Cleric Domain/Path Feedback Thread

[hugolino]

I'm looking for suggestions and feedback on what other "softer" or "domestic" domains we can introduce - like Music ... Since we might not have as much of a collection of non-mechanical RP spells, their emphasis should be on the domain power and what those powers could do for players.

MUSIC DOMAIN

A Cleric with the Music Domain knows the power of expressively arranging sound to impact the creatures around them.

Related link: Pied Piper of New York summons wild raccoons with his Native American flute
https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/27/pied-pip ... e-7983862/

Soothe the Savage
You gain a +3 skill bonus to Animal Empathy and Perform

The Pied Piper
Able to turn Vermin as if they were undead.

When Words Fail, Music Speaks (Hans Christian Anderson)
Your Cleric levels contribute towards understanding languages you do not speak.

(EDIT: Alternate idea - Consecrated Chorister: You can use a single use of Bard Song between rests for "Healing Hymn" as though you had 1 Bard level for every 3 Cleric levels and the required Perform ranks. Bard levels do not stack with this use, but you know the song Healing Hymn.)

1 - Balagarn's Iron Horn
2 - Charm Person or Animal
3 - Sound Lance
4 - Sound Burst
5 - Legend Lore or Awaken
6 - Dirge
7 - Dominate Animal
8 - Otto’s Irresistible Dance
9 - Silence or Wail of the Banshee

Sadly I do not have access to Monte Cook’s “Book of Eldritch Might II: Songs and Souls of Power” or Mongoose's “Quintessential Elf,” both of which include a Music cleric domain.

[hugolino]

I'm looking for suggestions and feedback on what other "softer" or "domestic" domains we can introduce - like Music, Lust, Hedonism, or Feast,

The domain of the Feast was difficult to brainstorm, and I'm not quite happy with it. As always, I welcome comments and suggestions.

FEAST OR GLUTTONY DOMAIN
Meals can be simple or elaborate events that nourish bodies, hearts, and sometimes even souls, but you’re well aware of their potential dangers. A Cleric with the Feast (or Gluttony) Domain understands the instinctual craving of creatures for pleasure, experiences, and indulging every appetite -- as well as the dangers.

Well-fed Gourmand
You gain a +3 skill bonus to Appraise and Discipline.

Food Taster
You can cast Detect Poison and Ironguts at will.

Alternate idea - Oversized: May cast Enlarge Person on self only 1/15 min. (Gluttony domain spell-like ability)

1 - Grease
2 - Sustenance
3 - Blade Thirst
4 - Contagion or Infestation of Maggots
5 - Vampiric Touch (Gluttony domain spell)
6 - Monstrous Regeneration or Baleful Polymorph (Gluttony domain spell)
7 - Drown or Sleep
8 - Regenerate
9 - Aura of Vitality

Gluttony Domain
https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Gluttony_domain

Forgotten Realms wiki: “The Gluttony domain was a suite of spells that were granted by deities whose portfolios concerned the selfish desire for pleasure, experiences, and indulging every appetite.”
+++
For reference: Official D&D Feast Domain (Eberron Campaign Setting 106)

Granted Power: You have immunity to ingested poisons and to diseases spread by ingestion.

Feast Domain Spells

1 - Goodberry: 2d4 berries each cure 1 hp (max 8 hp/24 hours).
2 - Delay Poison: Stops poison from harming subject for 1 hour/level.
3 - Create Food and Water: Feeds three humans (or one horse)/level.
4 - Neutralize Poison: Immunizes subject against poison, detoxifies venom in or on subject.
5 - Leomund's Secure Shelter: Creates sturdy cottage.
6 - Heroes' Feast: Food for one creature/level cures and grants combat bonuses.
7 - Mordenkainen's Magnificent MansionF: Door leads to extradimensional mansion.
8 - Detoxify: Neutralize poison in 30' radius.
9 - Feast of Champions: Food for one creature/level heals and grants comprehensive bonuses.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/cleric- ... tb.471545/

[L I C E]

Played a lot of seeker. Incredibly feat starved, relies on dual wielding but doesn't have enough feats to take it unless you dip ranger, but dipping ranger instead of vig ruins your AC at the cost of 9 feats. I'm suggesting possibly some kind of synergy where if you take ambidexterity and twf, at lvl 18 or something you can get ITWF for free. It's not super OP but it frees one feat and still means you've to commit at least 2 feats towards DW. It also doesn't ruin ranger dip entirely as it's still ambi, twf and itwf for free. Seeker would be better if it didn't rely so heavily on rogue dip for UMD for weaponry, which is solved by the introduction of some decent non umd weps for dexers of some kind. Str seeker isn't as badly affected as it isn't relying on weapon finesse weaponry so much. I feel the only correct way to play is 23/4/3 seeker rogue vigi which is barely functioning due to feat starvation, ranger/rogue dip that has no ac or monk/rogue which is only lawful (so only a fraction of characters, plus monk changes coming may kill this build).

There's no point using shield on a seeker so the only correct way to play is dw, which it struggles to get enough feats for. Thoughts?

[hugolino]

Played a lot of seeker. Incredibly feat starved, relies on dual wielding but doesn't have enough feats to take it unless you dip ranger, but dipping ranger instead of vig ruins your AC at the cost of 9 feats... (Strength seeker is an option)... There's no point using shield on a seeker so the only correct way to play is dw, which it struggles to get enough feats for. Thoughts?

