Cleric Version of Warpriest: Turns vs spellpoints to power Divine Might

[eachna_gislin]

As the saying goes, Favored Soul warpriests don't have a horse in this race. They don't have turn abilities. I'm 100% behind turbine giving Favored Souls a way to pay for Divine Might and using spellpoints to do it (since Favored Souls have those in abundance). And I would still be interested in any feedback players who prefer Favored Souls might have. That said, this is still a topic about CLERIC warpriests and I would hope those who respond would keep that in mind.

I'm really unhappy with the change to Divine Might for cleric warpriests. As it stood on Live before the enhancement pass, clerics had a version of Divine Might that was powered by their turn undead charges. Paladins still have a version on Live that works the same way (powered by paladin turns). On Live, Clerics and Favored Souls both have a version in the Protection tree that is powered by spellpoints, and that is shown to continue in the preview of the Warpriest tree. I can see 'why' this change was made. Turbine wanted to simplify their work load and give both clerics and favored souls a shared melee tree. Favored Souls don't have charges of turn undead, and so they needed a currency to pay for the power.

However, I feel the currency to pay for Divine Might for clerics warpriests should continue to be charges of Turn Undead. Right now, Turn Undead is fairly close to "useless". Very few cleric players value it. Some well-geared multi-TR players enjoy the benefits of using it in heroic levels but that's reasonably rare. This is not the fault of players (who are generally happy to mash any clicky or button that will allow them to eliminate opposition). This is the fault of Turbine's development team. Rather than investing development efforts in making Turning be more desirable, a past group of devs chose to use turns under the older enhancement system as a way to pay useful for secondary powers.

Cleric (and paladin) players were generally happy with this system. Radiant clerics used them to pay for bursts and auras. Battle clerics who didn't take the Radiant prestige could spend them on Divine Might, and battle clerics who DID take the Radiant prestige would have regenerating turns and could use them for Auras AND Divine Might. Paladins (of course) had nothing else on which to spend them.

This could be seen as a "win-win" situation for everyone. The devs were spared putting extra time into making the actual act of turning undead interesting and viable, healing clerics could heal more easily, battle clerics could potentially do more damage or heal or both.

Now, Protection clerics (and eventually Warpriest clerics) will have to pay for Divine Might with spellpoints. This is *not* a win-win situation for clerics.

Warpriests (defined as those who take tier 5 powers) still have nothing else on which to spend their turns.
Divine Disciples or Radiant Servants (defined as those who take a tier 5 power in their respective trees) can both better afford to spend turns than spellpoints on Divine Might if they want to dabble in melee, because they have other spells to cast (heals, buffs, offensive spells, CC, etc).
Radiant Servants can be expected to take the enhancement that makes their turns regenerate...because it's intrinsically useful to the burst and aura powers.
Divine Disciples only have Divine Vitality to compete with Divine Might on which to spend their turns and are likely to have little interest in both.
If they want, both Warpriests and Divine Disciples can afford to take the enhancement that makes their turns regenerate because it's only tier 4 and doesn't lock them out of the tier 5s in their respective prestiges.

All three prestiges can better spend their spellpoints on other "things".

Some cleric warpriests might protest that they don't have 'enough' turns to pay for Divine Might, given the short duration.

Point for point, a cleric using turns to power Divine Might is better off putting stat points into charisma over strength. Because...

1) Divine Might is a SLA. It can't be dispelled or drained or "taken away" from you. Turns can't be dispelled or taken away from you either.
2) Divine Might has no upper limit on the Charisma modifier that can be applied to your strength and that modifier works exactly like having that larger Strength total. Among other things it applies to combat tactics checks, strength-based skill checks, and strength tests (lever pulls, etc.)
3) The higher your Charisma modifier, the more turns you have to pay for Divine Might.
4) Again, you have nothing else on which to spend your turns. If you *do* find another use for your turns, there's a tier 4 enhancement in a useful tree (Radiant Servant) that gives you unlimited (via recharging) turns.
5) Charisma is valuable in its own right. It modifies Haggle, Diplomacy/Intimidate, and the beloved Use Magical Device (among others).
6) Charisma is rarely a target of stat damage.
7) Specific to epic levels, the Unyielding Sentinal combat destiny provides another cheap way to both increase the number and recharge turns, *and* you can use it to gain up to six additional points of epic charisma.

That is the beauty of elegant system design.

