Musings of a Late Night Lago

[Lago_AM3P]

Goddamit. I've been waiting for this book, Complete Divine, to come out for two months so that I could play a Sacred Fist--or rather, a cleric who didn't suck entirely at unarmed combat.

But they're going to nerf it all to hell, and the DMs on the game I play are going to approve the neutered version no one wants to play. I normally wouldn't mind, but apparently when you approve gelded PrCs that engender a concept, any PrC that's even slightly better than the piece of crap published PrC is instantly overpowered. So that means no more Sacred Fist for Lago.

Damn it. I know they're going to nerf it in Complete Divine, and it's going to be BRUTAL. Look at what they did to the Drunken Master and Tattoo Monk! They weren't all that good before, but now they're like wounded soldiers left for dead in a wintery Russian battlefield, waiting for the Nazi to machinegun the fallen.

Damn it. What's the point of making a PrC 'balanced' if no one is going to play it because it sucks so bad?

[Username17]

Damn it. What's the point of making a PrC 'balanced' if no one is going to play it because it sucks so bad?

Sometimes people are so wedded to a concept that they'll play a prestige class with the appropriate flavor text even if it is worse at portraying that concept than the core class out of which you have to qualify. For example, the Shifter.

It's basically a way to really hose people who play for flavor text rather than rules (despite the fact that you can just make up your own flavor text for any set of rules at any time). If screwing those people over is important to you - then it makes perfect sense.

I guess.

-Username17

[Count Arioch the 28th]

What was so bad about the Tattooed monk in 3.5? It pretty much looked identical to the OA version . . .

[The_Hanged_Man]

As an aside, why do people take the flavor text so seriously? I actually got an a heated argument at WotC about the most "flavorful" class in CW just for pointing out that the Hexblade, although designed to be an evil fighter/wizard, couldn't be worse at that roll, or that the Swashbuckler just plain sucks. The response? "Oh, the flavor of it all."

When I pointed out that a straight fighter or ranger could have just as much "swashbluckler" flavor as the Swashbuckler . . . 4 pages of flame later, I gave up.

[Username17]

What was so bad about the Tattooed monk in 3.5? It pretty much looked identical to the OA version . . .

1> It used to stack for your flurry progression and now it doesn't.

2> The vast majority of tattoo effects were always lame. The few good ones (Crab, Crow) have been nerfed or removed.

It was always marginal, now it's terrible.

As an aside, why do people take the flavor text so seriously?

I honestly have no idea. Seriously, I've had this argument about the Arcane Archer, the Shifter, the Mystic Theurge, the Arcane Trickster, the True Necromancer, and who knows what all else. Some people really seriously honestly believe that well-written flavor text makes a class good at the role it is meant for and deserving of consideration.

I mean, how many times over the course of the game do you use the mechanics of your character class? How many times during the course of the game do you read the flavor text out loud?

Which should way more heavily on your choice of character classes?

-Username17

[Wrenfield]

Frank, you can add Duelist to that list as well. Whereas the 3.0 Duelist had some wacky and offbeat angles to pursue (read: Monkey-gripped Spiked Chain, Hand Crossbow, & Spiked Shield), the 3.5 Duelist got nerfed into oblivion.

Yet people still insist that the Duelist is the "King of Swashbuckling". And that the Duelist "flavor" totally compensates for whatever shortcomings exist in his mechanical make-up.

A horrible, horrible PrC ... is the 3.5 Duelist.

[The_Hanged_Man]

Ah, yes. The cruel hoax that is the Duellist. The only thing better is the Swashbucker/Duellist.

Who decided that non-Tolkien archetypes=the suck?

[RandomCasualty]

I really don't see the complete divine being an underpowered book. If the designers have proven one thing, it's that they've got a hard on for divine casters, especially druids.

Every book regarding divines has been horribly overpowered anyway, so I just can't see this new one being reasonable or underpowered in any regard.

[The_Hanged_Man]

A few months ago, one of the designers was talking about the CD on the WotC board. It sounded like they were trying to fix most of the broken PrC's and broken splatbook spells.

[Lago_AM3P]

But by 'fix', they mean selective nerfing.

I hate selective nerfing. They've put out so much crap over the past 3 or so years for 3E that it's really impossible not to find a power substitute.

