Suggestion Idea. Change to Base Clerics.

[BoredGM]

Yeah so what that was about is the duration. Ethereal visage's duration blows compared to ghostly, which is why everyone I knew used to use it to buff instead.
The globe is a longer scroll than both of the other ones you mentioned, but yes minor does it too, which now means protection domain clerics can do it for themselves, and mages. Which leaves everyone else out. Protection domain clerics weren't big on my previous server, so I'm not surprised that I didn't recall that minor does it as well.
But it still amounts to the same thing for every other type of thing besides mages and protection clerics.
Thanks for the info.

[Tarkus the dog]

How to cleric:

Have at least 16 Wisdom.

Have death domain.

Have a friend.

Tell friend to press breach button.

Run to breached guy.

Press Harm button.

Probably and I honestly wish this wasn't true, win 90% of the fights.

That said, I wish there was a change made to them because they are the most boring class to play these days. Healer clerics get off the hook since in NWN if you're support you're supposed to be bored anyway, however looking back and knowing I actually played a melee cleric to level 30. Whew. Not doing that again.

Undeath's Eternal Foe is a pretty strong spell in it's own right, if not underrated. Not everyone is a 15 fighter or a high cleric running around with 4-5 AC.

Also did you know that as a cleric you can slot 8 sanctuaries and spam them on your weaponmaster, who will then proceed to flat foot enemies that are trying to focus him every time you cast it. Yeah, have fun dealing with that. ( And yeah you can focus the cleric instead if you've passed the 40+ will DC sanctuary and prevent him from doing that, I suppose ). Regardless of the WoF 'nerfs' they can still safely and actively spam Word of Faith, giving the same weaponmaster even more fun time on the PvP-Field.

The only two changes I would recommend for this class in particular is set harm on fortitude DC where it deals half damage to the targets that pass the check, and make dark flame stack with anything ( but only for the cleric ). Your average player doesn't know what NEP is, and you have to balance the game around the average players. This might break the game and make cleric/monks a little bit insane, but with all the spellsword lizard-wizards running around, I don't think so. What it will do is make leveling up a cleric and doing late game content not so boring and summon-oriented. But hey what do I know, if some of you enjoy playing a melee cleric then what am I babbling about.

Undeath's Eternal Foe is pretty fine as it is. Would love nothing more than a cleric friend casting that on me.

[BoredGM]

Also did you know that as a cleric you can slot 8 sanctuaries and spam them on your weaponmaster, who will then proceed to flat foot enemies that are trying to focus him every time you cast it. Yeah, have fun dealing with that. ( And yeah you can focus the cleric instead if you've passed the 40+ will DC sanctuary and prevent him from doing that, I suppose ).

Wait, what? It was my impression in game - because I've used it - that you can't just cast Greater Sanctuary one after another. There's a timer right? Wouldn't that prevent your exact example?

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

That's greater sanctuary. The others don't have a cooldown because they have a save. The level one spell, sanctuary, with epic abjuration foci and a +14 wis modifier, is still a DC 31 will save (not sure where the 40 came from, probably hyperbole.) The protection domain sanctuary power can easily break 40, though.

Lesser globe can be wanded, meaning anyone with 15 umd can use it, and also scribed, so people with lore can use scrolls if they're worried about horn/gust spam. Neither resource is terribly expensive unless you're trying to exterminate all warlocks and carry dozens of each.

[BoredGM]

I read in another series of posts that the DC spells like that weren't really depended on because saves can be extremely high. Also, if someone is a protection domain cleric with weapon master, it's a bit different due to the wide attribute spread and probably gear considerations not boosting charisma. The level of cleric plays a role too, so I'm guessing around max 23.
Right?

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I read in another series of posts that the DC spells like that weren't really depended on because saves can be extremely high. Also, if someone is a protection domain cleric with weapon master, it's a bit different due to the wide attribute spread and probably gear considerations not boosting charisma. The level of cleric plays a role too, so I'm guessing around max 23.
Right?

The weaponmaster in this discussion seems to be referring to another character, not the cleric, so no. But even if you DID go 23/7, the DC on protection domain is 10 + clr level + cha mod, so probably 33-37 after gear.

Saves are high, but 31 will is still pretty scary for any non 30, non caster/paladin/BG to try to resist- will is usually neglected for gear augmentation, because clarity, mind blanks, freedom, and PfA.

[Shiki]

I'd like to chime in, as the cleric ward dance was a thing I got very intimate with over the last year or so, and I love it even if it's frustrating sometimes.

The reason people are telling you that these initial ideas for giving Undeath's Eternal Foe roundly 6 or 8 spells worth of magical effects, often with longer durations than the actual spells that apply those effects, are bad ideas is action economy considerations.

Clerics role in the game is that they are pretty much the best defensive ward-user in the game. There are very few defensive effects that they can't access as a class, though they can't always access each one at the same time, and clerics get sole access to several particular capabilities, such as Magic Vestment, and Shield of Faith. It's entirely within the realm of possibility for a cleric to have full access natively to every possible source of AC that one character can achieve. They give up access to some other strong choices which they could take instead by choosing things like barkskin, because of domain limitations, but that isn't relevant to my point.

These wards all take time to cast. Under haste, 6 to 8 spells would take 4 to 5 rounds to apply, one round to begin hasting, the subsequent rounds applying two wards per cast. The time it takes to apply these wards is time an opponent can spend constructively doing just about whatever they like to counteract your warding choices, such as lopping your arm off. This is an intended part of the gameplay.

Taking all of that and putting it under the auspices of a single spell would essentially make the power of other people's counterplay to a heavily buffed cleric... meaningless. You'd slot that spell and if anyone ever attempts a dispel, you just switch to defensive casting mode, press the Eternal Foe button, and continue womping someone.

