Elemental domains

[Shpadoinkle]

The granted powers these give have always been kind of the losers of the domain powers, in my opinion. Yes, they're thematically appropriate, but unless your DM likes throwing elementals at you chances are you're never going to use them more than once or twice per campaign, and a given domain only lets you affect half the elementals in existence. Compared to say, Luck, where the power is completely in your hands, or Healing, where your power is unimpressive but always useful, the elemental domains come off as kind of lacking.

SO! How about this as a replacement: Instead of the turn/rebuke thing, you can spend a (normal) turn attempt to temporarily enchant your or an ally's weapon with the appropriate elemental property (flaming, shocking, frost, or corrosion (MIC p. 31).) I was thinking for 1 minute per cleric level.

Thoughts?

[Fouredged Sword]

Powerful at lower levels, fails to scale at all in the higer levels, and being able to get a control pool of elementals through rebukeing is awsome.

[Shpadoinkle]

Powerful at lower levels, fails to scale at all in the higer levels, and being able to get a control pool of elementals through rebukeing is awsome.

IF your DM chooses to throw them at you. The main reason I suggest this is because it puts when you actually get to use the power into the hands of the players. You do have a point about scaling, though... I'm aware that damage simply isn't an efficient way to go in 3.Xe, but I happen to like this idea.

So, how about this, then: At cleric levels 1 to 3 it adds 1d4 damage, at levels 4 to 6 is becomes 1d6, and at 7th level and every three levels after that it adds another 1d6 (2d6 from levels 7 to 9, 3d6 from levels 10 to 12, etc.)

[gbprime]

Remember, the turn attempts work against creatures of that type, not just elementals. A Red dragon is Dragon (Fire), so Water and Fire domain turn/rebuke attempts work against it. While a dragon is often too many hit dice to affect, you can also affect things like Hell Hounds, Fire Giants, and Pyrohydra.

It was all kinds of fun to have a Dwarven cleric with the Earth domain and run across a random encounter of Gargoyles. Ahh... minions to command! :smallamused:

[erikun]

It makes you basically immune to half the elementals in existance, as you can either rebuke or turn them if you run across any.

Also, if you are taking an elemental domain, I'll assume it is either a thematic choice (thus making power irrelevant) or you will be optimizing your choices a bit. This means using Planar Ally (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarAllyLesser.htm) to get an appropriate elemental to rebuke, and probably a magical item (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#bowlofCommandingWaterElementals) and devotion feat to increase your capabilities.

If you think elementals are all weak, you've clearly never had the pleasure of working with an Invisible Stalker (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/invisibleStalker.htm) or Thoqqua (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/thoqqua.htm) in a dungeon. :smalltongue:

[gbprime]

I'd also let an elemental domain's turn attempts power the corresponding Devotion feat, personally.

[Fouredged Sword]

I never noticed the ability to turn anything of that type...

That bares looking into. A fire theamed cleric rideing a red dragon. I am sure you can find a dragon if you go looking, and nothing not undead ever thinks to gain turn resistace.

Also there must be some way to force the subtype on an foe for a short while. It would be a way to rebuke anything.

[erikun]

Planar Embrace (Complete Psionic) turns you into a half-celestial or half-fiend, although it is personal-only. I'm fairly sure that it's based on a wizard spell, though, and could probably be modified into a half-elemental. I'm not sure where you could find it, though.

[Thurbane]

I found the elemental domains to be really useful in the ToEE CRPG - but then , you do come across bucketloads of elementals.