[3.5] Support For Spontaneous Divine Casters

[Thurbane]

So, my FS summoner build got me thinking - there aren't a whole lot of spontaneous divine casting classes. Well, not as many as arcane, anyway.

A lot of things designed for spontaneous casters specify that they only work for arcane spells or casters, which is super annoying. It feels like spontaneous divine casters were a bit of an afterthought, and when future devs were coming up with new things, basically forgot they existed - or worse, deliberately excluded them.

Robe of Mysterious Conjuration, Ring of Theurgy, Bracers of Retaliation etc - arcane only. Same with a lot of feats. There is no divine equivalent of Arcane Preparation, for instance.

So, short of hand-waving away the arcane only restrictions on things - what are some good feats, items and other stuff that DO work for spontaneous divine casters? All thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Cheers - T

[Jervis]

I always said there real needs to be a full list spontaneous divine caster. Base list is a lot like healer but they get domains. Athas actually did something very similar with Templars, Athasian clerics devoted to sorcerer kings.

[Ramza00]

I always been a fan of the Spontaneous Cleric rules from UA. Pretty much your spells known is like a Sorcerer or Favored Soul except you get free Domains Spells Known and Healing Spells on Odd Levels. Your Spells per day is 2/3/3/4/4/4/5 etc instead of the Sorcerer's NA/3/4/5/6.

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/spontaneousDivineCasters.htm

Likewise there is the Evangelist in Dragon 311 with like 5 other Cleric Archetypes. Evangelist gives up Turn Undead and casts like a Sorcerer with the extra spells per day but you get 2 domains at HD 01, 3 Domains at HD 05, 4 Domains at HD 10, 5 Domains at HD 15, and 6 Domains at HD 20.

Yes I know this is not answering your question but it is in a similar sphere even if its not the same domain :smalltongue:

[Maat Mons]

Are you sure there aren't as many spontaneous divine casters as spontaneous arcane casters? By my count, in 1st party sources:
Spontaneous Divine Fullcasters: Favored Soul, Mystic, Shugenja, Spirit Shaman
Spontaneous Arcane Fullcasters: Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Sorcerer, Warmage

Honestly, I think Mystic is the best-designed divine spontaneous fullcaster. None of that split-spellcasting-stat nonsense of Favored Soul or Spirit Shaman, and none of that restricted spell selection of Shugenja.

I suspect some of the designers who wrote content that applied only to spontaneous arcane spells just didn't want to have to figure out how their material would work with Cleric and Druid's spontaneous conversion of prepared spell slots.

[Anthrowhale]

Practical Metamagic and Versatile Spellcaster apply equally well to spontaneous divine spellcasters.

Divine spellcasters typically have better access to caster level boosters from items (ankh of ascension / prayer bead of good karma) or spells (consumptive field) than arcane casters.

DMM on a spontaneous divine caster implies that you can spontaneously add metamagic to a spontaneously chosen spell, a degree of versatility which does not typically apply to arcane casters.

Substitute Domain can allow you to swap which domains you have on the fly, which on some spontaneous divine casters (=Clerics with the spontaneous domain ACF or spontaneous clerics) means you can swap spell access on the fly effectively increasing spells known (with a 1 round delay) substantially.

[noce]

Substitute Domain can allow you to swap which domains you have on the fly, which on some spontaneous divine casters (=Clerics with the spontaneous domain ACF or spontaneous clerics) means you can swap spell access on the fly effectively increasing spells known (with a 1 round delay) substantially.

I know it's only partially related to this thread, but how does Substitute Domain interact with the Mystic? Substitute Domain specifies you can pick a domain from your deity list, but Mystics do not worship a deity. Now that I think of it, how does Substitute Domain interact with deity-less clerics?

[Anthrowhale]

I know it's only partially related to this thread, but how does Substitute Domain interact with the Mystic? Substitute Domain specifies you can pick a domain from your deity list, but Mystics do not worship a deity. Now that I think of it, how does Substitute Domain interact with deity-less clerics?

It's not useful there as far as I can tell.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I know it's only partially related to this thread, but how does Substitute Domain interact with the Mystic? Substitute Domain specifies you can pick a domain from your deity list, but Mystics do not worship a deity. Now that I think of it, how does Substitute Domain interact with deity-less clerics?

Going by the normal rules for extra domains you can simply choose any domain you like that isn't an alignment domain (which still needs your alignment to match it).

Sometimes a domain is specified, and other times a character can
choose from any domains offered by his deity (or can choose
any domain if he doesn’t worship a specific god).
The above is from the section on extra domains granted by PrCs, but barring a more specific rule for the spell itself i think it's the best we have.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

There are a number of feats that allow you to cast divine spells as arcane and vice versa. Use one or more of those on a purely divine or arcane spontaneous casting class? Then you're both arcane and divine, so anything that works with either one works for you.

[KoDT69]

Ever since using the "Specialty Priest" option in the AD&D Greyhawk setting, I've always just run all Clerics that way. Why ask your deity to grant 27 specific spells in a day rather than requesting the continued access to 27 spells worth of magic? I mean, I know balance issues blah blah blah but Cleric spells aren't game breaking in the same way as arcane spells are.... Normally.... <insert evil laugh here>

[noob]

So, my FS summoner build got me thinking - there aren't a whole lot of spontaneous divine casting classes. Well, not as many as arcane, anyway.

A lot of things designed for spontaneous casters specify that they only work for arcane spells or casters, which is super annoying. It feels like spontaneous divine casters were a bit of an afterthought, and when future devs were coming up with new things, basically forgot they existed - or worse, deliberately excluded them.

Robe of Mysterious Conjuration, Ring of Theurgy, Bracers of Retaliation etc - arcane only. Same with a lot of feats. There is no divine equivalent of Arcane Preparation, for instance.

So, short of hand-waving away the arcane only restrictions on things - what are some good feats, items and other stuff that DO work for spontaneous divine casters? All thoughts and suggestions welcome.

Cheers - T
Pick spontaneous cleric, now anything that supports domains now supports you because you get to cast all domain spells of the domains you have spontaneously.(That is brokenly powerful if you grab the domains with cool spells)