The Gaming Den

Ideally, domain powers should be a secondary consideration to the spells they grant. A domain power should not be the reason for someone taking the domain, and I sought to put all domain powers at a par with Luck, Travel and/or Trickery. Not sure exactly how this relates to one Tome feat power, but I guess it's somewhere on that end of things.

A monk's slam and an Earth cleric slam have nothing to do with each other. I'm not sure if you could use two slam attacks, but frankly, I don't think it's that bad if you can, particularly since one of them will be your secondary.

As for the powers:

Tremorsense 5ft is actually rather cool, and I will implement it instead of what I have now. Stoneskin 1/day as an SLA is... umm, hell no? The +Wis vs. trip/bullrush is rather boring, so I'd be unlikely to consider it.

For Water, I think a swim speed off the bat may be a tad much, though I could consider adding a slower one. Perma-water walk is in the same category as your stoneskin suggestion. The last one is the most interesting one - I assume you mean a jet of water hitting them or something?

As for Essence costs, I think you and Hicks have both convinced me that it was a bad idea from the get-go. I'm considering what to replace them with, or whether there SHOULD be any additional costs associated with those spells in general. What do you think on this matter?

Mister_Sinister wrote:As for Essence costs, I think you and Hicks have both convinced me that it was a bad idea from the get-go. I'm considering what to replace them with, or whether there SHOULD be any additional costs associated with those spells in general. What do you think on this matter?

Unavoidable ability drain / negative levels that can only be healed after a day? Hit point costs are meaningless to some characters. If your casting stat is reduced by 1 for a day or week when you cast a spell, that seems to be a more significant cost.

The game already has a mechanic for a temporary or permanent expenditure of power and life energy: the negative level. You could say that an "essence" spell inflicts an unresistable and unremovable negative level until the duration of the spell ends, or the caster takes whatever equates to 8 hours of rest for them (4 hour trance for elves, 2 hours for those with a ring of sustenance), or for 1 day per spell level, or for a flat week, whatever. 1 day per spell level of the "essence" spell works for me the best; it is a noticeable drop in power that stacks with itself and you have to think hard before you do it.

To be honest, I do not see a need for such a mechanic on any spell; spells that are so overpowered to have at that level to warrant such a draining component should be higher level and not have the component. That's why spell levels exist, more powerful spells are of a higher level than less powerful or useful spells.

I, personally, have no problem if a mid level cleric decides to set a dragon horde on fire and raise dead an entire army. That is awesome, and a feat I would encourage. Hell, at 9th level the game fundamentally shifts in scope, as the party wizard and cleric can each spend a standard action and "high 5" their god. That's not an adventure, it's half of half the party's round of actions!

At halfway through the game, a cleric can raise a dude from the dead in less time it takes to boil an egg. That shit is routine, and if a DM wants to tell stories where raising a dude from death is an adventure instead of something you do to time your hard boiled breakfast, he should mandate a lower level for his players.

Any cost is going to be avoided given suitably inclined players, and making a spell awesome and sticking it with an annoying cost is just daring people to be awesome all of the time. Even the unavoidable unhealable negative level is still avoidable with tricks previously mentioned: just get someone else (mind slave, cohort, summoned creature) to cast it and they suffer while you gain. You could just make the target of the spell suffer for the essence component, in which case the cost is very difficult to shift to a preferential target, but spells like awaken don't work very well like that.

Otherwise I second everything else that Hicks just said. Stronger shit should just be higher level without the cost or it shouldn't be in the game.

TarkisFlux wrote:You could just make the target of the spell suffer for the essence component, in which case the cost is very difficult to shift to a preferential target, but spells like awaken don't work very well like that.

Or raise dead. Mister_Sinister said that he thought that the time out caused by "Death" was penalty enough for dying. I believe he got rid of level/Con loss on respawn; targeting the affected is isn't gonna fly.

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Dude, I just found out that it takes 24 hours to cast awaken! So it goes like this: The party sorcerer polymorphs into an [animal] right before the druid finishes the day's rod maximized awaken for a couple 3 weeks straight, sits pretty on his Cha+63 score and Thought Bottle's his +42 animal HD, "wields" a quiver of 42 unholy arrows, then Thought Bottles himself to Sorcerer 50 in Epic land for fun and profit? Rinse and repeat for the rest of the party. And I've been dungeon delving for XP like a chump all these years...

