Cleric Domain/Path Feedback Thread

[Scraps]

I also feel like that deathless master touch feels more at home in the undeath domain than the death domain. But that's going off the assumption that death domain is staying away from raising/controling the undead, and more on harms and stuff, also not really complaining... Undeath is sweet, and I haven't played around with death enough to really say much about it. Just a thought I wanted to throw out.

The deathless master touch that Death domain is granted will make undead and the living roll the death save, and can kill either. The control portion is removed.

As for domain spell updates, I think Life Transference could be added as a domain spell for level 2 or even level 1 spell slot Suffering Domain Clerics.
The spell fits the domain both thematically and mechanically. In addition the spells hefty health cost keeps it well balanced for something that can be infinitely or near infinitely cast for Cloistered/Defiler Clerics.
To spam the spell, your Suffering Domain priest will need to either use up spellslots healing themselves, getting stuck into melee draining creatures with inflict spells, or expending resources and time using healkits on themselves.

I'll do what I can to think on other potentially interesting swap-outs for domains.

[ReverentBlade]

I would be a very happy cleric if the Death domain power didn't mention an undead arm in the combat log. It creates awkward "I'm not a palemaster" RP.

[MissEvelyn]

I would be a very happy cleric if the Death domain power didn't mention an undead arm in the combat log. It creates awkward "I'm not a palemaster" RP.

This, and also for the ability description to actually mention what level we can use it at. I can't find that information anywhere, not even on the wiki entry.

Thank you!

[Hazard]

I also feel like that deathless master touch feels more at home in the undeath domain than the death domain. But that's going off the assumption that death domain is staying away from raising/controling the undead, and more on harms and stuff, also not really complaining... Undeath is sweet, and I haven't played around with death enough to really say much about it. Just a thought I wanted to throw out.

The deathless master touch that Death domain is granted will make undead and the living roll the death save, and can kill either. The control portion is removed.

As for domain spell updates, I think Life Transference could be added as a domain spell for level 2 or even level 1 spell slot Suffering Domain Clerics.
The spell fits the domain both thematically and mechanically. In addition the spells hefty health cost keeps it well balanced for something that can be infinitely or near infinitely cast for Cloistered/Defiler Clerics.
To spam the spell, your Suffering Domain priest will need to either use up spellslots healing themselves, getting stuck into melee draining creatures with inflict spells, or expending resources and time using healkits on themselves.

I'll do what I can to think on other potentially interesting swap-outs for domains.

Oh. Fair enough, that makes sense.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Next set of Domain-specific changes

[quote]Cleric Domains

[7][Magic]

• Domain Power: Casts Great Spell Breach, replenishes every 3 minutes (lvl 18+ cleric/fs only)

Is it greater spell breach or greater dispelling? All of the domain documentation says greater dispelling.

[hugolino]

Earlier in this thread and a few weeks ago on Discord, Kenji, you said you were open to cleric domain suggestions. I would like to make a second attempt at offering some....

I may be implementing all of the 3 above domains Soon™ (spell list subject to changes and is not set in stone), does anyone have an opinion on this?

Thank you, Kenji! I had missed your reply so the recent announcement of these three domains being added was a most pleasant surprise this morning. I like the adjustments made to my suggestions, especially because they seem quite thematic for each respective domain.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

I'm not a fan of illusion losing greater shadow conjuration in place of phantom wound. Greater shadow conjuration was one of the selling points of the domain with the shadows it can summon, which have crippling strike.

The slots for 7th level are tight. That's where extended imp invis, extended gsanc, word of faith, and destruction go. Phantom wound isn't better than any of them. It's a mind altering DC spell that doesn't do damage. It's an interesting idea, but it's not really worth it. If I'm going to be using mind altering dc spells, I'll cast weird instead. In PvE, phantom wound has a chance to fear a single target. Weird is an AoE that has a chance to kill AND fear, and has a higher DC. Phantom wound takes up a precious domain slot and is worse than weird, which fills the same niche.

RP-wise, being able to summon 3 shadows was really fun too. Shadow conjuration can do it, but only 2. I'm RPing an illusionist and suddenly having many of me was a fun trick.

