No love for the divine?

[Kaeso]

Hey there Playgrounders!

First of all, I'd like to wish a happy Easter to whoever celebrates it :smallsmile:

Secondly, the real reason why I've made this thread: 'round these parts the wizards get a lot of love, being hailed as heralds of destruction that can throw a campaign world upside down, even when being played at a fraction of their power. Sorcerers are pretty much the same, but more limited.

Druids, or bears that summon bears while riding a bigger bear, are, according to some, the strongest class in the game: they're able to out-melee any melee class, come with a free cohort and have a good spell list, including heals and spontaneous summons.

The three classes I've named above are very popular in the playground and have a lot of guides, builds, tricks etc., but what about the oft forgotten cleric, favoured soul and spirit shaman? They're still T1 and T2 classes, but the latter two are never heard of and don't have any good guides or something similar, and the cleric strategies are limited to DMM: persist divine power.

Why don't the divine classes (except the druid) get any love?

[Yora]

Cleric is also a top level class. But I think cleric and druid are just auto win, while a wizard still has to be built to be one.
Favored Souls and Spirit Shamans are rare, because they are from books not everyone has, and they rarely show up in any materials except the book they are in. And I think everything that works for a druid or a cleric also works for them, so the tactics and builds are mostly identical.

[Kaeso]

Cleric is also a top level class. But I think cleric and druid are just auto win, while a wizard still has to be built to be one.
Favored Souls and Spirit Shamans are rare, because they are from books not everyone has, and they rarely show up in any materials except the book they are in. And I think everything that works for a druid or a cleric also works for them, so the tactics and builds are mostly identical.

Yet they are from the same book as the feat 'divine metamagic', which is pretty much the only cleric tactic you'll find on these boards. I really wonder why the favoured soul is almost never mentioned then.

[Yora]

Because it's a spontaneous caster with a limited spell list, I guess. But how a cleric is supposed to always have the right spells prepared and never runs out of them is beyond me.
Though I sometimes wonder if those builds are ever actually played.

[erikun]

From what I've seen Clerics get threads almost as often as Wizards, and are more common than Druids threads. Druids are remarkably easy to run 'correctly', and frequently just ask which spells to pick and which animals to make into companions/wild shape.

Wizard threads are probably more popular because the Wizard has a lot more options. What to specialize, what to prestige, what spells to pick, and so on. The Wizard has a ton of possibilities available, including stuff like the Swiftblade. Conversely, the Cleric is already good in melee, so a build that would be good at spellcasting would frequently be good in combat as well.

Favoured Soul and Spirit Shaman aren't mentioned because they don't have turn undead, and the most common tactic for Cleric optimization involves Divine Metamagic. Beyond that, they should be able to take advantage of most of the Cleric advise, much as the Sorcerer can take advantage of most of the Wizard's spell selection or prestige class advice. (Note that I don't see many Sorcerer threads, and the ones I do are frequently about kobolds.)


Because it's a spontaneous caster with a limited spell list, I guess. But how a cleric is supposed to always have the right spells prepared and never runs out of them is beyond me.
Though I sometimes wonder if those builds are ever actually played.
Depends on the level. Low-to-mid levels (around 3rd to 10th) you only want two or three buffs active at a time. I actually worked it out for someone, and found that a 5th level Cleric with 14 STR could have stats equal to someone with 20 STR for three to six fights in a day. And that still allowed a few extra spell slots for healing, if needed.

Lower level will be better advised to buff the whole party, while higher level should have enough spells or abilities (Persist Metamagic) to keep a few buffs active all the time.

[Airanath]

Yet they are from the same book as the feat 'divine metamagic', which is pretty much the only cleric tactic you'll find on these boards. I really wonder why the favoured soul is almost never mentioned then.

Favored Souls and Spirit Shamans don't get turn attempts, and thus, no Divine Metamagic, meaning they don't outdo half the party for a few slots a day and all their turn attempts. The point on cleric is that they are the only class who can get and make effective use of this feat. Paladins with divine metamagic would be just silly, but there would, indeed, be some nice persist buffs in their list.

[erikun]

Ah yes, I just realized something else: Favored Souls and Spirit Shamans don't get domains either. That means no selection of domains or Devotion feats for the character. As pointed out by the Cloistered Cleric, domains can be very valuable to a character.

[Kaeso]

Ah yes, I just realized something else: Favored Souls and Spirit Shamans don't get domains either. That means no selection of domains or Devotion feats for the character. As pointed out by the Cloistered Cleric, domains can be very valuable to a character.

How so? They give some extra spells and a neat special ability, but that's not enough to raise a character to T1

[Ernir]

How so? They give some extra spells and a neat special ability, but that's not enough to raise a character to T1

No, but they mean a lot for purposes of practical optimization.

[erikun]

How so? They give some extra spells and a neat special ability, but that's not enough to raise a character to T1
No, the ability to swap out spells every day is what makes the Cleric T1.

On the other hand, domains can be as good as feats and are obtained for free. Some of the Devotion feats grant some very nice abilities, as well. Just a quick look:

Good Domain: Handy if you are trying to increase CL for Holy Word, I'm sure.
Magic Domain: Use scrolls, wands, and staffs as a wizard as well as a cleric.
Travel Domain: Freedom of Movement 1/day
War Domain: Martial Weapon proficiency without multiclassing

Air Devotion: +1 to +6 AC, 50% miss chance vs mundane ranged attacks
Earth Devotion: Ignore/create difficult terrain
Knowledge Devotion: Anywhere from +1 to +5 on all attack and damage rolls, for free.
Protection Devotion: +2 to +7 AC to everyone in your party
Trickery Devotion: Major Image + Clairvoyance, possibly allowing free magic item use depending on how it is interpreted.

And this is to say nothing about the spells you get, which are added to your spell list. A Cleric with polymorph or shapechange as a domain spell would be able to activate staffs with the appropriate spells inside.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Spirit Shamans can switch out their spells everyday as well, and they arguably have the best spontaneous metamagic option.

[sreservoir]

Spirit Shamans can switch out their spells everyday as well, and they arguably have the best spontaneous metamagic option.

eh, they only have so many spells known at a time, though, so finagling arcane preparation is still a nice idea if you don't lose caster levels doing it.

[Bang!]

Clerics get a whole lot of love, and they deserve it.

Favored Souls are boring. They don't have any interesting class abilities (even the Cleric's domains and turning put them to shame), but they have restrictions that other casters don't have to deal with (multiple casting attributes, spontaneous list). Exemplars of Evil gives them claws and a bite attack, which is neat, but not redeeming.

The Spirit Shaman, Shugenja and Shaman are neat, though. I guess they're just not discussed often because they're not really apparent (they aren't core and they don't have much in terms of splatbook support). Also Shaman's 3.0 and setting-specific, which might be a problem, and the other two don't have a whole lot of optimization room (Spirit Shaman has a bit of a niche in Concentration spells, Shugenja has a couple interesting PrCs like the Hexer, but overall there aren't many places to go with them).

And I definitely agree with the OP about DMM: Persist overuse. Especially for the typical Divine Favor/Divine Power/Righteous Might array. Spending that many resources for a spellcaster to pretend to be a Fighter is wasteful. And more than that, after 2/3 of a decade's been spent plugging that particular combination for nearly every cleric to pass the boards, it's boring.

[dspeyer]

Favored Soul is just badly done. The class features are random. The spells known table makes odd levels dead (how hard would it be to copy the sorcerer?). The lack of turn undead eliminates divine and limits devotion feats and PrCs. No domains means limited options. Worst of all: your patron deity hardly matters!

The spontaneous cleric from UA is better in every way.

[Firechanter]

I agree that Favoured Soul is not very appealing, but some of those limitations are reasonable.

For instance, "no Turn Undead for the FS" is simply an attempt to make the game slightly less broken. Clerics don't turn undead anyway, they just hoard turn attempts to use them for other stuff that makes them even more awesome, such as DMM, or the Devotion feats you mentioned, or RKV.
I've had it up to _here_ *points* that Clerics can do everything, even if it's something that ought to be exclusive to another class, and do it _better_ than the other class. Sometimes to the point of ridiculousness. You want to be a mobile skirmisher? Be a Cleric! Really, I am _sick_ of it.

No love for the Divine? As Yora said, they are auto-win anyway. I'd like to see a T3 cleric variant.

[Gnaeus]

Spirit Shamans can switch out their spells everyday as well, and they arguably have the best spontaneous metamagic option.

They do, and they are a good class. But lacking an AC or Wildshape, many of the spells that are absolute winners for the druid are unusable or not-very-good for the Spirit Shaman. And their tiny spells known per day list means that they are actually the least flexible of the T 1&2 casters if they don't know exactly what they are preparing for.

[Kaeso]

I agree that Favoured Soul is not very appealing, but some of those limitations are reasonable.

For instance, "no Turn Undead for the FS" is simply an attempt to make the game slightly less broken. Clerics don't turn undead anyway, they just hoard turn attempts to use them for other stuff that makes them even more awesome, such as DMM, or the Devotion feats you mentioned, or RKV.
I've had it up to _here_ *points* that Clerics can do everything, even if it's something that ought to be exclusive to another class, and do it _better_ than the other class. Sometimes to the point of ridiculousness. You want to be a mobile skirmisher? Be a Cleric! Really, I am _sick_ of it.

No love for the Divine? As Yora said, they are auto-win anyway. I'd like to see a T3 cleric variant.


Hmm, if they're so auto win I still think it's odd there's never a thread about what would be good spells for a cleric, while you can't even make a single post here without hearing about the godlyness of grease, glitterdust, mirror image, disintegrate, orb of X and all the other ever-so-popular wizard spells.

[Gnaeus]

Clerics have less auto-win buttons than wizards do (although they do get a lot of splatbook support.) What they do get is the security blanket of one of the largest spellbooks in the game, and they know every spell, for free. Dimensional Anchor and Neutralize Poison aren't as sexy for day-to day adventuring as Glitterdust, but when you need them, you need them, and the cleric has them. Even better, his spells are never less useful than whatever he can convert them to, so a spell that turns out useless on that day just becomes a domain spell or a cure.

And speaking of domain spells, clerics also get some of their best spells from their domains. It is hard to write this into a guide, because any 2 clerics probably have different domains.

And of course, there is also the different class make-ups. A low-mid level wizard needs to cast spells (mage armor, shield, bears endurance, etc) to get to the stuff that a low-mid level cleric gets for free (heavy armor & shield use, better hp, better fort save, medium BAB). Not saying that every good cleric is a beatstick, but most clerics can fill that roll in a pinch, even without magics, while the wizard is standing behind a tree with an x-bow.

[Ernir]

Favored Soul is just badly done. The class features are random. The spells known table makes odd levels dead (how hard would it be to copy the sorcerer?). The lack of turn undead eliminates divine and limits devotion feats and PrCs. No domains means limited options. Worst of all: your patron deity hardly matters!

The spontaneous cleric from UA is better in every way.
The spells known table really makes it odd.

I'm playing a FS in a RL game, and it feels like I'm leveling at half speed compared to the rest of the group, but when I level, I go up two at once.

ECL 11 = uh, 1 extra 5th and 4th level slot?
ECL 12 = 3 sixth level spells known, along with a new 5th, 4th and 3rd level spell known, and a class feature. Oh, and +1 to all the base numbers (BAB, F/R/W), an ability score increase, and a feat. DING.

I agree that Favoured Soul is not very appealing, but some of those limitations are reasonable.

For instance, "no Turn Undead for the FS" is simply an attempt to make the game slightly less broken. Clerics don't turn undead anyway, they just hoard turn attempts to use them for other stuff that makes them even more awesome, such as DMM, or the Devotion feats you mentioned, or RKV.
I really doubt that the FS was an attempt to balance the Cleric. If they thought the Cleric was too powerful, they would probably not have printed DMM and Divine Spell Power a few pages behind the FS reprint. Devotion feats and the RKV also came after CDiv.

If I recognize the 3.5 style right, FSs didn't lose TU to create a less broken Cleric variant. They lost TU to make up for the class casting spontaneously. :smallsigh:

I'd like to see a T3 cleric variant.
The Ardent is probably the closest thing in WotC 3.5 (and that one is right on the T2/T3 border).

Anything choosing spells from the whole Cleric list would need to have the top two or so spell levels shaved off, at least, before it could fit in T3.

