Deities: 3 examples

[TMTrainer]

Let's cut to the chase, they're all in a bad spot. Most have no point, the new ones have neat clickies that do a little bit of stuff every 10 minutes, and then there is Sylvanus which actually has strong benefits, but basically stops at level 6. There is potential here, but other than Sylvanus builds I pretty sure no Cleric or Paladin chooses a deity beyond the most beneficial free level 6 feat. FvS get's all of it for free, of course, but they're kinda forced to take it. Let's make it better. I only made 3 examples here because frankly this takes a lot of work and I just want to push out some ideas to get the conversation going.

This also gives Favored Souls an edge when compared to Clerics and their domains.

Aureon: Quarterstaff

• Level 1: You gain +1 to hit and damage with Quarterstaves. Quarterstaves gives you a +2 stacking bonus to universal spell power per minimum level of the quarterstaff.
• Level 3: You gain +2 to hit and damage with Quarterstaves, and while wielding a Quarterstaff, you gain +1 to all DCs, +1 effective level for Turn Undead, +2 maximum Hit Dice affected for Turn Undead, and +2 to the total hit dice affected by Turn Undead. You also gain additional +2 stacking bonus to spell power per minumum level of the quarterstaff. The spell power is based on the domain you have chosen (if you don't have a domain, you can't get one or it doesn't grant spell power, it grants half fire and half light spell power).
• Level 6: You gain Aureon's Instruction; a toggle that requires a Quarterstaff:
  When active: Against Evil or Chaotic creatures, your spells have an additional +1 to their DC. Against Chaotic Evil creatures, this bonus is a +2. If you are Lawful, you gain an additional +1.
  Separate Passive: You gain an additional +1 effective level for Turn Undead, +2 maximum Hit Dice affected for Turn Undead, and +2 to the total hit dice affected by Turn Undead and your level 1 feat improves: It now grants 3, as opposed to 2, universal spell power per minimum level of the quarterstaff. You also gain +3 spell penetration.
• Level 12: You gain +3 to hit and damage for Quarterstaves; your level 1 feat improves further to a +4 stacking bonus to universal spell power per minimum level of the quarterstaff as opposed to +3.
• Level 20: You gain 10%/Cold Iron Damage Reduction.

Total, this deity gives at level 30 (using Nocturne, the Song of Night as a baseline because it's the highest level staff):
Universal spell power: 116
Specific spell power: 58 (or 29/29)
Spell DCs: +1, +2 if you are Lawful, +2 against Chaotic or Evil, +3 against Chaotic or Evil while lawful and +4 against Chaotic and Evil while lawful.
Spell penetration: +3
Turn Undead: +2 to your effective level for Turn Undead, +4 to maximum Hit Dice affected when using Turn Undead, and +4 to the total Hit Dice affected by Turn Undead

Quarterstaves are pretty bad right now. Their inherent issue is that 2 clubs almost always beat out a quarterstaff as a casting implement. This probably isn't good enough to make them good, but it gives the caster deity some actual casting strength.

Blood of Vol: Daggers

• Level 1: You gain +1 to hit and damage with daggers, when you damage an enemy, you mark it, and when it dies it heals you for hitpoints equal to the creature's CR, and heals allies for half. Only one enemy can be marked at a time and this scales with spell power.
• Level 3: You gain +2 to hit and damage with daggers, your daggers deal additional bane damage to creatures with blood based on your total deity feats, doubling against elves and dragons. This damage scales with melee power:
  
  1. At level 3, this deals 1d6 bane damage per hit.
  2. With the level 6 feat, this improves to 2d6.
  3. With the level 12 feat, this improves to 3d6.
  4. With the level 20 feat, this improves to 6d6.
• Level 6:
  
  1. Your daggers's damage dice expands to a d6, and daggers you wield have +1 critical threat multiplier.
  2. You gain +1 stacking fortification based on how many religious lore feats you have.
  3. You gain +2 constitution.
  4. You gain +1 stacking fortitude saves based on how many religious lore feat you have, halved.
  5. Against creatures with blood, your daggers gain 1d4 vampirism, improved to 2d4 vampirism in epic level content. This healing scales with melee power.
• Level 12: You gain +3 to hit and damage with daggers, whenever you take damage you gain 1 blood point. You can store bloodpoints equal to your religious lore feats.
  
