Radiant Servant Overhaul/Powercreep

[Tlorrd]

Seeing how Warlock/Paladin/Bard have had new implementations/overhauls making them reliably able to solo EE's, here is my take on overhauling the Radiant Servant Enhancement Tree to make clerics more interesting IMHO.

Radiant Servant: A celestial conduit to scourge undead and bring warmth to their fellow comrades.

Seeing as the majority of healing spells are conjuration based and clerics get it as their past life feats, I focused on those to carry the theme of undead scourge/healer. I'm sure a few of my suggestions may be OP'd but what isn't these days. Feel free to comment likes/dislikes, etc. I hope the devs see this and overhaul radiant servant in some way. I have bolded my changes/suggestions and have reordered a few things.

Enjoy!

Core Abilities


1 AP, class level 1: 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)

5 AP, class level 3: 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.
- You gain +1% Positive Energy Spell Critical Chance

10 AP, class level 6: 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)

20 AP, class level 12: Improved Empower Healing: You gain +1% Positive Energy Spell Critical Chance. The Empower Healing Spell metamagic now grants +100 Positive Energy Spell Power instead of +75.
- Every positive energy spell you cast grants 25 temporary spell points (may happen only once every 60 seconds)

30 AP, class level 18: Positive Energy Shield: You gain +1% Positive Energy Spell Critical Chance.
Channel Divinity: Your living ally receives temporary hit points equal to your Heal skill. Your target also receives +20 Sacred healing amplification from positive energy for the next 60 seconds. (Cooldown: 30 seconds)
- You gain +20% Positve Energy Critical Damage
- Divine Health: You are immune to natural, magical, and supernatural diseases.

41 AP, class level 20: Radiant Servant: You gain +4 Wisdom. Every fifth positive energy spell you cast deals maximum healing and has +50% chance to critical.
- You gain +30% Positive Energy Critical Damage
- You gain +1% Positive Energy Critical Chance
- Celestial Aura: Holy Aura is permanently in effect and can be toggled to be recast every 30 seconds
- You gain DC +2 to your Conjuration spells


Tier One

1. Extra Turning: +1/+2/+3 Turn Undead per rest.
2. Wand Mastery: +25%/+50%/+75% effectiveness of your wands, scrolls, and other items that cast spells, and +1/+2/+3 to the save DCs of your offensive wands.
3. Divine Cleansing: Channel Divinity: Removes harmful effects from your target. Leaves a lingering immunity to natural and magical diseases and poisons for 12 seconds per-Cleric level. (Cooldown: 2 seconds)
-Rank 1: Removes all Disease and Poison effects.
-Rank 2: Removes all Blindness, Curse, Disease and Poison effects.
-Rank 3: Removes all Blindness, Curse, Disease, Paralysis, Petrification and Poison effects.
4. Healing Hands: SLA Close Wounds (SP cost: 5)
5. Altruism: +1/+2/+3 Concentration, Diplomacy and Heal. Rank 3: You also gain +10 Positive Energy Spell Power.


Tier Two

1. Improved Turning: You count as 1/2/3 levels higher when turning undead. This increases the maximum level of creature you can turn and also increases the total number of hit dice you can turn.
In addition, you add an additional 2/4/6 to the number of hit dice you can turn.
2. Purge Dark Magics: Channel Divinity: Dispels 1/2/3 hostile magical effects from your target. (Cooldown: 6 seconds)
3. Divine Healing: Divine Healing: Your target heals 1d4/2d4/4d4 hp every 2 seconds for 2 seconds per point of Heal skill you possess. (Cooldown: 2 seconds)
4. Efficient Empower Healing: Healing spells cast while the Empower Healing Spell feat is activated cost 1/2/4 fewer spell points.
5. The Hand of God: SLA Deific Vengeance (SP cost: 6/5/4; Cooldown 6/5/4 seconds)