A recent, interesting homebrew attempt at a T3 divine class is Jarian's Solar Ascendant (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=191088).

[Firechanter]

I stand corrected on the chronology then.

As for the Ardent, tbh I never really looked at it. Psionics are off-limits in our group, not for fear they may be overpowered, but because nobody wants to get involved in Yet Another Magic System. Have to say I can't really blame them, either.

[Kuulvheysoon]

I stand corrected on the chronology then.

As for the Ardent, tbh I never really looked at it. Psionics are off-limits in our group, not for fear they may be overpowered, but because nobody wants to get involved in Yet Another Magic System. Have to say I can't really blame them, either.

Understandable. But I will say, as a firm supporter of 3.5 psionics, that once you get it, you get it. It's actually as simple as Vancian casting, save for one or two minor things (spending additional PP to power metamagic, and the psionic focus feature).

[stainboy]

Favored Soul: Sorcerer-style classes don't work well for buffing. A buffer wakes up knowing basically how many of each spell she needs to cast that day. Spontaneous magic doesn't help her much, but limited spells known definitely hurts.


Spirit Shaman: I like spirit shamans but there's not much to talk about. Non-core divine classes don't get many prestige options, so if you're playing a spirit shaman it's probably Spirit Shaman 20 with vanilla caster feats. We could talk about obscure druid spells, but then we might as well just talk about druids.

[Doc Roc]

Yet they are from the same book as the feat 'divine metamagic', which is pretty much the only cleric tactic you'll find on these boards. I really wonder why the favoured soul is almost never mentioned then.

Actually, favored souls are one of my favorite classes. They can use the Jacob's Ladder trick to get arcane casting, and ride the Theurge train to laffo-town, or perform other glorious shenanigans.

[dspeyer]

I'd like to see a T3 cleric variant.

My attempt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9383721#post9383721)

[Amphetryon]

DocRoc already mentioned it, since he highlighted the trick back at 339; Favored Soul makes for one of the top 5 most overpowered builds I can name offhand. Algernon of the White Lilies can't be made unless using a Spontaneous Caster.

[hangedman1984]

was always kinda meh on the spirit shaman, whenever i wannna play a shaman type character i just play a druid and slightly alter the flavour

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I always thought the reason the wizard got more attention than the divine classes was because most view divine characters as strictly support roles, basically that if a cleric or druid isn't healing the wizard, they're not contributing.

[Zaq]

They do, and they are a good class. But lacking an AC or Wildshape, many of the spells that are absolute winners for the druid are unusable or not-very-good for the Spirit Shaman. And their tiny spells known per day list means that they are actually the least flexible of the T 1&2 casters if they don't know exactly what they are preparing for.

Having played a Spirit Shaman for a while, I would disagree. There's a LOT of really great spells on the Druid list. Yes, Bite of the Wereblah and Animal Growth are awesome, sure, but it's entirely possible to have a very powerful Druid-list caster who plays basically like a Wizard. They get TONS of battlefield control, lots of utility and problem-solving spells (especially if you're creative . . . [Greater] Stone Shape, anyone?), the occasional buff if you feel like it . . .yeah. Very useful indeed.

I won't argue that their limited spells known per day is a bit confining, but really, the fact that they get to change every day does still mean that they can have the perfect spell tomorrow, just like a Cleric or Druid . . . and if you're good at picking, you'll probably have an OK spell today, too. Finding ways to expand your spell list is useful—domains are the biggest way, but things like UMD'd runestaves (note: ask your GM about that one) are useful as well. Even without them, though, they're a force to be reckoned with. If you can't solve your problems with a few Walls of Magma, you need more Walls of Magma.

[Kuulvheysoon]

Having played a Spirit Shaman for a while, I would disagree. There's a LOT of really great spells on the Druid list. Yes, Bite of the Wereblah and Animal Growth are awesome, sure, but it's entirely possible to have a very powerful Druid-list caster who plays basically like a Wizard. They get TONS of battlefield control, lots of utility and problem-solving spells (especially if you're creative . . . [Greater] Stone Shape, anyone?), the occasional buff if you feel like it . . .yeah. Very useful indeed.