Mister Sinister: so we are making domain powers along the same power level as Travel, Trickery and Luck. I am going to focus on Travel for power level since it is easier for me break down.
Travel domain power is the equivalent of a 4th level spell but limited in someway. It grants you freedom of movement whenever something would be canceled by freedom of movement, and this happens automatically. It negates a lot of battlefield controls, and other things that I don't feel like typing.
I think feel that this power stays useful for every level of adventuring since it works as a great passive defense. The limit on this power is the fact that it can not use this power on anyone else, and that its duration is reduced (I don't feel that is a really big deal since this power is self activating when you need it).
Two other 4th level spells that could work in a similar fashion would be Break Enchantment, and Death Ward. The limits on them would be self-only, 1 round per level duration.

Earth:
Looking back at the Earth domain power I would say it should read: "You gain tremorsense 5ft for every level of Cleric you have."

Water domain power:
Yeah I was trying to figure out what some uses fire hose could be used for in combat. If someone could tighten up the wording on it I would greatly appreciate it. For the domain power to stay viable I would say it should require less action to do as the player increases in level, such as 1-5 standard, 6-10 move, 11-15 swift, 16-20 once per round free action. the cleric is throwing out SoD, SoL, or at least hitting people really hard with a weapon. Making it a standard action for all levels makes it worthless at higher levels.

War:
If we agree on domain power levels I would argue that it should read like "you are automatically proficiency with your god's favorite weapon. Additionally you gain 1 BAB for every Cleric level instead of 3/4." This power follows the idea of being a limited 4th level spell, Divine Power is the spell, limit is no strength enhancement.

On Essence cost and concept, going with Hicks TarkisFlux, and K #6 on this one.

OK, you've convinced me - Essence costs are dead. I'll excise them as soon as I can, and I promise not to re-use them.

DDJ: Right, now that I'm more aware, I think I can elaborate a bit more on what you say.

First off, I believe that Travel alone isn't the inspiration for my power level. I've also taken Tome spheres, Luck and Trickery as balance points. Additionally, Travel is more restricted than you think - it only applies to 'magical' effects that impede movement, unlike FoM, which also stops grapple, difficult terrain etc.

As far as your suggestion for the Earth domain goes, that's potentially 100ft of tremorsense by level 20. Ideally, I would like to NOT tie domains to cleric level, simply because domains aren't just a cleric thing anymore. What about someone who Arcane Disciples for their domains? Or just uses Attune Domain from Tome? It's not gonna do ANYTHING for them if it scales to cleric level, so this is why I scale things to character level instead. I'm not sure about your suggestion here, but I'll chat to my devs to hear what they have to say.

The water domain power should just be a swift action throughout. I see no reason to make it a standard or a move action, like, ever. That said, changes will be made.

Divine power is a bullshit spell that I have personally excised from the Spell Relevelling Project, and for good reason. I see absolutely no reason to allow something like a domain to grant BAB, especially when compounded with the tying-to-cleric-levels problem I have already explained above.

Minster Sinister:
Tying-to-cleric-level good point thanks for pointing that out. Tying powers to cleric levels was to stop dipping, but dipping isn't actually a bad thing so no need for it.

On Travel: Oh didn't notice the magical effect limitation. I still think the powers are 4th level spells with limits grant a lot of flavorful options that stay useful as the character levels.

On Earth: I just realized that the Stone sphere could easily replace the Earth domain, though the spells would need to be reallocated. The problem I see with giving out tremorsense is at low level 1-6, after 7 I really don't see it as a problem. Does tremorsense 50ft at level 10 significantly alter the game? I would say no. Does tremorsense 100ft at level 20 when i can ask my god what is down that dark corner, and tell him to zap it since I am such a loyal follower? I would say no.

Water:
The RAW seems to say that I provoke an attack of opportunity when I use water cannon on them. It also seems that my strength and size would factor in to my trip, bull rush attempt right now. Make a Wisdom or Charisma (which ever is higher) + Caster level as a check against the normal bull rush, trip rules as a medium character seems more appropriate. I was also wondering why you got rid of the disarm option?

