Domains =/= Prestiges

[SealedInSong]

I'm not sure if this question has been asked elsewhere, and if so, I apologize, but I think there needs to be a discussion about why the cleric alpha is indicating cleric domains are being conflated with cleric prestiges.

Quite apart from some obviously glaring problems (ex: "Radiant Servant" healing tree providing light spellpower but no light SLA/enhancements, protection tree containing absurdly short buffs, lots of junk enhancements), I for one operated under the assumption that we'd have:

Domains somewhat resembling PnP with

• skill boni
• possible SLAs or spellbook additions
• weapon foci (which I understand to be related to the level1 cleric granted feat)
• turn undead augmentations related to one's domain

and prestiges with

• the addition of war priest and exorcist
• enhancements geared toward generic cleric pursuits: healing (radiant servant), casting (exorcist), martial (war priest)

I strongly believe that domains and prestiges should be independent from one another, and that this relative independence can create a wonderfully diverse new generation of clerics. Rather than being a F2P class traditionally viewed as slightly less able (a viewpoint I don't share but is nonetheless prevalent) than its P2P divine counterpart the favored soul, domains and a fully finished set of prestiges would allow clerics to mix and match the following: healing, casting, martial prowess, and the faiths (Sovereign Host, Silver Flame, Undying Court, Vulkoorim, and Lord of Blades).

Instead, we're previewing a Radiant Servant+Healing domain tree, a protection tree that doesn't seem to correspond to anything... and that's it.

In this domain-leak thread, some stated that faiths had access to some three domains, for example, Lord of Blades: Divine/War/Artifice, Undying Court: Divine, Protection, Deathless, etc.

Are we to assume, then, that we have yet to see the following trees:

• divine
• war
• artifice
• deathless
• ???

because we are seeing an entire tree for Protection?

If we could get some dev clarification on this, I think a lot of the dismay from the Official Cleric Alpha Enhancements Discussion Thread might be averted.

Thank you for your time.

[taurean430]

Nice start, sir. +1

The protection stuff featured in the alpha left me dazed and confused. I mean, good gawd! PnP:

Granted Power

You can generate a protective ward as a supernatural ability. Grant someone you touch a resistance bonus equal to your cleric level on his or her next saving throw. Activating this power is a standard action. The protective ward is an abjuration effect with a duration of 1 hour that is usable once per day.
Protection Domain Spells

Sanctuary: Opponents can’t attack you, and you can’t attack.
Shield Other F: You take half of subject’s damage.
Protection from Energy: Absorb 12 points/level of damage from one kind of energy.
Spell Immunity: Subject is immune to one spell per four levels.
Spell Resistance: Subject gains SR 12 + level.
Antimagic Field: Negates magic within 10 ft.
Repulsion: Creatures can’t approach you.
Mind Blank: Subject is immune to mental/emotional magic and scrying.
Prismatic Sphere: As prismatic wall, but surrounds on all sides.

Now compare that to alpha. Something is seriously, seriously wrong here.

[Jay203]

lol, i kinda called it?
figured they'd do something for domains along the line of:
let clerics choose a domain via free class feat, then access the domain power via enhancements


though with how restrictive this new enhancement system is atm, it's not gonna work out well.
heh

[taurean430]

80AP.
High Cost Enhancements.
Needless selection of enhancments to open anything valuable.
Core abilities backloaded now.
Prestige Class and Domains combined and have to be bought with AP
Ommision of 8th level spells that are in game but limited to Druid only.
Less spellpower.
Available options missing higher tier abilities/ Paying high cost for a tier 3 autogrant with 4 and beyond out to lunch and not available.
No spell pen enhancements.
No dc boosting.
Missing Domains (Air, Animal, Chaos, Death, Destruction, Earth, Evil, Fire, Good, Knowledge, Law, Luck, Magic, Plant, Strength, Sun, Travel, Trickery, War, Water).


Only Healing and Protection offered. This is tore up from the floor up.

[Jay203]

honestly i'd wait a bit for them to release the other domains
seeing how there's a protection domain, there better be an offensive domain as a choice

[chanw4]

They should remove domain from enhancement and use proper Prestige class as PrE. The domain should be free feat at level 1 cleric to choose. like wild shape for druid.

