Divine Spontaneity

[SoD]

I was browsing through my Unearthed Arcana book the other day (yesterday), and came across the house rule: Spontaneous Domain Casting. The general gist is that clerics are all too similar, despite the different domains they pick, because the domains only effect between one to nine spells (one of each level) and a little domain power. To address this, one house-rule that one guy used was that: instead of spontaneously casting cure/inflict spells, they spontaneously cast spells from their domains instead, giving their domains a much larger scope in spellcasting. It also suggests that if someone does take the healing/destruction domain, instead of doing xd8+y healing/damage, it does xd12+y when spontaneously casted. They also (I think) can use the domain slots for healing/inflict spells.

What do we think? It seems a bit overpowered to me, but would potentially be countered by the not-so-much-healing capabilities.

Also, as a side note, when combined with the Cloistered Cleric which grants a third domain (Knowlege), that's three different possibilities for spontaneous casting.

[Rei_Jin]

I've thought for a long time that allowing a cleric to pick 1 domain to be able to cast spontaneously from, in place of the healing domain, is a great idea. Note that I said ONE domain. At character creation, you pick ONE domain to cast spontaneously from. The other domain/domains you have access to can be memorised and cast from your spell list.

Of course, WotC have done something similar to this, in the Domain Spontaneity feat in Complete Divine. A good feat, all things considered, and balanced by the need to burn Turn attempts to access it.

Of course, this makes the Cleric just another spell casting option, as opposed to the heal-bot. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing either.

[Jack_Simth]

What do we think? It seems a bit overpowered to me, but would potentially be countered by the not-so-much-healing capabilities.

It's not the lack of healing that makes it less strong - it's the reduced day-to-day tailoring that makes it less strong. It's basically the difference between the Wizard and the Sorcerer. The Wizard can do anything - tomorrow, almost anything in fifteen minutes, and quite a lot right now. Catch him unprepared for the situation, and he's got issues (there's exceptions based on certain feats, but we'll ignore those for now). The Sorcerer doesn't have to make those sticky decisions every day - he just makes them at level up - but they're harder, as he has to get a "generic" set of spells that will leave him useful in nearly every situation. The Spontaneous Cleric, though, still has a few legs up on the Sorcerer due to heavy armor, d8 hit die, a more useful primary casting stat, domain powers, more spells known (Sorcerer level spells known + domain spells known)... but draws off a list of mostly less-useful spells.

The various manners to get extra domains, like....

Also, as a side note, when combined with the Cloistered Cleric which grants a third domain (Knowlege), that's three different possibilities for spontaneous casting.

... or all those nifty full progression PrC's in Complete Divine that do so, tend to make it overpowered (a Cloistered Cleric could end up with six different domains without much of a stretch, while maintaining full casting).

[SoD]

... or all those nifty full progression PrC's in Complete Divine that do so, tend to make it overpowered (a Cloistered Cleric could end up with six different domains without much of a stretch, while maintaining full casting).

Yeah, the plus side is that the person playing the cleric is playing for the first time, so I'm not expecting his character to be created for uber-power. However, if other characters want to take the cleric route...and I've got one guy who creates the strongest builds he can.