I've played a half dozen seeker clerics since their introduction, and haven't played non-clerics since seekers appeared. Without monk or vigilante dips, the most obvious problem generally has been self defense (AC).

Only one of my seeker clerics reached epic levels (lower epics), and that is a ranger-seeker with high wisdom and a Zen-like knack for archery. Leveling him has been a slog since about level 8 onward (when pick-up parties became harder to form) and he couldn't handle on-level writs at all until I was able to change his domains from an illusion focus to the newer Law domain. The ability to dominate monsters has enabled him to barely handle writs at the highest possible level of the given range. (So barely not over-leveled.) If the writ requires tunnel or corridor travel, his ability to complete the writ drops as his dominated allies struggle in tight quarters.

The only seeker I have that has been able to handle on-level writs "normally" (like a non-cleric non-summoner class) is a strength-based seeker rogue-cleric who wears heavy armor (currently level 15).

[RedGiant]

I've been tinkering with clerics of late, which is long overdue. Mostly, I think the paths are pretty balanced with strengths and weakness, and, more importantly, each is uniquely flavored. On top of this, I only have a few brief comments.

Since Divine Favor and Divine Power are sort of the engine at the heart of most paths, could we get a NUI tracker as we already have for Divine Might and Divine Shield? The floaty messages are helpful, but I miss them many times in the heat of battle and the bar is sooooo much better. This would be amazing Cleric Path QoL.

The path I struggle with most, and perhaps the hardest to balance, is probably WarPriest. It performs generally well, but I almost feel it gives up too much? No summons, no epic spells, lower direct spellpower, and no foci is a rough trade...all for 'I smack you good'. I feel like either direct spell power or foci should be returned for the bargain, but not both. My gut leans to giving them back foci, since the non-summoning buffs here are mostly social. PvE, or flavor. This would give them option to teleport, dominate, ward, image, or scry. Is this too much to give up? Or are they fine as is?

[Svrtr]

I've been tinkering with clerics of late, which is long overdue. Mostly, I think the paths are pretty balanced with strengths and weakness, and, more importantly, each is uniquely flavored. On top of this, I only have a few brief comments.

Since Divine Favor and Divine Power are sort of the engine at the heart of most paths, could we get a NUI tracker as we already have for Divine Might and Divine Shield? The floaty messages are helpful, but I miss them many times in the heat of battle and the bar is sooooo much better. This would be amazing Cleric Path QoL.

The path I struggle with most, and perhaps the hardest to balance, is probably WarPriest. It performs generally well, but I almost feel it gives up too much? No summons, no epic spells, lower direct spellpower, and no foci is a rough trade...all for 'I smack you good'. I feel like either direct spell power or foci should be returned for the bargain, but not both. My gut leans to giving them back foci, since the non-summoning buffs here are mostly social. PvE, or flavor. This would give them option to teleport, dominate, ward, image, or scry. Is this too much to give up? Or are they fine as is?

Note that for the sake of clarity it's worth mentioning that you should specify ESF cookies, as at first it read like you meant spell foci in general

Likewise I've spoken with Kenji and warpriest will be allowed to take elemental avatar so keep this in mind too, as the view of warpriest might chance once it comes along (and I finish trying to fix some code issues)

[Morto]

Regarding Seeker

Intending to lean heavily on cleric levels and take advantage of its synergies with Ranger/Rogue a few things are apparent.

The synergies are great! And nicely spaced for options. The class level bonuses in the seeker path seem to very well cover the loss of caster class levels if they were not present.

Skills feel a bit underruned. The bonus 2 per level are helpful but don't seem to come close to fitting the skill demand what this sort of build may require. This coming from an inhuman, 14 int. I'm used to and comfortable with taking a couple desired skills to one half or one third of their full investment. But this rogue-ish caster is spread very thin. (Perhaps I'm overestimating the path's intent here)

Also I expect a bit of awkward Skill point placement as I near the final levels. As the cleric has very few class skills which share with its synergy multi classes.

Either of the above issues may be alleviated somewhat without much of a power creep if the seeker path opened up some skills as class skills instead of cross class skills. (Though simply more skills per level is always nice too!)

Otherwise am having a lot of fun in the middle levels.

Reinforcing what someone else said, a NUi bar would be very very helpful for Divine Power/Favor. I tried looking for one already thinking it would have been built in. I'm often clicking on the AB boost icon to check the time left, because that buff seems so important to the Seeker.

[Exordius]

Kenji wrote: So far what I have in mind:
Cloistered refund chance are tiered:

Level 1 to 3 spells have 80% refund chance
Level 4 to 6 spells have 50% refund chance
Level 7 spells have 20% refund chance
Level 8 spells have 10% refund chance
Level 9 spells have 5% refund chance
Epic spells have 5% refund chance (Div Fav doesn’t apply bonus refund to epic spells)
These chances are before Div Favor bonus chance (5% + 5% chance every 10th cleric levels)

This sounds good but maybe leave div favor as the normal 20% boost... if it goes 5% every 10 levels that means only pure clerics will have 100% refund for spell levels 1-3.

[magick in theory and practice]

Further spellbook expansion on Cloistered via domain is unlikely due to technical issues. Not impossible but current implementation (that I have in mind and discussed with a few other devs) may prove detrimental to server performance. Maybe another dev can come up with better solutions in time, but not feasible for now.

