Cleric Pass Ideas

[Tlorrd]

from a support standpoint clerics can use some uniques buffs like ... when they cast cure type spells, the recepient may gain not only defensive buffs (like sacred touch) but MRR, temp hp, as well as offensive buffs like increased attack/damage/spellpower etc or critical chance ... all of these could be for a short duration and scale appropriately with level as opposed to the current sacred touch mechanic.

[DarthBeckett]

<Copy/Paste from another thread, but felt it was worth repeating>

Part of me wants the new Domain system to work like this, simply building upon what is already there, but maybe not to the extent of adding 9 new spells per Domain. I'm honestly not too sure right now just what I think about the new proposed system. I feel a real risk that might come from this is that there are clearly some Domains that are just too good, effectively creating a few true builds and many "trap" options. Secondarily, it feels to me that it's just far too pervasive, meaning that almost every Cleric I have will need to be fully rebuilt from the ground up, and way too many things will fall to the way side because all the time I spent trying to build towards something simply don't work well any more.

I remember a few years ago I had recovered my main character after returning from a year deployment, and find out that they had altered the way that Heal and Spellcraft skills worked. That Cleric had essentially 0 Ranks in either, having built into Concentration and Diplomacy, and was now very, very weak, to the point of being almost useless. Granted, I understand things like this happen, but for all of the time I had invested in that character had just been completely ruined. I was able to grind through hours of stuff to make them "ok", but I eventually just gave up on that character, as it had lost everything fun I'd enjoyed.

Again, I understand this happens, but I would rather avoid as much of this as possible with the new Domains system, particularly as I personally tend to play mostly Divine Characters.

On a side note, is anything being planned for Silver Flame Exorcism. I know it's been an issue since it was introduced, and is basically a wasted option.

Another thing I feel is really something that needs to be looked into, particularly for the Cleric, but also for a lot of other classes is that some many spells just do not scale, and with the availability of magic gear, so many Cleric spells just become irrelevant far too quickly. For instance, playing a Cleric, it's not difficult to get gear that gives you an Enhancement bonus to Str, Con, Wis, and Cha, and even having something like Gloves of +2 Str really undercuts how useful Bull's Strength is by the time you even get it. Sure, a smart Cleric can avoid using Str boosting items to keep Bull's Str useful, for a few levels at least, but that range is not very large and honestly isn't that great. Likewise, as a "party buffer", spells like this very quickly become useless, as the Str based tanks, not to mention most other characters really, are probably also going to have Enhancement bonuses equal to or better than the spell.

I'm just using Bull's Strength as an example here as it's common and easy to see. I think that something that would really help to keep the Cleric more interesting or useful, regardless of what type of Cleric you might be playing is to sort of amp up the spells to make them more in line with the rest of the game's mechanics. Perhaps, and this might be too strong, but perhaps something like making Bull's Strength grant a +2 Enhancement Bonus with a +2 untyped bonus to Strength, and a +1 per Five Cleric Levels Sacred Bonus to Str?
So, a level 3 Cleric 's Bull's Strength would still give +4 Str, half of it stacks with something like Gloves of Str, so still being somewhat useful, but not as great as without the Gloves.
At Level 5, it would be a +5 to Str, with +3 of it stacking.
At level 10, it would be a +6 Str, with +4 of it stacking.

At this point, roughly, a character that has any real use for Str will very likely have a +4-+6.

Part of the issue, I think at least, is that the Cleric Spell List is just too small, but also so, so much of it is just easily made irrelevant close to the time that they receive those spells. This leads to a few Spells just being essentially must have options while others really never get picked as they are just not worth it, outside of maybe fairly new players that don't really know how the game functions well enough yet. I'm not saying they are bad/wrong, as much as I'd see this as something that would fairly quickly drive them away, either from the class or from the game.

[DarthBeckett]

An interesting idea I had heard somewhere here, was the concept of including another type of Magic Item aimed mostly at the Cleric, (maybe Paladin too), the Holy Symbol, that might function similar to an Orb. While Clerics can use Orbs, most of the time they are not overly great for Clerics as they are for Arcane Classes.

If they could occupy either the Shield Slot or the Trinket Slot, but act similar to Orbs as far as bonuses go, I think that might be an interesting improvement, as a lot of Cleric Gear tends to do very similar things, I think.

Anyway, thoughts?