DMM not broken without nightsticks?

[riddles]

i've been looking at the DMM cleric.

while a persisted divine power gives your good bab and a strength boost, all it does is add you to the front lines. now, an action where you're not hitting anybody is kinda wasting the 7 turning attempts you burned to become the replacement fighter - and you're still not an ubercharger build or a battlefield control build because you just don't have the feats.

without nightsticks, you can do this once per day. a big investment for what you get out of it i'd say

having said that, DMM: Persist Divine Power + Persistent Divine Favour at level 13 is pretty sweet. add magic vestment and stoneskin and you're set...

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

That's why these sort of clerics get Undeath and Planning as domains. So many extra turning feats...

[riddles]

planning i can understand. it fits in with persist.

undeath for the extra turning, great. and good fuel for other divine feats. but if you're the sort of person who takes both domains - building a concept around that is going to be difficult.

whereas the planning/war cleric makes more sense.

[Kurald Galain]

Yes, it's still broken without nightsticks.

"Persist spell" has a +6 level modifier for good reason. That means it won't come into play until you can cast 7th level spells (unless you want to persist orisons, be my guest).

Any trick that allows you to use this kind of spells twelve levels earlier than you normall would is broken.

[riddles]

it takes 4 feats (or 3 feats and a charisma of 18) to use DMM persist.

the quickest way to get this is planning, undeath and human at level 1.

planning and undeath are hard to get together. most people will take one or other of the above. that means you get DMM persist at level 3.

any other race than human or strongheart halfling then has to wait til level 6.

it scales depending on the build.

[Keld Denar]

I've done a bit of looking into it, and DMM without Nightsticks or Persist Spell is actually underpowered, since when you compare them to Sudden Metamagic feats, they are found lacking, and Sudden Metamagic feats are considered very weak.

With Persist Spell, its a lot stronger, though, simply because most of the strongest cleric buffs have a duration of rounds and making them last all day expands their usefulness many times. It cuts down on actions that the cleric would normally spend in combat buffing up to full power.

DMM:Persist clerics have a strong weakness to dispelling though. Lots of outsiders have Greater Dispel as a SLA, and 2 such outsiders hitting a DMM persist cleric repeatedly are gonna reak havok on his persisted buff supply.

[Kurald Galain]

That's a good point, an alternative way of putting it would be forbidding persist spell, since its cheesy uses apparently outnumber its non-cheesy ones.

The point is that removing nightsticks from the "DMM + Persist + Nightsticks" combo is not enough.

[mostlyharmful]

Without Nightsticks you can just focus on Extend, with a boosted CL and a good choice of spell (10.mins per level or hour per level) it fills much the same role, you burn through slots faster but you save a feat and it's far easier for a DM to swallow.

[Indon]

I'm actually running a cleric in a campaign right now who is built around DMM: Quicken (no, he did not take the Planning/Undeath domains).

I haven't had much of a chance to test him yet, but it doesn't look like he'll be particularly overpowered. Useful, yeah. Overpowered, probably not.

[Jack_Simth]

planning i can understand. it fits in with persist.

undeath for the extra turning, great. and good fuel for other divine feats. but if you're the sort of person who takes both domains - building a concept around that is going to be difficult.

whereas the planning/war cleric makes more sense.

Each of the domains on the DMM(Persistent) cheese list saves a feat - Planning gives Extend Spell as a bonus feat (requirement for Persistent Spell), and Undeath gives Extra Turning as a bonus feat (burned for DMM Cheese). With a human and both domains, you can be doing Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) at 1st level - which is either going to be Divine Favor (+1 personal attack/damage) or (more likely) Bless (+1 attack, +1 on saves vs. Fear for the entire party). All later feats go into Extra Turning. With just the Planning Domain, it can still be done at 1st (with a Charisma of 18 or better...), but is more likely going to wait until 3rd (with a Charisma of 14, casting Eagle's Splendor to get it to 18, or taking Extra Turning as a feat). Once you have Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell), there is little (if any) need for feats other than Extra Turning - most of the things you could do with a feat, you can do (often better) with a spell, instead (although it does help if you have a Wizard in the party who can take item Crafting feats and collaberate with you).

If I take, say, a Human Cleric-10 with a Charisma of 10, Planning and Travel domains, with feats Persistent Spell (1st), Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) (Human Bonus), Extra Turning (3rd), Extra Turning (6th), Extra Turning (9th), he's got 15 Turning Attempts - enough to power Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) twice. This can be used for, say, Divine Power and Righteous Might - between the two, he's looking at +10 strength (+4 Size, +6 Enhancement), 10 temporary hit points (or 14, if he's got a Bead of Karma by then, which is recommended), +2 Constitution (size), +2 Natural Armor, 3 points of alignment-based DR, and the size increase gives reach. Tack on Magic Vestments on a suit of Fullplate, and Greater Magic Weapon on a spear or longspear, and you can make the Fighter-10 feel inadiquite.