[Exordius]

I was hoping to see illusion get greater phantom wound myself, single target fear is not that great to begin with and as said, Weird does the same thing plus it can insta-kill. I would also suggest that the domain power for illusion should be Weird on a 3 minute cooldown, and a different spell put in the lv 9 section.

[Hazard]

I don't know if it's just a mistake on the wiki, but Wail of Banshee doesn't seem included in the defiler's refund chance thing and probably should be, as it's a death spell.

[Morto]

Travel Domain:

Overall seems really lackluster with no "Big" domain Spell in lvl 7 or 9 slot. Instead it has Slow, which I hear is supposed to operate at a higher DC. But that really isn't worth the precious few spell slots at those levels for clerics.

I would vote for a spell like Stonehold to occupy these slots. Which thematically fits as an anti-mobility theme as does slow and feels worth the high level spell slot while not being overpowered as it's negated by freedom, which is a common ward for players.

[hugolino]

LUCK DOMAIN
1 - Remove Paralysis
2 - Remove Curse
3 - Keen Edge
4 - Spell Resistance
5 - Wounding Whispers
6 - Stone to Flesh
7 - Ethereal Visage
8 - Shadow Shield
9 - Protection from Spells

I may be implementing all of the 3 above domains Soon™ (spell list subject to changes and is not set in stone), does anyone have an opinion on this?

Might I suggest also adding a bonus in Search to the Luck Domain? It seems highly thematic to have a little bit of luck at finding an extra item when searching the bodies of the fallen. The bonus can be a tiny, token amount of course. It would be more universally applicable to players than a boost to resource gathering.

I noticed Shadow Shield is no longer listed as the 9th level Luck domain spell in the game. Has it been removed from the domain? If so, may I suggest replacing it with Mass Cat's Grace or some other area of effect spell that will aid the odds of not suffering misfortune or harm? Alternately, you could instead substitute a spell that inflicts bad luck, such as a curse or Vicious Mockery?

[Kenji]

I would be a very happy cleric if the Death domain power didn't mention an undead arm in the combat log. It creates awkward "I'm not a palemaster" RP.

I'm still looking into it but I may just have to create a new entry in spells.2da to avoid the same combat feedback text.

Might I suggest also adding a bonus in Search to the Luck Domain? It seems highly thematic to have a little bit of luck at finding an extra item when searching the bodies of the fallen. The bonus can be a tiny, token amount of course. It would be more universally applicable to players than a boost to resource gathering.

I noticed Shadow Shield is no longer listed as the 9th level Luck domain spell in the game. Has it been removed from the domain? If so, may I suggest replacing it with Mass Cat's Grace or some other area of effect spell that will aid the odds of not suffering misfortune or harm? Alternately, you could instead substitute a spell that inflicts bad luck, such as a curse or Vicious Mockery?

Not a bad idea on the search part.

Travel Domain:

Overall seems really lackluster with no "Big" domain Spell in lvl 7 or 9 slot. Instead it has Slow, which I hear is supposed to operate at a higher DC. But that really isn't worth the precious few spell slots at those levels for clerics.

I would vote for a spell like Stonehold to occupy these slots. Which thematically fits as an anti-mobility theme as does slow and feels worth the high level spell slot while not being overpowered as it's negated by freedom, which is a common ward for players.

With the new list of spells from SK, I might go over the Travel domain spell list again.

I don't know if it's just a mistake on the wiki, but Wail of Banshee doesn't seem included in the defiler's refund chance thing and probably should be, as it's a death spell.

It turns out that Wail of the Banshee is currently typed as "Sonic" rather than death, so a special exception may have to be made for Defiler refresh codes.

Is it possible for domains to grant more than 1 spell per spell level? For example, illusion gives color spray at spell level 1. If a new spell level 1 illusion damage spell was added, would we be able to get that as a level 1 domain spell along with color spray?

