cleric restrictions

[dond]

are there plans to restrict the domains of clerics into different factions?

i know that MA has magic/trickery, TC has plant/animal....

but what about making those unique? meaning no other faction can share the same domains!

eg. MA and SL are allowed magic/trickery/evil/destruction domains, and noone else

^^something like that. (druid/monks aren't allowed, so why is trickery/travel with improv invis and haste?!? )

also, i'd like to see alignment also dictate what domains you're allowed, and maybe have deities play an effect (a cleric MUST choose a deity, and are restricted by said deities in what spells/weapons/armors they can use).

reason im bringing this up, is because clerics are far and away the most powerful class atm. i'd rather see heavy restrictions on them rather than their countless buffs taking a nose dive.

thoughts?

[turtlehermit]

Clerics are most powerfull class. That is the true sign of a solo player. Clerics are a party class. If a cleric is used as a party memeber he tends to buff his mates with most of his spells leaveing him with less spells for himself. I personally love parties and buffed up mates over roaming alone. To me it always appears that the more you complaining begets complaints.

[ATI]

If the char class was something else....like Fighters being too powerful, what would you do then? Make it harder for fighters to play? Clerics aren't the easiest to play, and they are the most versatilve class. But you can QUICKLY screw up your cleric by building the char wrong. Trust me, I have 7 of them with 20 on my home computer as testing chars.

DOn't make the domains more restricted, its just worthless code that doesn't really serve to do much. As for alignment, the only thing I think that should happen is better summon alignment monsters. (like black dragons for Chaotic Evil chars).

--------------------------------NEW TOPIC

Still though, this isn't as bad as hurting the buffs of clerics. I still think that haste should let you cast spells faster like its supposed to in the actual game. As it is now, its 3 seconds per spell, and that takes FOREVER to buff. Haste is supposed to give good advantages, please make spell casting be one of those advantages.

[Levan75]

This doesnt sound like a half bad idea, enforcing domain choice with rspect to diety is a great idea, it doesnt nerf clerics at all, and it quite inline with the current NS4 rules, just extends and enforces them. I agree I cant seen a Cleric of Torm having Trickery and not war would be ridiculous, where as Mask Clerics not having trickery would be equally nuts.

I dont think this would change a clerics power all that much, but it is a nice idea.

Not sure how codeable this would be tho. Can u code domain choice wrt diety etc.

Mero

[DrakhanValane]

I'm pretty sure all of the chromatic dragons are evil. The gemstone Dragons neutral and metallic dragons good. Something like that.

[IcemanXV]

I'm pretty sure all of the chromatic dragons are evil. The gemstone Dragons neutral and metallic dragons good. Something like that.

As far as I remember all chromatic dragons are Neutral Evil. They all horde items and are extremely greedy. I believe Metallic dragons range from good to neutral, as I believe bronze dragons are True Neutral.

[QuickLightning]

Iceman sounds about right

[Gil-Este]

DV is right.
Chromatic can be any of the evil
Metallic can be any of the good
Gem are neutral and psionic

not that anyone cared

[Heydeive]

I agree with dond clerics are redicusly overpowered because any cleric has access to all the powers the basic class gives.

What does not come to any effect is that the domainpower shloud come from the followship of a certain god or power.

So donds ideas are not only good and will balance this way out of contol class they are genious!!!

1)Restrict domain acces for the factions!

2)Retrict the armor and weapons a cleric can wield due to a god

This will balance the cleric and also gives them some more background

[IcemanXV]

I agree, I liked the cleric restrictions in 2ed. Such as most cleric ethos would not allow slashing weapons, only bludgeoning. This was made so enemies could be forced into converting, non-fatally. Outright killing for a god was done in the form of paladins

[Hulgaru]

I see a ton of merit in this idea, actually.

I mean, we already restrict prestige classes, alignments, and classes by factions... doesn't it follow naturally, with the world we're all playing in, that clerics and their domains/deities would be restricted in the same way?

If there was a way to tie deities to domains more closely... maybe also add specific bonuses for certain deities, mixed with restrictions, that would be pretty damn sweet. If anything, it would promote more factional strife. It would add to PvP in that you have clerics and followers of certain gods at odds with others.

Now if people are wondering about how to keep said abilities to those clerics, and those clerics alone... when the keyword ability is implemented, add bonus deity gear, and bonus cleric abilities only unlockable through the keywords.

My only wonder is, how cumbersome would the code have to be to recognize this sort of ability change. For example, say we task a certain deity as a healing deity, and all that deity's clerics were allowed to cast empowered or maximized healing spells instead of normal healing spells for free... how clunky would the script have to be to check the character against a deity list, and then apply the appropriate modifier to the spell?

something like:

Code: Select all

OnCast:(InsertHealingSpellHere)
GetDeity:(D)
If (D) = (HealingDeity)
then: ApplyMaximum/EmpoweredToResult

Would something like that take up to much time to process? (and yes I know that isn't real NWN code, I'm just mocking stuff up...)

[TTG]

It'd be really easy to do it. Real quick too.

if (GetDeity(OBJECT_SELF) == "God Type Dude")
{
}

That's really all you'd have to add to it. Then you'd put whatever effect you wanted in between the brackets. Replace the things in quotes to a real deity too. Hell you could make it so that some spells won't work unless you follow a certain deity. Destruction and Implosio not working unless you use a specific destruction Deity that requires you to be chaotic or something, but by following him instead of something else you lose Divine Favor and Power, etc.

It'd just take a lot of effort to flesh it out enough to where its an actual system, and not just something to make a certain spll you like more powerful.

[Denort]

Does anyone else get tired of the old cleric stereotypes?

I for one was pleasantly suprised when I found a cleric in NWN could use any weapon they wanted. Blunt weapons always seemed a strange restriction seeing as caving in a skull with blunt steel would make an enemy just as dead as running them through with sharp steel.

As far as the domains go, I would prefer to see the existing domain restrictions eased a little rather than having more applied.
Why should clerics of the Circle not be able to take any of the elemental domains? Or the Sun domain for that matter. The sun is the ultimate source of energy for all life, except for sulphur fixing bacteria but I do not think they have a god (Maybe Jubilex covers bacteria as well as slimes and oozes?). Wouldn't a cleric of both the good and evil domains also be welcome in a faction that strives to maintain the balance?

Should it not be up to the individual player to decide which domains best fit his character?

[LadyCheron]

One thing that's been discussed by the Devs is to have clerics pick a diety when creating the character, and then limiting the cleric's domain choices to two of the domains of that diety. Alignment would have to be within one point of the diety's alignment as well. This info was on the documentation forum at one time, but has since disappeared. Don't know if it means that idea has been abandoned, or just postponed until other, more pressing issues have been resolved.

[BaconStrip]

Limiting choices has the effect of nerfing a class, that is true. But it also has a way to suck all the variety out of character builds. I play on a server where the only weapons that can dev crit are a select few 2 handed weapons. Guess which weapons every fighter in the game carries? They also instated item restrictions where some Prc classes count toward levels in their base class for the purposes of total level for class restricted items. As a consequence, everyone makes the same handful of builds to use the same handful of uber items. This is a bad idea. Keep the variety.