I’m thinking about further increasing refund chance or change how refund works for Cloistered and Cloistered only. Can any dedicated cloistered players provide feedback on what you think the strengths and weaknesses of cloistered are?

So far what I have in mind:
Cloistered refund chance are tiered:

• Level 1 to 3 spells have 80% refund chance
• Level 4 to 6 spells have 50% refund chance
• Level 7 spells have 20% refund chance
• Level 8 spells have 10% refund chance
• Level 9 spells have 5% refund chance
• Epic spells have 5% refund chance (Div Fav doesn’t apply bonus refund to epic spells)

These chances are before Div Favor bonus chance (5% + 5% chance every 10th cleric levels)

Older thread but I did not feel like making a new post when this one is so storied.

Classic cleric can't really be argued with. It gets a little bit of core buffs from replenish I think.

War Priest, Evangelist, and Seeker I think are really nice packages. Clear trade offs, clear bonuses. They get broad categories of spells that replenish/vibe with their style of play that is also very good and thematic. Defiler and Healer are also pretty good - but I still think they might rely too much on specific domains, especially Defiler. But their goal is clear and they accomplish it very well. While Defiler seems to more or less require you to be Death and Suffering its without a doubt strong and offers a clear playstyle.

My gripe is currently with Cloister. I don't think it's bad but I am not sure the vibe is really there. It doesn't really have synergies with other classes and they probably don't need any as the vibe candidates sort of speak for themselves (Specialist, Loremaster). Your tweak outline for spell refund chance I think would help a lot in so far as letting you really be a "nerd caster" but a cleric.

Cloister's specific focus on refund chance bonuses on its domain spells I think is what makes it cool but you don't really get to take advantage of them beyond the first level - so maybe locking in spells 1-3, maybe even 4 would be a good call.

I also think that would help a lot for those people who do NOT take Magic, Forge, or Knowledge.

Something else to ponder is probably making the domains "broadly" tag certain spells for the refund that a cleric already has - so say a Magic domain cleric gets to easier grounds to spam dispels and dismissals - but a a fire domain can play around with firestorm or flamestrike, yadda yadda.

Other than - maybe some sort of lore bonus? Potentially letting their metamagic spells still count at the same level as core for the replenish rate? It's basically "almost there" by my reckoning.

Thanks for your time.

(Also are there any synergies w/ other divine classes and cleric that are not FS? Can a druid or shaman link up?)

[calisto]

I will give my feedback on Healer Path Cleric, Healing & Protection domains. I played a 25 healer 5 loremaster a few months ago to level 30.

I will speak mostly of PvE as I did not have a single PvP encounter (cleric of Adama).
To get a general idea of the PvE performance I will begin with saying I was able to solo everything I encountered in the game except for Paush. Baator generals were my hardest fight, where I had to use timestop and mass haste grimoires to tip the scales in my favor. I recently heard about bastille/bastide, I have no experience of this dungeon. Same for RDI and Lowerdark. I was able to easily solo everything else: Maurs, Llolth temple/gythyanki, vampire citadel (with the children).

As a simple rule : anything that doesn't revoke its summon or directly threatens the healer, healer can solo easily, due to infinite healing from 100% refund casts. Even in high burst situations, hasted Heal will make any non-lethal damage irrelevant.

I can't quite remember but I was able to cast about 20-25 times Heal before depletion. And there is also Mass Heal, Circle of Healing, Cure Critical... For PCs there is also Lifeline...
-> From my experience, Healer trivializes PvE content when grouped with other players. I am certain that I could have done Paush with just one allied PC (because they don't get revoked by wof/can't be turned), because I can deliver over 10000 total hit points of healing and over 600 per round.
-> In my experience it was completely ok to trivialize all content, as what I enjoyed in the Healer is having a formidable power of Life.
-> If one were to design a dungeon to beat a group with a Healer, there would have to be Instant Death / Hard Crowd Control effects, because no amount of damage can beat a Healer.

Someone talked about Bless and Pray. I will include Battletide to this.
Bless : Circle 1 has pretty much nothing to offer at higher levels. So one can slot mainly Bless, and add to that with Extend Bless.
Prayer : Equally Circle 3 is pretty poor, can slot a lot of Prayer, complete with Extend Prayer
Battletide : It competes with Heal and Extend Haste, so it is not such a feebie, but if one wants to, they can maintain it as well.
-> It is possible to maintain 40mn+ of uptime on rounds/level spells.

Concerning summons :
Recently summons got nerfed (= reverted).
As a Healer, this is 100% legit. Summons were completely overpowered. DIre Wolf with 2 APR and Cleave at level 3... Broken.
At no point was I ever threatened by anything, aside from the Dragon of Skal which I had to use multiple Gates to beat.
I have restarted another Healer atfer the nerf to summons. From what I see now, summons are no longer overpowered, and have ok power level.
Summons and cantrip spam is the only damage over time source a Healer has, which makes it entirely rely on summon power for its solo clear pace. However a Healer is not supposed to be a damage machine, so this is fully ok on my side.
Something new however : now that summons can guard the PC, Healer's life has become a complete breeze, freely casting anything they want in melee range. Now, Healer can use Battletide when soloing hard content (or playing with a PC who can't guard you), because they won't get blasted in melee range.

