More Cleric Oversights and Suggestions

[satantrik]

Continuing along a theme here. Here are some more suggestions for changes to Cleric spells...in addition to being a trivia post for those who are interested!

Bioware made some other errors with the cleric spell list, some of the cleric's most potent spells in PnP are balanced out by the fact that they're highly dependent on the alignment of the caster and the target/s. There are a number of high level cleric spells that Bioware collapsed into a single non-alignment based spell that bare mentioning.

The spells that Bioware made-up for NWN by collapsing the alignment-dependent PnP spells are "Hammer of the Gods"and "Word of Faith". There are three other spells that Bioware managed to make dependent on alignment, "Protection From Alignment", "Magic Circle Against Alignment", and "Aura Versus Alignment". These latter spells can be cast against evil or good in NWN, in PnP they can be cast against evil, good, law, or chaos.

In NWN "Hammer of the Gods" is a level 4 Cleric spell that causes 1d8 Divine damage for all enemies within a Huge radius for every 2 caster levels (maximum of 5d8). Targets must also make a Will save or be dazed for 1d6 rounds.

In PnP this spell is identical to the spell "Chaos Hammer" except that a successful Will save halves the damage and opponent's are "staggered' not "dazed". A staggered opponent can act normally, but can only perform partial actions (put simply, they can make only one attack per round). Additionally, Chaotic creatures are immune and non-Lawful creatures take half damage and are immune to the stagger effect (1/4 if they make the Will save).

There are Evil, Good, and Lawful analogs to "Chaos Hammer" in PnP:

"Unholy Blight" is the Evil version of this spell. The damage is the same, but instead of staggering the opponents they are "sickened" for 1d4 rounds if they fail a Fort save. A "sickened" opponent is -2 to attack rolls, damage, saves, skill checks, and ability checks. Evil opponents are immune to this spell and non-good creatures take half damage (1/4 if they make the Fort save) and are immune to the sicken effect.

"Holy Smite" is the Good version of this spell. The damage, again, is the same. The save for this spell is a Reflex one and those failing it are blinded for 1 round. Good creatures are immune completely, and non-evil creatures take half damage (1/4 if they make the Reflex save) in addition to being immune to the blinding effect.

"Order's Wrath" is the Lawful version. Same damage, and those failing a Reflex save are dazed for 1 round. Lawful creatures are immune, and non-Chaotic creatures take half damage (1/4 if they make the Reflex save) in addition to being immune to the daze effect.

While it may be a feat of programming to cram all this into the module, "Hammer of the Gods" is such a potent spell for clerics because Bioware removed the alignment-based balancing factor it has in PnP (in addition to combining the most potent status-ailment with the longest duration, "dazed" and 1d6). I'll post some suggestions for this later.

The next spell is "Word of Faith". In-game it kills all enemies with less than 4 HD and stuns the rest for 1 round per 2 caster levels. It also unsummons any hostile summoned creatures.

"WoF" is so powerful because 1) the reasons I detailed above regarding alignment-dependent effects and 2) the PnP analogs for this spell have 3 more levels of effect at 4-7, 8-11, and 12+ HD. Keep in mind that a paralyzed opponent in PnP is "helpless" which means they can be coup de grace'd.

"Blasphemy" is the Evil version of this spell. It banishes non-Evil outsiders back to their own plane ("unsummoning" them). Evil creatures are immune to the rest of the effects, of which there are four. Creatures with 12 or more HD are dazed for 1 round. 8 - 11 HD are dazed, and are weakened, their Strength is reduced by 2d6 for 2d4 rounds. 4 - 7 HD are dazed, weakened, are paralyzed for 1d10 minutes/turns. Those with less than 4 HD are killed instantly, including undead.

"Dictum" is the Lawful version of this spell. It "unsummons" non-Lawful summoned creatures. Non-Lawful creatures then suffer the following effects depending on their HD. 12+ HD are deafened for 1d4 rounds. 8 - 11 HD are deafened, and slowed (as the spell) for 2d4 rounds. 4 - 7 HD are deafened, slowed, and paralyzed 1d10 minutes/turns. Those with less than 4 HD are destroyed, including undead.

"Holy Word" is the Good version of this spell. It "unsummons" non-Good summoned creatures. Non-Good creatures then suffer the following effects depending on their HD. 12+ HD are deafened for 1d4 rounds. 8 - 11 HD are deafened, and blinded for 2d4 rounds. 4 - 7 HD are deafened, blinded, and paralyzed for 1d10 turns. Those with less than 4 HD are killed, including undead.