  1. When you trigger your level 1 feat, you and your allies heal for additional hitpoints equal to the blood points you have.
  2. You gain +1 stacking forification based on how many blood points you have.
  3. You deal an additional +1 bane damage per blood point you have.
  4. You gain 1% damage reduction per religious lore feat you have.
  5. When you hit 0 hit points, your blood points are expended and you are brought to a hit point value equal to your blood points before death. Once this effect triggers you can't gain blood points for 1 minute.
• Level 20: You gain 10%/Good DR.

They wanted to make a tanky dagger user, I made a tanky dagger user.

The Lord of Blades: Greatsword
MUST BE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING: Warforged, Bladeforged, or a Artificer with Construct Essence or Improved Construct Essence

• Level 1: You gain +1 to hit and damage with Greatswords and healing spells and effects you create (such as Ameliorating Strike) that effect constructs heal for the full amount, but when cast on constructs, do not benefit from positive spell power and instead requires Repair spell power. Empower Healing Spell grants 75 repair spell power, and 100 repair spell power with Improved Empower Healing.
• Level 3: You gain +2 to hit and damage with Greatswords and against non-construct, filthy fleshbags your greatsword has a +1 critical multiplier and threat range (any non-undead, non-construct).
• Level 6: You gain a toggle: Bladesworn Transformation
  
  1. You gain +4 stacking bonus to Strength.
  2. You gain +4 stacking bonus to AC.
  3. You gain +4 stacking bonus to hit and damage rolls with Greatswords
  4. You gain immunity to sneak attacks.
  5. Your greatswords gain the best vorpal possible (based on the weapon's enhancement level), and vorpal on a 19-20 against fleshies
  6. You gain repair spell amplification equal to double your religious lore feats.
  7. You heal 50% less from sources of positive healing amplification.
  8. For 1 minute, you can not turn off this stance once it's turned on.
• Level 12: You gain +3 to hit and damage with Greatswords. When you critically hit an enemy, all enemies within cleave range must make a Will saving throw or become frightened. Enemies who are frightened this way suffer -1 to all attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. This effect stacks up to 10 times and on the 10th stack, the enemy must make a Fortitude saving throw or die from a heart attack. Enemies only make this fortitude saving throw once.
• Level 20: You gain 10%/Adamantine DR.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mind you these are some crazy ideas for feats. Probably all broken, but I feel like there is a lot of wasted potential with the deity system that would actually make melee cleric/fvs viable and also give paladins some more choices.

[edrein]

I like the idea in general.

Just remember that Vol should get similar effects to Lord of Blades: meaning that if a palemaster is splashed with a divine and in a shroud (or if we ever get Divine Undead like tabletop), that they'll heal as well. Don't limit the coding to the positive energy problem we currently have with Vol's level 6 feat.

[SilentRunning]

No offense intended TMTrainer, but one of the things I see too often in this forums is people making statements like this:

There is potential here, but other than Sylvanus builds I pretty sure no Cleric or Paladin chooses a deity beyond the most beneficial free level 6 feat.

without checking around to see if anyone out in the community does something different then the supposed "anybody" or "everybody" comments.


I personally don't see anything wrong with Blood of Vol at this time, or maybe I have not run into any glaring issues as yet.

[Tuxedoman96]

Many of the abilities offered for the feats seem a bit unbalanced for the lvl that they are at (providing vorpal for lvl 6 while improving vorpal range for only a 50% penalty to positive energy, or marking monsters for death and allowing any person to kill it for the healing at lvl 1). I think that the feat suggestions should be balanced in consideration of the other classes' abilities. Otherwise some people might not take the post seriously (I say this in all seriousness).