Since they can't fix everything, they'll fix a handful of things at a time. Well, GUESS WHAT. There's a gigantic deluge of spells, feats, and PrCs created by your own custom design factory, WotC. By making it so that contemplatives don't get prestige domains until 4th level, you've just ensured that only manufactured characters take levels in it. We'll just continue to take levels in a PrC that you people haven't touched yet, thanks.

This argument is a little harder to make since the vast majority of caster PrCs published is a kick in the junk (mainly because of that half caster level progression), but it's very, very painfully obvious to see with the fighter-type PrCs.

At this point, all selective nerfing does is piss people off who want to play a concept WITH power, not just want to play for power.

And it looks like it's about my turn to have a character concept I like thrown into the nerf shredder, so I am going to bitch about it a lot, and then play a druid.

[RandomCasualty]

I like the nerfing of the uber classes for the most part, I just really wish they'd produce some powered up versions of the core classes, especially fighter and barbarian.

I'm sick and tired of the "gotta have a PrC to be any good" design paradigm, and the uber PrCs only further perpetuate that flawed design.

Seriously I wish they'd slice off the frenzied berserker's balls, pull his pants down, stick his head between his legs and make him kiss his ass goodbye. There are way better things to do than waste time on that peice of crap.

Improve the freaking barbarian... or the fighter.

People shouldn't need PrCs to make good characters, it's one of the worst design ideas in 3E and the only reason it exists at all is because it's a profitable one for WotC... but from a game point of view, it totally sucks.

[The_Hanged_Man]

How else can you fix things than by selective nerfing? You see problems, you don't want to power up everything so that Gate is a reasonable spell . . . so you nerf Gate. Right?

I had this discussion already. The real problem w/ CD is that nothing is more powerful than a straight cleric. If you make PrC's that are a slight upgrade on power, in a limited way (like most PrC's) . . . you get broken PrC's. If you make PrC's that are roughly equal in power to straight clerics, but w/ a specialized role . . . you get PrC's that suck, b/c a cleric can do whatever they can do, and then some b/c the straight cleric isn't specialized.

Same for Druids.

There's no good answer to divine PrC's. You can't do the equivalent of the Cavalier or OotBI, and specialize for uberpower in one area, b/c the class is already to powerful.

[User3]

Fix Polymorph, (and possibly delete Natual Spell) and druid is not broken.

Make the Heal skill an actual source of healing, and the Cleric won'y need to be overpowered so that people will play it. (I hate that no party ever lives without a cleric. I hate the whole "but we need a cleric, so who's going to do it" argument before every new campaign.)

[RandomCasualty]

1083971064[/unixtime]]Fix Polymorph, (and possibly delete Natual Spell) and druid is not broken.

Agreed. Once we get wildshape under control, the druid isn't that bad.

Make the Heal skill an actual source of healing, and the Cleric won'y need to be overpowered so that people will play it. (I hate that no party ever lives without a cleric. I hate the whole "but we need a cleric, so who's going to do it" argument before every new campaign.)

This one is tough, because the cleric's role has always been healing. If he doesn't heal, then what else can he really do? I suppose he could be the buff caster, but IMO bards should really be king of buff magic, as they're the party cheerleader. Not really sure what to do wtih the cleric (or the druid really) in terms of combat casting.

[Username17]

This one is tough, because the cleric's role has always been healing.

"The Cleric" as envisioned today, with a patron god and whatever wasn't part of the original bargain at all. The original Cleric was non-specifically monotheist and existed as a healer who was playable by characters who lacked the stats to play a paladin.

The modern day cleric who can worship Fire and burns things with magic has absolutely no resemblence at all to that ancient character and doesn't even deserve the name.

And healing isn't a combat schtick anymore. I suppose it could be, but an Orc mook does 2d4+3 damage per hit and a cure spell cures a d8+1. It's absurd. Monsters hit harder than healing heals, so casting cure spells in combat is a losing proposition.

And if it's not a combat schtick, it doesn't really matter who's doing it from a game mechanics standpoint - it's just a question of how many hit points people are allowed to recover between battles.

The current dynamic would work better if you could use the heal skill to patch people up between battles and the cleric class was removed entirely and folded into wizard. Wizards have a much better game mechanic for the current model of clerics where they have secret spells and holy books and domains of interest and crap than does the cleric class.

Waving your hands and saying that we need a cleric class at all because of legacy only works if the cleric you are using shared any flavor text, combat role, or meaningful mechanics with the actual legacy cleric - and it doesn't.

-Username17

[Lago_AM3P]

The current dynamic would work better if you could use the heal skill to patch people up between battles and the cleric class was removed entirely and folded into wizard. Wizards have a much better game mechanic for the current model of clerics where they have secret spells and holy books and domains of interest and crap than does the cleric class.

I wish we could do that, but have you ever spent any time on the boards and said that you wish godless clerics were the rule, rather than the exception?

This would start a mass riot. I feel that the majority of DMs and the majority of players, clerics or no, WANT the clerics to be subject to the whims and desires of the DM's spokemen, the deities. Every class, except for the paladin, has successfully resisted being the crux of the DM's deity link, and if you took away this tool (by eliminating the cleric class), things cannot go well.

There was mass rioting on the WotC boards when rangers got rolled down to a d8 hp. Can you imagine the outrage that would be caused if we rolled the party's deus ex machina link into a class which was traditionally seen as the most deity-defying?

I know that clerics weren't always meant to be like this, but people have made the clerics into their own image and we are going to have to live with it. A vast majority of DM and players, it seems, NEED to have their little game-slaves (and because of the current role of the cleric, it also forces the party in lock-step), and no one is going to like who takes it away from them.

[Lago_AM3P]

I mean, I've tried it myself on the WotC boards, and my proposal was much less radical. Didn't go too good, no matter what advantages, themely, mechanically, or no I pointed out.

Having a healer class that undead fear is entrenched into D&D like wizards shooting fireballs and everyone peeing their pants at dragons. If someone could pull this off, I would give them a good game.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

There was mass rioting on the WotC boards when rangers got rolled down to a d8 hp.

Well, there was actually precedent for that, since 1e rangers only had d8 hit dice (though they got two at 1st level).

And while it's true that BD&D and probably AD&D 1e core rules were pretty generic about the cleric's allegiances in order to let DMs decide what kind of religions existed in their campaigns, the published campaign settings all had pantheons of dieities. If you played in Greyhawk or FR in any edition, your cleric had a patron. The biggest difference in 3.x is that your choice of patron determines whether you get access to additional spells and powers that you can cheese out.

[Lago_AM3P]

I know. Before we start, I see the whole process of integrating the cleric class into steps. As in:

Current Cleric --> Godless Cleric --> Wizard with Healing Spells

I feel that this is the best way, in fact, because people are wedded to both the thematic construct (a whore for the DM's all-powerful NPCs) and the mechanical construct (a healing guy who doesn't get fireball but gets loads of other crap to compensate) of the cleric. If we can somehow get people's minds off of the god-slave, so that they are just 'another kind of magic user but with a different chassis', then making clerics wizards will be that much easier.

We can't just roll it back all at once, or there will be a lot of balking. But just getting people to get their minds off of 'gods' is really, really frickin' hard, and that's supposed to be the easiest step of the integration.

[Oberoni]

Some people just like the idea of holy men, y'know.

I also like the concept of a strong magic user that's also a strong fighter in combat.

That said, the cleric could use a nerfin', probably--but there's no need to nuke the entire concept.

[Wrenfield]

The biggest chuckle of all is WotC's publishing of the core class "Healer" in the Miniature's Handbook. I'm not sure what they were smoking when they published this "flavorful" class ... because it's completely incapable of doing anything remote interesting from a combat standpoint. Even when min/maxed ...

[Username17]

There's no need to get rid of the thematic construct or the mechanical construct - just use the frickin Wizard mechanics for it.

If you want to be the guy who is at the whim of the gods, you can allow Wizards to nominally get their power from gods if they want. There's just no reason for this to change how they prepare and cast spells, however.

If you want to be the guy who doesn't have fireball and gets a bunch of other crap, having the wizard spell learning mechanic will let you do that. The Wizard spell-list is modular, and you can select not only which spells you personally have, but also which spells are on your list. Just throw in a 9th school - "Healing", and force everyone to specialize.

Finally, some people want to turn undead, some people want familiars, some people want other crap. Characters should just get a special Wizard Power every even numbered level (as long as they get new spell levels every odd level). They can all be minor flavor crap, like the Turn Undead ability, or Familiars, or whatever.