"Word of Chaos" is the Chaotic version. It "unsummons" non-Chaotic summons. Non-Chaotic creatures then suffer the following. 12+ HD are deafened for 1d4 round. 8 - 11 HD are deafened, and stunned for 1 round. 4 - 7 HD are deafened, stunned, and confused (as the spell) for 1d10 turns. Those with less than 4 HD are killed, including undead.

There...those who think "Hammer" and "WoF" are cheap spells should feel vindicated right now! Again, it will be a lot to cram these two modifications into the module, but I think it will make things more interesting by deepening the gameplay and balancing out the cleric.

I touch on the various protection from alignment spells <a href="http://www.nsrealm.com/boards/viewtopic ... 5">here</a> in the Cleric Restrictions forum. Check there if you're interested.

[ATI]

Dude...I used dictum in a town once....on another plane....holy moly i killed lots of people with that...watched my alignment-o-meter go from good to evil in seconds flat.

That is cool..but i don't think the devs could implenet any of those spells without a hak pack. And there are a whole lot more powerful spells that they could implement...like Miracle.


Its like wish but it gives diety intervention, also is cast in one round. The devs shoudl give both magic user types miracle and wish.

It should do something like increase the DC for all spells by 20 or make their AB go up for 20 for a whole real day, but also cost 2k experience to cast, only castable once a week or something like that. That would be sooo cooolllll.

But still....i think the non casters need some focus now. Don't bring clerics down or up, make the fighters, rogues, rangers, barbarians, and paladins more powerful. As it is now, these classes are the ones that need items with haste, more damage, magic properties and such.

I think even if a fighter in this server had an old school YDB, they wouldn't fare all that well due to the lack of magical items in NS as a whole. the non casters need help

[satantrik]

Creating four new spells or even four "sub-spells" (as with protection from alignment) off the originals would required a hak-pak, but having the effect of each spell vary with the alignment of the caster won't.

The specific effects will have to thought through because the PnP effects can't be simulated exactly. They could vary with alignment, too, or be the same for all alignments. For now here's a rough model for how the alignments interact:

Hammer of the Gods/Word of Faith

These two spells have four effects on its target/s, depending on the alignment of the caster and the target/s.

1) Immune: no effect.
2) Resistant: limited effect.
3) Vulnerable: full effect.
4) Smite: full effect plus something else

Lawful Good

Immune: Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Neutral Good
Resistant: Lawful Evil, True Neutral, Chaotic Good
Vulnerable: Chaotic Neutral, Neutral Evil
Smite: Chaotic Evil

Lawful Neutral

Immune: Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil
Resistant: Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil
Vulnerable: Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil
Smite: Chaotic Neutral

Lawful Evil

Immune: Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil
Resistant: Lawful Good, True Neutral, Chaotic Evil
Vulnerable: Neutral Good, Chaotic Neutral
Smite: Chaotic Good

Neutral Good

Immune: Lawful Good, Neutral Good, Chaotic Good
Resistant: Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral
Vulnerable: Lawful Evil, Chaotic Evil
Smite: Neutral Evil

True Neutral

Immune: True Neutral
Resistant: Lawful Neutral, Neutral Good, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Neutral
Vulnerable: Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil
Smite: none

Neutral Evil

Immune: Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil
Resistant: Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral
Vulnerable: Lawful Good, Chaotic Good
Smite: Neutral Good

Chaotic Good

Immune: Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral
Resistant: Lawful Good, True Neutral, Chaotic Evil
Vulnerable: Lawful Neutral, Neutral Evil
Smite: Lawful Evil

Chaotic Neutral

Immune: Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil
Resistant: Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil
Vulnerable: Lawful Good, Lawful Evil
Smite: Lawful Neutral

Chaotic Evil

Immune: Neutral Evil, Chaotic Neutral, Chaotic Evil
Resistant: Lawful Evil, True Neutral, Chaotic Good
Vulnerable: Lawful Neutral, Neutral Good
Smite: Lawful Good

[Denort]

Don't bring clerics down or up, make the fighters, rogues, rangers, barbarians, and paladins more powerful. As it is now, these classes are the ones that need items with haste, more damage, magic properties and such.

Hooray! Someone else who thinks we should be sending melee classes to the gym rather than beating casters with the nerf bat.

http://www.nsrealm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1900

[Lokey]

Unhallow is the must for every cleric (unless you have some limp-wristed deity)! Blasphemy is fun for the whole family too

Depends, Bio's first failure with cleric is with domain spells and how cleric spells are memorized and used in general. All spell slots are available for any spell plus they get a huge list of great default spells automatically. Add bonus stacking and some woefully unbalanced 3.0 spells and things get out of hand fast.

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Merits discussion, just not sure about how well the vs. alignment effect function is working for buffs (suspect it isn't and wondering how much it'll take to make it work). Otherwise, great ideas.