As for PvP I have 0 experience with it, I will however say a few things :
Lawful Healer can dip 3 Monk and reach 56AC iirc.
Non lawful can dip 3 Bard and reach 55AC.
(not counting Battletide)
~~ 70 Concentration/DIscipline for both
What needs to be understood is that, if a Healer can cast, then nothing can die in their group.
A Healer could even use Respite during a Hellball cast and save their entire group from a massive AoE wombo combo.
So, balancing of the Healer is quite delicate, because if their ability to survive exceeds a certain threshold, they become immortal.

And by the way, if you don't care about PvP, 25 Healer 5 Loremaster is incredible...
Gifted 19WIS 18INT start, so many skill points, take gift of tongues for +13 languages total.
Conjuration, Abjuration, Transmutation Epic Foci, Divination and Illusion perks with Loremaster...
If I had to choose a build to roleplay Jesus, it would be this one xD

[AstralUniverse]

Healing Domain is incredibly overpowered even for someone with 3 cleric lvls. It is long overdue for a big nuke from orbit.

[Kenji]

There will be an incoming nerf on healing domain (details to be posted when dev-side things are sorted out)

There will also be a fix on Defiler life leech/overheal. The healing/overheal from lifesteal is not taking NEP or any negative/entropy DI/DR into account, and still healing for full bonus even if the damage is reduced. This is unintended and will be fixed. (Not a nerf)

[magick in theory and practice]

Further spellbook expansion on Cloistered via domain is unlikely due to technical issues. Not impossible but current implementation (that I have in mind and discussed with a few other devs) may prove detrimental to server performance. Maybe another dev can come up with better solutions in time, but not feasible for now.

I’m thinking about further increasing refund chance or change how refund works for Cloistered and Cloistered only. Can any dedicated cloistered players provide feedback on what you think the strengths and weaknesses of cloistered are?

So far what I have in mind:
Cloistered refund chance are tiered:

• Level 1 to 3 spells have 80% refund chance
• Level 4 to 6 spells have 50% refund chance
• Level 7 spells have 20% refund chance
• Level 8 spells have 10% refund chance
• Level 9 spells have 5% refund chance
• Epic spells have 5% refund chance (Div Fav doesn’t apply bonus refund to epic spells)

These chances are before Div Favor bonus chance (5% + 5% chance every 10th cleric levels)

Older thread but I did not feel like making a new post when this one is so storied.

Classic cleric can't really be argued with. It gets a little bit of core buffs from replenish I think.

War Priest, Evangelist, and Seeker I think are really nice packages. Clear trade offs, clear bonuses. They get broad categories of spells that replenish/vibe with their style of play that is also very good and thematic. Defiler and Healer are also pretty good - but I still think they might rely too much on specific domains, especially Defiler. But their goal is clear and they accomplish it very well. While Defiler seems to more or less require you to be Death and Suffering its without a doubt strong and offers a clear playstyle.

My gripe is currently with Cloister. I don't think it's bad but I am not sure the vibe is really there. It doesn't really have synergies with other classes and they probably don't need any as the vibe candidates sort of speak for themselves (Specialist, Loremaster). Your tweak outline for spell refund chance I think would help a lot in so far as letting you really be a "nerd caster" but a cleric.

Cloister's specific focus on refund chance bonuses on its domain spells I think is what makes it cool but you don't really get to take advantage of them beyond the first level - so maybe locking in spells 1-3, maybe even 4 would be a good call.

I also think that would help a lot for those people who do NOT take Magic, Forge, or Knowledge.

Something else to ponder is probably making the domains "broadly" tag certain spells for the refund that a cleric already has - so say a Magic domain cleric gets to easier grounds to spam dispels and dismissals - but a a fire domain can play around with firestorm or flamestrike, yadda yadda.

Other than - maybe some sort of lore bonus? Potentially letting their metamagic spells still count at the same level as core for the replenish rate? It's basically "almost there" by my reckoning.

Thanks for your time.

(Also are there any synergies w/ other divine classes and cleric that are not FS? Can a druid or shaman link up?)

Spinning off of this and with more time under me I really think the cloister cleric while it hits some of its vibes - it comes short of really pulling off its whole "the caster cleric" thing mechanically. To that end I have pondered some ideas I think would help it out to make it more like other casters, but not steal too much from them and give you something to do distinct from the other "caster oriented" clerics like Defiler and Healer.

I really think cloister is close to be entirely on its own like its other siblings but it just lacks the edge. It's not bad, but you really are not making up for your losses. Summons have been nerfed so being able to summon isn't as great as a caveat as some might think and you do not get powerful CC / Buffing potential as an evangelist.

Your intelligence bonus at this point is entirely irrelevant to the class - and you don't have anything you can multiclass with for an ounce of flavor.

In play I have struggled to take advantage of my personal domain selection (this is a problem other domains also will have) - I don't really feel like the +1 domain bonus to DCs really does anything to overcome the fact in PvE anything that is saved based is almost irrelevant after a certain point.

Your touch attack spells are entirely irrelevant now and your divine power/favor do not boost that anymore.

Your core spells do not benefit from any of your overlap or powers.

So here are some things I came up with to try and both season / make playing a cloister less ball achey.

FLAVOR:

• Give Cloisters access to another language choice. Any kind of language that can represent their clerical work or even more mundane stuff like doing accounts for trade with the elves at the monastery. Or maybe they specialize in demonic manuscripts to bind and name fiends.

• Gets spell clutch that works with divine magic or lets you use spell clutch w/ divine magic.