I may have addressed this before, but there is a work around for this. I will simply copy and paste my response to a fellow developer that made the same inquiry:

So the work around for multiple domain spells, and the reason why I didn't do it
Is to add ALL of the spells to Cleric's spell list, then use the creature remove known spells for any spells not listed on the domains taken by the cleric or considered "vanilla/basic"

I hypothesize it'd be massive performance drop, especially if the loop has to go through the spell list multiple times. Whether it needs to be reapplied every rest, login, or server reset is also unknown

so yeah I concluded that staying with the vanilla NWN domains.2da, though hardcoded, remains the optimal choice both in terms of performance and development time

Also, were banned domains removed? It used to be on the wiki but seems to be removed. Source here.
On top of this I think Cyric was banned from knowledge, and Lolthites from travel.

Banned domains aren't removed per se, but an easier way to apply it en masse is still being looked into. (There is over hundreds of deities and with up to 3 banned domains each meant a lot of grunt work if we don't have the infrastructure set up!)

If I missed anyone else's suggestion or feedback and you'd like it to be considered, please feel free to refresh it here with a new post again.

[Ork]

It figures that the moment I get a character that I enjoy, they're gutted. I'm scratching my head here as to why seeker lost ki-strike progression. Here's the math. A seeker/monk sits at 55 AB (53 w/ flurry of blows) and 62 AC and that AB is their maximum. They can't gain any more by truestrike, ench good hope, etc. They also enjoy d6 + 2 str + 6 bludgeoning from gloves and essence damage that is all mitigated in any kind of compeditive play. Prior to this nerf, they also got 5 bludgeoning from ki strike. So that chalks out about d6+13 damage or 16.5 damage average w/o sneaks. Let's consider sneaks. W/ sneaks, seekers have 9d6 or 31.5 additional damage. We won't factor in criticals here simply because fists are a 20/x2 weapon and crit damage can be pretty negligable here.

On a good flurry if all attacks connect and they have sneak, a seeker cleric will hit 3 times for an underwhelming 144 damage. Now without ki strike, we remove 5 damage from the base for a really limp 11.5 damage. Anyone with EDR 3 resists all non-sneak attacks by the seeker cleric now.

In what world was this a necessary change?

If you're going to say for AB balance, well I've got bad news for you. A seeker/monk at max gets 55. That's 20 BAB + 12 dex + 3 wf + 3 gloves + 5 div power + 5 div favor + 1 aid + 3 monk (ki strike) + 2 war cry 55. Now? They still get about the same 20 BAB + 12 dex + 3 gloves + 3 wf + 1 EP + 5 div power + 5 div favor + 1 aid + 2 war cry 53. They just need to toss on prayer and bless to cap themselves out. Not hard to do.

[AstralUniverse]

I'm also curious about why the synergy was removed from seeker and shaman but remains for warpriest. imo, warpriest is just as good catalyst for this sort of fist-caster and none of the 3 seemed particularly op to me compared to today's meta builds. I would appreciate some clarity.

[Azensor]

They've been chipping away at ab bloat for what the past year? Its not that surprising

[Ork]

They've been chipping away at ab bloat for what the past year? Its not that surprising

And, I've outlined how this change does nothing to reduce AB.

[Power Word, Haste]

They've been chipping away at ab bloat for what the past year? Its not that surprising

The AB Ork posted above is pretty standard for a cleric, and while it's high AB all things considered, it has the drawback of both being on spell timers and not being able to go any higher than that. 53-55 is as high as it goes for a cleric, no true strike or benefiting from other support characters that can provide AB like a bard or someone with 50 leadership. Cleric AB has never been a problem so I don't think this change has anything to do with AB bloat.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I'm also curious about why the synergy was removed from seeker and shaman but remains for warpriest. imo, warpriest is just as good catalyst for this sort of fist-caster and none of the 3 seemed particularly op to me compared to today's meta builds. I would appreciate some clarity.

Doing it suddenly on shaman is a bit of a surprise, but i think with touch attack harms using dex there may have been cause for high dex shaman monks that had high ab for both fist fighting and for spontaneous harms? I am not completely sure. Maybe Kenji just didnt want everything synergizing with monk as we continue to switch fists a lot. Which design wise I am fine, it just a massive blindside for players playing something currently (like a lot of changes can be from time to time, though often with justification).

