Prayer book for divine casters?

[Sindeloke]

That ToEE supplement has been sticking in my craw for a while, and it's nothing to do with the aaracokra. It's the new spells; pages upon pages of new class features for only half the game's classes - notably the ones who already have the most options in core - in proper old-school 3e splat style.

It's not a huge deal for wizards, sorcerors, bards and Arcane Tricksters, of course. They get new choices, but they still have to choose between those and their old choices. But for druids and clerics? Any of those spells are free at any time, they just have to pray for them.

I like a lot of the spells and I like giving my players more options, so I don't want to ban every new spell for the rest of the edition's life cycle. But I also don't want more of 3e's divine power creep nonsense. So I'm considering implementing a "prayer book" for divine casters, that would essentially be identical to a wizard's spellbook; your cleric/druid/pally learns a good-sized but nonetheless finite spells as she levels up, and then each morning prepares a subset of those spells for daily use. New spells could be added through seclusion and meditation to petition a deity for new insight or could be granted as sudden divine boons, the way a wizard can research extra spells or be offered learnable new scrolls as loot.

Does anyone see any major problems with this? Is the flavor manageable? Does it make all prepared casters too similar?

[Kane0]

Seems reasonable. Maybe even have a small list of spells available to pretty much everybody, as well as a selection specific deities/portfolios grant so they know the baseline of whats available to them.

[Naanomi]

Consider leaving Domain Spells (and land druid spells) as always available and other spells from a prayer book

[Jlooney]

I think it's reasonable. I make the specialist wizards pick one from their school every level. It can be any level. If they have all their school spells them inlet them take whatever.

[MrStabby]

I think it's reasonable. I make the specialist wizards pick one from their school every level. It can be any level. If they have all their school spells them inlet them take whatever.

I should look again at the list. I thought that there wasn't always a spell from every school at every level for wizards? Like 8th level divination or whatever (AFB ATM so can't check).

[Jlooney]

It's easier for envokers to follow this than most. necromancers can't follow this rule unless you allow them the clerical necro list as well.

It's just a basic rule so people can't take an ability of a specialist but only one or two spells from the school.

Edit for spacing of words

[Chronos]

It's a bit dangerous to consider a wizard's spellbook as a balancing factor, because just how much of a balancing factor it is depends on circumstances: Just how many extra spells does the wizard find, and how many of them are the spells she wants? Of course, the DM has control over which spells are and are not available, but it's still one more fiddly bit that you need to find the right balance point on.

[Sindeloke]

I'm okay with that sort of moving parts. It lets me adjust things up or down in different games depending on how the party is doing and who's got all the limelight, without having to drop a new houserule every time there's a character or setting change. Obviously that's only really applicable to experienced DMs, but since the default for a noob DM is probably going to be "+2 per level like the class says and never anything else because I don't have good guidelines for giving away magic", there's also some balance inherent there too, for wizards anyway.

Also I like that specialist idea and will probably be using that too from now on. :smallsmile: