Divine Synergy
Posted: Mon Jul 19, 2021 8:22 pm
Hello everyone!
I've been doing some thinking about the fairly recent Divine Synergy ability granted by 21 paladin. I rolled up a character with the idea, and I'm a little curious what others think of it. As far as my own experience.. I would have to say I find it pretty terrible! I'll be honest, I don't PvP much if at all, and I fully recognize the power it is capable of; being able to save a round (or half round, technically) and get both casts simultaneously. However, I've noticed that it also gives several very large weaknesses.
First among all is how quickly turn undead uses are used. While you have Divine Synergy, it spends both turn undead uses for each half. At best, most paladins will get 6 total uses of Divine Synergy. Its faster, absolutely, but it also runs out faster. Any Paladin that has access to it will have less total time of active ability than a paladin that doesn't have access to it. In PvE especially, this is a huge drag. And in PvP, it's highly punishable.
Furthermore, a paladin without Divine Synergy will simply haste up, and spend only a tiny bit more time getting it going. (half a round at that point) They then have a total of 12+ uses of whichever they choose, as needed, on demand. Needless to say, that's double! Most of the time, Divine Shield is far more important that Divine Might, and getting twice as many uses is a painful comparison. Once you account for the regenerating Turn Undead uses, they ironically have more Divine Synergy than a 21 paladin does.
But its more than that as well, because in order to get the Synergy, you sacrifice many class levels of other feat classes like CoT or Fighter. As a pretty straight-forward melee character, taking 21 paladin levels leaves very, very little feat room. Once you consider that 3 of their 7-8 pre epic feats are spent on power attack, divine shield, and divine might, I would argue that they suffer more than the rewards offer.
But I want to know what the community thinks; Is it too scary to consider any changes/buffs to Divine Synergy? If not, what changes would be reasonable? As far as myself, I would say that giving Extra Turning to any paladin with 21 or more levels is a good start to this, because it represents a hard cap, while still giving a few extra uses. That, and/or maybe a toggle command to turn it on or off, so you're not forced to eat through all your uses at once. I'm not sure how I feel about making Synergy only cost 1 turn undead per use, so I'll leave that discussion to the community.
Also, I think I like the name "Divine Augmentation" much more than "Divine Synergy".
I've been doing some thinking about the fairly recent Divine Synergy ability granted by 21 paladin. I rolled up a character with the idea, and I'm a little curious what others think of it. As far as my own experience.. I would have to say I find it pretty terrible! I'll be honest, I don't PvP much if at all, and I fully recognize the power it is capable of; being able to save a round (or half round, technically) and get both casts simultaneously. However, I've noticed that it also gives several very large weaknesses.
First among all is how quickly turn undead uses are used. While you have Divine Synergy, it spends both turn undead uses for each half. At best, most paladins will get 6 total uses of Divine Synergy. Its faster, absolutely, but it also runs out faster. Any Paladin that has access to it will have less total time of active ability than a paladin that doesn't have access to it. In PvE especially, this is a huge drag. And in PvP, it's highly punishable.
Furthermore, a paladin without Divine Synergy will simply haste up, and spend only a tiny bit more time getting it going. (half a round at that point) They then have a total of 12+ uses of whichever they choose, as needed, on demand. Needless to say, that's double! Most of the time, Divine Shield is far more important that Divine Might, and getting twice as many uses is a painful comparison. Once you account for the regenerating Turn Undead uses, they ironically have more Divine Synergy than a 21 paladin does.
But its more than that as well, because in order to get the Synergy, you sacrifice many class levels of other feat classes like CoT or Fighter. As a pretty straight-forward melee character, taking 21 paladin levels leaves very, very little feat room. Once you consider that 3 of their 7-8 pre epic feats are spent on power attack, divine shield, and divine might, I would argue that they suffer more than the rewards offer.
But I want to know what the community thinks; Is it too scary to consider any changes/buffs to Divine Synergy? If not, what changes would be reasonable? As far as myself, I would say that giving Extra Turning to any paladin with 21 or more levels is a good start to this, because it represents a hard cap, while still giving a few extra uses. That, and/or maybe a toggle command to turn it on or off, so you're not forced to eat through all your uses at once. I'm not sure how I feel about making Synergy only cost 1 turn undead per use, so I'll leave that discussion to the community.
Also, I think I like the name "Divine Augmentation" much more than "Divine Synergy".