[SilentRunning]

Too many times people use "balance" to say that a nerf has to happen to one class/enhancement/skill/feat to make their favorite better so that they can get into a group.

I'm trying to find out if the OP is looking objectively at this, from all angles, not just something that affects him/her alone.

[Tuxedoman96]

Too many times people use "balance" to say that a nerf has to happen to one class/enhancement/skill/feat to make their favorite better so that they can get into a group.

I'm trying to find out if the OP is looking objectively at this, from all angles, not just something that affects him/her alone.

When I refer to balance I'm talking about having compelling reasons to choose out of an assortment of abilities rather than picking a particularly superior ability. If most players are taking a lvl 6 core from a tree (for example), regardless of which build they are playing or most builds they are playing, then I'd say that particular enhancement isn't balanced for the tree it's in and possibly not for other trees either. That isn't to say that nerfs are in order (we'd have to look at player vs monster power, utility, etc.), just that there should be a decent amount of give and take for the enhancements. The Rng trees are a good example of this. I'd say that almost every enhancement in those trees makes me consider what I'd be willing to give up. It's a balanced tree within itself. What I'd like to see is more trees with that particular metric.

I know that you were giving a general statement, but I felt the need to clarify what I meant by balance. I think some of the abilities, like the lvl 1 vol ability to heal whenever a monster you hit is killed, doesn't really make me consider if I want to take the other feats, especially if I could do better DPS from other classes (the %dmg reduction is enticing I must admit). In addition, I think we'd have to take into consideration how it would measure against other classes' abilities. The Aureon suggestions are pretty balanced imho and is also thematic. I can't really say the same for the other two. Honestly I'd probably pick greatswords and daggers over the quarterstaff even though the quarterstaff feats offer benefits that synergize well with each other, aren't so powerful that they feel like the only thing I should play, and is pretty interesting. I say this with the understanding that the Aureon example is more for the caster side than the melee side though.

But for example the 10 fort debuff with the instakill save or die at lvl 12 is pretty powerful. Most things won't live that long, but you could give your GSword at least 16-20 (25%) chance to crit (against fleshies, the primary target of this ability), with at least 2 leaves in a 5 sec span (not including anything that would be introduced by multiclass abilities). -10 fort, when looking at an affectable range, is 50% difference on the probability that they die.

[SilentRunning]

I use a Blood of Vol Cleric, This statement:

Level 1: You gain +1 to hit and damage with daggers, when you damage an enemy, you mark it, and when it dies it heals you for hit points equal to the creature's CR, and heals allies for half. Only one enemy can be marked at a time and this scales with spell power.

is more in the line of a suggestion that isn't needed.


What is actually stated about the level 1 feat is this:

Follower of the Blood of Vol
Usage: Passive
Prerequisite: Level 1: Cleric, Favored Soul, Paladin

All Eberron characters who are not Bladeforged

Description
You follow the Blood of Vol. You are proficient with Daggers and gain +1 to hit with them.

There is nothing in this in the wiki or in the tooltip of the feat itself that says anything about marking a target, and I have played my cleric quite extensively in the last 2 weeks and have never seen myself healed nor have I seen it in the combat log that I was healed because I killed a marked target.


The only thing that I would say is a bit op is having the level 6 feat stack with other sources of vampirism. That should only come into effect when you hit epic levels.

The Blood is The Life

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Usage: Active

Prerequisite: Level 6: Cleric, Favored Soul, Paladin; Follower of the Blood of Vol

Description
You are a devoted follower of The Blood of Vol, and your zeal has been rewarded. Activate this ability to draw upon the power within your own blood for 24 seconds plus 6 seconds per Religious Lore feat you have. In this state, you gain +4 Constitution, 100% Fortification, +10 to Fortitude Saves, and PRR and MRR equal to the number of Religious Lore feats you have. While in this state and have a Dagger in your main hand, you also gain Vampirism, stacking with other sources of Vampirism.