Tier Three

1. Mighty Turning: Undead that you successfully turn are instead destroyed.
2. Intense Healing: Your Positive Energy Spells are cast at +1/+2/+3 caster level
3. Unyielding Sovereignty: Activate: Fully heals all hit point damage done to a targeted ally, and removes ability damage, death penalty effects, negative levels, and the conditions blinded, dazed, deafened, diseased, exhausted, fatigued, feebleminded, insanity, nauseated, poisoned, and stunned. (Cooldown: 5 minutes)
4. Efficient Heighten: Using the Heighten Spell Metamagic costs you 1/2 fewer Spell Point per heightened level.
5. WIS/CHA


Tier Four

1. Endless Turning: Turn Undead uses regenerate at a rate of one every 120 seconds, or 10%/20%/30% faster if it already regenerates.
2. Incredible Healing: The maximum caster level of your Positive Energy Spells are increased by 1/2/3.
3. Reactive Heal: Channel Divinity: The next time your target falls below 25% hit points, they receive 10x Heal skill positive energy healing. A target can only benefit from a Reactive Heal once every 2 minutes (reset by resting). This healing effect is only affected by heal skill. (Cooldown: 6 seconds)
4. DC or Spellpower or Healing Amp: Increase your spellpower or your Difficulty Checks for a spellcaster school or healing amplification
- +1 to DC Conjuration Spells
- +20 Positive Spellpower
- +20 Healing Amp
5. WIS/CHA


Tier Five

1. Celestial Turning: Turn Undead may now banish extraplanar creatures similar to the banishment spell centered on the caster
2. Celestial Smite: SLA: Cometfall (SP cost 30/25/20, Cooldown 12/10/8 seconds)
3. Cure Focus: Your Cure Wounds spells have no maximum caster level.
4. DC or Spellpower or Healing Amp: Increase your spellpower or your Difficulty Checks for a spellcaster school or healing amplification
- +1 to DC Conjuration Spells
- +20 Positive Spellpower
- +20 Healing Amp
5.Positive Energy Aura: Channel Divinity: A positive energy aura envelops you in an aura of healing, positive energy, and affects a number of targets equal to Cleric level. Allies within the aura are healed 1 hit point per 3 Cleric levels as long as they remain within it. Undead enemies are damaged for the same amount. (Cooldown: 6 seconds)
- While this aura is in effect you gain +1 Diplomacy every 3 seconds stacking to a maximum of +5 and Enemies are subject to a weaken will effect -1 every 3 seconds stacking to a maximum of -5

Comment: On Martyrdom: If this is kept, it should cast a reactive heal type thing AND a Resurrection spell to all those around seeing as usually this Radiant Servant should be the last man/woman standing

[FranOhmsford]

Any change to Radiant Servant needs to move Radiant Aura back where it belongs - Core 4!

[Skavenaps]

cometfall SLA for a healer tree? o_O

[FranOhmsford]

cometfall SLA for a healer tree? o_O

Can we please get away from calling Radiant Servant a "Healer" tree.

That's where the Devs went wrong with it in the first place - Giving it only one reason to exist and that reason being removed from the game!

If anything Radiant Servant is the Undead Slayer Tree and should reflect that far more!

Radiant Burst and Aura of course can stay but there's no need for all the overkill healing stuff that's simply unnecessary for a Cleric who has more Healing already at his fingertips than he knows what to do with!

On the other hand The Turn Undead Enhancements can and should be buffed up and more abilities placed in the tree specifically for fighting Undead!

Suggested Enhancements:

Undead Lore 1
Tier 1 - 1/2/3 AP
i) Destroy the Head - You now Know where to hit to bypass the DR of Zombies and other Undead that require Slashing
ii) A Sword can be used as a Bludgeoning instrument - You can now bypass the DR of Skeletons, Mummies and other Undead that require Bludgeoning
iii) Peekaboo - You can now bypass the DR of Incorporeal Undead through knowledge of when they're going to phase in.

Undead Lore 2
Tier 3 - 2 AP
You now have Permanent Ward against Death - Deathward

Undead Lore 3
Tier 5 - 2 AP
You've studied the Undead for Years and now intrinsically know how to really hurt them - You bypass 100% Fortification of Undead and gain +3 Crit Range and +6 Crit Dmg on Melee, Ranged and Spells vs them! Your Turn Undead bypasses Deathward and Epic Ward!

[Tlorrd]

cometfall SLA for a healer tree? o_O

Yeah, I would also try to get rid of the notion that radiant servant is a healer tree. Looking at other enhancement passes, their T5 SLAs are aoe spells ... Fireball, acid blast, divine one from DD, or some even have instakills (ahem, finger of death!). I did adjust it some with longer cooldown, but mainly I included it since it was from conjuration school and that DC also affects all healing spells and seemed in the spirit of what past life bonuses clerics get.

[Ohboyo]

red text on a dark background? talk about eye strain.

[Vallin]

Feel free to comment likes/dislikes, etc. I hope the devs see this and overhaul radiant servant in some way.

I don't see the point in taking a whole tree and focusing it in such a niche way. The healing abilities are essentially worthless unless you are running in a group that is oriented to role-specific healing and the Undead-killing can be accomplished in at least two other methods that are not so specialized.

I agree that radiant servant could use a pass, perhaps adding some more interesting abilities into the tree that would tempt players to invest there more. The problem is that killing undead won't tempt many. Right now sun elf builds are the best undead killers by two paths:

1. Turn undead path - Cleric 20 - Bane of the restless + cleric past lives + specialized gear. Lots of investment, but it pays off at the end for turning undead. Add Draconic sphere for fire-based flexibility and to boost flame strikes, etc.

2. Light-spec path - Cleric 1/Warlock 19 Sun Elf - Light of the sun God, Aura of Radiance, add some Divine Disciple light power, all in Enlightened Spirit stances with bursts - Undead will turn to dust the moment you enter a dungeon just because you walk by. This is all first life with very minimal gear. Totally OP Undead killing, and force/fire/light hurts a lot of other stuff too. Very powerful build.

So I like your idea of a radiant servant pass but the direction that things are going with healing I am not sure I see the point - and undead killing is already covered elsewhere - so I would like to see something 'different' added to that tree. I don't have specific suggestions as I haven't thought about it too much, but I would really like to hear some more ideas!

Vallin.

[unbongwah]

Any change to Radiant Servant needs to move Radiant Aura back where it belongs - Core 4!

Interesting point: on the one hand, this will mess up any build with less than 12 cleric lvls which uses Aura; but OTOH, it means any cleric 12+ build can have Aura and T5 abilities from a different PrE. I've certainly got some bard / cleric build concepts which would love to have T5 Swashbuckler + auras.

Anyway, I think the idea of turning RS into the Conjuration PrE (which inc. healing) is an interesting one; the problem is outside of Cometfall, there just aren't enough good Conj cleric spells. So to help out a bit here, I would suggest the following additions to the core enhancements:

• Lvl 18: you add Trap the Soul to your lvl 8 spellbook.
• Capstone: you add Power Word Kill to your lvl 9 spellbook.

[eachna_gislin]

Interesting point: on the one hand, this will mess up any build with less than 12 cleric lvls which uses Aura; but OTOH, it means any cleric 12+ build can have Aura and T5 abilities from a different PrE. I've certainly got some bard / cleric build concepts which would love to have T5 Swashbuckler + auras.

Anyway, I think the idea of turning RS into the Conjuration PrE (which inc. healing) is an interesting one; the problem is outside of Cometfall, there just aren't enough good Conj cleric spells. So to help out a bit here, I would suggest the following additions to the core enhancements:

• Lvl 18: you add Trap the Soul to your lvl 8 spellbook.
• Capstone: you add Power Word Kill to your lvl 9 spellbook.

I agree with Fran's suggestion that Radiant Aura should return to the cores. This prestige was handled in a very sloppy way by turning the aura into the main T5 power and was done purely to force players into making the "hard choice" between being a healbot and being a caster. We saw what happened with that -- most cleric players ran to Divine Disciple as fast as they could and it ended up changing the entire metagame over time.

I think the assorted "summon monster" conjuration spells should be re-worked to be viable. This would help arcanes and divines in one go (kind of like how the crossbow animation fix helped several classes/builds at once).

Between a pass on summons, and Harper tree/druid past lives/feats and whatever they put in this tree, summoning could be a quite viable way of playing as a caster.