[taurean430]

honestly i'd wait a bit for them to release the other domains
seeing how there's a protection domain, there better be an offensive domain as a choice

Been waiting 4 years. Isn't that long enough?

Bah, I'm done posting tonight. I'm a half step away from a diatribe of expletives ghetto style after reading and mulling over these changes they are making.

[Jay203]

Been waiting 4 years. Isn't that long enough?

Bah, I'm done posting tonight. I'm a half step away from a diatribe of expletives ghetto style after reading and mulling over these changes they are making.

the new system hasn't been completely revealed yet and you're jumping the gun already?

that's like.... waiting for a jigsaw puzzle to be completed and you call the whole puzzle a disaster when a couple pieces have been put together

[voodoogroves]

I too would like to see domains be separate from PREs. Ah well.

[chanw4]

Bumping this thread because Making the domain into PrE is just bad.

Please give clerics proper domain selection like the half elf dilettante.

Select 2 domains at level 1 and auto grant the SLA, feats etc at certain Clerics level.

Give them proper PrE like warpriest etc.

[Cyr]

the new system hasn't been completely revealed yet and you're jumping the gun already?

that's like.... waiting for a jigsaw puzzle to be completed and you call the whole puzzle a disaster when a couple pieces have been put together

LOL!

Yeah, the devs having decided to make domains into cleric PrE trees are just holding back the dozens of trees (there are a massive number of pnp domains) to create a full picture...

No, the devs have 2-3 trees per class and that is that. They did not get close to accomplishing what they set out to do years ago having pushed it off over and over again.

Now we have a bunch of other systems being mucked about with and not even a measly 3 trees per class...thinking we are going to get a whole bunch more cleric trees as part of this pass as domains is so far beyond reality it boggles the mind.

[SealedInSong]

no matter how vague, would be nice here. Alas.

[shadereaper33]

All we have actually heard on the matter is the dev's have started working on cleric domains. At no point was it ever even remotely mentioned that those domains would actually be enhancement trees. That is purely supposition that has been made because the the two available cleric trees are called protection (which is a defensive tree) and healing (which is a healing tree). Personally, until told otherwise, I am going to continue under the assumption that the domains and the PrE's are separate. To do otherwise would just over tax my tin foil hat.

[taurean430]

Indeed.

For posterity:

[SealedInSong]

All we have actually heard on the matter is the dev's have started working on cleric domains. At no point was it ever even remotely mentioned that those domains would actually be enhancement trees. That is purely supposition that has been made because the the two available cleric trees are called protection (which is a defensive tree) and healing (which is a healing tree). Personally, until told otherwise, I am going to continue under the assumption that the domains and the PrE's are separate. To do otherwise would just over tax my tin foil hat.

Because clearly in my OP, I asked them what their intention was. It's fine for you to continue your assumption, but from the evidence given, it could go either way in my opinion. Hence, I asked the devs to possibly comment on it.

[shadereaper33]

Because clearly in my OP, I asked them what their intention was. It's fine for you to continue your assumption, but from the evidence given, it could go either way in my opinion. Hence, I asked the devs to possibly comment on it.

My post was directed more at the entire thread than at your specific post. A lot of the people in this thread seem to be assuming that the new cleric PrE trees are the dev's take on domains. My post was only intended to remind everyone that we have not, in fact, heard any mention whatsoever about what form the cleric domains will take beyond a dev saying that they are working on them. Rather than assuming the absolute worst from the get go with only a few pieces of circumstantial evidence to support the theory, I feel that we should give the dev's some time to actually communicate with us on what their stance is on the matter.

[HungarianRhapsody]

the new system hasn't been completely revealed yet and you're jumping the gun already?

that's like.... waiting for a jigsaw puzzle to be completed and you call the whole puzzle a disaster when a couple pieces have been put together

Once you've found all of the pieces that have flat edges, you at least know the outline of the puzzle. The outline of the Cleric puzzle looks pretty sketchy.

I'm hoping that Turbine actually does something with Domains instead of just using their names for Enhancement trees.