• Reduce cooldowns on your Domain powers or maybe go through the domains and give them each something extra or enhanced. THIS ONE WOULD BE ITS OWN WHOLE DEAL SO PROBABLY NOT SOMETHING FEASIBLE OR NORMAL. MAYBE A SORT OF PIN FOR THE FUTURE IF OTHER STUFF DOESN'T WORK OUT.

• Int bonus added to craft CP. Maybe hard ranks give you extra skills to invest in the trade menu.

MECHANICS:

• You get the wizard +3 to CL to make multiclassing more valid and less typified (at 21)

• Divine Power temporarily boosts your int and wisdom based skills by 1 + 1/2 (round up?) your stat mod. (ie heal, spot, listen, lore, appraise, search, etc).

• Divine Power from cloister's bonus replenish increases by 5% gradually (lv 4-1%, 8-2%, 12-3%, 16-4%, 20-5%)

• Divine Power boosts your touch attack on spells, possibly guided by int bonuses.

• Domain spells 1-4 are basically infinicast. You get this for level 8, 12, 16, 20 in the cleric (cloister).

• Cloister metamagic spells are treated at innate level rather than cast level for return chance (or infinite cast).

• Give all spells a chance to do something akin to "Arcane Flux" - this a caster focused cleric, not a battle god.

• Any spell a cleric already has that is also a domain spell gets replenish bonuses. (If this isn't already a thing) or maybe its even stronger than normal?

• Make some domains apply refund to everything related to their core concept: Undeath, Death getting bonuses to necromancy, Illusion refunding all illusion, Magic refunding Force Damage/Magic damage as well as abjuration spells.

• Int mod added to charisma for turning and potentially also for charges.

• Since cleric doesn't gain that many feats and this variant being more focused on casting: make it so that for the first three spell focuses you take - get the greater ones for free. If you already have the greater one due to first level - it gives you arcane defense for free instead. This frees you up 1-2 feats.

CLASS SYNERGIES:

• Loremaster, Specialist, Monk, Bard, Druid, Wizard, and Harper Priest/Fear Speaker don't count against the "auto-silence" bonus features and other quirks and basically = Cloister levels.

• Monk - Tongue of Sun and Moon scales as if you were a pure monk, alongside the language slots + 1 per 10.

• Bard - Bard Knowledge scales as if a pure bard + 1 language slots per 10.

• Druid - animal companion might scale? Get animal and druid languages same total level as a druid. CL scaling with druid spells?

• Wizard - familiar might scale? Get draconic. Specialists get their arcane defense same total level as a wizard. Maybe Wild/Shadow mage get some sort of taste of their respective classes. CL scaling with arcane magic?

• Maybe something with Shaman? I don't really play shamans.

• Any casting class that is in this list also "scales your scroll use" in that class so do do not necessarily need lore.

• Let these class combos scale your turn undead.

[magick in theory and practice]

In addition to my cloister feedback I felt like going over some of the cleric domains' fluff / mechanic tweaks because I feel like a few of them need to cook more. I also have gripes with how languages are given out - either they're too locked in or you get them in epic levels and I think that's a bit inconsistent with really getting to use them / flavor yourself.

I also think the languages / small mechanic tweaks need to have consistency or breadth so people of numerous gods can use them, as well as people who take divine champion, as those who do that won't ever get benefits of spells.

Everything I've written is meant to be an addition to what already exists and I state what I think would be a good change of an existing mechanic if I do that at all.

Any domain I did not mention was already hitting the vibe check. I have no idea how to format things here so sorry if its hard to read, open to advice.

Animal =
Flavor:

• Scaling animal empathy.

Darkness =
Flavor:

• Choose a language having to do with darkness or dark places. (Abyssal, Undercommon, Xanalress, Terran, Gnomish, Dwarven, Deep Speech)
• Can find and enter shadow doors. If paired with another shadow door domain you can bring multiple people in.

Mechanics:

• Give darkvision to anyone who does not have it.
• A bonus to spells cast in dark places (but not in the darkness effect) - +1 at night/underground (but no bonus during full moon), +2 during new moon/shadow plane.
• The ability to qualify for the Shadow Weave somehow as a choice in game.
• Can turn Summoned Shadows, Shadow Creatures.

Destruction =
Flavor:

• Choice of a language of destructive forces. (Abyssal, Auran, Aquan, Terran, Ignan)

Evil =
Flavor:

• Remove alignment choice for language, just make it a pool of "evil magic tongues" - (Abyssal, Infernal, Sylvan, Deep Speech, Draconic)

Mechanics:

• Evil descriptor magic gets +1 DC.
• If paired with law / chaos the turn power is stronger.

Good =
Flavor:

• Make the language choice one among "good magic tongues" (Celestial, Sylvan, Draconic)

Mechanics:

• Good descriptor magic gets +1 DC.
• If paired with law / chaos the turn power is stronger.

Healing =
Flavor:

• "more CP" in herbalism or alchemy whne crafting healing. Not sure how feasible.

Knowledge =
Mechanics:

• Change +3 lore into +2 Lore, +2 Spellcraft, +2 Appraise
• You can read auras and use the deck of stars.

Cold =
Flavor:

• Language choice is between Aquan or Auran.

Storm =
Flavor:

• Language choice is between Auran or Aquan.

