Clerical Knack?

[Barsoom]

This is not so much a question of RAW, but rather a question of would it be appropriate to allow in an actual game with actual people.

- A Cloistered Cleric has a Lore class feature, which is functionally identical to Bardic Knowledge.
- A Bard has an ACF that trades Bardic Knowledge for Bardic Knack (PHB2).

So, the question is, would it be okay to allow a Cloistered Cleric to trade his Lore for an ability identical to Bardic Knack? As I said, not really interested in RAW (pretty sure the RAW answer is no, since it's specifically a Bard ACF), but from a practical standpoint, would it be unbalancing, open for abuse, or otherwise inappropriate?

[Urpriest]

It opens the door to variant-chaining in general. Variant-chaining is sometimes silly. I don't think you can get any infinite loops out of it, but you can occasionally get arguably more than you put in. That said, it's never a vast difference.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I did this exact thing once, seems fine to me. If it's a fair trade in one case, then the exact same trade should also be a fair trade in another case. Of course, I like to be flexible in general, like allowing Duelist's dodge class feature to count as the dodge feat for requirements.

[Idhan]

I wouldn't say it's a crazy idea, but I have a few caveats:

1. Bard is a sort of mid-powered class.

2. Bardic knack boosts the bard's power compared to bardic knowledge.

3. Cleric is a pretty high-powered class already.

4. The cloistered cleric variant, IMHO, increases the cleric's powers further already.

So, instead of upgrading a medium-powered class a little, you're taking a high-powered class, upgrading it a little with the cloistered cleric variant, and then upgrading it some more with clerical knack.

None of this turns it into a game-breaker. A feature like bardic knack doesn't give you access to infinite loops or anything like that. Still, you've taken a fairly powerful class and added a further empowering class feature to it, so it depends on what kind of campaign you're running, I guess. It might be suited for a reasonably high-powered campaign (I don't mean planar shepherd abuse or anything like that, just lots of fairly powerful prestige classes and such.), but might be a bit much for a relatively low-powered campaign.

A further caveat: the idea of a bard and the idea of a cloistered cleric strike me as fairly different. A bard is a repository of obscure lore from poems and sagas and such, but also a sort of streetwise, experienced character. The idea of a cloistered cleric is, in general that she spends time studying theology and history and stuff: a cloistered cleric should, in principle, be less "worldly" than a regular cleric, not more so, so I'm not sure that clerical knack -- someone who knows a little bit about how to do anything -- fits the academic, book-smart but not necessarily street-smart image of the cloistered cleric. At least that's what I think of when I think cloistered cleric. Your cloistered cleric might have a very different background/concept.

[Namfuak]

I would argue that the ability would be less useful to clerics, because they would have to not go into PrCs in order to maintain the usefulness of the ability. Bards at least get new class features, but all clerics get are spells.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Meh, "poor clerics." While bards do have class features, they are just as likely to prestige class out. There's lots of tempting options for them, too.

I do agree with you that it's not a big deal, of course. I just...don't care for your argument. :smalltongue: