Tier 3 Cleric homebrew [PEACH]

[ChudoJogurt]

Hi,

I have long been unhappy about how Cleric and Paladin work in the original D&D. Not only is Cleric high above Tier 3 I usually play with (and the Paladin significantly below), but also, in general the flavor of Cleric and Paladin are geared around a fight of Good vs Evil, which I found a bit unfitting for games where emphasis is on the polytheistic religion.

So I made a bit of a homebrew, that I would love for people to have a look at and criticize. Please be honest, even if brutal.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CXRxb4McAY7ybtilUrvbhjQC8Etdos-joiXuy3iVh5c/edit?usp=sharing

The goal of the homebrew was:
a)To have a divine gish (the paladin and the nightsticks Persist-Divine-Might cleric) and divine caster (healbot/buffer/diviner cleric) as separate classes.
b)To have them both balance at Tier 2-3
c)To make cleric/paladin abilities be more specific to the Deity they worship, rather than general good v evil.
d)Have it still be compatible with the rest of D&D material, without rewriting every prestige class, spell and feat that have cleric-specific prerequisites (such as turn undead ability).

[DEMON]

Given the proposed classes are still full casters drawing from the Cleric and Cleric + Paladin lists respectively, I don't think there is any way these would fall to T3.

The Druid takes a hit by having two parts of his trifecta-of-awesome taken away, getting the WS right back in the form of spells (at that point I'd probably just go for a simpler solution of swapping them for the Shapeshifter ACF), but we're still looking at a full caster drawing from the Druid lists.

Personally, if I was aiming for a T3 sort of divine character, I'd try improving the Paladin (sort of Duskblade- or Mystic Ranger-ish spellcasting at the cost of some class features) or changing the Favored Soul (to a somewhat more diverse/interesting character but with Bard like spellcasting progression):

Paladin+




Level
BAB
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Class Features


1st
+1
+2
+0
+0
Smite Evil (CL/2)/day


2nd
+2
+3
+0
+0
Divine Grace


3rd
+3
+3
+1
+1
Lay on Hands


4th
+4
+4
+1
+1
-


5th
+5
+4
+1
+1
Divine Health


6th
+6
+5
+2
+2
Turn Undead or Special Mount



7th
+7
+5
+2
+2
-


8th
+8
+6
+2
+2
-


9th
+9
+6
+3
+3
-


10th
+10
+7
+3
+3
-


11th
+11
+7
+3
+3
-


12th
+12
+8
+4
+4
-


13th
+13
+8
+4
+4
-


14th
+14
+9
+4
+4
-


15th
+15
+9
+4
+4
-


16th
+16
+10
+4
+4
-


17th
+17
+10
+4
+4
-


18th
+18
+11
+5
+5
-


19th
+19
+11
+5
+5
-


20th
+20
+12
+6
+6
-


Caster level = Class level


Favored Soul-


New/altered class features:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Simple weapons + deity's favored weapon, all armors and all shields (except tower shields).
Spellcasting progression: Same as bard (access to Cleric spells 0-6th)
Divine Spark: At levels 1, 5, 10, 15 and 20 choose one domain from those associated with your deity and get either the granted power or the spells. If you choose spells, they will be automatically added to your spells known and your class spell list (0-6th level only). Picking the power is self explanatory. Each domain can be selected twice (once for the spells and once for the domain power).
No Weapon Focus nor Specialization.
Keep the Wings and Damage Reduction (no one cares).

[ChudoJogurt]

The idea was that since Cleric/Druid list is intrinsically more focusted than Wizard/Sorcerer, and by cutting buff others (for Avatar) or self (for Prophet) it would bump them to Sorcerer's "can do anything within specific theme" tier.

I definitely want to give them full spellcasting, as I kinda still want divine spellcasters to have access to the 9th level spells at least in theory.

Also, as to:

getting the WS right back in the form of spells
That's not quite true. For one, it's a spell, so it requires Spell Slot, and is a subject to counterspelling or dispelling. For another, it only lasts 1 min/level, rather than 1hour/level of Wildshape. Finally, as a spell, it won't work with Natural Spell feat, so it's rather more limited than the original Wildshape.

[liquidformat]

cool concept here are some thoughts:
Prophets:

On alignment you mean prophet can't be true neutral unless the god is true neutral, correct? Otherwise that would mean prophets alignment must equal the god's alignment unless they have a neutral element to their alignment. IE followers of Pelor could be LG, NG, or CG, but followers of Heironeous can only be LG since Heironeous is LG and therefore prophets can't be NG...
Prophets have no armor proficiency correct? Be explicit to avoid ambiguity.
Which elements are opposed? air to earth, fire to water? Be explicit to avoid ambiguity.
Beneficial Spells
Prophet may not be target of his own spells, even if the spell description would indicate otherwise, except if it is either a Conjuration(Healing) spell, or Cleric is one of at least two designated targets of the spell. (should cleric change to prophet? maybe ctrl+f your document and replace all mentions of cleric with prophet/Avatar.)
Bonus Languages: A Prophet's bonus language options include Abyssal, and Infernal (the languages of good, chaotic evil, and lawful evil outsiders, respectively). These choices are in addition to the bonus languages available to the character because of his race (see Race and Languages, page 12, and the Speak Language skill, page 82). (looks like you forgot celestial, what about Ignan, Terran and so forth if they have an elemental patron?


Avatars:

Smite, what about archery based Avatars like say one with the elf domain or ones with a ranged weapon as the favored weapon? This ability would be worthless on them... perhaps change smite to work with the deity's favored weapon too?
in the table level 20 ability is called Purified Body instead of Perfect Vessel

[ChudoJogurt]

Excellent notes, thank you. I fixed them, except for Holy Smite. THis one I modeled off the Arcane Strike, which does not have a Ranged option that I could find.
I feel like this should either be a Feat or a Domain Power.

[Maat Mons]

I'd give prophets light armor.

You say the prophet spell list is found on page 183, but there aren't that many pages. And skimming the document doesn't turn anything up either.

If you want tier 3, why isn't prophet modeled on beguiler? If you designed a list of healing and defensive spells, with a few other appropriate additions, you could have a fairly solid tier 3 caster.

Beneficial spells is a terrible idea. Just curate the spell list to encourage buffing others over oneself.

I'm not really seeing much by way of class features for prophet.



I'd do paladin as sort of a divine version of duskblade, at least if you're serious about the tier 3 thing. You seem to be modeling it after tier 2 classes, and somehow expecting it to come out as something other than tier 2.

[ChudoJogurt]

There's about 1500 Cleric spells in D&D + few hundred paladin spells. I really don't want to go through them all.


why isn't prophet modeled on beguiler?
I believed that Cleric list is already modeled around a theme. And Tier 2 is OK for my purposes, as long as it's a relatively low Tier 2, at a level somewhat below a sorc.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I have long been unhappy about how Cleric and Paladin work in the original D&D. Not only is Cleric high above Tier 3 I usually play with (and the Paladin significantly below), but also, in general the flavor of Cleric and Paladin are geared around a fight of Good vs Evil, which I found a bit unfitting for games where emphasis is on the polytheistic religion.

Do keep in mind that the Paladin is not intended as a servant of a deity or deities (unless you're playing FR where everyone needs a god on pain of a terrible afterlife), rather paladins channel the abstract forces of Goodness and Justice and so forth the same way druids channel the power of un-personified Nature. Doesn't mean you can't houserule paladins to follow particular gods or pantheons, but there's definitely a reason paladins are set up the way they are currently.


I believed that Cleric list is already modeled around a theme. And Tier 2 is OK for my purposes, as long as it's a relatively low Tier 2, at a level somewhat below a sorc.

I think by "modeled on beguiler" he meant using a shorter fixed list of hand-selected spells cast spontaneously, not changing the cleric's theme.

----

Comments on the Prophet:


Beneficial Spells: The Prophet may not be target of his own spells, even if the spell description would indicate otherwise, except if it is either a Conjuration(Healing) spell, or Prophetis one of at least two designated targets of the spell.

While this is obviously trying to avoid the CoDzilla problem, it has a lot of knock-on effects. A cleric can't fly or teleport along with the party to move long distances quickly, can't benefit from water breathing for an undersea quest, can't eat a heroes' feast...in short, a lot of party-wide effects really need to affect the entire party to be functional and a blanket ban on affecting himself screws with that.

Instead, a better approach would be to specifically disallow "Range: Personal" spells that grant a combat-related benefit. Barring Personal spells in general also cuts off stuff like augury or healing lorecall, which again does more harm than good.


So, basically, the Prophet is a cleric minus personal buffs, minus some of the better domain granted powers, and a feat tax before it can use Turn Undead or [Divine] feats. It's still a high Tier 1, because taking the "buff myself, beat people up, and make the fighter sad" option off the table still leaves the Prophet with tons of options. It'll need a lot more changes than that to reduce its tier.

----

Comments on the Avatar:


Divine Agenda: The Avatar is a conduit of divine power on the mortal plane, and therefore must always be in alignment with his patron deities agenda, and can not act against it, as well as always exemplify and follow the principles and code of conduct that his deity promotes. Avatars that fail to do so lose access to their avatar powers as described in Ex-Avatar section until they atone (see Atonement spell)

This definitely needs some expansion and clarification. Restrictive as the paladin's code is typically considered to be, it at least gives several concrete statements of what to do and not to do, with some caveats. In this case, though, what does "always act in alignment with his patron deity's agenda" and "always exemplify and follow the principles and code of conduct" mean? If you're an Avatar of Pelor and a town is being besieged by undead, should you throw yourself heedlessly against the zombie hordes? Ignore them to heal the townsfolk attacked by wights? Flip a coin, or split your time 50/50? Ignore both things to cast daylight on everything in sight?

A looser code, along the lines of "acts in accordance with his patron's dogma to the best of his ability, and never deliberately commits an act against his patron's teachings" or the like, would remove a lot of the potential for arguments at the table.


In summary, the Avatar is the cleric minus domain spells and spell slots, plus a bunch of fancy class features. Again, still Tier 1, and you've managed to make it more powerful than the existing cleric but worse from a party standpoint because he can't buff or heal anyone else.

----

Comments on the Druid: All of its new class features from 10th level on are pretty weak. Tremorsense with a very short range when tons of things are flying and/or have ranged attacks, healing 2 HP per round when people are dealing triple-digit damage per round? Not impressive.

I'd suggest moving the fast healing down to the mid levels where it's more useful (and can make up for the druid not being able to heal himself as often via Wild Shape without burning through spell slots), and making the regeneration more substantial (and it needs a damage type that overcomes it, by the way). Otherwise, the new mid-level features are fine and changing Wild Shape to a set of spells is largely a matter of taste and value-neutral as far as power goes.

In summary, this Druid has a feat tax for Wild Cohort to get his animal companion back, needs Surrogate Spellcasting instead of Natural Spell, and powers Wild Shape with spell slots and has to spend more time in his natural form, but is otherwise basically the same. Once again, still Tier 1.

[ChudoJogurt]

Thank you for your reply PairO'Dice.


Do keep in mind that the Paladin is not intended as a servant of a deity or deities...
I understand that, and I kinda dislike that flavour. Well, it works well in faux-medieval settings, I suppose, and I have enjoyed playing a Paladin a few times (if it weren't so mechanically lacklustre). But I wanted to run something with more Greek Pantheon-ish feel, so it doesn't work well for me.
Hence the homebrewing.


While this is obviously trying to avoid the CoDzilla problem, it has a lot of knock-on effects. A cleric can't fly or teleport along with the party to move long distances quickly, can't benefit from water breathing for an undersea quest, can't eat a heroes' feast...in short, a lot of party-wide effects really need to affect the entire party to be functional and a blanket ban on affecting himself screws with that.
The intended wording was that Prophet can't target himself unless he also targets someone else. So he can fly, teleport or go on an underwater adventure as part of party, he simply can't do it by himself, which is I think a boon, not a problem.
However, I have not considered that in some cases party may only have access to multiple copies of the single-target spell, or that there may not be a Mass- version...


In summary, the Avatar is the cleric minus domain spells and spell slots, plus a bunch of fancy class features. Again, still Tier 1

I'm sorry, but are you sure? he has limit on spells known that is about as restrictive as Sorcerer's, that come from a more narrow list, has less spells per day on every level than Sorcerer, and has further limitation on how those spells can be used. It was my understanidng that Sorcerer was standard for Tier 2. What did I do wrong to not bump that down to the same Tier, if not lower?

As to the rest... apparently, I lack the understanding of what makes Tier 1s Tier 1s. I thought it was either cheese shenanigans of wizards or the multifaceted nature of Clerics/Druids who could be both frontline fighters (better than martial types) and powerful casters.
I thought that by taking away the frontline and other additional options of Druid (wildshape, companion) and Cleric (turning/domains/CoDzilla), that, in combination with their more thematic lists would bump them down a tier or two.

Is it even possible to have a Tier 3 character that has 9-levels spellcasting without severely limiting the spell list?
Would limiting Druid's Spells Known to Wizard or Sorcerer level help to finally knock them down to low Tier 2?

[exelsisxax]

Is it even possible to have a Tier 3 character that has 9-levels spellcasting without severely limiting the spell list?

No. Fullcasting from a core list automatically makes you tier 2 at minimum. Wizards are tier 1 with no other class features except familiars.

You need to viciously gouge the spell list down to get anywhere near tier 3.

[ngilop]

Yeah I am just seeing cleric and cleric

the prophet is literally CLERIC with d6 HP and the weird restriction that they are only allowed to cast healing spells on themselves not other spell is allowed to be cast by prophet and have the target of the spell be the prophet.



the avatar is a cleric with built in divine meta magic that can be used a lot more than regular divine meta magic. As well as some other cool class features.


If you want to knock the Prophet down to a tier 3 cleric, literally all you have to do is give the PhB cleric bard casting OR give the Healer class Domains. I think from what I gather with what you have said so far. going to healer with added domains would be the best solution.


If you want to make the Avatar a tier 3 paladin, you would do much the same give bard casting

I would also look at maybe gestalting the Knight or Marshal into the PhB paladin, upping skill points to 4 and at least give them 0 levels spells if not 5th as well.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I understand that, and I kinda dislike that flavour. Well, it works well in faux-medieval settings, I suppose, and I have enjoyed playing a Paladin a few times (if it weren't so mechanically lacklustre). But I wanted to run something with more Greek Pantheon-ish feel, so it doesn't work well for me.
Hence the homebrewing.

That's totally fair. I was basically pointing out that the Paladin not worshipping (a) god(s) fits in a polytheistic setting as much as the Druid does, and if you keep the Druid in your houserules....


I'm sorry, but are you sure? he has limit on spells known that is about as restrictive as Sorcerer's, that come from a more narrow list, has less spells per day on every level than Sorcerer, and has further limitation on how those spells can be used. It was my understanidng that Sorcerer was standard for Tier 2. What did I do wrong to not bump that down to the same Tier, if not lower?

Actually, I glossed over the fact that it's a spontaneous caster, I think I scrolled past it and only noticed the change from Wis primary/Cha secondary to Cha SAD. So it'd be Tier 2 after all, but definitely a high T2 given the free Divine Metamagic and good smiting.


As to the rest... apparently, I lack the understanding of what makes Tier 1s Tier 1s. I thought it was either cheese shenanigans of wizards or the multifaceted nature of Clerics/Druids who could be both frontline fighters (better than martial types) and powerful casters.
I thought that by taking away the frontline and other additional options of Druid (wildshape, companion) and Cleric (turning/domains/CoDzilla), that, in combination with their more thematic lists would bump them down a tier or two.

"Can be a frontline fighter in addition to a caster" is necessary to be Tier 1, but is not sufficient; a Dread Necromancer can do a credible gish imitation, between the good HD, undead resistances, strong touch attack at low levels, ability to heal himself, and so forth, but it's still a T3 class.

Here's a good shorthand for what the tiers mean that I've posted before:


Tiers 1 and 2 have excellent power and versatility. Both win the game with their primary foci or are very good in many areas; on top of that, T1s can win in any other area given time.

Tiers 3 and 4 have excellent power or versatility. Both are very good at their primary foci or are okay in many areas; on top of that, T3s can at least contribute in pretty much any area regardless of main focus.

Tiers 5 and 6 have neither power nor versatility. Both kinda suck in all areas, but T5s can at least do one thing passably well.

Or, in a somewhat snarky summary:
BroadNarrow
OverpoweredTier 1Tier 2
ModerateTier 3Tier 4
UnderpoweredTier 5Tier 6

Now, that oversimplified summary isn't completely accurate (T5s are only "broader" than T6s in the sense that "can do one thing" is broader than "can do nothing," for instance), but it does help to show that there's a definite breakpoint between T2 and T3 and that T1 and T2 aren't both "the same as T3, but more so."

The defining characteristic for T1 and T2 is that they can do anything and everything: frontlining, blasting, buffing, healing, spying, overland travel...(though obviously build influences what you're best at, and every class has different strengths and weaknesses and different ways of accomplishing a given thing). The difference is that T1s can do everything as a character (your character's capabilities can look completely different based on whether you prepared to dungeon-crawl, assassinate a BBEG, or spend some downtime that day) while T2s can do everything as a class (the Sorcerer class can do anything, but a given sorcerer character has to pick one or two and are stuck with it), so starting with a T1 and merely limiting its options is only sufficient to drop it to T2.