Then the "Priests of Fire" can choose to be deity related and cast Fireball. The "Arcane Necromancer" can animate the dead without sucking and choose to not be deity related. The "Priest of Light" can choose to be deity related and specialize in healing spells. The "Body Mechanic" can specialize in healing and not be deity related. And if you want to be a Priest of Mara or a standard Illusionist you can.

This change makes the various archetypes people want to support work better, not worse.

Even if we accept that we want people in the game who are at the beck and call of DM giant penis NPCs from level 1 for some reason - that still works better using the wizard mechanics than it does the "Cleric" mechanics.

Splitting the casters into different classes by "power source" instead of "what they are supposed to actually do" simply makes everything screwy and leads to bullshit like the "Trickery Archer Cleric" and the "Air Priest Healer". I mean seriously, what the hell does that party role have to do with that character concept?

-Username17

[Wrenfield]

Splitting the casters into different classes by "power source" instead of "what they are supposed to actually do" simply makes everything screwy and leads to bullshit like the "Trickery Archer Cleric" and the "Air Priest Healer". I mean seriously, what the hell does that party role have to do with that character concept?

Unfortunately, the most popular D&D campaign world, the FRCS, is rife with wacky, offbeat character archetypes as such. The vast array the FRCS pantheon's niche-oriented domains and portfolios mixed with 3.0/3.5 prestige class overload has kinda lead to this.

And to be honest with you, I kind of find it humorous all those quixotic and weird-angled Cleric archetypes. Breaks a lot of molds.

[User3]

I think that rolling cleric into an existing casting class is much better then nerfing them. If clerics were weaker, I woulden't play them, unless I was playing an Athar or something. I find the god-reliance really annoying.

The god-empowered archtype is still very important to the overall flavor of D&D, and I do think that these should be a mechanical distinction.

The best option might be (and this kind of goes with the Wisdom-Charisma confusion) to make Sorcerors the divine spellcasters. Now, before you hit me, consider it.

Sorcerors channel magic spontaniously, which goes hand-in-hand with clerics directly channeling the will of their gods. Wizards have to prepare, because they are channeling untamed magic, which would probably kill them if they tried to cast like a Cleric (Sorceror). Clerics (Sorcerors) have the advantage of an intermediary, who can make certain types of magical energy controlable and channel it into their apostles.

Most importantly, the spontanious casting changes the Cleric's primar abilities from Buffing (which is really dumb when you're talking 'miracles' from deities) to casting when it is actually needed.

Limited spell selection: Makes sense. Gods have access to a certain 'portfolio,' and shoulden't be able to grant their worshipers much beyond it. Of course, Arcane schools aren't set up for the proper thematic division of spells. And it goes without saying that cleric spells (and, while we're at it, Druid spells) should be added to the mix.

Sorcerors have no class abilities. This is a good thing, as you can give them selective access to abilities like Turn undead, Wildshape, and similar without unbalancing the class at all. You can also bump their HD up to d6, and possibly give the 4+int skills points. The only things that might be unbalanced are the existing Divine PrCs, but with Sorceror/Sacred exorcists already existant even that might no be too powerful.

Anybody who wants to play a spontaniously casting character who owes aliegance to no one and casts through pure will and inborn talent should just play a Psion or Wilder. Heh. Maybe not a Wilder (twice the flavor and 1/2 the power).

Arcane spell failure I regard as a falure anyway. If a wizard really wants to wear armor without spell failure, they still can. It is just more expensive. Of course, the only things that make armor worthwhile for a wizard are the unbalanced ones, namely Fortification and Soulfire. I see no problem with abolishing ASF entirely.

-Catharz Godsfoot

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I don't think you'll ever sell the idea of eliminating the cleric class from the game, just because of tradition, but at the very minimum the cleric's spell list could use some nerfing.

If you want to strike a compromise between making clerics work exactly like wizards and giving them automatic access to all spells, you could probably do something like 2e spheres. You could divide cleric spells into different themes and allow each cleric to choose a limited number. Then the domains could be turned into lists of once-per-day spell-like granted powers, which the cleric would only be allowed to pick one of. Since domains seem to me to resemble the old granted-power progressions from 2e FR turned into actual spells, this approach is thematically satisfying to me. But it would be a lot of work to balance out all the spheres and domains.