Magic =
Flavor:

• Magical language choice pool of known arcane races, monsters, and esoteric stuff. (Abyssal, Infernal, Celestial, Draconic, Sylvan, Elven, Xanalress, Gnomish, Aquan, Auran, Terran, Ignan, Deep Speech)

Mechanics:

• Change the +3 to spellcraft into +2 Lore, +2 Spellcraft, +2 UMD
• Gives familar?
• Domain power G-Dispell should improved with abjuration or evocation focuses along the lines of additional spells done all at once on target. (lesser foc = adds a magic missle on target, greater focus MM replaced with LSM storm, epic focus = adds a lesser spell breach)
• Have magic domain turn outsiders themed around the heavy abjuration already involved.
• Magic missle is considered maximized and empowered if majority cleric.
• LMS is considered empowered if majority cleric.

Plant =
Flavor:

• Choose a language out of a pool having to do with the wilderness. (Animal, Sylvan, Elven, Gnomish)

Protection =
Flavor:

• Always observing for pickpockets without a need to observe / alternatively their observation bonus is bigger.

Mechanics:

• Shield spell spell cast by them scales like Shield of Faith, 1-5 deflection.
• Globe spells last twice as long.

Strength =
Flavor:

• Choose a language of strength (Dwarven, Orcish, Giant, Goblin)

Sun =
Flavor:

• Replace Celestial with a choice of (Celestial, Ignan).
• Can not enter a shadow door unless paired with a domain that can - otherwise has to find other ways into the Shadow Plane.

Mechanics:

• Spell bonus during the day cycle - +1 at dawn, +2 at noon, +1 sunset. Maybe a penalty underground or in the shadow plane.

Travel =
Flavor:

• Choose any non-secretive language.
• Can find and enter shadow doors. If paired with another shadow door domain you can bring multiple people in.

Trickery =
Flavor:

• Choose a tricksy language or ability (Goblin, Halfling, Gnomish, Thieves' Cant, Drow Sign, Kenku, Undercommon, Xanalress)
• Can find and enter shadow doors. If paired with another shadow door domain you can bring multiple people in.

War =
Flavor:

• Choose a language of warrior peoples (Goblin, Orcish, Giant, Dwarven, Elven)

Ooze =
Flavor:

• Language pool of things related to ooze so its less "necessarily bad" but related to iconic ooze gods and nature. (Abyssal, Aquan, Terran, Deep Speech)

Undeath =
Flavor:

• Language becomes a pool of forbidden languages that lead one into evil necromancy. (Abyssal, Infernal, Deep Speech)

Moon =
Flavor:

• Languages of sky, stars, moon, and night (Xanalress, Elven, Auran, Celestial)
• Can find/enter Shadow doors during Waning phases and New Moon - can't enter during waxing and full - needs to find another way. If paired with another shadow door domain you can bring multiple people in.

Mechanics:

• Moon phases give bonuses (and penalties) to casting at night. New Moon -1, Waxing Crescent +0, First Quarter +1, Waxing Gibbous +1, Full Moon +2, Waning Gibbous +1, Last Quarter +1, Waning Crescent +0
• Their remove curse / remove disease can banish (with consent) lycanthropy.
• Their saving throws versus lycanthropy are considerably bolstered - both against and when they have it.

Forge =
Flavor:

• Tinkerers tongues: (Gnomish, Dwarven, Xanalress) [Drow actually are some of the paramount artificers in the Realms)

Illusion =
Flavor:

• Languages of illusionists (Gnomish, Sylvan, Elven, Xanalress)
• Can find and enter Shadow Doors.

Mechanics:

• Make identifying illusions inherent if it doesn't already do this.
• Give them a cooldown that turns you invisible. At level 12 the ability summons a Shadow (ie shadow conjuration), @16 a second, and at 23, it summons three.
• Can turn Summoned Shadows, Shadow Creatures.
• An inherent bonus to illusion spells cast by the cleric at +1 since they have so few anyway.
• Invisibilities and Displacement are inherently extended - so you do not need to extend them and they are not double extended (but are with other metamagics).

Mind =
Flavor:

• Tongues of domination, charm, and seduction (Abyssal, Infernal, Elven, Xanalress, Sylvan, Deep Speech)

Mechanics:
Turn dominated creatures / release them from control.

Chaos =
Flavor:

• A chaotic tongue (Abyssal, Celestial)
• Slaad stream.

Mechanics:

• +1 on chaotic spells.
• Turn outsiders. If paired with good / evil its stronger.

Law =
Flavor:

• An orderly tongue (Infernal, Celestial)
• Mechanus stream.

Mechanics:

• +1 on lawful spells.
• Turn outsiders. If paired with good / evil its stronger.

Luck =
Flavor:

• You might understand languages more often.
• You might progress in said languages in learning.
• You can reroll climb checks on a cooldown if you fail.
• Games of chance are inherently biased towards you, maybe.
• You can reroll appraise checks, checks at bluff doors, and other in module checks on a cooldown.

Mechanics:

• There's a chance you can turn any of the other things that other clerics can turn. If it lands on something you're good at turning already there is a chance it'll be stronger.
• You sometimes replenish a turn charge after you use it.

(I don't know what the chance rates for these should be. Maybe a simple d20 - if you roll a 20 you get the bonus.

[magick in theory and practice]

I updated this post after some more playing around in game.

[TempuranTempeh]

To chip in on the Cloistered topic above, because I've just wandered to the forums after a while.

The main strength of this subclass is its versatility.

This however, due to the current domain spells in the first 3 spell circles, boils down to /very/ few domains being viable, with the 3rd circle already being at risk of a 'bad luck streak' of refunds.