I won't argue that their limited spells known per day is a bit confining, but really, the fact that they get to change every day does still mean that they can have the perfect spell tomorrow, just like a Cleric or Druid . . . and if you're good at picking, you'll probably have an OK spell today, too. Finding ways to expand your spell list is useful—domains are the biggest way, but things like UMD'd runestaves (note: ask your GM about that one) are useful as well. Even without them, though, they're a force to be reckoned with. If you can't solve your problems with a few Walls of Magma, you need more Walls of Magma.

+1.

Seriously, they're more flexible than people seem to think. Choosing which spells to cast spontaneously every day is HUGE, even if you get less spells "retrieved" (known) per day.

Best thing to do is to have your standard few spells - spells that you find yourself using every day. Lower levels, this can include things like entangle. You'll find a set of spells that suits you best, then tweak as necessary for the campaign/DM.

My favorite SS that I played at high levels loved having Air, Earth and Fire Elemental Monoliths running around all at once. My DM, on the other hand...

[AslanCross]

Clerics and druids also get the bonus of knowing ALL OF THEIR SPELLS. Even the core ones are pretty good, and unless the players deliberately healbot their clerics, they're going to find that even with straight cleric 20 or cleric 5/any full casting multiclass they're going to go far without much work.

Druids don't even need to multiclass.

[Greenish]

I always thought the reason the wizard got more attention than the divine classes was because most view divine characters as strictly support roles, basically that if a cleric or druid isn't healing the wizard, they're not contributing.Most? Perhaps in some vague general, but not on these forums. The consensus is pretty much that if the cleric/druid is healing in combat, he's not really contributing like he could.

Besides, builds like "god" wizards are basically glorified support characters. Divine tends more to the "smash faces" side, in general.

[balistafreak]

Actually, favored souls are one of my favorite classes. They can use the Jacob's Ladder trick to get arcane casting, and ride the Theurge train to laffo-town, or perform other glorious shenanigans.


DocRoc already mentioned it, since he highlighted the trick back at 339; Favored Soul makes for one of the top 5 most overpowered builds I can name offhand. Algernon of the White Lilies can't be made unless using a Spontaneous Caster.

Please elaborate on "Jacob's Ladder" and "Algernon of the White Lilies". These flowery names pique my interest.

[tiercel]

+1.

Seriously, they're more flexible than people seem to think. Choosing which spells to cast spontaneously every day is HUGE, even if you get less spells "retrieved" (known) per day.

...

My favorite SS that I played at high levels loved having Air, Earth and Fire Elemental Monoliths running around all at once. My DM, on the other hand...

Heh heh... I had a low-to-mmy id level SS and his default setting was "upkeep-o-mancer" ("OK, start of turn, you and he each heal 1hp from lesser vigor, he takes 2d6 from creeping cold, this summon goes, that summon goes, I move flaming sphere to force another save.... oh yeah, my standard action, what do *I* do this turn?") This was before even the level of doing tricks with Concentration.

Being able to change out your "sorcerer known" spells is actually really cool -- just gotta pick spells that you're gonna spam with a vengeance, given that your spells known any given day is a pretty low number.

-----

Putting that aside, it would be more interesting to see more talk about Clerics that don't focus on Divine feats, notably DMM. I'm not so sure that Clerics need any help upgrading a situationally useful class feature into one that fuels something so generically powerful that no cleric ever wants to actually Turn Undead again. Not to mention that the profusion of low-cost out-of-combat healing from items means that the "price" of being a cleric (having to burn some spells for healing others) is generally not realized so much.

I don't think ClericZilla would be stomping around quite so hard in a setting where Divine feats are banned, vigor spells (and notably, wands) are off the menu and there are no healing belts and similar. Clerics would still be plenty strong and have no serious weaknesses, but they would be less prone to "I will do anything better than you, more or less at will."

Druid is so good vanilla that optimizing it is hardly even needed; if you have Wisdom and Natural Spell, almost anything else you choose (including even equipment) doesn't matter so much. Enforcing, for instance, PHB II shapeshifting variant suddenly means there are more interesting options and choices to be made.

Also, the prime ability of Clerics and Druids -- their spells -- doesn't enforce any choices in the design phase, unlike Wizards, Sorcerers, and the like, since Clerics and Druids always have access to every spell on their class lists. You pretty much can hardly screw up in the long run.