Time to update divine unique active abilities?

[FuzzyDuck81]

I think it's about time some of these were looked at, to improve scaling in later levels & make them more useful class features overall.

Bladesworn Transformation: You are a devoted follower of the Lord of Blades, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to attempt to become a juggernaut of destruction for 24 seconds plus 6 seconds per Religious Lore feat you have.
While transformed, you have a +4 Profane bonus to Strength, +4 natural armor bonus to AC, a +4 profane bonus on damage rolls, +10 enhancement bonus to Will saves against mind affecting magic, and proficiency in all simple and martial weapons. Your base attack bonus equals your level. You lose your spellcasting ability. You have immunity to critical hits and sneak attacks, but cannot be healed by healing spells.

It's a nice buff in lower levels when you can chug a repair potion, but the immunity to healing magic plus losing your spellcasting means it can actually make you a burden to the party. I suggest amending the STR, AC & damage bonuses to +1 per 2 religious lore feats then also add +1 MRR, PRR & repair amplification per religious lore feat & have repair moderate damage cast on yourself when damaged... it still has some risks but will scale a lot better in higher & epic levels.

Silver Flame Exorcism: You are a devoted follower of the Silver Flame, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to attempt to exorcise an extraplanar creature, which is entirely consumed in holy fire on a failed Will save or savagely burned by the light of the Silver Flame. A successful Fortitude save reduces the damage to half. The Save DC for this ability is 10 + Cleric Level + Charisma Modifier. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

I honestly don't know anyone who uses this except at very early levels where enemies might actually fail the save - and only once per 10mins? seriously lame. IMO this should be replaced with an activated ability that adds the banishing property (instakill on vorpal plus bane damage on-hit to extraplanar creatures) to your equipped weapon for 24sec plus 6sec per religious lore feat - it'd keep the same flavour of being for fighting against extraplanar enemies while actually being useful.

Vulkoor's Avatar: Duration: 10 minutes You are a devoted follower of Vulkoor, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to ask Vulkoor to send one of his servants to destroy your enemies.

Another one that's almost worthless much beyond the time it's introduced & therefore another one to be completely replaced; my suggestion is an activated ability that grants poison damage on-hit (similar to ninja poison so it stacks as a DoT, but on any hit, limited to once per second) & 3 points of poison damage resistance per 2 religious lore feats, +1 to saves vs. poison for every religious lore feat & a no-save, 6 sec paralysing effect on vorpal hits, standard duration of 24sec plus 6sec per religious lore feat. Essentially, instead of summoning an avatar of vulkoor you're imbued with some of the powers of one

[cpw_acc]

Bladesworn Transformation: Actually think the bonuses are OK, given the builds that are likely to use it. Can't really see the reasoning behind the drawbacks though; they just seem like an unnecessary punishment. Perhaps the cooldown for spellcasting should just be increased as per wildshape, and healing could take a penalty instead of an outright nerf?

Silver Flame Exorcism: Yes. Anything other what it is! (A 10 min cooldown on an ability that requires a save based off a secondary stat? Really?)

Vulkoor's Avatar: I wouldn't mind so much if the summoning could be scaled for level so they're actually worth it, even into epics. And you get more scorpions as you level. Probably impossible for ... reasons. So yeah, a poison-inducing ability would still fit nicely with the theme.

[Enoach]

Bladesworn Transformation

I'm going to have to agree that the benefit side is actually good. I do agree the drawback is much heavier then it should be.

Silver Flame Exorcism
It is actually can be better DC wise then the Dismissal Spell - If you don't ignore Charisma

Dismissal (DC=spell's save DC-creature's Hit Die+your caster level) vs Silver Flame Exorcism (10 + Cleric Level + Charisma Modifier)

The Every 10 minutes is the problem with why you don't see this ability being used often - It is easy to forget about something that you maybe could use 3 to 4 times in a 30 minute quest. Personally, I think they should limit it not by the cooldown but by Number of Turns. Even with the Radiant Servant "recharge" and in Epics the Turn recharge would not make this such a powerful ability.

Vulkoor's Avatar
My opinion is this should maybe get the "pet" treatment without the benefit of the "raise 3 times". By this I mean...
1. UI similar to Hireling/Wolf/Iron Defender
2. It's Fighter Level equals the Caster Level
3. As a "pet" qualification it still opens up the option to use Summon Monster