Cloistered is the only caster cleric subclass that's not a one-trick pony and that's what makes it fun.

Spell resistance penetration as well as free silent casting are amazing, even though niche. Combining auto-silent with quickened spells pretty much makes your ol'reliables impossible to disrupt, and the resistance penetration ensures that your stuff lands.

To address a few of the points in the posts above, to keep it in the Feedback territory and not Suggestions:

Kenji's Refunds:
Would love better refunds. 80% refund chance of the 3rd circle is high but prone to awkward bad luck, so having that rounded up would be super convenient.
This would however need to extend to healers as well - playing a healing domain cloistered, thanks to positioning and experience I can outperform a dedicated beginner healer. So if a cloistered would be able to cast circles with a 100% chance, healers need to have the same ability.

Divine Power:
I've only used the INT bonus it grants for language sessions which are sparse, so not too keen. The +1 to lore this provides is tricky, as temporary lore skill bonuses tend to keep the scrolls red and unusable even past the required threshold.
BAB bonus is nice for the touch attacks with healing / wounding. It's not a high AB subclass so this helps.

Spell Penetration:
Awesome in the situations when you need it.

Silent Spell Feats:
Absolutely great and further play into the subclass' adaptability and a great frontline support.
Healer path could have this too as it's their main 'job' to pull people through anything in any environs.

Spell DC +1 Bonus:
Many folks can hit 40s in saves, especially so with the upcoming dweomer stuff. For PvE they're irrelevant because of summons and/or party members mowing through everything.

As this thread is not supposed to be a Suggestion but a Feedback, I'll only say one thing on the topic of domain powers above:
Death domain power is terrible. DC is passed by pretty much anything even in low and mid areas, so it does nothing at the end of the day.
Destruction domain's power would be more reliable and still keeping to the theme. Especially now that it no longer insta-blasts phylacteries every time!

[hugolino]

The new Chaos domain power brought a smile to my face -- so appropriate! I'm also happy to see the fix to the Heal domain (scaling the healing by cleric levels), and Restoration is a nice domain power for Healing. Those were inspired changes. Kudos! The rest of the cleric changes announced today seemed okay at first glance. I imagine war priest players were thrilled.

I would agree with the sentiment that Cloister path needs something more to fulfill its archetype, but I'm unsure what to suggest that might help. Perhaps something that utilizes or rewards Intelligence (Divine Power only boosting Intelligence is fine so long as there is a point to that). Also, it may be nice to add multiclassing synergy with the few brainy classes, which I guess includes Swashbuckler along with the usual suspects (a +3 to caster level for multiclassing could help enable that).

For example, let a wizard or spellsword multiclass with cloistered path get a scaling familiar and scaling cantrips from it -- for those Mystra clerics. For specialist, let cleric count somewhat like commoner does for the tradeworker feature. For swashbuckler, see Seeker's synergy I guess. Lore Master doesn't really need anything to create synergy.

But I'm not convinced that poaching wizard tricks is the way to go for the cloistered path in general unless the archetype envisioned is truly a divine wizard. I thought of it more as a sheltered, devout, bookworm cleric with a thoughtful/intellectual game style rather than a meathead (Warpriest), tricky zealot (Seeker), charismatic chorister (Evangelist), sinister(Defiler), or bleeding heart (Healer) approach.

[Yensent]

The new healer changes feel wonderful, the throughput with healing domain is very significant and I can more clearly see the difference between myself and other normal clerics who have just the healing domain.

With this being said, I do want to give some feedback that with this extra power I worry that our ability to smite undead is too strong, and that perhaps our access to planar conduit should be taken away.

On the smite undead portion, I just find it crazy that my healer can hit an undead for 834 positive damage with a quickened mass heal. I'm not exactly sure where the top end is with it, as most undead do not even have that amount of HP. And perhaps that was a bug, and I need to report it as such. But I need to do more testing to know the details completely. I feel, (and perhaps wrongly) that others and I chose the healer path to be a support for our allies and have the ability to keep them up in combat. I find myself holding back my heals and mass heals (on the undead) when we fight in undead dungeons because I do not want to just obliterate the boss and take away their moment to shine, mechanically speaking. I'll try and get more numbers in the next week to show what I mean.

Backing that up a bit, I worry overall that our access to planar conduit may need to be looked at. Once we're into epic levels, our healing abilities are very strong, and we have a lot of stamina compared to other classes. With that in mind I don't like that a healer can solo the vast majority of end level dungeons with their planar conduits and their healing to back it up. I think forcing the healer to party up in epic levels is worthwhile and will allow for more RP in the end, anyways.

Once again, I love where healer is, and the recent changes solidified that even more. I just worry that we may be a bit too well rounded with our powerful summons and damage to undead. Overall, the changes to cleric have been wonderful in my opinion, and most of the subclasses have a time and place, barring cloister cleric. Keep up the good work!!!!

[Kalthariam]

I genuinely do not understand the suggestion of taking away Planar Conduit from Healer Clerics.

Also, us being good against undead is like.. the one bit of offensiveness that healers remotely get to engage with, why would someone specialized in healing magic not be effective against undead which are harmed by that same magic?

I've never had anyone complain that the healer cleric in the group wiped out undead enmass and "Stole Valor" or something. Outside of undead everyone else constantly has their "Moment to shine" as healers only way to deal with non-undead is conjuration.. which you want to remove? Doesn't make sense to me.