Is it even possible to have a Tier 3 character that has 9-levels spellcasting without severely limiting the spell list?
Would limiting Druid's Spells Known to Wizard or Sorcerer level help to finally knock them down to low Tier 2?


No. Fullcasting from a core list automatically makes you tier 2 at minimum. Wizards are tier 1 with no other class features except familiars.

You need to viciously gouge the spell list down to get anywhere near tier 3.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "severely limiting" or "viciously gouge." The number of spells you have doesn't matter, it's what you can do with them; the Warmage has more spells on its list than the Beguiler, but the Beguiler is T3 where the Warmage is T4 because the Beguiler has much broader capabilities (mind control, battlefield control, illusions, disabling, disguises, spying, mobility...) where the Warmage basically has dozens of ways to kill things.

But in practice, yes, it's hard to both have a few hundred spells on a class's spell list and not have the class end up as T1 or T2 unless you're very selective when picking those spells.

[liquidformat]

So depending on where you look dread necromancer and beguiler are either tier 2 or 3. I personally don't think anything with 9th level spells should be considered tier 3 with maybe the exception of the warmage but that class is more likely the border of the two alignments. Really if you want either of these to be hitting tier 3 they should have at max level 6 spell casting, and if you want them to be low tier two spontaneous spell casting from a small list and MAD is probably the way to go.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

So depending on where you look dread necromancer and beguiler are either tier 2 or 3. I personally don't think anything with 9th level spells should be considered tier 3 with maybe the exception of the warmage but that class is more likely the border of the two alignments.

And the Healer, of course. Poor Healer, not even its detractors remember it. :smallwink:

But it's certainly possible for a full caster to have a low tier, because tiers are primarily about potential and class "ceilings"--that is, given a spread of players with skill and optimization levels ranging from "What the heck is a 'dee-twenty'?" to "Well, it's simple, actually, first you just make an ice assassin of Pelor....", what are the maximum power/breadth/utility/game-breaking/etc. you can expect out of every class?

The beguiler is an excellent example of that. In the vast majority of games, a beguiler is going to end up being more powerful and useful to a party than a wizard, hands-down. Why's that? Well, when it comes to inexperienced players, the beguiler casts a bunch of good spells spontaneously so it's easier to work with than a wizard where they have to know how to judge good and bad spells, dumpster-dive for a good spell selection, adequately predict a good spell preparation loadout, and so forth. When it comes to experienced players, people generally try to "play down" to the average power level of the party because they want their friends to have fun, because they don't want to make things harder for the DM, because building a wizard to its full potential takes a lot of work, because they've already played a high-op wizard and want to try something more out there, and so forth.

But Tiers aren't about "Given a generic beer-and-pretzels game or group of newbies, what classes are powerful?", they're about "Which classes do I have to keep an eye on because they can't keep up with the rest of the party or because they can trivialize certain encounters?" and "If I try to aim for a certain level of encounter difficulty and variety, which classes do I have to throw a bone and which do I have to prep more contingencies for?" and stuff like that.

A given beguiler can be more powerful than a given Enchantment-focused sorcerer or focused specialist illusionist, but the beguiler can't say "Oh, the bad guy is a necromancer? Hmm, I'll probably want to pick up command undead and disintegrate next level" like the sorcerer can, or "Oh, the bad guy's lair is on the Elemental Plane of Water? We'll want, let's see, control water, heart of water, water breathing...gimme a few days to scribe some scrolls and we'll be good to go" like the wizard can. A DM can easily start foreshadowing a necromancer or aboleth BBEG a few levels early and plan around what the beguiler can contribute against them, not so much with the sorcerer and definitely not with the wizard. That's what tiers are all about, and whether a class gets 9th-level spells has little bearing on where they fall.

[Cosi]

a)To have a divine gish (the paladin and the nightsticks Persist-Divine-Might cleric) and divine caster (healbot/buffer/diviner cleric) as separate classes.

I don't think this is really necessary. Those are separate builds already.


b)To have them both balance at Tier 2-3

That just means "like a Wizard, but doesn't derail the campaign". The Cleric already doesn't derail the campaign in a functioning group, because "not derailing the campaign" is part of the definition of "functioning group".


c)To make cleric/paladin abilities be more specific to the Deity they worship, rather than general good v evil.

I'm fairly sure most Clerics will already have more domain spells (that you care about) than alignment spells (that you care about). Also, to do it to a meaningful degree, you need to lock it in to a short list of deities. Your current attempt seems to mostly be "domains matter more".