Divine Power:
Could you clarify why you do not like it?

deathdealingjawa wrote:Minster Sinister:
Tying-to-cleric-level good point thanks for pointing that out. Tying powers to cleric levels was to stop dipping, but dipping isn't actually a bad thing so no need for it.

On Travel: Oh didn't notice the magical effect limitation. I still think the powers are 4th level spells with limits grant a lot of flavorful options that stay useful as the character levels.

On Earth: I just realized that the Stone sphere could easily replace the Earth domain, though the spells would need to be reallocated. The problem I see with giving out tremorsense is at low level 1-6, after 7 I really don't see it as a problem. Does tremorsense 50ft at level 10 significantly alter the game? I would say no. Does tremorsense 100ft at level 20 when i can ask my god what is down that dark corner, and tell him to zap it since I am such a loyal follower? I would say no.

Water:
The RAW seems to say that I provoke an attack of opportunity when I use water cannon on them. It also seems that my strength and size would factor in to my trip, bull rush attempt right now. Make a Wisdom or Charisma (which ever is higher) + Caster level as a check against the normal bull rush, trip rules as a medium character seems more appropriate. I was also wondering why you got rid of the disarm option?

Divine Power:
Could you clarify why you do not like it?

On dipping: It's not that it's not a bad thing per se, it's just that tying abilities to cleric level isn't the way to discourage it.

On tremorsense: I'm a notoriously poor developer, so I'll have to chat with my devs before I can make any changes.

On Water: Actually, it depends on whether you have the Edge. Since your BAB for that purpose = your CL, you should be just as capable as any full BAB class in that respect - which is very. The disarm option was an oversight on my part, and will be added back in now.

On divine power: BAB is supposedly a big deal, and the Tomes go even further than that by making things like the Edge and [Combat] feats, which mean that full BAB classes, which as a general rule do not get spells as good as people who don't have full BAB, actually have a reason to exist. Divine power basically takes that whole notion out back and shoots it dead, by allowing full BAB to be granted by a spell, which is rather stupid and should not be done.

On Tremorsense: the Stone sphere grants Tremorsense 60', at first level. Let it be 60'. Yes, this means that an Earth cleric can stand at a door and know the number of people in the next room and their positions; this is not a problem.

I would not say that you are a poor designer, though I would say you are a timid one; you have good ideas that almost go far enough. Not that I'm any better, as I'll always try to err on the side of what others would say is overpowering the characters.

Stone Sphere is also 100% of a level 1 Conduits power at that level.

Domains on the other hand are less than 1/8th of a Clerics.

I mean, a level 1 Conduit choosing stone is giving up lot.

Like every possible way of having an offense that anyone cares about at all.

Hicks wrote:On Tremorsense: the Stone sphere grants Tremorsense 60', at first level. Let it be 60'. Yes, this means that an Earth cleric can stand at a door and know the number of people in the next room and their positions; this is not a problem.

I would not say that you are a poor designer, though I would say you are a timid one; you have good ideas that almost go far enough. Not that I'm any better, as I'll always try to err on the side of what others would say is overpowering the characters.

Yeah, now that you mention it, I think you're onto something there with Stone and tremorsense, Hicks. Noting what Kaelik said, I suspect a compromise of 30' is acceptable to all parties?

As far as being a poor designer, I never made that claim. I'm a poor developer, yes, but that's another story. This is precisely why I err on the side of caution - my ideas sometimes have totally unforeseen repercussions, and I would rather undershoot and be told to power up than overshoot and get told to tone down. Anyone remember the top ability of False Reality? *shudders*

Or you can make it grow. Somebody said that 5' of tremor sense at lvl 1 was OK, and that at higher levels 30 and even 100 TS was not unbalancing... So make the Tremorsense 5'/level or Hit Die. BAB BAM! tremorsense you could give a damn about from level 1-20.

Although, yeah... 30' is cool to me.

EDIT: apparently I cannot spell "BAM".

I think it should expand beyond 30ft over time. My point was that at level 1, that's 50% of all abilities that a Fiendish Conduit has.

But at level 20, it's 1/100th of their abilities.

Bottom line:

Give it to them 5ft per character level.

Alright, colour me convinced, Hicks and Kaelik. Changing now.