[Biolab00]

Purely a guess -
Majority of the Clerics will take Monk levels ( due to obvious increase in AC / APR for unarmed ).
Therefore, among the 5 different classes snergy of Ranger/Rogue/Monk/Assassin/Swashbuckler, Monk synergy stands for the majority.
And that this nerf, is to make it more aligned with mechanics with the other 4 classes in synergy, in terms of benefits, rather than making Monk synergy being the obvious lore-wise and mechanic-wise superior option. And the end result is probably to encourage players to try out other classes' synergy instead? Or maybe, i'm just speaking rubbish. Like i've said, just my guess.

[Paint]

The removal of ki strike synergy from monk on seeker and shaman is almost certainly because it was only ever supposed to go to ki strike 4. The patch notes for both classes when the monk synergy was announced for either even stated this. Ki strike 5 on either was an exploit. Full stop. Despite attempts at attempting to fix this, people were still able to take ki strike 5, so it seems to me that it was taken away entirely as a result.

It can be gutting, but when you build around an exploit, things like this happen.

Edit:
I built around an exploit once and didn't even know it -was- an exploit, and once that hole was patched, that character lost a lot of steam, so I do know how it feels.

[Power Word, Haste]

The removal of ki strike synergy from monk on seeker and shaman is almost certainly because it was only ever supposed to go to ki strike 4. The patch notes for both classes when the monk synergy was announced for either even stated this. Ki strike 5 on either was an exploit. Full stop. Despite attempts at attempting to fix this, people were still able to take ki strike 5, so it seems to me that it was taken away entirely as a result.

It can be gutting, but when you build around an exploit, things like this happen.

Edit:
I built around an exploit once and didn't even know it -was- an exploit, and once that hole was patched, that character lost a lot of steam, so I do know how it feels.

Well, I didn't build around an exploit. I stopped at Ki Strike +4. So saying I was exploiting is a pretty bold assumption, as I was affected by this without doing that.

[Ork]

The removal of ki strike synergy from monk on seeker and shaman is almost certainly because it was only ever supposed to go to ki strike 4. The patch notes for both classes when the monk synergy was announced for either even stated this. Ki strike 5 on either was an exploit. Full stop. Despite attempts at attempting to fix this, people were still able to take ki strike 5, so it seems to me that it was taken away entirely as a result.

It can be gutting, but when you build around an exploit, things like this happen.

Edit:
I built around an exploit once and didn't even know it -was- an exploit, and once that hole was patched, that character lost a lot of steam, so I do know how it feels.

Let's talk about the "exploit". What does ki strike +5 give a seeker/monk? 2 damage. That's it. it's already capped on AB. Pretty heft nerf for closing up 2 damage.

Ultimately the removal of ki strike costs the seeker/monk 5-7 damage. It might not seem significant, but it is near equivalent to fighters losing weapon specialization, except monks don't multiply that number to greater quantities w/ a higher crit chance + multiplier.

I'd like to see ki strike returned to seeker/monk. I can't really speak to shaman because I have no idea how they play out in game, but I do have a seeker and he is now stuck on corner sneaking every mob to clear dungeons, and that's tedious as hell.

[Kalthariam]

I seem to recall a similar change being made to Marauder Spellswords where they lost a large chunk of flat damage (but not AB) and everyone seemed to say they were just fine without it, and infact were still just as powerful as before and there was no need to be upset, because Marauders were still "Perfectly fine" post change. (I don't think I've seen hardly any marauders post change come to think of it.. but I'm sure they are out there just doing their own thing.)

I'm sure Seekers will be perfectly fine after this change. Seems like they just lost some flat damage, and still have fairly good attack bonuses and very high AC. Everything that defines a seeker is still there, you just lost a little bit of damage. It'll be fine.

[Aren]

My guess is, that It has something to do with an upcoming monk rework.
Sorry about your character Ork - I’m kinda in the same boat as you (different class however), and it does feel bad.

[Llopast]

You guys have 55 UBAB using a dip monk class while deep monks have 48 UBAB. That does not seem fair