[Trasak]

Cleric has always felt like an under developed class to me as well. The domains were a huge part of PnP clerics. Domains provided interesting spells, an alternative use of turn abilities and a character defining feat and you got two domains. The current DDO cleric currently only gets one. . . ish really only a single diety favored weapon and one 3-5th level spell if you spend the AP on it.

What should be done is two selection feats at first level cleric that will add both favored weapons, will add two lists of spells that can be swapped with the cure spells, and one SLA that runs off your Turns per day and your turn level for caster level. All of this at level 1 but which scales by level and I would highly encourage all of the SLAs to scale at least to level 20 in a slightly exponential improvement of the effect.

The AP trees for cleric would make the most sense being considered in terms of Deity-weapon/Smiting, Healing/Abjuration and Exorcism/divine light.

The level 20 capstone of the Deity-Weapon tree would be something like while wielding your deities weapon you have full bab and +4 divine bonus to strength and con
Holy capstone would have an always on healing aura that would also dispell negative effects one every 6 seconds
Exorcism should have a powerful SLA that does extra damage to daemons, undead and aberrations.

The rest of the AP spent in the trees would be abilities that match the capstones.

Anyway just trying to support a well built and powerful Cleric Pre forest and proper domains and I don't even have a cleric, I just want more of them around.

[IronClan]

the new system hasn't been completely revealed yet and you're jumping the gun already?

that's like.... waiting for a jigsaw puzzle to be completed and you call the whole puzzle a disaster when a couple pieces have been put together

Actually each class and race are a lot like individual puzzles, what they have shown us is actually a series of puzzles that are mostly complete save a few tweaks and details that still need to be fleshed out.

So if 10 or 15 more puzzles are coming, it is entirely reasonable to expect those puzzles to bare a resemblance and use many of the same "shapes".

If Protection and Healing are Domains with PrE's wrapped up in them, and they very much appear to be. Then it stands to reason we're not getting 15 domains... because they would need to wrap up 12 more PrE's inside those domains, to keep the same format and not be inconsistent.

Instead is is extremely likely and even obvious perhaps; that we're getting one more "domain" and it will have War Priest PrE in it. Offense, Defense, Pacifist.

No I can't say 100% for sure... but my Spidey sense is tingling and every intuitive amature game designer bone in my body expects that's it. Unless the current two trees are merely a temporary place holder to let people test the values/abilities in them and they will be reorganized later into real domain perks like Half Elf Dili's, I seriously doubt we're getting real domains and three PrE's.

The thing is people keep saying "wait and see"... no you wait and they will have even more work invested in something the player base doesn't like... they will be less inclined to change it... Speak up now, they are putting these out there to test and critique, and everything they have said confirms this: BECAUSE THEY WANT US TO.

[HungarianRhapsody]

Instead is is extremely likely and even obvious perhaps; that we're getting one more "domain" and it will have War Priest PrE in it. Offense, Defense, Pacifist.

Given Turbine's track record for following up on a project to finish it once the "first stage" of a project is released to live, I don't expect to see War Priest (or any other enhancement tree addition to the two now seen for Cleric) before 2015 at the earliest.

They work hard to get a product out the door and if it's not quite finished, whatever wasn't finished won't be touched for years at least.
Radiant Servant - still no Tier 3
Battle Engineer - no Tier 2 or 3
Frenzied Berserker - still has bugs where you get the self-inflicted damage, but no bonus damage on enemies
Spellsinger, Virtuoso, War Chanter - still no Tier 3
Angel of Vengeance - no Tier 3
Ninja Spy - still no Tier 3
Deepwood Sniper - lol
Mechanic - still no Tier 3
Thief Acrobat - still no Tier 3

I don't blame them at all for not finishing the Druid PrE yet since Druid is still relatively new, but the rest of them are just embarrassing. How long have Enhancements and PrEs existed? And they still don't even have them done for the original core classes.

Anything that doesn't change before the Enhancement update goes live isn't going to be touched for a LOOOONG time. And from what the developers have said on Llama, major changes are not going to be made for the Enhancements compared to what we are seeing in the Alpha. They'll tweak abilities. They'll add a couple of abilities that they forgot. *cough*Fighter Haste Boost*cough* They'll tweak costs in some areas. But the major work is complete on the design side.