[Yensent]

I genuinely do not understand the suggestion of taking away Planar Conduit from Healer Clerics.

Also, us being good against undead is like.. the one bit of offensiveness that healers remotely get to engage with, why would someone specialized in healing magic not be effective against undead which are harmed by that same magic?

I've never had anyone complain that the healer cleric in the group wiped out undead enmass and "Stole Valor" or something. Outside of undead everyone else constantly has their "Moment to shine" as healers only way to deal with non-undead is conjuration.. which you want to remove? Doesn't make sense to me.

Not a complaint. I love being so powerful, as a player. But I worry the balance is not there. I was simply giving my feedback. My personal feelings are that we should be very strong healers but need a group to do what we do. https://ibb.co/85m9vCm

And hey, your experience and feedback is just as valid! I may feel the way I do because of the faction/groups I play in.

[Kalthariam]

Our damage to undead was unchanged.

Healer Clerics get Empowered Healing Spells from the Path Instead of from the Healing Domain.

The Healing Domain bonus specifically does not increase damage inflicted upon undead. At least, according to the change log announcement it does not.

I can undeath to death some powerful boss undead mobs and deal basically 1,000 positive energy damage because of the way undeath to death works. I woudn't say that makes me overpowered, just specifically good at fighting undead. (Though anyone with undeath to death as a spell can replicate this)

Without Planar Conduit, Healer Clerics would be reduced to either summoning undead (Somehow I don't see that working out) or Using Only Summon IX or gate, which do not hold up as reliable resources. We already give up a very large amount of things simply to take the path, giving up our only way to function solo to do anything feels like a bridge way too far in my opinion.

Despite being a "Group Oriented" style of play, in my experience there is little a healer cleric provides to a group that a regular cleric cannot, outside of bursting undead or perhaps PvP, every cleric can shower their parties in the same buffs a healer cleric can, generally this leads to martials becoming walking gods in PvE environments and rarely getting threatened even in epic content. That's assuming the plethora of consumables don't simply replace you already.

Also keep in mind some people take Healer Path Clerics to BE undead hunting priests, because it's the path that enables that fantasy the most.

While I do personally play my Healer Cleric (Whom is literally just a level 30 Healer Cleric, I hate the idea of cross classing on a cleric) as a support character, I do loathe the idea that my character would be as effectively helpless as a commoner to do anything on their own, so Ideally I would not want to see the very limited power healer clerics have to operate on their own reduced.

I'm still personally of the mind that Healer Cleric is missing something, I've posted about it before, so repeating myself feels.. redundant.

Healing Domain getting an active ability of Restoration seems like an odd choice, given the fact that most items a Cleric (Especially a healer cleric that can't wear armor) might aim to obtain already give them various forms of restoration (IE: Arch Priests Duty and Adamantine Bracers). Not strictly a terrible choice mind you. Just a odd choice to me personally.

It is nice to be able to see A healer Path Cleric with the healing domain can now demonstratively heal more raw health than any other cleric. I just am not certain the flat 66% increase to healing is going to be impactful in day to day play, but that's something you just simply have to get your hands on and test out, so for now I will wait and see to see if it feels meaningful in play.

[AstralUniverse]

This damage is insane. I suspect a bug. It may be applying the +66% to damaging undead, on top of the empowered aspect baked into the path now, and even then I'm not sure how we're reaching... freaking 800s. Jesus...

[Naghast]

Side note: Even with 66% applying to undead, reaching 800+ damage on a mass heal is impossible by itself.

(cl 27 would be 709, cl 30 would be 747)

My assumption is that the undead mobs in question had vulnerability to positive damage - it doesn't show specifically in combat log that whatever damage type hit the opponent hit their vulnerability, after all. It only shows damage, and the only way to tell that you've hit a damage vulnerability is by, well, noticing abnormally high damage numbers.

Like using a bludgeoning weapon with fire damage on it against a hardened frost troll on ice roads. They're known to be vulnerable to bludgeoning and i -think- also vulnerable to fire. So you get things like 220+ damage crits with a build that normally crits for 120-150.

Or empowered walls of fire against fire vulnerable mummies. that's how you get funny 200+ fire damage ticks.

[Kalthariam]

Or it was undeath to death, which just applies positive damage equal to the targets maximum HP. Which results in two outcomes:

1) Haha, funny big number on Undead bosses / Yellow mobs.
2) Undead for some reason had positive energy resistance therefore the death spell suddenly is no longer a death spell, it just does alot of damage.

[Yensent]

Side note: Even with 66% applying to undead, reaching 800+ damage on a mass heal is impossible by itself.

(cl 27 would be 709, cl 30 would be 747)

My assumption is that the undead mobs in question had vulnerability to positive damage - it doesn't show specifically in combat log that whatever damage type hit the opponent hit their vulnerability, after all. It only shows damage, and the only way to tell that you've hit a damage vulnerability is by, well, noticing abnormally high damage numbers.

Like using a bludgeoning weapon with fire damage on it against a hardened frost troll on ice roads. They're known to be vulnerable to bludgeoning and i -think- also vulnerable to fire. So you get things like 220+ damage crits with a build that normally crits for 120-150.

Or empowered walls of fire against fire vulnerable mummies. that's how you get funny 200+ fire damage ticks.

Very likely. I came here to report that with further testing, I have been unable to reach such a ridiculous number again. Not sure what happened there, but I have the screenshot as forever proof that it did indeed happen.