The OP says this

Level 6:
Your dagger's damage dice expands to a d6, and daggers you wield have +1 critical threat multiplier.
You gain +1 stacking fortification based on how many religious lore feats you have.
You gain +2 constitution.
You gain +1 stacking fortitude saves based on how many religious lore feat you have, halved.
Against creatures with blood, your daggers gain 1d4 vampirism, improved to 2d4 vampirism in epic level content. This healing scales with melee power.

This sounds to me like he/she wants to see the +4 con reduced to +2 con, a nerf. You don't need a stacking Fortification, it's already at 100%. The Vampirism effect currently works on all mobs, the OP looks like he/she wants this changed to only mobs that have "blood".


This is how I read it.

[TMTrainer]

Too many times people use "balance" to say that a nerf has to happen to one class/enhancement/skill/feat to make their favorite better so that they can get into a group.

I'm trying to find out if the OP is looking objectively at this, from all angles, not just something that affects him/her alone.

First; I'm not in any way saying Sylvanus needs a nerf. Actually, out of all the... 8 or 9 clerics I've seen this past month, only one was a Sylvanus, and it by far wasn't anything to be like "wow this is broken". Maybe I didn't see one that was well geared? Regardless, woo, a melee, neat, cool, moving on.

Most that I see are casters. Not Healbots necessarily, but various casters seem more popular than anything based around Sylvanus. I, myself, play a Necro DC Cleric.

I'm saying deities are, mathematically, nearly pointless. Yes, they can be useful (Blood of Vol, for example, does provide a good amount of bulk in a pinch) but casters get almost nothing out of deities (Aureon providing the most relevant clicky for casters) and when you select a melee deity, there is a single choice mathematically better than anything else... a permanent +2 threat range bonus beats pretty much all the other heavy 7-9 minute downtime actives.

Again, not saying Sylvanus is broken or unbalanced, it's just what you have to compare everything else to right now.

This particular post was an idea to make Deities more flavorful and spread power around (while making everything more powerful in general, because, again, deities really aren't that compelling beyond "oh, I'm going a Vistani Cleric, I'm going to go Vol because I get a few extra +1s".

I use a Blood of Vol Cleric, This statement: is more in the line of a suggestion that isn't needed.


What is actually stated about the level 1 feat is this:



There is nothing in this in the wiki or in the tooltip of the feat itself that says anything about marking a target, and I have played my cleric quite extensively in the last 2 weeks and have never seen myself healed nor have I seen it in the combat log that I was healed because I killed a marked target.


The only thing that I would say is a bit op is having the level 6 feat stack with other sources of vampirism. That should only come into effect when you hit epic levels.



The OP says this




This sounds to me like he/she wants to see the +4 con reduced to +2 con, a nerf. You don't need a stacking Fortification, it's already at 100%. The Vampirism effect currently works on all mobs, the OP looks like he/she wants this changed to only mobs that have "blood".


This is how I read it.

I nerfed it from +4 con to +2 con because it's no longer an active effect, but a passive. Same with everything else. Sorry if I didn't convey that sufficiently.

[Tuxedoman96]

There is nothing in this in the wiki or in the tooltip of the feat itself that says anything about marking a target, and I have played my cleric quite extensively in the last 2 weeks and have never seen myself healed nor have I seen it in the combat log that I was healed because I killed a marked target.

I'm pretty sure the marking the target mechanic was something the OP was introducing as a suggestion, not something that already existed on live for that feat line.

[TMTrainer]

I'm pretty sure the marking the target mechanic was something the OP was introducing as a suggestion, not something that already existed on live for that feat line.

This.