As a class, Clerics while buffed are nearly invulnerable, can deal with enemy summons, can summon for themselves, have extremely powerful CC and damage AOE capability, have Harm touch attacks to prey on heavy targets and have extremely high AB (as in, better AB than most comparable melee classes) at will, and immunity, even if temporary, to... what... Everything one can be flatly immune to from buffs? Death effects, Negative energy, mind affecting (with Undeath's Eternal Foe), attribute decreases, functional immunity to all but the absolute best attacks an enemy can throw at them, unless caught flat-footed.

Taking most of the cleric's strongest buffs and putting them on one button would make regaining your footing after a mords essentially effortless, and what's already a class that pretty much has to choose when it lets someone else kill it becomes a class that no longer has an equal in a 1v1 engagement purely on the strength of action economy alone.

Adding in applying those wards to everyone around the caster compounds that by replacing half of a cleric's spellbook with a single slot. As a non caster cleric, you need to be very careful about what you slot, because YOU need your wards more than anyone else, especially if playing a low CL build back before the changes in December.

It would free up an already tightly packed spellbook to let you do a lot of things that just wouldn't be kind at all to non-clerics.

The thing to consider is how you would feel if clerics had that spell on top of all of the other phenomenally dangerous things clerics can do, and you have to fight one. How does it feel to spend 3 rounds greater breaching and then 3 rounds greater dispelling a cleric in the hopes some of the dispels stick only to have the cleric press one button and get it all back. Now imagine the 3 rounds breaching were, as others suggest, not effective at all because none of those affects are breachable when they come from Undeath's Eternal Foe.

As it is the spell is unbreachable, meaning it's functionally immune to being removed from you, and it does the jobs of... what, three different spells? Four? Immunity to Mind affecting, Death effects, Negative energy protection, and +4 AC deflection? It essentially is Shadow Shield for Clerics, but instead of lasting a little while, it's UNBREACHABLE. That's incredibly strong.

That's four individual spells effects elsewhere in your spellbook that this single spell applies for 2 minutes and 42 seconds at level 27, and the effects are not removable from you. Any fight you get into is likely going to end before that timer does, for good or ill. It's quite powerful.

As it stands, one of the most powerful single spells in the game is Mordenkainen's Disjunction, which effectively does the job of two spells in one casting (actually it does quite a bit more), and is considered one of the most powerful single round actions you can take. Word of Faith is probably the second most powerful I can think of, doing the job of... as many things as you can catch in its area of effect, including instantly removing summons from the field of play.

The spell you're suggesting would be much, much more powerful. An entire group of geared level 30s could instantly be rendered fully warded for a fight, caught flat footed and cold. That sort of preparation takes time, normally, and so it's a very big deal.


I apologize that this is a bit long, but it seemed like Jack Oat started to explain what the issue was with the whole initial idea but then didn't actually break down the reason why it is an issue.

Edit: To be very clear, the initial proposal essentially plugs MY ONE WEAKNESS! BULLETS!!! (Mords spell breach and dispel effect) so incredibly effectively that it would take what's already one of the most mechanically overpowered classes (wizards) and throw them in the trash, light the trash can on fire, and then explode it with grenades and salt the earth of the civilization the trash can came from. Because Cleric Master Race. It would be incredible to play a cleric with that spell. You could clown on anyone. Forever.

It would be a buff greater than literally making Monks immune to all spells was. It's a nice thought, but you'd never want to be a non-cleric in that world.

Also, I had the actual effects of the spell wrong, it's effectively an unbreachable Negative Energy Protection, plus immunity to poison and disease, and +4 deflection, which is 3 spells worth of spell, and a really great panic button after being struck by a breach, so that you remain safe from a lot of spells that target saves, or effects that would, such as poisons. It's the unbreachable effect that makes it a level 9 spell.

[Scurvy Cur]

I initially wasn't going to respond, because I assumed nobody could seriously suggest this and that the proposal was a funny gag/meme proposal. I have since been reassured that OP was in earnest.

Everything Shiki posted is correct, and should be enough by itself to disqualify the idea from serious consideration. But wait, there's more:

First, the proposal suggests giving clerics access to three defensive spells from the wizard list, two of which (mind blank and see invisibility) are staples of the wizard kit and one of which is fairly niche (globe). It additionally suggests increasing the duration on these spells from minutes/level, minutes/level, and rounds/level respectively, to hours/level. For those who don't particularly like math, that's multiplying the duration by 6, 6, and 60. That goes beyond encroachment on the wizard niche to outright invasion.

On top of that, please consider spell slot efficiency. In any vancian casting system, spell slots impose a (usually meaningful) outer limit on what a spellcaster can accomplish at any given time. This is especially important for clerics, druids, and wizards, since they know or are capable of learning all or nearly all spells available to their class but may only prepare some of what they know at any given time, but the limitation applies to spontaneous casters as well.

Effectively, the proposal would cram 2 level 2 slots, a level 3 slot, 2 level 4 slots, a level 5 slot, a level 6 slot, and a level 8 slot per party member into a single level 9 slot, then make sure that none of those spells need to be recast ever until the cleric rests again. For the numerophobes in the audience, this would let a cleric who is supporting the average Arelith party of 3-4 players replace between 24 and 32 spell slots with 1, freeing him up to cram the rest of his spellbook chalk full self-target combat buffs, travel domain hastes, heals and harms, and a plenitude of other spells which ordinarily compete with party immunity buffs for space in his spellbook. And then it buffs the duration to hours per level, a meaningful improvement on a server where lengthier adventures often demand that a cleric prepare crucial minutes/level party immunity buffs twice, in extended form, per party member.

I haven't been monitoring the forums closely enough to say with confidence that this is the most OP suggestion posted here in the last 3 months, but I'm not sure it isn't, either.