels ago a fellow player highly recommended the spell "divine punishment". I looked it up and saw it would be available when I reached level 9. When I was ready to level up and spoke to the trainer though, I discovered "divine punishment" was not among my new spells. In fact, of all the level 5 spells, "divine punishment" was the only one omitted from my spell book.

Until this point, I had been on the "scourge of the undead" path. I quickly discover that if I left the path but leveled up in the exact same way as if I had stayed on it, "divine punishment" appeared in my spell book. I guess my question is, why is this? Why would "divine punishment" be unavailable to me on the "scourge of the undead" path, but available once I left it? I'm just confused.

[9Crows]

short answer is because the paths suck and have sucked for quite awhile,there are many forums posts dealing with the particulars of why the paths suck. you have just discovered 1

[Calebro]

The paths were created prior to the spell being implemented. If the paths follow a script to level (which they most certainly do) that script couldn't possibly include something that didn't exist when the script was written. If no one thought to add them later....
I think there are two main reasons that no one has ever noticed this before.
1. No one that has played this game for very long uses the pre-made paths.
2. The newer players that use the paths aren't aware that they've been missing anything.

Good catch though. Spell lists are obviously something that need to be looked at for the paths, to make sure any new spells are included.

[Matuse]

Being on a path should not affect a cleric's access to spells.

It may not put Divine Punishment into a memorized slot automatically, but it should still be on your master list. Clerics get EVERY spell automatically. Path has nothing to do with it.

If you don't have the spell at all, that's a serious bug.

[sweez]

Whether OP's situation has or hasn't anything to do with pre-made paths, it's about time those are completely removed from the game. Just find some other way to boost lesser heart sales plz

[Carpone]

short answer is because the paths suck and have sucked for quite awhile,there are many forums posts dealing with the particulars of why the paths suck. you have just discovered 1

This pretty much sums it up. Turbine hasn't revisited the paths since newer spells like Divine Punishment was introduced.