[Tuxedoman96]

All in all, I do agree that the Deity feats should have something more to offer than dmg most of the feats and an action feat for the lvl 6. Many of the actives aren't so helpful that there'd be a lot of care in using it as a short-lived bonus. Unyielding Sovereignty is alright, but I find there's rarely a person that actually needs that much healing etc. Same thing with Luck of Olladra (although the bonus rolls for ability scores does help a little for jumping through traps). Vulkoor's avatar has the same problem most summons do, with the extra penalty that it's not immune to anything in particular like some of my summons would be. Undying court is nice in PD, but many people can afford raise dead scrolls/clickies/cakes. Aureon's Instruction is ok, but it seems more geared towards CC, what with the Wis bonus and extra Spell Pen. It does help with turning, but many properly specced Clrs shouldn't really have to worry about that, so finding a time to make 2 minutes worth of casting CC useful will be difficult, because it is useful, but also fairly rarely used and would thus depend on prior knowledge of the quest. Bladesworn Transformation is alright. Silver Flame Exorcism is probably the weakest out of the abilities, for the reason that it only works on extra-planar creatures and allows for a will and fort save. As far as I remember it also isn't terribly damaging and doesn't scale with anything dmg-wise. That's one of those abilities I'd definitely reduce the CD down to a minute or two for before I consider using it out of something other than obligation. Onatar's Forge isn't too bad. And then all of the FR deities give some pretty good lvl 6 abilities.

[SilentRunning]

Oh I understood exactly what you were thinking about the +4 to +2 con. I also understand about target marking just fine, what I'm saying is that I disagree with some of your ideas, others are good and I do agree with them


Once more:

The Blood is The Life

Cooldown: 10 minutes

Usage: Active

Prerequisite: Level 6: Cleric, Favored Soul, Paladin; Follower of the Blood of Vol

Description
You are a devoted follower of The Blood of Vol, and your zeal has been rewarded. Activate this ability to draw upon the power within your own blood for 24 seconds plus 6 seconds per Religious Lore feat you have. In this state, you gain +4 Constitution, 100% Fortification, +10 to Fortitude Saves, and PRR and MRR equal to the number of Religious Lore feats you have. While in this state and have a Dagger in your main hand, you also gain Vampirism, stacking with other sources of Vampirism.

See the bold face. The point is that since it is a timed effect that has a cooldown time already, once that is gone there goes the +4 con, fortification, PRR and MRR, and the vampirism effect. This kind of feat/skill is supposed to be used for Boss fights. Which also is the reason it has the 10 minute cd.

This particular post was an idea to make Deities more flavorful and spread power around (while making everything more powerful in general, because, again, deities really aren't that compelling beyond "oh, I'm going a Vistani Cleric, I'm going to go Vol because I get a few extra +1s".

More "flavorful" for who ? Are you looking at this objectively as I said in a previous post ?

[Tuxedoman96]

Oh I understood exactly what you were thinking about the +4 to +2 con. I also understand about target marking just fine, what I'm saying is that I disagree with some of your ideas, others are good and I do agree with them


Once more:




See the bold face. The point is that since it is a timed effect that has a cooldown time already, once that is gone there goes the +4 con, fortification, PRR and MRR, and the vampirism effect. This kind of feat/skill is supposed to be used for Boss fights. Which also is the reason it has the 10 minute cd.




More "flavorful" for who ? Are you looking at this objectively as I said in a previous post ?

Honestly I don't mind the timed effects myself (except Silver Flame Exorcism and Aureon's Instruction). My main concern is that the other feats (which the lvl 1 divine feats can stay as they are because they are the elementary feats, so they shouldn't be all that powerful) aren't really enticing for most builds, whether the divine is pure or multi-classed. FvS get all the feats for free, but what about pallies and Clrs? What's enticing them to go for something other than the lvl 1 obligatory feat and the lvl 6 special? I think that if there isn't a really compelling reason to take an ability, which would force you to pick and choose, give and take, then perhaps the abilities/feats should be reevaluated. As stated previously though, I'm not sure if the abilities the OP is presenting are balanced both within the feat lines and between them, because having fairly competitive options throughout the feat lines and within them really start making people think about the benefits of staying pure vs multi-classing.