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.