Evangelist Path Cleric Dip

[Power Word, Haste]

Hello,

I am going to keep it short and sweet. Dipping 3 evangelist cleric on a bard character lets you cheat out 7 bard/curse song CL outright (6 + 1/3 cleric CL = 7), and an additional +4 bard/curse song CL by using a divine favor wand/scroll which lasts for an in game hour (20 minutes IRL) for a total +11 bard song increase all nicely wrapped up in a class that also gives access to divine might and divine shield. This seems like extremely odd design to me, and any bard NOT running an evangelist dip is just uninformed and behind on the times as this allows for characters with the bare minimum bard levels (20 or often 21) to have a level 30 bard song, among other things. The loss of divine grace/dark blessing hurts but anyone dedicated will just gear hard on unisaves to make up for it. Is this a developer intended use for the Evangelist cleric path?

Thanks.

[somecritter]

I have to agree with this. It seems like a very odd design that by dipping three evangelist cleric you can pump out +11 to bard songs. If it was added to allow build versatility then I would suggest looking into the scaling of bard songs or enabling more classes to scale with a higher efficiency.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

what it basically translates to is getting song levels back in exchange for a feat and caster levels. for example on something like the bard/lm/evan. it also opens up the melee bard possibility after the (very intentional) nerfs to melee bard in the past, but at a slight cost since divine favor is dispellable.

[Power Word, Haste]

but at a slight cost since divine favor is dispellable.

Well, you sing when the song is at the 30 CL mark, so if the divine favor gets dispelled after that it doesn't matter very much.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

but at a slight cost since divine favor is dispellable.

Well, you sing when the song is at the 30 CL mark, so if the divine favor gets dispelled after that it doesn't matter very much.

yeah either way, for most builds it's basically just a couple skillpoints, +1 to ac or ab maybe, opens up divine shield and might (if you took enough strength) and it forsakes the hybrid CL bonus you'd usually get if you didn't div-dip. it's nice, but i hear a lot of people say that 30 bard is comparable if not better because of feat gain, so i don't think we necessarily considered it an issue dev-side. we're all for allowing more build creativity.

[AstralUniverse]

but at a slight cost since divine favor is dispellable.

Well, you sing when the song is at the 30 CL mark, so if the divine favor gets dispelled after that it doesn't matter very much.

It matters to your party because if they leave the aoe and go back in, the song is reapplied without the divine favor included, last I checked.

[AnselHoenheim]

Bard/LM/Evangelist (22/5/3) is basically a death trap where you lower your dispel resistance, your caster level, and one feat in exchange of 1 apr with 30 bard solo song melee, or for that juicy +6 sail from domains and +15 sail from sail song, perfect for memeing super high sailing, but horrible for the rest of content, I think it's perfectly balance as it is.

[Aren]

Bard/LM/Evangelist (22/5/3) is basically a death trap where you lower your dispel resistance, your caster level, and one feat in exchange of 1 apr with 30 bard solo song melee, or for that juicy +6 sail from domains and +15 sail from sail song, perfect for memeing super high sailing, but horrible for the rest of content, I think it's perfectly balance as it is.

How is 29CL vs dispels (Assuming Abjuration defense) a death trap?

[Itikar]

Bard 22/lm 5/evangelist 3 should have 27 cl for dispels with ad abjuration, since evangelist only gives song not cl of any sort to bard and loremaster gives 3 total.

[Power Word, Haste]

Bard 22/lm 5/evangelist 3 should have 27 cl for dispels with ad abjuration, since evangelist only gives song not cl of any sort to bard and loremaster gives 3 total.

Loremaster gives +5 vs dispels. It’s not documented but it does, and allegedly is working as intended.

[AnselHoenheim]

Bard 22/lm 5/evangelist 3 should have 27 cl for dispels with ad abjuration, since evangelist only gives song not cl of any sort to bard and loremaster gives 3 total.

Loremaster gives +5 vs dispels. It’s not documented but it does, and allegedly is working as intended.

Now this is something I did not know about, is this really working as intended, because in that case, I don't see a downside from picking evangelist other than losing one feat, and it's totally worth it in that case

[Good Character]

Bard 22/lm 5/evangelist 3 should have 27 cl for dispels with ad abjuration, since evangelist only gives song not cl of any sort to bard and loremaster gives 3 total.

Loremaster gives +5 vs dispels. It’s not documented but it does, and allegedly is working as intended.

The patch notes list it as +3 CL at level 5. Did a developer mention the buff to +5 as some sort of secret update?

[In Sorrow We Trust]

It does not stack. You get +3 to casting cl, but +5 to dispel resistance. It's not the same.

I don't think you get CL from dipping evangelist on that build. so you would be cl 27 vs dispels in theory

[Itikar]

In that case they are right, with arcane defence abjuration that build goes up to 29 cl versus dispel. It is a bit costly from the point of view of feats but solid.

Loremaster being full +5 versus dispel is not mentioned anywhere that I could find.

[I will never sleep]

also new to me

but it seems like evangelist cleric has just sort of become the monk dip for bards in most cases. it's fairly ubiquitous when building them and not every bard wants to cast from their book anyway and in that instance its just covering the dip of another class almost entirely while still giving you access to ds and dm. it even basically nullifies the downside of dipping dirgesinger pretty much fully.

i'm... unsure if i like it or not, to be honest. i don't mind strong dips, though the other way around (deep evangelist) seems kind of uniquely bad because of how hard 1/3 scaling tapers off and how frontloaded its benefits are.

[AstralUniverse]

Loremaster giving 1:1 CL vs dispels is a pretty HUGE thing to not document.... This certainly opens up some options I wouldnt consider previously. I dont mean to derail but... this really had to be said. It's actually a big deal for builders.

[Aren]

Loremaster giving 1:1 CL vs dispels is a pretty HUGE thing to not document.... This certainly opens up some options I wouldnt consider previously. I dont mean to derail but... this really had to be said. It's actually a big deal for builders.

It’s only if you take the full 5 levels though.

Edit to follow up:
And I’m quite sure this bug/feature has existed since the change of Loremaster being a 10 level class to a 5 level class. I also believe that the reason for this thing not being documented anywhere, is that there is no clear consensus about if this is indeed a bug or a feature. However, the change to Loremaster was way before I had a window into the engine room, so take this assumption with a grain of salt.
I will repeat what I said on the official discord however; It's likely just an oversight. Be careful not to attribute malice to what is likely just a mistake.

Edit 2: The code suggests that this has been a bug since January 2023, when the dispel code was rewritten. So I am mistaken in the section above, where I postulate that it’s been a thing since the change to Loremaster.