[Keld Denar]

Each of the domains on the DMM(Persistent) cheese list saves a feat - Planning gives Extend Spell as a bonus feat (requirement for Persistent Spell), and Undeath gives Extra Turning as a bonus feat (burned for DMM Cheese). With a human and both domains, you can be doing Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) at 1st level - which is either going to be Divine Favor (+1 personal attack/damage) or (more likely) Bless (+1 attack, +1 on saves vs. Fear for the entire party). All later feats go into Extra Turning. With just the Planning Domain, it can still be done at 1st (with a Charisma of 18 or better...), but is more likely going to wait until 3rd (with a Charisma of 14, casting Eagle's Splendor to get it to 18, or taking Extra Turning as a feat). Once you have Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell), there is little (if any) need for feats other than Extra Turning - most of the things you could do with a feat, you can do (often better) with a spell, instead (although it does help if you have a Wizard in the party who can take item Crafting feats and collaberate with you).

If I take, say, a Human Cleric-10 with a Charisma of 10, Planning and Travel domains, with feats Persistent Spell (1st), Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) (Human Bonus), Extra Turning (3rd), Extra Turning (6th), Extra Turning (9th), he's got 15 Turning Attempts - enough to power Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) twice. This can be used for, say, Divine Power and Righteous Might - between the two, he's looking at +10 strength (+4 Size, +6 Enhancement), 10 temporary hit points (or 14, if he's got a Bead of Karma by then, which is recommended), +2 Constitution (size), +2 Natural Armor, 3 points of alignment-based DR, and the size increase gives reach. Tack on Magic Vestments on a suit of Fullplate, and Greater Magic Weapon on a spear or longspear, and you can make the Fighter-10 feel inadiquite.

Nah, you need Power Attack too....PA then Extra Turnings...that's all you need.

[Fostire]

From which book is DMM persist from?

[Zincorium]

From which book is DMM persist from?

Persistent spell is from Complete Arcane.

Divine metamagic is from Complete Divine.

Divine metamagic allows the use of turn undead attempts instead of an increase in caster level for a specific metamagic feat, in this case Persistent spell.

[Fostire]

Persistent spell is from Complete Arcane.

Divine metamagic is from Complete Divine.

Divine metamagic allows the use of turn undead attempts instead of an increase in caster level for a specific metamagic feat, in this case Persistent spell.

Ok, thanks.

[riddles]

Each of the domains on the DMM(Persistent) cheese list saves a feat - Planning gives Extend Spell as a bonus feat (requirement for Persistent Spell), and Undeath gives Extra Turning as a bonus feat (burned for DMM Cheese). With a human and both domains, you can be doing Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) at 1st level - which is either going to be Divine Favor (+1 personal attack/damage) or (more likely) Bless (+1 attack, +1 on saves vs. Fear for the entire party). All later feats go into Extra Turning. With just the Planning Domain, it can still be done at 1st (with a Charisma of 18 or better...), but is more likely going to wait until 3rd (with a Charisma of 14, casting Eagle's Splendor to get it to 18, or taking Extra Turning as a feat). Once you have Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell), there is little (if any) need for feats other than Extra Turning - most of the things you could do with a feat, you can do (often better) with a spell, instead (although it does help if you have a Wizard in the party who can take item Crafting feats and collaberate with you).

If I take, say, a Human Cleric-10 with a Charisma of 10, Planning and Travel domains, with feats Persistent Spell (1st), Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) (Human Bonus), Extra Turning (3rd), Extra Turning (6th), Extra Turning (9th), he's got 15 Turning Attempts - enough to power Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) twice. This can be used for, say, Divine Power and Righteous Might - between the two, he's looking at +10 strength (+4 Size, +6 Enhancement), 10 temporary hit points (or 14, if he's got a Bead of Karma by then, which is recommended), +2 Constitution (size), +2 Natural Armor, 3 points of alignment-based DR, and the size increase gives reach. Tack on Magic Vestments on a suit of Fullplate, and Greater Magic Weapon on a spear or longspear, and you can make the Fighter-10 feel inadiquite.


now that is something i hadn't thought about. but even without DMM, you can make the fighter-10 feel inadequate based on the fact you can cast the awesome self buffs in heavy armour. a persisted (none DMM) divine favour at level 13 gives you better ab than the fighter all day without the use of turning attempts.

DMM is clearly something you have to moderate and most abusable. but still, could be used in a normal game

[Chronos]

If I take, say, a Human Cleric-10 with a Charisma of 10, Planning and Travel domains, with feats Persistent Spell (1st), Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) (Human Bonus), Extra Turning (3rd)...Wouldn't it make more sense to take Extra Turning at 1st, and Divine Metamagic at 3rd? You can't use the Divine Metamagic until after you have Extra Turning, but you can use turn attempts without Divine Metamagic (at levels 1 and 2, it's still useful for actually, you know, turning undead creatures).

[Jack_Simth]

now that is something i hadn't thought about. but even without DMM, you can make the fighter-10 feel inadequate based on the fact you can cast the awesome self buffs in heavy armour. a persisted (none DMM) divine favour at level 13 gives you better ab than the fighter all day without the use of turning attempts.

At 13th, the Fighter has a BAB of +13; the Cleric, +9; Divine Favor caps off at +3, putting the Cleric at +12... but that's total, not BAB; it doesn't grant the extra attack that the Fighter has, it doesn't grant the extra +attack/damage feats that the fighter takes as bonus feats, and it doesn't grant the extra strength and constitution the Fighter will probably have.

Now, if you cast Divine Power (4th level spell, no persisting without something to reduce the cost of metamagic, or to grant 10th+ level slots) on top of that, you've got the Fighter's BAB, something close to the Fighter's Strength (+6 Enhancement), and some bonus hit points to make up for the difference between a d8 and a d10 hit die. There's a problem, though - without Persist, you're spending an action in the middle of a battle to make it happen. As high level fights are generally over in a round or two, this means the Cleric not using Persistent Spell on Divine Power and Righteous Might gets roughly half as many attacks in as the Fighter does.

With Divine Metamagic(Quicken Spell) or Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell), these buffs are not costing the Cleric an action in battle, so what little balance the spells have goes away.


DMM is clearly something you have to moderate and most abusable. but still, could be used in a normal gameCan it be? Yes - the Cleric who uses Divine Metamagic(Persistent Spell) on Prayer at 1st, Mass Lesser Vigor at 5th, and both at 9th isn't going to be outshining the party - because he's buffing the party. Likewise, the Cleric that uses Divine Metamagic(Reach Spell) to lay down Heal from across the battlefield isn't going to be outshining the party. But it's really easy to abuse it. Much too easy. It grants access to effects you shouldn't be getting for many, many more levels - which is what breaks balance.

Wouldn't it make more sense to take Extra Turning at 1st, and Divine Metamagic at 3rd? You can't use the Divine Metamagic until after you have Extra Turning, but you can use turn attempts without Divine Metamagic (at levels 1 and 2, it's still useful for actually, you know, turning undead creatures).
Probably, but I was just doing that off the cuff.

[Chronos]

...something close to the Fighter's Strength (+6 Enhancement)...Yes and no... Enhancement bonuses are the most common type of bonus to ability scores, and the fighter probably already has an enhancement bonus to Strength which wouldn't stack with that. And he probably started with a higher strength than you did.

If you can fit into places with it on, Righteous Might is much better. Its strength bonus is only +4, but it's a size bonus, and few things offer a size bonus, and even fewer offer one that large (the only other comtenders being the psionic power Expansion, if augmented, and the Wu Jen spell Giant Size). Plus size also gives you reach, and a bonus to grapples, trips, and other things. Just watch out for low ceilings and narrow doorways.

[Renegade Paladin]

now that is something i hadn't thought about. but even without DMM, you can make the fighter-10 feel inadequate based on the fact you can cast the awesome self buffs in heavy armour. a persisted (none DMM) divine favour at level 13 gives you better ab than the fighter all day without the use of turning attempts.
:smallconfused: No it doesn't. The spell gives +3 attack/damage at that level; the fighter has +4 up on you in BAB alone and then probably has feats to increase it even more and a higher Strength. Sure, it's nice, but the single spell doesn't beat the fighter.

[Cuddly]

:smallconfused: No it doesn't. The spell gives +3 attack/damage at that level; the fighter has +4 up on you in BAB alone and then probably has feats to increase it even more and a higher Strength. Sure, it's nice, but the single spell doesn't beat the fighter.

The single spell puts you about on the same footing as a fighter.
Then you have full casting.


Is DMM persist broken?
Let me as you this: How many divine caster builds do you see on CharOp builds without it?