I'm going to sneak in a 8th one.
8) Warpriests don't "need" to worry about high casting DCs and maximum spell slots, which opens up splashing other classes. Paladins get full martial weapon proficiency (something denied to Warpriests) and some other tasty abilities. With two levels of paladin you get access to Divine Grace. This lets you add your charisma modifier to all your saving throws. This means for each two stat points of Charisma you have you *could* increase your Strength, increase all three saving throws, and increase your Turns at the same time. You would lose out on the 2 free feats/tower shield proficiency from splashing fighter, or 2 free feats/stances and evasion from splashing Monk. But it's a viable option.

Making clerics pay spellpoints for Divine Might makes that elegant design trip and fall on its face. Spellpoints on a warpriest are a valuable currency (unlike the cheaply valued turns). Because they have to pay for strength, constitution, and charisma, their wisdom (the source of their spellpoint pool) will be lower than on a caster cleric. Because they're more likely to splash other classes (to make up for other shortfalls in the prestige) they can have an even smaller spellpoint pool. When grouping, they're still going to be expected to cast buffs and provide at least some party healing, which will drain their spellpoint pools further. Because warpriests will likely be in the thick of melee (unless playing archers) whatever spells they do cast will likely "need" Quicken (an extra spellpoint expense). Divine Disciples will have the largest potential spellpoint pools of any cleric prestige. Both Radiant Servants and Divine Disciples pay for their Kewl Powerz with an unwanted currency (turns). Divine Disciples have Divine Vitality (turn based). Radiant Servants have Divine Cleansing, bursts and auras (turn based). Warpriests are the cleric prestige that can least afford to pay spellpoints for their "Divine" power and the only prestige required to do so.

This change was very clearly only put into place because clerics are sharing this warpriest prestige with favored souls. If it was some sort of balance change, the other cleric "Divine" powers would cost spell points. Favored Souls get double the spell points of clerics. Additionally, their spellpoint pool is based on their Charisma, not their Wisdom. That means a warpriest favored soul gets to increase their Divine Might currency for each point put into Charisma, while a cleric warpriest decreases their Divine Might currency for each point put into Charisma (instead of Wisdom).

The "fix" is fairly simple. The code to use turns to pay for Divine Might is already in the game for Paladins. Just give cleric warpriests the paladin Divine Might and Favored Souls the Protection tree Divine Might presently being used on Live.

[Silverleafeon]

Using spell points instead of turns allows battle clerics to dump CHA, something they might like to do.
Farm a bauble?

Right now, Turn Undead is fairly close to "useless". Very few cleric players value it..

Are you sure about that?

What about using 11 action points in the Radiant Servant Tree?

1 here
Healing Domain: For each action point spent in this tree, you gain 0.5 Universal Spell Power and 1 Positive Energy Spell Power. (These stack, effectively giving 1.5 Positive Spell Power per point)
AP Cost: 1 Progression: 0 Requires: Cleric 1

3 here
Extra Turning: +1/+2/+3 Turn Undead per rest.
AP Cost: 1 Progression: 1 No requirements

6 here
Bliss: When you use a Turn Attempt for any reason, you gain 3/4/5 Temporary Hit Points for each Healing Core Ability you possess.
AP Cost: 2 Progression: 1 No requirements

1 here (but leave it turned off)
Pacifism: Toggle: You gain 25 Positive Energy Spell Power and 3% Positive Energy Spell Critical Chance, but have -50 Spell Power and cannot critically hit with other spell damage types, and deal -1[W] damage.
AP Cost: 1 Progression: 5 Requires: Cleric 3, Healing Domain

1 here
Positive Energy Burst: You gain +1% Positive Energy Spell Critical Chance.
Channel Divinity: A wave of positive energy that expands from the caster, healing 1d8 plus 1 per Cleric level to all nearby allies, as well as removing 1d4 negative levels and 1d6 points of ability damage. Undead are instead damaged by the energy, taking 1d8 points of damage per Cleric level - a successful Will save reduces the damage by half. (Metamagic: Empower, Empower Heal, Maximize, Quicken. Spell Resistance: Yes)

AP Cost: 1 Progression: 10 Requires: Cleric level 6, Pacifism

[voodoogroves]

I'd prefer to see it require Turn Undead in both trees (for all channel divinity things)

I'd like an option to GAIN turn undead in some of the trees, such that a FVS could spend the points on that (similar to US).

[guardianx2009]

This is silly.

1. Turn Undead is not useless.
It works tremendously in all EH content, (even in EH FoT), and in some EE content.

2. Divine Might using SP is actually better than using up turns.
If using Divine Might is causing you SP issues, you have bigger problems.