They could make a couple heroic-that-turns-epic summons (things like earth eles that become epic flaming earth eles), and put them in as a line of SLAs, since Radiants don't get proper SLAs like DD. Summons + cometfall would be pretty sweet (and very "flavorful"). Or give clerics a conjured "pet" (like the PM skeleton) which would allow them to re-use code.

In place of the T5 aura they could make a turning T5 that would restore Radiants as viable Undead nukers, even in EE. It's really annoying (although par for the course) that Warlocks are now better undead destroyers than clerics. By making it a T5 you'd still have to commit to being a turning build (which seems fair to me).

While I'd love to see Power Word: Kill for clerics, I think radiant clerics could really use lower-level added spells. Also, trap the soul is not all that great. You have to fiddle with soul gems. *If* they were willing to remove the material component I could get behind it.

Undead Lore 1
Tier 1 - 1/2/3 AP
i) Destroy the Head - You now Know where to hit to bypass the DR of Zombies and other Undead that require Slashing
ii) A Sword can be used as a Bludgeoning instrument - You can now bypass the DR of Skeletons, Mummies and other Undead that require Bludgeoning
iii) Peekaboo - You can now bypass the DR of Incorporeal Undead through knowledge of when they're going to phase in.

Undead Lore 2
Tier 3 - 2 AP
You now have Permanent Ward against Death - Deathward

Undead Lore 1 makes no sense from a lore perspective and is too low in the tree. Bypassing _all_ undead DR for 1 cleric level +3 ap devalues DR to the point that the devs would just have to nerf it or create 'warded' DR or some other nonsense.

Undead Lore 2 is way too OP. I'd suggest "sealed soul" (from the paladin KotC tree) as a T5, although I'm not sure there isn't already too much crossover there (clerics also get paladin-style disease immunity in the radiant tree).

[FranOhmsford]

Undead Lore 1 makes no sense from a lore perspective and is too low in the tree. Bypassing _all_ undead DR for 1 cleric level +3 ap devalues DR to the point that the devs would just have to nerf it or create 'warded' DR or some other nonsense.

How many Fighters, Rogues, Bards, Paladins, Monks or Barbs are gonna take 1 level of Cleric for this rather than a level of another Class?


And as for Lore - Yes it does make sense:
- Most Medieval Swords were used as Bludgeoning Weapons first {Battering at armoured Knights!} and Slashing second! {This would only be for Slashing weapons so Rapiers and Short Swords wouldn't get this benefit!}.
- DDO Zombies aren't exactly the same as Romero Zombies but Lorewise going for the brain is pretty big in Zombie Lore! {A Bludgeoning weapon can smash the skull into the brain as easily as a slashing weapon can chop the head off or a Piercing weapon can go straight through the eye!
- Wraiths, Shadows and Spectres have to phase in to hit us and therefore a character trained and skilled at fighting undead would know the exact moment to strike!

Undead Lore 2 is way too OP. I'd suggest "sealed soul" (from the paladin KotC tree) as a T5, although I'm not sure there isn't already too much crossover there (clerics also get paladin-style disease immunity in the radiant tree).

Perma-Deathward at Lvl 3 {If you rush to get it} is frankly pointless anyway - You won't need it till Lvl 7 at the earliest unless you're deliberately playing quests under-levelled!

I also don't think too many people would take 3 Cleric Levels just for Perma Deathward {Let's face it that's a big loss for most builds from what they can get out of other multi-class options}.

And unless it's a pre-req for Undead Lore III I don't see too many Clerics taking it either - They have the SPELL!

[eachna_gislin]

Perma-Deathward at Lvl 3 {If you rush to get it} is frankly pointless anyway - You won't need it till Lvl 7 at the earliest unless you're deliberately playing quests under-levelled!

I also don't think too many people would take 3 Cleric Levels just for Perma Deathward {Let's face it that's a big loss for most builds from what they can get out of other multi-class options}.

And unless it's a pre-req for Undead Lore III I don't see too many Clerics taking it either - They have the SPELL!

So you were trolling everyone by suggesting "frankly pointless" changes that you don't see cleric players wanting to take. Well thanks for clearing that up .