[EllisDee37]

Using spell points instead of turns allows battle clerics to dump CHA, something they might like to do.
Farm a bauble?

Wait, I'm confused. The OP is asking to switch Divine Might from spell points to turns, and your response is that keeping it spell points allows dumping CHA? Erm, that doesn't compute. If you dump CHA, why do you care about Divine Might at all?

Are you sure about that?

[lists a bunch of enhancements that are powered by turns]

Uh.. no.
Radiant Servant Aura
Radiant Burst

Guys, that was his whole point. The actual effect of Turn Undead, as in, target an undead and hit Turn Undead, is what he's calling useless. He says that the way the devs responded to turning being useless is to create enhancements that use turns to activate, like Aura and Burst, and that's what gives turns their value for clerics now.

He was very clear about this.


guardian disagrees about the utility of turning, even in EE, and I have to be honest he's got me curious.

[guardianx2009]

guardian disagrees about the utility of turning, even in EE, and I have to be honest he's got me curious.

Yes. Most "spawned" trash mobs in EE (ie: mobs that come back as undead after you kill them, or summoned by a mob necromancer) have CRs in the 30-40 range. Some even lower. Those mobs can be turned easily. Undead Drow Necromancers in particular, are an example.

[eachna_gislin]

Yes. Most "spawned" trash mobs in EE (ie: mobs that come back as undead after you kill them, or summoned by a mob necromancer) have CRs in the 30-40 range. Some even lower. Those mobs can be turned easily. Undead Drow Necromancers in particular, are an example.

You suggest EE undead are CR 30-40. Lets average that to 35.

As described in the Turn Undead feat, the Turn check is: "roll 1 twenty-sided die + your total Charisma modifier". So, at best, 20 + Charisma Mod. My 13 base charisma level 26 EE raid cleric with tomes and gear has a 28 Charisma. That's +9 to her turn check. On a natural 20, she hits 29.

Without special gear or enhancements, even on a natural 20 she fails.

She has a Gauntlets of Eternity with Eternal Faith. That gives +2 to her Turn check. I think she has 3 points in the Improved Turning enhancement which gives another +3 to her Turn Check. This is a total of +14

On a *natural 20*, she can reach 33. Even on a natural 20, she can't reach the "average" DC of the EE undead. On a 16-20 she can pick off a few of the weakest undead. If she rolls that well and I'm lucky enough to be near the lower level ones.

There are some feats as well. Clerics with 3 cleric past lives, or those who are running in Normal or Hard content (heroic and epic), as well as those who can afford to stack Charisma higher all will do better than my cleric. The new +10/+11 items will also help. But turning is something you have to build for, just like healing or melee or DC casting in the hardest content. Most cleric players don't bother.

The *majority* of cleric players don't use their Turn Undead counts for turning. As illustrated in the posts above, the same majority of people who responded to what I had to say --that failed their reading comprehension checks-- said "You're wrong, Turn Undead counts are too useful ... because they pay for the other useful Cleric powers". *Most* of them didn't say they used their turn undead counts --to turn undead--. I'm going to guess people misunderstood my primary premise because of the length of the wall of text they had to slog through. Ellis clearly understood it. Maybe Ellis has more intestinal fortitude against rambling.

Here's my point: The majority of cleric players value turns for what other, NON-TURNING powers they can spend them on. I would like Warpriests able to spend their turns on their "Divine" powers just like the other clerics get to do. It puts all clerics on a level statting field, with a consistent currency for their special powers.

[guardianx2009]

You suggest EE undead are CR 30-40. Lets average that to 35.

As described in the Turn Undead feat, the Turn check is: "roll 1 twenty-sided die + your total Charisma modifier". So, at best, 20 + Charisma Mod. My 13 base charisma level 26 EE raid cleric with tomes and gear has a 28 Charisma. That's +9 to her turn check. On a natural 20, she hits 29.

I read this and pretty much stopped. All I'm going to say is you are dead wrong. Do some research, learn how Turn Undead works first.

I can pretty much no-fail turn CR35 mobs. Undead trash in EE FoT are CR42, I've succeeded in turning them also.. though at ~50-60% success rate.

[danotmano1998]

Right now, Turn Undead is fairly close to "useless".

Uh.. no.
Radiant Servant Aura
Radiant Burst

[RedHost]

Warpriests (defined as those who take tier 5 powers) still have nothing else on which to spend their turns.

Most War Priests would be very unhappy if they had Divine Might competing with Positive Energy Burst for Turn charges. I see the point that you are trying to make, but it seems like a much better system to have Divine Might based on spell points than on Turn charges.